LAWRENCE — The #MeToo movement began as a way for victims of gender-based violence to find solidarity, share their experiences and bring justice to perpetrators of misconduct. New research from the University of Kansas shows that often conversations about #MeToo become focused on punishment and forced poverty as justice for crimes instead of examining why gender-based violence happens and is prevalent in society.
By 2018, names of numerous prominent men were connected with accusations of sexual misconduct. In a New York Times opinion piece published that year, writer Katie J.M. Baker asked, “What do we do with these men?”
Meggie Mapes, associate specialist in communication studies at KU, studies how punishment, criminalization and the idea of “canceling” people from public life for wrongdoing are communicated among the “vernacular public,” or everyday people. With co-author Daniel Chick of Western Kentucky University, she analyzed reader comments on the New York Times article to understand how people were talking about the issue.
“How does punishment become the normal and customary response, and what happens if we just allow that to continue as the norm instead of examining the questions of what allows that kind of harm to happen?” Mapes asked in framing the impetus for the research article, published in the journal Critical Studies in Media Communication .
The researchers found commenters regularly called for punishment for prominent men who committed gender-based harm. The most common calls were for imprisonment, but many readers also wrote that they felt stripping the men of any power and resources they held were also justified. Several commenters explicitly stated the perpetrators should be required to live in poverty for the rest of their lives or not be allowed positions of power.
“We found that everyday people view punishment as the thing we need to do with these men,” Mapes said. “The idea of putting them behind bars isn’t necessarily surprising, but many want them to suffer the rest of their lives and experience poverty. If you think about it, that means folks think poverty is a choice and that both prison and poverty are justifiable, that a person must have done something to deserve to be there.”
Mapes and Chick wrote that the comments largely advance the ideas of carceral feminism, a form of feminist philosophy that holds that the criminal justice system can address the problem of gender violence through punishment.
However, it does not consider the individual causes of such violence, how it is socially prevalent or questions of justice within the carceral system, including how individuals from marginalized communities and low socioeconomic classes are imprisoned at higher rates than others, they wrote.
Commenters also commonly illustrated a theme of atonement, insisting that wrongdoers should make their crimes right. Whether through public apology, helping educate themselves and others on gender-based violence or other measures, readers commonly expressed that perpetrators should be part of the healing process by “making things right.”
The #MeToo movement started as a way for victims to find community and healing. But the research findings show that the public still largely shares carceral feminism’s view that punishment as the top priority can manage the problem by containing individuals. Further, people view poverty as justifiable punishment and that forcing someone to “take a job at the local Wal-Mart” also implies that people living in poverty or working certain jobs deserve their socioeconomic status, the authors wrote.
Mapes said she plans to continue research in how punishment is communicated through media and public narratives, including how young people view punishment in society and in education.
“People online were not calling themselves carceral feminists, but we can see how prevalent that thinking is,” Mapes said. “It tells us how prevalent thought about punishment really is. Gender-based violence is so pervasive we’re stuck in a restraining model. Things aren’t happening to change that view of violence. But there are other approaches. We don’t have to start from scratch.”
Critical Studies in Media Communication
Meta-analysis
People
#MeToo, carceral feminism, and vernacular retributive rhetoric
30-Jun-2026