Declaration puts sexual harassers in adland on notice
This article discusses sexual harassment in the workplace. If you or someone you care about needs support, please contact 1800 RESPECT at 1800 737 732. In an emergency, call 000.
UK-based Zoe Scaman, founder at Bodacious and co-founder at MCX, published an article, ‘Mad Men. Furious Women’ on Substack on 4 July calling out sexual harassment towards women in the advertising industry.
Following the piece, Scaman and a group of women have published a declaration with the intention to generate global support to put harassers in the industry on notice.
The declaration
According to her LinkedIn, Scaman worked in the Australian advertising industry as a communication strategist at Naked Communications from January 2010 to October 2011, and as associate strategy director at UM from October 2011 to July 2012.
Cindy Gallop, who called for sexual predators to be named in the Australian advertising industry back in 2017, commented on Scaman’s article on Twitter.
1. EVERY MAN IN THE AD INDUSTRY MUST READ THIS, stop this and stop other men doing this. 2. Nothing changes until MEDIA NAMES NAMES (I've been trying to make this happen for years) @zoescaman https://t.co/n3kf9wHCWy @Campaignmag @adage @adweek @thedrum @digiday @businessinsider
— cindygallop.eth (@cindygallop) July 4, 2021
In September 2017, Mumbrella posted an article with stories from women who had experienced sexual harassment in the workplace.
If you, a colleague or contact have recently experienced inappropriate behaviour or witnessed harassment in the industry and would like to put a stop to it, please contact anna@mumbrella.com.au to share your experiences either anonymously or confidentially.
The text of the declaration in full is below.
This is the moment you never wanted to come
The line in the sand you never thought anyone would draw.
The chorus of people rising, one by one
Each saying, ‘No more’.
No more will we let you get away with your behaviour.
No more will we bury the stories and suffer in silence.
No more will we let you hide behind your wives and your daughters.
No more will we accept your online virtue signaling as a sign you’ve changed.
No more will we let you be heralded as CEO’s, founders, ECD’s and leaders of this industry.
Moving forward your reputations will be forever scarred.
As we are.
If you are worried your name has been shared—it has.
If you are worried people are talking about you—they are.
And a lot of us have receipts.
Your NDA’s may protect you for now.
And the law may be on your side.
But what is not, is us.
The people you have hurt. Degraded. Fired. Assaulted. Raped.
You may not believe that happens here.
But it does.
All. The. Time.
You and the people put in place to protect you have just made those stories disappear.
You have all persuaded yourselves that it’s “not that bad.”
But who gets to decide what is good and bad?
Who gets to decide what is right and wrong?
Who gets to play judge and jury?
It was you.
But now it’s us.
We have recognised that Management teams and HR departments protect businesses.
So, from now on, we will protect ourselves.
We will have a zero tolerance approach.
We won’t escalate internally.
We’ll escalate to the police.
We won’t sign your silencing documents.
We’ll shout your names from the rooftops.
We won’t cower under your threats of reprisal.
We’ll stand tall with an army at our backs.
We won’t take your money to stay quiet.
From now on, there’s no price you can pay to keep our mouths shut.
While we may not be able to hold you accountable for your actions of the past
We can hold you accountable for your actions today and tomorrow.
Think of this as your point of reckoning.
A moment in time where you have a choice to make.
To hold yourself and your behaviour accountable.
To learn and grow and change.
Or to keep doing what you are doing
And to push against the turning of the tide.
But trust us when we say, if you do, we will pull you under.
Because now you won’t be able to squash one person and their experience
You’ll have to take on us all.
You ignored Times Up and Me Too, narrowly, and laughed about it in bars (yes, we know).
But you should be more scared of this.
Now you won’t even get away with so much as a stray wink.
Good luck out there.
Accountability is a bitch.
And now all eyes are on you.
