CHAPTER 5

• Jurisdiction: United States

CHAPTER 5

The Healing Power of Telling Stories? Some Unforeseen Effects of #MeToo in Colombia

Isabel C. Jaramillo Sierra¹

When Alyssa Milano encouraged the use of the tag #MeToo to mobilize against sexual assault after the Harvey Weinstein scandal, she probably never imagined that she would spark a global phenomenon. In Colombia, the global campaign materialized in complex ways with, unfortunately, few tangible results. Feminist NGOs have used the Spanish version to support, in the abstract, the fight against sexual harassment, and express solidarity with victims. Young college students have used the hashtag to denounce the sexual violence they endure at home, in the streets, and on campuses around the country. Finally, some reporters and broadcasters have shared their own stories in the media.

Notwithstanding the number of stories and the solidarity of women from different ages and professions, there is already a sense of frustration as men continue to harass with impunity in the wake of the movement. In fact, the latest news on sexual harassment involved the acquittal of former Ombudsman (officer in charge of the promotion and protection of human rights) Jorge Otálora based on evidence that the woman who had accused him had at some point sent him a gift with a card suggesting that they had a relationship.²

This chapter provides an account of the uses of #MeToo and its Spanish version #Yotambién, proposes an interpretation of Colombian law on sexual harassment currently in force, and points to some of the weaknesses in the legal framework that could explain why the campaign has failed. I argue that the campaign has actually been costly to the efforts of feminists mobilizing to transform Colombian law on gender violence, but also has produced an opportunity for feminists to engage a younger generation of women.

Colombian Women Too ...

Colombian women have connected in different ways to the #MeToo movement. Roughly speaking, there have been three dominant interpretations of what to do with the hashtag and what the movement is about.

One interpretation, shared by Colombian women in elite NGOs and center-to-left-wing intellectuals, is that the tag is about exposing gender violence in media, and that the movement is about ending all forms of gender violence. In this way, they connect the accusations against Harvey Weinstein to a larger agenda of reducing gender violence in Colombia. These women then use the tag when referring to their own campaigns—old and new—and to every case of gender violence they wish to make more visible. This use is both innovative and deceptive. It connects local concerns to a global agenda and brings light to very important work. Most of this work is oriented to the legal reform of Colombian gender violence law through litigation and increased awareness. These Colombian feminists have been building a model for the defense of victims that uses international and regional law to demand that judges and prosecutors consider the delicate situations that women confront when they seek protection from authorities. These NGOs have worked hard with government authorities to introduce special legislation on gender violence,³ to increase sentencing for femicides, and to obtain punishment for cases that otherwise might not have been noticed, particularly the kidnap, rape, and murder of indigenous girls by white professional males.⁴ However, their campaigns have little to do with the media, professional, and academic elites that #MeToo mobilized in other parts of the world, and the fact that they are using the tag has not changed this focus or orientation. Actually, these NGOs rely almost completely on funding from international aid that stresses assisting vulnerable populations. These agencies only consider poor women to be in such situations.

A second interpretation of #MeToo, or #Yotambien, has originated among college students who have understood #MeToo as a space for voicing experiences of sexual abuse and violence. The Facebook page "Confesiones Universitarias" (University Confessions) has become a forum for stories about the abuse and violence perpetrated by family members—boyfriends, friends, or former boyfriends as well as stories about the abuse and violence faced in the streets and public transportation. As opposed to the NGO use of the tag, here women tell detailed stories in the first person and without any punitive goal in mind. Although there is a flavor of reproach and a tone of disillusionment, narrators explain that they are not seeking to put anyone in jail but rather to find comfort in finally being able to admit to themselves and their support networks that it happened. These are two examples of the posts by young women in Confesiones Universitarias:

"Hello All. Since #metoo has become stronger and I am not capable of telling this story out loud, I decided to tell it here.
A little more than a year ago I was going through a rough patch with the guy who was my boyfriend at the moment, and I felt very guilty about it. One day he went to my house and got into a huge fight with me, I don't even remember why. Out of nowhere he unzipped his pants, grabbed my hair, threw me onto the floor and forced me to give him a blow job. [. . .]
I stayed on the floor crying and shocked. I had never been so humiliated in my life. I felt dirty, I felt repulsed. [. . .]
When I read what so many other women wrote, all the feelings I had that day came back to me. I just wanted it out of my system. Thanks for reading." [Translation by the author]

This is the second story:

Hello, my abuse story is this: I left the University and got on a bus; I sat in a window seat, leaving the aisle seat free. A 70-year-old man got on the bus in one of the stops. When I saw him come up, he gave me a bad impression, but I did not move. He looked at me and sat in the free seat next to me. Five minutes later he began to touch himself. I felt uncomfortable but I didn't do anything; I thought he would eventually stop. A few minutes later, he decided to take out his penis and masturbate. At that point I decided I would change seats, but he grabbed my hand, showed me a knife, and told me that if I moved, he would stab me. [. . .] The most frustrating part of this experience for me has been that the people I have shared this story with have not taken it as seriously as I felt it was. My parents listened but didn't do anything about it, their attitude was "those things happen" [. . .] Thanks for Reading." [Translation by the author]

The Facebook page has now received these kinds of stories for over a year. Small groups of young college students mobilizing around sexual violence in elite universities have felt paralyzed by the outpouring of stories. On the one hand, these stories are anonymous, and it is not clear that it would be ethical or safe to try to find the women who wrote them. At some points, the stories do not even seem to be real. On the other hand, their efforts over the last five years have focused on sexual violence in universities, and on moving away from the discourse of violence toward a discourse of equality...