Who posted #MeToo, why, and what happened: A mixed methods examination

Abstract

ObjectivesThe #MeToo social media campaign raised awareness about sexual harassment. The purpose of the current study was to address three unexplored research questions. First, what factors influenced whether a person posted #MeToo? Second, how did posting (or not) influence participants' wellbeing? Finally, what motivated participants' posting (or not) #MeToo?MethodThis mixed-methods study explores how #MeToo was experienced by full-time employees (N = 395) who could have posted #MeToo (i.e., experienced a sexual harassment event), whether or not they did so. Participants completed surveys in July of 2018 assessing social media use, sexual harassment history, relational variables such as relative power and social support, and job and life satisfaction. Participants also responded to open-ended survey questions about the context of and decisions about #MeToo posting.ResultsQuantitative results indicated that sexual harassment history was the most powerful predictor of #MeToo posting, while power and interpersonal contact also contributed. Qualitative analyses (N = 74) using a grounded theory approach indicated themes associated with decisions to disclose, including feeling a responsibility to post, need for support, and affective benefits. Decisions not to disclose were event-related negative affect, posting-related negative affect, timing of the event, fit with the #MeToo movement, privacy concerns, and fear of consequences.ConclusionThis study contributes to the literature on sexual harassment disclosure by focusing on informal means of disclosure and drawing on comparisons to formal reporting and implications for workplaces. Online sexual harassment disclosure, in many ways, reflects the impediments to formal reporting procedures. Given the increased use of social media for purposes of disclosure, these findings suggests that organizations should recognize the legitimacy of sexual harassment reports made online and consider the possible failings of their formal reporting systems as reasons for online disclosure.

The Process of Online Disclosures of Interpersonal Victimization: A Systematic Review

“…The approach motivation at the societal level was identified across the reviewed articles, particularly in studies focused on open public platforms where disclosures are non-anonymous. Accordingly, survivors recognized the political power of the online arena to change social structures in favor of gender equity and legally mandated systems to be more effective in addressing interpersonal victimization ( Gueta et al, 2020 ; Fileborn, 2017 ; Masciantonio et al, 2021 ; Naresh et al, 2022 ; O’Neill, 2022 ; Siuta et al, 2023 ). Specifically, survivors sought to challenge social narratives such as hegemonic rape scripts, victim-blaming, and complicated assumptions about consent ( Gueta et al, 2020 ; Gundersen & Zaleski, 2021 ; Loney-Howes, 2018 ; Masciantonio et al, 2021 ; Naresh et al, 2022 ; Yalcinoz-Ucan & Eslen-Ziya, 2023 ).…”

“…This may reflect the prevalence and gendered nature of interpersonal victimization as a form of GBV (Gómez, 2020) and those online campaigns such as #MeToo that were marketed as a women's movement. This indicates the critical facilitating role of gender in online disclosure decision-making processes (Siuta et al, 2023). Alternatively, this may represent cultural aspects of gendered norms that amplified both offline barriers to disclosure and negative reactions to men's online disclosures (Dworkin & Weaver, 2021;Levy & Adam, 2018).…”

“…Articles between 2000 and 2021 were reviewed. Given the proliferation of social media use and the rise in disclosures made online ( Siuta et al, 2023 ), the literature was further supplemented with the most recent publications in a second literature search during May 2023 including publications from 2021 to 2023 and before 2000. For articles to be considered eligible, they were required to meet the following inclusion criteria: (a) studies of the process of online self-disclosure of interpersonal violence inclusive of public or private outlets.…”

“…Furthermore, in two studies some survivors indicated that they had never shared their experiences of abuse before sharing it online (Linabary et al, 2020;Moors & Webber, 2013), with some getting advice from therapists to disclose online (Barta, 2021). Siuta et al (2023) show that workplace organizational factors may serve as facilitators for online disclosure. Survivors with perpetrators holding more organizational power than themselves were 2.65 times more likely to post using #MeToo than those with perpetrators equal in organizational power.…”

“…Accordingly, 18 out of the 27 reviewed articles were women-only or predominantly women samples, indicating female gender plays an important role in decisions for online disclosure to raise their plight of interpersonal victimization and pursue discursive struggles against patriarchy. For example, Siuta et al's (2023) qualitative findings showed participants felt that men are not "fitting in" with the #MeToo movement; and their quantitative findings revealed that women were twice as likely to post as men. In contrast, in one study (Eckstein, 2021), men reported more preference for and practice of online compared to offline disclosure.…”