2017 broke the silence, 2018 shouts #TimesUp.
In the fall of 2017, millions of women throughout the world took the internet by storm, as they exposed their stories of sexual harassment with the hashtag #MeToo. Then the Time magazine named the movement person of the year.
To celebrate 2018, the Silence Breakers, as the Time called these women, launched another movement: Time’s Up Now. Using the hashtag #TimesUp, a group of 300 influential women in show-business built an organisation that has one goal: end the systematic oppression of women in the workplace.
Time’s Up Now grew out of a necessity: expand #MeToo to include and help women who do not have the privilege of calling out their abuser. Women who had the power to do so set up a space for their less fortunate sisters to fight for justice together.
The organisation is leaderless, run through working groups composed of volunteers. In a way, it resembles recent social movements such as those born in the Arab Spring or Occupy. It also has a fast-growing legal fund set up to help impoverished women fight the legal battles to bring justice to sexual harassers.
Megan Garber explained how Time’s Up Now goes beyond #MeToo in an exceptional piece for The Atlantic. Her analysis of the new hashtag is compelling:
The simple shift in hashtag, #MeToo to #TimesUp, is telling: While the former has, thus far, largely emphasized the personal and the anecdotal, #TimesUp — objective in subject, inclusive of verb, suggestive of action — embraces the political. It attempts to expand the fight against sexual harassment, and the workplace inequality that has allowed it to flourish for so long, beyond the realm of the individual story, the individual reality.
In my piece for Pynx Media on#MeToo, I argued that the movement had been positive on at least two fronts: the patriarchy had lost control of its victims and the conversation. Now, the patriarchy faces a more threatening adversary: united women rising up once more to force change upon what was thought unchangeable.
Does this initiative stand a chance to enact meaningful change? I would argue so for two reasons.
#MeToo had an inherently excluding scope. While many women decided to share their stories of trauma with the world, many more less privileged simply could not do so. Whether these women where in an environment that forbade such expression or if they did not have access to the technology to do so, or more simply could not overcome the trauma they lived and share it with others, they could follow the movement through mainstream media but could not take part in it. Of course, this was not the intention of the movement. In fact, it could be argued that it was not its purpose. Indeed, #MeToo created a conversation on sexual abuse and the oppression of women in the workforce more generally.
Times Up Now, however, created a more inclusive space. First, it is built with the intention to help less privileged women get the help they need to seek justice. Its legal fund contains, at the time of writing, over 16 million dollars donated by over 14,000 people in just nineteen days. The movement has very powerful and talented women that have the skills and knowledge to fight a nation-wide legal battle. Among them are Tina Tchen, Michelle Obama’s ex-Chief of Staff, and Roberta Kaplan, the top-lawyer that took down the so-called Defense of Marriage Act in a landmark victory in United States v. Windsor. The presence of big names to back up the anonymous millions that suffer from misogynistic norms is bound to have a great effect on society, as argued by Dahlia Lithwick in an article for Slate.
Second, Times Up Now also gives the opportunity for men to play a part and help make a change. Men can donate to the legal fund, and powerful men can openly support the movement. Seeing the likes of Daniel Kaluuya, Justin Timberlake, Jude Law, or Seth Meyers all wear the Times Up badge sends a simple message to men out there who believe feminism is only for women: it is not. Men can, and should step up, because it is the right thing to do.
In fact, all the of the eight action points to create change listed on the Time’s Up website actively include men. The very first one clearly addresses itself to the male population. Gentlemen, if you want to help, start by following this rule: “Don’t be part of the problem. For starters, don’t harass anyone.”
This is one new years resolution we should all pledge to take, and hold.
Edited by Cheyenne Abrams.
