I have been a funder of both CEA and Rethink Priorities in the past, to the tune of low 5-digit sums per year. I’m personally acquainted with Julia, Chana and Peter, and I trust their judgement to an extent, so I tend to believe that they have good reasons for their actions, even if I don’t know what they are yet.
Despite this, if the basic claims you’re making (as I understand them) are true:
you’ve been instrumental in getting a double-digit number of abusers excluded from the community over the last 6 years or so,
this is a relatively uncontroversial claim that Julia et al would straightforwardly agree with,
then I’d be willing to fund you to continue this work, even if CEA didn’t want to pay you themselves. Given your credentials and background, I don’t know if I could afford you by myself, but if not I imagine there might be other people interested in contributing too.
I don’t want to sound like I’m promising anything. I’m generally nervous of being over-eager to fund things without fully understanding the situation and all perspectives on it. I think there’s a reasonable chance that when I ask the CH team about this they have very good reasons for why they haven’t had a better relationship with you, and perhaps there could be some reason that funding you to continue this work would be counterproductive somehow.
I also understand that the fact you’re not paid to do this work is not your only complaint, and maybe not even in your top three complaints. But it is the complaint that seems easiest to address, especially as a comparative outsider.
No, my main complaint isn’t the lack of payment; I was taking reports and speaking to survivors for years prior. What I didn’t realize until two weeks ago is that the way in which CH used my work puts me at higher legal liability, so I want to replace it. My main complaint is that the orgs and the folks listed aren’t knowledgable on the topic—while I’m sure are lovely humans in many regards—also aren’t willing to admit that they’re in over their heads and not experts on SA. I don’t think it’s malice, just—being overwhelmed, carelessness, bad communication, a lack of putting themselves in my shoes or survivor shoes, that sort of thing. Trying to gather more data makes sense, but trying to gather that data to see if it’s worth CH’s time/resources to take stronger action on SH/SA without addressing the inherent issues with the difficulty of obtaining such data is short-sighted at best, and from a moral standpoint, we should reduce sexual harassment/assault without first needing to see if the scope of the problem is greater than it is for other groups or not.
My main things are: given that CH seems pretty antagonistic toward survivors or seeing that there’s a problem and puts me at risk of legal liability (I guess payment is number 4). Creating a formal relationship with them would lower risk (some information is private, the flow of info from me to CH is better), and for CH, create conditions in which confidentiality exist. And if CH continues to be antagonistic toward survivors, then I’d rather not connect survivors to them. How can I possibly ever send survivors to talk to someone who says she needs to how the accused is beneficial to the movement to make any sort of judgement? I do genuinely want them to more survivor-friendly. I do want them to see that women are being harmed; especially because more trauma comes from mishandling rape cases than from rape itself*. But at the same time, I don’t want to spend all that time working with CH without getting paid for my time, nor do I think it’s a good idea to try to spend that time unless we have better communication between them & me.
Definitely don’t think you’re promising anything! And tbh, I’m not sure how I feel about funding versus getting paid directly for doing work (thus far, I don’t charge survivors for my work, and only in the past five months have been charging institutions).
*this is from my experience in speaking to survivors, one of my mentor’s 30+ years experiences in advocacy, and data (eg, survivors who file police reports experience PTSD at much higher rates than survivors who don’t)
My main complaint is that the orgs and the folks listed aren’t knowledgable on the topic—while I’m sure are lovely humans in many regards—also aren’t willing to admit that they’re in over their heads and not experts on SA.
given that CH seems pretty antagonistic toward survivors or seeing that there’s a problem and puts me at risk of legal liability.
Creating a formal relationship with them would lower risk (some information is private, the flow of info from me to CH is better), and for CH, create conditions in which confidentiality exist.
If CH continues to be antagonistic toward survivors, then I’d rather not connect survivors to them. How can I possibly ever send survivors to talk to someone who says she needs to how the accused is beneficial to the movement to make any sort of judgement? I do genuinely want them to more survivor-friendly. I do want them to see that women are being harmed; especially because more trauma comes from mishandling rape cases than from rape itself*. But at the same time, I don’t want to spend all that time working with CH without getting paid for my time, nor do I think it’s a good idea to try to spend that time unless we have better communication between them & me.
If these are your main complaints, I’m a little confused about why you’ve included RP and Peter in alongside the community health team. I won’t speak for the CH team, but I don’t think Peter has claimed to be an expert on SA, and I feel confident that he’d be pretty happy to admit this. 2~4 seem also mainly to be relevant for CEA / the members of the CH team, not for Peter / RP.
You (ed: missing two words) have until- and to be clear—it could be CEA or RP—to decline or accept my offer by Friday, February 24. And clearly, if it’s accepted, there will have to be some sort of mediation or conversation on the topic of healing my wounds/anger with EA.
I do also want to manage expectations—if RP does not accept the offer, it is unlikely to be because decision-makers at RP believe that work to make the community a safer and more inclusive space is not worth doing, or that RP is “antagonistic to survivors”, or that you don’t deserve some conversation RE: healing your wounds / anger with EA. Some more plausible reasons might include:
Funding this work is not within RP’s scope / theory of change.
RP does not have the financial flexibility to fund something like this
RP does not have the capacity to review your proposal and decide if they should fund this within a 1 week period
To be clear, I don’t make the decision around whether RP accepts the offer or not, and I’m not speaking on behalf of RP here—I’ll clarify and update this post if I’ve made any mistakes.
I hope, based on the brief conversation we had prior to this post, that you don’t see this comment as an attack against your work (but rather a defence of Peter / RP).
Oh, don’t see your post as an attack at all. From what little I know of RP, it doesn’t feel to me that RP is right for this either since they’re not community-facing and work more on research (though, who knows, two friends at RP said they might so I cc’d/included Peter—so I guess two people you know). Also, Peter & I exchanged a couple emails, and (I don’t want to speak on Peter’s behalf I’ll be brief) - he said SA is something he spends a lot of time on, he wants to do what he thinks is best about SA, he asked what I’m looking to do, and the email I copied here is my response to that. I also copied Peter because I do feel frustrated with CH/feel—and who does one talk to about that?
Also, I felt that the information I pointed out to Peter are relevant info for EAers to have (eg, about defamation), which is the main reason I included the email I sent to him here.
AFTER I said that, both Catherine and Julia asked me to send survivors & bad actors their way. I found this really quite not okay. And you’re right, that situation is not Peter’s fault.
But also, I don’t expect CH or RP to accept the proposal, and I’m not going to be bitter when Friday passes in continued silence. Sending it was basically me saying—here’s what I need in return for helping you. I have a 99% expectation that the answer is that EA (as a whole) would rather not have my help if it’s conditioned upon reciprocity or admission of a problem. I wanted to state why I was leaving/discontinuing this work with EA, give a number on assaults so more people would take it seriously (seems like I failed in that effort), and highlight my experience with CEA to show why I think rape will be ongoing problem.
Hi there,
I have been a funder of both CEA and Rethink Priorities in the past, to the tune of low 5-digit sums per year. I’m personally acquainted with Julia, Chana and Peter, and I trust their judgement to an extent, so I tend to believe that they have good reasons for their actions, even if I don’t know what they are yet.
Despite this, if the basic claims you’re making (as I understand them) are true:
you’ve been instrumental in getting a double-digit number of abusers excluded from the community over the last 6 years or so,
this is a relatively uncontroversial claim that Julia et al would straightforwardly agree with,
then I’d be willing to fund you to continue this work, even if CEA didn’t want to pay you themselves. Given your credentials and background, I don’t know if I could afford you by myself, but if not I imagine there might be other people interested in contributing too.
I don’t want to sound like I’m promising anything. I’m generally nervous of being over-eager to fund things without fully understanding the situation and all perspectives on it. I think there’s a reasonable chance that when I ask the CH team about this they have very good reasons for why they haven’t had a better relationship with you, and perhaps there could be some reason that funding you to continue this work would be counterproductive somehow.
I also understand that the fact you’re not paid to do this work is not your only complaint, and maybe not even in your top three complaints. But it is the complaint that seems easiest to address, especially as a comparative outsider.
No, my main complaint isn’t the lack of payment; I was taking reports and speaking to survivors for years prior. What I didn’t realize until two weeks ago is that the way in which CH used my work puts me at higher legal liability, so I want to replace it. My main complaint is that the orgs and the folks listed aren’t knowledgable on the topic—while I’m sure are lovely humans in many regards—also aren’t willing to admit that they’re in over their heads and not experts on SA. I don’t think it’s malice, just—being overwhelmed, carelessness, bad communication, a lack of putting themselves in my shoes or survivor shoes, that sort of thing. Trying to gather more data makes sense, but trying to gather that data to see if it’s worth CH’s time/resources to take stronger action on SH/SA without addressing the inherent issues with the difficulty of obtaining such data is short-sighted at best, and from a moral standpoint, we should reduce sexual harassment/assault without first needing to see if the scope of the problem is greater than it is for other groups or not.
My main things are: given that CH seems pretty antagonistic toward survivors or seeing that there’s a problem and puts me at risk of legal liability (I guess payment is number 4). Creating a formal relationship with them would lower risk (some information is private, the flow of info from me to CH is better), and for CH, create conditions in which confidentiality exist. And if CH continues to be antagonistic toward survivors, then I’d rather not connect survivors to them. How can I possibly ever send survivors to talk to someone who says she needs to how the accused is beneficial to the movement to make any sort of judgement? I do genuinely want them to more survivor-friendly. I do want them to see that women are being harmed; especially because more trauma comes from mishandling rape cases than from rape itself*. But at the same time, I don’t want to spend all that time working with CH without getting paid for my time, nor do I think it’s a good idea to try to spend that time unless we have better communication between them & me.
Definitely don’t think you’re promising anything! And tbh, I’m not sure how I feel about funding versus getting paid directly for doing work (thus far, I don’t charge survivors for my work, and only in the past five months have been charging institutions).
*this is from my experience in speaking to survivors, one of my mentor’s 30+ years experiences in advocacy, and data (eg, survivors who file police reports experience PTSD at much higher rates than survivors who don’t)
If these are your main complaints, I’m a little confused about why you’ve included RP and Peter in alongside the community health team. I won’t speak for the CH team, but I don’t think Peter has claimed to be an expert on SA, and I feel confident that he’d be pretty happy to admit this. 2~4 seem also mainly to be relevant for CEA / the members of the CH team, not for Peter / RP.
I do also want to manage expectations—if RP does not accept the offer, it is unlikely to be because decision-makers at RP believe that work to make the community a safer and more inclusive space is not worth doing, or that RP is “antagonistic to survivors”, or that you don’t deserve some conversation RE: healing your wounds / anger with EA. Some more plausible reasons might include:
Funding this work is not within RP’s scope / theory of change.
RP does not have the financial flexibility to fund something like this
RP does not have the capacity to review your proposal and decide if they should fund this within a 1 week period
To be clear, I don’t make the decision around whether RP accepts the offer or not, and I’m not speaking on behalf of RP here—I’ll clarify and update this post if I’ve made any mistakes.
I hope, based on the brief conversation we had prior to this post, that you don’t see this comment as an attack against your work (but rather a defence of Peter / RP).
(Disclaimer: Work for RP)
Oh, don’t see your post as an attack at all. From what little I know of RP, it doesn’t feel to me that RP is right for this either since they’re not community-facing and work more on research (though, who knows, two friends at RP said they might so I cc’d/included Peter—so I guess two people you know). Also, Peter & I exchanged a couple emails, and (I don’t want to speak on Peter’s behalf I’ll be brief) - he said SA is something he spends a lot of time on, he wants to do what he thinks is best about SA, he asked what I’m looking to do, and the email I copied here is my response to that. I also copied Peter because I do feel frustrated with CH/feel—and who does one talk to about that?
Also, I felt that the information I pointed out to Peter are relevant info for EAers to have (eg, about defamation), which is the main reason I included the email I sent to him here.
AFTER I said that, both Catherine and Julia asked me to send survivors & bad actors their way. I found this really quite not okay. And you’re right, that situation is not Peter’s fault.
But also, I don’t expect CH or RP to accept the proposal, and I’m not going to be bitter when Friday passes in continued silence. Sending it was basically me saying—here’s what I need in return for helping you. I have a 99% expectation that the answer is that EA (as a whole) would rather not have my help if it’s conditioned upon reciprocity or admission of a problem. I wanted to state why I was leaving/discontinuing this work with EA, give a number on assaults so more people would take it seriously (seems like I failed in that effort), and highlight my experience with CEA to show why I think rape will be ongoing problem.