A key feature of contemporary gender politics is the renewed visibility of feminist activism in the current media landscape, on the one hand, and of anti-feminist backlash on the other. This dynamic has been described by Banet-Weiser (2018) as a tension between “popular feminism” and “popular misogyny”. Popular feminism refers to a revival of feminist ideas and activism that is especially “tied to media visibility, circulation, and affective embrace” (Banet-Weiser et al., 2020, p. 4), particularly on social media platforms. In contrast, popular misogyny refers both to the “social, political, economic, and cultural structure” of patriarchal societies (Banet-Weiser, 2018, p. 17) and to the more recent “reaction to the culture-wide circulation and embrace of feminism” (Banet-Weiser, 2018, p. 3). Popular misogyny can be understood as part of a wider trend of the revitalization of populist and conservative politics across Western countries, which has invigorated sexist ideas and policies in mainstream society (Rottenberg, 2019). The revival of feminist protests since the 2010s can thus also be understood as a backlash against this institutional legitimization of conservative views on gender.

The #MeToo campaign represents an essential case study to understand this context of revived feminist activism and backlash in media discourses. Starting in 2017 after the publication of investigations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, “the long #MeToo moment” has corresponded to an “explosion of discourse and activism around sexual and gender-based violence over the past decade” (Boyle, 2024, p. 2). The participation of social media users in #MeToo has been described as “nothing short of phenomenal” and represented a “moment of reckoning” for sexual violence activism (Fileborn and Loney-Howes, 2019, p. 3). In the years that followed, it has been observed how #MeToo contributed to a “transformation in mainstream common sense” in public discourse around sexual violence (Rottenberg, 2019, p. 47; Bernardini, 2021).

At the same time, recent years have also been characterized by intense anti-feminist discourses and policies, such as the popularization of men’s rights and anti-“political correctness” discourses (Corredor, 2019; Nicholas and Agius 2017). This is especially noticeable on social media platforms, in what has been identified as “networked misogyny”, “a basic anti-female violent expression that circulates to wide audiences on popular media platforms” (Banet-Weiser and Miltner, 2015, p. 172).

Thus, the #MeToo shift did not occur in a linear fashion, nor did it happen without a significant amount of backlash. Rather, #MeToo represented “a moment of rupture in which definitions of sexual violence are simultaneously opened up and pulled back toward more conservative understandings” (Fileborn and Phillips, 2019, p. 100). Much of the public discussion on #MeToo has focused on a central axis of tension: whether the movement has gone “too far” or “not far enough” (Boyle, 2024; Bernardini, 2025). The struggle over the boundaries, meaning and reach of #MeToo can therefore be read as part of a wider cultural struggle in contemporary gender politics between popular feminism and popular misogyny.

The present study aims to analyse public responses and backlash to #MeToo by examining a specific case study in the European digital public sphere: the Twitter discussion that followed an “anti-#MeToo” public letter published in Le Monde in 2018. By analysing a sample of tweets in the week that followed the publication of the letter, the present study aims to explore how users interpret a high-profile instance of backlash against #MeToo at the height of its visibility. This analysis brings to light a number of themes that are useful to understand many tensions in current debates on gender politics, including anti-feminist backlash, witch-hunt and moral panic discourses, and women’s and men’s claims to victimhood.

The case analysed is an open letter published in Le Monde on 9 January 2018, with the headline “«Nous défendons une liberté d’importuner, indispensable à la liberté sexuelle»” (Chiche et al., 2018). The letter was co-written by five French women1 and signed by over 100 women, mostly creative professionals, including art critic and author Catherine Millet, who in her memoir detailed her experiences with group sex and anonymous encounters, challenging norms around female sexuality (Thurman, 2022), and revered actress Catherine Deneuve. As the most internationally prominent signatory, the letter became most closely associated with Deneuve in media coverage, where she was often portrayed as the primary creator and spokeswoman for the initiative.

The main message of the letter is that #MeToo has gone too far and “led to a climate of totalitarian society”. According to the authors, while the Harvey Weinstein accusations triggered “a legitimate awakening about the sexual violence that women are subjected to”, the campaign quickly degenerated into an attack on men, women, and sexual freedom. They contend that #MeToo is animated by a “hatred of men” and that it unfairly targets them for harmless sexual acts. Additionally, it relies on puritan morals that reduce women to the “status of eternal victim” and “to defenseless preys of male chauvinist demons”. As the headline sums up, they call for greater individual empowerment in sexual relations, since “the freedom to say ‘no’ to a sexual proposition cannot exist without the freedom to bother”. At the same time, this view of sexual relations between women and men has been read as conservative, “located in the heteronormative gender binary that connects the two sex/gender identities through heterosexual desire, in which women’s role in society is reduced to that of a passive object of seduction” (Hajek, 2018, p. 141). The letter can placed as a part of a wider cultural discussion on the acceptability of high-profile men’s predatory behaviour, which predates the 2017 #MeToo hashtag but that has recently been recognized as “the long #MeToo moment” (Boyle, 2024). In France, this is exemplified by public discussions of director Roman Polanski, who in 1977 pleaded guilty of drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl. His arrest in 2009 generated controversy in the following years in France and in the U.S., with many political and film personalities either condemning Polanski or defending him, especially on the basis of his artistic merits (Marghitu, 2018).

The Le Monde letter represents one of the most clearly articulated and publicised examples of backlash against #MeToo. It was widely disseminated by news outlets. In the context of shifting cultural discourses about sexual violence, the letter can be understood as a fundamentally conservative action aimed at undoing the social transformation brought about by #MeToo. By January 2018, it was clear that #MeToo had generated some kind of cultural shift, and the authors aim to push back against what they perceive to be a new cultural climate. The letter can thus be framed as an instance of a typical narrative of “reactionary feminist politics” that claims that bourgeois feminists are the real victims, and which is often amplified in high-profile media outlets (Phipps, 2021). Following criticisms of the letter in the days after its publication, Deneuve issued an apology to survivors of sexual assault who might have been offended, but otherwise re-stated her support for the initiative (Deneuve, 2018).

The letter also drew highly polarised responses from social media users. The present study thus aims to analyze the international reactions to the Le Monde letter on the platform Twitter (now known as X).

This article examines a sample of posts in the Twitter conversation following the publication of the letter in Le Monde in 9-15 January 2018. Twitter was selected as the research platform because it serves as a widely recognized public forum. The predominantly public nature of posts and interactions encourages users to engage with issues of collective interest.Twitter has long been regarded as a leading social networking site for conversations on social and political matters, blending news, entertainment, political discourse, and personal communication (Papacharissi and de Fatima Oliveira, 2012; Lameiras, 2019). Previous research has highlighted the growing polarization of online discourses on gender and sexuality, underscoring the importance of examining these discourses within the context of digital platforms (Arce-García & Menéndez-Menéndez, 2023). Therefore, Twitter was deemed the most appropriate platform for this study to explore the political, social, and cultural dimensions of the #MeToo discourse. Research often focuses on Twitter due to its predominantly public data and text-based content (Giglietto et al., 2012; see also Bruns, 2018, for limitations).

The analysis draws from a broader dataset provided by the ‘Minerva’ project, which was supported by the Foundation for European Progressive Studies and the Economia Civile association (see Zacchia et al., 2019). Researchers used a Python-based API to collect over 2 million public tweets posted between October 2017 and April 2018 containing the #MeToo hashtag. A subset of tweets from this dataset was selected for the present study. An initial sample of tweets was extracted containing the following key words: “Deneuve”, “French”, “Monde”. The sample was limited to the week following the publication of the letter, from 9 to 15 January 2018. Additionally, all tweets written in French from that time period were extracted, since it was assumed that the majority of these posts would be focused on the Le Monde letter. Overall, the initial sample was 13,226 tweets. To obtain a smaller sample that was manageable for close reading, a random sample of 14% tweets was extracted. The final sample analyzed in this paper thus consists of 1,434 tweets. Reflecting the international reach of the discussion, a variety of languages is present in the dataset. The majority of tweets (65%) are in English, while 18% are in French. Other significant languages include Spanish (7.5%), German (4.6%), Dutch (2.6%) and Italian (2.2%). The focus of this paper is thus on the international social media debate; Pavard et al. (2020) provide an analysis of #MeToo in the French national context.

Following the ethical guidelines of the Association of Internet Researchers (Franzke et al., 2020), only public tweets are analyzed, and usernames are anonymized. This consideration was particularly important given the sensitive subject matter and the expectation that users might share personal experiences of sexual violence (Mukherjee, 2017). Tweets in languages other than English were translated by the author.

Tweets were analysed using thematic analysis, defined as “a method for identifying, analysing, and reporting patterns (themes) within data” (Braun and Clarke, 2006, p. 9). The goal of thematic analysis is to highlight “the most salient constellations of meanings present in the dataset” including “affective, cognitive and symbolic dimensions” (Joffe, 2012, p. 209). This approach is especially useful to understand the process of social construction of a certain issue by given population: in this case, how Twitter users understand #MeToo and its backlash. The Twitter sample was read repeatedly to identify initial codes, which were annotated with the aid of Dedoose software (2018). The analysis generated 27 codes, which were then organised into overarching themes. To address the research aim of exploring users’ interpretations and debates surrounding the Le Monde letter, three main themes are identified and presented in the next sections: discussions on the definition of sexual violence and of #MeToo, criticisms of #MeToo, and understandings of #MeToo as a generational and national divide.

This research has notable limitations. Since the dataset includes only tweets with the #MeToo hashtag, discussions of the letter without the hashtag are excluded, a common issue in “hashtag studies” (Bruns, 2020). While the letter directly responded to #MeToo and likely prompted many users to include the hashtag, some relevant tweets are inevitably omitted. However, given the study’s focus on the letter’s connection to #MeToo, analyzing hashtagged tweets is appropriate. Additionally, social media anonymity often results in fragmented or unverifiable user information, including traditional social research variables such as gender or age. Consequently, the study emphasizes tweet content rather than the identity of their authors.

One of the key points made in the letter is the importance of setting clear boundaries regarding sexual violence. The letter begins with the assertion: “Rape is a crime. But trying to pick up someone, however persistently or clumsily, is not — nor is gallantry an attack of machismo” (Chiche et al., 2018). By aiming to challenge the #MeToo discourse, the authors reaffirm a binary understanding of sexual violence, delineating a clear distinction between rape and what they perceive as harmless flirting. This perspective proves especially contentious in Twitter discussions. Some users express support for the letter’s distinction, emphasizing the importance of separating rape from other forms of sexual interaction:

Other users express confusion regarding the idea put forward in the letter, which suggests that #MeToo is calling for a blurring of the definition of sexual violence. They argue that it is the authors of the letter who are responsible for blurring these boundaries, as they are misrepresenting the core intent of #MeToo:

Most notably, users propose their own definitions of sexual violence, seeking clear criteria to determine what constitutes sexual violence and problematic behaviour. Some point to power dynamics as the central defining element of sexual violence, challenging the dynamics omitted in the letter’s arguments. These users draw on the classic feminist framework of rape as a matter of violence and domination rather than sexuality (Brownmiller, 1975). In this way, they underscore the critical role of power dynamics in shaping the concept of consent within sexual behaviour:

In a similar vein, some users also challenge the letter’s claim that #MeToo represents an attack on sexual freedom. They conceptualise sexual freedom as rooted in equal gender relations and meaningful consent. In their view, the #MeToo movement’s fight against sexual violence and harassment also serves to foster a more sexually free and egalitarian society:

Another strategy that users adopt to counter the arguments presented in the letter is by invoking their personal experiences with sexual harassment. They follow the #MeToo initiative of sharing their stories to illustrate how, based on their subjective perceptions, certain behaviours should be classified as harassment. In this way, they challenge top-down definitions of violence and rely on their own understanding to assert the legitimacy of their experiences:

In a similar way, some users also stress the importance of listening to the experiences of other survivors to define sexual violence. They oppose the content of the letter, arguing that it constructs a selective interpretation of #MeToo while disregarding the narratives shared by survivors; this omission is perceived as offensive and tone-deaf:

One of the main criticisms leveled against the authors of the letter is that they speak from a position of privilege, which renders them unable to fully grasp the power dynamics at play in cases of sexual violence:

Not all woman have the financial freedom Ms. Deneuve and “We’re All That Boys!”2 women have to fight back. As a matter of fact, VERY FEW DO. For a single mom, if its between feeding children and demanding dignity, children win every time. (13 January)

One point in the letter that attracts particular criticism is the suggestion that a woman might not “feel forever traumatized by a man who rubs himself against her in the subway, even if that is regarded as an offense,” and that she might “consider this act as the expression of a great sexual deprivation, or even as a non-event” (Chiche et al., 2018). This statement is interpreted by some users as exemplifying the authors’ oblivious privilege, as they describe an everyday situation that, users argue, they are likely unfamiliar with due to their celebrity lifestyle. As a result, their opinions on the subject are deemed insignificant and ill-advised, as they lack the familiarity or authority to comment on the experiences faced by “regular” women:

This point is particularly interesting because one of the most frequent criticisms directed at the #MeToo movement is that it prioritises the voices of famous, privileged women (Phipps, 2019). Here, however, #MeToo is generally understood as advocating for the best interests of ordinary women, contrasting with the perceived detachment and cluelessness of the French authors. As a result, users criticise the authors of the letter for perpetuating misogyny and undermining women’s rights, while expressing their support for #MeToo:

Another element of the letter that is taken to symbolise the authors’ privilege is the mention of the protests that took place in October 2017 against a Roman Polanski retrospective at the Cinémathèque Française. In the letter, these protests are cited as part of a “purging wave” against male artists; additionally, Catherine Deneuve had previously expressed her support for Polanski. From the perspective of some users, defending Polanski signals the authors’ lack of understanding of sexual assault, revealing the letter’s confused definition of the varying degrees of sexual violence. They also reiterate the authors’ inability to prioritise the rights of women over their celebrity privilege:

As a result, some users express support for the #MeToo movement, which they believe has been misrepresented in the letter. They provide their own definition of the scope of #MeToo, aiming to present

it as a reasonable and legitimate movement, in contrast to the view expressed in the letter:

In the letter, some of the most widespread criticisms of #MeToo are articulated, such as the idea that a legitimate movement has turned into a “witch-hunt” and that it has been weaponised by angry women acting irrationally. As a result, the letter resonates with certain users who share the French women’s concerns about the “new” ideas #MeToo has brought forward:

Some users feel that the Le Monde letter is bringing much-needed nuance into the #MeToo debate. They believe the conversation has taken on an extremist tone, and the letter is seen as counteracting this with more moderate, “common-sense” opinions:

What if #BalanceTonPorc and the letter signed by Deneuve are not fundamentally incompatible[?] Why should they be opposed? There are certainly two realities, can we admit it? (I am posing the question like this, since I am not a woman...) (10 January; translated from French)

I see the point. If #metoo was a gauge needle on a dashboard, 0 could be everyone ignoring the problem. That’s rectified. 100 would be viewing a hello or a query as sexual harassment. That’s not made clear. Deneuve and the French artists have recalibrated the needle midway. (10 January)

In an interesting contrast, some users praise the bravery of the signatories for speaking out in the letter. In their view, #MeToo is seen as representing the dominant paradigm of political correctness that is prevalent in society, and the signatories of the letter

are viewed as lone voices who go against the tide by voicing unpopular opinions:

Supporters of the letter argue that the text articulates some of the most widespread criticisms of #MeToo as a movement. Many users believe that #MeToo embodies a form of feminism that has gone too far and is unjustly targeting all men. This is evident, for example, in the association of #MeToo with the term “feminazi”:

Similarly, words like “hysteria” and “lynching” are used to describe #MeToo and the women who speak out through the movement:

In a few instances, this discourse is appropriated by nationalist and anti-Islamic commentators. The original letter makes a brief reference to “religious extremists,” who are grouped with “enemies of sexual freedom” and “reactionaries” (Chiche et al., 2018). While users do not explicitly quote this passage, some view #MeToo as part of a broader trend of foreign influences that are detrimental to French culture. The “excessive” feminism of #MeToo and #balancetonporc is likened to Islam as a religion that restricts women’s freedom and harms French values:

One of the points in the letter that most resonates with users is the idea that #MeToo has turned into a war against all men; the letter repeatedly states how men are now being unjustly targeted for harmless behaviour:

On this point, users feel that the #MeToo movement has given women a sudden and excessive power which they are wielding to attack men. As a result, men are often portrayed as the “real victims” and those who are suffering the most from this recent empowerment of women. The concept of “himpathy” (Manne, 2018) is useful to understand how these discourses aim to prioritise the defence of men:

Some users take this argument further by claiming that the women who participate in #MeToo do not actually have any experience of “legitimate” sexual assault – a point which does not appear in the original letter. According to these users, these women are opportunists who have used their sexuality to their own advantage, and thus have no right to participate in #MeToo:

The controversy generated by the letter and the heated public debate that followed are often interpreted by referring to two broad categories of overlapping explanations: as a generational conflict and as an issue of French national culture.

Users frame the polarisation of the debate as a generational divide. Some users are open-minded in trying to understand this contrast as a difference in values between an older generation of feminists, represented by the authors of the letter, and the younger #MeToo activists. In this sense, users acknowledge that #MeToo has brought on a new mentality that contrasts with the views of older generations:

Interesting attempt to see into generational differences on the French women rejecting #MeToo: “I wonder if those of us who were born later, who are fighting other battles, often underestimate the primacy of sexual liberation in the world view of previous generations. (11 January)

It is noticeable that Deneuve, the most prominent woman among the signatories, was 74 at the time of publication; however, the five authors of the letter were of varying ages, ranging from late 30s to 80s. The generational conflict is therefore at least in part a cultural construction that stems from how users perceive the values espoused in the letter and those of #MeToo activists. Indeed, some users map the generational conflict onto the other types of conflict that were previously described; most notably, some users see the letter as an expression of the privilege of an older generation, who take on a condescending tone while being oblivious to the real problems women face:

A group of around 30 feminists, led by politician Caroline De Haas, published a counter-letter where they compare the signatories of the Le Monde letter to “the annoying colleague or the tiresome uncle who doesn’t understand what’s happening” (Collins, 2018). This comment was widely picked up by the media and is quoted often in the Twitter sample. Some users even adopt ageist language against Deneuve and the other signatories to undermine their views:

In contrast, those who support the letter do so precisely because they feel that #MeToo has brought about a new mentality that they deem excessive. They share the letter’s call for a return to a previous generation of common-sense attitudes toward harassment and violence:

Another line of interpretation for the polarisation of arguments has to do with the fact that the authors of the letter are French; the message of the letter is therefore often interpreted, both by users and in the media, as stemming from specific French cultural characteristics. Both those who support and those who oppose the letter argue that their position somehow stems from a French cultural specificity. Opponents see France as a country where misogyny is rampant, and the letter as an expression of this misogyny:

Conversely, supporters of the letter believe that #MeToo goes against French cultural values and thus see the letter as defending French society. France is associated with stereotypes about romance and seduction, whilst #MeToo is seen as imposing foreign American values:

The present study has analysed public responses on Twitter following the publication of an “anti-#MeToo” letter at a highly visible moment in the #MeToo campaign. The analysis reveals the tensions and conflicts that permeate public discourse on sexual violence and feminism. Some thematic axes in the online discussion can be identified that offer meaningful insights into the dynamic between popular feminism and popular misogyny within #MeToo.

The letter represents a conservative effort against #MeToo, seeking to reaffirm “the pre-existing normative boundaries of sexual violence” (Fileborn and Phillips, 2019, p. 107). The backlash against #MeToo that emerges from the Twitter samples often takes the form of anti-feminist discourse, “invoking feminist overreach, hysteria, and irrationality” (Fileborn and Phillips 2019, p. 102). In the sample, the #MeToo movement is often compared to a witch-hunt or is more generally perceived as a moral panic. Anti-feminist backlash therefore emerges as an important feature of the public’s understanding of #MeToo, which is perceived as excessive and exaggerating the seriousness of sexual harassment. This discourse constitutes the core argument of the French letter and is shown to be shared by many supporters of the initiative, demonstrating the continuing resonance of moral panic and witch hunt themes in current cultural discourses (Phillips and Chagnon, 2021).

Public perceptions of victims and victimhood are also key to understanding the findings in this #MeToo case study. Discourses on victimhood are central to the Le Monde letter, which argued that #MeToo aims to “enslave [women] to a status of eternal victim and reduce them to defenseless preys of male chauvinist demons” (Chiche et al. 2018). The authors argue that, by expanding the definition of sexual violence, #MeToo is also extending claims of victimisation to a wider range of women. This becomes a contentious point among supporters and detractors of the letter in the Twitter sample. Public discussions of sexual violence often entail the use of neoliberal discourse that prizes individual responsibility and criticises victimhood (Worthington, 2020). This reflects a wider concern with a “culture of victimhood” that began in the early 1990s, where claims of victimisation by marginalised groups, such as women, ethnic minorities or disabled people, constitute an expression of weakness, dependency and lack of personal responsibility (Cole, 2006). Such discourses are also present in the Twitter sample, refuting women’s claims to legitimate victimhood and instead recasting them as attention seeking and attempting to discredit men. Thus, victimhood discourses can be interpreted as a renewed backlash against the current visibility of feminism and anti-sexual violence activism.

Such discourses also reflect the increasing mainstreaming of alt-right ideas and the re-positioning of feminism and progressive politics as intolerant and oppressive (Phipps, 2019). For example, the infiltration of alt-right language can be observed in the sample of tweets, with a vocal minority of users employing derogative terms such as “feminazi” in their attacks against #MeToo. The nature of the current backlash can thus be summarized as a “caricatured version of anti-rape discourse that is portrayed as panicked and vengeful, which is partly a function of scholarship on victimhood and partly a function of right-wing polemic growing out of a nihilistic online milieu” (Philipps and Chagnon, 2021, p. 12).

Despite denying claims of legitimate victimhood to women, it is particularly interesting to note how both the letter and some users in the Twitter sample retort by constructing a new category of victims: men as the “real victims” of #MeToo. The concept of “himpathy” has been used to describe how an accused (powerful) man can elicit a particular kind of sympathy from the public that ends up “effectively making him into the victim of his own crimes” (Manne, 2018, p. 210). The construction of men as victims can be placed in a wider context of stories about white male victimhood, which have been central to recent events such as Brexit, Black Lives Matter, and the election of Trump (Chouliaraki and Banet-Weiser, 2021; Phipps, 2021). In this vein, some users in the Twitter sample contend that it is all men who are being victimised by the public call-out on the problematic or violent behaviours of some accused men. As Boyle (2024) notes, in these discourses the #MeToo movement is “recast in the role of the perpetrator” (p. 80), while all men, as well as anyone who criticises #MeToo, become victims of an all-powerful movement. The amorphousness of these roles can be observed in the Twitter sample: users who agree with the letter’s argument that men are under attack do so based on an abstract claim – no real-life examples or names are given. On the other hand, some users are critical of the letter’s intentions in reference to the naming of known abusers, such as Roman Polanski, since they feel that the perpetrators of actual crimes are hard to defend. More generally, critics of #MeToo choose to portray it as an abstract but dangerous entity, removing the experiences of individual survivors from the narrative while maintaining that #MeToo represents an attack on men as well as on common-sense (Boyle, 2024). This also parallels what Phipps calls the “hand-on-knee trope” that is often used to discredit stories of sexual violence by positioning women as “over-sensitive” and unable to distinguish between harmless actions and “real” sexual violence (Phipps, 2019, 14). In this sense, users in the sample often sympathise with the letter’s claim that men have suffered professional consequences for “touch[ing] a woman’s knee” or “try[ing] to steal a kiss” (Chiche et al., 2018). It is unclear who the authors are referring to, as they fail to name the men who have incurred such punishments, while they place more emphasis on the “totalitarian” nature of #MeToo. The claims of the dire consequences for the lives and careers of the accused men, then, appear partly unfounded; this seems to confirm the idea that it is the public discussion of these stories that is most troubling to #MeToo detractors.

The present study has identified some key themes in the Twitter discussion on the “anti-#MeToo” letter published in Le Monde in January 2018. The findings illuminate the intertwining discourses of popular feminism and popular misogyny in the current debate on gender politics. Expressions of popular feminism such as #MeToo are actively obtaining visibility in the media and in the public arena; at the same time, by aiming to challenge patriarchal institutions, they also provoke anti-feminist backlash. This study adds to the existing body of knowledge on the circulation of and reactions to #MeToo and related hashtags in European contexts (e.g., Arriaza Ibarra and Berumen, 2019; Corsi et al., 2019; Knüpfer et al., 2022) and beyond (e.g., Belotti et al., 2023; Boyle and Rathnayake, 2020). It is recommended that future studies should examine the transformation of both feminist and anti-feminist discourses in subsequent iterations of the “long #MeToo moment”.