Me Too movement

Me Too movement, awareness movement around the issue of sexual harassment and sexual abuse of women in the workplace that grew to prominence in 2017 in response to news reports of sexual abuse by American film producer Harvey Weinstein. While the phrase had been in the lexicon for more than a decade, a tweet by American actress Alyssa Milano sparked a social media phenomenon that raised awareness, gave voice to survivors, and led to sweeping cultural and workplace changes.

The movement is credited with giving visibility to the scope of sexual violence within the United States and across the world. It is also defined by a push for accountability, including examining power structures in the workplace that had enabled misconduct, and, in some cases, renewed efforts to seek justice for survivors through criminal and civil court systems. In the first year of the movement, numerous prominent men lost their jobs after they were publicly accused of wrongdoing.

Since then, the Me Too movement’s legacy has broadened to encompass issues related to gender equity in the workplace and legal reforms to eliminate barriers that had prohibited victims from coming forward. Some U.S. states have since abolished statutes of limitations for reporting sexual crimes and banned nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) that aimed to keep misconduct allegations from the public’s view. The movement has also led to changes in the workplace and society at large through the implementation of greater safeguards and educational tools that aim to change behaviour in future generations.

The origins of the movement

While Milano’s tweet is largely recognized as the tipping point of the modern Me Too movement, it was not the origin of the phrase “me too” in the context of sexual abuse survivors. More than a decade earlier, community activist Tarana Burke coined the phrase through her nonprofit, Just Be Inc., in Selma, Alabama. Burke, who was sexually assaulted as a child, worked with young survivors and found that the phrase “me too” could help assure others that they were not alone in having experienced abuse. Because of her yearslong work prior to the viral hashtag, Burke is widely credited as the founder of the Me Too movement.

Within hours of Milano’s tweet on October 15, 2017, tens of thousands of people replied to her call for action. Within just 24 hours, Facebook reported more than 12 million reactions connected to #MeToo. In the following year, #MeToo was tweeted an average of 55,319 times a day. Burke initially felt “defeated” when watching the phrase go viral and deeply uncomfortable that the phrase could be co-opted by Hollywood and the masses. She feared no one would believe that a “44-year-old Black woman from the Bronx had already been doing this." Additionally, she worried that communities of colour could feel excluded from a movement that at first seemed centred on “white women in Hollywood.” But Burke said many of her fears faded after she realized that survivors were healing by having a chance to be heard. Milano quickly gave credit to Burke for the phrase, saying she was unaware of its history. The two women often appeared together in interviews and became public faces of the movement.

As the movement spread beyond the United States, new phrases demanding accountability popped up in other countries. In France, for instance, feminists used the hashtag #BalanceTonPorc (meaning “expose your pig”) to urge others to name the men who had sexually harassed them. The hashtag substantially differed from #MeToo, as it directed scrutiny toward the abusers rather than the victims.

The role of investigative journalism

In addition to social media activism, the early era of the Me Too movement was defined by investigative journalism that documented the searing accounts of women who had long endured sexual harassment. On October 5, 2017, The New York Times published an investigation by journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey that uncovered decades of predatory behaviour by producer Weinstein and revealed how he orchestrated numerous confidential settlements to silence his victims. Ashley Judd, a well-known American actress, told her account of how Weinstein had scheduled a business meeting within a hotel room but then made unwanted sexual advances toward her. “Women have been talking about Harvey amongst ourselves for a long time, and it’s simply beyond time to have the conversation publicly,” she said.

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Less than a week later, The New Yorker published journalist Ronan Farrow’s exposé on Weinstein, and more women went on the record to give their accounts of sexual abuse. The New York Times and The New Yorker later shared the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for their “explosive, impactful journalism that exposed powerful and wealthy sexual predators” and led to a “worldwide reckoning about sexual abuse of women.” Later, in New York and Los Angeles courts, Weinstein was charged and convicted of rape and sexual assault, resulting in 23-year and 16-year prison sentences, respectively. The combined sentences meant that he would almost certainly spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Following the Weinstein reporting, journalists from a wide array of news organizations began to publish investigations concerning sexual harassment and misconduct committed by prominent men in fields ranging from media and entertainment to politics and the culinary world. In other cases, survivors came forward independently through legal actions or by issuing public statements. By one count, more than 200 powerful men lost their jobs after public accusations of sexual misconduct were lodged against them in the first year of the Me Too movement.

The world of television journalism was especially rocked by Me Too allegations. Charlie Rose, a long-standing fixture of CBS and host of his namesake PBS show, lost his jobs in November 2017 after eight women came forward with allegations that he had sexually harassed them. Matt Lauer, a cohost of NBC’s morning talk show Today, was fired after a colleague filed a complaint concerning Lauer’s “inappropriate sexual behaviour in the workplace.” And while revelations concerning their behaviour predated the 2017 rise of the Me Too movement, Fox News chairman Roger Ailes and commentator Bill O’Reilly were ousted in 2016 and 2017, respectively, following widespread allegations of sexual harassment.

Other individuals who came under renewed scrutiny because of the Me Too movement represent the consequences of delayed justice. In 2015 the cover of New York magazine visualized the stunning number of allegations against comedian Bill Cosby by featuring photographs of 35 women who had accused Cosby of sexual assault. While Cosby’s first criminal trial in 2017 ended in a hung jury, his retrial in 2018 emerged as the first high-profile courtroom battle of the Me Too era. A jury convicted Cosby on three counts of aggravated indecent assault related to his drugging and sexual assault of Andrea Constand in 2004. The verdict was seen as a pivotal moment following Me Too, as it represented the rejection of the defense’s attempt to smear Constand’s credibility and a shift toward believing victims. A judge sentenced Cosby to serve 3 to 10 years in prison, but the verdict was later overturned on appeal, resulting in Cosby’s release.

In the case of R&B singer R. Kelly, investigative reporting from BuzzFeed in 2017 and the release of Lifetime’s Surviving R. Kelly documentary series in 2019 are credited with helping bring justice to his victims. The reporting reexamined past allegations of Kelly, who previously had been acquitted on charges of child pornography, and revealed new claims that he had fostered a cultlike environment and forced sex upon women and girls. Building on the social media activism of the Me Too era, the hashtag #MuteRKelly put pressure on radio stations and streaming platforms to stop playing his music. In 2019 Kelly was arrested and charged with crimes related to the sexual abuse of women and teenage girls. Kelly was later convicted in two separate federal trials on charges connected to sex trafficking and child pornography and sentenced to serve a combined 31 years in prison.

In another case of delayed justice, a lenient plea deal given to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a financier accused of sexually abusing underage girls, underwent new scrutiny following reporting from the Miami Herald. As a result, Epstein was arrested on charges of sex trafficking. While in jail awaiting trial, he committed suicide.

The Me Too movement also reached the world of sports. The sex abuse case against former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, which was first reported by the Indianapolis Star newspaper, revealed how law enforcement, USA Gymnastics officials, and Michigan State University officials brushed aside complaints from gymnasts about Nassar’s behaviour. In 2018 more than 150 of Nassar’s victims testified before his sentencing. Cameras were permitted within the courtroom, allowing the searing remarks from star Olympic gymnasts to reach a television audience and to make their way onto social media platforms.

Me Too and changes in the law

As the Me Too movement grew, the focus largely shifted away from individual bad actors toward the broader systems in place that had enabled such misconduct to occur in plain sight. Lawmakers across the country proposed bills that attempted to knock down barriers that survivors faced in reporting abuse in the workplace and in criminal and civil court systems. Such bills often focused on sexual harassment training, eliminating arbitration-binding agreements that kept settlements quiet, and ending statutes of limitations that prohibited delayed reporting of sexual abuse.

New York state and New York City moved quickly to implement widespread post-Me Too reforms, focusing on laws that mandated sexual harassment training in the workplace. Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who signed the state’s bill into law, later resigned over allegations that he had sexually harassed members of his staff. In California the STAND (Stand Together Against Non-Disclosure) Act banned the use of nondisclosure clauses within sexual misconduct settlements.

In 2022 U.S. Pres. Joe Biden signed two pieces of federal legislation that trace their roots to the Me Too movement. The Speak Out Act limits the enforcement of NDAs that had stifled the ability of employees to speak publicly about sexual harassment or abuses within the workplace. Lawmakers said that such agreements had been widely required as conditions of employment and had been routinely used to cover up misconduct. Additionally, the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act allows victims of sexual abuse and harassment the opportunity to have their claims heard in court.

Criticism of the movement

Support for the Me Too movement is not uniform. A U.S. poll conducted in 2022 at the five-year anniversary of the movement found that roughly half of Americans say they support it. The poll found that divisions largely fell along party lines, with Democrats being three times more likely than Republicans to say that they strongly or somewhat support the Me Too movement.

Critics have said that the Me Too movement urges a rush to judgment and thrives on so-called “cancel culture.” Burke has frequently countered such claims, saying, “ ‘Me too’ is not about taking down powerful men. It’s not about crime and punishment. It’s about pain and pain reduction.”