iNDICA NEWS BUREAU-
A life of a women entrepreneur is not as easy as her male counterparts. The challenges she faces are not just outside of her organization but usually and unfortunately from within. Even after all the struggle, she puts in, equality is something that is always farfetched for her.
Days after making headlines for strongly advocating the banning of political ads from Facebook, US-based civil rights group Sleeping Giants has hit rocky waters after its co-founder and marketing industry advocate Nandini Jammi has decided to quit the global advocacy movement.
The decision, however, is not because Jammi herself wanted to quit but instead was caused by the action of her founder Matt Rivitz.
In a tell-all blog post on Medium titled “How my white male co-founder gaslighted me out of the movement we built together”, Jammi has revealed that the fallout between the duo was caused due to Rivitz’s constant gaslighting and penchant for stealing her credit.
“I want to show you how a woman of color almost disappeared from the movement she built, and what you can achieve when you refuse to follow the rules your white male “leader” sets for you,” Jammi wrote.
Rivitz and Jammi began Sleeping Giants in 2016 and have been running together since. The movement soon became viral across the globe and was directly responsible for the far-right US-based newspaper Breitbard in taking down nearly 4,000 political ads from its news website.
While the movement positioned itself as a counter to profitable sexism and bigotry that was freely peddled on social media as well as mainstream news, Rivitz allegedly managed to steal her credit and assume greater control of the movement, despite equal amounts of work put in by both.
The expose came in the wake of several US civil rights groups including Sleeping Giants called upon some of the world’s largest companies to pause advertising on Facebook Inc in July, saying the social network is not doing enough to stop hate speech on its platforms.
“He told me I could pick any title but co-founder because he was the founder. We agreed on the title “founding organizer.” I had no problem with this. He was the leader, I would be the #2. I asked him to make me a Sleeping Giants email address, so I could look more official. (He didn’t). He asked me to continue sending all press requests to him. (I did),” Jammi wrote.
Jammi outlined how Rivitz continued to sideline her when it came to highlighting the work she had been doing. In fact, he did not even inform her that Sleeping Giants won an award at the Cannes.
That was the tip of the iceberg for the frustrated Jammi, and that’s when she did the one thing she was not supposed to do – she spoke to the press.
After her interaction with the New York Times, Rivitz allegedly misbehaved with Jammi and said she was a “pain in the a**”. When she asked him why he did not inform her about the Cannes award, Rivitz allegedly said that he did not owe her anything.
After all the effort she had been putting in Sleeping Giant for over four years, this kind of treatment is sure to be a hard pill to swallow. But for Jammi and thousands of women entrepreneurs, this is the reality in one way or the other, where their due credit get side
Jammi shared the blog on her Twitter account, calling herself the “the other half of Sleeping Giants”. lined.
[Photo courtesy:https://nandinijammi.com]
