The #MeToo Movement has been one of the largest and fastest-growing movements of the past decade and it is not confined to the United States. Its origin was in 2006 on Myspace when Tarana Burke coined the term “MeToo” to speak out against sexual abuse that she experienced. It only gained widespread popularity in October 2017 when actress Alyssa Milano decided to post to Twitter asking survivors to tweet in solidarity using #MeToo if they had experienced any form of sexual harassment. The response was enormous and those who abuse women and men are being called out online today.
A lesser-known movement in Russia and Ukraine began in 2016, a year before Milano’s tweet. #IAmNotAfraidToSpeak was started by Ukrainian activist Anastasia Melnichenko, who in a Facebook post wrote, “I want us — women — to speak today ...We do not have to make excuses. We are not to blame. Blame always lies with the rapist.” Many women did come forward on that day and continue to speak out. Despite the fact that the hashtags have changed somewhat, women are still asking for attention from the world in the same way as in the United States. On July 16, 2019, #INeedOpenness and #IDidn’tWantToDie were trending in another attempt to challenge the norm of sexual harassment, domestic abuse and rape in Russia.
This month, bereft of a hashtag, another wave of allegations have flooded Twitter including accusations of sexual harassment surrounding many prominent men within Moscow’s media circle. One of the men accused, Sergey Prostakov, is a journalist and editor of opposition website MBKh Media. Following the allegations, Prostakov promptly resigned and issued an apology. Another liberal, veteran journalist Pavel Lobkov, was called out for inappropriate advances toward men. His response was that he grew up in an era where “students were sleeping with their teachers, and hugging or even kissing a colleague at a party was completely normal.”
Valya Dekhtyarenko was the woman who retweeted her friend’s testimony about her abusive relationship and therefore began the series of women naming their abusers. She criticized the hypocrisy of the same “progressive media who have been disclosing sexual harassers amongst Russia's ruling elites" now being outed as abusers. Similarly as in the United States, there are those who believe that sexual violence against women is not a problem. And in Russia people still use the old proverb “if he beats you, it means he loves you.” The discourse is slowly shifting and those in power are seeing the consequences of their actions. It is still unclear, however, whether the movement has fully formed into what has been seen in the United States.
Hanna Ditinsky
is a sophomore at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is majoring in English and minoring in Economics. She was born and raised in New York City and is passionate about human rights and the future of progressivism