#MeToo and Brett Kavanaugh

The #MeToo movement has given a platform to many women to come forth and individually tell their stories. This has of course affected the celebrity world as well, famously including Harvey Weinstein and now Brett Kavanaugh, among others. Christine Blasey Ford bravely came forward to speak out against Kavanaugh, accusing him of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers, which he of course denies. The accusation was that he attempted to rape her at a party in their high school years. She  risked her and her family’s safety by speaking out, as she received a great deal of death threats. After a tumultuous and emotional hearing, the Judiciary Committee agreed to a one-week supplemental background check into Kavanaugh by the FBI. Kavanaugh never really agreed to this; rather, he talked around the question of whether he would be open to the background check whenever asked.

This trial showed that the #MeToo movement has become pivotal in American society such that women feel empowered to speak out against prominent male figures who have sexually harassed or assaulted them. While Blasey Ford was hesitant to come forward with her claims, she was immediately embraced by the #MeToo community. As a society, we still have a long way to go, but this empowerment and empathy is a promising start.

A #MeToo Counterpart: #IAmSexist

This author proposes another spinoff of the #MeToo movement: #IAmSexist. He calls upon all men to recognize that they promulgate male privilege, male power, and toxic masculinity in many ways, consciously and unconsciously. This system of power and oppression is part of modern society whether we like it or not, and unless you are speaking out against it, you become part of it. In some ways, it is not our fault that we have implicit biases against women; society teaches us that to survive and be socially accepted, we have to conform, and in order to conform, we must adhere to others’ beliefs.

These beliefs in systems of male power have a long history: we have posited that in ancient society, men were hunters and women were gatherers. Men were associated with culture and women with nature. Women bear and rear the children, so their role was perceived as primarily domestic work to support the men and families. We now know that these posited roles may have fallen victim to our current cultural lens and the transposition of modern views onto the past. Whether or not this is true, female oppression has a lengthy history, and even if male promulgation of this system of power and oppression is subconscious, we all must actively work against it.

New York Times article

 

#MeToo Movement Meanings

Many people have heard of the #MeToo movement on the news as more and more women come forward to confront our diseased society, but few know about its beginnings. Tarana Burke, founder of the #MeToo movement, came to chat with us about the movement, its meanings, and its implications at Purdue University about a month ago. I attended the event, and I found it to be very empowering. She touched on a variety of topics, including social norms about fear, the power of empathy, our sense of humanity, and many more. Sexual assault chips away at one’s sense of humanity, and services or counseling are like a band-aid, not a fix; empathy is what starts to help heal. “Society teaches us to pretend we’re okay,” and we have to fight that by confronting our fears and trusting ourselves.

The root of the movement for Burke was the idea of “how can I feel pain and joy at the same time?” She described a situation in which she might have a good day, get home feeling happy, then find herself reminding herself “I ain’t shit.” It’s like a mindset, a dark feeling you can’t fully escape from even after having the best of days; and that’s okay. We have to learn to “turn that volume down to one or two” and turn the volume of the good commentary up, which takes time to figure out. She referenced Maya Angelou several times as a guiding force in her life: she knows she is a Phenomenal Woman, but she doesn’t always feel it – and that’s okay.

(Quotes are from her talk in Loeb Playhouse at Purdue University on September 19, 2018.)