Boundaries in close space: #MeToo in the performing arts and sports

Few things have caused as much upheaval in Western societies in the last years as women’s publication of their experiences of sexual harassment and sexual violence under the hashtag #MeToo. In Iceland, the debate began in November 2017 when the first stories from women’s groups were made public. A t...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Jóhannsdóttir, Ásta, Gíslason, Ingólfur V.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:Icelandic
Published: Menntavísindasvið Háskóla Íslands 2022
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Online Access:https://ojs.hi.is/index.php/netla/article/view/3511
Description
Summary:Few things have caused as much upheaval in Western societies in the last years as women’s publication of their experiences of sexual harassment and sexual violence under the hashtag #MeToo. In Iceland, the debate began in November 2017 when the first stories from women’s groups were made public. A total of 17 groups published stories that winter. Some groups called for changes in general terms, while others made clear and specific demands for action.The purpose of our study was to map out the demands of women in #MeToo and try to evaluate the effectiveness of this social movement. In addition to formal change, we also wanted to try to capture the experience of informal change. We looked at sports and the performing arts by analysing available data and conducted interviews with women athletes, women in the performing arts and influential people connected to these two groups. We used a semi-structured interview framework and asked interviewees to tell us if anything had changed in their daily work after #MeToo, something that was not necessarily related to formal changes. The reason why we chose those two groups was the need to narrow the research, but it also appeared that these two groups have certain elements in common that could lead to similar experiences. This idea was confirmed in the interviews. It revealed that special circumstances and cultures exist in both the field of sports and the performing arts, which means that the stories of these groups differ from many others in terms of the seriousness of violence. What these groups also have in common is that the body is in the foreground and a great deal of intimacy is necessary, which means that it can be more difficult to set physical and social boundaries.The main results are that there were significant formal changes in the sports movement, but less so in the performing arts. However, our interviewees agreed that there had been changes in behaviour and conduct within both groups; more was discussed than before and inappropriate treatment was discussed ...