I was waiting for this to make it’s way to lemmy, started reading about them last night. This women’s advocacy group is very unknown, the National Womens Defense League. This is their website. When you go to their about section they talk about how they were founded “in 2022 by two political advocates in the wake of the #MeToo collective outcry.” But never state who those advocates were anywhere. When you go to their press section they’ve only been making posts or sharing articles since November of last year. And you then notice they largely focus on positive things Republicans are doing to fight sexual harassment in the state and bad things democrats have done or that they’re the accussers themselves, although their are one or two exceptions. They dont really comment on that the republicans are often the most pervasive harrassers out there. Now, if i, a random trans girl from a shitty red state, was running a group like this, I’d focus on both parties but I’d also do everything i could to make it known which party is to blame for the majority, and also poat stories of things democrat women have done to help the cause instead of largely GOP women. They do state they were “Joined by a diverse group of advocates, experienced campaigners, and survivors, NWDL was formed and aligned around a state-level strategy and a nonpartisan approach.” So maybe talking about the awfulness of GOP politicians isn’t a good look for a nonpartisan group.

Sidenote point. They claim Shapiro was to blame for the sexual harassment case that was brought against one of his cabinet members. They say he covered it up. But Shapiro and his administration found out about the accusation, did an investigation, decided go give a settlement of 300,000 to the accuser, and fired the cabinet member. Doesn’t really seem like a cover up except for there was an nda attached. Which isn’t the best but, unfortunately, is pretty standard for cases like these. And again, the harasser lost their job. They were not covered for, given excuses for, or in anyway defended or shielded from repercussions. Should there have been an nda? Ideally no, but the guy still faced repercussions. Which is the whole goal here. To hold them accountable and make them lose their jobs.

Anyway, back to NWDL. Their claim to fame is basically a report about how sexual harassers are pervasive in the country with 130 statehouse lawmakers being accused by 359 individuals since 2013, also adding there are probably more since many go unreported. Now this is undoubtedly an important thing to research. But they don’t openly give you the report, or give you more information other than those numbers. You have to give them your email and first and last name to actually get the report and I’m not doing that.

So then, this women’s group has a seemingly interesting report. And says a lot of good stuff when it comes to it’s Commitment to survivors but for a supposedly important institution, they don’t like to talk about who actually founded them. I’ve looked at a lot of these kind of groups, they always say who founded them, even if they’re shitty people like Vivek Ramaswamy. So that’s pretty fucking suspicious.

They’re sponsored by the Center for Transformative Action, which is a group attached to Cornell University. Seems like a legit organization, has a lot of really worthwhile seeming projects. But they also talk about who founded them in their about us section, which the NWDL does not. They seem to be a 501c3 that allows group to apply for financial sponsorship, so it typically allows smaller groups to survive, at least theoretically. Again, they seem to have an slew of projects they sponsor and they all seem important.

Now, when I go to the NWDL section, I finally find out who founded the group. Emma Davidson Tribbs, according to the sight she “has made a career of joining political and social movements at key moments of change to define the next stage of success.” Which sounds fine, kinda bandwagony, but hey whenever you jump on the movement is better late than never. But then there’s just a bunch of buzzwords and jargon that, while sounds good, doesn’t really say much. Her qualifications are “She has been trained as a spokesperson by the Women’s Media Center, completed management training at the Center for Creative Leadership, and is a graduate of the New York Junior League’s Nonprofit Boards Clearinghouse. Emma is a graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University and earned her Master’s Degree in International Development from the University of Bristol.” Not bad, still some buzzwords but overall decent. She’s also the only person listed here for the groups team. Despite only being co-founder.

Now. I’m not saying Emma isn’t an ally and advocate for the cause at all. But why doesn’t she have her information on the website of the group she runs? Why did I have to go to the sponsored group to find out she even existed? Could be just a bad site designer but every site for groups like these I’ve been to has gotten that right so seems weird to get it wrong. I think the thing that bugs me the most is just the focus on only republican efforts to help sexual harrassers. The framing is supposed to be nonpartisan but usually only post stories that highloght how GOP women are working to change things. Which, if you had to select a group of women who excuse sexual harassment the most, GOP women would be the top of the list. Or at least in the top 3.

So at the end here, I don’t necessarily distrust this group, but i haven’t been shown they’re trustworthy framers of the parties and how they are working toward the cause. Their report is definitely important and i would like to know more if I didn’t have to give them my information. And theirs nothing wrong with new advocacy groups being formed, but they should be open about who founded them on their website. I think it’s understandable to criticize Shapiro, but it’s not like he excused it and kept the guy on staff. If he did then I think they’d have more reasoning. I dunno, it just feels off. I’d be interested in doing more research but I’m not connected to talk to the people I would need to. I look forward to seeing if Shapiro is on the ticket, I imagine if he is, we will hear more about this case.

If I got anything wrong or you notice some incorrect grammar, please comment to let me know so I can fix this. It’s hard writing something this long on mobile.

Edit: added the groups name at the start