Breaking the silence on sexual harassment and assault: An analysis of #MeToo tweets

Highlights

• 10,546 #MeToo hashtag tweets were analysed using conventional content analysis.

• Users self-disclosed, called out poor behaviour, and shared messages of support.

• Most disclosures related to sexual assault followed by sexual harassment.

• Disclosed events occurred in childhood and in educational and workplace environments.

Abstract

This study, using conventional content analysis, examined a corpus of #MeToo tweets from the first day the hashtag went viral, October 16th 2017. Of the 10,546 #MeToo tweets collected, three major categories were identified: these included #MeToo Facilitated Self-Disclosure, Messages of Support, and Calling Out Poor Behaviour with 5,243, 1,556, and 1207 tweets, respectively. The majority of disclosure tweets detailed experiences of sexual assault (44%) and experiences that occurred during childhood (29.4%). The results of this study offer valuable insights regarding the information users chose to share during the first day of the #MeToo movement and the nature of sexual harassment and assault experienced by these individuals. This information may be used by policymakers to identify and implement means to reduce the prevalence of sexual harassment and assault.

Introduction

Around the world, sexual harassment and assault remain pervasive problems affecting people of all genders, with women typically affected at high rates. In the United States of America (USA), 43.6% of women have experienced some form of sexual assault (Smith et al., 2018), and 77% of women have experienced verbal sexual harassment (Kearl, 2018). In Australia, 53% of women have experienced sexual harassment (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2017) and 82% of the 23,052 cases of sexual assault reported to police in 2016 involved a female victim (ABS, 2018). While worldwide, one in three women will experience physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner or sexual violence by a non-partner (World Health Organisation [WHO], 2013). Additionally, those who identify as LGBTQIA + are at a greater risk of experiencing sexual assault compared to cisgender, straight men (Coulter et al., 2017; Ford & Soto-Marquez, 2016; Gurung et al., 2017). Men are also not immune to sexual harassment and assault, with recent research reporting 3.2%–28.7% of college-aged American men (Forsman, 2017) and 27.5% of those within in a fraternity experience sexual assault victimisation (Luetke, Giroux, Herbenick, Ludema, & Rosenberg, 2020). While in a review of large population studies, 3%–7% of men were found to have experienced sexual assault (Bullock & Beckson, 2011).

Research from the last two decades has shown that experiencing sexual harassment can adversely affect individuals' physical and mental health resulting in nausea, sleeplessness, loss of self-esteem, psychological distress, depression, anxiety, and eating disorders (Barak, 2005). Similarly, sexual harassment in the workplace early in one's career can lead to depressive symptoms lasting as long as a decade after the harassment (Houle, Staff, Mortimer, Uggen, & Blackstone, 2011). Additionally, workplace sexual harassment can lead to adverse work outcomes, including reduced job satisfaction, increased absenteeism, work withdrawal, and deteriorating relationships with colleagues (McLaughlin, Uggen, & Blackstone, 2017).

However, despite their prevalence, sexual harassment and assault are rarely reported to authorities. One study found that only 15.8% of women's most recent (or only) rape experiences were reported to the police and that rates of reporting have not significantly increased since the 1990s (Wolitzky-Taylor, Resnick, McCauley, et al., 2011). Similarly, men have also been found to under-report sexual assault (Bullock & Beckson, 2011).

Several factors appear to impact reporting behaviour. Many survivors of assault and rape experience ‘second victimisation’ during the investigation, a term used to describe the upsetting and degrading way some are treated by law enforcement and the court system (Patterson, 2010). A high level of case attrition and low levels of conviction can also play a role in the lack of reporting (Brooks & Burman, 2017). Additionally, research has shown that being raped by a stranger and sustaining injuries have both been linked to a higher likelihood of reporting while being under the influence of drugs or alcohol and knowing/being in a relationship with the perpetrator decreases the likelihood of reporting (Wolitzky-Taylor, Resnick, Amstadter, et al., 2011). Researchers have theorised that this could be a result of societal stereotypes around rape regarding the circumstances when one can be considered a rape victim (Wolitzky-Taylor, 2011b). Such theories suggest that when an individual predicts that they will be less likely to be perceived as a “proper rape victim”, they may be less likely to report their experiences to avoid victim-blaming (Wolitzky-Taylor, 2011b). Also, men are often reluctant to report sexual assault due to concerns about their sexuality being questioned (Forsman, 2017). These factors, along with a societal tendency to silence women and marginalised groups, further add to under-reporting.

With the advent of the Internet and later social media, women and other previously silenced groups now have a platform to express their views and publicise their experience of the world (Megarry, 2014). Social media platforms offer women a place where they can communicate, form communities, engage in consciousness-raising, disrupt the male gaze, and call out instances of injustice and misogyny (Baer, 2016). These platforms offer “great potential for broadly disseminating feminist ideas, shaping new modes of discourse about gender and sexism, connecting to different constituencies, and allowing creative modes of protest to emerge” (Baer, 2016, p. 18). However, while social media has great potential for women and marginalised groups, it can also be a platform for hate speech, and expose people to harassment and abuse such as insults, name-calling, humiliation, death threats, and doxing from both people known and unknown to them (Mendes, Ringrose, & Keller, 2019; Rezvan et al., 2018, 2020). Additionally, female users may receive unsolicited sexually obscene and pornographic messages and sexual solicitation which has adversely impacted their physical and emotional wellbeing (Burke Winkelman, Oomen-Early, Walker, Chu, & Yick-Flanagan, 2015).

Cultural factors can also limit the effectiveness of social media platforms to facilitate social change. Research has shown there is a large gender gap in South Asian countries regarding online participation; for example, only 24% of Facebook users in India are women (Jain, 2016). Lower participation rates are said to result from women dealing with online abuse, including cyberstalking, impersonation, and personal content leakages (Sambasivan et al., 2019). Thus, inequalities in online spaces limit marginalised individuals’ use social media platforms for social change.

Despite the potential for positive and negative experiences on social media, social media platforms have given rise to a form of protest labelled “hashtag feminism”, referring to the way feminists can utilise the hashtag function on Twitter to produce conversation among different users (Mendes et al., 2019). Some researchers have labelled hashtag feminism as the “latest iteration in a long history of feminist conversation-expansion tactics that politicize personal experiences with all forms of patriarchy, including media” (Clark, 2014, p. 1109). Previous examples of hashtag feminism include #YouOkSis, #YesAllWomen, and #RapeCultureIsWhen, which were all used to call out the hostility, misogyny, and sexism surrounding rape culture, sexual harassment, and everyday sexism (Mendes et al., 2019). These hashtags provide a voice to marginalised groups and often contain a call to action encouraging individuals and society to take immediate action or form in opposition to mainstream media (Yang, 2016).

While being a potentially powerful tool for social action, hashtag feminism also has its problems. Some users engage in trolling, an interpersonal, antisocial behaviour that occurs online and can include posting malicious comments to provoke or upset others (Craker & March 2016). Trolling is common among feminist spaces and can disrupt the goals of feminist activism, leading to wasted time and arguments unrelated to finding a solution (Dixon, 2014). Also, in the area of sexual harassment and assault, if a topic is trending on Twitter, there can be a tendency to use proper names in hashtags threatening the privacy of victims (Losh, 2014).

Due to the popularity of hashtag feminism, researchers have begun examining the content of the tweets posted using activism hashtags. Maas, McCauley, Bonomi, and Leija (2018) analysed a collection of tweets using the hashtag #NotOkay, which was a response to then-presidential candidate Donald Trump's infamous quote in which he talked about grabbing women by their genitals. The main themes identified in their research were the acknowledgement and condemnation of rape culture, questioning Trump as a presidential candidate and the national discourse surrounding sexual assault as a result of his candidature, and urging men and boys to step up and help end violence against women (Maas et al., 2018). In Turkey, following the attempted rape and subsequent murder of 20-year-old university student Ozgecan Aslan, women across the country began using the hashtag #sendeanlat (#tellyourstory) to talk about their experiences of being a woman (Ikizer, Ramirez-Esparza, & Boyd, 2018). In analysing the #sendeanlat hashtag, Ikizer et al. (2018) reported five main themes: reactions to victim-blaming, discussing honour culture, experiences of assault, social media, and women's role in rape.

A recent example of hashtag feminism on a large scale, the focus of the current study, is the #MeToo movement. On October 5th 2017, The New York Times published an article detailing the alleged sexual harassment of actress Ashley Judd and several other women at the hands of Harvey Weinstein. This article sparked a wave of support for Judd, with many women coming forward to share their tales of harassment (Kantor & Twohey, 2017). Eleven days after the New York Times article, on October 16th^, 2017, actress Alyssa Milano sent out a Tweet urging women around the world to use the hashtag #MeToo if they had ever experienced sexual harassment or abuse. While Alyssa Milano popularised #MeToo, it was activist Tarana Burke who originally developed the hashtag in 2005 to act as a “bat signal” for women (specifically for women of colour) who had survived sexual assault to feel that they were not alone (Brockes, 2018). Following the Harvey Weinstein scandal, Alyssa Milano used the hashtag and expanded its purpose by asking women around the world to use it to demonstrate the pervasive nature of sexual harassment and assault.

In the first 24 hours after Alyssa Milano's call, the hashtag was used approximately half a million times (France, 2017). Between October 16th 2017 and September 30th 2018, the hashtag #MeToo was used 19 million times and 65% of adult social media users in the USA reported regularly seeing content related to sexual harassment and assault (Anderson & Toor, 2018).

Past research into #MeToo has examined specific messages found within the tweets. Hosterman, Johnson, Stouffer, and Herring (2018) examined the types of supportive tweets posted using the #MeToo hashtag and found that informational support, tweets that provided information about resources to help victims of sexual harassment and abuse, was the most common. Conversely, Bogen, Bleiweiss, Leach, and Orchowski (2019) investigated messages of disclosure during the #MeToo movement and examined them for “who”, “what”, “when, “where”, “why”, and “how” information about experiences of harassment and assault. While these studies have imparted valuable information, they only examined one facet of a massive international phenomenon.

To date, no research has examined the range and frequency of different kinds of tweets shared during the #MeToo movement or the nature of the sexual harassment and assault disclosed by movement participants, particularly what participants deemed important to share on the first day the movement went viral. Such qualitative data is central to understanding how sexual harassment and assault is experienced, what individuals choose to share when given a platform and to guide policy and resources for individuals in need.