#MeToo and Gender-Based Violence in the Realm of Human Rights

Sofia Alidina, Corey Dulin, Amanda Hardy

International Studies 401

Professor Amal Fadlallah

11 December 2018
Abstract and Research Question:

This paper examines the #MeToo movement within the framework of human rights and

women’s rights. It lays out the history of the movement, along with relevant events that occurred

concurrently, and examines how its discussion of sexual violence uses principles discussed in

human rights documents such as the Convention On the Elimination of all Forms of

Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). It notes the shortcomings of the movement; framing

discussion around sexual violence limits the scope of topics it addresses and the movement

ignores certain demographics. This paper also describes the outcomes of the movement and

provides recommendations on how to make the movement more impactful. We ask: Looking at

the #MeToo movement as a human rights movement, how and why has it used sexual violence to

highlight women’s issues? Does this specific focus limit the impact of the movement and its

effectiveness in advocating for women's rights and what are its shortcomings?
Introduction to the #MeToo Movement:

We will begin this paper by providing a brief overview of the #MeToo movement, from

its foundation to its spread to social media and popular culture. Activist Tarana Burke initially

branded this phrase in 2006 as part of a grassroots movement aimed to reach survivors of sexual

assault in low income communities. Consequently, the movement did not start as a hashtag that

trended throughout popular media, but as an organization aimed to uplift local communities. Her

reasoning behind using the words “me too,” she explained to Ebony Magazine in 2017, was to

assure survivors of assault that they were not alone in their experiences as the number of

individuals identifying with these words continued to grow alongside the movement. These

words would gain traction exponentially in 2017, when actress Alyssa Milano tweeted the

hashtag on Twitter, using the phrase to draw attention to her experiences with sexual assault.

From here, due to her large social media following and the use of a succinct and ready-to-use

hashtag, millions of people came forward tweeting their experiences with the hashtag #MeToo,

the majority women. The hashtag received special attention from her fellow actresses who

subsequently came forward with accounts of successful film producer, Harvey Weinstein,

sexually assaulting them as they worked to establish their careers in Hollywood. While

significant attention was drawn to Weinstein’s impact on the film industry, these words soon

became a global phenomenon and a topic of conversation among traditional news outlets,

workplaces, and places of policymaking. Consequently, a worldwide conversation regarding

sexual assault soon began to dominate the topic of violence against women, emerging as the

most tweeted-about instance of gender inequity. 1

1
​Garcia, S. E. (2017, October 20). The Woman Who Created #MeToo Long Before Hashtags.
 It is also important to note why #MeToo, a movement focusing on gender-based violence

and sexual harassment and assault, has taken off as the flagship “women’s issue.” As discussed

in class, sexual violence and portrayals of women as victims is highly effective in garnering

attention as well as public and financial support. Naturally, #MeToo has benefited from

publicizing these narratives, gaining unprecedented support and attention in social media.

Additionally, the unity and corroboration of the #MeToo sexual violence stories have given the

movement legitimacy and steam. As mentioned in the ​Human Rights and Narrated Lives​ excerpt

by Schaffer and Smith, this formulaic retelling of atrocities is very important to the

legitimization of human rights violations.2 The consistent character of #MeToo narratives has

therefore also contributed to its success in gaining attention and support. Other women’s issues,

such as economic inequality or reproductive rights, are less uniform in narrative and not nearly

as dramatic and shocking. They also do not play as well into the “victim” role that women need

to play in order to garner support. This is in part due to the fact that sexual violence often

portrays a clear-cut image of a perpetrator and a victim, rather than expanding to include

governmental or economic institutions as filling this perpetrator role. In turn, it becomes simpler

to conceptualize acts of violence upon a victim when labels can easily to be assigned to contrast

the innocent vs. the aggressor. Because of these reasons, #MeToo and sexual violence issues

have taken off as opposed to other social issues as the flagship women’s issue of today.

#MeToo and Human Rights:

An important factor that links the #MeToo movement to the broader topic of human

rights is the recent increased focus on gender-based violence as a responsibility of the state.

Citing Merry, beginning in the 1990s, gender-based violence overcame its “newcomer” status to

2
​Schaffer, Kay and Sidonie Smith. ​Human Rights and Narrative Lives: The Ethics of Recognition. 2​ 004.
become a centerpiece of women’s human rights. Originally regarded as violence (rape, assault,

and murder) from men directed toward their female romantic partners, the definition of

gender-based violence has become more encompassing. It now includes female genital

mutilation, violence by police and military forces under several circumstances, forced abortion

and pregnancy, and several more categories formerly deemed acceptable in some societies.3

Beginning in 1992, states became responsible for eliminating violence between individual actors

as well as state-perpetrated violence.​3​ This initiated a twofold change. Firstly, state violence and

individual violence against women are now both considered human rights violations and are

worthy of legal prosecution. Secondly, it is now considered the responsibility of the state to

protect these specific rights of women. “Beginning in 1990, activists argued that a state's failure

to protect women from violence is itself a human rights violation.​3”​ Similar to responsibility to

protect, a state failing to protect “women’s human rights” according to the above-discussed

stipulations would be considered a human rights violation. Essentially, activists demanded that

women’s rights be recognized and protected where the humanity of women was previously

ignored and violence was perpetrated by states and individuals alike.

The Convention On the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women

(CEDAW) was essential to the idea that women’s rights must be protected by the state. CEDAW

is an international treaty which the United Nations General Assembly adopted in 1979; it

functions as “an international bill of rights for women,” focuses on eliminating discrimination

against women, and emphasizes equal rights for men and women4. Although it is a law without

3
​Merry, Sally Engle. ​Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice​. University of Chicago Press, 2006.
4
​Merry, Sally Engle. ​Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice​. University of Chicago Press, 2006.
sanctions, “it articulates principles of gender equality and state responsibility” 5. It has been

widely ratified and is now monitored by a committee.

Based on ideas concerning women’s status in the 1950s - 1970s, CEDAW’s focus on

equal rights is supplemented by concerns regarding political and economic development that

characterized the 1970s 6. It covers a wide range of issues that focus on three main aspects that

impact women in society: civil rights and legal status; human reproduction with an emphasis on

maternity, employment, family law, and health education; and the impact of cultural factors

including traditions, stereotypes, customs, and norms that perpetuate the discrimination of

women in all areas of society7. While CEDAW does not explicitly discuss violence against

women, likely due to the sexual attitudes of the era in which it was drafted, it includes articles

that bear indirectly on this topic8. Articles regarding gender stereotypes, trafficking women,

prostitution, and disruptions of employment by sexual harassment reference violence against

women. However, the convention’s monitoring committee pushed for two general

recommendations that define violence against women and provide ways to attack the issue. In

1989, General Recommendation 12 pushed for consideration of the issue and required statistics

on this form of violence9. In 1992, General Recommendation 19 further developed the issue and

defined gender-based violence as “a form of discrimination “that seriously inhibits women’s

ability to enjoy rights and freedoms on a basis of equality with men.10” CEDAW grounds gender

based violence in the overarching framework of discrimination11. It establishes gender based

5
​Merry, Sally Engle. ​Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice​. University of Chicago Press, 2006.
6
​Ibid
7
​ l Shraideh, Saleh. "CEDAW in the Eyes of the United States" ​Journal of Legal Studies​, 20.34 (2018): 18-37.
A
8
Ibid
9
​Ibid
10
​Ibid
11
I​ bid
violence as “violence that is directed against a woman because she is a woman or that affects

women disproportionately.” This includes coercion and mental or sexual harm (Merry 76). This

clause is extremely important as it recognized sexual assault and harassment, the focus of

#MeToo, as a violation of human rights.

One thing to note in regards to the United States and CEDAW is that it is one of the few

U.N. member nations that have not ratified it. This convention has been ratified by many nations,

both in the global north and south, but not in the U.S. While the U.S. does have the 19th

Amendment, which grants women the right to vote, the U.S. lacks an amendment that directly

addresses women’s rights. Instead, it grants women specific rights without addressing the causes

of inequality. This is evident in the culture of #MeToo, which makes sexual violence the key

women’s issue without addressing the bias, inequality, and oppression that made assault and

harassment acceptable in the first place. However, CEDAW provides a framework to address

these inequities the exist in society on less of a case by case basis and in more of a holistic way.

Ratifying CEDAW could help change the culture surrounding women in the U.S. and expand the

impact of women’s rights movements from sexual issues to the larger social inequality.

#MeToo’s limited scope:

As with many other human rights efforts we have discussed in this course, the #MeToo

movement has some shortcomings. The first we will discuss is the demographic issue facing

#MeToo. A small Western Washington University sample study of sexual harassment and

assault articles in the ​New York Times​ in 2017 by Alyssa Evans concluded that the paper which

broke the #MeToo movement excluded minorities in its coverage. It found Caucasian women

members of #MeToo were given attention and support, especially high-profile actresses and
political figures, while minorities, such as Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong’o, who also

came forward against Harvey Weinstein, were ignored. This is a consistent theme, the study

states. This is problematic because this legitimizes the assault of Caucasian women and

simultaneously ignores the assault of women of color and minorities.12 This narrowed coverage

media coverage of #MeToo makes sexual assault a problem of “white feminism.” This could

lead to intensified victim blaming against minorities and delegitimizing of accounts of assault,

according to the study. This study highlights the important racial issues of #MeToo and its

apparent advancement of white feminism.

However, women of color are not the only disadvantaged group largely being neglected

by #MeToo. As stated, this movement focuses on the assault of high profile individuals who lead

a life of relative luxury. Because of this, class difference has proven to be a problem for the

movement. High profile women or women coming out against high profile men will gain

attention and even support, whereas low-income women may be ignored and even punished for

coming out. For example, in September 2018, a year into #MeToo, McDonald’s employees went

on strike in 10 cities, claiming the company chronically failed to enforce its sexual harassment

and assault policies. This naturally received much less national attention than the Harvey

Weinstein, Matt Lauer, or Bill Cosby scandals. Given the timing of the protests, #MeToo did not

immediately impact low-income industries. Only a year later are women with such jobs coming

forward. Sadly, unlike with high-profile scandals characterized by firing perpetrators, these

protests were met with meaningless results (for example, the comment from McDonald’s

claiming commitment to “respectful treatment of everyone” in response to protests). Protestors

say their efforts have been largely futile because management does not assume the responsibility

12
Evans, Alyssa (2018) "#MeToo: A Study on Sexual Assault as Reported in the New York Times," Occam's Razor: Vol. 8 , Article 3.
to enforce corporate policy.13 Although #MeToo is spreading, its reaches are thus far limited in

low-income industries. They do not receive the attention high profile scandals have garnered and

do not get the dramatic results that actresses such as Alyssa Milano, who accused Weinstein,

have.

Finally, the movement faces restrictions in regards to its emergence and spread on social

media that causes it to rely on the algorithms that ensure trending content on Twitter. Social

media platforms such as Twitter favor hashtags and tweets that are concise, with most

individuals simply retweeting the hashtag without reference to the contexts of their individual

experiences with sexual violence. 14 Consequently, the nature of the #MeToo movement makes it

difficult for the hashtag to encompass the systemic issues that lie at the root of sexual violence.

The sheer number of individuals that have identified with the #MeToo hashtag is indicative of a

broader, systematic cause of sexual violence that extends beyond harmful perpetrators. For

example, after Matt Lauer was fired for inappropriate sexual conduct at work, NBC issued a

series of supposedly well-meaning, albeit misguided, work conduct policies. Among those

include compulsory reporting of inappropriate work relations, guidelines for hugging, and rules

such as not being allowed to share a taxi home from work.15 Again, these rules attempt to address

the outcome but not the issue itself: a fundamental disrespect of women. Instead of putting

women in positions of power or consequences for harassers, for example, they give guidelines to

“protect” women from sexual advances.

Looking forward:

13
​Rushe, Dominic. “McDonald's workers walk out in 10 US cities over 'sexual harassment epidemic'.” ​The Guardian. ​18 Sep. 2018. Web. 9 Dec.
2018.
14
​Lua, A. (2018, September 20). Twitter Timeline Algorithm Explained (and 6 Ways to Increase Your Reach).
15
​Smith, Emily. “NBC orders staff to rat out misbehaving colleagues or be fired.” ​Page Six. ​25 Dec. 2017. Web. 9 Dec. 2018.
 The social media and social movement of #MeToo coincided with another movement that

sought to address the inequalities women experience, called Time’s Up. It can “be thought of as

a solution-based, action-oriented next step in the #Metoo movement.”16 Like #MeToo, this

movement began in Hollywood. In January 2018, more than 300 leading women in Hollywood,

including Natalie Portman and Shonda Rhimes, launched Time’s Up as an initiative to end

sexual harassment as well as address pay disparity and discrimination in Hollywood.17 In a letter

published in the New York Times, the women state: “Now, unlike ever before, our access to the

media and to important decision makers has the potential of leading to real accountability and

consequences.”18 Christy Haubegger, a Creative Artists Agency executive who helped start

Time’s Up, rightly believes that to eradicate sexual harassment, it is necessary to first solve

inequality “because power imbalances are at the root of harassment behavior19.” These behaviors

are a symptom of the systemic inequality and pattern of exclusion for women, people of color,

and an unequal power distribution in the entertainment business.

But this movement has gone on to not only address the issues of women in Hollywood

but also those relating to working-class women. The organization cites an open letter written on

behalf of 700,000 female farmworkers saying that they stand in solidarity with the women in

Hollywood against sexual misconduct.20 Time’s Up website states it “is a unified call for change

16
Langone, Alix. “#MeToo and Time's Up Founders Explain the Difference Between the 2
Movements — And How They're Alike.” Time, 8 Mar. 2018.
17
Calfas, Jennifer. “Hollywood Women Launch Time’s Up to End Sexual Harassment. Here’s
Their Plan.” Time, 2 Jan. 2018.
18
Ibid
19
Langone, Alix. “#MeToo and Time's Up Founders Explain the Difference Between the 2
Movements — And How They're Alike.” Time, 8 Mar. 2018.

20
​Calfas, Jennifer. “Hollywood Women Launch Time’s Up to End Sexual Harassment. Here’s
Their Plan.” Time, 2 Jan. 2018.
from women in entertainment for women everywhere” that envisions “nationwide leadership that

reflects the world in which we live.”21 This initiative uses litigation and legislation, symbolism,

and social pressure to fight systemic sexual harassment. It includes a legal defense fund to help

less privileged women -- such as janitors, nurses and workers at farms, factories, restaurants and

hotels -- protect themselves from sexual misconduct and the fallout they face from reporting it.22

It uses legislation “to penalize companies that tolerate persistent harassment, and to discourage

the use of nondisclosure agreements to silence victims.” It began a drive for gender parity at

studies and talent agencies and requested that women walking the red carpet at the 2018 Golden

Globes wear black to speak out and raise awareness.

This leaderless organization is run by volunteers and comprised of working groups that

strive to address an array of issues that affect women.23 One group oversaw the creation of a

commission.24 Headed by Anita Hill, the Commission on Sexual Harassment and Advancing

Equality in the Workplace works to “tackle the broad culture of abuse and power disparity.”25 It

was launched by Kathleen Kennedy, the president of Lucasfilm; Maria Eitel, the co-chair of the

Nike Foundation; attorney Nina Shaw; and Freada Kapor Klein, the venture capitalist who

helped pioneer surveys on sexual harassment decades ago.26 This commission seeks a

comprehensive strategy to address the complex and interrelated causes of the problems of parity

and power.”27 The group 50/50by2020 pushes entertainment organizations and companies to

agree to reach gender parity in their leadership tiers within two years. It claimed a victory in

21
Ibid
22
Buckley, Cara. “Powerful Hollywood Women Unveil Anti-Harassment Action Plan.” The New
York Times, 1 Jan. 2018.
23
Ibid
24
Ibid
25
Ibid
26
Ibid
27
Ibid
December 2017 after Shonda Rhimes pressed managing director at ICM Partners, Chris

Silbermann, to pledge that his talent agency would meet that gold.28 There is also a group

committed to ensuring that that concerns of minorities and LGBTQ folks are addressed and

another works to devise legislation that takes abuses and address how nondisclosure agreements

silence victims of sexual harassment.29 This highlights the important role that Hollywood plays

in #MeToo, its concurrent events, and its predecessors.

Despite its origins and current issues, #MeToo is expanding outside of the realm of

Hollywood and the rich, white, and famous. A 2018 article in NPR by Yuki Noguchi highlights

one small victory in the restaurant industry. Her article examines the harmful power dynamic in

low-wage industries which make coming out against an individual for lewd actions or comments

difficult. The financial stability of a low-wage worker depends on whether her boss and

customers are happy, a highly exploitable dynamic that makes many female workers feel unsafe

coming forward. There have, however, been signs of an effective change away from this. For

example, in 2017, the CEO of ​Besh Restaurant Group, a​ restaurant chain in the southern United

​ as fired for more than 25 accounts of sexual harassment and coercion. This was a large
States,​ w

victory in the restaurant industry that may empower movements in different companies, such as

in McDonald’s. Advocacy groups for many low-wage industries are making progress towards

legal and industry policies regarding sexual harassment, according to the author. Activists

interviewed are striving to reach a point where whistleblowing and reporting assault and

harassment is rewarded rather than threatened with low tips, job loss, or bad shifts.30 ​Bech

Restaurant Group​ is a positive sign for #MeToo. Although there is room for improvement and

28
Ibid
29
Ibid
30
​Noguchi, Yuki. “Low-Wage Workers Say #MeToo Movement Is A Chance For Change.” ​NPR. 6​ Feb. 2018. Web. 9 Dec. 2018.
expansion, small examples of #MeToo expanding outside of Caucasian, high-profile

communities is promising.

Despite these shortcomings, the movement has had many positive impacts on power

distribution and women’s voices, which will hopefully expand the sentiment of the movement to

other issues. For example, although domestic violence is a significant form of gender-based

violence, according to an article in ​The New York Times, ​it has largely been ignored by #MeToo

for several reasons. The first is that #MeToo has demanded several women come forward before

action is taken against the perpetrator. With domestic violence, instances of abuse tend to be

much more isolated. Additionally, sexual assault is rather anonymous, whereas domestic

violence can be traced through romantic partners, making coming forward uncomfortable or

even dangerous for survivors. Finally, there is a larger guilt stigma associated with domestic

violence survivors than with sexual harassment victims. Many domestic violence survivors are

asked “why didn’t you just leave?” in the wake of recurring acts of violence, rather than being

supported and encouraged through their recovery.31 Perhaps with an apparent weakening of

stigma associated with sexual violence against women facilitated by #MeToo, issues such as

domestic violence will become easier for survivors and the public to address.

While each tweet containing the words “me too” call attention to the existence and

magnitude of the issue, Burke hopes to extend the movement in the near future in order to

recognize the harmful institutions that perpetuate sexual assault. In an interview with TIME

Magazine, Burke explained, “harassment is a symptom of a larger, systemic inequality and and

systemic patterns of exclusion for women, for people of color, and a lack of equilibrium in the

31
​Mervosh, Sarah. “Domestic Violence Awareness Hasn’t Caught Up With #MeToo. Here’s Why.” ​New York Times. ​16 Oct.2018. Web. 9 Dec.
2018.
power distribution in our business. If you want to solve sexual harassment, you actually needed

to solve all of those things.” In order to address this power imbalance, celebrity advocates and

researchers affiliated with the movement are turning their focus towards passing legislation and

policy changes that expand on the hashtag and enable it to invoke change in the workplace. In

particular, pay disparities, a lack of women in positions of power in large industries, and an

efficiency bias that implies a woman’s value in the workplace decreases after having children are

issues that Burke, along with others looking to expand the movement, are seeking to address.

The driving point behind this involves closing the power gap between men and women in the

workplace to help reverse the presumption of inferiority that often leads to sexual assault. This

would enable activists to begin to address the root of the issue, along with continuing to promote

public awareness. Translating social media advocacy into organized funding with legal and

political grounds continues to present a challenge for movements that have built their

foundations on the internet, but future objectives for #MeToo are a promising representation of

what this legislation could look like. 32

Report:

To write this paper, we met as a group a few times to format our question, find research, make an

outline of our paper, and decide who would write each section of the paper. We had trouble

finding scholarly articles on our topic because it is relatively new movement so we relied on

articles we found online and related those to texts from class. We found that we needed to

expand our paper to include information such as how CEDAW has impacted women’s rights and

32
​Langone, A. (2018, March 08). What is the Time's Up Movement and the #MeToo Movement?
how it links to the #MeToo movement and the similarities the movement shares with Time’s Up.

Each of us put our respective parts in a shared Google Document and each of us edited the

document on our own time.

 Bibliography

Al Shraideh, Saleh. "CEDAW in the Eyes of the United States" ​Journal of Legal Studies​, 20.34

(2018): 18-37.

Buckley, Cara. “Powerful Hollywood Women Unveil Anti-Harassment Action Plan.” The New

York Times, 1 Jan. 2018.

Calfas, Jennifer. “Hollywood Women Launch Time’s Up to End Sexual Harassment. Here’s

Their Plan.” Time, 2 Jan. 2018.

Evans, Alyssa (2018) "#MeToo: A Study on Sexual Assault as Reported in the New York

Times," ​Occam's Razor​: Vol. 8 , Article 3.

​Garcia, S. E. (2017, October 20). The Woman Who Created #MeToo Long Before Hashtags.

Langone, Alix. “#MeToo and Time's Up Founders Explain the Difference Between the 2

Movements — And How They're Alike.” Time, 8 Mar. 2018.

Langone, Alix. (2018, March 08). What is the Time's Up Movement and the #MeToo

Movement?

Lua, A. (2018, September 20). Twitter Timeline Algorithm Explained (and 6 Ways to Increase

Your Reach).

Merry, Sally Engle. ​Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into

Local Justice.​ University of Chicago Press, 2006.

Mervosh, Sarah. “Domestic Violence Awareness Hasn’t Caught Up With #MeToo. Here’s

Why.”

New York Times. ​16 Oct.2018. Web. 9 Dec. 2018.

Noguchi, Yuki. “Low-Wage Workers Say #MeToo Movement Is A Chance For Change.” ​NPR.

Feb. 2018. Web. 9 Dec. 2018.

Rushe, Dominic. “McDonald's workers walk out in 10 US cities over 'sexual harassment

epidemic'.” ​The Guardian. 1​ 8 Sep. 2018. Web. 9 Dec. 2018.

Schaffer, Kay and Sidonie Smith. ​Human Rights and Narrative Lives: The Ethics of Recognition.

2004.

Smith, Emily. “NBC orders staff to rat out misbehaving colleagues or be fired.” ​Page Six. 2​ 5

Dec. 2017. Web. 9 Dec. 2018.