Sexual harassment or sexual abuse still remains a serious and pervasive problem across virtually all industry sectors and workplaces. Therefore, feminism activists are rushing to identify a path forward to prevent and end sexual harassment. And, #Metoo movement appeared as the revolution of women against the sexual harassment happening in the workplace. If you are a freaking internet user, you may have seen the hashtag #MeToo on many online platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more.
The Me Too (or #MeToo) movement is reckoned on as a crowsource movement against sexual assault and sexual harassment where a collective of feminists double down on decrying sex crimes committed by powerful or prominent male figure. Back then, the Metoo movement was initially coined by Tarana Burke in 2006. In October 2017, American actress named Alyssa Milano encouraged using the phrase as a hashtag to help the survivors of sexual violence bond and share their stories. Following the widespread of sexual harassment accusation against producer Harvey Weinstein, Alyssa Milano posted on her Twitter "If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote 'Me too' as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem". After the post, millions of people in dozens of other territories started using the phrase to call out people that have done wrong things to women’s dignity.
Up to now, the Metoo movement has come bubbling on the internet and hooked up like-minded feminists who want to end sexual violence and harassment. However, the digital deluge caused by #MeToo has put itself in a debate where people haggle about how long this evaluation will last. Some people believe that the Metoo movement makes many permanent changes to women. By contrast, on the opposite side, #Metoo is claimed to no longer be a meaningful movement. To puzzle over the debate, I will unveil the advantages and disadvantages of the MeToo movement.
Preliminarily, there is an undeniable fact that the Me Too movement has some long term impacts on the victims of sexual abuse. By demonstrating how many women have survived sexual assault and harassment, Me Too breaks the silence surrounding the victims of sexual harassment and assault. Up to 2020, 1.7 billion people, especially vulnerable and low-wage women, have been empowered to speak up and share their stories. In spite of being ‘resurrected’ in 2018, the Metoo movement has helped the Western survivors of sexual harassment become as independent, strong as princess Merida and helped the Asian victims of sexual violence become as wise, brave as Mulan. And in the wake of these disclosures, some powerful figures in entertainment, sports, and politics have been exposed to sexually harassing or assaulting others. Even if the male figures don’t plead the sexual abuse accusations, they pay consequences. Adam Fields is an example. Adam Fields, a film producer, was accused of offering a promotion to a woman at his former employer, Relativity Media, in exchange for sex. Even though Adam had denied the allegations, he faced the stigma and canceled culture.
In some aspects, despite having some outstanding accomplishments, #MeToo appeared to be a harmful phenomenon rather than a helpful movement, primarily for two reasons. Firstly, the MeToo movement is not inclined to acknowledge the possibility that women lie, which poses the threat of fake news and myriad misinformation. It is clear that MeToo is a community where people are open to publicize their stories and boycott some sexual criminals. Therefore, there is none of the fact-checking department which has responsibility for verifying information related to MeToo. This element leads to the fake news pandemic and affects tremendously the career path and reputation of alleged people that are innocent. Case in point, in the UK, a woman called Jemma Beale, who is the #MeToo crusader, accused 15 men (all strangers) of raping & sexually assaulting her within the space of 3 years. One of those men was prosecuted and spent TWO YEARS AND SEVEN MONTHS in prison before a former friend came forward to the police and told them she had admitted to lying. Secondly, most of the accusations that accompanied the hashtag #MeToo lacks proven evidence-based information. That’s the main reason why the Metoo crusades can not prosecute the figures they allege and make the movement recognized as a futile community of windbags.
To recapitulate, even though the Me Too movement had met a crackling backfire against justice and its purpose, it is still the meaningful movement that has given the voice to the voiceless to fight for justice, feminism. From my point of view, women should see #Metoo as a long-term movement rather than a spot-on moment. Besides, the negative, unintended consequences of #MeToo are real and need to be addressed before people lose their faith in this movement.