#MeToo: Victims of sexual harassment getting trolled, not support by media

News outlets reported on Weinstein and the hundreds of others accused, and a number of television series and films worked #metoo into their storylines.

African American civil rights activist Tarana Burke started the metoo campaign in 2006 as a way to support sexual abuse survivors, specifically black women and women of colour. But when it fired its way into the public consciousness to become a popular, global hashtag after the Harvey Weinstein story broke 12 months ago, the media responded.

News outlets reported on Weinstein and the hundreds of others accused, and a number of television series and films worked #metoo into their storylines. These are all positive steps. But while the news media regularly refer to #metoo and pay attention to the fall of many abusive powerful figures, coverage generally continues to politicise sexual abuse and treat it as rare and shocking, rather than as a systemic result of rape culture.

Rape culture refers to normalising sexual abuse through enacting several rape myths such as “accusers lie”, “rape isn’t a big deal”, “it was just an accident”, “it’ll ruin the accused’s life”, and “the victim was asking for it”. Rape culture depends on power structures, which favour the accused and disadvantage survivors – and the media too often uphold rape culture by only rarely challenging rape myths and giving the greatest say to those in power.

Rape myths are particularly present in political reporting because claims and counterclaims are often politicised by both supporting and opposing political figures, and then repeated by journalists trying to tell “both sides” of the story. During coverage of the Access Hollywood tape, which revealed Donald Trump admitting to sexually assaulting women, for example, Trump was quoted in the media far more than any of his accusers, even though his defence appeared to be merely discrediting and insulting anyone who came forward with an allegation. What’s more, only a small portion of the coverage addressed the systemic problem of sexual abuse and why it happens.

Anita Hill and Blasey Ford

Many publications have changed for the better how they speak about sexual abuse in the last few years, perhaps in part thanks to #metoo. But some too often ultimately feed into, rather than disrupt, rape culture. During the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court hearing in 1991, for example, Republican Senator Orrin Hatch used the news media to say Anita Hill had lied when she accused Thomas of workplace sexual harassment.

Responding to Christine Blasey Ford’s account of assault and attempted rape during the recent Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearing, Republicans were careful not to call Blasey Ford a liar. Hatch instead called Ford an “attractive” witness.

Republican Senator Susan Collins, meanwhile, stated that she believed Ford, but that she had confused Kavanaugh with someone else... Read More

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