Imagine thinking that bankrupting a sexual assault victim and her husband, after they've just had a baby, is going to restore your "reputation"

It shouldn’t take bravery for survivors to come forward about sexual assault. It only takes bravery because the systems that are supposed to protect survivors betray them. In a more just world, it would be easy for survivors to come forward and we would all be waiting to hear and help them.

The Greens are so pleased the Senate just unanimously passed the bill for a national code to prevent & respond to gender-based violence on uni campuses. This much needed reform will help prevent and tackle sexual violence on campus, and would not have happened without tenacious survivor advocates.

Cultures of impunity will persist if we reframe abuses of power as lack of intelligence or ‘misunderstandings’ “some supervisors do not yet understand that it is inappropriate to form personal or sexual relationships with students under their supervisory authority” www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05...

This. OMG finally. Congrats to the brave whistleblowers and victim-survivors who have come forward. It's been many years coming. First of many alleged perpetrators to face justice, hopefully. www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmani...

It’s a good day to be a Michigan Ave tulip 🌷

I gave a talk today and a very smart victim advocate put why mediation doesn’t work for sexual violence into a single sentence: Once a perpetrator knows the (very reasonable) thing a victim needs, he becomes obsessed with making sure she can’t have it.

First sunflower attempt 😊 #art #watercolour

I've started watercolour painting, and learning something new is my happiness right now #art #painting #watercolor

I wrote a book about bureaucratic violence and if there’s one thing I wish everyone knew right now, it would be: The people most harmed can’t tell what’s happening or why. Their lives unravel and, more often than not, they are taught to blame themselves—or other victims.

My dating advice for straight men is don’t choke someone during sex without specifically negotiating the terms of the choking ahead of time including a safe word and ideally watch at least a YouTube about it so you don’t kill her okay thanks

I'm raising a glass to the women who do far more to prevent violence & to support victim-survivors than some so-called public advocates do, but who won't ever be on the cover of a magazine or win any awards for their work because their work isn't interesting to the media

I do miss the days I took my camera everywhere, slowed down and captured moments like this #photography #seascape

For my first @spitfirenews.com piece, I investigated the tactics used to make stories and information disappear on social media platforms like Reddit. This piece is about Blake Lively, but it’s also about how to manipulate the masses about anything. spitfirenews.com/p/the-blake-...

Bruce Lehrmann is nearly 3 times as likely to be convicted of car theft (16%) than rape (6.5%), according to figures published by the Australian Institute of Criminology.

Survivors would heal quicker if they had the kind of support their abusers do.

Any attempt at action is better than inaction. An attempt can go wrong, but inaction inevitably results in failure Miep Gies

The real MeToo “cancel culture” was what happened to the women and other victims who came forward. They were retraumatized, harassed, humiliated, sued, fired, and blacklisted. Then they were the subject of a revisionist history that MeToo went “too far” and deserved a reactionary backlash

Good Morning David Zinn creates cute chalk drawings in cracks in the wall. Wash off in the rain so he begins again

I hate to inform you of this, but you are, in fact, the adult in the room.

I'm convinced universities will always prioritise inaction over addressing sexual violence. They don't want to act. They protect and prefer perpetrators because it's easier—in line with uni's preferences, perpetrators don't demand accountability and are happy for their violence to go unaddressed

Days in the city ❤️

Here's Universities Australia pretending this action wasn't necessary because their unis couldn't be trusted to prevent & respond adequately to sexual violence. Their existing initiatives failed and caused further harm to victim-survivors, and saw their unis sweep sexual assault under the rug.

This week the National Student Ombudsman opened its doors. For too long not enough has been done to address sexual violence in our universities. The Ombudsman is the first step. The legislation introduced today is the next step. 👇

Some people will vilify you so they feel better about what they did to you. God forbid they be held accountable for their BS.

On the Wrong Side was featured in Nature! We chatted about how sexual violence became an infuriatingly predictable and ordinary part of women's college experiences, as well as how the tenets of victim advocacy can inform high quality, rigorous research on trauma. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Today is a good day. The next time a university tells a student that nothing can be done to protect them from their rapist - even as their rapist continues stalking them on campus - they can turn to the National Student Ombudsman. This won’t just change lives, it will save them.

“We’ve been talking about this issue... for 50 years... You can play around with the current structures of the adversarial system – and we have – but it hasn’t really changed much. It’s time we try something else.” www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Our new work shows ➡️ an institution's response to violence may affect the survivor's recovery. "Institutional Courage Attenuates the Association Between Institutional Betrayal and Trauma Symptoms Among Campus Sexual Assault Survivors" by rockstar Alexis Adams-Clark and crew (including me 🙋) 🧵1/8

Here are some nice mushrooms

Even amongst their "allies", the trivializing of a victim documenting trauma by their own means is commonplace. Victims of sexual violence, can never win, especially if we are female.

Why is making phone calls so hard? I'm confident in any other social situation, but phone calls utterly terrify me.

A man in a position of power over women abuses it, leaving a trail of trauma and destruction in his wake. It happens again and again and again. All it takes is a power disparity of any kind.

There's a pervasive belief in Australian advocacy circles at the moment that we will see change if we just "speak our truth" & "keep telling our stories". Victim-survivors have been telling their stories for decades. If you weren't aware of them, it's usually because you chose not to hear them.

France charges founder of website used by Dominique Pelicot www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

Trains are soothing

Happy New Year

And they say an image is worth a thousand words. #GiselePelicot (don't know the photographer unfortunately, but happy to credit if someone does know)

My heart belongs to ocean… 🩵🌺

My cute little mushrooms make me happy

Why do people wear such strong perfumes/colognes that their scent overwhelms the entire train carriage? Thanks for the headache 🙃

There is no rape victim perfect enough to merit respectful treatment - not even Gisele Pelicot. It's liberating for us to truly know in our bones that this "perfect victim" game was always rigged - let that be Gisele's gift to us all. app.theneweuropean.co.uk/2024/10/26/v...

The truth is nothing but a burden to carry because power trumps all else.

My day started with me spilling my full hot chocolate on the train, and feeling ashamed as it spread throughout the carriage for an hour before apologising for the mess I'd made at the end of the line. The day only went downhill from there. 🙃

Thank you all. For everything - Sharna xx 1/10

I'm obsessed with fungi

God forbid I just want to collect all the books that I possibly can, move into a mossy cottage in the darkest part of the woods, and make a lil home there amongst the animals and nature.