The #MeToo Movement has a Blind Spot

On October 15th, 2017, the world irreversibly changed. The #MeToo movement exploded on Twitter after actress Alyssa Milano asked Twitter users to “write ‘me too’ as a reply to her tweet” if they had “been sexually harassed or assaulted”.

More than twelve million users of Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and other social media platforms offered posts and reactions to Milano's #MeToo challenge. What got lost in the eruption of the movement was that the originator of that slogan was a black woman named Tarana Burke, who came up with the concept more than a decade ago. There was upset that a white woman was receiving credit for an idea originated by a woman of colour. Burke had never received anywhere near the same level of support that white feminists like Milano received; the conversation around #MeToo was, inevitably, complicated and fractured.

In 1991 the framework of intersectionality was created by Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw; one of the founders of Critical Race Theory. Intersectionality looks at how multiple social categories (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status) intersect at the micro-level of individual experience to reflect multiple interlocking systems of privilege and oppression at the macro, social-structural level.

The #MeToo movement emphasised the structural oppression faced in society today. Tarana Burke saw someone was using her slogan after gaining 500 followers and this wasn’t good. “Social media,” she says, laughing at the understatement, “is not a safe space. I thought: this is going to be a fucking disaster.” For two decades, Burke has done the grinding, tiresome, financially unstable work of setting up programmes to help victims of abuse, and that didn’t tend to include sharing their status online. This work seemed undermined and overpowered by authoritative figures unintentionally taking the hashtag and making it an overnight talking point.

While Burke was whisked away to the Golden Globe, her initial response was, “‘Why? I’m trying very hard not to be the black woman who is trotted out when you all need to validate your work.’” The fear was that victims of sexual violence might be poorly served by the publicity, and the work she had put in to help raise awareness would be undone.

To ensure that racialised sexism is understood and acknowledged within the justice system, we must develop and apply a framework that rejects false notions of objectivity. #MeToo reflects the racial biases consistent within society. The movement illustrates why sexual harassment law must adopt a standard that accounts for different intersectional and multidimensional identities.

While the movement has changed the way we view sexual harassment within the workplace and how we respond to claims of sexual harassment, some women fail to see or understand the unique, racialised, and gendered harassment experiences that women of colour face. The social hierarchy that determines whose voices are heard and believed is more complicated than looking at men and women. Those who do not fit into the categories of straight, cis-gendered, white, and wealthy suffer as a result.

The standard needs to be rooted in an intersectional and multidimensional lens to capture experiences women across intersections face. The law ignores the complexities of how gender and racial subordination, stereotype, and bias can shape a victim's vulnerability to harassment.

Voices must be heard. As a society, we need to fight for marginalised groups who are often silenced or shut out the picture. Your view on feminism is questionable if it only acknowledges and empowers the white middle-class woman.