Case one more sign of #Metoo's impact?
NEW YORK — Tarana Burke says people are always asking “what's next?” for the #Metoo movement, the broad reckoning against sexual misconduct and abuse that she helped launch seven years ago.
This week, Burke, who coined the phrase “me too” decades ago in work with survivors of sexual violence and saw it go viral in 2017 with the Harvey Weinstein case, has two ready answers.
On Tuesday, the organization she leads, called `me too' International, announced an initiative to become truly international in scope — a so-called global network to partner with groups in 33 countries around the globe to combat sexual violence.
On the same day in a New York courtroom, the latest high-profile case was unfolding involving an influential man accused of abusing his power and privilege to inflict sexual harm: mogul Sean
“Diddy” Combs, who was headed to jail to await trial in his federal sex trafficking case.
In an interview, Burke said the emerging details, in which Combs is accused of a sordid array of sexual crimes, were “horrific.”
But she took comfort, she said, in the knowledge that it was the cultural shift resulting from #Metoo that helped bring the case to light in the first place.
Burke noted that the original lawsuit filed last November against Combs, by former girlfriend Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, was made possible by a New York “lookback” law, the Adult Survivors Act, enabling people alleging sexual abuse to file civil suits after the statute of limitations had expired.
“The lookback law … was a direct result of survivors organizing as part of the #Metoo movement,” Burke said. “All these things are connected. Survivors pushed hard that we need this law. This is directly related to the power of the movement.”