It’s has been five years since the #MeToo movement exploded in the US. Although in some countries it found some ground, in other countries like Italy, France and Spain, #MeToo picked up some momentum but fundamentally failed to inspire the same upheaval.
It’s has been five years since the #MeToo movement exploded in the US igniting worldwide conversations about the sexism, sexual harassment and abuse suffered by women across the world.
While in countries like the UK and Sweden the movement found some ground in 2017, in other countries like Italy, France and Spain, #MeToo picked up some momentum but fundamentally failed to inspire the same upheaval.
Let’s look at what has changed in Europe since the start of the movement?
France
In France in 2017, #MeToo became #BalanceTonPorc, which can be translated into the much more radical “out your pig,” an expression coined by New York-based French journalist Sandra Muller. But while the hashtag gained some traction on social media, the French film industry – and French society at large – was reluctant to put itself under the lens of scrutiny inspired by the American #MeToo.
In a now infamous open letter signed, among the others, by actor Catherine Deneuve in January 2018, the French icon and more than 100 French women in the film industry said that the #MeToo movement had become “a witch hunt” and men had the right to hit on women without their flirtiness being taken for predatory behaviour.
Since 2017, France has become a country where sexual harassment is taken significantly more seriously.
In 2019, former secretary of state for gender equality Marlène Schiappa passed a law to punish sexual harassment in the street with fines up to €750, while also cracking down on online abuses. For the first time in France, thanks to Schiappa, catcalling became a criminal offence which women could report to the authorities.
There have also been some symbolic setbacks as well: The case against director Luc Besson, one of the most prominent figures in French cinema to be accused of rape in 2017, was dropped last year.
Spain
This feminist movement really took on in the country after the verdict of the infamous “La Manada” or “Wolf pack” trial of 2018, where the court failed to convict five men for gang-raping a young woman in Pamplona in 2016. As rape wasn’t legally defined in Spanish criminal law, the five men were found guilty of the lesser offence of “sexual abuse.”
The controversial verdict sparked massive protests in Spain and led to the court changing its verdict a year later while also increasing the men’s sentence from nine to 15 years each in prison.
The case led to a permanent, significant change in Spanish law. This year, Spain’s congress passed the “only yes means yes” sexual consent law which says consent cannot be assumed by default or by silence only.
Italy
“#MeToo never really reached Italy,” Italian journalist Jennifer Guerra, author of two books on feminism and gender politics, told Euronews Culture.
Guerra believes as “gender violence is a phenomenon that knows no boundaries,” it is impossible that not a single Italian celebrity was found to have committed major sexual violence or harassment. Guerra rather believes that the movement was greeted with a lot of hostility by the Italian media.
“When cases involving famous or influential people came up, we witnessed actual defamation campaigns trying to discredit those who had reported being victims of violence or harassment,” she said. “Famous and well-respected journalists didn’t have any scruples calling those who denounced sexual violence mythomaniacs or people looking for attention, and always put the reputation of those accused first.”
But Guerra thinks that something has changed in Italy since the explosion of #MeToo, especially among young women.
“We have less tolerance for undesired and harassing behaviour, we have learned how to recognise them and we have a new language to define them,” she said. “Sadly, this growth in awareness from the public hasn’t been followed by an adequate response from the media, the intellectuals and the political class.”
The article is condensed by the SES Equality, Justice, Women Platform. You can read the full article here.