#MeToo and #ShoutYourAbortion: Claiming Standing and Exploding the Private Sphere

Abstract This paper analyses the recent viral #MeToo and #ShoutYourAbortion campaigns and argues that examining them illuminates our thinking about privacy and standing.The paper argues that one of the aims of these campaigns was to debunk the view that women did not have standing with respect to matters concerning sexual harassment and reproductive care. The myths the campaigns sought to discredit – myths about sexual harassment and assault and abortion – involve victim-blaming, and one thing we do when we victim-blame is deny that the victim had standing. This paper also argues that women proved they had standing through these campaigns by revealing what was private. This is, I argue, a way of ‘exploding’ the private sphere as MacKinnon famously put it. By looking to these campaigns, we can see that their strategy relied on the value of privacy.