An Open Letter to The Anonymous,
As the Community Lead for Rising Tide, I worked closely with the Rising Tide and HoneyBook team in driving forward the Sexual Harassment in Creative Industries Survey, which was fielded in December. Participating in this meaningful and impactful project has compelled and inspired me to write my first open letter as we prepare to release the results of the survey next week.
Part of my job is managing the moderating team who look after and support our Facebook Community of nearly 75k creatives. In that community, we’ve seen conversations surface time and again asking how to address issues of harassment on the job. Because of those conversations, we knew walking into this survey that sexual harassment is a very real part of small business ownership and entrepreneurship. Our most viewed article of 2017 was one we published in October about sexual harassment, further proving to us that it is not just a trending topic in the headlines.
Reading through the free responses of the survey, it became clear that for some, this was the first time they were disclosing incidents of harassment, abuse, and even assault. Knowing that hundreds of members of our community trusted us with this information and charged us to do something with it has had a profound impact on me, not just as a member of this team, but as a creative myself. I hope that I can take this experience and advocate for you.
To those who chose to share their stories with us, thank you. While anonymity was purposeful to protect you, I wish that I could reach out to each and every one of you. I hope that we do justice by honestly expressing your experiences in this report, and that we will do better in fostering a community that at its core empowers and creates space for all of your voices to be heard. We will ourselves listen, reflect, make changes and take action.
We have a ways to go, of that I am absolutely certain. But I want you to know that we support you, and we believe that by sharing your collective story through this data and analysis, we will be able to do better together.
With love,
Kait Masters
