The Me Too Movement: A More Meaningful Impact

October 2019 marked the two year anniversary of #MeToo, a social movement responsible for giving voice to victims of sexual violence and raising awareness about misconduct and harassment all over the world. For millions of women, the spread of this movement on social media was the first time they were given an opportunity to share personal experiences of sexual violence and address the trauma it caused. Despite the widespread discussion of #MeToo and its significance worldwide, society has not yet achieved any big shift of cultural norms that would mark substantial progress toward eradicating the problem at the root, which is something that candidates, specifically Democrats, need to integrate into their platform if they’re hoping to win the 2020 election.

A study conducted by Pew Research Center in 2018 found that roughly two-thirds of U.S. adults who use social media see at least some content pertaining to sexual harassment or assault on their various social media feeds. Pew also found that the #MeToo hashtag was used on Twitter more than 19 million times in the year following actress Alyssa Milano’s initial tweet that drove the movement, originally established by Tarana Burke in 2006, into the center of the social and political worlds.

TIME Magazine, which named the women of the movement its 2017 Person of the Year, said #MeToo was a “consciousness-stirring moment, but it’s not enough to create awareness.” Now less than one year away from what may be the most consequential election of our lifetimes, what happens next matters now more than ever. Despite such widespread recognition and discourse, current candidates aren’t using their platforms to address the massive social upheaval of the past two years, and the silence is deafening. The #MeToo movement played a major role in the Democrats’ victory in the 2018 midterms but now, in what is perhaps one of the biggest oversights of the 2020 election, candidates are failing to appeal to the millions of sexual violence survivors nationwide who, like the rest of the country, will be casting their vote 11 months from now. Moving forward, any presidential candidate hoping to win the 2020 election should put more focus on the broad issues of gender equity and bodily autonomy for all people, while giving a specific nod to their support of social justice movements such as #MeToo.

The roots from which this campaign strategy grew can be attributed to one of the most outspoken and successful women of her generation — Oprah Winfrey. In her speech at the 2018 Golden Globes, the first major award show since the #MeToo movement ignited a shakedown of Hollywood, the media mogul made a promise: "A new day is on the horizon." Winfrey’s speech expressed gratitude for women everywhere who have been forced to endure sexual assault and harassment, falling victim to a broken culture rampant with “brutally powerful men.”

"For too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dared to speak their truth to the power of those men,” Winfrey said. “But their time is up.” Her statement sums up the trials and tribulations that women have faced for generations and was met with enthusiastic cheers of agreement from the elite men and women of Hollywood that attended the Golden Globes. For the first time, survivors’ voices were being heard and as the message caught on, we saw similar scenes began unfolding at rallies, marches and protests around the world — #MeToo resonated with the public, and the general consensus became clear: the problem of sexual violence is a public crisis, and the people want change. A Pew Research Center study in 2018 found that the majority of Americans believe that social media is an important tool for getting elected officials to pay attention to issues and inciting change. So, why are none of the candidates talking about #MeToo?

According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in three women in the United States experience some type of sexual violence during their lifetime. Expanding #MeToo and its sister movement, Time’s Up, from being just a Hollywood thing to a global anti-sexual assault movement that transcends culture, generation, race, religion or politics is a tactic that, if adopted by a cadidates, would relate them to a massive population of voters that has been often overlooked and otherwise forgotten about — women.

While men can also be survivors of sexual violence, the #MeToo movement does something that is historically quite uncommon in politics: it specifically focuses on and creates a platform for women, giving them a space to speak out against institutional sexism and the toxicity that comes with the abuse of power. However in the political world, candidates often ignore the issue of gender-based sexual violence, trying to appease the public by focusing on less taboo issues.

“I’m sure that there will be policy around gun violence. I’m sure that there will be policy around economic violence. . . There should also be policy around sexual violence,” said Tarana Burke, founder of the movement. “We are not just survivors, right? We are a constituency, and we’re a base.”

Though #MeToo has moved from its grassroots beginnings to international activism, the tangible consequences the online movement has in the real world are not entirely clear. Seeking more substantial changes, Burke launched #MeTooVoter, a campaign calling for political leaders to address sexual harassment and propose solutions for safer workplaces. “We’re calling on candidates to lay out their specific plans to address sexual violence and to take action on the pending policy proposals that would also support survivors,” Burke said in a statement announcing the campaign. The new campaign was rolled out on October 15, with the fourth democratic debate taking place the very next day. Despite this being the perfect time for candidates to address #MeToo and similar issues of gender equality, the topic wasn’t mentioned at all during the debate. The movement actually wasn’t even brought up until November’s debate, when moderator Kristen Welker asked asked former vice president Joe Biden if there were any specific measures he would take as president to address gender-based violence and sexual harassment. Biden, who faced allegations himself early in his campaign, strategically focused his response solely on domestic violence, therefore skirting around the broader topic of sexual violence and the #MeToo movement.

“This is definitely one of my highest priorities besides gun reform,” said Grace Youngren, a college student who considers herself a Democrat. “I’d prefer to have a candidate who has routinely supported #MeToo type movements before they were as popular as they are now. I see #MeToo as a kind of trend all Democrats are hopping on, but I look for someone who supported women even when it wasn’t the popular thing to do.”

Noreen Farrell, executive director of the Equal Rights Advocates group, summarized the situation at hand in following the October debate: Candidates who choose not to talk about the #MeToo movement do so at their own peril.

“We plan to leverage a #MeToo electorate that is increasingly willing to flex their muscle in the political process around the issues affecting their lives,” Farrell wrote of the Equal Rights Advocates, the driving force behind many of the sexual misconduct reforms happening all over America. “As we speak, a record number of women have their sights on Donald Trump’s job. Theirs is a vision infused with the power of the #MeToo movement to not only expose exploitation, but also to lead on solutions that stop the devaluation of women in all spheres. We just need them (and all 2020 candidates) to be more vocal about it. Because the #MeToo movement will not wait up.”

Adopting a “stand with us or step aside” attitude may seem like a bold political strategy, but today’s political world is built upon boldness and accepts almost nothing less. The time for playing it safe is over, and politicians must recognize that staying silent on this issue is not going to get them into office — the only thing that will is real, meaningful change.

“The whole point of #MeTooVoter is to say that survivors are a huge political force,” said Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. “We’re going to call on anyone who’s serious about governing and leading this country forward to answer for how they’re going to make this country more safe.”

Some of the most prominent backlash against #MeToo have come from the current President of the United States, a man notorious for his manipulative tendencies and severe social misconduct. Countless allegations have been made against President Donald Trump, further polarizing opinions on him amid his campaign for reelection in 2020. Trump famously claimed that the #MeToo era is a "very scary time for young men" following sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, adding that the accused are now "guilty until proven innocent." The president has divided the American people, intentionally using discrimination and prejudice to create an “us versus them” rhetoric within his base. This backwards mindset was reflected in a study conducted in November 2017 and again in Spetember 2018 and showed increase in the proportion of American respondents who believe that false accusations of sexual assault are a bigger problem than unreported assaults.

“When we allow abusers [to hold] positions of power, like how Trump was elected President even though people knew he had been accused of assaulting multiple women, we are telling victims that they don’t matter and that their abusers are more important than them and that their suffering doesn’t deserve recognition,” said Melissa Folan, a college student at Plymouth State University. “I think that when abusers get put into power, not only does it send that message to the victim, but it also shows society that this is ok and that instead of consequences, those who sexually assault others are rewarded.”

There was one candidate who built her entire campaign upon feminism and gender equality: Kirsten Gillibrand, an “unabashedly feminist” democrat who dropped out of the presidential race after failing to qualify for the third debate. Gillibrand’s campaign challenged the country’s views on hotly debated social issues like discrimination and sexual violence.

Gillibrand recognized a moment in time where women were shattering misogynistic barriers and ascending in Democratic politics, and tried to seize the opportunity to “ride a wave of women’s political energy right into the White House.” However Gillibrand, who once held more conservative views on issues like gun control and immigration, was somewhat rejected by the Democratic party after she called for the resignation of Senator Al Franken amid allegations of sexual misconduct toward women. While her campaign wasn’t successful for a few reasons, but when it comes to feminism and gender equity, Gillibrand — who was championed by her advisers as a “fighter unafraid to take on powerful men” — was the only candidate who had the right idea: actively working to eradicate the problems.

“I would love to see a candidate who addresses the nuances of the Me Too movement and doesn’t just think of it as a political tool,” said Ingrid Angulo, a Northeastern student and women’s rights advocate. “A candidate who stands on stage and simply says that sexual misconduct is bad isn’t enough. I want someone who’s going to talk to victims and learn about and address the structures in place that allow sexual misconduct to occur. I feel like a lot of people in politics talk about Me Too like it’s another policy issue, but it’s so much more than that and its implications need to be included in many conversations.”

Though Gillibrand never quite engineered a breakthrough with the Democratic party, she was undeniably successful in furthering the national discourse on the issues she so passionately built her campaign on. All of the Democratic candidates have outlasted Gillibrand’s campaign, but none of them have adopted her message. According to the New York Times, Democrats like their choices for 2020 but have not yet found a candidate worth going all in on because flaws have become apparent in each candidate. Donald Trump is the antithesis of what Democrats want in the White House and in their search for a replacement, they’ve become (somewhat understandably) overly critical of the details of each candidate’s platform.

“Voters are holding back because just when they start to fall in love, they find something that gets them a little nervous,” former Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago told the New York Times. “The reason it’s so fluid is because they’re still searching for the horse that can win.”

If any of the remaining Democratic candidates were to integrate even some of Gillibrand’s campaign ideals into their own, they’d be at an advantage over their fellow 2020 hopefuls. Voicing support for the untouched subjects of women’s rights, gender equity and the battle against the sexual violence epidemic will place any candidate ahead of their peers who have elected to stay silent on the subject. Current Democratic candidates, especially female frontrunner Elizabeth Warren, have already proven that their platforms can survive the preliminary tests of the campaign trail, so it’s unlikely that adopting pro-feminist views in favor of gender equity would suffocate their campaign.

“I don’t really remember anyone talking about it much,” said Karen Barnett, a Democrat from Vermont and college student in Boston. “I think someone talking about power dynamics at work and equal rights for women could easily translate to discussing the #MeToo movement and I’d like to see more of that for sure.”

Candidates have addressed every massive social problem that will affect the 2020 outcome — climate change, border control, racial inequality and universal health care have all been major points of contention in debates — but if we want to get to where we need to be, the sexual violence that has permeated our society must be dealt with.

Media coverage of the #MeToo movement has become bland, with new allegations of sexual misconduct from powerful figures surfacing every day. America has grown numb to it the same way that Americans have become desensitized to mass shootings and other instances of gun violence. A candidate adopting the ideologies of #MeToo in hopes of appealing to the massive demographic of forgotten survivors needs to mobilize their base with a call to action, making sure their message of “no more” resonates loud and clear with voters. When it comes to standing with women and fighting back against the broad sexual violence, the bar literally could not be any lower — voters are just looking for someone to publically recognize the institutional inequality and systematic oppression of women, especially in the workplace.

René Redwood, CEO of Redwood Enterprises and an equal rights advocate, suggested that candidates aren’t talking about sexual violence and harassment for one simple reason: they don’t know how.

“We have to give them some language by which they can talk about it as an important issue,” Redwood said. “We don’t have a cogent approach to how we address it.”

The ideas of progressivism in gender equality that Gillibrand’s agenda pushed form the basis of how the national discourse on this topic needs to continue. The American public, the media and the government alike must all take responsibility for mitigating the damaging effects of sexual violence that have run rampant through society, but it all starts with the candidate.

“With no presidential candidate that seems willing to truly and publicly grapple with this bipartisan issue, we must once again raise our voices,” Burke wrote in TIME Magazine in October. “We must demand that the men and women who want to represent us in the White House and other political offices speak directly to and respond to our needs. And we must be clear that we are ready to vote for accountability in 2020. We deserve a country that values our safety, since its health and prosperity depends on our well-being.”

America needs a president who will fight for equality and bodily autonomy for all people, someone who is not afraid to challenge the powerful and dark entities of America and is willing to hold individuals accountable for their wrongdoings. But in order to do any of this, a candidate must be brave enough to take the first step: speak up and say “no more.”