Me Too Political Science

Me Too Political Science explores the multiple manifestations and implications of gendered biases in Political Science by "connecting the dots" between the sexual harassment described in the recent report on 2017 American Political Science Association’s Survey on Sexual Harassment at Annual Meetings and other problematic issues. Started by Tarana Burke in 2007 to stand with young women of color who survived sexual assault, the MeToo campaign was intended to let women know that they were not alone. In turn, the Women’s Caucus for Political Science used #MeTooPoliSci to bring awareness to sexual harassment, assault and misconduct in the discipline. The essays in this book and the authors’ scholarly activism, harnessed a collective power to dispel the shame, embarrassment and secrecy that surrounds these issues. They focus in particular on bullying, entitled and toxic forms of masculinity; systematic discounting of and dismissiveness and derision toward work on gender and sexuality; biases and inequities associated with hiring, teaching evaluations, service loads, and tenure and promotion; and related and often intersecting forms of harassment but not only those related to race and sexuality. The essays in this volume stem for the 2018 pre-conference held by the Women’s Caucus for Political Science at the American Political Science Association’s annual meeting. Me Too Political Science is of great importance not only to scholars interested in Gender and Women’s Studies, but all those working in the Political Science discipline – and even beyond, to academia as a whole. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Women, Politics and Policy.

Since the MeToo hashtag went viral in 2017, the movement has burgeoned across social media, moving beyond Twitter and into living rooms and courtrooms. It has spread unevenly across the globe, with some countries and societies more impacted than others, and interacted with existing feminist movements, struggles, and resistances. This interdisciplinary handbook identifies thematic and theoretical areas that require attention and interrogation, inviting the reader to make connections between the ways in which the #MeToo movement has panned out in different parts of the world, seeing it in the context of the many feminist and gendered struggles already in place, as well as the solidarities with similar movements across countries and cultures. With contributions from gender experts spanning a wide range of disciplines including political science, history, sociology, law, literature, and philosophy, this groundbreaking book will have contemporary relevance for scholars, feminists, gender researchers, and policy-makers across the globe.

#MeToo has sparked a global re-emergence of sexual violence activism and politics. This edited collection uses the #MeToo movement as a starting point for interrogating contemporary debates in anti-sexual violence activism and justice-seeking. It draws together 19 accessible chapters from academics, practitioners, and sexual violence activists across the globe to provide diverse, critical, and nuanced perspectives on the broader implications of the movement. It taps into wider conversations about the nature, history, and complexities of anti-rape and anti-sexual harassment politics, including the limitations of the movement including in the global South. It features both internationally recognised and emerging academics from across the fields of criminology, media and communications, film studies, gender and queer studies, and law and will appeal broadly to the academic community, activists, and beyond.

This book locates #MeToo’s traction among elites with “womenomics” theories that attribute feminized poverty, welfare dependency, and sexual violence to traditional femininity and toxic masculinity. Such neoliberal anti-sexual violence policies seek to empower women through paid work and reform men through fatherhood. This volume shows that men’s movements and conservative concerns about “fatherless families” developed toxic masculinity discourse before popular feminism incorporated it. It analyses how discourse on #MeToo issues in the workplace reveals a shift away from representations of women as traumatized victims in need of empowerment toward a focus on men as both problem and solution, setting new standards for masculine workplace conduct. However, this discourse reproduces a toxic/good men binary that serves to consolidate a new form of hegemonic masculinity. The book concludes that neoliberal sexual violence politics obscures how globalization fosters inequalities and sexual violence by blaming these and other social ills on toxically masculine men. This book will be of interest to scholars whose research focuses on sexual violence, feminist studies, masculinity studies, and neoliberalism.

In the wake of the MeToo movement, revelations of sexual assault and harassment continue to disrupt sexual politics across the globe. Reports of widespread misconduct—in workplaces from doctors’ offices to factory floors—precipitate firings, legal actions, street protests, and policy punditry. Meenakshi Gigi Durham situates media culture as a place in which these broader social struggles are produced and reproduced. The media figures whose depravity sparked the #MeToo movement are symbols of the complexities of sexual desire and consent. Pop culture fuels controversies about rape culture; social media users have launched feminist resistance that turned to real-world activism; and investigative journalists have broken stories of assault, offering a platform for survivors to speak truth to patriarchal power. Arguing that the media are a linchpin in these events, Durham provides a feminist account of the interrelated contexts of media production, representation, and reception. She situates the media as the key site where the establishment of sexuality and social relations takes place, and traces the media's powerful role in both reifying and challenging rape culture. This timely and stimulating book will be of interest to students and scholars of media, communication, gender studies, and sociology, as well as to anyone concerned by the current state of sexual politics.​

This volume provides a concise but authoritative overview of the #MeToo Movement and its enormous impact on American society, from the studios of Hollywood to factories, campuses, and offices across the country. The 21st Century Turning Points series is a one-stop resource for understanding the people and events changing America today. The #MeToo Movement is devoted to the issue that brought sexual harassment out of the shadows of American culture and into the spotlight. Sparked by revelations of decades of sexual harassment by powerful Hollywood executive Harvey Weinstein, the movement quickly uncovered similar abusive behavior by numerous other famous public figures. It also revealed the extent to which sexual harassment has been a persistent problem in many workplace settings across America and the ways in which girls and women are subjected to degrading and discriminatory treatment because of their gender. The book provides a broad perspective on these issues. It discusses late twentieth-century efforts to identify sexual harassment as a longstanding societal problem; explains how the 2016 presidential election brought new attention to this issue; introduces activists who helped to launch the #MeToo Movement; and surveys the impact of the movement on American politics, business, and entertainment.

political science is for everybody is the first intersectionality-mainstreamed textbook written for introductory political science courses. While political science and politics are for everybody, political institutions are neither neutral nor unbiased. When we write political science textbooks that obscure the differences in how groups experience and interact with political institutions, we do students a disservice. This book exposes students to these differences while also bringing marginalized voices to the fore, allowing more students to see their lived experiences reflected in the pages of their textbook. Bringing together a diverse group of contributors, political science is for everybody teaches all the basics of political science while showing that representation matters – both in politics and in the classroom.

Gender-based violence in politics is a significant and growing problem that threatens the democratic process in Canada. Despite its prevalence, little academic research has been conducted on this topic to date. Gender-Based Violence in Canadian Politics in the #MeToo Era raises awareness of and presents new innovative research on this timely and pressing public issue. Here, leading experts from across Canada uncover critical new insights and identify potential solutions that would help address gender-based violence in politics, improve gender equality, and strengthen Canadian democracy. Using an intersectional lens, chapters range in their approaches; offer new concepts and measures of gender-based violence in online political spaces, political media coverage and cartoons, campaigns, municipal politics, and legislatures; and explore Indigenous ways of knowing about gender-based violence in Canadian politics. Additionally, the volume presents recommendations for decision-makers, policymakers, anti-violence advocates, and the academic community on how to best address the problem of gender-based violence in the political sphere.