For anyone thinking that the #MeToo campaign is about women playing the victim card, implying that women are actually saying #PoorMe – I really do believe you are wrong!
There’s three main definitions of ‘victim’: one is being harmed/injured/ killed by an event/crime/accident, one is someone who’s tricked and one is someone who ‘feels helpless or passive in the face of ill-treatment’. Funnily enough, by the very nature of women sticking their heads above the sea of inequality that exists in this world and stating #MeToo, these women are not fulfilling the definition of the passive victim. Yes, they are victims, but not in the way that many are trying to suggest. They have felt harmed and are using their voices and actions to make people aware.
I’m getting really irritated by the negativity surrounding the #MeToo campaign. Today I read in the Times, the journalist Clare Foges mockingly referring to the Oscars as a ‘carnival of sanctimony in honour of #MeToo’. I’ve heard talk of the hypocrisy of actresses wearing black at award ceremonies, when they are happily profiteering from and exploiting their own sexuality. Last week Weinstein’s lawyer said women are deciding to have sex with producers to advance their careers and so on and so forth. Some people are trying to undermine the importance of the #MeToo campaign.
Well of course they are! Isn’t this just the normal run of things? A woman dares to use her voice and suddenly it’s not a perfectly valid point, it’s a hideous whine that needs silencing. Oh, it’s ok if she has actually been raped, comes the caveat, then she can legitimately complain. But if she is just feeling like a victim of some minor inequality or other, then she should shut the fuck up with her #MeToo drone.
#MeToo is, according to some, making all men feel bad. Tarnishing the male population with the same brush. Making the male species afraid of asking a woman out for a coffee. Insinuating that women play no active part in sexual encounters. Lionel Shriver says it’s, ‘demonising all male desire’. Basically, they’re saying, it’s anti-male.
What a load of bollocks! I’m getting frustrated that people are trying to undermine the biggest campaign waged against sexual harassment and inequality in my lifetime, by choosing to focus on the grey areas.
I feel we need to see #MeToo as the big picture. Yes, women flirt and some may exploit men and use their sexuality to gain a advantage. Yes, a brush on the knee is not as bad as being raped. But the point of #MeToo as I see it, is the much bigger picture: the vast canvas of inequality that it is bringing to everyone’s attention. The wider, difficult issues that exist around male dominance and power.
#MeToo is giving us a wake up call, a non-sexual kick up the bum. It’s telling us that problems are endemic. It’s teaching us that we need to bring up our children to understand specific behaviours that they need to conform to. Undoubtedly the key to real change is to educate the young.
The #MeToo campaign is only ‘toxic’, ‘mass hysteria’, ‘man-bashing’ and ‘a narrative of victimised women’ if you fail to see it as representative of something much bigger even than the sum of all its parts.