In October 2017, when Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, journalists at the New York Times, and Ronan Farrow, reporting for the New Yorker, broke stories (5th & 10th Oct) chronicling multiple accounts of sexual harassment against the Hollywood film-maker Harvey Weinstein, they did not just expose one serial abuser – their articles marked a cultural tipping point.

On 15 October 2017, five days after Farrow’s New Yorker story, and ten days after Kantor and Twohey’s New York Times report, the American actress Alyssa Milano tweeted: “If all the women who have ever been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote ‘Me too.’ as a status, then we might give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem.” 

Though credited with bringing the movement into the mainstream, Milano was not the originator of #MeToo. Sexual harassment survivor and activist Tarana Burke first used the phrase in this context on MySpace in 2006.


2. Becoming a global movement:
The day after Milano tweeted, the hashtag had already been used on Twitter more than 500,000 times. Facebook reported that 45% of platform users in the United States had a friend who had used the hashtag.

More reporting by the New Yorker and the New York Times uncovered the conspiracies and accomplices, spreading into the upper echelons of politics and the media, that had worked to protect predators such as Weinstein.

Intense media coverage around the world reporting on the #metoo movement led by powerful celebrities opened up a new frontier for the struggle against sexual violence and harassment through the powerful telling of individual stories of daily encounters of sexism, misogyny and abuse that women (and in some instances, men, too) faced at the hands of men in positions of authority and influence.


3. Impact and legacy, on the local context:
On the global front, despite greater focus on victims’ stories, #metoo movement has not translated into justice for victims. Axios lists only six notable convictions in the wake of #MeToo, though, it reports, at least 201 “powerful men” have lost jobs or major positions. Outside Hollywood, too, the repercussions of #MeToo have been felt: as the Guardian reported in October 2019, in the UK there has been a sharp rise in the number of complaints of rape and sexual assault made to police in the last two years. The number of convictions for rape, however, has plunged.

Unfortunately, in Malaysia, the #metoo movement was rather muted, as observed and reported by BFM.my in this article - https://www.bfm.my/article/muted-metoos-in-malaysia – “However, these issues of sexual misconduct have hardly seen light in Malaysia. Our culture suppresses conversations about sex and abuse in a way that feeds the patriarchal powers in the workplace.”

The conversations, and the protests against sexual violence and harassment continues to this day, thanks to teenager  Ain Husniza Saiful Nizam using TikTok to tell the world about a teacher’s sick joke, sparking an outcry over the violence faced by Malaysian girls and women.

In 1964, Pat Maginnis, Lana Phelan Kahn, and Rowena Gurner, who are called the “Army of Three” joined together to form Association to Repeal Abortion Laws in the US. Five years later, the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL) is formed at the “First National Conference on Abortion Laws: Modifications or Repeal”. In 1973, The Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, which recognised abortion as a constitutional right for all women, marked a new beginning in the fight for women's rights. The court also ruled that a woman's fundamental right to privacy extends to her option to have an abortion or not. The “Abortion Rights, Silent No More” campaign began in 1985 with the tagline “We are Your Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, Friends, and Abortion is a Choice We Have Made.” 40,000 letters were collected from women around the country and read in Washington, D.C. as part of this campaign.

In 2019, the US started protesting for abortion rights again because 30 states in the US had introduced some abortion ban in their legislature and 15 of them are working specifically with “heartbeat bills” which is banning abortion when a heartbeat is detected, approximately six weeks of pregnancy. According to professionals, at the sixth week, some women would not even know they are pregnant. And these law punish the doctors that perform the abortion rather than women that seek for it. The pro-choice advocates say women should have the right to make a decision on matters that could affect their bodies. 

2. Becoming a global movement

The Pro-Choice movement has spread to all parts of the world with thousands of people participating in protests to grant women bodily autonomy. In 2014, the Pro-Choice movement became prominent in Spain when tighter abortion laws were proposed. The conservative People’s Party (PP) announced plans to make it illegal for women to get abortions except in the case of rape or when there was a risk to the mother’s physical and mental health. Tens of thousands took to the streets to rally this plan and a poll reported that between 70 - 80% of the nation was opposed to this idea.

In Argentina, people were able to see the fruits of their labour after it became the third country in South America to permit elective abortions. The first spontaneous Pro-Choice march happened on 3 June 2015 when a 14-year-old was found buried underneath her boyfriend’s house after being beaten to death and a few months pregnant. The rallies continued and the protestors adopted a green scarf which quickly became a symbol of the Pro-Choice movement in Latin America.

The Pro-Choice movement also stands for not only granting the right to terminate the pregnancy but to be able to do it in a safe and sanitary environment. On September 28th 2020, marked as Safe Abortion Day, women in Mexico City clashed with police while protesting for the legalisation of abortion. The protestors who were clad in the green bandanas were sprayed with tear gas by the police to dissolve the crowd.

3. Impact and legacy, on the local context

The movement has allowed for abortions to be widely accessible around the world. However, the passing of the recent law in Texas has proved that this battle is still a highly uphill affari fo the Pro-Choice movement. Abortion remains a deeply polarizing issue in the US, with a majority of Democrats supporting abortion rights and a majority of Republicans opposing them. In the end, the debate will always be defined by the ever-changing social and cultural divide in the people, and political change is something the nation can only hope will last.

Currently, abortion in Malaysia is mostly illegal except in cases when a medical practitioner deems that continuing the pregnancy poses a danger to the mother's life, physical health, and mental well-being. Most news regarding abortion in Malaysia are often criminalised reports of women framed as infanticide. This lack of access to the rights of abortion has unfortunately led to increased rates of baby-dumping in the streets, and the issues persist today.

In 1967, fat activists gathered in Central Park in New York City, eating and burning diet books and photos of model Twiggy as a form of protest against the bias against fat people. Following that, the world’s longest-running fat rights organisation, National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) was established as the pioneer of the body positivity movement. In the beginning, they launched letter-writing campaigns and provided social networks and communities for fat people and those who were attracted to them. 

The Fat Underground, a group of Californian feminists released the Fat Manifesto in 1973, demanding “equal rights for fat people in all areas of life” and rejecting the “reducing” industries (i.e: diet culture as a tool of patriarchal oppression). Inspired by the concurrent Civil Rights movement at the time, they sought to liberate fat people from societal discrimination and oppression, taking on a more radical and confrontational stance. Mainstream fat activism, as championed by the NAAFA, their parent organisation, tended to exclude marginalised groups’ voices from the narrative. Hence, the Fat Underground was comprised of second wave feminists and gay activists of the 1970s, intending to include people with other marginalised body-types as well.

The term ‘body positivity’ did not emerge until more recent times with the advent of the internet and social media. Prior to that, the fight for body acceptance continued through fat activists being featured on daytime talk shows, protesting and picketing in front of the White House and gyms with fatphobic advertising, as well as being involved in San Francisco’s Pride parade.

2. Becoming a global movement

Body Positivity quickly became widespread once people started being on the internet. Discussions surrounding body shame and body love moved from AOL groups and NAAFA’s online forums to Tumblr and Instagram. The new generation spearheading the movement used hashtags and Facebook groups to connect with one another and advocate for acceptance of bodies of all shapes and sizes. 

Fat people had more agency to present themselves in online spaces and create discussions surrounding unapologetic body acceptance. Fat Visibility through posting selfies and #OOTD pictures represented personal choice as a political statement, inspiring many others to feel increasingly comfortable in their bodies. People became more and more open to discuss body shame and body acceptance, debunking negative stereotypes about fat people and challenging beauty ideals set in society.

By and large, body positivity advocates and activists alike leverage on blogs and social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube to spread their message, reaching communities across the world. Thus, social media influencers play a particularly prominent role in furthering the cause as we know it today. 

3. Impact and legacy 

Body Positivity has become a buzzphrase as of late, not only being used by the average social media user, but also by businesses and corporations looking to capitalise off of the movement. 

Although some progress has been made in celebrating bodies regardless of their shape and size (e.g: the fashion industry becoming more accepting of plus-sized models, fashion brands catering to diverse bodies), critics have pointed out pitfalls to the widespread nature of the movement. As more people started using hashtags like #loveyourbody and #allbodiesarebeautiful, the most marginalised bodies in society have become marginalised again within the very movement they started. Corporations have also found a way to co-opt the movement as a way to push their products, reinforcing aesthetic ideals which the movement originally rejected.

In Malaysia, Body Positivity is slowly gaining traction. The existence of fashion businesses offering size-inclusive catalogues and the launching of the very first plus-sized pageant early this year, Miss Plus World Malaysia, are proof of the progress that has been made in the country. Entrepreneurs and social media influencers such as Ratnadevi and Nazirah Ashari continue to use their platforms to increase visibility of other-ed bodies and create conversation in the hopes of expanding their audience’s perception of what is considered acceptable in our image-conscious society.

On July 15, 2014, Chris Kennedy (a pro golfer) challenged Jeanette Senerchia to do the Ice Bucket Challenge, as her husband was diagnosed with ALS. She accepted and posted the video on her Facebook which was seen by the people of their town and to Pat Quinn, who was also diagnosed with ALS and to Pete Frates (a former captain of the Boston College baseball team). This in turn helped the ALS Association to raise about $50,000 more than they had raised in the previous year. 

On August 6th, Lynn Aaronson (Massachusetts Chapter Executive Director) did the challenge on live TV which led to hundreds of people to partake in the challenge as well on the day after and helped raise $4 million for the cause. August 15, Bill Gates accepted Mark Zuckerberg’s challenge and nominated Elon Musk, Ryan Seacrest and Chris Anderson from TED to raise awareness. 

Within the same month Jimmy Falon (Tonight Show host), Derek Jeter (New York Yankees captain), David Spade (actor and comedian), Leonardo DiCaprio (actor) and even cartoon character Homer Simpson had participated in the challenge which pushed the daily donations to come in under $1 million for the first time since August 10th. 

The movement quickly became widespread due to high-profile figures partaking in the challenge. A few examples would be Justin Bieber, LeBron James, and Bill Clinton. The ripple effect also benefited the movement as the media helped promote it. Various articles discussed the “Best Celebrity Takes on the Ice Bucket Challenge.” Celebrities often took to social media and posted about the challenge, convincing their followers to do it too. The videos were also rather entertaining, and they were often less than a minute long, which resulted in more views - boosting its popularity even further. 

It quickly became a trend that everyone wanted to take part in. People took to social media and nominated others to participate. Social media played a massive role in helping it spread worldwide as participants would individually nominate candidates by “tagging” them. It felt personal and was not something that people could brush off. The pressure, low barriers, and competitiveness resulted in millions of videos circulating on social media sites like Facebook. 

The informal rule states that nominees had to participate within 24 hours or donate to an ASL charity. Most people felt ashamed to ignore the nomination; the majority made donations if they did not want to challenge. People often called others out for ignoring it, resulting in more than $220 million in donations and $90 million in global research funding, leading the ASL Association to increase its annual global research spending by 187%. Pete Frates’ fundraising idea swept the globe and raised millions of dollars, changing the course of ASL research within days. His idea undoubtedly had a transformative impact and paved the way for more scientific advancements. 

[1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Black-Lives-Matter

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/19/blacklivesmatter-birth-civil-rights-movement

[3] https://blacklivesmatter.com/herstory/

[4]
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/29/us/george-floyd-timing-929-846/index.html

[5] https://www.startribune.com/george-floyd-death-ignited-protests-far-beyond-minneapolis-police-minnesota/569930771/

[6] https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2020/05/26/hundreds-of-protesters-march-in-minneapolis-after-george-floyds-deadly-encounter-with-police/

[7] https://deadline.com/2021/05/george-floyd-programming-specials-mark-one-year-anniversary-of-his-death-1234763520/

[8] https://www.minnpost.com/artscape/2021/05/pen-pals-announces-25th-season-of-prominent-authors-tpt-2-to-broadcast-say-his-name-five-days-for-george-floyd/

[9] https://www.undertoldstories.org/360-story/george-floyd-square/

[10] https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/12/02/making-george-floyds-square

[11] https://www.startribune.com/star-tribune-wins-pulitzer-prize-for-george-floyd-reporting/600067256/

[12] https://mashable.com/article/black-lives-matter-peace-prize

[13] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/25/how-many-people-have-police-killed-since-george-floyd

[14] https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-229-black-people-killed-police-since-george-floyds-murder-1594477

[15] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/george-floyd-black-lives-matter-impact/

[16] https://worldofbuzz.com/why-blacklivesmatter-should-be-an-important-movement-to-malaysians/

In October 2014, The Girl Generation launched. The Africa-led multinational collective shares the vision of terminating female genital mutilation (FGM) in this generation. The movement was spearheaded by activist Efua Dorkenoo OBE. Throughout her 30 years of campaigning, FGM shifted from a cultural practice that did not warrant interference to a human rights violation that challenges social norms. 

Dorkenoo was widely acknowledged as the trailblazer for the global movement to terminate the practice of FGM. In her twenties, she became a staff nurse working in numerous London hospitals alongside African women. Drawing from the experience, she became aware of the physical and mental ramifications of FGM. Thus, began her life’s work of researching and relentlessly campaigning against the practice. 

In 1994, Dorkenoo published ‘Cutting the Rose: Female Genital Mutilation: the Practice & Its Prevention’, a publication considered the first regarding FGM.  

When Dorkenoo first spoke of FGM over three decades ago, the term ‘Female Genital Mutilation’ was previously known as ‘cutting’ or ‘circumcision’. Through demystifying many myths and misconceptions encompassing the practice, in addition to championing it as a human rights issue, she was successful in reforming the term. 

From 1995 to 2001, Dorkenoo was the acting director at the World Health Organization (WHO). She orchestrated programmes and campaigns against FGM in six African countries. Upon leaving WHO, she joined Equality NOW as an advocacy director. Her assignments saw that she took survivors to her campaigns, in the belief that their testimonies would overshadow arguments of FGM supporters.

With every fibre of her being, she championed for the termination of FGM until the end of her life. With a week until the launch of The Girl Generation in October 2014, Efua Dorkenoo OBE unfortunately passed. 

Attaining global recognition 

Phase one of the movement has ended in 2019. The plight of the activist who were fighting hard for the rights to terminate FGM were heard by higher governments and on a global stage as UNICEF reports in April 2019 that the Sudanise government has criminalized FGM, bringing new rights to girls. On January 2019, the Girl Generations Instagram page stated that they have built the largest global collective of 900+ members ending FGM, reached over 200 million people and raised $5 million for the movement. The ‘I Will End FGM’ global campaign brought the movement together and reached over 20 million people with #endFGM messages. On Instagram, the #endFGM hashtag has garnered 47,166 posts. They also have a main page that is used to bring awareness to people about FGM and also for individuals to sign up as members.

Impact and legacy 

There were many stories of change that were presented in The Girl Generation’s website. There are stories of the youth taking charge, educating children in schools and empowering young girls. There is even a case of Massai Men (Morans), publicly taking a vow to end FGM and protect girls in their community. This is a significant change because it is diverting away from old traditions and cultures that the Massai Men strongly agree to. There is also a growing wish to abandon this practice around the world and the legislation of the criminalization of FGM in Sudan was one of the few changes that could be a catalyst that may get other nations to criminalize this practice. The legacy of this movement would be carried on for generations with the right education to young children from an early age. This and the increase of influence to social change might even make this movement more effective in the future.