Social Movements Reflection: Metoo Movement

Reviewing the article: Has #MeToo divided women, BBC attempts to offer us insight on the powerful social movement sweeping across America and beyond in 2018. The article speaks to the spark of this movement with factors such as Alyssa Milano’s tweet and the multiple accusations against Harvey Weinstein as the match that lit the powder keg. The article then shifts to talk about the current internal struggles in the movement over the goals of the movement, what to focus on, the validity of claims and said repercussions, and certain members decrying the movement as playing the victim. The movement also sheds light that this movement may have in fact been coopted from a much older movement by Tarana Burke, and the struggles that causes.

The Article Ends on a hopeful note on how this movement may shape culture in a much different way. (Word count 143)According to the MeToo movement website, the Me too movement was created to help anyone who was victimized by sexual violence, focusing on those of minority status or of women, while taking all social factors into consideration. They want to establish resources for those affected and eventually bring an end to any form of sexual violence. The website speaks to how the movement exploded with the hashtag bringing this issue into the minds of everyone and help highlight problems. The website then says that they want to reframe the conversation around Sexual violence to address many more issues in this conversation and find solutions to many, if not all of these problems.

Both the article and the movement’s website frame Sexual violence as one of the most prevalent and dangerous social problems today. Both attempts to highlight the sheer amount of people who have been affected by this horrible crime and how horribly life changing this event can be for those who are affected by this.

The MeToo site frames this social problem as one that affects those most at risk in our community involving those of minority status and those who are disentangled in most aspects of our society. The actions of the movement are framed by the website and the article as a way to bring to light those who have cause so much pain to the victims of these attacks. They frame the proliferation of social media and public accusations to bring justice to those deserving and to bring closure to those who may not be able to attain justice by themselves. The movement itself is framed as a Collective Action as it the movement tries to gain members and get those outside of the movement while punishing those who have wronged them. The leadership structure of this movement is a largely decentralized movement without a clear leader in the community. This movements leadership relies on all members to bring to light the issues going on in each of the individual’s communities and try to amplify the problem to those on the outside, teaming with others in their communities to bring these people who commit these crimes to the justice they deserve. The media frames the leadership of this movement as decentralized which many in the media article say causes problems in the movement as they are not given a clear goal on how to deal with these evil crimes, and what the goals of the movement should be.

The article also speaks to how the lack of leadership can lead to the fact that the movement does not know which tactics to use for the campaign and the difference in leadership styles among the many members can cause gridlock, or even worse, the suppression of vital information due to some viewing their situation as not worth bringing up under one person’s definition, leading to leadership being portrayed as unhelpful or worse secondary victimization.

The media’s framing of the movement in my opinion has both a positive and negative diffusion on the movement. BBC did a very good job framing the movement as a cause that everyone should be invested in protecting and advancing the movement. The media portrays this movement as a way to protect those in need of protection and bring those who have committed these horrible crimes to justice, allowing for more people to join this movement out of sympathetic support and solidarity. On the other hand, the media’s framing of the movement’s leadership as ineffective, almost nonexistent, and based off of popular opinion may dissuade diffusion of the movement as some may be scared that this movement is blindly going after certain people regardless of actual guilt or that they have been misled as to their power or the prevalence of the movement, which could lead to the movement being perceived as less legitimate. I believe that this movement’s ideas can shape other transnational movements by proving that a movement based out of social cohesion and decentralization can be effective if the movement has clear goals or is based off of a great cause. This movement proves tat a decentralized movement can be viewed as legitimate as a social movement with clear leadership, depending on its effectiveness, which as we have seen with the me too movement, has led to justice for a large number of people who would not have had the resources to obtain justice themselves.

Finally, I believe that this movement will shape other transitional movements by helping legitimize social media as a large way for a movement to gain steam, as well as bring the important issues to light, as well as coordinate efforts. Wile many movements have used social media before to help with their goals, I believe that MeToo was one of the first movements to use social media to its fullest in order to coordinate the movement and bring these injustices to light like few if any movements ever had before.