Starkey et. al (2019) conduct this study to figure out how “silence breakers” occur in media in different nations – the United States, Japan, Australia, and India – and what other frames are used in regards to silence breakers. Silence breakers is a term that came from a Time Magazine issue, talking about those who have stepped up and spoken up about sexual violence and #MeToo experiences. Although this study includes a cross-national analysis, I will be mostly focusing on Starkey et. al’s (2019) analysis on the United States for this semester paper which focuses on comparing the United States and Sweden.
Starkey et. al (2019) introduces Hofstede Insights Country Comparison, which explores certain cultural factors that can affect cultural receptivity of the #MeToo movement. These factors include power distance, individualism, and masculinity. Power distance is defined as how little or much a society aligns with the concept that people have different levels of power and privilege, leading to inequality within the society. Individualism is defined as how little or much the people in a society value individual priorities over societal priorities. Masculinity is defined as how strong and inherent gender socialization is within societies; how stoic and strong men should be and how motherly and gentle women should be. The United States scored lower than the other countries when it came to power distance, had the highest score in individualism, and scored second highest in masculinity. This indicates that the United States does not recognize power differences and inequality as much as other countries, highly values individualism and heroism, and buys into gender norms and expectations heavily. This relates to Starkey et. al’s (2019) analysis because as reluctance to inequality, neoliberalism, and gender norms increases, so does the likelihood that media will be hesitant to accept #MeToo silence breakers and portray the movement as a surprise and cautionary tale, rather than a social issue and fact.
In addition to this, Starkey et. al (2019) talk about a study by Wallin, where they found that newspapers in the United States regarded the #MeToo movement as a “surprise movement”, whereas Swedish newspapers recognized #MeToo as a movement calling out long-standing societal issues.
Starkey et. al (2019) used news stories from 2017-2018 to code four different media frames, which included: the brave silence breaker, the stoic victim, the reluctant hero, and the hysterical slut. For the U.S. specifically, the authors examine these frames in the case of Susan Fowler, who spoke up about the sexual abuse she faced as an employee at Uber, and found that while each frame was present, Fowler was labeled a whistle-blower by the media. They also found that due to the nature of power distance, individualism, and masculinity outlined above in the U.S., it would lead Fowler to being more likely to speak up about her experiences, but that she still faced backlash and was silenced when she first spoke up.
This article is important and relevant to my paper because it provides a large insight into how cultural aspects like measures of power distance, individualism, and masculinity within a culture can affect its receptivity of movements. More specifically, the authors showcased that the neoliberal, misogynistic, patriarchal, and capitalistic nature of American culture and media played into how silence breakers and the overall #MeToo movement was received by the U.S.
Written by: Lily Philbrook