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lavendertook Jul. 31st, 2012 02:34 am)
lavendertook Jul. 31st, 2012 02:34 am)No toleration of sexual harassment and the mandating of a permanent ban on harassers is NOT about punishment of the harasser. It's about protecting and supporting the harassed.
No one knows in advance if they will ever feel completely safe again in the presence of their sexual harasser or relive the humiliating feeling of being treated as prey any time they are in the harasser's presence, or worse levels of trauma. Many of us, like Kate Kligman who actively worked on several con commitees, have a tendency to drift away from places and situations where we have been treated badly, and effectively ban ourselves.
This Readercon policy should be in place to keep sufferers of sexual harassment from being lost to that community. Again, it's NOT about punishing the harasser; it IS about rallying around the harassed.
Might those who have been sexually harassed be afraid to come forward if the result is a permanent ban of the harasser? Yes--IF people keep acting like a permanent ban from one con is a damned jail sentence!
The ban does not even involve being required to perform community service or make any kind of amends whatsoever. It's not the loss of rights--it's the earned loss of a privilege, one that the harasser obviously took for granted. It does not prevent him from attending any number of other cons.
What the ban provides for the harassed is some measure of peace of mind for future con attendance, affirmation that her safety is important, and assurance that she is a valued member of the community, so that after what may have been an uncomfortable, anxiety inducing, frightening, or painful experience for her, she will actually want to come back again and participate in the community.
When people wring their hands over what a terrible punishment being permanently banned from a con for sexual harassment is, what does get minimized in the consciousness of the harassed is her place in the community. Whether she is a valued member there or is at all welcome comes into question for her. Is your safety and well-being considered less important than the harasser's continued presence? Can you ever feel at home in a place where you have been marked as territory and called upon to fight for your autonomy just to be in a space that others can walk in freely without having to fight?
Nitpicking at the policy because you think all decrees should involve wiggle room, when there is already wiggle room in the Readercon board's determining whether or not the action is a case of outright harassment in the first place, further demeans the needs of the harassed. This minimizing effect makes the decision harder for those who experience harassment to come forward in the future. The minimization's effects can extend to everyone who has been subjected to sexual harassment. I know I feel it.
I know the sexual harasser may be a friend. Think less about him and focus on the harassed as the person whose continued presence in that community is now very much AT RISK, and must be ensured by the community taking action for her safety and peace of mind.
I greatly admire![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
glvalentine and vschanoes for the magnificent fight they are waging in resistance to minimization of their worth and to make con culture better. They are demonstrating just how women backing each other up is truly done. I wish them their energy back for better things for themselves.
Roundup of links on the Readercon fail has been kindly provided by bcholmes here.
Addendum:vschanoes has written a petition to ask the board to resign, apologize to glvalentine, ban Rene Walling, and put people with a clue in place to make decisions. You can read it here and you can add you name to the petition here. Feel free to sign in anonymously so you can submit your given, rather than LJ/DW name.
No one knows in advance if they will ever feel completely safe again in the presence of their sexual harasser or relive the humiliating feeling of being treated as prey any time they are in the harasser's presence, or worse levels of trauma. Many of us, like Kate Kligman who actively worked on several con commitees, have a tendency to drift away from places and situations where we have been treated badly, and effectively ban ourselves.
This Readercon policy should be in place to keep sufferers of sexual harassment from being lost to that community. Again, it's NOT about punishing the harasser; it IS about rallying around the harassed.
Might those who have been sexually harassed be afraid to come forward if the result is a permanent ban of the harasser? Yes--IF people keep acting like a permanent ban from one con is a damned jail sentence!
The ban does not even involve being required to perform community service or make any kind of amends whatsoever. It's not the loss of rights--it's the earned loss of a privilege, one that the harasser obviously took for granted. It does not prevent him from attending any number of other cons.
What the ban provides for the harassed is some measure of peace of mind for future con attendance, affirmation that her safety is important, and assurance that she is a valued member of the community, so that after what may have been an uncomfortable, anxiety inducing, frightening, or painful experience for her, she will actually want to come back again and participate in the community.
When people wring their hands over what a terrible punishment being permanently banned from a con for sexual harassment is, what does get minimized in the consciousness of the harassed is her place in the community. Whether she is a valued member there or is at all welcome comes into question for her. Is your safety and well-being considered less important than the harasser's continued presence? Can you ever feel at home in a place where you have been marked as territory and called upon to fight for your autonomy just to be in a space that others can walk in freely without having to fight?
Nitpicking at the policy because you think all decrees should involve wiggle room, when there is already wiggle room in the Readercon board's determining whether or not the action is a case of outright harassment in the first place, further demeans the needs of the harassed. This minimizing effect makes the decision harder for those who experience harassment to come forward in the future. The minimization's effects can extend to everyone who has been subjected to sexual harassment. I know I feel it.
I know the sexual harasser may be a friend. Think less about him and focus on the harassed as the person whose continued presence in that community is now very much AT RISK, and must be ensured by the community taking action for her safety and peace of mind.
I greatly admire
glvalentine and vschanoes for the magnificent fight they are waging in resistance to minimization of their worth and to make con culture better. They are demonstrating just how women backing each other up is truly done. I wish them their energy back for better things for themselves. Roundup of links on the Readercon fail has been kindly provided by bcholmes here.
Addendum:
vschanoes has written a petition to ask the board to resign, apologize to glvalentine, ban Rene Walling, and put people with a clue in place to make decisions. You can read it here and you can add you name to the petition here. Feel free to sign in anonymously so you can submit your given, rather than LJ/DW name.Tags:
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Complaints by female staff = shut up and suck it up and stop whining
Complaints by male staff = immediate action
Such is our fucked up culture.
Shame on the Readercon Board.
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BTW, I added a link above to vschanoes most excellent petition to boot the board and get people with a clue instated, if you're interested in signing.
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I've never met a trans man who tried to pretend that he could get what he wanted solely because testosterone.
Nearly every man who has started T late in life has remarked on the power of the stuff. But I can't remember anyone claiming they had the right to surrender all self control to it.
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Yeah I do not know what Adrianna_R's deal is. She seems to have bought into the "Women are better and must suffer for it" myth.
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Ooookay then. I think I'll let her be fucked up in the head about gender roles all by herself from now on.
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You did throw temper tantrums at times, but you were wee. I could have given you more room for that, though, being more than double your age back then. MESPT, I think, was for me kind of my midlife crisis-- a return to high school and college, in some ways, with the bright peers I never had in my home town. If it was that for me, it was a more interesting and fun midlife crisis than most people get, so yay. I miss the heady fun of it. Elanor-mun and I are still close and I'm glad you and Kyra are still my friends and pop in.
Who did Adrianna_R play? Maybe I should send Bingo over to have a talk with her.
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Adriannna_r was Arvedui.
Short responses not crankiness, just totally tired but couldn't seem to sleep without answering. Omnom snacks.
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I don't think I ever interacted with her then.
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I think also it's painful and scary to identify with the victim, so it's easier to focus on the drama of the abuser's possible redemption. And there's social resistance to centering women in a hurt/comfort scenario and letting her be the woobie, the center of care and person whose needs are of prime concern.
I added a link to vschanoes excellent petition above, if you'd like to sign it.
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I'll go sign. No con should allow its attendees to feel unsafe.
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But mainly these critiques focus on the needs of the harasser--they don't don't give squat on what the harassed need. That's pretty much how it is all over--the sf/f community is no better or worse. Reader focused cons should be places I'd want to be and my happy places, but they're not where I want to be anymore-I tried when I was younger.
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For me, I have faced not exactly this, but it's a similar bit of rage that I used to get when people downplayed the potential danger of traveling in Tobago and implied that if "common sense prevails" nothing bad can happen to you, therefore, if something bad happens to you, you must have done something wrong. And in addition, it's perfectly safe to travel there and that I shouldn't bad mouth the experience, thus minimizing my experience and other violent crime victims' experiences. So yeah, I know it's not the same thing as what the person involved in ReaderCon experienced, but it rings true in a similar manner to me. I'm so happy there are people fighting to make those who have experienced such things feel safe.
*hugs*
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*hugs you back*
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But an awful lot of people who aren't in that position are spending a lot of time trying to come up with policies that would be less excluding for the harasser, because they think a lifetime expulsion would be too mean to him, which is an awful lot of time worrying about his feelings, at the expense of the feelings of the sexually harassed.
And I really, really don't want to be in a room with these people. Why would I spend my fun time going to a con with people who have more empathy for sexual harassers than the victims of harassment?
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