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From #MeToo to #ProtestToo: How a Feminist Movement Converged with a Pro-democracy Protest in Hong Kong

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2021

Ruby Y. S. Lai*
Affiliation:
Lingnan University

Extract

The #MeToo movement in Hong Kong emerged in late 2017, subsequently converged with the Anti-Extradition Law protest in 2019, and evolved into the #ProtestToo campaign against police violence and sexual assult. This essay traces the development of the #MeToo movement and analyzes the collaboration among the government, civil society, and the media in fostering the movement to combat sexual violence. It argues that whether the collaborative model succeeds or fails depends upon sociocultural and political circumstances: the failure of existing measures in preventing, investigating, and prosecuting the alleged sexual assaults inflicted on protesters in 2019 reveals how a shift to authoritarian governance may cripple the established anti–sexual violence collaboration.

Type
Critical Perspectives on Gender and Politics
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Women, Gender, and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association

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References

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