#METOO

Cultures that turn a blind eye to abuse of power linked to sexual harassment are being called out in a dramatic way. I nearly wrote 'finally being called out', but is this, in fact, the final push? Judging by the stories that are emerging, this kind of behaviour is even more endemic than imagined and potentially touches almost every kind of institution, organisation and informal group. And that's an understatement; it appears to be at the heart of many, the modus vivendi for some of the successful and powerful men at the top. So it would be a shame if the current climate of willingness to speak out were to dissipate before action has been taken in the worlds that stand accused.

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The energy behind the Women's Marches was largely galvanised by the recognition that the USA has a president who has been recorded boasting about sexual harassment. This fresh new burst of energy marked by the participation of so many millions in the #METOO movement is a follow-on from that. It perhaps delineates the point in history where women are recognising that the only way to change cultural assumptions about behaviour towards anyone who has less physical, economic or social power than you is to call out bad behaviour with the support of others who have experienced and observed the same kind of abuse. Never before has this been such an accessible option as it is today due to social media and the internet.

Up until now the privatisation of this sort of behaviour has enabled it to thrive. My mother's generation were only too aware of such things but largely 'didn't talk about them in public' and dealt with them by avoiding contact with the perpetrators and shutting up. In the 70's when I was a young woman, there was still a kind of objectification of harassment; it was something that happened to someone else so the shame that it had happened to you kept you silent. You might tell a girl friend and try to laugh it off or you might just worry over it on your own - 'what's wrong with me?' 'what did I do to attract that kind of attention?' But the remarkable thing was that all of us knew several people to whom it had happened. As we grew older we realised that this kind of experience was one of the factors preventing us from doing so many things from walking home alone at night to applying for promotion to getting our voices heard in the organisations where we worked.

Women fall into two distinct groups when it comes to dealing with the (often subtle) harassment and sexual abuse of other women. There are the 'I believe Anita' people who are predisposed to take the victim's story at face value and to acknowledge resonances with other such stories (and maybe their own experience). Then there are the 'Don't make a fuss/it isn't that bad/you'll only make it worse for everybody' people who advise caution or inaction and, by so doing, effectively deny the true, persistent and cumulative power of such experiences. 

I recently witnessed the misuse of male power by the utilisation of derogatory language about women and the stereo-typing of male/female gender roles. It happened through the actions of one man in a group where there were five times as many women as men. The group was made up of some very articulate, capable and mature people but it took four days and the absence of the culprit for the behaviour to be named. Promises were made about dealing with it but up to this point I have heard nothing from the organisation concerned about whether or how the situation was addressed. If it is this difficult to call out an abuse of power, no wonder lone victims tremble at the thought of coming forward.

The uniquely new thing about the #METOO hashtag is the possibility of calling out abuse publicly at the same time that others do so. If 500 people had joined in, it would not be perceived as a matter of public interest. If 100,000 had joined in it would have been possible to dismiss the concerns raised as my mother's generation did, by branding them regrettable, minority behaviour thus proving the point that too much was being made of the matter by a few sensitive souls. The fact that millions and millions of women across the world have joined in says, loud and clear, this is normal everyday behaviour, routinely encountered by women who are then left to deal with the problem without any kind of structured support. The law, the prevailing culture of organisations, the teaching of many religions and philosophies, the assumptions of police, medical and educational institutions are all stacked against the woman who says 'I was touched/unfairly dismissed/raped/exploited for another person's sexual gratification without my consent.

What has changed? Women are beginning to say not 'We ought to hear her', 'we think her story is like ours', 'perhaps it happened the way she describes', 'how dreadful' but 'ME TOO'. 'I am willing to tell my story of the way I have been treated'. Is this the point at which history evolves to become her-story too? Theologians like Elizabeth Schussler-Fiorenza pointed out, decades ago, that women's stories are simply edited out of history as being of no interest by male editors. (My mother's generation were colluding in this centuries-old phenomenon every time they said, 'Don't make a fuss.') It's remarkable that some stories of women have crept into most patriarchal cultures but, again, the scholar always needs to ask, 'Is this being told from the view point of the women or the prevailing patriarchal culture?" 'Why is is being told?' (Think about it - the story of rape in Judges 19, who benefitted from that story being told?) In the #METOO hashtag we have a pivotal moment. At last women are telling their stories in enough numbers and enough ways to subvert the over-riding narrative. Up until now we have all lived with a meta narrative that tells the story of a society constructed for the good of both women and men (perhaps needing a little tweaking here and there). This is not the experience of several million women. 

The writer Roxane Gay is currently editing a new anthology of essays about rape and sexual harassment called Not That bad. Although I most certainly do not look forward to reading it, I do believe that it is now down to the writing community to do our bit in normalising the stories of women's experience that include all the minor and major harassments our mothers would have said 'keep private'. Of course, our own psyches also shout or whisper 'go carefully' but there has to be an outing and a naming and a telling that encompasses the reality of the completeness of our relationship to male power if anything is to change.

Just like the Women's Marches, the #METOO moment could simply wind down and lose its power. The Women's Marches, contrary to what many predicted, continue to spawn significant new departures in political thought and activism. So, I hope, will the #METOO hashtag, becoming  a groundswell for sea change. The dam is breached and there comes a flood of disclosure, the moment for a powerful shift in balance between history and herstory. 

Post script
In searching for an image for this blogpost, I was struck by the fact that, at a quick glance, I could find French, Spanish, Italian, Indian, Latvian, Dutch, Swedish, Japanese, Kenyan, South African and Canadian versions. I am grateful to the Bristol Post for the one I chose.