After Luis Rubiales, the president of Spain’s soccer federation, forcibly kissed Jennifer Hermoso, a player on the national women’s team, in the wake of their World Cup win, many wondered whether it would be a #MeToo moment for Spain.
Whether the televised kiss galvanizes a lasting movement against harassment and discrimination is yet to be seen. But the growing backlash against Rubiales highlights an often-crucial element of such public reckonings: scandal.
During periods of social change, there is often a phase of widespread support for an overhaul in principle but a reluctance within the population to actually make those ideals a reality. Changing a system means taking on the powerful insiders who benefit from it and bearing the brunt of their retaliation — a hard sell, particularly for those who do not expect the change to help them personally.
A scandal can change that calculus profoundly, as illustrated by the furor surrounding the kiss. Hermoso described it as “an impulse-driven, sexist, out-of-place act without any consent on my part.” (Rubiales, who has refused to resign, has forcefully defended his conduct and insisted that the kiss was consensual.)
By generating public outrage, scandals make inaction costly: suddenly, doing nothing risks an even greater…
