Arroz, Nerina D.

Francisco, Lein Audrey P.

Manalo, Karl Andrei S.

Martinez, Samantha Gayle H.

The #MeToo Movement

Abrams, J. R. (2018). The #MeToo Movement: An Invitation for Feminist Critique of Rape
Crisis Framing. University of Louisville Law School, Legal Studies Research
Paper Series Paper No. 2018-5 Retrieved from http://ssrn.com/abstract=3160414.

The study focused on the #Metoo movement as a tool in regaining the services for the
victims of sexual harassment. It explores the limitation of crisis model in delivering the
needs of the victims especially in campuses and marginalized sector. With the help of
the movement that received overwhelming attention to the social media users, it opened
the issue of the inefficient crisis framing of rape and sexual assault responses in lived
experiences. On the first part of the study, it tells the history of crisis framing of rape as
the product of the feminist movement. On the next section of the paper discusses the
usage and root of the term “crisis.” Lastly, it will discuss how the #Metoo brings power to
the modern feminist and to be the tool in critiquing the crisis framing model.

Bhattacharyya, R. (2018). #MeToo Movement: An Awareness Campaign.

This commentary attempts to analyze the #MeToo Movement and answer the question
as to why most victims of sexual harassment chose to remain silent, taking different
conclusions from different countries. It begins with the definition of sexual harassment,
which follows a discussion of #MeToo movement. In response to most people’s mindset
of misogyny, where judgement against women is rooted deeply across different cultures,
the author quoted that because of the common practice among cultures, “Victim
Blaming”, most women chose to remain silent. So it is not easy for a woman to speak
against the harassment of the perpetrator, for the reason of embarassment, accusations
of lying, fear of ruining their career, and threat. It also argued that in some parts of the
world, #MeToo Movement has moved beyond the social media, rallying to protest
against sexual harassment that demands zero tolerance against harassments. Arguably,
while men are very much part of the movement itself, the author raised awareness
 programs that shows to how men should act in respect to other women in every different
contexts.

Gill, Rosanda (2017). The affective, cultural and psychic life of postfeminism: A
postfeminist sensibility 10 years on. European Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol.
20(6) 606 –626

The article scrutinized the debates regarding postfeminism, its relevance and challenges
in the neoliberal times. The revitalizing and birth of postfeminism through the growing
visibility of feminism or notion of girl power was evident. The practice and usage of
feminism in popular culture through celebrities and well known influencer brought its new
visibility and popularity yet it depicted an uneven feminism for it only talked about the
stylish life and excluded other issues like social welfare. In addition, the postfeminist
approach however only focuses on white female middle class American that suggested it
as being exclusionary. Also, it argued that the postfeminism is intensifying and becoming
hegemonic in the cultural life on the sense that it was compared to neoliberalism and its
tightened grip despite devastation in economy and politics. Lastly, the article talked
about postfeminism being a psychologized idea wherein one has to embed healthy
disposition for surviving in neoliberal society. The shift from objectification to
subjectification of female emphasized the individualism that suggested the femininity as
bodily property. The author concluded that postfeminism also operates through emotion
and selfhood.

Hostler, M. & O’Neill, M. (2018). Reframing sexual Violence: From #MeToo to Time’s Up.

The article discused the evolving nature of the #MeToo movement to Time’s Up. The
Time’s Up hold certain agendas in ending the systemic inequities that causes sexual
violence. The authors stated the coverage of #MeToo is limited only to those individuals
and celebrities specifically and doesn’t necesarrily help people understand the problem’s
systemic nature. A research conducted in 2010 by the FrameWorks Institute finds out
that sexual violence ocurred through individual’s motivation. It described that this kind of
violence is the result of a perpetrator’s immoral motivations and the victime’s inability to
ensure their safety. With this in mind, Time’s Up is focused beyond the individuals
explaining how systems shape violence. In this frame, the authors claimed that
institutions and not individuals shall be tha target of this movement’s social change
strategy.
Kearl, H. (2018). The Facts Behind the #metoo Movement: A National Study on Sexual
Harassment and Assault (Rep.). Reston, Virginia: Stop Street Harassment.

This article discussed the surveys conducted by different NGOs across the United
States to track the origins of sexual harassment and assault. The respondents were
chosen equally and carefully. The survey resulted into identifying that most of the sexual
harassments were experienced by women in public spaces, verbally harassed in its
most common form by strangers. Sexual harassment and assault are so common to
women that most demographics were insignificant and the exceptions were disability
and sexual orientation. It is also reported that most people with disabilities are the ones
more like to suffer sexual assault. Race was also a factor given that Hispanic men
reported most of the experiences of sexual harassment and assault. This showed that
81% of women and 43% of men are facing violations that caused them pain, fear and
depression. Incidents that they have experienced gave them anxiety to cause them to
change their regular routine, stop participating in an activity, changed residences, end a
relationship, sought counseling and etc. the overall purpose of conducting this survey
was to convey a message that the #MeToo movement should be spread and bring
forward this issues that are very much important to the lives of the peoples and to break
the norm of sexual harassment and assault.

Keller, J., Mendes, K., Ringrose, J., (2018). #MeToo and the promise and pitfalls of
challenging rape culture through digital feminist activism. European Journal of
Women’s Studies, Vol. 25(2) 236 –246

The article pointed out the growing popularity of the call out culture using the digital
technology. The #metoo movement took the feminist scholars as it spread and fight
against sexual harassment and misogyny. The study focused on how the digital media
are being used as a tool and platform to counter rape culture. Also, it highlights the
promise, potentials and pitfalls of doing the digital feminist activism. The author argued
that even though the digital feminist activism is easy to reach however it divided it from
emotional, mental, and practical barrier that creates different experiences and
perspective of legitimate feminist. Accordingly, as the author analysed the
#BeenRapedNeverReported and #MeToo it creates solidarity among the media users
that resulted to feminist consciousness hence suggesting that the sexual harassment is
not a personal problem but structural.
Manikonda, L., Beigi, G., Liu, H., & Kambhampati, S. (2016). Twitter for Sparking a
Movement, Reddit for Sharing the Moment: #metoo through the Lens of Social
Media.

This study was conducted in order to determine how individuals use different social
media sites as platforms for advocating the #metoo movement, specifically Twitter and
Reddit. People share their unfortunate events and encourage others to fight sexual
harassment by joining the movement in both of these platforms. A significant difference
on how people use these platforms is that more detailed or exact experiences were
shared in Reddit like how they were hurt emotionally, unlike in twitter where users focus
mainly on sharing and supporting encouraging tweets or statements and sharing
relevant news and articles. So in particular, Reddit has allowed its users to share
detailed stories unlike Twitter. Even if Reddit gave users a chance to explain every detail
and tell every possible experience that had, Twitter somehow made the #metoo
movement viral because it allowed people to keep the hashtag going on and alive Social
media is very important for it enables us to recognize social issues that matters gravely
like Twitter where it served as an instrument to keep the #metoo movement relevant and
hopes to bring change in the society.

Nurradin, N. (2018). The Representattion of the #Metoo Movement in Mainstream

International Media.

This study gave a comparative analysis of how three mainstream media outlets covered
the #metoo movement namely: Aljazeera, BBC and CNN. This furthered the study of
feminism and mainstream media, having the theoretical framework encompass
ideologies, power, and representation. Overall, the reports given by these three media
outlets were positive towards the movement that goes after powerful men. BBC and
CNN had a slightly different approach in delivering their news where it represents most
of the people coming from their places unlike Aljajeera failed to cover the origins of and
the events of the movement in the Middle Eastern region and collectivization pf women
as the victims and survivors of the movement while the men as powerful entities, giving
Aljazeera the failure to fully talk about the movement which reflects the different
ideologies respective to the #metoo movement. Lastly, power was an underlying theme
in the articles that gave the women the media as a platform to influence and reflect
 about the movement in order to gain supporters. Social media has legitimized and gave
relevance to the movement as it brings positive social changes around the world.

Rickards, L., & Rossi, U. (2018). Celebrating the resurgence of the women’s
movement. Dialogues in Human Geography, 8(1), 59-60.
doi:10.1177/2043820618759354

It was argued in the journal that the massive resurgence of the women’s movement
across the world was in Western hemisphere of the world over the last 12 months. Last
January 2017, thousands of women marched in Washington DC and other US cities to
protest the election of Donald Trump. This event called Women’s March was repeated in
January 2018 with equal enthusiasm. Hence, 2017 saw the widespread adoption of
Women’s Day as a day where women strike in response to the call from the Paro
International de Mujeres in Argentina to protest the current social, legal, political,
economic, moral, and verbal violence experienced by contemporary women. Also under
the journal, #MeToo and other related movement occurred, wherein it denounces
ingrained practices of sexual harassment affecting women in the workplace across
different sectors. It seems apparent that women began to forcefully reassert their
presence on the global public sphere last 2017. Events mentioned above involved
academia where female scholars serve as a forefront of this new wave of women’s
protest. It appears that higher education is far from immune from sexual harassment and
gender discrimination. Lastly, it was argued that a courageous heart and an open mind
are needed to speak out against injustice especially of a deeply personal sort.

Rodino-Colocino, M. (2018). Me too, #MeToo: Countering cruelty with

empathy. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 15(1), 96-100.
doi:10.1080/14791420.2018.1435083

The article discussed how Tarana Burke’s Me Too contributes to liberation via
#MeToo and Times Up that challenge the very systems of power that underlie
harassment, discrimination, and assault by promoting empathy from the ground up or
among individuals and in our political economic system. It was argued also that it
is promising and risky to organize movements on the basis of empathy. But there
are two classifications of empathy, the passive one wherein instead of being self-
reflexive it projects the feelings of commonality, understanding, fear and guilt, and
on the other hand, is the transformative empathy that Me Too is trying to advance.
 Wherein it requires self-reflexivity and potential transformation of one’s own assumption
and promotes listening rather than distancing or looking at speakers as others. It was
stated also in the article that it was Burke who launched Me Too campaign in 2006 to
achieve empowerment through empathy by developing program and raise awareness
and connection or understanding that they are not alone among young women,
particularly young women of color from low wealth communities that are survivors of
sexual assault. But it is important to note that empathy extends to perpetrators as well.
Another mission of Me Too is to become an agent for exposing systems of oppression
and privilege of which sexual harassment and assault are cause and effect.
Furthermore, #MeToo was used by an actress named Alyssa Milano and the media
coverage of the tweet escalated. Burke and activists contextualized it as part of a
broader counter-white-supremacist-patriarchal movement and bring deeper structural
changes to our political economic system to solve unequal relations of power with a
history that includes but long precedes Trump’s presidency as stated by the author.

Swank, E., & Fahs, B. (2017). Understanding Feminist Activism among Women:
Resources, Consciousness, and Social Networks. Socius: Sociological Research
for a Dynamic World, 3, 237802311773408. doi:10.1177/2378023117734081

The study examines whether women’s feminist activism is connected to three key
factors: sufficient educational and financial resources, the internalization of a feminist
consciousness, and being involved in feminist mobilization structures. It was stated that
for the feminists to challenge existing power structures and norms, they must form a
collective resistance. Also, there are waves of feminism wherein the intensity, scope,
and tactics of feminist mobilizations change over time like what happened after the
election of Trump, it instigated a new round of widespread and highly visible feminist
protests. As cited in the study, the transformation of feminist sympathizers into feminist
activists includes a unique mix of material resources as well as specific cognitive and
structural conditions, and is grounded in the perception of systematic forms of
oppression, an emotional bond to feminist, and being embedded in political or women-
centered organizations. And that issues of women’s solidarity with each other are often
connected to feminist activism, and it occurs when women encounter unwanted sexual
attention and unfair treatment, as well as from grievances that originate from a social
order that devalues women and undermines female authority and self-determination.