“They Were Laughing”: Congressional Framing of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s Sexual Assault Allegations on Twitter

• DOI: 10.1177/1065912920987631
• Published date: 01 March 2022
• Date: 01 March 2022
• Author: Jamie M. Wright,Jennifer Hayes Clark,Heather K. Evans
• Subject Matter: Articles

2022, Vol. 75(1) 147 –159

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912920987631

Political Research Quarterly

© 2021 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912920987631

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In the fall of 2017, the hashtag #MeToo became a viral

movement that rocked the world of Twitter and became

the start of a larger conversation about the prevalence

of sexual assault, rape, and violence against women in

the workplace and beyond. These allegations of sexual

assault and the stories told using the hashtag #MeToo

inspired many others to come forward to share their own

stories of assault. More recently, allegations of sexual

assault and violence engulfed the confirmation hearings

surrounding President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee

(and now Justice) Brett Kavanaugh. These allegations not

only spanned all the various sectors of American life, but

also spurred both support and counter-movements that

divided the country along the way.

When #MeToo became a movement, many politicians

tweeted about their own personal stories of sexual harass-

ment and assault. Support for #MeToo, especially in the

early stages of the movement, was nonpartisan. As

research by Clark and Evans (2020) shows, the parties

did not express different levels of support for the move-

ment. Republicans and Democrats were just as likely to

tweet in support of the #MeToo movement. The Brett

Kavanaugh hearing and his confirmation as a Supreme

Court justice, however, was a turning point in the move-

ment. His hearing spurred supporters of Kavanaugh and

critics of the #MeToo movement to change the narrative

from one of “believing the survivors of sexual assault”

and embracing the “rights of the survivors” to a discus-

sion of the importance of “due process” and the “rights of

the accused.”1 Thus, the initial issues concerning the

#MeToo movement—including sexual harassment and

assault—remained in the spotlight; however, who was

discussing these issues and the framing surrounding

sexual harassment and assault (i.e., how they discussed

#MeToo and sexual assault) changed as a result of the

Kavanaugh hearings and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s alle-

gations against Brett Kavanaugh.

Given the change in the overall conversation concern-

ing #MeToo during this time period, our work examines

the evolution of congressmembers’ communication con-

cerning sexual assault and #MeToo during this critical

time of the Kavanaugh hearing and how this relates to

perceptions of gender and partisanship today. We show

that partisanship played a much larger role in discussions

of sexual assault during this time period than before the

Kavanaugh hearing. The shifting framing surrounding

issues concerning #MeToo and sexual assault among

987631PRQXXX10.1177/1065912920987631Political Research QuarterlyWright et al.

research-article2021

1University of Houston, TX, USA

2The University of Virginia’s College at Wise, USA

Corresponding Author:

Heather K. Evans, The University of Virginia’s College at Wise, 1

College Ave., Wise, VA 24293, USA.

Email: heatherkevans@uvawise.edu

“They Were Laughing”: Congressional

Framing of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s

Sexual Assault Allegations on Twitter

Jamie M. Wright1, Jennifer Hayes Clark1,

and Heather K. Evans2

Abstract

Allegations of sexual assault and violence engulfed the confirmation hearings surrounding President Trump’s Supreme

Court nominee (and now Justice) Brett Kavanaugh. Our work examines congressmembers’ communication concerning

sexual assault and #MeToo during this critical time of the Kavanaugh hearing and how this relates to perceptions of

gender and partisanship today. While previous research demonstrated a strong role of gender in influencing which

members discussed #MeToo, we show that partisanship played a much larger role in discussions of sexual assault

during this hearing. The findings highlight the shifting narrative surrounding the #MeToo movement and how the

multiple identities of members of Congress, namely partisanship and gender, can be activated and produce changes in

how elites communicate about the issue, which may have broader policymaking implications.

Keywords

Kavanaugh, #MeToo, Twitter, Congress, gender, partisanship

Article