It is a truth universally acknowledged that a working woman will eventually face some form of inappropriate sexual behavior. But instead of sucking it up as women have been trained to do, one journalist exposed her harasser in a Twitter thread and had him suspended by his employer in a matter of hours—inspiring other women to share numerous similar accounts.
On Sunday evening, journalist Talia Jane shared screenshots of her conversation with Seattle Times housing and real estate reporter Mike Rosenberg, who somehow managed to go from asking her about job applications to saying there’s “so much cum” on her face.
https://twitter.com/itsa_talia/status/1125082724715438080
Jane, known for writing an open letter to her employers at Yelp that reportedly prompted her termination, first shared screenshots of the chat without identifying who the harasser was. It showed a light-hearted conversation about her finding a job and New York being expensive to (an entirely one-sided) chat about her attractiveness and, eventually, cum:
https://twitter.com/itsa_talia/status/1124948284785688576
After his repeated messages, she told him they were neither “appropriate” nor “acceptable.” He apologized and requested that she not expose him as it would “devastate” his wife, according to screenshots she shared in the thread. He explained that he’d been meaning to send that message to someone else, but as Jane pointed out in one of her later tweets, he had ample time to figure out he was sending the messages.
In a subsequent conversation, which Jane documented in the thread through screenshots, she asked him to get rid of Twitter account so that he doesn’t continue his predatory behavior. He said that would get him fired and end his career, which are often the consequences women suffer when they don’t reciprocate men’s advances. When she asked him to acknowledge publicly that he’s the one who sent those tweets, he instead chose to deactivate his account.
She also wrote an email to his Seattle Times editors. “I am bringing this information to your attention because the media landscape is filled with men who abuse their platforms to engage in predatory sexual harassment with less established voices,” she wrote. “This behavior routinely discourages women and marginalized voices from entering the field and sets a precedent for other men to follow suit.”
Seattle Times Executive Editor Don Shelton wrote back promptly, saying they’d suspended Rosenberg and are investigating the matter.
When reached on the phone by Crosscut, Rosenberg confirmed he had sent those messages and wasn’t comfortable discussing who they were actually for. Shelton, when contacted by Crosscut, did not say if Rosenberg’s suspension was with or without pay.
Needless to say, the thread inspired many women to share similar accounts on their jobs. According to a 2018 Columbia Journalism Review survey of about 300 journalists, 41% said they’d been sexually harassed on the job, and only a third of them had reported their incident. But these accounts shared on Twitter show that most women will face such harassment numerous times over the course of their careers. Many responded to Harper’s Bazaar editor Jennifer Wright’s call to share similar anecdotes:
https://twitter.com/designergirl/status/1125191653659217920
https://twitter.com/caitlincorsetti/status/1125186051809660930
So many times! Worst was a Boeing middle mgr who wrote wondering how sensitive my breasts were. This after I’d already said he was being inappropriate & leave me alone. His “apology” was to panic about how it would ruin him. No concern for how his behavior affected me, of course.
— Jill McCabe Johnson, PhD (@JMcJohnson) May 6, 2019
I worked in construction and the owner showed up one day and asked if I wanted to go to dinner, I was under the impression this was a company dinner (I was 19 he was like 50) show up and it’s just us and he had already gotten a hotel room reserved. I was gone in about 2 seconds
— Amy Arnold (@a81arnold) May 5, 2019
https://twitter.com/telebones/status/1125200843450519553
https://twitter.com/dianacorvelle/status/1125121963079323648
Every single job I have ever had and that includes back when I was a 13yo waitress.
— Jody Drinkall (@DrinkallJody) May 6, 2019
Many women said they’ve had to use the “boyfriend excuse” to get out of harassing behavior.
I stopped giving out business cards and wear a fake wedding ring to conferences.
— Sara Ackerman 🐺🗽 (@saramikaila) May 6, 2019
https://twitter.com/dianacorvelle/status/1125201495069040641
Women have also heard harassers give the “oops, it was an accident” excuse after getting called out, too.
https://twitter.com/KendraHolten/status/1125299453496193025
A senior partner asked me to “lunch” – except instead walked me down to Millennium Park & asked me to take my shoes off & put my feet in the fountain. His request turned into a demand & when I still refused he took me back to the office without so much as buying me a corn dog
— SaraSuze (@tragedythyme) May 6, 2019
At the core of the conversation is how normalized such behavior is for men who have gotten away with it for so long. As @tragedythyme points out in her account, sometimes these “jokes” and advances are blurred with professional behavior such as “lunch” or done in a manner that might not be explicitly scary or creepy, and it doesn’t force women out of their jobs or careers. But sometimes, women do end up facing repercussions for not entertaining these advances.
https://twitter.com/MaribethMooney/status/1125252391744487424
https://twitter.com/murder_unicorn/status/1125191255850401793
https://twitter.com/MaribethMooney/status/1125252391744487424
Several times by the same boss, who eventually stopped giving me freelance work when I was’t receptive.
— Milo (@milomilome) May 6, 2019
Some women have left their professions entirely to avoid predators. Which is an important reminder to the many who are defending Rosenberg and sending Jane messages that she didn’t need to end his career which, by the way, she wasn’t planning on, as she stated in an email to the Seattle Times editor. For the time, Rosenberg has been suspended.
In the end, Jane has received much more applause than derision for her approach to shaming Rosenberg for his behavior. By outing and humiliating him, Jane has shifted the shame where it belongs: to the perpetrator.
(Neither Jane nor Rosenberg immediately responded to the Daily Dot’s request for comment.)
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