Abstract

This essay features a study of the #NotOkay Twitter thread, which arose as a response to the Access Hollywood Trump tape and comprises thousands of tweets by women who describe their first experience of sexual assault. I analyze this hashtag as an act of what Elspeth Probyn calls “writing shame.” I first trace the cultural habitus of emotion around sexual assault and harassment, which teaches survivors to internalize shame and normalizes assault. I then examine how #NotOkay contributors—both before and after the election—participate in writing shame, a practice that does the following rhetorical work: serves as an invitational space for women to rewrite assault-related shame; revises the locus of shame from the individual to the culture that shames; and generates calls to transform this emotional and rhetorical sphere.

Journal
Rhetoric Society Quarterly
Published
2018-03-15
DOI
10.1080/02773945.2017.1402126
Open Access
Closed

Citation Context

Cites in this index (1)

  1. College English
Also cites 9 works outside this index ↓
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CrossRef global citation count: 12 View in citation network →