A half decade since the hashtag went viral, we can see the awareness it has created, but we’re also struggling with what to do with the knowledge
“I’ve had to heal from the re-trauma of holding him accountable,”Miriam Haleyi was Haley’s real name. “But the ripple effect it’s had makes it worth it. I hear so many people refer to that trial and the impacts it’s had when talking about these issues.”
Weinstein, now 70, appealed the New York conviction he received for a criminal sexual offense and third-degree, rape. He was sentenced 23 years in prison. The jury selection process in the second criminal trial for sexual assault in Los Angeles began last Monday.
The fallen mogul’s return to the courtroom and the public eye this month is a remarkable bit of timing, taking place almost exactly five years after investigative journalism revealed his predatory behavior, starting a conversation that spurred actress Alyssa Milano to post a now famous tweet, catapulting #MeToo into the spotlight.
Whatever the outcome in the courts, the social movement that exploded into public consciousness as the Weinstein scandal broke open the floodgates clearly brought significant changes — and not just in Hollywood.
“There have been people fighting to interrupt sex violence for decades — decades trying to address a conversation behind closed doors, in the shadows,”Dani Ayers, CEO at You too. InternationalThe organization was founded in 2019 by the #MeToo global movement, which brought out the activism of activists. Tarana BurkeIt was he who invented the phrase and founded it. “me too”2006: Movement
“We know if you’re having these conversations behind closed doors, nothing will change,” Ayers said, adding that Milano’s “Me Too”Twitter and the viral cascades that followed “brought the conversation to the masses.”
It also created a certain level of accountability, because before large changes in culture can take place, communities need to recognize there’s a problem, she said.
Hong Luo, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, said that the #MeToo global movement raised awareness about sexual harassment and its consequences. This behavior was previously largely invisible and affects all genders.
Important public conversations were also sparked by #MeToo “the causes that enable this misconduct, what enables them to persist for so long… the broader things of how gender inequality and entrenched norms and just how women are supposed to behave in work and life,”Luo said.
She continued: “You see this everywhere — in op-eds, in comments, blogs. Everything becomes very salient because of the personal account.”
#MeToo is a Hollywood trend
In Hollywood, men were “put on notice” that shockingly standard offensive behavior, overlooked in the industry for decades, would be called out, said Professor Tara McPherson of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts.
“There was definitely a broad recognition that women were pissed off and people weren’t staying silent just to get a job,”She said.
The effects weren’t just at an individual level, where people may have checked their own behavior a bit more. McPherson explained that the movement led to a variety of policy changes, including the firing of offenders and strengthened harassment protections for companies concerned about potential legal consequences.
Former “House of Cards”Netflix fired actor Kevin Spacey in 2017 after he was charged with sexual assault and harassment. Comedian Louis C.K. Since he admitted that he masturbated before women, Louis C.K. has been effectively exiled from television. Disney’s Searchlight Pictures suspended filming of the movie “Being Mortal”In April, after Bill Murray allegedly Kissed and straddledA younger production worker is shown wearing face masks.
The network fired CBS Leslie Moonves, once the untouchable head of CBS. This was after decades of allegations of sexual misconduct. Like a handful of other corporate chiefs, such as former Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara — who was fired after the discovery of an affair with an actress, which made him all but persona non grata in the industry.
In the meantime, SAG-AFTRA has established new standards to protect members from sexual harassment. They have banned auditions or interviews in hotels or private homes. To curb sexual harassment on the set, the Hollywood union created guidelines for intimacy coordinators. These coordinators help film intimate scenes and film television.
The #MeToo movement also birthed the Hollywood-centered Time’s Up, an anti-workplace harassment advocacy group, which helped keep #MeToo in the spotlight. The revelations about the former governor of New York reduced that organization to a mere shell. Andrew Cuomo consulted with Time’s Up leaders after he was accused of sexual harassment by a former aide.
#MeToo has also had a positive impact on the paltry representation of women writers in Hollywood, according to research by Harvard’s Luo and Laurina Zhang of Boston University. The results were published. Earlier this year found that Hollywood producers who had worked with Weinstein — and thus were more likely affected by the #MeToo movement — hired about 35% more female writers after the scandal.
This significant increase was mainly due to production teams with a female producer.
“There’s really a scarcity of female talent behind the scenes,” said Zhang, an assistant professor of Strategy and Innovation at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, who noted that only 14% of writers of the 100 top grossing films in 2017-2018 were women. “So it’s great that this movement has led to more participation by female writers.”
Other positive effects have also been attributed to the movement. Luo and Zhang also found that women who were part of Weinstein’s production teams were more likely to have male protagonists in films after #MeToo.
That’s good news for female talent previously pigeonholed into working on lower budget rom-coms, for example, who can now break into sci-fi and other higher budget genres, Zhang said.
However, it doesn’t help to fill the void regarding the lack of female stories on the market.
Luo and Zhang also noticed a shift in the portrayal of female protagonists in stories. According to the same research, Weinstein-collaborating producers have made female protagonists less feminine since the rise of #MeToo. Luo explained that female characters were more likely be depicted as assertive and competitive in contrast to traditional gender stereotypes.
“Cultural products are very important in terms of reflecting and shaping how young people think or in reflecting societal norms,”She said. “That’s the direction of what we think is progressive.”
Unintended consequences
There’s also evidence suggesting there may be less collaboration now between women and men in some circles.
The University of Melbourne’s Merina Gertsberg, for example, found that junior female academic economists in the U.S. started fewer new research collaborations after #MeToo. According to unpublished research, this was due in large part to fewer collaborations between female academic economists and male co-authors at one institution.
The main reason for the drop in collaborations was in universities “where the perceived risk of sexual harassment accusations for men is high” — where both sexual harassment policies are more ambiguous, exposing men to more claims, and the number of public sexual harassment incidents is high, according to the research.
“This is consistent with men ceasing collaborating with women to manage an increased risk of sexual harassment accusations,”Gertsberg wrote her article.
Harvard’s Luo noted, however, that it’s natural for people to take time to adjust to and figure out how to operate in a new culture created by a social movement.
“Hopefully,”She stated, “with enough time and more candid conversations, the individual can figure out how to adapt to the new environment and make effort to actually contribute despite [their] potential concerns.”
Breaking the silence
After multiple celebrities accused Weinstein and others of sexual misconduct, average people whose names weren’t known also began to feel empowered to seek justice, said celebrity attorney Gloria Allred, who represents Haley as well as a few Weinstein accusers in the L.A. trial.
Many survivors reached out to Allred for advice. Some chose to take their case to court while others chose confidential settlements. Allred is also a radio and television commentator and has been a long-standing advocate for civil rights and feminist causes.
“Absolutely, we’re doing more confidential settlements,”Allred said. “If people want to do public humiliation or public shame, they have a right to do that. They’re not going to do it in a confidential settlement.”
Such settlements don’t prohibit someone from reporting an alleged crime to the police or from testifying in a criminal case against the accused, she explained.
Haley said the women who had spoken out against Weinstein before her — he had “seemed untouchable before” — helped her feel that she “had an opportunity to actually be heard.”She realized it was also important to share her experiences in support of other females.
While #MeToo may have had an impact on reporting sexual crimes to authorities, it appears that #MeToo has also helped.
Two other researchers analyzed data from over 30 countries, including the U.S. and found that the number of police reports on sex crimes rose by 10% within six months of the hashtag going viral. Unpublished research by Ro’ee Levy of Tel Aviv University and Martin Mattsson of National University of Singapore. They also found that #MeToo led to an increase of sexual assault arrests across the U.S.
These data suggest that “victims perceive sexual misconduct to be a more serious problem following the movement,”The authors wrote.
Codifying changes
More than 20 U.S. states have enacted new laws that in different ways address sexual assault or workplace harassment — partly because Hollywood is high profile, but also because #MeToo spread from Hollywood to other entertainment spaces like sports, along with government institutions and even churches, USC’s McPherson said.
“Its impact exceeds Hollywood. It’s the systemic changes that are most important,”She said. “And are they bigger than the changes we saw in the 70s after second-wave feminism? I don’t know, but they are changes that in some places have been codified into law.”
In 2019, a California law Rosanna Arquette, Mira Sorvino, and Rosanna Alquette were the supporting actressesProtects victims of harassment sexually and their employers from defamation claims made by alleged harassers. Another state lawThis law was enacted in 2015 and increased harassment training requirements for employers.
After former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson filed her high-profile sexual harassment suit against Roger Ailes in 2016 following her firing — a case which led to the Fox News chief’s resignation and a reported $20 million confidential settlement with the network — she dedicated herself to ending “silencing mechanisms”The workplace’s impact on survivors.
In March, she attended President Joe Biden’s signing into law bipartisan legislation that gives victims of workplace sexual harassment or assault the right to seek recourse in court, instead of through forced arbitration. The public is not able to see the allegations of wrongdoing because forced arbitration was often a condition for employment.
It’s “the most significant #MeToo legislation,”Carlson said that. “and it’s the biggest labor law change in the last 100 years.”
Carlson is now working to pass another bipartisan bill — The Speak Out Act — which would eradicate non-disclosure agreements for workplace harassment and assault, which also serve to muzzle employees, she said. The Senate approved the bill, and the House of Representatives is still considering it.
“These two laws are more important than any interview I’ve ever done as a 30-year career journalist,”Carlson added, “They will.” “help millions”number of employees in the workplace.
Carlson, who was also co-founder Lift Our Voices In 2019, her nonprofit will be working to improve legal protections for those most affected by these issues. This includes people of color, LGBTQ, and others who have been discriminated against or are silenced at work.
The future of #MeToo
The greatest impact of #MeToo has been the attitude of young people and students who grew up during the Trump era. “new wind” to feminism, USC’s McPherson says.
“I think we have a generation of high school and college students now who have been really energized by the [2017] Women’s March, by the killing of access to abortion, by #MeToo, and those women will enter the workplace with a really different set of attitudes,”She said.
#MeToo came to public light in the face of a Hollywood reckoning five years ago, but it’s been a challenge educating people that the issue is not just about “wealthy white women in Hollywood”Ayers spoke out about the effects of sexual harassment and pay inequity.
McPherson added that it’s important to remember that Burke and other women of color initiated the movement long before the hashtag went viral.
“Women of color and trans women of color are most at risk for sexual violence,“ she said. “We always need to focus our policy and attention on those who are most at risk, so in elevating #MeToo to a broad movement, it’s important not to lose sight of its origin.”
Haley said that although significant improvements have been made in the last five years there are still many cases of sexual violence and harassment. She suggested that the root causes of sexual violence and harassment should be changed. “terrible culture of victim blaming and shaming” isn’t just the duty of a brave few.
“What are we all doing to make it less terrifying to speak out and report?”She said it in an email. “We all need to take responsibility for creating that safe space within our communities.”
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