What remains of the #MeToo movement, five years after its appearance in the United States? “That’s a great question!“, he smiles Sophie Sandberg, a New Yorker who, in 2017, had just founded “The cat calls “ against street harassment. This activist has experienced the flood of testimonies from women in the foreground, in reaction to the revelations about the American producer Harvey Weinstein.
At that moment the young woman’s association took off, driven by the voices of women on social networks. “For me it was great, it drew attention to my action. But this great awareness was not accompanied by attention to the deeper problem“, impatient Sophie Sandberg. The conclusion is, according to her, the same:We still have so many reports of harassment and so many people face them on a daily basis …“
He adds that the movement will have shot down the untouchable Harvey Weinstein anyway. But if the former all-powerful American film producer is now in prison, he has appealed. The #MeToo hashtag touched other media figures, such as former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, forced to resign, or R’n’B star R. Kelly, who is serving 30 years in prison.
Scandals that caused a sensation, but on the merits, then, did things go on? Sophie Sandberg then confesses “frustrated “.
“There have been consequences for the people in power, but that won’t stop the attacker around the corner from harassing a young girl.”
Sophie Sandberg, feminist activist in New York
Info France
“We haven’t gone far enough. ” continues Sophie Sandberg, who therefore believes that there is still a long way to go: “We need to focus on those who were left out of that wave, on what didn’t work, and start from there. ” believes the young woman, who adds that the image is not completely black.
Because the legacy of #MeToo can also occur in the legislative framework of 22 states. There, laws were passed aimed, for example, at making workplaces safer. Some have extended the statute of limitations for sexual harassment complaints, others now ban non-disclosure agreements for financial deals with victims. Companies have also introduced tougher sexual harassment policies and new training.
At the same time, the movement made a part of the population react, sometimes violently, attached to a patriarchal vision of society. “Many men were shocked to see the rules change. They say that the movement, that feminism has gone too far. And Donald Trump is just one example.“, to describe Sophie Sandberg.
More recently, some consider the #MeToo wave even dead after the highly publicized libel lawsuit between actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard last spring. The social media and then the jury then decided in favor of the star of Pirates of the CaribbeanS. Sophie Sandberg continues to write with chalk on the asphalt of New York, the “The cat calls“, these obscenities he hears on the street. His movement has nearly a thousand activists, in fifty countries.
#MeToo: five years later, the testimony of Sophie Sandberg, founder of “Cat Calls”
