#MeToo
Sylvia Rust
5/5/2020
Me Too Blog
The #MeToo Movement is iconic and has made strides to make the world more cognizant and understanding of sexual harassment and sexual assault. The #MeToo movement was originally created in the early 2000s (2006) by Tarana Burke, who had worked in a center for low-income communities and specifically, black girls from these communities. Tarana Burke got inspired to start the #MeToo movement because of her inability to say “Me too” to a girl who was open to her about the assault she endured at home. Tarana began working to help give resources to the people in the community that had experienced sexual violence. The movement continues to be survivor-led and community-based, powered by empathy.
In 2017, #MeToo became a viral hashtag and call to action across the globe for more to be done for victims/survivors of sexual violence. Alyssa Milano, the actress, was the one to start the viral sensation tweeting, “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet.” The Harvey Weinstein accusations and conviction has been a highlight of the me too movement. People that had been previously afraid to speak up were now able to have their voices heard. Milano’s tweet had upwards of 12 Million responses on Twitter and has become an important moment in history, but this viral sensation that Me Too has become has also had something about it that was not Burke’s intention; it was led by and responded to by white women. Burke had started this movement to fight for the strength and the resources for black women and other women of color. In the me too movement online, the most impact was had among white women (around the globe) while the women it was intended for struggle for any representation.
At the same time of the Me Too movement, there has been a public outcry against R. Kelly who has long been joked about as a sexual predator. When the “Surviving R. Kelly” series came out in 2019, criticism was that the women portrayed and interviewed willingly went to Robert Kelly’s home, that they were at fault for their trauma. Of course this is something women who have been assaulted have always heard, but two years after the #MeToo movement? What was different from their accounts of the trauma they endured from R. Kelly than women like Milano and McGowen? Well, they’re black. In fact, Tarana Burke was interviewed in Surviving R. Kelly about the Me Too movements’ lack of representation of black women. The Me Too movement failed women of color, there is no questioning that.
In a 2017 interview with the New York Times, Burke talked about the virility of the #MeToo movement and how it has been co-opted and changed from the original message. “Initially I panicked, I felt a sense of dread, because something that was part of my life’s work was going to be co-opted and taken from me and used for a purpose that I hadn’t originally intended,” Burke stated about Milano’s viral #MeToo tweet. Burke says there is “a great lack of intersectionality across these various movements. I think it is selfish for me to try to frame Me Too as something that I own, It is bigger than me and bigger than Alyssa Milano. Neither one of us should be centered in this work. This is about survivors.”
While it’s true that neither Burke nor Milano should be the center of the Me Too movement, it would make a lot more sense for Burke to be the spokesperson for the movement she created in 2007.
I do believe that the Me Too movement has been amazing, but even in some of my women’s studies classes, I could feel that lack of representation of women of color and black women. I enjoyed doing the research for the class about the beginning of the Me Too movement because I thought it was imperative to make sure that Tarana Burke was heard and represented. I wish I could have put more effort into bringing in comparison of the Weinstein case and the R. Kelly’s case. Both, in my opinion, are terrible and should be put in jail for a long time. There has been evidence for years of Robert Kelly’s pedophilia and predatory behavior, but even with testimonials and interviews and a tv show about his assault, he still has not been officially charged. Black women deserve better (representation).
Throughout history, women have been discredited, unheard, and outright ignored. I think Me Too shed light on this, but there is still far to go to have all women’s voices heard and their assailants held accountable. I hope to be able to fight these injustices as I graduate and find a job that fulfills me!
Garcia, Sandra E. “The Woman Who Created #MeToo Long Before Hashtags.” The New York
Times, The New York Times, 20 Oct. 2017,
www.nytimes.com/2017/10/20/us/me-too-movement-tarana-burke.html.
“Tarana Burke on the Series ‘Surviving R. Kelly.’” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service,
www.pbs.org/wnet/amanpour-and-company/video/tarana-burke-on-the-series-surviving-r-
kelly/.
