Abstract
ABSTRACTThe article discusses the #MeToo movement by reflecting on its origins and recent developments to consider its position in feminist theory. On the one hand, the cross-border proliferation of this hashtag revived the question once posed by liberal feminist Robin Morgan: Has the 'sisterhood' finally become global? Others questioned the deeper meaning of the 'me' as part of #MeToo, wondering whether the need for individual responsibility to come forward indicates that the movement fits only too well with what has been coined neoliberal feminism. Disagreeing with both categorisations, the article positions #MeToo as a transnational feminist consciousness-raising endeavour which can be traced across different places worldwide. Referring to some of these contextualised uses of #MeToo, the article argues that #MeToo has been able to manifest itself as a transnational feminist phenomenon, as it has allowed groups in distinct spaces and localities to take ownership of the varying manifestations of #MeToo.
Highlights
It is a year and a half ago that the revelation of sexual violence and harassment amongst the bold and the beautiful in Hollywood[1] led to the hashtag ‘MeToo’ going viral
The crossborder proliferation of this hashtag revived the question once posed by liberal feminist Robin Morgan: Has the ‘sisterhood’ become global? Others questioned the deeper meaning of the ‘me’ as part of #MeToo, wondering whether the need for individual responsibility to come forward indicates that the movement fits only too well with what has been coined neoliberal feminism
This article argued that the #MeToo movement represents an online feminist consciousnessraising campaign that has developed into a transnational feminist movement
Summary
It is a year and a half ago that the revelation of sexual violence and harassment amongst the bold and the beautiful in Hollywood[1] led to the hashtag ‘MeToo’ going viral. Disagreeing with voices categorising #MeToo as a manifestation of neoliberal or global feminism, the article concludes by positioning #MeToo and the resulting movements that have emanated from it as a transnational feminist consciousness-raising endeavour which can be traced across a number of different localities in the world. Suggested by a friend: “If all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me Too.’ as their status, we might give people a sense of magnitude of the problem.”[18] It was this tweet which initiated the online movement famously known as #MeToo. Overnight thousands of women (and men) responded to Milano’s tweet either by ‘’ writing the words ‘Me Too.’ or by adding their personal experiences to the tweet.[19] after just 48 hours over one million twitter users had used the hashtag ‘#MeToo’.20. As the section elaborates, such a line of inquiry is necessitated as a result of claims by feminist voices that #MeToo could be said to reflect features of neoliberal feminism;[26] a strand of feminist theory that raises many fundamental questions in itself, not least whether on the basis of its neoliberal nature it can even be categorised as a strand of feminist theory
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