Genn and I both feel we have to chime in here about what has been happening on #classicstwitter with regard to inappropriate messages from Ryan Stitt, because this happened to me too ( @TheGenuineJenny). (Thread to follow) https://twitter.com/Judgeyxo/status/1323206387225268233

Last year Ryan sent me an unsolicited dick pic and claimed it was an accident and meant for someone else. I believed him at the time but after seeing this thread, I’m starting to question that.

I had a lot of doubts about posting this publicly. Mostly about how it might hurt the career of someone who had been really supportive of us and our podcast (and Ryan has been).

I don’t believe that men’s careers and social standing should be protected to the detriment of women who come forward about harassment—but this just shows how ingrained these feelings can be.

This also makes me think about how some men point to how many women they support and uplift as a cover for behavior like this, and how supporting lots of women does not make this behavior okay.

And the levels of plausible deniability that can sometimes come with harassment—the claims that things were “an accident” and so on, designed to make us feel crazy, gaslight us, and make us less likely to come forward.

Women don’t come forward lightly. It involves wrestling with our own doubts and fears about whether we will be believed, whether we’re just “ruining someone’s life” over something “trivial” or “accidental,” and what parts of our own lives and careers we’ll lose in the blowback.

Anyway we both want to thank @judgeyxo for speaking out about this because we know how hard that is, and we wholeheartedly believe the women who have come forward.