By: My Ho, La Vie Staff Writer
Since the hashtag #Metoo first spread on social media in 2017, it has ignited a movement of significant changes and LVC’s community was eager to tackle these changes in a speech about the movement on Monday October 15.
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During the talk, Dr. Christopher J. Dolan, chair of LVC’s history, politics and global studies department, along with Kaitlyn Nordhoff, prevention and outreach specialist at SARCC in Lebanon, addressed the importance of the Me Too movement and both voiced the movement’s current challenges as well as possible solutions for these issues.
Dolan’s presentation mainly focused on statistics of the Me Too movement. He used statistics to emphasize the positive changes the trend had created inside the social workplaces as well as on electoral political fields.
“It’s very apparent that the Me Too movement has started a record number of women running for office,” Dolan said. “Something has shifted in the field of electoral politics that has historically paved an easier path for women.”
As he continued, Dolan presented an unprecedented number of women participating in the 2018 election and stated the inevitable shifts in power between men and women since the #Metoo movement.
“This is not a wave,” he said. “A wave can be contemporary. It’s really a sea change in American politics. For the first time in history, powerful men began falling, like dominos, and women were beginning to be believed.”
On the other hand, Kaitlyn Nordhoff dwelled more on specific issues and possible answers to the questions of how to sustain these positive outcomes. The talk first emphasized the suffering of harassed victims including health and professional losses as the speaker directly pointed out the cases of Brett Kavanaugh, Louis C.K and Harvey Weinstein.
“Whose sufferings are we talking about?” Kaitlyn Nordhoff asked.
Nordhoff then continued with solutions including the redefinition of consent practiced in the law through a video by #ThatsHarassment on Youtube and encouraged everyone to step up against sexual harassment in the workplace.
“Me too is asking us to do the hard work,” Nordhoff said. “It takes guts to do this work but changes doesn’t happen without them.”
The speech ended with questions from those who attended the presentation. Both speakers believed the trend will continue to create lasting changes.