Professor Judith Taylor published an article on TheConversation.com discussing the impact of the #MeToo movement on the average workplace. She presents eight strategies we can utilize in our every day lives to address and/or prevent toxic work environments.
Judith Taylor is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto, jointly appointed to the Women and Gender Studies Institute. Her research focuses on feminist activism, neighbourhood community organizing, and social change making within public institutions
We have posted a short excerpt below. The full article is available on TheConversation.com.
How do the great majority of working women reckon with #MeToo when there will be no confrontation, revelation or watershed moment for them?
Academics, journalists, teachers, social workers and psychologists have experienced a notable outpouring of questions and concerns, but this is not a professional moment, this is a people’s moment to decide what is no longer OK, partly because it’s illegal, partly because it violates workplace policy and mostly because harassment is soul-killing.
While researchers have shown formal reporting mechanisms to be often disappointing, other scholars show that everyday referencing of social movements, and allying with them, makes women feel stronger and more capable of refusing sexism.
The #MeToo movement won’t make a tsunami level wave in every place of work. But with small gestures, we can remove the sandbags from the thresholds of our doors, open the windows and invite something of the force of that water to trickle in. Inviting the water in while small may feel more energizing than wondering whether, and when, it might come.