The #MeToo movement, catalysed by reporting on Harvey Weinstein in New York in October 2017 and given global reach through social media, fundamentally shifted public discourse about power over women's bodies, institutional misogyny, and the social policing of women's appearance and behaviour. The movement spread across the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia, prompting legislation, corporate policy changes, and a massive outpouring of testimony from women about experiences of bodily and professional coercion. It created a new cultural context in which the history of women's bodily constraint — from the corset to contemporary dress codes — was revisited and reinterrogated.

#MeToo generated one of the largest outpourings of feminist poetry in history, conducted primarily through social media — Twitter, Instagram, and online literary journals — by poets and first-time writers across dozens of languages. Poems addressing bodily autonomy, the history of constraint, and the connection between physical and professional power proliferated. Established poets including Ada Limón, Tracy K. Smith, and Joy Harjo engaged publicly with the movement, and the US Poet Laureate's office made it a platform for poetry as a vehicle for feminist testimony.