Hi Tim,
It seems as though what I was proposing was not entirely clear.
Firstly, I feel that I understand the value of the policy that Sumana
wrote. This is why I repeatedly praised it as valuable in my email.
Having a harassment policy and guidelines for ejection from an event
is important. I am not disputing this.
What I was discussing was the idea of things that could be done to
prevent instances of harassment, not to respond to them. I believe
that most people are well intentioned, and that some percentage of
instances of harassment arise from misunderstandings and/or a lack of
understanding of expected behavior/social norms. What I was proposing
was to attempt to foster a stronger sense of community, create greater
understanding of what is and is not acceptable behavior (especially in
grey areas, which are always the most difficult), and to create
greater respect for all members of a community *before* any instances
of harassment occur.
In the case of individuals who are not well intentioned, these are
individuals who do not have a place at conferences, as a main goal of
such events is to foster community. Such individuals should be asked
to leave a conferences and perhaps not invited back.
It is clear, at this point, that harassment at tech conferences is a
systemic problem, not just a couple of isolated events. As such, I
think that attempting to address this problem in multiple manners is
important. Again, I will state that having an anti-harassment policy
is an important thing to have in place. Additionally, I am of the
opinion that threat of retribution alone (in this case being shunned
from a community) is not a completely effective tact to take when
dealing with systemic problems.
I hope that this has clarified my statement some.
Best,
Peter
On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 8:14 PM, Ryan Lane <rlane32(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I think
you're missing the objective of the policy. It aims
at taking away the fear from potential participants to be
harassed. Encouraging people with insufficient social
skills to come is not going to help that cause especially if
pressure is put on the other participants to engage with
their harassers or even see them as "valuable".
In all high-profile cases that surfaced in the past years,
harassment almost never took place in a presentation or pan-
el discussion, but during "social events" which ostensibly
were meant to foster community building like you propose.
So to mitigate the risk, social interaction should be mini-
mized.
Well, I think if you look at conferences as a whole, the biggest cases
have been in presentations. Here's a list of examples:
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents
Of course these are just examples that are sexist. I'm positive there
are way more examples out there.
In general, the social events are optional, but that doesn't mean we
should allow them to be free-for-alls either. The anti-harassment
policy should also involve social events. If you've had too much to
drink, then you should be cut off. If you harass someone at a social
event, even a non-sponsored one, you should also fall under this
policy.
- Ryan
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