We were reluctant to highlight this story coming from Madison about a former WORT 89.9 FM employee who was convicted of sexually assaulting a child, but the story merits examination and pause because this same man is responsible for defamatory comments about Thistle and her radio show guests, Meghan Murphy and Julie Bindel in 2018 before he was found out.
Our reluctance stems from not wanting to use the same tactics in this fight to free Thistle and all feminists from defamation, job threatening public ridicule and harassment, but to rather, speak abstractly about systems of power.
But speak out we must. This particular case is just one of many connecting men who are sex offenders to the movement to silence women’s feminist speech.
In March of 2018, McQuillen, on public record, defamed Pettersen, Stenz, Murphy and Bindel before the WORT board of directors claiming the news director was not “doing her job” and that Thistle and her guests were violating WORT’s mission statement. Thistle had applied to do an Access Hour program to interview Bindel and Murphy via the community radio station’s airwaves. McQuillen stated that the show should have been yanked at the 16 minute mark when the first thought “crime” took place — “blanket misgendering of transgender individuals.”
That this man was actively engaged in sexual assault of a teenager at the time these statements were made, reveals how male entitled and misogynistic all of this is. Why do men like McQuillen get off with a slap on the wrist for sexually assaulting a child, and women like Thistle lose their reputations and ability to present their art and culture in public?