"The freedom to be bothered" as a White and Bourgeois Privilege: Power, Race and Gender in News Media during the #MeToo Movements of France and Quebec

About: On January 9, 2018, French newspaper Le Monde published an open letter defending the "freedom to be bothered, essential to sexual freedom." A collective of 100 women signatories affirmed that if "rape is a crime [...] insistent or clumsy flirting is not a crime, nor gallantry a macho aggression". This column, signed in particular by the famous actress Catherine Deneuve, was intended as a response to the #MeToo, #MoiAussi and #BalanceTonPorc movements, born in the context of an unprecedented sex scandal that erupted at the end of 2017 in Hollywood. The analysis presented in this chapter covers this letter and articles from French and Quebec national media (written press, radio and television) posted online during the week following its publication. It shows that race and class issues have mainly been evacuated in this media coverage, favouring reductive and sensationalist oppositions between feminist discourses and French and Quebec cultures. This presentation is based on a book chapter that was co-authored and published with Ingrid Guesdon from Université Laval.

Kharoll-Ann Souffrant, University of Ottawa

Kharoll-Ann Souffrant is a Ph.D. Candidate in Social Work at the University of Ottawa and a Visiting Scholar at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Her doctoral thesis project focuses on the #MeToo movement from the perspective of Black women and girls in francophone Quebec. Her master's thesis in social work, completed at McGill University, focused on the themes of disclosure and the respect for the dignity of sexual violence survivors. Trained as a social worker, Kharoll-Ann Souffrant has direct work experience with survivors of gender-based violence.