As some of you know on Monday, January 18 Eve appeal posted the following image.
I and several other survivors of sexual violence found the image to be rather triggering and over-sexualized, I reached out to Eve Appeal and told them my feelings in a DM. The response was not what I had hoped so I created a petition with the hope of showing Eve Appeal that I was not alone in my feelings about the message this artwork and post sends, Eve Appeal responded to the petition in a way even I couldn't have imagined, with extremely egregious and outrageous accusations against me, many of which are blatantly false and easily debunked.
I want to make it abundantly clear that I never intended to create the fiasco this has become, and my intentions with sharing the posts I shared about the image and the petition I created were never malicious, it was never and is never my intention to hurt anybody.
Because many of the false accusations being made against me pertain to me allegedly manipulating or misrepresenting information in my petition I want everyone to be able to see with there own eyes what my interactions with Eve Appeal looked like regarding this issue and make it clear that while Eve Appeal is seemingly alleging they had to close their DMs because of me I never did anything that would justify them feeling that way.
You can read all my messages and all of Eve Appeals' responses to me in Twitter DMs in the gallery below.
I don't like sharing private messages but in this case, I feel it's important to debunk their blatant false accusations against me.
As you can see if you expand the images they have not been doctored or cropped, you can clearly see it is a direct screenshot, you can see the battery level and time it was taken on my phone in the screenshots. This is a 100% honest and factual representation of my conversation with Eve Appeal, you can clearly see I did not threaten anybody, you will understand why I am stressing that in a moment.
I am now going to quote Athena's response and give my response to it and clarifications where necessary as there multiple false accusations against me.
"First and foremost I would like to stress our fierce commitment to inclusion as a charity. We are here for everyone and here to make access to gynaecological healthcare easier and better. We work with a broad range of peer support, community and advocacy organisations. Please look at our website, our social media channels and our materials - they speak for themselves"
I obviously personally disagree with that statement, I feel that Eve Appeal has not done enough to support survivors of sexual violence and trauma and until recently made almost no effort. I firmly believe the only reason they are making effort now is because of other organizations and people like me encouraging and pressuring them and offering them resources for free.
They are now attacking and threatening me for my feedback, so that does not seem very committed to working with other organizations or accepting feedback. However, that is just my personal opinion, please do read the rest of this statement and check out their channels for yourselves and formulate your own opinions.
We are always open to feedback. We would not want to cause upset to anyone accessing our materials.
Apparently, they aren't so open to feedback as I've given feedback multiple times and they either never respond or respond with "I'm sorry you feel that way" which everyone knows is a deflecting and gaslighting response.
As soon as the feedback becomes something requiring action their response was to attack and the person providing it the feedback.
"This is why we apologised to the two people who contacted us by twitter DM saying that they had been upset by this artwork. We also offered for them to email and in the case of one of them (who frequently raises issues) a phone call."
It is true that they offered an email and phone call to myself and a friend of mine in Twitter DMs, and they kind of apologized, but again it was a half-apology and quickly turned into another gaslighting "I'm sorry you feel that way" apology. Something you can see in the screenshots above.
However, more than just two people took issue with the post, maybe it's true that only two people, one being myself, reached out to them via Twitter DM, however many people commented on the post on Twitter and stated they had problems with it or that it was upsetting to them. I have even DMed at length with another survivor and advocate on Twitter about how the post made her feel. Claiming the post only upset two people is a blatant misrepresentation of facts, which you can see through the petition getting 21 and counting signatures, and these screenshots of people's responses on Twitter.
Because of the controversy and attacks taking place, I made the decision to blur out the poster's handle, name, and photo to protect their privacy, but you can clearly see multiple people found the post and artwork offensive, triggering, or distasteful. The posts also have multiple likes which again reiterates that more than just 2 people were upset. And that is just the posts I was able to access screenshots of, there were more comments and replies under the original posts on Eve Appeals social media which were deleted with the posts when Eve Appeal made the decision to remove them. Something I doubt was intentional but I am sure they are thrilled about.
"To clarify (and contrary to the false assertion in this petition) - this social media post is one of our most successful ever. Hugely shared and liked (over 2000 likes on instagram alone). Over 50 comments - all positive - on instagram alone."
Not sure what accusation she is claiming is false- the accusation that the post upset people? as you can clearly see that is not a false accusation, I have screenshots proving people were upset, and yet this person has no evidence that to support that the accusation is false? She is blatantly lying about this.
It is true the Instagram comments were mostly positive, however, the same can't be said for the Twitter comments.
And it's important to note just because perhaps people who aren't sexual violence survivors or arent facing barriers to attending screening didn't find the image upsetting or were supportive of it doesn't mean it wasn't offensive or harmful, and doesn't negate the feelings of people upset by it.
I am not saying this is for sure the case, but I am going to point out it is possible to delete comments on Instagram posts, while on Twitter you cannot delete replies.... to make it crystal clear, that is not an accusation, I don't know if that is the case and have no evidence to prove it but it is something to think about.
"The decision was taken to remove this post from our channels to protect staff, charity ambassador and supporter, wellbeing because of the online activity of a small group, and the upset and impact of their approach"
I am not going to lie, this accusation is both upsetting and absurd. Protect the staff from what? Feedback? Criticism? I did not harass or threaten anybody at Eve Appeal, nobody that I am affiliated with to the best of my knowledge did either. Claiming that they had to remove the post to protect people working with them is yet another dishonest, disingenuous, and defamatory statement from this organization.
I would strongly encourage Athena to look up the word "defamation" because that is what this is, and I strongly encourage her to tread carefully before she crosses a legal line.
All I am asking of Eve Appeal is for them to apologize for hurting the sexual violence survivor community, and apologize publically so the people they harmed can see it, and so other people can see what Eve Appeal did wrong and learn how to talk about smear tests and reproductive health barriers that survivors of sexual violence face. All I have ever asked of Eve Appeal is to apologize for their wrongs and learn from them, grow from them.
The fact that they are acting like I have incited some violence against them, or started some hate campaign against them is ridiculous. If you don't believe me you can feel 100% free to go through my Twitter account and see for yourself, I don't delete my replies to posts ever (with the exception of posts with errors that affect the message of the post, but usually those are fixed and reposted) if I am wrong about something or feel I've crossed a line the posts are still up I just apologized for them without deleting because I believe in holding myself accountable for my mistakes rather then deleting and hoping everyone forgets.
Yes, my posts can be scathing or sarcastic at times but I have never made threats or done anything to Eve Appeal staff, supporters, or volunteers that would justify them feeling they had to delete posts to protect those people. Same with closing their DMs which they seem to be blaming on me as well?
If someone else has done anything threatening I don't condone it and had nothing to do with it, and I am genuinely sorry that happened.
All I am asking for from Eve Appeal is accountability.
"This artwork was donated to the charity (we don't own it and only have permission to use it) to promote cervical screening. Copyright is owned by the artist and reproducing it on this site and others is a clear infringement."
According to UK copyright law under fair use for criticism, review, or reporting on current events I have not infringed on anyone's copyrights or rights in general.
Something you can easily look up on Gov.UK but I will include the direct quote to make it easier.
"Criticism, review and reporting current events
Fair dealing for criticism, review or quotation is allowed for any type of copyright work. Fair dealing with a work for the purpose of reporting current events is allowed for any type of copyright work other than a photograph. In each of these cases, a sufficient acknowledgement will be required."
Athena also admits neither she nor Eve Appeal owns the copyright of this artwork and thus she has no right to accuse me of copyright infringement or attempt to have my petition taken down on the grounds of a copyright violation which she has publically admitted to multiple times on her social media. The only person who has any right to attempt to make a copyright claim against me is the original artist who owns the copyright. Even then I clearly have violated no laws.
As for crediting the artist, I can't find who they are but if they would like credit in this piece, the petition, or any other piece I have written involving this situation I am happy to credit them, my email is available and all my social media DMs are open. If the artist has a problem with this they can feel free to reach out to me, as I have stated many times before to this organization my DMs are open and unlike someone else here, I am open to feedback, otherwise, this is just yet another false and ridiculous accusation that is walking the line of defamation.
"What's most shocking - and misleading - is cutting out the words which are integral to the paper cut illustration and clearly identify its intention as a piece of artwork 'Have no fear, get your smear'."
This is...wow... I actually laughed reading this it's so stupid. I'm sorry but it is.
I even wrote exactly what the image says in the petition's description for both context reasons and to make the petition accessible for visually impaired people. If you read the petition's description there is no way you can be mislead.
In addition, I didn't "cut" anything out, change.org cropped the petition image to fit it's image requirements. I did not cut anything out to mislead anyone, and if you check the blog post I made about this issue or the piece I wrote on medium I clearly post the full image multiple times.
Perhaps it would have been better to put the image through my graphic design program and resize it, but at the time I didn't see why I should have gone to all that trouble when the message is still crystal clear.
She is right about one thing, the "have no fear, get your smear" part is an integral part of... the problem. the crassness and sexualized nature of the artwork in conjunction with the phrase make it even worse, I have multiple posts about why this narrative is harmful, and I have shared this info with Eve Appeal in an attempt to get them to listen to me.
The image was never appropriate for a cancer organization to share on their platform.
"This image is not a 'campaign' or the face of Eve's awareness campaign this week - it was used to signal the start of a public health awareness raising week. This was very clear from the full social media message - again which has been cut out of this petition, and is very misleading without context."
I never claimed it was the face of a campaign so I don't know what she is talking about?
Here we go again with the misleading thing? how is posting an exact copy of artwork they posted misleading?
"Finally, I would like to stress again that we don't want to upset anyone with our messaging or images. Sometimes that's hard - we often get complaints and concerns raised about images we need to use, for example of menstrual products, of blood or of the gynae anatomy (no matter how illustrative). We are are working to prevent gynaecological cancers and we need to talk about signs, symptoms and medical procedures such as screening - so we would ask people to be aware of the kind of content that appears on our channels."
This is what I mean when I say that I want Eve Appeal to take accountability, they claim they are open to feedback, yet every time somebody gives it they choose to deflect it, every time they do something questionable it's always the person who was upset or triggered by its fault. Never their fault, never a misunderstanding, or a miscommunication. It's always the fault of the person triggered or the person who has some criticism.
I am not saying that Eve Appeal should not talk about screening, or signs or symptoms of cancers, I am saying they shouldn't post weird gross stuff that conjures images of something from a horror film like this-
Or something that blatantly sexualizes smear tests. You can very much talk about reproductive health issues without being crass or sexual, women's bodies are not inherently sexual, especially not when it comes to cancer! Reproductive health is already so over-sexualized and that is part of a bigger problem.
Yes, people do need to be aware that if subjects like cancer are triggering for them to avoid cancer organizations online, something that I think they are well aware of... but you can't be mad when somebody goes looking for information on smear tests and leaves with the image of slimy sea creatures invading their body and have some criticism about it.
"Do get in touch directly - team emails are all openly available on our website - if you have any questions about this, or any feedback on our work."
That is a bit funny to me since I did get in touch directly and was blocked by Athena.
As you can see my response was appropriate and mature, I did not attack or threaten Athena in any way, I tried to engage in a conversion with her... you know, like adults do...
I also had a friend offer to medicate this discussion and reached out to Athena on Twitter, at the time of this post she has not responded.
I will be sure to email this response directly to Eve Appeal though.
Needless to say, I am very disappointed in this response, and I am shocked and horrified by the number of false allegations, defamation, and outright lies told by Athena Lamnisos on behalf of Eve Appeal. It's especially heinous for an organization the size of Eve Appeal to come after my organization, which is run by me with the assistance of one other person. We are a small two-person team dedicated to supporting survivors of sexual violence and medical abuse, against an organization of possibly hundreds of employees, and has access to a bigger platform and more resources than we do. I won't pretend that doesn't make me sad, it does, I put my heart and soul into the Wrong Side of the Speculum, along with hours and hours of work. I make no money from this project, I do it because I am passionate about the message I am spreading, and I believe in it.
That being said, I am not going to remove my petition, and I still encourage everyone who hasn't to sign it, Eve Appeal deserves to be held accountable now more than ever. I won't be defamed, bullied, or threatened by false accusations into silence when I feel my community and now me personally has been wronged.
Despite this, I am not going to ask Eve Appeal or Athena for an apology to me, I am just going to ask them to apologize for their behavior to communities they have harmed and work on doing better.
If you know me and what I stand for you know how absurd and blatantly false these allegations from Eve Appeal are, and if you don't know me I hope you will give me the chance to show you who I am and the goals I am working towards which are and always have been creating a better, trauma-informed medical experience for survivors of sexual violence and medical trauma, spreading fair balanced info on risks and benefits of certain medical procedures, and creating a world where informed consent, bodily autonomy, and dignity are the forefront of reproductive health care.
Comments