Introduction | Framingfeminism

Fall 2018

Just over a year ago, the internet exploded with the hashtag #MeToo. Famous men in Hollywood and the Olympics were exposed as sexually harassing a large number of women. A women’s movement was born, and several international spin-offs also originated.

Although Tarana Burke had been the first to use “Me Too” back in 2007, actress Alyssa Milano popularized the rebirth of the movement and the accompanying hashtag on October 15, 2017 (Garcia, 2017).

A few days earlier, on October 13, the French journalist Sandra Muller had created and popularized #BalanceTonPorc, or “expose your pig,” in France in response to the French TV executive who made inappropriate comments to her at a work party (Breeden, 2018).

With the growing influx of news stories covering the #MeToo and #BalanceTonPorc movements, women saw overwhelming representation as both sources and subjects. Yet, previous research detailing the lack of representation of women in news coverage shows how unprecedented this was, just in the past few decades.

Looking at print news magazines, coverage of women has been less than that of men, and often contains negative perspectives which overemphasized those with lower social status as primary subjects (Hyun Jun Yung et al., 2007). In more than half of all instances, coverage featured women as victims of sexual crimes (Hyun Jun Yung et al., 2007).

In both movements, women of all social statuses—from movie stars to athletes to nearly anonymous “nobodies”—drew attention when they named the names of those who had sexually assaulted them. Although speaking out about sexual assault may have previously created a framing of a vulnerable victim, nevertheless an empowered survivor emerged. A series of crimes committed against these women by common perpetrators became a cause of solidarity, instead of a shameful scandal in which the individual assaulted became a source of pity.

However, the exposure of sexual harassment in France has not always been supported in the same ways as in the U.S. Actress Catherine Deneuve, along with other prominent women in French society, initially criticized both the #MeToo and #BalanceTonPorc movements (Safronova, 2018). The New York Times reported on the translation of a letter Deneuve co-wrote, in which it was insisted, “Rape is a crime. But insistent or clumsy flirting is not a crime, nor is gallantry a chauvinist aggression” (Safronova, 2018).

The tendency for the French to classify sexual harassment as seduction has also been prevalent, and something that has begun to change as the country becomes aware of this problematic grouping. A French professor of feminism, Christine Bard, was interviewed in another New York Times article and offered her viewpoint on French culture and flirtation:

Idealization of seduction ‘à la Française,’ and that anti-feminism has become almost part of the national identity and is seen as a retort to Anglo-American culture . . . The desire to distance ourselves from a ‘puritanism’ which is ‘Protestant,’ ‘Anglo-Saxon’ and ‘feminist’ plays well notably in intellectual milieus, and anti-Americanism has been a constant dimension of anti-feminism in France for more than a century. (Rubin, 2017)

In terms of reporting, stronger defamation laws in France also discourage people to name perpetrators. Sandra Muller, the French journalist responsible for creating #BalanceTonPorc, came forward about the man who sexually harassed her, but as a consequence is now currently facing a defamation lawsuit (Breeden, 2018). Combined with the French feminist, or anti-feminist culture, reporting sexual assault and harassment is viewed as a riskier venture for women due to libel laws. This may also directly affect the stories being covered in France.

The theoretical concept of framing was applied to my research topic, which examined the ways in which U.S. and French media frame the representation of women through a feminist perspective in print journalism stories from The New York Times and Le Monde of the #MeToo and #BalanceTonPorc movements.

This topic is important because both movements are still so new, and not much previous research exists on them. Exploring the framing of these feminist movements by journalists shows how readers’ perception of them can be influenced.