This is part one of #MeTooWhere?, Crikey’s exploration of the past, present and future of the Me Too movement. Read the introduction here.
The Me Too movement has done a remarkable job of achieving the first stage of change: awareness. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you could not have escaped the debate about the pervasiveness of sexual violence in society. Me Too gave a name to something women have always been aware of, and it encouraged people to tell their stories.
But women telling their stories is just the first step in a very long march to justice, and awareness-raising was only ever supposed to be one element of the movement. Awareness on its own can be detrimental, leading people to believe action is being taken — only to be left sorely disappointed.
Disclosures for the sake of disclosures
Disclosures can be cathartic. Talking about an assault can legitimise the reality of the abuse, while also providing survivors access to a support network.
But disclosures for disclosure’s sake can also be harmful — especially if not handled correctly.
Nina Funnell created the Let Her Speak campaign, which has changed laws gagging sexual assault survivors from speaking about their abuse.
“The trouble with many sexual assault movements is that over time they tend to devolve into mere awareness-raising vehicles,” she told Crikey. “The initial buzz and excitement around MeToo produced huge amounts of disclosure but that failed to translate into permanent or meaningful change.
“While disclosure for the sake of disclosure can be an end in and of itself, it can also retraumatise survivors by asking them to perform huge amounts of emotional labour for little long-term benefit.”
This was a huge problem with journalist Tracey Spicer’s efforts to organise Australia’s Me Too movement in 2017. She founded NOW, an organisation that aimed to triage services for survivors — but did so with minimal consultation with the sector, little research and questionable ethics, leading to hundreds of disclosures going ignored and $100,000 in donations largely wasted.
How a survivor’s disclosure is first responded to has a huge impact on whether they’ll tell anyone else about their experience. Survivors who spoke to Spicer said her silence made them question whether their abuse was significant enough to bother disclosing.
Funnell worries a similar trend will emerge after Grace Tame was named Australian of the Year with disclosures being sent to Tame, Funnell and Let Her Speak campaigners.
“It’s unethical to knowingly put anyone in a position where they become inundated with rape disclosure and not provide appropriate support, and yet that is exactly what The National Australia Day Committee have done to the campaign,” she said.
How important is calling out abusers?
Calling out alleged abusers in Australia is tough given we have some of the strictest defamation laws in the world.
Actor Geoffrey Rush was awarded a record $2.85 million after a judge ruled The Daily Telegraph had defamed him over a story detailing allegations that he had inappropriately touched fellow actor Eryn Jean Norvill during a Sydney Theatre Company production of King Lear — allegations that Rush denied.
The laws appear to serve to strengthen abusers’ powers. Last week court-released phone calls revealed how NRL player Jarryd Hayne brazenly dismissed his sexual assault of a woman which left her bleeding from the genitals: “I’ll get her for defamation easy.”
Sydney Morning Herald journalist Jacqueline Maley has covered the alleged sexual misconduct of several high-profile men, including former high court judge Dyson Heydon (a story published only after a High Court investigation found Heydon harassed several colleagues).
“Defamation is really the most powerful threat to freedom of speech in this country,” she said. “It has an incredibly chilling effect on reporting and it always seems to be to be used in the defence of powerful people.”
Publishing Me Too stories, she says, allows men see how pervasive and destructive sexual violence is.
“The public airing and public shaming is in itself quite a powerful preventive,” she said. “If a company is genuinely worried about the reputational risk that will affect shareholders … they’re not going to promote the guy who has the sexual harassment claim against him.”
But alone it will lead to slow, siloed change.
Focusing on an inquiry into Attorney-General Christian Porter’s suitability to hold office after allegations of historical rape (which he strenuously denies) might send a message, but it ultimately only affects one man. Some men who misunderstand the movement have balked at the idea of a “witch-hunt”.
A face to the movement
Another issue with awareness-raising is that often people become spokespersons — intentionally or unintentionally — for the movement. In Australia those representatives have been middle-class white women. Spicer and Tame are two such examples.
Yet the whole point of the movement was that it had no face. It affects every woman in one way or another — sexual violence does not discriminate, as Me Too founder Tarana Burke has said. Putting a face to the movement places enormous pressure on one person, and often overlooks the expert consultation and work that needs to be done behind the scenes.
As Funnell said: “Very often movements like Me Too also become overshadowed by charismatic individual figures who may galvanise support, but if they lack deep knowledge of the issue the momentum can be squandered, or merely leveraged for [the] personal gain of a few at the top.”
If you or someone you know is impacted by sexual assault or violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit 1800RESPECT.org.au.
Where does the Me Too movement need to go from here in order to create real change? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say section.
Next: Why focusing on women’s stories overlooks Australia’s hyper-masculine culture, and why challenging power is so important.
Great article, great series idea. Good luck with it, AS, it is very very hard to map out a practical pathway that can unite a disparate, passionate campaign. Opening up the conversation beyond platitudes, into the tricky areas like this first piece does, is really fertile and productive. It’s only women who can lead these thornier, nuanced conversations. Challenging stuff…more please.
I know you’ve upset a lot of people, but I’m glad to see you engaged on this and reading and thinking. Sometimes I can see why people are upset and sometimes I think that you make points we should be thinking about further, and for that I thank you, because bandwagons come with their own problems, as history has many times shown… See you ’round, I’m sure! 🙂
Second Jack’s remarks.
Good on you, Amber, for progressing the discussion beyond our outrage. Creepy misogynists have a path forward, but we don’t. I can’t wait to read your next posts. Again, good on you!!
I second this! ♥
Porter is only one man, but the highest profile one yet to try abusing defamation law….A major victory against him would send a very strong message to other powerful abusers in parliament and set an example for the rest of the country.
Your observation that awareness does not guarantee legislative change, change that is critically required, is spot on. Volunteers, the backbone of the awareness campaigns, will naturally default to a role of support. That is what’s meagrely funded. Activism for specific change must fund itself. To be clear, I want urgent radical change. But change inevitable happens too slowly.
I do not agree that no real change has happened. Blokes that listen have better realised the many ways in which we can be arseholes to women and that we all have been guilty, despite supporting feminism. I think, individually, faced with this avalanche of disclosure, a lot of men have radically changed their perspective on gender equality. I hope that translates into more men supporting gender equality activism.
Your second paragraph particularly, BA, we have all been guilty, and this whole episode set off a life review of which I am not wholly proud. But I was fortunate in many ways, and my ignorance of youth was cauterised and dispatched by 23 effectively, all part of a long story.
Being young and stupid is not a crime, young men and women are feeling their way in the great game of gender relations, and those of us who do value and listen to women learn from our experiences. It really takes you into late 20s or early 30s for a man to fully grow up, if he is conscient and sentient, but most stop learning when they leave school or University. Consequently many men never make it to ‘fully realised’. The parliament, well one side of it, is full of them.
Excellent article. Have faith..many mature women who have in the past done the marching & public protests are now moving to grassroots organising in preparation for the next Federal election.This morning I spoke at length with an elderly friend from a leafy inner-city (Melbourne) suburb who will be voting ‘Labor’ for the first time in the next election. She has voted ‘Greens’ in the last 3 Federal elections but wants to ‘make sure’ in the next election. This informal grassroots approach kicked off after the ABC Four Corners program about the ‘Canberra Bubble’. A number of Melbourne-Liberals are being targeted. Only those capable of careful listening will become aware of this ‘change’. Those who are not listening will see the result ‘after polls close’. Let the counting begin.
Your friend’s attitude – ‘make sure by oting Labor not greens’ is a perfect example of the failure of the electorate to know how to use our very equitable voting system.
It is not perfect – that would be MME D’Hondt – but if, used with a bit of intelligence, would produce a truly representative crop of MPs.
Whether such a selection would produce fair social treatment is another question but we know that the current shower is nobody’s idea of good government.