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distribute or post,9 copy,#MeToo not Why Gender Violence Is Everyone’s Problem Do 172 Copyright ©2021 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. Chapter 9 • #MeToo 173 Learning Objectives 1. Describe how #MeToo has given publicity to forms of exploitation most people used to conceal. 2. Define different types of gender violence and illustrate how each reflects the perpetrator’s sense of entitlement. 3. Identify why blaming survivors of gender violence is a way of further victimizing them. 4. Explain how gender violence is a by-product of conventional ideas about masculinity. 5. Recognize that while only certain people are to blame for gender violence, all of us are responsible for it. distribute Publicizing Trauma: How Social Media Has Brought Gender Violence out of the Shadowsor 9.1 Describe how #MeToo has given publicity to forms of exploitation most people used to conceal. At 4:21p.m. on October 15, 2017, actress Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) tweeted, “If all the people who have been sexuallypost, harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too’ as a sta- tus, we might give people a sense of the mag- nitude of the problem.”1 By the following morning, nearly forty thousand people had replied to her post.2 Milano’s call to action occurred ten days after the New York Times published an articlecopy, detailing accounts by numerous women that Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein had coerced them to per- form malicious sexual acts. The platform #MeToo created has emboldened people #MeToo has to share similar accounts of exploitation, often inflicted by a friend, co-worker, exposed victimization or familynot member. Not surprisingly, the spotlight has been on people already in often hidden in the public eye—a list that includes Louis C.K., Ryan Seacrest, Kevin Spacey, Bill plain sight. Ingimage Ltd/Alamy Stock Cosby, Matt Lauer, Al Franken, Charlie Rose, Morgan Freeman, Marshall Faulk, Photo and Donald Trump. Although some people have come to these men’s defense, for Domany of the accused the egregious behavior has ruined their careers and/or their reputations.3 Peter Cripps/Alamy Stock Photo Copyright ©2021 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. 174 Seeing Social Problems People of varying ages and backgrounds have posted #MeToo testimonials. Here’s a sample from Twitter: I was 15 he was 24. I said stop! He kept going. The worst part it was my brothers friend and he believed him over me. Me too, he was 56 and I was 17. I was 9. Me too, he was my stepfather. #me too. More times than I can count. #ME TOO by several family members. Me too. Christmas 2010. We were colleagues. He’s a doctor, I’m a nurse. Guess who had no choice other than to quit? Each post gives visibility to mistreatment that people previously distributekept private and may have presumed was simply their own fault. During the year following Alyssa Milano’s #MeToo tweet, this hashtag was used nineteen million times on Twitter—an average of 55,319 times per day.4 or FIRST IMPRESSIONS? 1. Do you know anyone who has written a #MeToo post? If so, what feelings did the person have about making that post? 2. What sorts of replies did the postpost, elicit, either on social media or in person? 3. Have you noticed ways that #MeToo posts have changed people’s awareness of the types of humiliating behavior the posts expose? If so, how? #MeToo posts characterize gender violence, harm inflicted by people in powerful positions that reinforces norms about appropriate male copy, and female behavior. Heterosexual boys and men are typically the perpetrators of gender violence. Their actions illustrate toxic mas- culinity, which is the idea that being a “real not man” hinges on acting abusively toward oth- ers, and often toward oneself too. “If you have a mother or a girlfriend or eyes,” wrote journalist Moises Velasquez-Manoff, “it’s hard not to be Do aware of the aggressive entitlement that many When boys and men experience gender violence, they may downplay men feel toward women’s bodies”—and toward their pain because of the pressure they feel not to appear “unmanly” the bodies of others with lesser power: girls, gay by showing weakness.6 5 iStockphoto.com/skynesher males, and transgender people. Copyright ©2021 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. Chapter 9 • #MeToo 175 In addition to fueling gender violence, male entitlement also inhibits remorse about the pain such violence causes. This pain isn’t necessarily physical. Consider the mental and emotional injuries women endure when heterosexual men expect them to act submissively or appear “sexy.” These expectations can demean women by giving them the message that their worth hinges on how well they satisfy male desires and that personal qualities like leadership, intellect, and judgment don’t matter.7 Whereas inappropriate behavior by male celeb- rities has gotten media attention for many years, the #MeToo movement has uncovered the more Tarana Burke used “me too” several years before anyone knew the seismic impact a hashtag could have. typical examples of gender violence perpetrated by dpa picture alliance/Alamy Stock Photo ordinary men. The limited statistical data that exist about victimization rates lend support to anecdotal evidence that minoritydistribute groups experience gender violence more frequently than Whites (see Figure 9.1). Therefore, it’s no wonder that it was a woman of color—Black civil rights activistor Tarana Burke—who FIGURE 9.1 ● Victimized Because of Their Gender These are the percentages of females from different racial groups who have experienced sexual assault or rape. 6 post, 5 4 s age 12 or older le 3 copy, 2 1 not Rate per 1,000 fema 0 White Black Hispanic American Asian/Pacific Multi-racial Indian/Alaskan Islander Do Native Source: Adapted from Michael Planty, Lynn Langton, Christopher Krebs, Marcus Berzofsky, and Hope Smiley- McDonald, “Female Victims of Sexual Violence, 1994–2010,” Bureau of Justice Statistics, March 2013, https:// www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fvsv9410.pdf. Copyright ©2021 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. 176 Seeing Social Problems first uttered “me too” publicly. White actress Alyssa Milano often gets the credit, however, because it was her doing so on social media that launched a social movement.8 The individual perspective toward gender vio- lence views the perpetrators as uniquely different from other males—as “damaged men.” It’s a com- pelling view for explaining the behavior of a guy like Brock Turner who behaves unconscionably. On the evening of January 18, 2015, two bikers discov- ered the nineteen-year-old Stanford University stu- dent forcing himself on a half-naked, unconscious woman outside his fraternity house. Since he acted Viewing a man like Brock Turner as a monster is a convenient alone, he’s obviously the sole person to blame. It’s yet shortsighted way to make sense of sexual behavior that lies beyond the pale of human decency. convenient, moreover, to view gender violence as Greene County Sheriff’s Office via AP, File limited to a subset of deviant males like Turner. This individual perspective enablesdistribute both women and the “good guys” who don’t behave abhorrently toward females, gays, or transgen- der people to believe that they bear no responsibility for the problem. This chapter takes a less convenient path. It exploresor various types of gender violence and exposes the physical, mental, emotional, and economic injuries they inflict. We’ll see why assigning violent boys and men sole responsibility for this problem limits our understanding of why it occurs so frequently. By highlighting the social forces that lead some males to act in inappropriate—and sometimes criminal—ways toward individuals with less power, the sociological perspective reveals just how many people playpost, a role in reinforcing the beliefs that lie at the root of gender violence. We’ll see that such violence is not a deviation from social norms but a reflection of them. Exhibiting Entitlement: Gender Violencecopy, as a Display of Male Power 9.2 Define different types of gender violence and illustrate how each reflects the perpetrator’s sense of entitlement. The ascendance of #MeToo came on the heels of #NeverthelessShePersisted, a move- notment that arose eight months earlier during the confirmation hearings for Jeff Sessions as attorney general. Senator Elizabeth Warren took issue with Sessions’ record on civil rights and had the evidence in hand to support her case. When she started read- ing a letter written thirty years earlier by Martin Luther King Jr.’s widow, Coretta Do Scott King, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stopped her. He mentioned that he had warned her not to read the letter aloud, yet “nevertheless she persisted.” A new hashtag was born. Supporters appropriated McConnell’s words as a rallying cry for women victimized by men in powerful positions. #NeverthelessShePersisted has Copyright ©2021 by SAGE Publications, Inc. This work may not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without express written permission of the publisher. Chapter 9 • #MeToo 177 become a slogan of resilience for survivors of gender violence in all its various forms. Survivor is more fitting than victim as a way of conveying that, despite the many obstacles they face, a person can move beyond having been exploited.9 Silencing Women whose lives are far removed from politics can still relate to the dehumanization Elizabeth Warren endured.