Elise Matthesen's "How to Report Sexual Harassment"

[james_davis_nicoll]

We’re geeks. We learn things and share, right? Well, this year at WisCon I learned firsthand how to report sexual harassment. In case you ever need or want to know, here’s what I learned and how it went.

Comments

[emt-hawk.livejournal.com]

As part of Operation Hammond, we stand ready to assist in cases of harassment. We're a fan-based EMS agency, registered in the state of Massachusetts as a non-transporting agency, and we go to cons in NY, MA, CT, NH, RI, and VT. Besides EMS, we watch for harassment, and provide safe haven if necessary.

A costume is not consent. All it takes for inappropriate behavior to continue is for good men and women to do nothing.

--Hawk

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't choosing WisCon as the venue for conducting harassment be doubling down on stupid?

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

It would seem to me that if a person has enough lack of awareness and self-rationalization going on to be a serially harassing person (where, I understand lack of social awareness and lots of "it's not me that has the problem" is a key aspect of the character involved), then the venue is probably irrelevant, or at the very least, they might not be making the same kind of logical conclusions about venue affecting behaviour, and such and such, that other rational folks would.

After all, if they were rational folks that thought like most people did, they wouldn't be behaving this way at all, would they?

But, IANAP, so who knows what's going through people's heads, really.

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

IANAP but I suspect the underlying logic is that there are definately going to be multiple women at WisCon.

[stevendj.livejournal.com]

According to Wikipedia, the gentleman in question lives in Madison, Wisconsin. I suspect the underlying logic is that it was a cheap convention for him to attend, and why behave differently there than anywhere else?

[avram]

And not just his choice of venue. Choosing to pick on Elise Matteson — a close friend to some of Frenkel’s co-workers — is tripling down on stupid.

(Jim Frenkel of Tor Books is the guy Elise is talking about; that turns up in the comments.)

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

That shouldn't make a difference. But it will.

[editrx.livejournal.com]

Oh ... It was him. I'd wondered who it was, and also wondered when someone would report him officially -- I've seen it going on a while. I have my own stories, but mostly rudeness coupled with incredibly thoughtless comments when I was the production manager for a certain house.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

This is something I can more or less speak to having encountered a great many people who are at least partially criminals. It does not matter about all the cameras, employees, and security. Thieves always think they are smarter, better, different and think they will not get caught. And due to the limits of observation, proof, etc, most of the time they are right.

A harasser would no more stay away from Wiscon than Willie Sutton would stay away from a bank just because of one guard.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

It bugs me every time I go into my bank and I notice their camera system doesn't cover a big section of the room, including a window next to a stairwell. OK, the window is likely alarmed but still. I just don't know how to point it out to them and not seem odd.

Also, why did they take down the wall clock? Every time I have gone in there in the last 10 or so years, I am annoyed by the lack of clock.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

It's so people don't realize how long they've been waiting in line?

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

More likely as some sort of management thing designed to make "happier employees" so that -they- aren't stuck clock watching. Or, it broke, and the person running the bank thought, hey, why do we need a wall-clock anyway, in this day and age, when all the terminals have time displays in the UI and people wear watches and carry all these smart phones and such. Penny saved!

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

Or the bank has decided that there is a hidden source of revenue to be gained by outsourcing the definition of time in the bank to an "external" body (whose board coincidentally overlaps completely with the bank's own board of directors) that sells and rates periods of "banking time" time for the purpose of billing customers by the "minute" for meetings with bank staff.

[nathan helfinstine (from livejournal.com)]

"Thieves always think they are smarter, better, different and think they will not get caught."

This is one of the argument against the criminal justice system having a deterrent effect. A potential murderer doesn't think "I'd better not murder that guy, because this state has the death penalty!" because the murder believes his chances of being caught are zero. This belief is the opposite of a self-fulfilling prophesy, of course. The current example #1 is that Boston football player who either brazenly murdered a buddy, or is the victim of the most astonishingly complex frame-up conspiracy ever.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

Also, quite a few criminals are just plain dumb. Stupidity and poor risk assessment skills and poor impulse control are a combination that ensures continued employment for police officers.

I actually had this post-mortem after a snatch-and-run theft: "Did you get him on tape?" (I gesture vaguely at the ceiling.) "How many cameras do you see?" "...um, five?" "Yeah. We got him."

[bovil.livejournal.com]

It's been years since I've been to a WisCon, but Jim and Joan are regulars. His attendance is nothing new.

[rosefox]

The coordinators of the convention were promptly involved. Someone told me that since it was the first report, the editor would not be asked to leave the convention.

So, no, apparently not.

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

Was the "edited to add" there when you posted? Because it's pretty significant, I'd think.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

No when I first saw it, yes when I went back to link to it.