Donegan says she was ‘incredibly naïve’ when she created the list, but has defended its purpose

The author of a document that lists men in the media industry who have been accused of sexually inappropriate behaviour has come forward, saying she created the document as “a place for women to share their stories of harassment and assault without being needlessly discredited or judged”.

Amid speculation that Harper’s magazine planned to reveal the identity of the list’s author in its March edition, writer Moira Donegan penned an article in The Cut saying she was behind the document.

The ‘Shitty Media Men’ list? We’re asking all the wrong questions about it | Helen Gould Read more

But she’s not the only one: other women have posted on social media to say the list is theirs in an attempt to protect its creator from online trolling.

Dubbed the Shitty Media Men list, the anonymous Google spreadsheet was circulated among women working in media in the United States last year. It detailed unsubstantiated accounts of men in the industry accused of everything from questionable behaviour to rape.

The list’s existence was first revealed in an article by Buzzfeed, before it was published in full on Reddit. The list was subject to intense criticism, Donegan acknowledged, because its anonymity meant “false accusations could be added without consequence”.

She said it had “spread much further and much faster” than she anticipated and admitted she was “incredibly naïve” when she made the list because she “did not understand the forces that would make the document go viral”.

But Donegan defended the list’s purpose, calling it an attempt to solve the problem of “how women can protect ourselves from sexual harassment and assault”. She likened it to a “whisper network” where women “pass on open secrets and warn women away from serial assaulters”.

She said she hoped the document’s anonymity would “protect its users from retaliation”, and the fact that it was open-sourced would make it “accessible to women who didn’t have the professional or social cache required for admittance into whisper networks”.

“No one could be fired, harassed, or publicly smeared for telling her story when that story was not attached to her name,” she wrote.

“The spreadsheet did not ask how women responded to men’s inappropriate behaviour; it did not ask what you were wearing or whether you’d had anything to drink.”

Donegan’s decision to reveal herself as the list’s author came after rumours circulated that Harper’s planned to reveal its creator. It prompted a backlash on social media because of fears that naming Donegan would expose her to threats, abuse and doxxing.

Several Harper’s contributors threatened to pull their articles from the magazine in protest if it published the name of the creator of the list, and other women began taking credit for the document in an “I am Spartacus” attempt to protect Donegan.

Donegan says she was contacted by the essayist Katie Roiphe in December to ask her if she would comment for a Harper’s story she was writing on the “feminist moment”.

“She did not say that she knew I had created the spreadsheet. I declined and heard nothing more from Roiphe or Harper’s until I received an email from a fact checker with questions about Roiphe’s piece,” Donegan wrote.

“Katie identifies you as a woman widely believed to be one of the creators of the Shitty Men in Media List,” the fact checker wrote. However, Roiphe denied in the New York Times that she planned to “out” anyone.

But the speculation was enough to prompt Donegan to act.

“The outrage made it seem inevitable that my identity would be exposed even before the Roiphe piece ran. All of this was terrifying. I still don’t know what kind of future awaits me now that I’ve stopped hiding.”