#MeToo named the victims. Now, let's list the perpetrators | Jessica Valenti

All weekend, I heard the same two words repeated over and over from friends around the country: me too. I watched as my loved ones, family and colleagues raised their hands online to be counted as victims of sexual assault and harassment – a move, the viral message said, to show the world just how many of us there are.

For women, of course, that meant nearly everyone.

At first I didn’t understand what made me so uncomfortable about #MeToo - after all, the more women sharing their stories and raising their voices, the better. And though we all know the statistics around sexual violence, it can be easy to think of these things in terms of numbers rather than people. So why not humanize the issue?

Then I realized: we’ve done this so many times before. Told our stories, raised our hands. Do we really need to bleed ourselves dry once again? How many times will we need to lay our traumas bare in the hope that this will finally be the time people care enough to do something about it?

It’s true that telling our stories can help – it can help victims not feel quite so alone and make others understand the breadth and depth of the problem. But the truth is that nothing will really change in a lasting way until the social consequences for men are too great for them to risk hurting us.

Why have a list of victims when a list of perpetrators could be so much more useful?

After all, there was a reason men in media circles were shaking in their Vans last week: an anonymously created spreadsheet was being passed around, listing “Shitty Media Men” accused of everything from sending creepy direct messages to violent sexual assault.

It was an extension of the existing whisper network we’ve heard so much about the wake of the Weinstein scandal – women warning each other about potentially skeezy or dangerous men.

Some suggested that creating a list where men couldn’t respond to accusations, or where sexual propositions were listed alongside rape, was irresponsible. Those people missed the point entirely.

Of course the list wasn’t a perfect solution to sexual harassment and assault – because it wasn’t meant to be a solution at all. This list – private until its existence was outed by Buzzfeed – was triage. It was an emergency measure; harm reduction for a community of people who felt they had no other recourse.

To several women I spoke to who saw their abuser’s name on the list – entered by someone else he had hurt – it was also solidarity. It gave them a feeling that they weren’t crazy or alone. It made them feel believed. Those are things that don’t need to be held to the same standard as reporting harassment or assault.

And there’s a reason that the “Shitty Media Men” list – like #MeToo, which was meant for both harassment and assault victims – contained a variety of bad and sometimes criminal behavior by men.

Both the hashtag creators and the women who submitted names to the list recognized that these things are often on a spectrum of violations. Men who harass women and cross boundaries may also be men who later do physical harm; that’s worth warning women about.

And really, are we so jaded with sexual violence stories that we’re willing to dismiss a man who sends sexual propositions to employees as something other than a harasser? Have things gotten so awful that we’re willing to let run-of-the-mill creeps get away with it because – hey, at least they’re not raping us!

Despite all the attention on sexual violence right now, the truth is that we cannot depend on the idea that this time will be different, that this time they’ll believe us and things will change.

We can depend, however, on each other.

So while I’m glad tens of thousands of women are raising their hands and being counted for #MeToo, I hope we’re making some other lists as well. Because if there’s anyone who deserves to be counted right now, it’s the monsters.