At the beginning of the semester, my paper was more focused on gendered differences in policing of protests. However, my paper topic has switched to focusing on conducting a comparative analysis on women in the workplace in the United States and Sweden, how gendered workplace mistreatment affects women’s health, and the cultural receptivity of the U.S. and Sweden of the #MeToo movement. There will be three articles I will discuss within the next three substantive blog posts, with the first being Stubbs-Richardson et. al’s (2023) work on conducting a content analysis on social media around #MeToo in the U.S., China, and Sweden.
Stubbs-Richardson et. al (2023) discuss #metoo on a global scale, #metoo in the U.S., China, and Sweden, and digital feminist activism. The paper then discusses their study, methods, data, and findings. On a global scale, #MeToo blossomed in 2017-2018, though it was coined by Tarana Burke in 2006, using the phrase to help other sexual assault survivors know they weren’t alone. One big push that caused #MeToo to sweep across the world and the internet is Alyssa Milano posting on Twitter about her experience as an actress, and asking others to speak out about their experiences as well. However, as the authors explain, #MeToo is affected by cultural receptivity, with some countries allowing more or less people to speak out about their experiences and deeming it important, worthy, or appropriate.
This leads to Stubbs-Richardson et. al (2023) to introduce the U.S., China, and Sweden into their content analysis. #MeToo came from the U.S., with a focus on sexual abuse allegations of famous/wealthy people like Harvey Weinstein and Donald Trump. However, the authors contest that #MeToo gained traction and had its original foundation from previous anti-sexual violence movements in the U.S., ranging back to African American women fighting against sexual violence in slavery and segregation to the updated definition of rape in 2012.
Stubbs-Richardson et. al (2023) talk about how in China, #MeToo faced many challenges, with most being due to China’s decreased cultural receptivity to feminism and activism. China is not only uber-traditional, but the state actively censors its citizens, and anything denoted as “Western” (like protesting against sexual violence). However, women in China have spoken out anyway, with the beginning of China’s #MeToo occurring in 2018 after Luo Quinqian posted about her experience of sexual violence. One of the ways women combatted censorship – trying to avoid having their posts taken down by the Chinese government – was to use the alternative #MiTu, which translates to “rice bunny”.
Lastly, Stubbs-Richardson et. al (2023) provides a brief background on #MeToo in Sweden. They discuss how Sweden has increased cultural receptivity towards feminism and activism and has increased regulations to help ensure gender equality like paid parental leave. When #MeToo came about in Sweden, there was this feeling across the board that change needed to occur rapidly to address these issues, and many public figures contributed to the movement. There was a large amount of activism, with thousands of petitions shared across all social media. Additionally, there was almost no negativity found in news articles on the movement in Sweden, and Sweden passed the consent law in 2018.
Stubbs-Richardson et. al (2023) gathered #MeToo data from a multitude of global social media sites, and ended up coding through almost 3,000 documents based on their country, famous person involved (like Trump), social change, and the type of sexual violence. They found that: most of the documents said social change occurred from the #MeToo movement and most of it was legally or criminally based; the U.S. saw more social change than China or Sweden; and differences in word popularity based on the word clouds they created. In the U.S. the most popular words were women, sexual, and Trump. In China, the perpetrators’ names surpassed the victims’ names, but it was reversed in Sweden.
This article is extremely helpful to my analysis comparing the #MeToo movement in the United States and Sweden and the differences in their cultural receptivity towards the movement. As one of the largest reasons of why I chose to compare the U.S. to Sweden was due to their seemingly oppositional political stances – especially on gender equality and worker’s rights – this study not only confirms their differences, but showcases that while Sweden seems highly progressive, there are still many issues that need to be adequately and appropriately addressed. This study showcased that while the movement started out in the U.S., it is still surprising the amount of social change that people attribute to the movement within the U.S. Conversely, Sweden’s laws of not allowing to mention perpetrators’ names – and how the court treated the victims – allows for a victim-blaming culture to thrive, with focus remaining on victims’ names and actions rather than the perpetrator.
Written by: Lily Philbrook