Posts Tagged ‘activism’
in defense of #metoo: critiquing social justice projects without paralyzing activism (guest post by jaime hartless)
Earlier this month, (yet another) national conversation about sexual violence was started when the New York Times published a damning account of decades of sexual abuse by renowned Hollywood producer, Harvey Weinstein— (yet another) man with apparently progressive credentials who used his power and authority to violate the bodily autonomy of women seeking to make it in the film industry. Since this story has broken, accusers of Weinstein have grown exponentially in number, with recent figures listing over 40 accusations by women, including such household names as Ashley Judd, Angelina Jolie, and Cara Delevigne. Although Weinstein initially denied any wrong-doing, he was forced to own up to his abusive behavior as his brand began to collapse under the weight up these of accusations, leading him to be expelled from the Academy despite releasing a (sort of) apology that blamed his behavior explicitly on the ‘sixties’ and implicitly on sex addiction.
Feminist activists have since used the wide reach of the Internet to piggyback on the extensive media coverage of this scandal as a means of raising awareness about sexual violence, encouraging us to think of the Weinstein debacle not as an isolated incident but rather as an instance of a serious social problem. Perhaps the most powerful social media campaign to emerge from these efforts was the #MeToo project. On Sunday, October 15, actress Alyssa Milano tweeted “Me too…Suggested by a friend: 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,” requesting “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted, write ‘Me too’ as a reply to this tweet.”
Not long after Milano tweeted this message, my Facebook feed swiftly became inundated with women posting #MeToo, sometimes with a devastating amount of detail about their experiences with street harassment, sexual harassment at work, and rape. This transformation of my feed stirred up conflicting emotions in me. On the one hand, it was absolutely devastating and heartbreaking to see so many wonderful women in my social networks admit that their lives have been so negatively impacted by sexual violence. On the other hand, there was something almost cathartic about witnessing these women talking so openly about an experience many of us are socialized to endure silently…something empowering about watching women from across the world find solidarity and even build digital community with one another. It was an almost Durkheimian moment of collective effervescence.
However, this solidary moment didn’t last long. Shortly after the campaign took off, the divisiveness and infighting that typically follows social justice campaigns on the Internet began to rear its head. A line seemed to be swiftly drawn in the sand between survivors or allies who endorsed the campaign and those who refused to participate in it. The issue was not that some survivors refused to engage with this project, but that their refusal to do so often took a somewhat adversarial tone vis-à-vis the survivors who did embrace the hashtag.
Some of these call-outs of the campaign have been subtle, such as Alex Benviniste’s tweet, saying “Reminder that if a woman didn’t post #MeToo, it doesn’t mean she wasn’t sexually assaulted or harassed. Survivors don’t owe you their story.” On the surface, this is an uncontroversial statement to make, at least amongst feminist audiences. Of course, the problem is bigger than we are seeing; after all, sexual assault is a notoriously underreported crime due to the normalization of violence against women. And, of course, no one is owed a survivor’s story. But the narrative framing of this Tweet seemed to point the finger implicitly at the #MeToo campaign, as though Milano’s invitation to retweet stories of abuse as a means of raising awareness was an ultimatum for survivors to disclose their most personal traumas for the good of the cause.
Other call outs of the movement were much more explicit. To be fair, some of these critiques exposed very important weaknesses of the #MeToo frame. For example, numerous feminists have challenged news sources who attributed the campaign hashtag to Milano, noting that black feminist activist, Tarana Burke, coined the phrase 10 years ago as part of a grassroots campaign to connect survivors of sexual assault. Other critics have pointed out how this hashtag may re-victimize survivors as they see triggering descriptions of violence crawl across their feeds or are forced to negotiate with the symbolic violence that comes from antifeminist men and women questioning the severity of their assault and authenticity of their decision to say #MeToo. Additionally, some have argued that the heteronormative and woman-centered nature of the original Tweet alienates transgender people, non-binary individuals, and LGBTQ-identified men who are statistically likely to encounter this form of harassment. It is clearly important to address these issues. However, it is possible to do so in a generative way without derailing the campaign as it tries to move forward.
Other critiques, however, have been more problematic, such as Wagatwe Sara Wanjuki’s viral FB post, which reads:
I won’t say “Me, too.”…Partially because most of you know that already…But mostly because we shouldn’t have to ‘out’ ourselves as survivors…Because men have *always* seen the gendered violence happening around them (and/or being perpetrated by them)—they just haven’t done anything about it…Because it shouldn’t matter how many women, femmes, and gender neutral & non-conforming folk speak their truths…Because it isn’t about men seeing how many of us have been hurt; they’ve been seeing it for a long time…Because it shouldn’t be on our shoulders to speak up. It should be the men who are doing the emotional labor to combat gendered violence…Because I know, deep down, it won’t do anything. Men who need a certain threshold of survivors coming forward to “get it” will never get it…Because the focus on victims and survivors—instead of their assailants and enablers—is something we need to change…Because we’ve done enough. Now it’s *your* turn.
Before I discuss what I see as troubling about this framework, it’s important to point out what is helpful about this critique. Again, the poster is absolutely correct that survivors must have the right to decide how they want to process their pain and whether they want to channel it into their activism in any specific way. They are also correct to point out that this educational work shouldn’t ethically and morally rest on the shoulders of survivors and that we should not ignore the fact that cisgender men disproportionately perpetuate this abuse.
However, aspects of this critique don’t sit well with me as a scholar of social justice movements or as a feminist. As a sociologist, the claim that those oppressed by political systems shouldn’t have to take charge of fighting these battles, while nice in theory, seems fundamentally flawed as a political strategy. Social movements, at least on the Left, have almost always been driven by marginalized people who collectively frame their individual pain as part of a broader collective grievance, reaching out to more privileged constituencies to help them facilitate change. Pretending that this is not how social movements function seems somewhat counter-productive.
And if sexual harassment and assault survivors are not to be the ones driving this movement, then who will? Women and men who have not experienced these forms of violence? Is that truly a preferable state of affairs? Research on allies suggests that this may not be an ideal scenario for numerous reasons. Often when privileged people take on the causes of marginalized groups, they end up reproducing worrying social dynamics. White allies in anti-racist activism often allow their white guilt and residual racist ideas to derail activist efforts. Straight allies sometimes join LGBTQ activism because it makes them feel like a good person rather than because they care deeply about fighting homophobia. Men invested in feminism have been accused of co-opting the work of women activists. My own dissertation research shows that insiders in social movements often worry that allies, no matter how well-intentioned, lack the lived experience necessary to spearhead social justice movements. What would a campaign against sexual assault look like if it were only run by individuals who have never been catcalled, harassed at work, or sexually assaulted? How could we expect those individuals to know what survivors need…especially if, as the original poster suggests, they have been so historically bad at addressing sexual assault?
In addition to implying a trajectory for sexual violence prevention that feels untenable, posts like these are guilty of misdiagnosing the intent of #MeToo and underestimating its potential impact. For example, Wanjuki claims that #MeToo is ineffective because it will never convince predatory men (and those who are complicit in facilitating their predation) to change their ways or listen to women. This is undoubtedly true, but that fact hardly makes the campaign worthless. I would argue that rather than trying to reach these men, the #MeToo claims-makers are instead targeting two other audiences: 1) other victims of sexual violence and 2) apolitical moderates who are potentially sympathetic to survivors of sexual violence but either have yet to be convinced that the problem is widespread or prefer to go about their daily lives without encountering such unpleasantness. Reaching out to these groups can be immensely useful as a movement building strategy. For survivors of sexual violence, this can help cultivate collective online identities that both provide important solidary benefits (e.g., elevated self-esteem, a sense of community, and emotional support) and build vital networking ties that may be useful in future activism. And those ties would only be further amplified by raising the consciousness of those unaware of the scope of sexual violence. These new networks could then serve as a useful foundation for other progressive projects, such as fighting the recent rollback of Title IX or addressing sexual harassment and abuse in other industries and institutions.
Finally, from a feminist standpoint, I cannot completely get behind the way many abstainers from the #MeToo campaign seem to be implicitly shaming those who participate. While I’ve yet to see a #MeToo skeptic explicitly tell a #MeToo participant that they are wrong for engaging with the campaign, the dismissive tone of many posts may be conveying that message indirectly. Although I lack definitive data on this point, I suspect a lot of these #MeToo cynics are battle-hardened activists—many of whom have watched similar campaigns like #YesAllWomen get derailed by the #NotAllMen crowd and are expecting the same here. Yet it’s important to remember that many posters chiming in with tentative #MeToo’s may be just dipping their toes into the waters of social justice work, perhaps even disclosing their survivor status for the first time and feeling affirmed and vindicating by the positive comments they have received in response. I worry that seeing take-down after take-down of the #MeToo campaign may be harmful to these individuals both personally and politically, making them feel foolish for sharing their stories with a campaign that so many feminists find ineffective and ultimately depressing their nascent passion for activism.
What then do we make of this divide between survivors who feel empowered by #MeToo and those who feel distanced from it? While there’s likely no easy answer to this question, it seems important to keep the energy of this campaign alive while still making space for people who feel such disclosure is not right for them. Neither abstainers nor participants should be shamed…nor should one approach be hailed as superior. Yet, despite the critiques that some feminist activists have of #MeToo, it feels premature to squander the momentum it’s generated. Not only has #MeToo caught the eye of the news media, it has also begun to generate interesting new campaigns that address some of the very criticisms that have been launched against it, such as the #ItWasMe and #HowWillIChange campaigns, which were designed to encourage men to disclose times they have failed to address rape culture or directly perpetuated it themselves.
While it is vital we continue to push to make #MeToo more inclusive, it’s also important that we not let these criticisms devolve into the ‘more-progressive-than-thou’ rhetoric that often thwarts Left-wing projects. If we spend too much time reflecting on how to craft the perfect campaign, we may find ourselves paralyzed and unable to execute any campaign at all. Most activist efforts are flawed and imperfect, and, though we should always push to refine them, we can’t let our reflexiveness prevent us from doing the work that needs to be done. In the words of Lupita Nyong’o, “Now that we are speaking, let us never shut up about this kind of thing.”
Jaime Hartless is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Virginia.
summer reading: spotlight on conflict and decision-making by consensus at premium cola
As some of our dear orgtheory readers know, I am always on the look-out for interesting articles about how organizations use collectivist or participatory-democratic practices. One recent publication I would like to highlight involves a collectivist group fueled by a common love of cola, coffee, and beer.
Fans of a caffeinated soft drink, frustrated by Afri-Cola new owner’s refusal to change the recipe back to the original*, became the new owners and producers of the drink. Not only did they band together to revive the original product using what they considered to be more ethical market standards, they organized using the practice of decision-making by consensus.**
Participatory-democracy invariably elicits conflicts that might be avoided or suppressed under more hierarchical organizations. Members have to learn how to manage contention if they wish to stay cohesive. Premium Cola‘s members had to learn how to do this via a discussion email list.
Husemann, Ladstaetter, and Luedicke’s (2015) “Conflict Culture and Conflict Management in Consumption Communities” examines the types of conflicts and actions taken to address these conflicts within Premium Cola. The authors note the generative qualities of routinized conflict, including the reaffirmation of commitment to a collective mission:
When analyzing the Premium community’s conflicts, we found that the community’s conflict culture involved a limited set of routinized and recurring conflict behaviors. Members use behaviors such as inviting conflict, showing respect for otherness, or releasing aggressions to argue different topics, but use them in similar ways. Many of these behaviors are known from normative conflict sociology as conflict cultivation practices, i.e. routinized behaviors that conflict parties use to perform conflicts in civilized and productive, rather than destructive, ways. Through inventing, selecting, abandoning, enacting, or improving such routinized conflict behaviors, Premium community members are able to produce value rather than destroy value through uncontrolled or abusive conduct.
In contrast, transgressive conflict, in which participants break multiple norms, can lead to abusive interactions. These lead to more active interventions, including the eventual expulsion of a member over his repeated sexist comments about the hiring of a female intern and insults of other members. While the exchanges threatened corrosion, the subsequent actions taken reaffirm Premium Cola’s identity and commitment to community.
* The original recipe had less sugar and more caffeine than the newer recipe.
**More about the fascinating history and ethos of Premium Cola is available here, where the Ladstaetter and Luedicke describe Premium Cola as follows:
…the Premium Cola community can be seen as a group of “productive activists,” e.g.,
prodactivists, that combines the roles of producers, consumers, and social activists to promote change in the capitalist market system by demonstrating how market exchange can be both successful and ethical.
You Can’t Trust the Courts to ______ Social Change
“Scarcely any political question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question.” This is a tag from Alexis de Tocqueville’s monumental Democracy in America, published well over 150 years ago.
This is only half the story, however, as scarcely any judicial question arises that isn’t, sooner or later, turned into a political question.
Activists on the left and the right are often unduly focused on the courts, generally expecting far too much from judges, and then invariably overly outraged when they’re disappointed. I think a lot of this has to do with a mythic misunderstanding of the most familiar Supreme Court decision in America, Brown v. Board of Education.
The most appealing way to understand that iconic decision is to see a Supreme Court, led by the politically savvy Earl Warren, recognized a social injustice (racially segregated schools) and an error in Constitutional interpretation (Plessy v. Ferguson), and fixed them both with a unanimous decision.
Activists love that version of the story, because it suggests that justice will prevail, even in the absence of popular support, political resources, or sustained activism. This is the wrong reading of Brown and the history of segregation in America, and teaches exactly the wrong lessons to activists today.
Today’s lesson is that a judicial decision doesn’t end the political conflict. (Steve Boutcher and I published this argument in longer form a few years ago.)
This week, courts handed down decisions that pleased and infuriated political activists.
Wisconsin circuit court judge Maryann Sumi struck down the extremely controversial provision in the state’s budget that eliminated almost all collective bargaining in the state. It wasn’t about the content of the legislation; rather, in the haste to handle a resistant Democratic minority, the legislature’s Republican majority violated Wisconsin’s open meetings laws. (On the political battle, see earlier entries, including here.)
But that case will percolate up through Wisconsin’s courts to an increasingly politicized state supreme court, which might rule differently. Even if not, Governor Walker still enjoys substantial majorities in the state legislature–although recall elections are on the horizon–and can pass the bill again. It’s not that the respite provided by the court doesn’t matter, it’s just that it doesn’t end the larger political battle.
Meanwhile, the United States Supreme Court upheld a provision in a 2007 Arizona law that provides strict penalties for employers found to hire undocumented workers. They’re required to use E-Verify to vet their workers. The 5-3 ruling turns on technical assessments of E-Verify’s reliability and interpretations of the text of the Immigration and Reform Control Act of 1986. On these points, and on many others, the well-educated and well-intentioned Supreme Court justices differ.
This ruling IS NOT about Arizona’s more recent, and even more provocative immigration legislation, nor does it provide a reliable prediction of how the Court will rule on that issue–when it reaches the Court. The laws are different, and the personnel and politics of the Court could easily be different by the time that case is argued.
Of course, it’s not just the immigration issue percolating up to the Supreme Court. This week, a federal judge in Virginia ruled that corporations can make direct contributions to political campaigns. Activists also wait, with a mix of optimism and dread, for cases about same sex marriage and mandatory health insurance to reach the Supreme Court, scrutinizing every sigh in oral argument and looking for signals.
No judicial decision on any of these matters is going to put the issue to rest; rather, it will provide a target and stepping stone for, uh, more politics. Brown appeared at a relatively early point in the modern civil rights movement’s history–before Rosa Parks refused to move, and lots of contested politics followed. And lots of schools remained (and remain) essentially segregated, if not by statute. Nor did Roe v. Wade resolve the issue of abortion rights; it provided a basis for much more litigation, activism, and very polarizing politics–up to, at least, this point, nearly 40 years later.
The savvy activist knows that the judiciary is a place to make claims, and that a decision (good or bad) can be useful in raising money and mobilizing the base. But it’s only one place.
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