I spoke up about harassment in Silicon Valley in June 2017. Here's what I've now realized about my decision to go public.

Despite my 2017 #MeToo moment, I still do not see myself as an activist. In fact, I like to describe myself as “the last person you’d see in the street with a sign.”

I learned from Dan Wang at Columbia Business School that activists use gatherings (presence/reach), slogans (marketing), and disruption (force) to get things done.?

I handled my own situation differently. Years later, I am viewed as… an activist.?

On my personal website, the press clippings are grouped together under the header “advocacy.”?

I like this term more.

To me, this was a moment of making a case.?

But the people who used descriptions like “courageous” or “heroic” to commend me had it half-wrong.

I did need to believe that my personal testimony would help elevate what was then a Silicon Valley harassment scandal, to national news.

That happened. My story was on the front page of the NYTimes. I was invited on primetime NBC.

Reporters still manage to find me for comments. Two weeks ago, This American Life asked me to come on this week’s episode.?

I spoke with them twice. Some of the disclosures were sensitive and I asked for them to be kept off the record.?

After nearly 6 years, these conversations helped me realize that a big chunk of my “advocacy” was for myself. As a 29-year old, I felt so limited in my options. When I had a chance to reclaim some sense of my own dignity a couple years later, I did. In front of millions of people.

The case I needed to make was for myself as much as it was for everyone else.

As I piece together the circumstances by which I ended up so vulnerable, it brings up uncomfortable truths about the diminished sense of self-worth that I felt at the time. Maybe I’ll talk about this more some day.

But knowing that I took the opportunity to assert myself helps me look back on my decision and feel powerful. Back in June 2017, I don’t think I would have imagined ever feeling that way.

This is not some kind of “happy ending” though. My public disclosures have not made my own life any easier. There are so many aspects of “life after” that I did not account for.?

We all face moral dilemmas in our personal and professional lives. Sometimes, without even realizing it, the extent of our actions will be felt far and wide.?

When we have a choice to make a decision “for others” or “for ourselves,” it’s typically more admired to act with the interests of others first. When personal reputational capital is on the line, my lived experience says that acting with our own interest in mind is probably the most important aspect of minimizing future cognitive dissonance. And sometimes, it’s the alignment of acting for ourselves in a way that has the potential to lift others while being selfish.

I can not think of a more profound win-win.

I take care of me, and that sends a strong signal to everyone else.

In fact, maybe it even becomes a global movement.