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#MeToo, Weinstein and Feminism pp 101–126Cite as

Men in the #MeToo Era

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Abstract

Whilst #MeToo and Me Too have centred victim/survivors, what the contemporary moment means for men is a recurring concern. This chapter investigates the position of men in the #MeToo era, focusing first on men as victim/survivors of sexual abuse, including of female perpetrators, before moving on to consider how alleged perpetrators are situated in relation to narratives of victimisation (with a focus on #HimToo and the Kavanaugh hearings) and of monstrosity. Whilst feminist critics have been interested in the connections between “aberrant” and “normal” male behaviour, this chapter demonstrates the enduring appeal of distinction and individualism in understanding male violence. The conclusion connects this with the wider arguments of the book, asserting the importance of understanding #MeToo historically and contextually.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Crews later named his assailant as agent Adam Venit (Zacharek et al. 2017).

  2. 2.

    Our paper, #HimToo and the networking of misogyny in the age of #MeToo, identifies two key moments in the life of the #HimToo hashtag: the Kavanaugh-supportive engagement which surrounded the hearings, and the satirical, critical use of the hashtag which dominated following his confirmation. By the end of October, we found the hashtag had largely died out. Our paper maps the life of the hashtag (using a data set of 277,856 #HimToo tweets) using both social network analysis (to understand actor centrality and connectivity) combined with a qualitative analysis of the tweets themselves (to understand how it engaged with #MeToo and the Kavanaugh case). In this chapter, I am primarily concerned with the himpathetic Kavanaugh-supportive engagement and my analysis draws on the 112,169 tweets we gathered from 25 September to 5 October 2017.

  3. 3.

    I am grateful to Melody House for this observation.

  4. 4.

    Intersectionality Matters (podcast): Episode 4 – The anatomy of an apology, 7 June 2019. https://soundcloud.com/intersectionality-matters/ep-4-the-anatomy-of-an-apology. Accessed 8 June 2019.

  5. 5.

    Weinstein CNN interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVUMeLsvzjw. Accessed 6 June 2019.

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  1. School of Humanities, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK

    Karen Boyle

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  1. Karen Boyle
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Correspondence to Karen Boyle .

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Boyle, K. (2019). Men in the #MeToo Era. In: #MeToo, Weinstein and Feminism. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28243-1_5

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