Sexual assault allegations seem to be a badge of honor in Trump’s America. Was #MeToo an epic failure?
Sexual assault allegations seem to be a badge of honor in Trump’s America. Was #MeToo an epic failure?
The push to end sexual violence has sparked a revenge campaign setting fire to women’s rights and pushing young men to the right. But organizers can learn from the movement’s losses
It's not a failure. It's just another sign that the opposition to human rights is fiercer than expected and greater effort is required. We couldn't expect that horrible people would magically respond with self-awareness and shame when their culture of abuse and exploitation was highlighted and led to consequences for some. It just means social pressure is only one factor of how to address systemic cultural issues.
Can you explain a bit more what you mean in the last sentence?
The #MeToo movement is a largely social movement. Most of the consequences for exposed abusers was social, which led to public shaming and loss of job opportunities. There were legal consequences for some, though victims advocates would like to have seen much more. The few legal influences that came from the movement were laudable. Some states banned nondisclosure agreements and arbitration clauses relating to sexual harassment and now there's the Speak Out Act at the federal level.
But by and large, the social consequences that were the primary result weren't powerful enough to change the longstanding cultural issues such as toxic masculinity, incel subculture, patriarchal traditionalism, male chauvinism, etc. which contribute to the issues that the movement sought to name and shame. Social consequences can lead to diminishing returns if those who oppose change double down and re-entrench in the problematic cultures. They turn accusations into merit badges and proof that they haven't bought into "woke" (or whatever toxic buzzword will come to replace it when woke isn't a powerful boogeyman word anymore) culture.
Greater legal support for victims and greater legal consequences for perpetrators would be preferable, but the current legislative climate would make that difficult to progress except in some states.
In designing systems for behavioral change you need to plan for the phenomenon of extinction burst - as a behavior becomes irrelevant the learner is likely to more fiercely engage in said behavior before adopting a more functional and socially appropriate behavior. Eg if I have a child who punches their parent for attention and I teach the parent to ignore this behavior while also teaching the child to appropriately request attention and reinforce this new behavior I can expect that the child’s violence will worsen a bit as we make it irrelevant. If the parent truly does a good job of removing the function and ignoring the behavior this is highly likely
This is not perfectly transferable to sociology and group populations but I think there is merit to thinking this way, though I’m not familiar with research on the topic. Metoo was necessary, DEI and affirmative action was necessary, electing a black president was necessary, etc. but the shitheads who resist this social change are possibly going to follow this same phenomenon and rather than adapt they will push even harder to be sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, etc
Hopefully my framework is applicable. If it is the good news is that it’s called an extinction “burst” because if you power through the behavior reduces quite dramatically. You have to hold your ground though. If you don’t you run the risk of making things even worse: essentially teaching the learner to escalate their behavior to access desired function
Edit: to be clear this isn’t my framework but merely one I am presenting. I don’t want people to think I have the hubris of having come up with these concepts, which would be crazy.
If anything, the fierce backlash shows how effective the movement was. What no one could have seen coming was that the mis and disinformation that bombarded the internet around the same time would eventually create a fractured reality where the basic facts of existence are a matter of opinion. In a world like that, the efficacy of name and shame is reduced to near zero because you can simply switch to a reality where sexually assaulting women is socially acceptable and continue on with your life.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
Asimov
Was science a failure?
Was news reporting?