The Effect of the #MeToo Movement on Political Engagement and Ambition in 2018

• Author: Lori Poloni-Staudinger,Jeremiah J. Castle,J. Cherie Strachan,Shannon Jenkins,Candice D. Ortbals
• Published date: 01 December 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912920924824
• Date: 01 December 2020
• Subject Matter: Mini-Symposium: The Role of Gender in the 2018 Midterm Elections

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912920924824

Political Research Quarterly

2020, Vol. 73(4) 926 –941

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912920924824

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Mini-Symposium: The Role of Gender in the 2018 Midterm Elections

The emergence of the #MeToo movement in the after-

math of the 2016 election led to the conventional wisdom

that political engagement and ambition increased, partic-

ularly among Democratic women. Angered by President

Trump’s comments about how he treats women and moti-

vated by public accounts of the widespread nature of

sexual harassment and assault brought to light by the

nascent #MeToo movement, people took to the streets for

marches, protests, and rallies (Chenoweth and Pressman

2017; Tambe 2018). Some argue that people became

more aware of sexual harassment as a result of the

#MeToo movement and, thus, more inclined to partici-

pate in politics (Jordan et al. 2018; Lah and Moya 2018;

Shugerman 2018). According to a Kaiser poll, nearly 10

percent of all respondents indicated they had joined a

rally or protest either in opposition to or in support of the

Trump presidency since 2016, and nearly four in ten said

they planned to become more involved in political causes

in 2018 (Jordan et al. 2018). In 2018, record numbers of

women ran for Congress, with many motivated by their

desire to hold sexual harassers and assaulters accountable

(Dittmar 2018; Lah and Moya 2018). Thus, popular

accounts and emerging research on the topic suggest

increased focus on sexual harassment from the #MeToo

movement fueled anger, engagement, and ambition in

2018.

Despite conventional wisdom, we are not aware of any

existing academic studies that investigate #MeToo’s

effects on awareness, engagement, and ambition. While

the literature suggests that anger can trigger political

mobilization, it also identifies several factors that may

limit the movement’s impact, and perhaps even demobi-

lize some audiences. First, the effect of emotions on polit-

ical participation is complex, with some emotions, like

anger, triggering mobilization, while other emotions, like

924824PRQXXX10.1177/1065912920924824Political Research QuarterlyCastle et al.

research-article2020

1Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, USA

2University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, USA

3Pepperdine University, malibu, CA, USA

4Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jeremiah J. Castle, Lecturer of Political Science, Central Michigan

University, Anspach Hall 247, Mount Pleasant, MI 48859, USA.

Email: jeremycastle15@gmail.com

The Effect of the #MeToo Movement on

Political Engagement and Ambition in

2018

Jeremiah J. Castle1, Shannon Jenkins2, Candice D. Ortbals3,

Lori Poloni-Staudinger4, and J. Cherie Strachan1

Abstract

Conventional wisdom holds that the #MeToo movement increased awareness of sexual harassment and drove

sympathizers, particularly women, to increased participation in the 2018 midterm elections. In this paper, we assess

whether #MeToo increased awareness of sexual harassment, as well as whether #MeToo increased self-reported

interest in various forms of political participation. Using an original dataset from October 2018, we find that although

the #MeToo movement increased awareness and concern about sexual harassment and sexual assault, it did not

affect interest in political participation among most Americans. We also find that the people most likely to report

being aware of and mobilized by the movement were Democrats, those with high levels of political interest, and those

who have personally experienced sexual harassment in professional settings. Surprisingly, in most of our models,

women were no more likely to report that #MeToo increased their interest in participating than men. The results

suggest that the primary effect of #MeToo may have been increasing the salience of sexual harassment and interest

in political participation in 2018 among those who possessed the resources to participate and who were ideologically

predisposed to support the movement’s goals from the beginning.

Keywords

#MeToo movement, women and politics, political participation, partisanship

Castle et al. 927

anxiety, have a demobilizing effect. For instance, sexual

assault and harassment may be demobilizing as such

experiences can induce anxiety, which has been found to

suppress costly forms of political participation, like

attending a rally or donating to a campaign (Tambe 2018;

Valentino et al. 2011). In addition, in a polarized political

environment, the responses of the parties and partisans

can be key to influencing public opinion, leading to dif-

ferent effects of the #MeToo movement on Republicans

and Democrats. Evidence also indicates that negative

experiences associated with political activism, ranging

from loss of privacy and interpersonal conflict to becom-

ing the target of sexism and/or racism, can decrease polit-

ical engagement and ambition (Lawless and Fox 2015;

Mutz 2006; Shames 2017), and as awareness of the chal-

lenges associated with running for office increases, politi-

cal ambition decreases (Foos and Gilardi 2019). Finally,

the #MeToo movement has been criticized for prioritiz-

ing white women’s sexual harassment and assault, which

may mute the mobilizing effect on people of color (Soucie

et al. 2018; Tambe 2018). Thus, previous research pro-

vides multiple reasons to question conventional wisdom

regarding the #MeToo movement’s link to political

mobilization.

In this paper, we use data from an original survey con-

ducted in October 2018 to assess whether the #MeToo

movement increased awareness and concern regarding

sexual harassment on the eve of the 2018 midterm elec-

tions. We find that a majority of respondents self-reported

that #MeToo raised their awareness and concern regard-

ing sexual harassment; however, in multivariate analysis,

we find that Democrats, those who have personal experi-

ence being sexually harassed and/or assaulted, and those

with high levels of political interest were most likely to

report that the movement increased their awareness/con-

cern. In other words, those most likely to be persuaded

that this issue is a threat were the ones who were already

most apt to respond to the movement’s messaging.

Second, we examine whether #MeToo affected self-

reported interest in various forms of political participa-

tion immediately prior to the 2018 midterm elections.

Overall, we find that the #MeToo movement had little

impact on most people’s propensity to participate in poli-

tics. It did affect some, although for all forms of political

participation except voting, more people reported a

demobilizing effect than a mobilizing effect. Moreover,

those most likely to report a mobilizing effect fell into

two basic categories: those who already possess the

resources to participate (including those with a high level

of interest in politics) and those who were ideologically

predisposed to support the group’s message (Democrats

and those who have experienced workplace discrimina-

tion personally). Surprisingly, we find that gender was

not a statistically significant predictor of propensity to

participate in any of the models, despite popular accounts

that #MeToo mobilized women. Thus, while #MeToo’s

efforts to highlight the prevalence of sexual harassment

and assault are undoubtedly important for numerous rea-

sons, our findings complicate the conventional wisdom

about #MeToo’s impact on political engagement and

ambition in the 2018 midterm elections.

Literature Review

Sex and gender played an extraordinary role in the 2016

election and its aftermath (Nelson 2018). Hillary Rodham

Clinton achieved history, becoming the first woman to

run for president as a major party nominee. Donald

Trump’s candidacy was historic in a different way, includ-

ing his lengthy record of sexist and misogynist com-

ments, such as the leaked Access Hollywood tape (Nelson

2018). Trump’s victory triggered rage among feminists

(e.g., Chait 2017), leading to the Women’s March of 2017

and numerous other protests. The news of Harvey

Weinstein’s lengthy history of sexual harassment and

abuse further stoked this rage, leading victims to share

their own experiences with harassment using the hashtag

#MeToo to demonstrate the magnitude of the problem.

The phrase “Me Too” was initially linked to sexual

harassment and assault by community activist Tarana

Burke in 2006 to draw attention to stories of sexual

assault survivors and to achieve “empowerment through

empathy” (Rodino-Colocino 2018). The hashtag #MeToo

went viral in 2017 after a tweet from actress and activist

Alyssa Milano (Rodino-Colocino 2018), and #MeToo

grew into a movement mobilized primarily through social

media to provide a sense of solidarity and empowerment

for sexual harassment and assault survivors (Mendes

et al. 2018). According to the Pew Research Center, the

#MeToo hashtag was used more than 19 million times as

of October 2018, with use surging around important

political events (Anderson and Toor 2018). Facebook

estimates that almost 50 percent of U.S. users are friends

with someone who posted a message about experiences

with sexual assault or harassment (Tambe 2018). The

most immediate consequences of the movement included

the firing or resignation of numerous celebrities whose

history of sexual harassment and/or assault was high-

lighted by survivors’ accounts shared via #MeToo posts.

Heading into the 2018 midterm elections, a common

media narrative held that women’s anger was translating

to increased political activism (e.g., Freeman 2018).

Social science suggests this account is plausible: people

experiencing powerful emotions like anger (Huddy,

Feldman, and Cassese 2007; Mutz 2006), threat

(Campbell 2004), and anxiety (Valentino et al. 2011) are

more likely to engage in a variety of political activities,

particularly voting. Other factors, though, may have