In the late months of 2017, you may have noticed your social media feeds being flooded with “#MeToo” – a movement to combat sexual assault. Despite this effort just starting with a hashtag, it has gained heavy traction and is not slowing down any time soon – especially with continuing cautiousness, accusations, and even confessions from powerful figures in Hollywood and the like. But this phrase hasn’t just been spread across the Twitter profiles of celebrities; you have most likely seen posts from your friends and family, which is why this movement has been so persuasive.  

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#MeToo has accomplished a lot in exposing assaulters. Harvey Weinstein, a famous Hollywood director, was called out by many of his female colleagues for many counts of assault, verbal and physical. Kevin Spacey, Louis C.K., Aziz Ansari, and many others were accused, some replying with denial and others acknowledging their wrong doings. Co-creator of Rick and Morty and creator of Community, Dan Harmon, was one of those who spoke out about his own short-comings. In his apology to Megan Ganz, the women he harassed, he says “I was attracted to a writer I had power over because I was a show runner”. He goes on to admit “I’ve never done it before and I will never do it again, but I certainly wouldn’t have been able to do it if I had any respect for women…I was thinking about them as different creatures”.

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The movement has also exposed people in Washington, D.C. Roy Moore, a former Supreme Court Justice of Alabama, lost his race for an Alabama senate seat to a democrat (the first elected in Alabama in decades) due mostly to allegations of sexual misconduct against minors. According to the New York times, Moore’s court filing after his loss claimed that “[his] opponents had spread ‘lies and fraudulent misrepresentations’”, which resulted in the loss. Former US Senator Al Franken was accused of sexual assault as well, causing him to resign from his senate seat. Though #MeToo was not trending during the 2016 election, it goes without saying that President Donald Trump’s inappropriate Access Hollywood tapes would have been taken more seriously if they had been. Hopefully.

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Though the #MeToo movement is obviously beneficial and has made a big change in accountability, some people still find ways to try to derail it. Many people believe that the hashtag promotes misandry. Though some people may act that way, it’s important to remember that not all victims are women, and not all perpetrators and non-believers are men. A CNN article reads that French actress Catherine Deneuve signed an open letter denouncing a “’hatred of men and sexuality’” caused by the movement, expressing not only her disrespectful attitude towards female victims, but her ignorance to the fact that men aren’t always the perpetrators, and are the victims more often than we realize.  To the people like Deneuve who believe that “…men’s ‘freedom to pester’ is ‘indispensable to sexual freedom’” and that this movement is destroying sex-positivity, please understand – not wanting to be sexually harassed, assaulted, or raped does not mean a person desires celibacy. Assault is not about sex, it is about power, and being opposed to someone touching you in a way you don’t approve of is not prudish; it is human nature and must be respected.

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The #MeToo movement is not about hating men or sex. It is also not a resurgence of puritanical ideology (another one of Deneuve’s claims). #MeToo is about repentance through creating a conversation about sexual assault that people have always avoided. It’s about holding perpetrators accountable whether they realized their misdeed or not. As one of those perpetrators, Dan Harmon, says, “I think we’re living in a good time right now because we’re not gonna get away with it anymore”. We are not asking for people to be perfect, but we are asking for respect of our bodies and boundaries.