Caught in the wave

Abstract

The reception of the international #MeToo movement in Portugal has been complex and controversial. Issues of injustice regarding sexual harassment and sexual violence were always central to feminist organizations in Portugal, but the salience of these issues increased when women started to share their personal stories under #MeToo, the country’s favorite soccer star was accused of rape, and after some polemic court rulings. This paper uses a Black Feminist Thought approach and content analysis of newspaper data, to trace the political process feminist movements engaged in regarding gender-based violence. It also analyzes how #MeToo movement contributed to the visibility and framing of the issues, what collective actions were pursued, and what outcomes were achieved. The fi ndings show that the globalized #MeToo movement has contributed to revitalize the Portuguese feminist movement. New, younger, and more diverse members have joined its ranks, new feminist organizations were created, new frames were applied, and several collective actions organized, mostly in protesting court decisions. This vitality led to a more inclusive and intersectionalactivism, but also to an increasing awareness of sexual harassment and sexual violence as targets of personal, collective, and institutional change.

Our Hero and That Kind of Woman: Imaginaries of Sexuality, Masculinity and Femininity in the Discussion of the Rape Allegation against Cristiano Ronaldo in Portugal

“…Drawing on my previous research about the rape allegation against Cristiano Ronaldo, this study contributes to the scarce bibliography about the repercussions of #MeToo in Portugal (Almeida 2019;Cerqueira et al 2023;Garraio et al 2020Luppi 2021;Magalhães 2021;Prata 2021;Silveirinha et al 2020), more specifically about the role of the rape allegation against Ronaldo in shaping Portuguese subjectivities and perceptions of #MeToo (Garraio et al 2020Silveirinha et al 2020). In that sense, it is a contribution to the under-researched area of sexual violence in Portuguese society and mediascape.…”

“…In 2022 and 2023, debates about sexual harassment and abuse in Portuguese academia gained significant media attention in the context of the Lisbon Faculty of Law and the Center for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra' cases. 3 Despite these late arrivals, the global #MeToo movement had been articulated previously in Portugal on several occasions through different approaches and with different outcomes (Almeida 2019;Cerqueira et al 2023;Garraio et al 2020;Luppi 2021;Magalhães 2021;Prata 2021;Silveirinha et al 2020). Despite the reduced expression of #MeToo in the country, some studies suggest that the media coverage of the initiative contributed to the questioning of power structures and legislation (Almeida 2019) and to the revitalization of Portuguese feminist movements (Prata 2021).…”

– The European Conference on Arts & Humanities 2023: Official Conference Proceedings

“…The first two weeks in October 2022 were marked by an explosion of news articles, commentary, and social media posts commemorating the fifth anniversary of the birth of the #MeToo movement. This hashtag feminist activist movement began in 2017, when American actor Alyssa Milano asked users on Twitter to tweet the phrase "Me Too" if they had ever experienced sexual assault or harassment (Rottenberg, 2019), although black activist Tarana Burke first used the phrase in 2006 (Prata, 2021). As the years went on, the #MeToo movement spread across many countries, adapting to specific women's concerns in specific national and cultural contexts (Ghadery, 2019).…”