Five years later, is the “#MeToo revolution” just a pipe dream?

“Intimate variations take longer than collective awareness. Political parties are capable of great rhetoric about gender and sexual violence, but when pushed to the wall emotionally, they don’t react, “he notes. Mathilde Viot, member of the Observatory on Sexist and Sexual Violence in Politicsauthor of The politician, I compost and creator of #MeTooPolitique. A tweet published on September 18 by Jean-Luc Mélenchon came to remind us: “The malice of the police, the voyeurism of the media, the social networks have invited themselves to the conflicting divorce of Adrien and Céline Quatennens. Adrien decides to take it all by himself. I pay tribute to his dignity and his courage. I tell him my trust and my affection. The leader of rebel France reacted at that moment to the domestic violence allegations against Deputy Adrien Quatennens. Facts that he himself recognizes.

In politics, the old guard is in charge

The world then celebrates five years of the #MeToo movement, often described as a “revolution”. However, political leaders who claim to be feminists continue to scream conspiracy when their loved ones are accused of committing sexist and / or sexual assault (VSS). The right and the majority are not excluded: it is more or less the same speech when Damien Abad or Gérald Darmanin, both accused of rape, remain in their place. For Mathilde Viot, if a questioning of virilistic behavior really works, it is still the old guard who is in charge. So we should still have a few more years of reactionary and sexist considerations. ” Our job at the Observatory is to be able to constantly destroy their speeches, which is difficult because we are given much less time to talk. sums up Mathilde Viot.

Racist, precarious, queer women: the great forgotten ones

Whistleblowers aren’t the only ones silenced: for racialized or suburban women, it’s also hard to make themselves heard. ” Freedom of speech is not for everyone “, summarizes Massica, one of the organizers of the recent anti-racist feminist march in Saint-Denis. Despite some progress, she notes that the most marginalized women still do not have the same resources as others. ” When you’ve experienced GBV in precarious environments, the path to repair isn’t the same as a person who has the resources to go see a shrink, for example. We do not release anything if we push vulnerable people to speak without offering them anything “, she points. The activist also repeats it: #MeToo is not 5 years old, but 15. The first personality to have thought of Me Too is in fact the Afro-feminist American activist Tarana Burke, who in particular suffered sexual violence by the police.

Same observation in LGBTQIA + circles: ” The representations from #MeToo have not evolved to allow the emergence of a space to speak for lesbians, bi, trans, genderfluid … », Consider one of the people behind the MeToo Lesbian account. Created immediately after the 5 media years of #MeToo, on Twitter and Instagram, this account was designed specifically for ” report the lack of means and resources available [des lesbiennes] and allow questions about intra-community behavior to emerge “.

A patriarchal and exploited justice

Like other activists, Julie *, an activist from the Les Grenades collective, stiffens when she hears the term “#MeToo wave”. ” We were able to make the VSS visible. However, the goal is for decisions to be made at the government level. And that we don’t get “, He gets annoyed. For Julie, saying that #MeToo is a revolution is ” lying why SGBV victims still find it so difficult to get compensation in court. ” Gagging procedures are used against feminists. Defamation complaints are exploited by attackers and their supporters. As for the victims, the cost of the complaint is cumbersome. As long as justice does not put in place a victim protection system, we will not get out of it. “

After years of struggle, there is still a long way to go. #MeToo didn’t make women safe: today in France a man kills a woman every three days, only 1% of rapes are convicted and 94,000 women every year are victims of rape or attempted rape. Nothing to be happy about.

* The name has been changed