Our Values

Commitment to Consent Culture

Movement Media strives to cultivate a workplace culture that centers consent as fundamental to all interaction. It is especially important for our company to foreground consent in an economy that is often based on coercion. We understand that achieving an ideal consent culture within the dominant paradigm is aspirational and will always be a work in progress without the transformation of society at-large to a culture based on consent. Until then, our journey is ongoing. This statement is a starting point!

We believe:

• Consent is a foundation for social justice.
• Showing up for our work each day and freely fulfilling our unique job responsibilities is an act of consent.
• The physical and psychological safety of everyone who works with Movement Media is paramount to making it possible for each of us to bring our full selves to the work we do and believe in.
• A consent culture can shift human relations away from systems based on entitlement, privilege, and competition, towards models rooted in empathy, kindness, trust, and cooperation.
• Consent should be present in all workplace interaction no matter the chain of command or workplace hierarchy between colleagues.
• It is important to challenge the implication of the common saying “it is better to ask forgiveness than ask for permission” and question who this logic serves.
• Consent should inform discussion, disagreement, physical boundaries, emotional boundaries, pronoun use, and requests on our time and capacity.
• Consent means we strive to treat each other the way we want to be treated ourselves. Practically this means we work to avoid aggressive behavior such as: yelling at each other; making threats; engaging in name-calling; practicing gaslighting or negation and erasure of others’ reality, ideas, or contributions; and weaponizing our power differentials—such as justifying disrespectful or abusive behavior because one has more knowledge or is “in-charge”.
• Within our workplace we make space for consent in all interactions with our colleagues.
• In interactions with colleagues outside of our workplace, we will do our best to embody consent culture even when others do not. We give ourselves permission to assert our right to consent when we are not afforded it.

Consent Culture is present when consent is: 

FREELY GIVEN
Consent is freely given when all parties have full capacity to consent, and nobody is pressured, manipulated, or coerced.

RETRACTABLE
Consent is retractable and may be withdrawn at any point, and it is clear to all parties at what point a consensual transaction is complete.

INFORMED
Consent is informed when all parties understand fully what they are consenting to, and any risks relating to it.

ENGAGED
Consent is engaged when there is clear communication and positive agreement to proceed and continue.

SPECIFIC
Consent is specific to limitations and boundaries understood by all parties.

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Movement Media seeks to engage intentional, appropriate, reflexive, and restorative approaches in response to violations of consent that especially centers those most impacted and is relative to specific circumstance and context.

This statement is not an excuse for anyone to neglect their job responsibilities and should not be interpreted as permission to be unaccountable to their role in our workplace. Rather, this commitment to consent culture is intended to help create the space for all of us at Movement Media to have more agency, comfort, and security in our positions by establishing consent as an extension of an ethos of care and respect that we show to one another in the course of our work.

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Informed and inspired by Ask: Building Consent Culture and consentculture.co.uk