Logan Browning on #MeToo and Why Male Allies Need to Step Up
Logan Browning is everywhere lately — and with good reason, as season two of Dear White People just dropped on Netflix. But for Logan, it's not enough that people see her — she's going to make sure you hear her, too.
"It feels a little bit more meaningful than just standing, posing, repeating," she tells Teen Vogue about appearing on panels, which is something she's been doing a lot lately. (When we catch up, she's just wrapped her talk at the Teen Vogue Summit, where she, Aja Naomi King, Amara La Negra, Diane Guerrero, and Laura Harrier talked about representation in Hollywood.) "But the thing is, there's so much to talk about! It goes by so quickly and you're like, 'oh, we didn't even get to...'"
Though the panel, which was moderated by Akilah Hughes, touched on how each star found her activism and how to use social media to amplify your voice, Logan is quick to identify one topic she wishes they could have talked more about: the #MeToo movement.
To Logan, watching people open up about their experiences with sexual harassment or misconduct has helped her realize "the times that I have been affected by things that make me uncomfortable, or things that have made me feel powerless, that I haven't expressed in the moment. It's a learning curve. It's like when someone finally says, OK, you can come out now! You've been hiding, come back up! But you're really hesitant, because you're like, uh, can I?"
While she says she doesn't have a #MeToo story in the same way some survivors do, she is doing her part to listen, and to amplify other voices. "Honestly it's just trying to feel empowered myself and continuing to share the stories of people who are coming out," Logan explains.
The issue goes far beyond Hollywood, too. "Any woman on a set — or any woman, I think, in her job, has experienced something that's either been harassment, or made to feel uncomfortable," Logan points out. "The thing is, men don't even realize that they do it. Men don't realize the 'jokes' that make us feel like you either have to tell them off, or shut down. There's no middle ground."
She is hopeful for a change, however — and says that she has already witnessed it happening. "I think the biggest thing is having male allies. I think that now that other men realize what's going on, they are taking on a responsibility," Logan explains. And it's crucial that everyone is included in the conversation; as organizations like It's On Us stress, men need to serve as upstanders and put in solid work as allies if we want the culture of sexual harassment to be eradicated for good.
"I had a situation where someone said something that made me uncomfortable but I didn't know how to respond. The other man in the room just said, 'Hashtag, me too.' Literally, it's like a code word now," Logan remembers. "The other person started to backtrack, and it's not like he meant to say anything derogatory, but it made everyone in the room aware that this can make a person feel a certain way."
"A lot of it is naïveté," she says of the culture that has conditioned so many people to perpetuate the cycle rather than break it. "People don't realize that the things they say and their actions can have this adverse effect." One way to put an end to this behavior? Calling it out. And Logan is using both her voice, and her platform, to create change.
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