Archiving #MeToo: Past, Present, and Future

• In Event: Listening for #MeToo in the Archives

Abstract

This paper will analyze women’s modern and contemporary testimonies of #MeToo experiences and consider the archival presence of women’s voices against the backdrop of the archival silences uncovered in the panel’s other papers. In sources that document women’s voices and accounts of sexual misconduct, when have these voices been heard and when have they been ignored, overlooked, or interpreted in other ways? How has the #MeToo movement made women’s historical experiences more audible, and what is the responsibility of archives and other public history institutions in response? Using the material in the Jewish Women’s Archive’s #MeToo collection, I will reflect on the meaning and messages of the online collection and its relationship to other contemporary and historical sources.

Author

• Judith Rosenbaum, Jewish Women’s Archive