The Me Too Movement: Positives and Negatives

From The Harvard Business Review:
This is not a fight between men and women. It’s a fight over whether a small subgroup of predatory men should be allowed to interfere with people’s ability to show up and do what they signed up for: work.

Several changes in the past decade have brought us to this startling moment. The internet enables women to go public with accusations, bypassing the gatekeepers who traditionally buried their stories. Just as important, women have made enough inroads into positions of power in the press, corporations, Congress, and Hollywood that they no longer have to play along with the boys’ club.

The result of all these changes is what social scientists call a norms cascade: a series of long-term trends that produce a sudden shift in social mores. There’s no going back. The work environment now is much different from what it was a year ago. To put things plainly, if you sexually harass or assault a colleague, employee, boss, or business contact today, your job will be at risk.
https://hbr.org/cover-story/2018/01/now-what
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The founder of the MeToo movement has said that the campaign against sexual violence she began more than a decade ago has become "unrecognisable" to her.

Speaking at TEDWomen in Palm Springs, Tarana Burke said a media backlash had framed the movement as a witch hunt. "Suddenly, a movement to centre survivors of sexual violence is being talked about as a vindictive plot against men," she said. "Victims are heard and then vilified."

She was keen to get back to the original intention she had for MeToo when, in 2006, she wrote the words on a piece of paper as a way of starting an action plan to do something about the sexual violence she saw in her community. The phrase became a globally used hashtag last year in the wake of allegations made against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

"This is a movement about the one in four girls and the one in six boys who are sexually abused every year, and who carry those wounds into adulthood," she says. Ms Burke said in the wake of events like Brett Kavanaugh being appointed to the Supreme Court despite facing allegations of sexual misconduct.
https://www.ted.com/talks/tarana_burke_me_too_is_a_movement_not_a_moment
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From The New York Times:
A year later, even as the #MeToo movement meets a crackling backlash, it’s possible to take some stock of how the Weinstein case has changed the corridors of power. A New York Times analysis has found that, since the publishing of the exposé (followed days later by a New Yorker investigation), at least 200 prominent men have lost their jobs after public allegations of sexual harassment. A few, including Mr. Weinstein, face criminal charges. At least 920 people came forward to say that one of these men subjected them to sexual misconduct. And nearly half of the men who have been replaced were succeeded by women.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/23/us/metoo-replacements.html

Another article in The New York Times (I'm a Straight Man. Now What?), a group of men explored their thoughts on Me Too:
Another said that while he logically knew that false accusations are rare, he couldn’t help but worry that it could happen to him.

Some men said they saw a lot of themselves in Aziz Ansari, the actor who recently was accused in an online article of ignoring the verbal and nonverbal cues of a former date. In the article, she described his behavior as sexual assault. They wondered if and how often they missed those cues themselves.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/31/us/the-metoo-moment-im-a-straight-man-now-what.html?rref=collection%2Fseriescollection%2Fmetoo-moment&action=click&contentCollection=us&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=collection

Let's go out for a bite and a drink after, maybe at Chili's.