For someone who didn’t want one kind of attention, this woman has certainly managed to get plenty of another kind of attention.
The rules barred "unwelcome sexual attention". There really isn't any way to know if sexual attention will be unwelcome until after it has been offered, at which point it is too late as you are a harrasser.Uh yeah. Duh. This is why, if you're at an event where this is the rule, you don't fucking do this. Not difficult.
people expect to be first addressed and considered and treated on grounds other than their sexual desirability to you. That should be our default assumption. To convey otherwise where this expectation is implicitly in place is to effectively risk being interpreted by the recipient of your sexual request that you are so uninterested in them for anything but sex that you refuse even to take the normal steps of acquaintance and friendship and trust-building but insist instead of just seeing if they are willing to be a sex partner first since that is all that matters.posted by audi alteram partem at 5:43 PM on June 18, 2012 [22 favorites]
In my own defense I never said I thought this was in any way appropriate or "no big deal", my issue is what I feel is the misuse of the word "harassment".Yeah I got that. That's why I said it's obviously harassment and supplied my evidence for that position. If you gave an explicit "let's fuck" card to a coworker that would be sexual harassment. If all you did was, out of the blue, at work, say "hey we should have sex after work," that would be harassment and I'd expect you to face some sort of corrective counseling or other measure. If you did the same with a card featuring an explicit photo of yourself, I'd expect you to be fired. It is textbook sexual harassment. The term's use here is completely correct.
My 10 to your 1 that Cardguy didn't read the rules.If you attend an event with clearly communicated rules and don't read them, you have no one but yourself to blame when you're ejected and informed that you'll not be welcome at further events.
SkeptiCamps are informal, community-organized conferences borne from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. Everyone from casual skeptics to the experienced participate, give talks and get to know each other.This is not a boss grabbing his secretary's boob. This is a woman who wants sex to be sequestered far far away from much of her life, offended by people who don't share that perspective. It's good for people to try not to offend each other, but it might help to consider that the couple in question probably do not consider sex to be an inherently offensive topic
Skepticamp is based on the Barcamp model - user-generated open conferences where the content is provided by the participants.Here's a page with some pictures
Skepticamp is based on the Barcamp model - user-generated open conferences where the content is provided by the participants.
We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form. Explicit sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue. While some important and relevant issues may touch upon sexual issues, please keep it professional and in an academic context. Conference participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the conference [without a refund] at the discretion of the conference organizers.What part of that card and the solicitation says "professional and academic" to you?
when a man shows that he has no care or knowledge about social norms as it relates to expressing (especially overtly sexual) attractions, i worry that my consent or interests isn't of importance to him and then i worry if i'm safe walking to my car later or back down the same hallway.is something I've heard variations of from many women, and it's real and it's terrible for women that life is like that. But also realize, it's terrible for the majority of men who aren't violent womanizers. Take a walk alone at night as a guy
SkeptiCamp is a one-of-a-kind event coming Memorial Day weekend, and this year there are two great speakers, Hemant Mehta of Friendly Atheist blog (as well as selling his soul on ebay) fame and Skepchick and the anti-Jenny McCarthy, Elyse Anders! Skeptics will be gathering from all over the state and beyond to listen and watch a series of presentations made by fellow attendees or maybe even YOU. Although you do not have to present to attend, everyone contributes in some way. The event goes until 6PM and I would not be surprised if you will be able to find a group of skeptics to have a great Saturday night with at a local bar or restaurant. How often do you get to meet and party with skeptics from all over the state?Italics theirs
zarq: I do. All the time. I do it without fear that I'm going to be assaulted, kidnapped or raped by other males on the street. I do it without being a target of unwanted catcalling or attention. I do it without being worried that someone else might put me in bodily danger. I do it without worrying that everyone around me is a potential threat? Do you know why? Because I don't have to. Because I'm a guy.I am also a guy, and I walk around without fear.
If it was a babysitting card, do you think there would be a blog post and 200 & counting comment thread on mefi, about this offensive babysitting card?Are you kidding? Of course there would. A lot of it would be people going on about how they couldn't imagine it was that offensive, and why were women getting touchy about this stuff, when they as a man wouldn't see anything wrong with it. And don't get me on that whole "I don't babysit" thing, because actually as a man, I love kids, and would probably take them up on it. So really women should shut up about this, and stop trying to censor or sequester off child-raising. Which they want to do, because a lot of these feminists have actually lost touch with the whole idea of women raising children, which is why they treat actually mothers so badly, etc, etc.
No. This oversimplifies my point. I was talking about the justifiable concerns that women have regarding being safe at night, and the fact that men do not hold concerns along similar lines because there are specific, cultural differences in Western society regarding the way women are treated by men, compared to the way men treat men. That women are more at risk for sexual advances, rape and certain types of assault.
Yes means yes, no means no, and maybe means no. Please take no for an answer, for everything from simple social requests to intimate encounters. Do not corner people socially - if someone is looking trapped, give them space. Sexual or other harassment will not be tolerated at this event. We encourage you to seek enthusiastic consent for all activities during the weekend.(emphasis mine)
No touching other people without asking! (Or unless you already have that sort of relationship with them.) We really mean it. This means no random hands on knees, shoulders, etc. We know this is California and everyone hugs, but please do that awkward "wanna hug?" gesture before actually hugging. When in doubt about any kind of social or erotic touching, please ASK FIRST. We have attendees who do not like to be touched, and they will like you much better if you respect their personal space.
I’ve gotten dozens of other comments here, on other blogs, on Facebook, and in e-mails that reflect the same sentiment. And I knew I would get them. Every woman knows she will get them. Every time she speaks up. Every time. And sometimes it’s just exhausting. It hurts a little, having to relive it and be called names and a liar, but ultimately it just makes you tired, completely bone-weary, and a little heartbroken.posted by audi alteram partem at 7:05 AM on June 19, 2012 [12 favorites]
Similarly, resources, help-and-crisis-lines, policies, report structures, sensitivity training programs, sexual assault/harassment workshops, etc. will all completely overlook the existence of trans people, much less our specific needs in relation to these issues and how to have those needs met in a compassionate, understanding way, and not provide any structures in place to help us in the event that we do end up being victims of sexual assault, harassment or violence, or rape.posted by audi alteram partem at 11:33 AM on June 19, 2012 [1 favorite]
Now listen up, children. I was 70 last week and I have been on to this since I was 12. In my lifetime and in just one country I have seen changes to the teaching of maths and science, the professions opened to women, the banking system woken up so that it no longer demands a male countersignature, individual taxation for couples, women’s refuges and rape crisis centres, clarification of what rape is and stalking on the books as a criminal offence plus other changes to the law. And so on and so forth. And marched and wrote and spoke and supported comrades in the fight.posted by audi alteram partem at 8:53 AM on June 20, 2012 [5 favorites]
In the course of that I have met an amazing number of totally impressive people, people I have been so proud to know. Not a few of them on this very blog where I come for the very clarity of thought, effective communication, depth of commitment and experience which has always proved to be far more effective than any amount of mealy-mouthed wanking.
We are not there yet and sometimes that get a bit frustrating. Some of us, though, know exactly what we are aiming for and it is still eyes on the prize.
The conflagrations work. They raise consciousness. They make people recognize that sexism is real, and is fucked-up, and is worth fighting."Why I Have Hope: Atheism, Sexism and Blowing Up The Internet" by Greta Christina
msalt: The hostile environment standard does not require a "position of power over the victim."That's not what that phrase means. An exception does not prove a rule is valid; the ability to find an exception proves (tests) the rule for validity. The meaning you are using is insensible: "If my rule doesn't fit the situation, it must be true."
True, but it's kind of the exception that proves the rule...
a single mother who is grabbed, verbally accosted every day for years, threatened with job loss if she doesn't submit, and not rarely rapedDescribes illegality above and beyond workplace regulations on sexual harassment - it describes grounds for Title VII litigation and also felony sexual assault. These are not things Elyse has complained of.
Smaller acts add up to a larger effect if they are ongoing or inescapable. Being asked out on a date once in a place or a manner that you consider to be unacceptable is a small annoyance. Being unable to hang out at a event with your friends without being interrupted by someone who thinks they’re entitled to stand as close to you as they want is quite something else.posted by audi alteram partem at 4:32 AM on June 25, 2012 [4 favorites]
People aren’t oysters. If something is continually irritating us, we move. If harassing behavior is pervasive in a organization, participation in that organization is denied to or severely limited for anyone who doesn’t excrete the equivalent of mother of pearl.
As people are not oysters, it also doesn’t matter whether the irritant someone encounters today is the same as the irritant they encountered yesterday. This is why a single act from a single person is not necessarily “no big deal”. It can still constitute harassment if it occurs where other similar acts are happening. One small act by one person can’t create a hostile environment, but it can certainly contribute to one.
SkeptiCamp Ohio is dedicated to providing a harassment-free conference experience for everyone regardless of gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, religion or beliefs in the Boogeyman. We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form.The section of the harassment policy most relevant to the situation is the directly following:
Explicit sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue.(Which they are probably thinking of in terms of risqué presentation materials, or maybe T-shirts and posters in the merch/exhibition stands.)
I do think that vaguely worded guidelines like prohibitions on "unwanted" or "unwelcome" sexual advances are problematic. I think reasonable people, who don't engage in behavior most of us would describe as harassment, have legitimate and reasonable concerns that such policies could lead to them facing official sanctions, such as firing or being banned from a conference, if they engage in ordinarily innocuous behavior such as flirting or asking someone on a date, if they get turned down or rebuffed and the other person decides to make a complaint.This, it seems to me, is all perfectly reasonable, but requires to be read in something of a vacuum. It's kind of like guys in the discussion of women being approached/catcalled/PUAed in the street or on the bus expressing their concern that their respectful, polite and friendly socialization with strangers (who might happen to be women) might be misinterpreted (keep an eye on that verb) as harassment. It's possible, because it's possible that it might feel like harassment, because there is so much harassment going on. But the danger that their friendly or respectfully romantic approach might be misread as harassment is quite a long way down the list of problems with this picture.
Which leads to what I think I am happy to say I thought was a bad rhetorical strategy - although I am not operating in an official capacity when I say that - of imagining a woman who has been "not rarely raped", and further imagining that, upon meeting this woman, Elyse's response would be not, say, "I am very sorry to hear that", say, but something like "What happened to you could be described as sexual harassment, as could what happened to me - therefore, I have suffered as you have". Which is complicated by, as corb says, a not-negligible number of people in the discussion - including Elyse - potentially being survivors of sexual assault.Which was in turn a reference back to:
One overture, without coercion, threat of violence or repetition, I don't think that's comparable to a single mother who is grabbed, verbally accosted every day for years, threatened with job loss if she doesn't submit, and not rarely raped. But that more severe scenario that is not, sadly, uncommon. I find it offensive for this blogger to say "Yeah I had that happen to me too."Which - well, like I said, it didn't work for me. The use of a hypothetical multiple rape survivor felt emotionally off, which may well be about my damage rather than the metaphor. But I also thought it didn't reflect what had happened - on one level because Elyse hadn't specifically used the phrase "sexual harassment", on another level because the kind of abuse you were hypothesizing was described accurately but not completely by "sexual harassment" - so it already felt odd to imagine a situation in which the rape survivor was describing her experience primarily in terms of sexual harassment, IYSWIM. And then it felt like an imaginative reach to imagine Elyse saying to or of that survivor "Yeah I had that happen to me too." Because it would involve plugging data I didn't have into the representation of Elyse: specifically that she was self-absorbed and totally devoid of empathy. Or, shorthanded there, and I think picking up unconsciously on your language, "an offensively awful person".
(Includes a copy of the policy.)
We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form. Explicit sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue. While some important and relevant issues may touch upon sexual issues, please keep it professional and in an academic context. Conference participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the conference [without a refund] at the discretion of the conference organizers.One might believe that it is appropriate to proposition a conference speaker with a sexy sex card. However, if one has read the policy one knows that sexual imagery is verboten, and a card inviting one to have sex is neither professional nor operating in an academic context. Of course, our hypothetical stupid person might decide that the person they gave the sexy sex card to would be so into it that they would not report it. But they have a document which states precisely that what they are planning to do is against policy, and explains the consequences.
As a member of the Python community, we pledge only to attend, speak at, assist, sponsor, or otherwise participate in conferences that publicly promote an anti-harassment and anti-discrimination code of conduct policy.posted by Deathalicious at 6:59 AM on June 29, 2012
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