[Edit: Hello lovelies. Yes, since I wrote this article we're up to five - or is it six? - extra layers of claim and counter-claim and revelation and events. I have absolutely no possibility of keeping up with it, and am no longer trying to. Whatever happened or did not happen, the point I wrote this article to make is still 100% valid. Thanks.]
A wee bit of background, for people not in the loop:
Naomi Dunford runs a site called Ittybiz.
Recently, Naomi wrote a post that said that she had received death threats.
These are facts.
There are also plenty of opinions and rumours flying around. Let’s get a few key ones on the table.
Rumours like:
Late last year Naomi left her husband Jamie and shortly thereafter ran away with Dave Navarro – the launch guy, not the guitarist.
Naomi ran her yearly sale for her husband’s birthday after they’d split up.
Opinions like:
Naomi heavily promoted Dave’s work, announcing she was a completely disinterested party giving advice, and that was… disingenous, to say the least.
Naomi has been manipulative/skeezy/dishonest/unethical/counter-brand in the last year.
The rumours may or may not be true. The opinions are of course entirely subjective.
But let’s, for the sake of me having a useful discussion without qualifying every single sentence, make a few assumptions.
Let’s assume that Naomi did leave her husband, then have a sale for him, then run away to Europe with Non-Guitarist Dave, then promote Non-Guitarist Dave’s work as if she had no stake in it, then continue running her business while talking about none of these events.
Let’s also assume that she received death threats exactly in the manner she said.
These are two completely separate issues.
Let me say this again:
Naomi’s actions and the actions of the people who sent her death threats are completely separate issues.
Naomi is responsible for her actions.
The death-threat-senders – let us call them the Murderous Assholes for short – are responsible for their actions.
We tend to forget this.
We say, “Well, death threats are clearly Not Cool, but she did run away with another woman’s husband…”
No.
NO.
Naomi Dunford is not in any way responsible for the Murderous Assholes sending her death threats. Naomi is responsible for what Naomi has said and done, and nothing else.
The only people who are responsible for sending death threats are the mysognistic fuckheads who send them.
They own that. Only them.
When we are talking about this issue, or anything else like it, we MUST delineate responsibility.
I own my actions.
You own yours.
And there is not one single “but so-and-so did this” that alters our responsibility.
If you punch someone, it doesn’t matter what they said beforehand. You own that punch.
If you deceive someone, it doesn’t matter how much you needed the money. You own that deceit.
If you send a death threat, it doesn’t matter what that person did or did not do. You own that threat.
We are at all times reponsible for our own actions. And when we talk about situations where actions have followed after each other, we have to be careful to remember that the previous action doesn’t own the one that comes after.
Only the person who did it owns the action.
It doesn’t matter what Naomi did or did not do. Someone sent her a death threat, and they own it.
I want to keep this very, very clear.
Because then I can separate out the controversial and rebellious and gossipalicious aspects of Naomi being… Naomi and get right to the point.
There are people who send threats to women if they become visibly powerful.
There are people who will persist in ugliness and grow more dangerous over time in order to get those women to shut up, hide, and go away.
This is entirely their own responsibility.
There is nothing about the woman that is relevant. Whether she was nice. Whether she was a bitch. Whether she slept with six hundred people. Whether she is thin or fat. Whether she acted ethically or unethically.
Is your “Yeah, but…” turning up? Turn it off.
The personality and actions of any woman being subjected to these kinds of threats is irrelevant. She might murder kittens on her front lawn, it doesn’t matter.
There are people who send threats to women if they become visibly powerful.
Any kind of woman.
When we are responding to it, we must, MUST address the situation without any of the “Yeah, but…”.
Do not muddy the waters, and allow the Murderous Assholes to think that what they are doing is acceptable if only the woman in question is outspoken/unconventional/adulterous/whatever enough.
There is no justification that is acceptable for sending death threats. None.
There are people who send threats to women if they become visibly powerful.
And that will continue being acceptable for as long as we allow it to be.
What I’m going to do about it
I was playing around with my first website when Kathy Sierra shut down her site due to persistent and alarming death threats. I loved her site, and I was distraught both at the loss of her wisdom and what it meant for me as a budding online entrepreneur.
I knew that it might be a part of what was coming for me, and I decided then what I would do about it.
NOT ONE DAMN THING.
I would live my life and run my business the way I wanted to, and I would display my address and my phone number and anything else I wanted to, and fuck those assholes who might come at me.
My address is , Holland Park, Queensland. If you’re coming from the city you’ll probably want to take the expressway and get off at the Marshall Road exit.
I completely and utterly refuse to hide.
I completely and utterly refuse to be less than myself because there are people around who may threaten me.
I own my actions, and my choice is to shine as bright as I can.
I feel compassion for the people who find that threatening. But I will still break their kneecaps if they come at me.
Here I am.
