Apologies for the way I was treated and undertakings to improve

It wasn’t easy doing this. But now the Australian Public Service Commission and the Australian Tax Office is on the record on oath saying that policy and practice will change for the better.

This is how the ABC reported it:

The head of the Australian Taxation Office has conceded that it did not respond well to a complaint about a staff member’s use of Twitter

Author and women’s advocate Melinda Tankard Reist wrote a complaint after a tax office employee asked on Twitter if anyone had any naked pictures of her.

He has since been disciplined, although it took about nine months for the tax office to inform Ms Tankard Reist that action had been taken.

The commissioner of taxation, Chris Jordan, has told a Senate hearing that the organisation has apologised to the author.

“It has not been a good example of the way a complainant should be treated and it was an unacceptable delay in response,” he said.

“The letter, I believe, was unacceptably brief in what it said. I think she deserved better.”

Economics Legislation Committee – 05/06/2013 – Estimates – TREASURY PORTFOLIO – Inspector-General of Taxation. You can read the transcripts here

Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee – 28/5/13 – Budget Estimates read from page 39.

See my earlier piece on the issue, including my original letter of complaint

Read more

Violating women’s privacy – and proud of it

A woman face down on a bed, naked, sleeping and unknowing.

A man, phone at the ready, takes her picture. She doesn’t know. She has not consented.

Grinning and thumbs up, he then tweets it like some virtual swap card, with the hash tags #wakeupwitharandom, #awkwardsundays and #bedofshame.

For capturing without her permission, the image of the woman he only a short time ago, engaged in the most intimate acts with, he is praised. While she is shamed.

The grinning moron is hailed for the feat. The sleeping woman is labelled a slut. “Woke up next to some sl*g”, tweeted one man, humiliating the woman he didn’t mind using a short time before“.

Repeat this too many times to count and you get an idea of the twitter phenomenon which began when UK Geordie Shore reality TV star Gaz Beadle asked his 500,000 followers: “How many people r doing the walk of shame hahahaha #wakeupwitharandom #awkwardtaxihome.”

Large numbers of men began tweeting photos of their one-night-stands, in a virtual game of one-upmanship where a woman’s right to privacy was violated for their cyber shaming pleasure.

The ‘star’, described by Jezebel   as “sadly but unsurprisingly a role model for many idiots”, then merrily retweeted the pics sent by his gleeful fans.

The topic trended on twitter, Beadle said he’d had a great time at the online humiliation party and was “Defo doing it again next week yer?”

However, The Sun got hold of it and following a storm of criticism, Beadle deleted all the photos and comments from his twitterfeed with an apology that was too little too late. The damage was done. The photos of many unsuspecting women continued to circulate, justified it as women getting their just deserts.

“If these girls weren’t so easy then they wouldn’t end up in #bedofshame”
“People have to remember that the so called victims of #bedofshame made the decision to have a one night stand.#consequences”

Another man thanked his comrades for helping him identify all the sluts to avoid.

Here’s what I had to say on Channel 7 Sunrise this morning.

Rape culture in 140 characters

Jane Hollier

For some it seems, there is a difference between rape, and you know, rape rape.

If the latest debacle involving a UK sports ‘hero’ found guilty of rape can tell us anything, it’s that rape is when a slutty, drunk chick totally has it coming. This kind of rape shouldn’t be taken seriously because, well, she’s drunk and the guy was just having a bit of fun.

Rape rape though is when a sober woman dressed head-to-toe in white is viciously attacked while leaving church by a man with a thick moustache and twitching eye. This man is clearly a rapist, and this woman is clearly innocent (not like that slutty chick, am I right?).

Wales and Sheffield United professional footballer, Ched Evans, was sentenced to five years in jail after being found guilty of rape. The basic premise is that last year in May, a young intoxicated woman went back to a hotel room with Evans’ teammate, Clayton McDonald. She and McDonald had intercourse, and soon after Evans arrived and McDonald left.

This is when Evans is said to have had intercourse with the young woman, while two friends had the audacity to film it through a window.

The victim claimed to have no memory of the night, and with the assistance of CCTV footage showing just how intoxicated she was before the incident, the jury found that the 19-year-old was in no state to be able to consent to sexual intercourse. McDonald was acquitted and Ched was found guilty.

However, sometimes the law is not enough to quench the thirst of a troll; because although the jury found the 19-year-old’s accusation to be legitimate, she is now facing trial by Twitter.

It started with Evans’ teammate, Connor Brown, posting a series of vicious tweets on the micro blogging site. He called her a “money-grabbing little tramp,” and eloquently added, ““If ur a slag ur a slag don’t try get money from being a slag (sic) … Stupid girls… I feel sick.”

This was just the beginning. London Feminist, in a post titled ‘Rape Culture in up to 140 characters’, kept track of the #chedevans Twitter trend and found that a disturbing number people don’t seem to understand exactly what rape is.

Here are just a few.

“Curious to find out more about the #chedevans rape conviction. Not premeditated but locked away for 5 years for lack of consent.”

“Read up on the laws as well now! I change my mind! Seems that it is rape after all! #chedevans”

“Baffled by the #ChedEvans case. You convict both men or neither! How can there be any evidence if the silly bitch can’t remember anything?”

“If nailing a tramp who is too wankered to say no is a crime….. then the old bill need to get down to mine with a set of cuffs. #ChedEvans”

But here’s the thing: rape is non-consensual sex, and a woman being drunk does not and should not exempt rapists from the law. We could question how one man was sentenced to jail and how the other wasn’t, but Senior Crown Prosecutor in Wales, Nita Dowell, lays out the facts.

“Ched Evans took advantage of a vulnerable young woman who was in no fit state to consent to sexual activity. It is a myth that being vulnerable through alcohol consumption means that a victim is somehow responsible for being raped. The law is clear: being vulnerable through drink or drugs does not imply consent.”

Well said. Now if someone could just pass that on to the Twitter trolls.

Jane Hollier is completing a Media degree at Charles Sturt University.

As published in the Canberra Times Jan 22, 2012

Most days when I turn on my computer I am offered wisdom on what would make me less angry about the treatment of women and girls, the issue I most care about.

This can be summarised as ‘MTR really needs a good f**k’.

And that’s a mild offering.

I receive, through twitter, email and my blog threats of violence and sexual abuse. Explicit descriptions of what a man (anonymous, though identifying as male) would like to do to me. And a couple of death threats. Some people have tried to post child porn in the comments section of my website.

I am asked to send in pictures for ‘arse’ or ‘boob’ appreciation societies.

Of course I am not the only one. Online vilification happens to many women who are subjected to a virtual gang bang. If we protest we are told we have no sense of humour. Rape threats are just for LULZ, don’t we know?

In the last week I have received so much e.hate I have had to disengage. I am told to ‘block the bullies’. I don’t have that many hours.

It’s not that I don’t expect strong reactions to my strongly expressed views. If I were thin-skinned I’d hardly put out a book titled Big Porn Inc: Exposing the harms of the global pornography industry. I’d be writing about puppies, kittens and fluffy bunnies instead.

But there is so little engagement with or critique of my arguments. Instead, aggression and intimidation seem to have become generally accepted as a legitimate means of making a point, especially since the advent of new media forms.

It’s the wild west. All the norms and expectations of civil discourse have gone. Social media lacks the inbuilt filtering system of traditional media.

This corrosive behaviour contributes to a narrowing of public debate because many don’t want to participate when they are eviscerated in a savage online environment.

I propose that we try to work out decent ground rules. We tell children that sticks and stones will break our bones, but words will never harm us. We know that it is not true, that words can harm.

Consider the “word crimes” of blackmail, invasion of privacy, sexual or racial intimidation and harassment, conspiracy, extortion, libel, fraud, misrepresentation: all are areas where harmful speech is entitled to regulation and redress. All are areas that give us principles on which to formulate ground rules for social media communication.

No one has a right not to be offended, but everyone has a right not to be harmed by others whether in actions or words. Do no harm is a universal precept.

Also published in the Sunday Age Jan 22, 2012

I hope you are encouraged by this clip from the CBC Early Show about the campaign to remove a T-shirt marketed to young girls with the logo ‘”I’m too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me.”

It was great to see how quickly this took off, after one woman, Lauren Todd, decided to take action, at first posting on Facebook, then launching a petition through Change.org.

Less than a day later, with 1, 600 signatures collected, JC Penney pulled the shirt from its website and issued an apology.

Here’s my favourite quote from Lauren:

“Consumers are supposed to get together and tell corporations when they are unhappy with what they are doing.”

So simple, so true, and so much at the heart of what we at Collective Shout are about. Often our campaigns begin when just one person decides to take action, then engages and mobilises others for the cause.

We’ve seen wins like the JC Penney victory too, after some of our campaigns have gone viral. I think my favourite was when Harvey Norman pulled an offensive radio ad (combining Santa, lap dancing and children) after a Twitter storm of a mere four hours on a Sunday afternoon.

In the same week, Myer removed ‘Betsy the bottle opening doll’ (the bottle was opened via the doll’s backside) after a protest lasting a mere 24 hours.

New forms of social media have enabled us to reach large numbers of people quickly. I wonder some days how we ran campaigns without it!

If you haven’t already signed up to Collective Shout, please do so here . You can also sign up to our Facebook here

We will be working more closely with Change.org which has just opened operations in Australia. Stand by for more.

See also: ‘Pretty’s got nothing to do with it’

Record response from company following a few hours of twitter action

This is the story about the fastest response from a company I have ever seen.

It is also testament to the power of new forms of social media.

I was at my desk, (which sounds better than saying ‘I was in bed reading Facebook updates on my phone’), when I saw a FB message sent Saturday from my fellow advocate for girls, Dannielle Miller. It was about a Harvey Norman ad she’d heard on Sydney radio station Nova:

So I thought I’d send a few tweets about it while working yesterday afternoon.  While I had hoped the tweets would make their way to the company at some stage, I hadn’t realised Harvey Norman was also @HarveyNorman – on twitter.

Here’s a couple from the first batch I sent:

I called for a boycott. Harvey Norman was next on the list for Collective Shout’s ‘Cross ‘em off your Christmas list’ campaign (Don’t give sexploitation companies your Xmas dollar).

My twitter followers got fired up. One was about to buy a TV from Harvey Norman. Not anymore. @Cbngal tweeted this:

Then this lobbed into to my twitter feed:

 I realised Harvey was also hanging around the twitterverse on a Sunday afternoon. And reading my tweets, including a re-working of the ‘Go Harvey Norman’ theme (suggesting where they could go, which probably wasn’t very nice).

Then this:

Journalist Sandra Lee @Fittoprint tweeted ‘the smell of victory’. I hoped she was right but didn’t want to expect too much.

Gary Wheelhouse, head of social media for Harvey Norman, then emailed me:

So I tweeted on his prompt reply. And expected to hear back on Monday.

Forty-five minutes later I received this:

Lyndal Gabriel heads up Harvey Norman’s radio and TV advertising.

Ms Gabriel informed me that the ad had just started running on the weekend, only on NOVA, and was pulled at 8pm. She emailed this comment this morning:

As a Retailer we do not wish to offend anybody, and as such when Gary picked up the comments on Social Media, we immediately acted and pulled the ad.

So all in all a mere four hours of action for the ultimate result.

While of course you have to ask who it was at Harvey Norman that thought this ad appropriate to run at all, I think it is important to commend corporations who recognise they stuffed up and act promptly to make amends.

The only other time I have seen a comparatively quick response was when Best & Less acted speedily to withdraw a padded push-up bra – for tweenagers – after I blogged about it in February. (In contrast, some retailers - like Roger David - don’t bother responding at all).

I really hope this account gives encouragement to other activists and would-be activists, that we really can make a difference. Collective Shout: for a world free of sexploitation  has achieved some significant wins in its first year. Get on board, shout out against sexploitation in all its forms.