Posts

Dr. Carla Gardina Pestana, UCLA Professor and Joyce Appleby Endowed Chair of America in the World in the Department of History, discusses the #MeToo Moment on Plymouth Plantation in an essay for “The Conversation.” Dr. Pestana points out that gender dynamics often get short shrift when reflecting on the histories of Plymouth colony.

John Blanding/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

In the essay, Dr. Pestana describes one account from her new book, The World of Plymouth Plantation. It is the story of John Lyford, who was found guilty of rape in Ireland and driven out of his community. Mr. Lyford moved on to Plymouth Plantation after being driven out, and would have continued to harm others if his past had not caught up with him.

To read the full essay, click HERE.

 

 

In the latest session of the book series, Come Out, Come Out Whoever You Are author and UCLA Professor and Chair of Sociology, Dr. Abigail Saguy talks with LA Social Science about her new book. Come Out… examines how rhetoric is borrowed by different social movements in order to gain public attention and policies that can help groups beyond the LGBTQ Community, such as undocumented immigrants. Her book also examines the importance of intersectionality within these movements.

Interview Chapters:

0:00 – Intro

0:55 – What brought you to this topic?

6:05 – What is the main argument of the book?

10:34 – How does the rhetoric of coming out allow groups to gain recognition and social change?

14:33 – How does this relate to current events?

9:06 – How does understanding history of chromosomes help us understand contemporary debates?

17:18 – Final thoughts, why pick up this book?

To learn more, check out Dr. Saguy’s book Come Out, Come Out Whoever You Are.

 

Subscribe to L.A. Social Science and be the first to learn more insight and knowledge from UCLA’s Division of Social Science experts and other faculty about upcoming video/audio sessions and posts about current issues.

 

By Abigail C. Saguy

Professor of Sociology, UCLA

In late 2017, over 30 women accused Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment, assault or rape. Shortly after—following the lead of actress Alyssa Milano—millions of women began posting “#MeToo” on Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook and other social media platforms, effectively “coming out” as victims of sexual harassment, assault or rape. As Milano acknowledges, “Me Too” isn’t new: African American activist Tarana Burke first used “Me Too” in 2007 as part of an offline campaign to let sex abuse survivors–especially young women of color—know that they were not alone. Milano says she hopes the social media campaign will shift the focus from Weinstein to victims and “give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.”

The #MeToo movement underscores the power of collective mobilization. It also shows how suddenly the status quo can shift. Despite having studied sexual harassment in the United States and France for almost 30 years – and publishing a book and several articles on the topic[1] – even I did not see this coming.

Recently, I have been studying how people “come out” to resist stigma and mobilize for social change. As I show in a series of articles and a forthcoming book with Oxford University Press titled Come Out, Come Out, Whoever You Are: Identity Politics in the 21st Century, the concept of coming out—first developed by the gay rights movement in the 1970s—has expanded well beyond lesbians and gay men. The undocumented movement, fat rights movement, and Mormon fundamentalist polygamists—to name a few—all now use “coming out” politics to make real changes to laws, public opinion, interpersonal relationships and to claim their civil rights.

Notably, the #MeToo movement embraces not just the politics of “coming out” as a victim of sexual harassment or assault, but also the “outing” of harassers, assaulters and rapists. “Outing”—another term coined and developed by the gay rights movement in the 1980s and 1990s—originally referred to the act of disclosing a politician or celebrity’s homosexuality, typically because they publicly opposed gay rights or promoted heteronormativity (i.e. the idea that everyone is heterosexual) by “passing” as straight.

#MeToo has already led to significant change in the culture around sexual harassment and assault. Many of the men recently “outed” as sexual offenders have lost their jobs and, in some cases, faced criminal prosecution. Some have argued that employers and authors may now take women who claim to have been assaulted or harassed more seriously. The movement may bring real systemic changes to how employers and courts address sexual harassment.

Exactly what will come of the #MeToo movement remains to be seen, but this movement—and the others of which it is both a product and a part—are a reminder that the social life of humans is fluid and deserving of true inquiry by social scientists.

Abigail Saguy is a UCLA Professor of Sociology and Gender Studies and author of What is Sexual Harassment? From Capitol Hill to the Sorbonne (California, 2003), What’s Wrong with Fat (Oxford, 2013), Come Out, Come Out, Whoever You Are: Identity Politics in the 21st Century, over 30 scientific journal articles and several op-eds published in leading news outlets. You can see more of her work at www.abigailsaguy.com and https://soc.ucla.edu/faculty/abigail-saguy.

Footnotes

[1] Abigail C. Saguy, What Is Sexual Harassment? From Capitol Hill to the Sorbonne (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press., 2003); “Employment Discrimination or Sexual Violence?: Defining Sexual Harassment in American, and French Law,” Law & Society Review 34, no. 4 (2000); “Europeanization or National Specificity? Legal Approaches to Sexual Harassment in France, 2002-2012,” Law & Society Review 52, no. 1 (2018).