More than a hashtag: Excitement, Anguish and the Semblant of #MeToo

Abstract

#MeToo generated what has been deemed 'exciting' debate about contemporary feminism and misogynist violence. Through popular media, such as Twitter and Instagram, women rallied around a hashtag which has been covered in traditional news outlets (NYT, Time etc.) as galvanizing a global feminist movement. In this essay, I use Lacanian psychoanalysis to understand such excitement as jouissance. Further, I suggest that the #MeToo 'mo(ve)ment' also pivots off a different affect to excitement: that of anguish–which demands an understanding of a divided, in this case, 'Woman' subject. I suggest that this not-whole Woman '#Me' of #MeToo does galvanise, but in the site of the Real.