Her fight is our fight
Donation protected
I am raising money for the bravest, strongest woman I know. Summer moved to Australia 12 years ago. She is a single mother of a 14 year old boy and has worked in the real estate industry for that time. She is fierce, she is smart, she is inspiring, she is confident, she is accomplished, she is a hero and I'm proud to call her my friend.
In Nov 2017, Summer stood up and said enough. No more. After persistent and targeted sexual harassment, she found the courage to take action against her male business business partners and corporate.
Summer has worked in a predominately male industry. Here's an article about her a year before the actions were filed: https://www.starweekly.com.au/domain/gender-debate-vs-real-estate/ And being a female director meant that there was no place to make a formal complaint under current laws without going through a long process via VCAT or the Federal court. She was the first and at the time, the only, female director in Sweeney Real Estate's history.
A few weeks after Summer complained in 2017, she took medical leave. The feasibility of continuing to work in an office where women were referred to by prominent body parts, where men repeatedly ignored what women said because it was "hard to focus, staring at your tits", in an environment that caused the level of stress that destroyed people just wasn't possible.
https://discriminationclaims.com.au/real-estate-agent-claims-her-boss-sent-her-porn-discrimination-claims/
But not Summer. Not then anyway.
Since November 2017, for nearly two years, she has been tied up in expensive lawsuits. Expensive, by every stretch of your imagination. It's cost her relationships, it's cost her the job she loved, her career and her business. She has lost everything that she has worked so incredibly hard to achieve. As a result of the retaliation that's been made against her for speaking out for herself and her team, she has consequently been diagnosed with PTSD, Insomnia, General Anxiety disorder and severe depression. She became suicidal. It's affected her son's mental health. And these are SOME of the costs that she's endured on her own for over 18 months.
It took 11 years to build her career and her business, and in an instant, it was all taken away. Her business partners closed her franchise down, over night. After a year, instead of settling the sexual harassment claims against them, they painted over the Sweeney Yarraville branding, replaced the name badges with Hodges name badges and that was that. Everything she'd worked for, everything that she had given up to get it, was sold from under her feet, without consultation, without consent, without notification.
75 percent of workplace harassment victims experienced retaliation when they spoke up. Victims often fear they won’t be believed, or will receive blame or be subject to professional retaliation — like being fired from their jobs. A tried and true tactic by perpetrators of sexual harassment, when they're called out on it, is to rely on their businesses or corporations to fund their side. It's one of the reasons that women don't come forward. They simply can not afford to. The victim, the brave fighter who puts everything on the line to do the right thing, to protect themselves and others, who fears retaliation in every way, must fight on their own. And fight, Summer has. She will not be scared into silence. She's been off work since November 2017, for nearly 2 years, while the slow and archaic court processes drag on and on, and on.
But now the burden is too much to bear alone. She has ongoing and accruing legal, medical, mental health, court and barrister expenses (likely to continue throughout 2019 and on).
Fighting has caused a huge amount of financial stress on her. She has always been responsible with money, she has fought hard to provide every opportunity to her son and she finds herself now in a position of needing help to pay for the basics.
Enter, stage left, #TeamSummer.
Thank you for your donation. It goes straight to her and every little bit helps.
When all this is done and dusted, after she goes through the necessary actions of re-skilling and changing careers, you will find her at the front of the fight. Being a spokesperson, against sexual harassment, discrimination and abuse, and for change and for fairness.
Summer's story isn't an isolated situation. Her story is similar to so many others out there. But, her story is the subject of a 3 part documentary series on the ABC, to be aired in the last quarter of 2019.
Her fight is our fight. It's time.
In Nov 2017, Summer stood up and said enough. No more. After persistent and targeted sexual harassment, she found the courage to take action against her male business business partners and corporate.
Summer has worked in a predominately male industry. Here's an article about her a year before the actions were filed: https://www.starweekly.com.au/domain/gender-debate-vs-real-estate/ And being a female director meant that there was no place to make a formal complaint under current laws without going through a long process via VCAT or the Federal court. She was the first and at the time, the only, female director in Sweeney Real Estate's history.
A few weeks after Summer complained in 2017, she took medical leave. The feasibility of continuing to work in an office where women were referred to by prominent body parts, where men repeatedly ignored what women said because it was "hard to focus, staring at your tits", in an environment that caused the level of stress that destroyed people just wasn't possible.
https://discriminationclaims.com.au/real-estate-agent-claims-her-boss-sent-her-porn-discrimination-claims/
But not Summer. Not then anyway.
Since November 2017, for nearly two years, she has been tied up in expensive lawsuits. Expensive, by every stretch of your imagination. It's cost her relationships, it's cost her the job she loved, her career and her business. She has lost everything that she has worked so incredibly hard to achieve. As a result of the retaliation that's been made against her for speaking out for herself and her team, she has consequently been diagnosed with PTSD, Insomnia, General Anxiety disorder and severe depression. She became suicidal. It's affected her son's mental health. And these are SOME of the costs that she's endured on her own for over 18 months.
It took 11 years to build her career and her business, and in an instant, it was all taken away. Her business partners closed her franchise down, over night. After a year, instead of settling the sexual harassment claims against them, they painted over the Sweeney Yarraville branding, replaced the name badges with Hodges name badges and that was that. Everything she'd worked for, everything that she had given up to get it, was sold from under her feet, without consultation, without consent, without notification.
75 percent of workplace harassment victims experienced retaliation when they spoke up. Victims often fear they won’t be believed, or will receive blame or be subject to professional retaliation — like being fired from their jobs. A tried and true tactic by perpetrators of sexual harassment, when they're called out on it, is to rely on their businesses or corporations to fund their side. It's one of the reasons that women don't come forward. They simply can not afford to. The victim, the brave fighter who puts everything on the line to do the right thing, to protect themselves and others, who fears retaliation in every way, must fight on their own. And fight, Summer has. She will not be scared into silence. She's been off work since November 2017, for nearly 2 years, while the slow and archaic court processes drag on and on, and on.
But now the burden is too much to bear alone. She has ongoing and accruing legal, medical, mental health, court and barrister expenses (likely to continue throughout 2019 and on).
Fighting has caused a huge amount of financial stress on her. She has always been responsible with money, she has fought hard to provide every opportunity to her son and she finds herself now in a position of needing help to pay for the basics.
Enter, stage left, #TeamSummer.
Thank you for your donation. It goes straight to her and every little bit helps.
When all this is done and dusted, after she goes through the necessary actions of re-skilling and changing careers, you will find her at the front of the fight. Being a spokesperson, against sexual harassment, discrimination and abuse, and for change and for fairness.
Summer's story isn't an isolated situation. Her story is similar to so many others out there. But, her story is the subject of a 3 part documentary series on the ABC, to be aired in the last quarter of 2019.
Her fight is our fight. It's time.
Organiser and beneficiary
Megan Bridger-Darling
Organiser
Summer Salvato
Beneficiary
