Amber Harrison refuses to quietly disappear, which is why I salute her

There's always something grubby about the public discussion of an affair, particularly when the parties involved are either well known or represent well known entities. This is certainly true of ongoing revelations about the affair between former Seven West Media employee Amber Harrison and the company's CEO, Tim Worner.

The more details come to light, the more sordid it turns. And yet, Harrison is turning out to be a formidable opponent who refuses to quietly disappear.

The former employee is currently locked in a legal battle with Seven West over its handling of the matter – which she claims is discriminatory – and her subsequent decision to go public with company documents and receipts she says support her side of the story.

In the past fortnight, Harrison has taken to social media to let rip with a set of explosive evidence and allegations regarding not just the intimate details of the pair's relationship, but also the conduct of the board towards both herself and the company's shareholders. Her Twitter bio simply reads, "Whistleblower".

In the latest twist, Seven West has obtained a temporary injunction on Harrison to prevent her from publishing the details of her affair with Worner and other company matters on Twitter. She is now barred from making any comments about Seven or "otherwise bringing [the company] into disrepute" – and a number of tweets have been removed.

The parties will be in court again next Tuesday, and Fairfax Media understands proceedings for contempt of court will be initiated against Harrison after she flouted the order on Monday by continuing to post comments and text messages on Twitter.

To bring everyone up to speed, Harrison and Worner began their two-year affair in 2012 while Harrison worked as an executive assistant at Pacific Magazines (owned by Seven West Media), before Worner was appointed CEO.

Harrison alleges the affair was initiated by Worner, and that in addition to having sex they also used recreational drugs, sometimes at work events. (In a statement, Seven has claimed Harrison's account is full of "wideranging inaccuracies" and that claims of drug use could not be substantiated.) Worner sent Harrison personal, intimate correspondence using company letterheads, a fact she claims makes it a company matter and not a private one.

Harrison, meanwhile, was accused of using her own company credit card to pay for personal luxuries, and ultimately offered a redundancy package. She reportedly told friends Pacific Magazines had a "fast and loose credit card environment," but claims that she was the only person of 4000 employees at Seven West Media investigated over use of her credit card.

As a result of this credit card investigation, Harrison had her contract terminated and was offered a $350,000 payout, of which $100,000 was compensation for alleged injury, including loss of professional standing and reputation, pain and suffering. And while some people might think this makes for a pretty nice payday, the long term costs of such reputation loss can be severe. Worner has meanwhile issued an apology to the company shareholders and ... well, that's about it, although Seven says he has paid compensation to the network to cover costs arising out of the relationship.

This is normally where the story would end. Women like Harrison tend to disappear quietly, immortalised forever in people's memories as troublemakers and home wreckers.

Indeed, Charlotte Wood's acclaimed novel The Natural Way of Things hypothesised a scenario in which these women might be rounded up and duly punished for allowing their sexuality to "destroy" the lives and prospects of promising men. As in real life, the men in that depiction were allowed to carry on with their trajectory towards greater money and power, bolstered by the support of other men.

Seven West organised an independent inquiry into Worner's behaviour, with its findings clearing him of misconduct and determining that no further disciplinary action was required. One has to wonder if the resignation of Sheila McGregor (one of Seven West's only two female board members), the day before the report's findings were made public, was in protest.

It would be easy for someone like Harrison to be turned into a hateful figure by a public used to finding fault in the interloper when a marriage is involved (doubly true when that person is a woman), because what she's exposing isn't just cheap – it's also cliched. But there's much to admire in her refusal to back down from pursuing an adequate response from Seven West over the actions of their CEO.

Tim Worner might be "ashamed" and distraught over the disrepute he's brought to his position and the hurt he's caused his family; but if history is anything to go by, this will be a short lived mea culpa.

Let's be honest, it's the "mistresses" (and good lord, can we retire that word and come up with a better one please?) who end up suffering the most when public scandals like this hit the headlines. Women like Harrison are labelled Jezebels and temptresses, harlots who pose a threat to the marriages of ordinary wives whose husbands are expected to be just sorry enough to weather a little embarrassment, but certainly not to lose their jobs or social standing.

Look at the disastrous handling of Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. Lewinsky was an intern barely out of her teens and Clinton was literally the most powerful man in the world, yet revelations of their sexual relationship only resulted in long-term consequences for her, not him.

In a powerful essay for Vanity Fair, Lewinsky wrote about the public humiliation she was forced to endure in the years following the affair's exposure. While reinforcing the point that the relationship was consensual, Lewinsky is clear where the blame lies for being treated like a pariah. She writes, "Any 'abuse' came in the aftermath, when I was made a scapegoat in order to protect his powerful position... The Clinton administration, the special prosecutor's minions, the political operatives on both sides of the aisle, and the media were able to brand me. And that brand stuck, in part because it was imbued with power."

Staring down the barrel of this power imbalance, most women would probably just choose to walk away. It feels almost impossible to fight the system, particularly when the system is so invested in defending the high profile, high powered men who sit at its helm.

It is especially difficult for one individual to fight a legal battle against a corporation that can afford to tie cases up in courts for years, emotionally and financially draining the women who will rarely, if ever, be backed by the system. In refusing to go quietly, Harrison has made a daring move that will surely impact the outcome of her own ongoing battles with Seven West – even if it's just to be an annoying, unpredictable and unprecedented thorn in their side. But she'll hopefully inspire other women to push back against the discriminatory way they're treated in the workplace in comparison to their male bosses.

Seven West's temporary injunction may silence Harrison for now, but I hope we haven't heard the last from her.

It isn't fair that women suffer while men are coddled and protected. And it isn't right that the majority of the public's enthusiasm for shaming is heaped on them, either. Harrison might be experiencing both of those things right now, but she isn't going down without a fight. Seven West would do well to heed that.