The Limits and Power of Law: What the Absence of #MeToo in Taiwan Can Tell Us about Legal Mobilization

Chao-Ju Chen

doi:10.1017/s1743923x21000271

Abstract

The #MeToo movement gained global prominence after Hollywood celebrities came forward with their experiences of sexual violence and encouraged others to do the same. This was by no means the first time a woman had told the world of her experience of sexual violation, but this time, the powerful were paying attention: “Women have been saying these things forever. It is the response to them that has changed” (MacKinnon 2020, 7). High-quality investigative journalists vetted the women's accounts and provided more stories of sexual abuse and predation. Many survivors have since come forward with their own names and their perpetrators’ names, leading some prominent men to be deprived of their fame and positions of power. The #MeToo movement makes two things matter and count: what the victims say and what the perpetrators did. It has raised the perpetrators’ accountability and the victims’ credibility and reversed the scenario of sexual violation: making the perpetrator, not the victim, pay for the sexual harm.

Highlights

The #MeToo movement gained global prominence after Hollywood celebrities came forward with their experiences of sexual violence and encouraged others to do the same
In Taiwan, a democratic country that considers itself a regional leader in gender equality, #MeToo has become a symbol of anti–sexual violence activism, but it has yet to produce a crystallizing effect and recharge the anti–sexual violence movement
The #MeToo movement serves as an indication of civil society’s vibrant mobilization against sexual violence, but the absence of the #MeToo movement in a society does not suggest that it lacks anti–sexual violence activism

Summary

Introduction

The #MeToo movement gained global prominence after Hollywood celebrities came forward with their experiences of sexual violence and encouraged others to do the same. These remarkable achievements in lawmaking raise questions about how the law relates to the absence of #MeToo in Taiwan: does the absence of #MeToo prove that the law has provided effective channels and sufficient remedies for victims so that they do not have to go to the court of public opinion for justice?

Results

Conclusion