I have thought a lot about this post over the past week, and have felt very upset at how this was handled by CEA. I wanted to thank you (as so many others have) for your commitment to sharing this. I also really appreciated all your cultural reflections, which I expect to sit with over the coming weeks.
If you decide, by default, that everyone in your group is self-aware, well-intentioned, and telling the truth, and you then make their intent a central factor in assessing misconduct, you will almost never find abuse. You’ve made it structurally impossible. And this is how you end up with a culture that enables sexual harassment.
This rings true and felt especially insightful to me. I can recognize this instinct in myself to shift too quickly and too often into discussing intent (where ‘assuming good intent’ is often assumed to be the virtuous path), pulling attention away from the actions and the harms themselves. I want to challenge myself to do better here, and I hope others will too.
Thank you again Frances for showing such courage, which we can all aspire to, but which shouldn’t have been necessary.
I have thought a lot about this post over the past week, and have felt very upset at how this was handled by CEA. I wanted to thank you (as so many others have) for your commitment to sharing this. I also really appreciated all your cultural reflections, which I expect to sit with over the coming weeks.
This rings true and felt especially insightful to me. I can recognize this instinct in myself to shift too quickly and too often into discussing intent (where ‘assuming good intent’ is often assumed to be the virtuous path), pulling attention away from the actions and the harms themselves. I want to challenge myself to do better here, and I hope others will too.
Thank you again Frances for showing such courage, which we can all aspire to, but which shouldn’t have been necessary.