“Speaking up every. Fucking. Time”

Elizabeth Spiers
Matter
Published in
22 min readJul 9, 2014

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How one feminist publisher is taking on the worst of Silicon Valley (and some of her allies, too)

By Elizabeth Spiers
Illustrations by Victo Ngai

The last time I heard directly from Shanley Kane, it was by email.

“Leave me the fuck alone and don’t ever contact me again,” she wrote, before launching into a two-day Twitter barrage demanding that I stop harassing her, her friends, and her family, and calling me a stalker. It might have been fair, or at least accurate, if I were doing any of the above.

There are a few of my recent life experiences that I’d put into a category of “almost more trouble than it’s worth.” Training for a long distance race in single-digit weather; attempting to get Time Warner Cable to explain how it had double-charged me for six months of service; and now, writing about an up-and-coming website and its intriguing but controversial founder. All of these things have redeeming value, though unless you enjoy the idea of freezing slowly while still moving, or are a connoisseur of soul-destroying hold music, the first two have some…

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Matter
Matter

Published in Matter

The original flagship publication of Medium

Elizabeth Spiers
Elizabeth Spiers

Written by Elizabeth Spiers

Writer, NYU j-school prof, political commentator, digital strategist, ex-editor in chief of The New York Observer, founding editor of Gawker