Rights, wrongs and revolution: #MeToo still raging against the patriarchy

The cultural revolution of #MeToo is not just about sexual violence. At its heart, this is an accountability movement, one that dares to ask men the ugly question: what will it take for your kind to stop coercing, harassing, raping, and killing women? Of power, it demands: what will it take for you to stop protecting the men who perpetrate this? It is taking aim at patriarchy’s most sacred compact: the keeping of men’s secrets.

Consciousness-raising movements have for 50 years revealed the ubiquity of sexual harassment and violence. Since the rise of social media in the early 2010s, there have been viral hashtags like #YesAllWomen and #WhyIStayed. Traditionally, such movements have been focused on raising the consciousness of women, but #MeToo which went viral in October 2017 has taken it a step further: it has made men sit up and take notice.

The Sydney March 4 Justice rally on March 15.Credit: Brook Mitchell

That’s because, this time, women aren’t just sharing what happened to them – they’re pointing the finger. It’s not just I was raped, but he is the one who raped me – and they are the ones who protected him. To leaders like Scott Morrison, the message is clear: passionate speeches will not appease us: political spin has no power against the rage unleashed by #MeToo. We see you. This approach seems to have set off an alarm bell in the amygdala of men worldwide: holy shit, this time they’re coming for us.

For as long as we’ve been talking about sexual violence and domestic abuse, the men who perpetrate it have been largely invisible. Terms like “violence against women” and “women’s safety” remove the perpetrator from view and foreground the victim, where she becomes the subject to interrogate: What was she wearing? Did she do something to provoke him? Why did she go back? What is she doing to keep herself safe? For decades, this polite erasure has quarantined men’s violence against women in the zone of “women’s issues”.

Secrets revealed

In Australia, a disturbing trend emerged in the 12 months following #MeToo: most of the women whose stories went public did not give their consent.

Eryn Jean Norvill, as we’ve seen, made her complaint internally, never wanted it to be published, but then felt obliged to join a high-stakes defamation trial from Geoffrey Rush against Nationwide News that lasted months and threatened to derail her career (Rush in July 2020, was awarded $2.9 million in damages). Then there was Catherine Marriott, the rural advocate and businesswoman who, after agonising over the decision for two years, finally worked up the courage to report Barnaby Joyce to the West Australian branch of the National Party for sexual misconduct; her complaint was also leaked to the press, presumably by Joyce’s political enemies.

Then came Ashleigh Raper, the ABC journalist who reported the then leader of the NSW Labor Party, Luke Foley, for putting his hand inside her underpants at a Christmas party; her allegation was revealed under parliamentary privilege by one of Foley’s political rivals, the then corrections minister, Liberal MP David Elliott. Unlike #MeToo stories in the US, which were often characterised by careful reporting, many of Australia’s most high-profile #MeToo stories represented yet another violation of the woman’s consent.

The price these women paid for being named was profound. Marriott said that having her name leaked was “one of the most frightening things you will ever have to live through ... you finally find the courage within yourself to stand up for what you believe in and then all control is taken away”.

Joyce denied the allegations, and an internal National Party inquiry into them was “inconclusive”.

Even after Foley called Raper to apologise for being a “drunk idiot,” he subsequently denied the allegations, and announced he was suing her for defamation (before dropping his claim a few weeks later).

Raper had kept quiet because she feared both losing her position as a state political reporter and the negative impact the publicity would have on her and her young family. “This impact is now being felt profoundly,” she said in a statement. “Situations like mine should not be discussed in parliament for the sake of political point-scoring.”

#MeToo may have shifted the world on its axis, but in Australia many of the old rules remained intact. Yes, the media now had an appetite for outing high-profile predators, and yes, their female accusers were increasingly being given the benefit of the doubt. But a forcefield of resistance still ringed the old boys’ clubs, and their willingness to exact archaic forms of public retribution went largely unchecked. Any woman with the gall to reveal one of their secrets would be reminded that exposing a powerful “mate” would still cost her a pound of her flesh.

The reckoning

On a summer’s night in Canberra, Grace Tame was named the 2021 Australian of the Year for catalysing Nina Funnell’s #LetHerSpeak campaign. Taking the stage next to the prime minister, Tame was electric. “I remember him [Nicolaas Bester, her abuser] saying, don’t tell anybody. I remember him saying, don’t make a sound. Well, hear me now, using my voice amongst a growing chorus of voices that will not be silenced. Let’s make some noise, Australia!”

As Tame finished her speech, standing in front of the country’s media, Morrison leaned over and said in her ear, “Well, gee, I bet it felt good to get that out.”

2021 Australian of the Year Grace Tame and Prime Minister Scott Morrison during the ceremony in January. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

When young Canberra staffer Brittany Higgins saw Morrison onstage with Tame that night, she felt sick. “He’s standing next to a woman who has campaigned for ‘Let Her Speak’ and yet in my mind his government was complicit in silencing me. It was a betrayal. It was a lie.” She quit her job as a media adviser and prepared to go public with her own allegations of being raped by a colleague inside an office in Parliament House in 2019.

By March 2021, these women – Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins – would trigger a resurgent #MeToo movement in Australia, and a citizen-led insurgency against the Morrison government.

Has anything really changed?

As I was finishing this essay, employment lawyer Josh Bornstein from Maurice Blackburn, who had acted in some of the country’s highest-profile sexual harassment cases, sent me a single-line email: “What do you reckon? Are we winning?”

I think, unequivocally, #MeToo has changed Australia. In one industry after the next, the reckoning has gathered force: just this year, we’ve seen it arrive in the music industry, with some of Australia’s most senior and previously untouchable music industry figures, Sony Music’s Tony Glover and, most remarkably, industry legend Denis Handlin, sacked for bullying and harassment. The mining industry, too, has taken the first steps towards addressing sexual harassment, bullying and rape – admitting that it actually has a problem.

This reckoning is not just changing internal cultures within certain industries; it is changing the way certain industries influence our culture at large. It’s no coincidence that, here and overseas, #MeToo landed so powerfully in two fields: entertainment and the judiciary. They were spotlighted not simply because we give priority to the trauma of privileged women (though of course we do), but because predatory attitudes in Hollywood and the law affect all of us.

These are two of the most influential parts of our culture: one establishes dominant cultural narratives and the other decides what is socially permissible. In fact, I’d argue that the focus on these industries was not driven so much by a concern for the women affected, but more for the integrity of the institutions they worked for. There’s no doubt that more focus needs to be put on predatory men in less glamorous industries – in every industry – and that the safety of all women must be our priority. However, we shouldn’t understate the importance of exposing predatory male behaviour in these areas – particularly the Australian judicial system.

In 2020, an independent inquiry by the High Court found that its former Justice Dyson Heydon, one of the nation’s pre-eminent legal minds, sexually harassed six young female associates.

Brittany Higgins speaks at the March 4 Justice protest to rally against the Australian Parliament’s ongoing abuse and discrimination of women in Australia at Parliament House in Canberra on March 15.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

With this inquiry, #MeToo has given us a shot at finally putting the broom through institutions that have systematically disbelieved and victim-blamed women and children for centuries. These predatory men – and those committed to protecting them – in some cases are presiding over matters of domestic and sexual violence, as well as sexual harassment. They decide whether a story is plausible or whether it meets the test of “reasonable doubt”.

The stark truth that now faces all of us is that there could be a percentage of the men who disbelieve and dismiss victims in their courtrooms who may be engaging in predatory behaviour themselves.

We have to assess #MeToo from this higher vantage point: instead of staying at ground level and focusing on each high-profile predator and his victims, we need to zoom out to see how exposing that predatory behaviour may catalyse cultural change that will, in fact, benefit all of us.

But #MeToo’s ability to sustain itself will depend on the nous of its exponents. Change will not happen simply because it should or because it’s worthy. The work cannot be pushed through with blunt force; it has to be strategic. There are few shrewder minds in this area than Nina Funnell, whose #LetHerSpeak campaign was, in many ways, the most organised and tactical #MeToo movement in Australia. Survivor-led, with a clear objective to change laws and to educate, #LetHerSpeak was not, however, packaged as a movement against sexual violence.

Nina Funnell, whose #LetHerSpeak campaign was, in many ways, the most organised and tactical #MeToo movement in Australia.Credit: James Brickwood

“The reason it worked, and caught fire the way it did, is because I was repackaging the issue of sexual assault and framing it through a freedom-of- speech lens. Which meant that conservatives, who ordinarily would resist any kind of messaging around violence against women, were suddenly being engaged as well,” Funnell says.

Funnell did not just expect this audience to eat their vegetables – she cooked the meal in a way that would appeal to them. “If you go and look at all of the articles I did with people once they got their court orders, in all of them, I’m usually unpacking other issues around sexual violence, like victim-blaming attitudes, rape myths, the best ways of responding to disclosure, sexual assault within regional communities.”

On this strategic front, it may have been a blessing in disguise that #MeToo claimed fewer high-profile scalps in Australia than the US. We are, as The New York Times described us, “a secretive, proudly masculine culture” which “shrouds law enforcement and the courts in unusual secrecy, particularly in cases of sexual and family violence”.

Defamation laws are a symptom of this secretive culture: one in which perpetrators of sexual violence are protected not only by power and the justice system, but by their “mates”.

I think that if we had seen dozens of well-loved national figures exposed as sexual predators, the backlash may have been so severe, and the level of change so threatening, that it may have extinguished the movement altogether. “I don’t think we had the community readiness for something like that to happen,” Funnell agrees.

Besides, although it’s important to hold powerful men accountable, outing them one-by-one is not the end game. High-profile scalps are the “sizzle” – like the cutting-edge outfits you put in a fashion store window. One of those outfits might sell, but its primary purpose is to get customers into the shop so they will buy the basic T-shirts hanging on the racks.

Now, don’t get me wrong: high-profile scalps are the backbone of #MeToo. Taken properly, they can bring renewed energy to the movement, trigger wake-up calls in industries and, importantly, expose dangerous predators and stop them abusing with impunity. But, as journalist and author Susan Faludi explains, we cannot get too fixated on individuals.

“Fighting the patriarch and fighting the patriarchy are also distinct – and the former tends to be more popular than the latter. It’s easier to mobilise against a demon, as every military propagandist – and populist demagogue – knows. It’s harder, and less electrifying, to forge the terms of peace. Declaring war is thrilling. Nation-building isn’t.”

Protesters at the March 4 Justice rally in Melbourne inspecting a list of more than 800 names of women and children killed through domestic violence since 2008.Credit: Justin McManus

My sense is that while we may not be winning all the battles – and we’re suffering badly in some – we are winning the war. But this is not a war with a clear end in sight. A century from now, women will be holding signs – just as they did at the March 4 Justice – that say, “I can’t believe we’re still protesting this shit”.

The job will never be done. Social change is a long game of snakes and ladders – you go forwards, you go backwards, but most importantly you keep playing. I think our collective consciousness is as high as it’s ever been on issues of gender, race and democracy. The question that #MeToo is raising is a deeply human question about power and violence, and how societies manage that. The battle to keep that question in the public mind is unceasing. There is no utopia waiting for us. We make the gains while we can, we celebrate the advances, and then we get back to work.

This is an edited extract of the Quarterly Essay, The Reckoning: How #MeToo is changing Australia by Jess Hill, award-winning journalist and author of See What You Made Me Do, to be published on November 29.