The Collective Power of #MeToo

When the New York Times ran a story about Harvey last year, no one knew what it would start. Now, it feels like a sea change in feminism has come, from a rippling of anger that spread from woman to woman for a thousand reasons that are at once individual and ubiquitous. While #MeToo feels spontaneous, the present moment is built on the work of longtime organizers. Organizing starts with people talking about the conditions of their lives, realizing that they are common, and that they want them to change. This made #MeToo a movement not just about Hollywood, or the worst of the worst, or even just about the workplace. It is a rejection of a core piece of patriarchal power—and the beginnings of imagining what a society without that power looks like. Sarah Jaffe explores the development of #MeToo, sexual assault's links with class hierarchies, and the possibility of justice by demanding reparations.