It began quietly, with a phrase activist Tarana Burke had been using for more than a decade to let other survivors know they were not alone: me too. Then, in October 2017, the words leapt from survivor circles into the glare of the global stage. Actress Alyssa Milano tapped them into a tweet, and within hours, timelines across continents filled with confessions, testimonies, and solidarity. By week’s end, the hashtag was no longer a whisper between individuals — it had become a public reckoning.
The stories poured in from film sets and factory floors, from political offices and university halls. Names once protected by prestige or fear were spoken aloud. In Hollywood, entire careers collapsed under the weight of collective truth‑telling; in boardrooms and parliaments, leaders who had seemed untouchable were suddenly expected to answer. Social media had given survivors a tool that bypassed gatekeepers, making it harder for institutions to quietly settle, stall, or ignore.
With public outrage came structural shifts. Companies scrambled to update harassment policies, book mandatory training, and install clearer reporting channels. Lawmakers in the United States, France, India, and elsewhere proposed or passed measures aimed at closing loopholes and strengthening protections. In some places, the conversation pushed further — toward re‑examining the everyday power imbalances that allow misconduct to hide in plain sight.
Yet the surge of momentum carried its own tensions. Critics warned of reputations undone by accusation alone, of an uneven spotlight that illuminated celebrity cases while leaving incidents in low‑wage, marginalised sectors in the shadows. In parts of the world where patriarchal norms still hold firm, the hashtag arrived like an imported language — powerful, but sometimes met with silence or resistance.
Nearly a decade after Burke’s first use of the phrase, and years after its viral resurgence, #MeToo is both a historical marker and a living movement. Its impact can be traced in the training sessions now commonplace in offices, in the scripts rewritten to avoid tired stereotypes, and in the quiet courage of someone deciding to speak for the first time.
The questions it raised — about accountability, justice, and whose voices get heard — remain unsettled. But perhaps that is the point: #MeToo was never meant to close the conversation. It was meant to open it, and to keep it open, until the culture that made it necessary has been transformed.
What do you think is the most significant impact of the #MeToo movement?