‘Stories Not Bouquets!’: The #Metoo campaign in Slovenia and Its Social Consequences

Abstract

The international #metoo campaigns are influenced by local social norms, institutional responses to gender-based sexual violence, and neo-patriarchy. Therefore, some characteristics are highly locally specific. The chapter describes the local characteristics of the #jaztudi campaign in Slovenia by analysing women's testimonies, and media and social reactions. The #jaztudi started in 2018 initiated by four women public intellectuals one of whom is the author of this chapter. The chapter takes as its starting point an overview of gender-based inequalities that women in post-socialist Slovenia are facing. Women's testimonies reveal that sexual violence happens at home, in educational, healthcare, religious, public and private institutions as well as at work and in leisure time, and has great impact on the women's lives. In a short period of time, by compiling and publishing the testimonies, the #jaztudi campaign created a snowball effect and contributed to the launching of new on-line and media-supported discussions about sexual violence, notably by Catholic priests, and the painful and demeaning treatment that women encounter in different health institutions. The campaign facilitated the emergence of alliances among new cases of sexual violence in a relatively short period of time, and contributed to some degree to awareness raising. The campaign encouraged the emergence of a new sensitivity much needed in order to reach new political agreements. Taking into account that sexual violence is historically a patriarchal strategy used to control women, it is urgent to implement the ‘yes means yes’ model of consent of the Istanbul convention in Slovenia, and to create the political and social conditions in which sexual harassment and violence against women are unacceptable.