#MeToo

The ‘Me Too’ movement was founded in 2006 by Tarana Burke to support survivors of sexual violence, particularly young women of color. In October 2017, #MeToo went viral in response to accounts of sexual abuse by film producer Harvey Weinstein.

“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,” tweeted actor Alyssa Milano. Other celebrities then followed with similar experiences to Milano including Gwyneth Paltrow, Ashley Judd, Jennifer Lawrence and Uma Thurman.

Eric Swalwell and the Persistent Problem of Silent Complicity

PUBLISHED 4/20/2026 by

The Eric Swalwell scandal is an altogether familiar and tired exercise: When allegations surface against a powerful man, the people around him scramble to distance themselves, downplay what they knew, or deny any knowledge at all. And yet, time and again, these cases are described as “open secrets.”

The real question is not just what he did, but what the people around him saw, heard and chose not to act on.

This is where the conversation needs to shift. For decades, sexual assault prevention educators have argued that we need to move beyond the perpetrator-victim binary and focus on the role of bystanders: What could colleagues have done? What kept them from speaking up?

The pressure to be “one of the guys,” to not rock the boat, to protect friendships or careers, remains enormously powerful. If we are serious about preventing abuse, institutions like Congress need to do more than react after the fact. They need to equip people, especially men, with the tools, the permission and the expectation to intervene before harm escalates.

The Latest Cache of Epstein Files Haven’t (and Won’t) Spark Wall Street’s #MeToo Moment

PUBLISHED 3/19/2026 by

In 2010, a 28-year-old woman working at the London branch of a Wall Street bank was leaving the office around 10 p.m. when a colleague pushed her against a wall and tried to forcibly kiss her. “A cab driver saw what was happening and physically pulled him off me,” the woman, who asked not to be named for fear of repercussions, told me. She reported the incident the next day to her manager, who told her she “should dress for the job I want” and not “like a stripper.” The women quit a month later. “I just wanted out,” she said. “I was mortified.”

What is notable about this story is how common it is. Even now, she said, you can speak to almost any woman who has spent time working in finance and she will know someone who has been harassed or assaulted. Often she has her own story.

That culture, and Wall Street’s willingness to perpetuate it, is back in the spotlight after the latest release of emails linked to Jeffrey Epstein, which are reviving scrutiny of his extensive connections across the industry.

‘The Bride!’ Speaks Back: Rage and Autonomy in Gyllenhaal’s Frankenstein

PUBLISHED 3/12/2026 by

Women are often stereotyped as overly talkative—gossiping, ‘blabbing’ or labeled ‘chatty Cathys.’ Archie Bunker in the television series All in the Family often tells his wife Edith to “stifle yourself” to stop her talking. Recently, one critic argued that “the bride” (played by Jessie Buckley) in writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s new movie of the same name, talks too much.

What makes Gyllenhaal’s reinvention of James Whale’s 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein story so compelling is precisely because this fabricated lady has her own voice and uses it loudly and in a rage. We’re glad she speaks.

The Pathetic Price of Entry to Epstein’s World

PUBLISHED 2/12/2026 by

The latest batch of Epstein files—over 3 million documents, only around half of what the Department of Justice reports to have amassed—has unleashed a new cast of characters, a list that includes tech titans, health influencers, litigation rainmakers, university leaders, sports executives, Hollywood moguls and international royalty. None of the those named in the latest tranche of Epstein files strike me as people I ever assumed possessed particularly stellar moral character, and their collective fall from grace doesn’t shock me.

But what does turn my stomach is how pathetically small the price of entry into Epstein’s world appears to have been.

The expressions of regret now surfacing—I am ashamed, this is not who I am!—read less like moral reckonings and more like the lament of those who simply got caught.

The emails reveal a tawdry economy of access: absurd favors, crude jokes, dating advice, shared handwringing about #MeToo, and giddy acceptance of gifts—Apple Watches, Prada bags, monogrammed sweatshirts—that these already powerful figures could easily have bought themselves.

Whether any individual named in the files participated in or witnessed Epstein’s crimes is only part of the story. Just as telling is the desperate desire to remain in his orbit—often long after his 2008 guilty plea for soliciting prostitution from girls.

That eagerness to maintain proximity, for so little in return, speaks volumes about how power protects itself—and what too many were willing to overlook to stay connected to it.

Sundance 2026: Documentary ‘Silenced’ Exposes How Defamation Suits Muzzle Survivors and Journalists

PUBLISHED 2/6/2026 by

Featuring the cases of Amber Heard, Gisèle Pelicot, Brittany Higgins, Colombian journalists at Volcánicas and others, Silenced traces a global pattern of defamation suits used to punish survivors and the reporters who amplify their stories.

It’s a fitting but frustrating coda that Silenced itself faced legal threats right after its festival premiere.

(This is one in a series of film reviews from the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, focused on films by women, trans or nonbinary directors that tell compelling stories about the lives of women and girls.)

A Feminist Historian’s Year-End Reading and Viewing Guide

PUBLISHED 12/7/2025 by

As the year winds down, I find myself returning—as I always do—to the stories, performances and ideas that have shaped my teaching and thinking. Feminism’s past is never really past; it’s a living archive we carry with us, full of unresolved questions, missteps, breakthroughs and beautiful, complicated people. This year’s reading and viewing list reflects that sensibility.

Liberation forces its contemporary narrator—and its audience—to reckon with the impossible expectations we’ve placed on small groups of women in church basements.

Molly Jong-Fast’s memoir presses on the tender, maddening ties between feminist foremothers and the daughters who grew up in their shadow.

Sarah Weinman’s study of spousal rape laws exposes just how recently the law stopped treating wives’ bodies as open territory—while showing how fiercely survivors and advocates have had to push for change that should never have been controversial.

When the Headline Gets It Wrong: Feminism Isn’t the Problem—Patriarchy Is

PUBLISHED 11/8/2025 by | UPDATED 11/13/2025 at 9:49 A.M. PT

When I saw the headline “Did Women Ruin the Workplace? And if So, Can Conservative Feminism Fix It?” in The New York Times Opinion section, my heart sank. It felt like a headline torn from another era—a provocation that had no place in 2025.

False accusations remain extremely rare—estimated at between 2 percent and 8 percent of reports—while roughly two-thirds of sexual assaults are never reported at all. The crisis is sexual violence, not accountability.

Yet, for centuries, women have been labeled “emotional” or “petty” to justify their exclusion from leadership and public life. Hearing these stereotypes revived in 2025—in The New York Times, no less—is disheartening. At a time when reproductive rights are being stripped away and women’s autonomy is under attack, we don’t need pseudo-intellectual nostalgia for patriarchy disguised as debate. We need truth, solidarity and progress.

The message from the writers is clear: Women should know their place. But women already do—it’s everywhere decisions are made, everywhere power is exercised, everywhere the future is being built. We’re not staying in our lane. We made the road. And we’re not going anywhere.

Complying With Trump Administration’s Attack on DEI Could Get Employers Into Legal Trouble

PUBLISHED 9/12/2025 by , , and

Since the Trump administration made diversity, equality and inclusion “immoral” and “illegal,” a large part of workplace discrimination in the country still remains to be experienced by women and members of racial minority groups. Now, these groups have less of a platform to make complaints about such discrimination.

Tradwives and ‘The People That People Come Out Of’

PUBLISHED 8/25/2025 by

For the first time in years, the number of U.S. mothers with young children in the workforce is shrinking—over 212,000 women left between January and June 2025 alone.

Childcare costs, in-office pressures, and a cultural nudge toward traditional gender roles are pushing moms out, while men in power nod along.

Meanwhile, the tradwife movement parades its perfect, baked-from-scratch, filtered-life versions of domesticity online, making the impossible look effortless.

It’s absurd. It’s dangerous. And it’s time we stop letting the economy treat raising kids as invisible labor.

‘We Have to Be Relentless’: #MeToo Champion Debra Katz Is Confident ‘There Will Be Wins’ for Survivors in the Days Ahead

PUBLISHED 8/18/2025 by

In the latest episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward, “the feared attorney of the #MeToo movement” assesses the legal landscape facing survivors—and how activists can continue to hold people in power accountable.

Listen to the latest episode of Looking Back, Moving Forward, “How Feminists are Breaking the Cycle of Gender-Based Violence and Harassment (with Ellen Sweet, Jane Caputi, Vanessa Tyson, Victoria Nourse, and Debra Katz)” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.