Witches,Victims,and Villains: #MeToo and the Political Polarization of Sexual Violence

Abstract

#MeToo sought to combat sexual violence but evolved into a polarizing movement in the United States. Using a random sample of 5,153 tweets with #MeToo posted between 2017 and 2019 to explore the language and themes individuals use to polarize conversations around sexual violence, we find that MeToo supporters used rights-and-justice-focused language to advocate for survivors. In contrast, MeToo detractors employed legal and violent language to victimize the alleged perpetrators and villainize victims of sexual violence and their supporters. This demonstrates how “linguistic hijacking” unfolded online, with movement opponents co-opting key terms (like “victim”) to undermine movement supporters’ goals.

Keywords

sexual violence #MeToo polarization politicization

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Anderson

(2020). Linguistic hijacking. Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, 6(3), 1–29. https://doi.org/10.5206/fpq/2020.3.8162

Ausserhofer

Maireder

(2013). National politics on Twitter: Structures and topics of a networked public sphere. Information, Community, and Society, 16(3), 291–314. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2012.756050

Berry

M. E.

(2017). Barriers to women’s progress after atrocity: Evidence from Rwanda and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Gender & Society, 31(6), 830–853. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243217737060

Bishop

(2018). A reflection on the history of sexual assault laws in the United States. The Arkansas Journal of Social Change and Public Service. https://ualr.edu/socialchange/2018/04/15/reflection-history-sexual-assault-laws-united-states/

Blumell

L. E.

Huemmer

(2019). Reassessing balance: News coverage of Donald Trump’s Access Hollywood scandal before and during #metoo. Journalism, 22(4), 937–955. https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884918821522

Bogen

K. W.

Bleiweiss

K. K.

Leach

N. R.

Orchowski

L. M.

(2019). #Metoo: Disclosure and response to sexual victimization on Twitter. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 36(17–18), 8257–8288. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260519851211

Bouvier

(2020). From ‘echo chambers’ to ‘chaos chambers’: Discursive coherence and contradiction in the #MeToo twitter feed. Critical Discourse Studies, 19(2), 179–195. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2020.1822898

Castle

J. J.

Jenkins

Ortbals

C. D.

Poloni-Staudinger

Strachan

J. C.

(2020). The effect of the #MeToo movement on political engagement and ambition in 2018. Political Research Quarterly, 73(4), 926–941. https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912920924824

Chicago Tribune. (2021). #MeToo: A timeline of events . https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/ct-me-too-timeline-20171208-htmlstory.htm

10.

Clark

J. H.

Evans

H. K.

(2019). Let’s talk about sex: Examining the factors influencing congressional response to #MeToo on Twitter. Political Science & Politics, 53(1), 51–56. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096519001124

11.

Clark-Parsons

(2018). I see you, I believe you, I stand with you:’ #MeToo and the performance of networked feminist visibility. Feminist Media Studies, 21(3), 362–380. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2019.1628797

12.

Conroy

(2019). Are Americans more divided on #MeToo issues? FiveThirtyEight. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-americans-more-divided-on-metoo-issues/

13.

Cutler

J. E.

(1905). Lynch-Law. Longmans, Green, and Co.

14.

Dang-Xuan

Stieglitz

(2013). An investigation of influentials and the role of sentiment in political communication on twitter during election periods. Information, Communication & Society, 16(5), 795–825. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2013.783608

15.

Dinesh, S., Odabas, M., & Pew Research Center. (2023). 8 facts about Americans and Twitter as it rebrands to X. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/07/26/8-facts-about-americans-and-twitter-as-it-rebrands-to-x/

16.

Ellis

E. G.

(2018). How #HimToo became the anti #MeToo of the Kavanaugh hearings. Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/brett-kavanaugh-hearings-himtoo-metoo-christine-blasey-ford/

17.

Ellmann

(1993). The ethic of care as an ethics lawyer. Georgetown Law Journal, 81, 2665–2726.

18.

Ghosal

S. G.

& Ghosa, S. G. (2009). Socio-political dimensions of rape. The Indian Journal of Political Science, 70(1), 107–120. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41856499

19.

Gill

Orgad

(2018). The shifting terrain of sex and power: From the ‘sexualization of culture’ to #MeToo. Sexualities, 21(8), 1313–1324. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460718794647

20.

Gilligan

(1993). In a different voice psychological theory and women’s development. Harvard University Press.

21.

Graham

Jackson

Broersma

(2016). New platform, old habits? Candidates’ use of Twitter during the 2010 British and Dutch general election campaigns. New Media and Society, 18(5), 765–783. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444814546728

22.

Ha Rim Rho

Mark

Mazmanian

(2018). Fostering civil discourse online: Linguistic behavior in comments of #MeToo articles across political perspectives. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 147(2), 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1145/3274416

23.

Hosterman

A. R.

Johnson

N. R.

Stouffer

Herring

(2018). Twitter, social support messages, and the #MeToo movement. The Journal of Social Media in Society, 7(2), 69–91. https://www.thejsms.org/tsmri/index.php/TSMRI/article/view/475

24.

Jacobs

Sandberg

Spierings

(2020). Twitter and Facebook: Populists’ double-barreled gun? New Media & Society, 22(4), 611–633. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444819893991

25.

Lopez

Quillivic

Evans

H. I.

Arriaga

R. I.

(2019). Denouncing sexual violence: A cross-language and cross-cultural analysis of #MeToo and #BalanceTonPorc. International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, 11747, 733–743. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29384-0_44

26.

Lowe

(2018). The Kavanaugh hearings are hurting #MeToo. Politico Magazine. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/10/02/kavanaugh-hearings-me-too-220840/

27.

McDonald

A. F.

(2019). Framing #MeToo: Assessing the power and unintended consequences of a social media movement to address sexual assault. In O’Donohue

Schewe

(Eds.), Handbook of sexual assault and sexual assault prevention (pp. 79–107). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23645-8_6

28.

Mendes

Ringrose

Keller

(2018). #Metoo and the promise and pitfalls of challenging rape culture through digital feminist activism. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 25(2), 236–246. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506818765318

29.

MeToo Movement. https://metoomvmt.org/

30.

NAACP. (2023). History of lynching in America. NAACP. https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/history-lynchingamerica

31.

Onwuachi-Willig

(2018). What about #UsToo?: The invisibility of race in the #MeToo Movement. The Yale Law Journal Forum, 128, 105–120. https://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/what-about-ustoo

32.

Page

Arcy

(2020). #Metoo and the politics of collective healing: Emotional connection as contestation. Communication, Culture, and Critique, 13(3), 333–348. https://doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcz032

33.

Piacenza

(2018). A year into #MeToo, public worried about false allegations. Morning Consult. https://morningconsult.com/2018/10/11/a-year-into-metoo-public-worried-about-false-allegations/

34.

Ray

Brown

Fraistat

Summers

(2017). Ferguson and the death of Michael Brown on Twitter: #BlackLivesMatter, #TCOT, and the evolution of collective identities. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 40(11), 1797–1813. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2017.1335422

35.

Rodino-Colocino

(2018). Me Too, #MeToo: Countering cruelty with empathy. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 15(1), 96–100. https://doi.org/10.1080/14791420.2018.1435083

36.

Schneider

K. T.

Carpenter

N. J.

(2019). Sharing #MeToo on Twitter: Incidents, coping responses, and social reactions. Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion, 39(1), 87–100. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-09-2018-0161

37.

Small

T. A.

(2011). What The Hashtag? A content analysis of Canadian politics on Twitter. Information, Communication & Society, 14(6), 872–895. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2011.554572

38.

Smith

S. G.

Zhang

Basile

K. C.

Merrick

M. T.

Wang

Kresnow

Chen

(2018). The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 2015 data brief – updated release. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

39.

Tambe

(2018). Reckoning with the silences of #MeToo. Feminist Studies, 44(1), 197–203. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.15767/feministstudies.44.1.0197.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A29b5e545264ae7bf50f3b9b1cd565465https://doi.org/10.1353/fem.2018.0019

40.

Washington Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs (WCSAP). History of the movement . https://www.wcsap.org/advocacy/program-management/new-directors/history/history-movement

41.

Weiser

D. A.

(2017). Confronting myths about sexual assault: A feminist analysis of the false report literature. Family Relations, 66(1), 46–60. https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12235

42.

Wojcik, S., Hughes, A., & Pew Research Center. (2019). Sizing up Twitter users. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/04/24/sizing-up-twitter-users/

43.

Wolbrecht

(2000). The politics of women’s rights: Parties, positions, and change. Princeton University Press.