CASE STUDY SIX
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Case Study Six
Liberty University
BMAL 770
6/10/2023
CASE STUDY SIX 2
Abstract
Case study six is about the #MeToo movement, a 2006 Myspace initiative Tarana Burke started
to fight sexual violence against women. This paper explores the movement’s ethical concerns
and associated issues, including accountability, the treatment of victims, due process, and biblical
relevance. Though initiated to advocate sanity in the workspace and castigate sexual harassment,
it culminated in a canceled culture, whereby people, mostly men, were ejected from social and
professional circles because of perceived or actual wrongdoing. The study applies the ETHICS
decision-making model, the rights approach, and feminism and Christianity worldviews to
analyze and explain the movement’s intended and unintended impacts.
Keywords: #MeToo movement, ethics, sexual harassment, women, men,
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Case Study Six
The #MeToo movement revealed that sexual harassment and assault are pervasive today.
What started as a post encouraging women to open up became a sustained effort to address
sexual violence against women beginning with powerful men who had evaded accountability for
their actions. Critical ethical questions arise from the #MeToo movement, especially regarding
women's experiences in the workplace. Different worldviews, such as feminism and Christianity,
offer insight into the phenomenon, underscoring the need to help victims. This analysis
conceptualizes sexual harassment and violence as ethical concerns and examines the issues
associated with the #MeToo movement, including accountability, the treatment of victims, and
due process. Though its motive was to advocate dignity and push for accountability, the #MeToo
campaign should have considered all options to ensure the fair treatment of perpetrators to avoid
subverting the same fairness it endorsed.
The #MeToo movement can be traced to Tarana Burke's 2006 Myspace initiative to fight
sexual violence against women. In October 2017, Alyssa Milano thrust Burke's push into the
limelight by requesting Twitter users to comment #MeToo under her post to highlight the
pervasiveness of sexual assault (Menegatti et al., 2022). The post drew significant attention and
caused female celebrities to open up about their experiences. Harvey Weinstein was at the center
of the fiasco, given the gravity of harassment accusations implicating him (Menegatti et al.,
2022). It was the first time that men started to face the consequences of their actions. Some
perpetrators, such as R. Kelly, lost their jobs, whereas others were demoted. The cases also
involved criminal prosecutions. For instance, Weinstein was found guilty in 2020 and is currently
serving a 23-year prison sentence for first- and third-degree sexual assault. These events sparked
discourse about consent, hostile work environments, and power exploitation.
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However, the movement sparked backlash, which mounted with the onset of the cancel
culture. Critics felt that the campaign was overly extreme and sparked fear in men. It also
triggered a trend where men shunned interacting with women to avoid accusations, which had
profound negative implications for women's social and work lives (Johnson, 2022). There were
also concerns about individuals making wrongful accusations that could lead to irreparable
destruction. It culminated in a canceled culture', characterized by shaming and shunning a person
to eject them from social and professional circles because of perceived or actual wrongdoing.
Individuals who face "consistent forms of ostracism, bullying, workplace mobbing, or
harassment due to specific inappropriate behaviors or politically incorrect statements are said to
be canceled" (Mujtaba & Cavico, 2020). Like the #MeToo movement, canceled culture aims to
empower women to voice their experiences of sexual assault, harassment, and discrimination in
the workplace and ensure perpetrators are held accountable (Mujtaba & Cavico, 2020). What
started as a quiet movement in 2006 exploded into a cultural force that forced the world to face
the reality of pervasive sexual violence and initiated a conversation about the merit of steps taken
to handle accusations and suspects.
Sexual harassment is considered an ethical issue. This vice evokes moral concern because
it entails harm to others and wrongdoing. This misconduct violates the moral obligation to
nurture and protect individuals. It is unfair in the sense that it disadvantages victims and is
concerning because it violates social norms and legal rules. Besides, it entails impurity because it
is associated with spiritual and physical uncleanliness. Firmly demonstrating that the vice is an
ethical concern is fundamental, as it helps recognize the injury perpetrators cause.
The Bible is not silent about sexual harassment. It discusses several instances in which
God pays particular attention to the victimized and disadvantaged. Galatians 5:19-21 reveals that
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the Lord does not condone "acts of the flesh" like "impurity, sexual immorality, and debauchery."
In Ephesians 5:3-4, Paul teaches that sexual immorality goes beyond physical harassment and
encompasses lewd jokes, including "obscenity, foolish talk, or coarse joking." In addition,
scripture protects victims and imposes punishments for perpetrators. For instance, Deuteronomy
22:25-26 castigates rape and victim shaming. While verse 25 recommends the death penalty for a
rapist, verse 26 says that the victim, in this case, is innocent and people must "do nothing to the
woman; she has committed no sin deserving death; this case is like that of someone who attacks
and murders a neighbor” (BSB, 22: 26). The two verses furnish an ethical framework that ancient
Jews used to address sexual violence.
Deuteronomy 22:25-26 embody the presumption of innocence for the victim, a
revolutionary way of validating women targeted by the perpetrator. The Bible equates rape to
murder, terming survivors of this vice as non-consenting victims targeted by abusers for
premeditated violence. The fact that a woman does not consent to the rapist's actions
demonstrates that consent is paramount. Besides, the scripture forbids situations where violators
abuse whatever power they have (physical strength or affluence) to victimize others. It also
captures the need to hold abusers accountable for their actions. Thus, the Bible already offers
guidance into what should happen to violators and the people they target.
Ethical models offer a framework for understanding sexual harassment as an ethical
issue. For instance, the fairness/justice approach can be traced to Aristotle's teachings. Aristotle
posited that equals should receive equal treatment unless there is a reasonable basis for unequal
treatment. The main question this model poses is, 'How fair is sexual violence?' The campaign
framed sexual abuse as unfair misconduct that remained pervasive because of a social
environment that excuses and perpetuates it. The model does not stop at problematizing
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misconduct; it also requires that individuals take action to ensure everyone receives fair
treatment. Failure to ensure accountability benefits abusers without justifiable reason.
Who are the stakeholders? Relevant factors Are the effects fair for
everyone?
Victims and
survivors
Society
What factors
contribute to women's
victimization (gender,
social status, and
racial or ethnic
identity)?
Do
perpetrators face
accountability for
unfairly targeting and
victimizing women?
Do suspects
and perpetrators
receive their
entitlement to due
process?
Table 1: Applying the fairness/justice approach.
Another applicable model is the rights approach. Ethicists who embrace this model posit
that an action is ethical if it secures and promotes individuals' moral rights. The rights approach
focuses on the rights of everyone affected by the situation, including sexual harassment survivors
and abusers. Since people have inherent rights, they deserve dignified treatment and should be
able to choose freely. Sexual violence hurts women's dignity and freedom to choose what
happens to their bodies. Women are entitled to safety and must consent to sexual advances.
Notably, the rights approach addresses a key concern triggered by the #MeToo
movement: the treatment of suspects and perpetrators. It augurs well with the virtue approach. As
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seen earlier, the campaign has taken a life of its own and now contributes to the cancel culture,
which does not necessarily follow due process. It is easy to see how an unbridled cancel culture
evokes concern. Ethics impose the obligation to uphold others' rights even when they commit
crimes. For instance, the virtue approach requires that ethical actions be based on ideal virtues.
The qualities are dispositions and habits, allowing people to act with good character.
Some values that come to mind in the #MeToo scenario include honesty, truth, integrity,
fairness, compassion, and courage. Virtue ethics enters a situation and asks: "What kind of
individual does this step cause me to become?" Abusers and suspects hurt their survivors, which
makes it necessary to hold them accountable. However, holding them accountable should not
mean overlooking due process. Virtue ethics requires anyone who seeks to hold another
accountable to demonstrate integrity and fairness. Hence, it is best to leverage different models
when examining social situations. No single model paints a complete picture of moral dilemmas
which are hardly clear-cut.
One of the worldviews that offer insights into this area is feminism. It invites scrutiny of
the role of power abuse, dominance, and power imbalance. A key question in feminist discourse
is how power relationships "systematically privilege men as a social group and disadvantage,
exclude, and disempower women as a social group" (Zhang et al., 2022). Vices such as sexual
violence do not happen in a vacuum. Instead, weak ethical atmospheres are an antecedent to
sexual violence. The #MeToo era awakened the nation to sexual assault, power abuse, unethical
conduct, discrimination, and harassment in work environments (Mujtaba & Cavico, 2020). In
particular, it demonstrated how prominent women exploit their power and wealth to victimize
subordinate female employees. Power imbalances force women to submit to unsolicited sexual
advances to secure jobs, promotions, or other job benefits. Besides, the moral norms and values
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entrenched in work environments and society impact individuals' behavior. The implication is
that organizations and social norms directly impact whether unethical or ethical conduct thrives.
Hence, a weak ethical environment increases the propensity to engage in misconduct by
victimizing women.
The ETHICS decision-making model helps decipher the dilemma associated with the
#MeToo campaign. ETHICS is an acronym for evaluate, think ahead, help, seek information,
calculate risk, and select an action. The first two show how the case study presents an ethical
dilemma. The first element requires individuals to evaluate the dilemma at hand (Ling & Hauck,
2017). Notably, grasping the predicament requires applying ethical principles to a situation. The
#MeToo movement highlights critical areas, including the injustice of sexual harassment and the
need to subject suspects and abusers to due process to avoid perpetuating the same injustice the
campaign aims to alleviate. Ethical dilemmas are scenarios where one may violate ethical codes
despite the step they take. Accordingly, the most ethical step relies on an in-depth analysis of
various options, such as inaction, a mob-like response to sexual violence, and letting the law run
its course.
Think ahead, the second component, establishes the different outcomes expected from
each alternative. It entails assessing each alternative independently to discover every possible
impact, including positive and negative ones. Both #MeToo proponents and critics seem
entrenched in their positions for or against their choices, which may speak to their ability to
gauge all foreseeable consequences. On the one hand, the #MeToo movement raises credible
concerns about systems that allow sexual violence to persist. On the other, there are legitimate
outcomes about due process. The utilitarian model encourages people facing a dilemma to
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consider the totality of the circumstance and acknowledge all possibilities and their impact on all
affected constituents.
The last components aim to seek a solution. The third one, help, concerns seeking the
help one requires to resolve the dilemma. The fourth component, information, requires
individuals to seek information. By gathering relevant information, actors should be open to the
knowledge they find and understand how it applies to the dilemma (Ling & Hauck, 2017). Then,
because all dilemmas entail risks, weighing the risk associated with each alternative is
paramount. This step is based on moral absolutism, which requires individuals to adhere to rules
and avoid injuring others. It sharply contrasts the utilitarian approach leveraged to think ahead.
Moral absolutism invites people to revisit the affected persons considered under the think ahead
stage to understand the level of risk involved. The final step means choosing an action. In this
phase, one chooses the least unethical direction. The decisions individuals make should follow
the evidence collected in the preceding phases. One must not arrive at a premature decision until
the final phase of the model.
In essence, ethics are the standards people use to know how to act in different situations.
The #MeToo movement had profound positive implications because it highlighted the prevalence
of sexual violence against women. Besides creating awareness of the pervasiveness of sexual
harassment and assault, the movement also led to accountability. Survivors were encouraged to
go public about abusers. However, the campaign took a life of its own and evoked concerns
about mob-like behavior, resulting in the unfair treatment of suspects. It is essential to weigh all
options and ensure the fair treatment of perpetrators to avoid subverting the same fairness the
#MeToo campaign aims to promote.
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References
Berean stand Bible. (2023). Bible Hub. https://biblehub.com/bsb/deuteronomy/22.htm
Johnson, C. E. (2022).NOrganizational ethics: Apractical approachN(5th ed.). SAGE
Publications.
Ling, T., & Hauck, J. M. (2017). The ETHICS model: Comprehensive, ethical decision making.
VISTAS Online. https://www.counseling.org/docs/default-source/vistas/the-ethics-
model.pdf
Menegatti, M., Mazzuca, S., Ciaffoni, S., & Moscatelli, S. (2022). Behind the lines of# MeToo:
Exploring women's and men's intentions to join the movement.NSustainability,N14(19),
12294. https://doi.org/10.3390/su141912294
Mujtaba, B. G., & Cavico, F. J. (2020). Ethical analysis of office romance and sexual favoritism
policies in the# MeToo workplace and "Cancel Culture" era. SocioEconomic Challenges,
4(4), 132-50. https://doi.org/10.21272/sec.4(4).132-150.2020
Zhang, J., Sun, C., & Hu, Y. (2022, January). Representing victims and victimizers: An analysis
of# MeToo movement related reports. Women's Studies International Forum, 90
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2021.102553
