#MeToo and the politics of collective healing: Emotional connection as contestation

Abstract

Participants in the #MeToo movement on Twitter expressed emotions like rage, pain, and solidarity in their personal accounts of sexual violence. This article explores the digital circulation of these affects and considers how the outpouring of tweets about sexual harassment and abuse contribute to a feminist politics centered on collective healing. The particular emotions expressed in the #MeToo Twitter archive subvert the logics of quantification and visibility that undergird popular feminism and the attention economy, and produce an affective excess that works toward movement founder Tarana Burke's original project of “mass healing.” At a moment wherein popular feminism emphasizes individual empowerment and consumption, and carceral feminism relies on criminalization and incarceration, the #MeToo movement's focus on shared emotions represents the potential for a feminist politics rooted in collective support and restorative justice.