There's a trial going on that, under normal circumstances, would be hogging the headlines and scoring the soundbites. But for the trial of a president, Harvey Weinstein’s long overdue day in the spotlight would be all we could see.
The story that broke the allegations of rape and sexual assault against Harvey Weinstein snowballed into something unexpected ten days later on Sunday October 15 when Alyssa Milano tweeted out: “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet. Me too. Suggested by a friend: “if all the women who have been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too.’ as a status, we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.”
The sheer volume of the resulting outpouring of grief and anger could not be ignored by the media with sites like CNN and the New York Times reporting that #MeToo had been tweeted more the half a million times in the first twenty-four hours. The massive show of support and bearing witness was also an attempt to communicate with a wider audience, number seven of Gene Sharps’ methods of nonviolent action: slogans, caricatures, and symbols[2]. A little over two years later and the repercussions of the Me Too Movement continue to reverberate. And Harvey Weinstein is on trial.
If Weinstein thought women might have forgotten his actions in the intervening time and he’d be allowed sneak into the courtroom quietly and unnoticed, he was wrong.
On Friday, January 10, 2020, a large group of women gathered at the courthouse and performed "Un Violador en tu Camino," (translates to "A Rapist in Your Path”).[3] Clothed in black and simple red hats, scarves, or earrings the women's overall visual impact was cohesive and monolithic. A closer look revealed every woman also wore a simple black mesh blindfold [4] a beautiful subversion of Lady Justice’s blindfold and the notion the justice is objective.
The protest performance arose in November in Chile as a protest against the policies that prevent so many women from reporting and receiving justice. Follow-up protests have since spread around the world with the most recent performance of it outside the UN’s Regional conference in Santiago, on January 28.
There is something striking and lonely and haunting about a single acapella voice rising in song. But when other voices join in, in harmony, in concert…
It becomes something else altogether.
Methods of Nonviolent Action employed:
[1] The phrase ‘Me too’ was coined by social activist and organizer Tarana Burke in 2006
[2] NVA #7: Slogans, caricatures, and symbols
[3] NVA #36: Performances of plays and music.
[4] NVA #19: Wearing of Symbols
Additional resources:
LASTESIS
Me Too
Harvey Weinstein timeline
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