Tech journalist Glenn Fleishman is most known for writing boring articles about WiFi and Macbooks, and running an online magazine into the ground. An outspoken opponent of Gamergate, Fleishman is one of the more prominent “woke” dudes on Twitter. But he often blocks any woman who challenges his feminist credentials.
Now Fleishman is being called out on his favorite platform, Twitter.com, for being a bit creepy in emails to young female writers, and true to form, he blocked his accusers.
When Fleishman was running his online magazine, The Magazine, he reached out to Emily Warfield to write an avant garde piece about sex. Warfield objected to Fleishman randomly noting the email to her that he and his wife were polyamorous, AKA in an open relationship, AKA having sex with people besides his wife.
“You have a great voice on the blog and insight into an area of work and life that I don’t have any interest in exoticizing,” he wrote in an email. “I know that’s appalling when people like to poke at seemingly non-normative ways of life as if people are in a zoo. (For reference, my wife and I are polyamorous, so I’m not jut whistling Dixie).”
He also tried to assure Warfield he wasn’t trying to solicit “free professional services,” as he had plenty of references.
Warfield thought the email was certainly bizarre, and possibly a come on, but did not pursue the matter further and ended up writing a piece for Fleishman.
It was not until a few years later where Warfield encountered another woman on a Twitter thread who said the exact same thing happened: Fleishman randomly bringing up his open marriage in an email.
We have reached out to the other woman for comment, but have not received a response at press time.
Then when Fleishman tweeted out an article about sexual harassment at Uber, Warfield felt she should speak out.
“I’m pointing out his hypocrisy in retweeting the Uber sexual harassment story when he’s engaged in a similar pattern of behavior,” Warfield said in a direct message. “He never propositioned me, only told me of his open relationship status in a work email, which is certainly odd but in and of itself wouldn’t be bad if it weren’t something he did with a number of other young women writers and apparently *only* young women writers and then blocked us for talking about.”
Fleishman responded on Twitter to the woman’s tweet behind the safety of his block wall.
“We live on opposite coasts, and I rarely travel these days,” he wrote on Twitter. “My outing myself as poly (something I have discussed openly here) was in part to put her at ease, because of the nature of her writing, which I can’t discuss without violating her privacy.”
“This is all uninteresting to most people, and I don’t want deny someone the ability to complain about how I interacted with them,” he continued wokely. “Women should share stories about men who have boundary issues and misuse positions of power.”
Update:
Fleishman responded to a request for comment after publication. Regarding the matter he said:
I obviously regret that my attempt to put her at ease in that email did the opposite. I see she posted the rest of the email later in the day, and I was clearly hamfisted in the email and would have approached it differently today. I figured she got a lot of “sex tourism” article requests, and I wanted something more mature from her.
The article she wrote that I ran in The Magazine turned out very well, and I think she’s a strong writer with an original voice with a lot to say. Our interaction in subsequent emails, including the editing process, was definitely above par in working with writers.
He also contends that polyamory isn’t necessarily an “open relationship” or “open marriage” and he has unblocked some of the women who argued with him about his “sexist” comments.
Here’s the full email for context:
