I’ve tried to be restrained, professional, whatever, about all of this. I gave my quotes to Buzzfeed. I’d said my piece & thought that would be that. But I’m beyond angry right now, so I’m doing a thread. Please feel free to mute me if you’re tired of hearing about it. 1/ https://twitter.com/BuzzFeed/status/1194507322048933888

I know all too well how hard hearing disclosures of sexual assault & harassment can be. I know the immense responsibility that comes with hearing those disclosures. I know the impact of vicarious trauma. 2/

I’ve lost count of the number of disclosures I’ve gotten over the past five years. The work I do is unpaid (because apparently it’s very important that you tell everyone about all of the free labour you’re doing for survivors, as though that somehow gets you a free pass?) 3/

But this doesn’t make me special. It doesn’t make me unique in anyway. Because countless unknown people are doing the exact same thing every damn day & they’ve been doing it for years 4/

Have I screwed up along the way? Absolutely. We all do. But you apologise. You don’t make excuses. You learn from your mistakes. You listen & you do whatever it takes to make sure it doesn’t happen again. You take responsibility for the harm you've caused. 5/

Receiving disclosures is hard. There’s no denying that. It takes a toll. But it’s also an immense privilege. To have someone share possibly the worst thing that has happened to them with you, to put that trust in you, is a privilege. 5/

Survivors are more than just their stories. They’re whole people, with friends, families, jobs & hobbies. They’re funny. They’re smart. They have pasts & they have futures. Their story of sexual assault or harassment is just one part of them. 7/

But it’s their story. They decide how to share it & who with. The job of journos & advocates is to treat that story with respect, to allow a survivor who chooses to share their story to do so in a way that returns some of the power that’s been taken from them 8/

I’ve worked with dozens of survivors as they've gone through the media process. This kind of fuck up doesn’t happen without an incredible amount of carelessness & disregard for the safety of survivors. It just doesn’t. 9/

When I was filmed by The Project a few years ago, they got some footage of me at my laptop. I’d closed my emails but the camera man – aware of the sensitive nature of the story – told me that they’d only film the EROC Aus website. No personal information would be recorded 10/

People love to dump on @60Mins as a ‘tabloid’ show. I have never, ever worked with a team that was so careful & caring of a survivor & her needs. They got her informed consent, every step of the way 11/

The reporter, @AllisonLangdon, even gave the survivor her lipstick to wear, because it was different to the shade she normally wore. A small detail to try to make her comfortable, to protect her identity 12/

Good journalists, good producers, good editors. They exist. They’re out there. We need them to tell our stories. And we need them to recognise that in that moment, they hold the power. They hold the responsibility to treat our stories with the respect they deserve 13/

But we need a radical overhaul of that power. Who holds it, who it’s handed to. We need to turn that power over to survivors themselves. It’s their stories that create change. It’s them that should be receiving the gratitude, the awards, the accolades 14/

There are thousands of people around Australia doing the work every day, giving support, putting in the hard yards, surviving. But we rarely hear their names, let alone see them receiving awards or even recognition 15/

Because they’re not famous enough. They’re not white enough. They’re not abled enough. They’re not straight enough. They’re not privileged enough. They’re not educated enough 16/

When we do get a small glimpse of those ordinary Australians, they’re framed as ‘marginalised’, needing the help of those who are famous enough, white enough, abled enough, straight enough, privileged enough, educated enough. The ones we’ve deemed 'worthy' of our attention 17/

And when those ordinary Australians & those survivors who are doing the work call out the harmful actions of those we’ve deemed worthy, they’re accused of being divisive, of being feminists who attack other feminists instead of fighting the patriarchy 18/

Those ‘lesser feminists’ are told to be quiet, to let the ‘worthy feminists’ with the public profiles & large social media followings carry on uninterrupted with their good intentions, no matter how damaging or even dangerous their actions might be 19/

We need to do better. All of us. We need to stop allowing the whitewashing & corporatisation of social justice movements. We need to recognise that a moment like #MeToo was about the collective, not the individual. 20/

We all need to take responsibility for the roles that we played in this. Acknowledge your mistakes. Be accountable. Apologise for the harm caused. Take action make sure it doesn’t happen again. Shut up & listen & learn. 21/

Stand with survivors, not in front of them.

/Fin.