This archive report was first published on 18 July 2019.
Published on July 18, 2019, a U.S. study revealed that women reported less workplace harassment after the #MeToo movement, but sexism increased, researchers said.
The #MeToo movement began in 2017 in the United States as a response to accusations of sexual assault and harassment in Hollywood and emboldened women around the world to recount their experiences of being verbally abused, groped, molested, or raped.
U.S. researchers who surveyed more than 500 women in September 2016 and again in September 2018 found the number reporting sexual harassment at work had fallen – a sign that the #MeToo movement had an impact.
According to the study, the proportion of women who reported being sexually coerced dropped to 16% in 2018 from 25% in 2016, and reports of unwanted sexual attention – such as ogling and inappropriate touching – fell to one in four last year from about two thirds of those surveyed in 2016.
However, nearly all the women surveyed in 2018 said they had experienced sexism, compared to 76% of women in 2016, the report said.
Johnson, an associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder in the United States, said the increase in hostility towards women might be a backlash against #MeToo.
