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There's been an outpouring of careful, thoughtful work on how to fix our profession this week. Massive respect to @Gabrielle_J_A @katgallow @Dr_KMcLoughlin etc. But I'm angry that women are doing the bulk of emotional & intellectual labour to clean up the mess. Why? #DysonHeydon
I mean, look at this long (and non-exhaustive!) list of pieces quoted by
@DrMCastan
- and all the years of work and research reflected in these excellent analyses: https://twitter.com/DrMCastan/status/1275914402550571008?s=20
@DrMCastan
- and all the years of work and research reflected in these excellent analyses: https://twitter.com/DrMCastan/status/1275914402550571008?s=20
Look at the emotional work of the women who've shared their stories of harassment, assault and discrimination this week. Such as this disturbing story about WA barrister Judith Fordham, who says she was assaulted, harassed and stalked by former judges: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-25/wa-barrister-judith-fordham-recounts-indecent-assault-by-judge/12390076?fbclid=IwAR0rxZmOWxd81Vt3kJZfyXIXI9U6ZM9doq5EmVWZa3k466LaXfs2zTOoIm0
Perhaps some men think that it's appropriate to step back from the conversation and give women the opportunity to speak now. That might be true. Men need to listen, as @amcgrath1 so carefully explained in his excellent thread yesterday: https://twitter.com/amcgrath1/status/1275947910522232832?s=20
But all around me, all I see is women trying to come up with solutions. @Gabrielle_J_A has worked for years in this space, offering thoughtful & compelling analyses of how we can better hold judges to account for their behaviour. @Dr_KMcLoughlin is doing outstanding work too.
The list goes on. I can't think of all the women to name here, as there are just too many and I don't want to miss any. The work of @Kate_McClymont and @JacquelineMaley has obviously been vital, & I'm grateful to @JoshBBornstein for his advocacy. Then there are the victims.
But as I said before: the overwhelming majority of emotional labour and intellectual labour is being done by women. Women are stepping in and stepping up and trying to clean up the mess and this is simply not good enough.
I see this in many other contexts, too. When men have been driven out of senior leadership positions for misconduct, they're often replaced by women. Those women are eminently qualified, of course, but often the org knows that healing is needed & expects women to do the work.
