Office With a View: Dani Ayers says that while #MeToo is perhaps best known for taking sexual assaulters down, the organization’s focus is on the victim
Tarana Burke, a survivor of sexual assault and activist, had created the hashtag more than a decade ago and quietly founded it. “me too”Movement to support survivors of sexual abuse, especially Black girls or women, heal. When “Me Too”In 2017, the cause and Burke exploded into public consciousness. This prompted Burke to create the nonprofit me also. Just two years later, International.
“Our work is very much about the basic need for safety,”Dani Ayers, CEO at metoo. International, told for this week’s edition of Office With a View. “It’s not about taking down powerful men or canceling people, right? These are all the things that you hear about the movement.”
Continue reading as Ayers talks about the origins and work of the global nonprofit organization #MeToo.
Please give me some background information. International?
We’re the organization that grew out of the Me Too movement, which was first started by Tarana Burke back in the early 2000s. This is basically what happened. [past]October 15th [was]Five years have passed since the hashtag became viral. Prior to that, despite Tarana doing the work of stopping sexual violence and supporting victims of sexual violence primarily in Black communities, nobody knew about it. It was not well-funded. It was underfunded. She was barely able to pay for it. Her work was eventually recognized by the media and the attention of Hollywood. It was then that we were able for the first time to raise money to support the movement’s work.
What have you deemed the most significant effects of the Me Too movement in recent years, particularly in recent years.
I think what we’ve seen in the last five years is the ability to have a public conversation about an issue that has plagued our communities forever. People have tried to end sexual violence for decades, sometimes for decades. But this was not a public conversation. And we know that if you’re having those conversations behind closed doors and not in the public, not much is going to change, and so the hashtag going viral really brought a conversation to the masses. It raised something that was already common in nearly every community and made it part a larger conversation. It encouraged people to speak up. “Actually, this did happen to me. I never felt comfortable talking about it. Now I feel comfortable talking about it.”
It began to hold people responsible for harm done. It started holding corporations and brands accountable for the systems and structures that they have — and any harmful practices that may exist inside of them. There’s a certain level of accountability that was made possible in the wake of the hashtag going viral and that’s an exciting development. It’s a really big part of what we’re proud of in this moment five years later. It’s all of the small and frankly large wins of the last five years. We know how far we have come. [still] to go, but in this moment, it’s important to sort of acknowledge that the first thing that has to happen in order for large culture changes to take place are for our communities, the masses, to sort of recognize that there’s an issue.
How did the COVID pandemic impact the Me Too movement
We actually did a study during the early moments of the pandemic… We already knew that survivors [of sexual violence]These were the most susceptible to being impacted by a sociostructural burden. We therefore knew that there was an increase in between 23% and 25% [globally]Of those who are experiencing [domestic]Violence in the pandemic. That’s a fact that many have reported on, but we also learned that up to 60% of survivors of intimate partner violence lost their jobs as a result of that intimate partner violence because of the impact on them being locked at home and not able to actually work because of the violence that they were experiencing at home.
We learned as a result of this study as well… that Black survivors are more likely to halt their education in the moment of the pandemic as reported by the survivors that we interviewed… The data said eight out of 10 Black survivors who are essential workers would be more likely to not be able to continue their education, to be food or housing insecure compared to five out of 10 white survivors. This is what the difference to us looked like. “Wow.”It was quite shocking. It was shocking to realize that the majority of these essential workers are likely to be Black or Indigenous. [or]People of color are suffering from this pandemic in a much more severe way than their white counterparts.
What about Roe vs Wade’s overturning and Dobbs’ decision? How does this impact the movement?
I’m in Georgia and we have an abortion ban present right now, and the reality is that that abortion ban is going to impact survivors of sexual violence the most, even in the case of an abortion ban where there’s an exception for incest and rape. Most of the time those exceptions are only allowed with a police report and so that assumes that someone is comfortable going to the police, which in many cases, survivors of sexual violence, especially those who are in the BIPOC community are not comfortable going to the police because they know they’re not safe.
And so by creating that rule and that sort of caveat, you are making it that survivors of incest and rape are actually not able to get the abortion care that they need in the space of being harmed, and so it’s hugely problematic. For us, reproductive justice is about survivor justice. There is no distinction between these two. And so what we are fighting for is essentially the same thing, and that’s bodily autonomy — that’s being able to say that we… as individuals get to determine what happens to our bodies, both in the case of reproductive justice and in the case of trying to avoid being violated in the case of sexual violence or even rape culture broadly.
What do you consider the most significant challenges Me Too has faced?
One of the biggest challenges is [at me too. International] is just trying to help folks understand that we actually center under-resourced communities – Black and Indigenous and people of color, those across the gender and sexuality spectrum, those with various abilities and disabilities, like those are the groups that we center at all of our work because we know that if you center those communities, everyone gets served. Additionally, safety is a fundamental part of our work. It’s not about taking down powerful men or canceling people, right? These are the main things you hear about the movement.
It’s no secret that the #MeToo movement has a gotcha mentality. “Don’t let them come for you. You’re going to get canceled.” That’s not at all the work that we do and if someone goes on to our social media or goes to our website, the me too. The international organization does not pursue powerful men. In reality, our work focuses on helping survivors of sexual abuse and supporting them in their healing process. When you hear us address the perpetrators or those who have done harm, it’s from a place of like we have to be able to acknowledge that harm happens and that healing is possible. We don’t believe in throwing people away. We believe that taking responsibility, fixing the problems that we have as a systemic issue and working towards healing is the only way to move on from harm. That’s for the harm doer and those who have experienced harm.
