What You Need to Know about #MeToo and “The Personal is Political”

Wed, 17 Oct 2018 11:13:59 -0400
csj-ignite, reflections, what-you-need-to-know

Get ready for Critical Social Justice: Ignite with our What You Need to Know series. Written by Women’s Center student staff member Hannah Wilcove.

On October 15th, 2017, actress Alyssa Milano posted the following message to Twitter: “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted, write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet.” These sixteen words sparked the rebirth and rapid growth of a campaign created eleven years ago by activist Tarana Burke.

As you probably already know, the #MeToo movement has been a way for survivors of sexual violence to share their stories, or at least acknowledge their existence. Its recent resurgence came on the heels of powerful men like Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby finally facing the long-overdue consequences for their actions, although other accusations still loom in the air, unresolved. The sustained prevalence of the movement over this past year, especially given the high volume of news we take in on a regular basis, is a testament to the strength of digital forms of activism. Me Too and other modern movements such as Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street are characterized by their decentralized structure and reliance on publicity through multiple forms of media. Our keynote speake r Deanna Zandt utilized both her social media presence and her participation in an episode of the podcast This American Life titled “Five Women” to not only share her story, but also to talk about the experience of doing so.
Illustration from This American Life.
Like the consciousness-raising groups of the 1970s, the #MeToo movement is about recognizing commonality of experiences and the systemic factors that influence them. This is what the principle of “the personal is political” is all about: while each survivor has their own individual story, the #MeToo movement provides a way for people to recognize that they are not alone in their experience. As an important note, many women of color flipped the script of this common slogan during the time period known as Second Wave Feminism, and advocated that “the political is personal” in order to make it known that the politics of social movements had significant impacts on their everyday lives.

CSJ as a whole and this year’s theme of Ignite is in part about finding community while doing activist work. Whether you’re a seasoned advocate for the causes you believe in or totally new to fighting for social justice, we all need people to support us in our work and remind us that we are not alone. I hope to see you at one (or more!) of our many CSJ events building that community.