Let's get a little louder
juliaelman.com
juliaelman.com
Apparently the world is full of idiots, but it makes a difference if something is said/done/etc in a closed work environment or at some random bar among random people who just meet at some random event. Just because they like the same kind of things (music, coding languages, other "stuff") doesn't make them having some supreme ethical and moral standard. Demanding stronger sexual harassment laws is a legitimate request, but trying to paint the tech community as misogynist because of some random bar encounter is in my opinion unacceptable.
That is unacceptable. And to consider conference organizers responsible for expelling people who are tarnishing the experience of their conference is hardly out of line. Conferences are not something that stops when you leave the conference area, because people travel to them. They are social experiences both on the conference grounds and outside of them.
Nobody is saying it should be illegal for a conference organizer to allow people like this. But it's perfectly fair as a developer going to a conference or as a company sending developers to a conference to require that they have a policy of banning such members.
Oh, and “he was drunk” is not an excuse. It is never an excuse. It is never an excuse for anything. I cannot stress this enough. Drunkenness is an excuse only because we allow it to be, not because there is any legitimacy to it.
If you know you're an ass when you're drunk, well, it turns out, you can work on not being an ass when you're drunk, or, alternatively, you can simply not drink. If you do neither of these things, then you are responsible for every stupid thing you say and do while drunk.
To be clear, I am aware you did not explicitly mention drunkenness as a valid excuse; however, your phrasing strongly implied it by correlating the saying of stupid things with being drunk at a bar. As such, I picked at that point because it's an attitude I've seen before, and I think it's a problem. My apologies if you didn't explicitly mean it that way.
We should not confuse ambiguous situations in which someone makes a slightly off-color joke with serious, repeated harassment. That does nothing to help the situation.
As for whether the bar is really part of the conference, I agree it's a bit of a grey zone. But in every such gathering, the unofficial parts are where most of the important stuff happens. If you have a conference where the women feel unwelcome doing that stuff, you don't really have a woman-friendly conference.
Having never been harassed like that, I don't know quite what I'd do. But I can think of any number of times I've taken a little while to go from "what the fuck just happened?" to feeling confident enough in my analysis to raise a ruckus.
morally responsible perhaps not but certainly there's a question of the reputation of the conference where it would be in the organisers own interest to set a tone and a policy on decent behaviour.
> trying to paint the tech community as misogynist
I didnt read that out of the post or have even the impression that was the goal. What made you draw that conclusion ?
So could you just as easily imagine the conversation going down this way if they were coworkers? It still seems possible to me, but also more than a little bit less likely, like better judgement and potential long term repercussions would start popping into this guy's head. "Oh, she'd probably talk to HR and that sounds like a pain in the ass." No "ethical or moral standard" necessary - just the basic discretion that normal people in a social ecosystem usually exhibit.
The reason that these situations seem to be repeatedly playing out at tech conferences aren't hard to deduce, but mostly they just remove the need to have discretion. It's not alcohol or sexuality or immorality - it's an atmosphere with limited institutional memory and inherently short-term social contracts. Conferences are great places for assholes to take cover - you get to be introduced to many people, social capitalize on your work reputation, and sexually "roll the dice" with limited fallout.
Fixing this at conferences isn't a trivial matter of an accuser blowing a whistle once, just as it isn't in the workplace, but neither is a defeatist attitude warranted.
Part of creating a conference is trying to get the right people to attend.
The reason many people come to the conference isn't the content of the sessions, which could be delivered much more efficiently on-line. It's the conversations.
As an example, consider TED. I'm not sure how it is now, but at least in the early days, things were carefully arranged to encourage a ton of interaction. Speakers were strongly encouraged to stay for the whole thing. There was plenty of time for interaction, and the locations and events were chosen to keep people there and mingling. Certainly the things I remember most fondly are my personal encounters, not the admittedly great talks.
So yes, any smart conference organizer is going to be very concerned with who's attending, if only because that's a major part of the product being sold.
Could you show me where that happened? If anything, I think her feeling comfortable speaking up about this is a great sign that she thinks it's not irredeemably misogynist.
There are some things that can be dealt with more appropriately at a different level than the legal level. In the US, we have a fairly strong concept of freedom of speech. There are certain hurtful, hateful things that you are legally allowed to say. But that doesn't make them welcome at a private event. And that doesn't mean that people who say them to other people at a bar meetup related to an event should continue to be welcome at that event. We can put higher standards on what is acceptable behavior than merely that which is legal.
> but trying to paint the tech community as misogynist because of some random bar encounter is in my opinion unacceptable.
I am very unclear where you saw anyone painting the tech community as misogynist. One person complained about one event, and the fact that the organizers didn't have an effective policy in place for how to deal with that situation. She is recommending certain changes that could avoid this problem in the future, and her employer is supporting her by lending some weight to her complaint. This isn't painting the tech community as misogynist, and if we want to solve these kinds of problems, we need to avoid making those kinds of sweeping generalization and brushing off real problems just because someone misperceives a fairly narrow complaint as painting an entire wide group of people as misogynist.
Why not speak to the manager of the bar and have him escorted out? If it happens at the hotel, do the same with the hotel manager. People in the service/hospitality industry know how to deal with these situations and do so all the time. If it happens again call the law.
There are much better mechanisms for dealing with harassment than a conference organizer.
I doubt anything but praise would have resulted from that, even though the best outcome would be that it was kept private and became a little piece of background gossip floating around the Django-community.
I'm not sure that's a workable fix, either. This is sort of a hard problem.
In other cases, pulling said person into a room, asking him if the claims are true and if so asking them to leave is already a big step forward.
That's certainly true of tribes, towns, cities, and states. It's true of every virtual community I've used. It's even true of anarchic communities like Burning Man.
Edit:grammar
It doesn't sound like she had any problems handling the advances at the bar. To wit, " I told him he should be ashamed of himself and walked away."
The question to me is whether the advances should have been reported to the conference organizer in addition to whatever happened at the bar.
If the harasser had been merely an attendee, then I would argue that there is little that a conference organizer would gain by knowing about it or be able to do about it. But we're talking about a speaker, someone who may have been invited, who probably had the cost of the conference waived and possibly even been reimbursed or given a stipend for airfare and hotel, and very likely appears in name and photo in conference promotional materials. To me, she was doing the conference director a big favor to let him know what happened. Since the director already had misgivings about allowing the harasser at the conference, you would think that the director would at least trust his judgement the next time and possibly spread the word to other organizers/directors. I certainly wouldn't want to appear to tacitly support this kind of behavior if I were organizing a conference.
Finally, I think it's very difficult to divorce the after hours happenings from the conference itself. Conferences often last several days, and there are often optional social events featured as part of the conference. You're probably going to see some of the same people the next day. I've never been sexually harassed, but I was bullied as a child. I know that the fear and humiliation imposed by a harasser don't go away just because the venue changes. If I were a conference director with the opportunity to gain specific knowledge that could help me prevent that kind of environment, I think I'd want it.
Silence and lack of consequences perpetuate harassing behavior. I think Ms. Elman absolutely did the right thing in speaking to the conference director.
The conference is in the business of getting people together in a way that they find enjoyable and useful. Maybe it's just me, but being harassed by an asshole is neither enjoyable or useful.
I'm organizing a 300-person (non-conference) event right now, and getting the right attendees is something I think about a lot. If I were a conference organizer, I'd take this very seriously. There are an infinite number of things people can do with their time and money. If I want to be the one they pick, I wouldn't want them worried that the experience will suck. Whether it technically happened on the conference grounds would be irrelevant to me, in that attendees see it all as part of the conference experience when deciding whether to attend or not.
We can prevaricate about the "truth" of her story (and this particular incident) all we want, but the core message here is that these things do happen, women do get sexually harassed by people who are invited to tech conference, and that is not okay.
At a conference, there is a lot that goes on during unofficial off-hours, that is really an integral part of the conference. We shouldn't consider it acceptable for women to feel unsafe going to such off-hours events. If there is someone who is a guest at that conference, and showing up to off-hours events associate with the conference, that is still the conference's problem, as it significantly negatively affects an important part of the conference, and could be avoided by making that person unwelcome at the conference.
And this is not a court of law. We regularly ban people from online communities with a much lower bar of proof than would be required in a court of law, because those people are harmful to the community. Yes, any particular process could, in theory, be abused. But that isn't, as far as I know, a problem here. I have never heard of someone being banned from a conference unjustly. And we have a lower bar in these cases because the consequences are not as severe as criminal sanctions. We are not trying to lock someone up. We are not trying to get them arrested. We are just saying "this behavior is unacceptable, and you are not welcome in our community if you are going to behave this way."
All the original post is asking is that conferences have a clearly defined policy on what is unacceptable, and what will happen if someone crosses that line. It doesn't sound like there's any dispute about what happened. It sounds like the person in question had a history of problems, as the organizer said he shouldn't have allowed this person to come to the conference.
There isn't a problem here of people being unjustly accused and cut off from conferences because of it. There is a problem of women being harassed, seriously creeped out, feeling unwelcome and unable to do anything about it because of the actions of a few, and the lack of any clear policy or action on the part of conference organizers. And heck, a clear policy can help. Perhaps it can specify that the first time, someone will be warned, and only banned if they have already been warned. Perhaps it can specify a dispute resolution procedure. A clear policy will help everyone. We need to do better, because this keeps coming up and it is a serious problem.
Even then, it may be far from clear-cut. We don't know what those problems are. Have there been reports of harassment regarding this guy? If so, that's fairly clear-cut. But maybe this is just kind of a jerk, but hasn't done anything over the line before.
While conference organizers certainly shouldn't put their heads in the sand, realistically they're a small part of the potential solution. The community at large really has the most power here - it has many more eyes and ears than the (usually overworked) conference organizers.
I'm wondering where the rest of the community was when this harassment was going on at the bar. The victim says they were there in a group. So a whole group of conference attendees was just standing around, letting this victim be harassed?
Unlike the conference organizers, they were there. At the bar. In close proximity.
As many of the comments here suggest, people just expect that these types of people will stop if/when a woman puts her foot down and says something to the guy. This sounds great in theory, but for people like the harasser, it often just agitates their behavior.
In a male-dominated group setting, he probably felt even more comfortable and possibly even validated by his peers when none of them chimed in (if they were overhearing any of the conversation). For men and women alike, even though it isn't right, people find it easier to try to ignore it than make it an issue in front of others -- especially people you respect and are likely to see and interact with again.
What Julie really emphasizes in her post is that this innocent-bystander attitude needs to be addressed -- this guy shouldn't have felt it was within his grasp to solicit her to begin with. Even creeps have limitations and a more active community approach in dealing with the very concept of them can help stop it.
I don't know what sort of configuration people were in at this bar, obviously. But when she mentioned that the fellow singled her out, I took it to mean that he got into a one-on-one conversation rather than pitching his offensive remarks across a conference table. Bars tend to be noisy and people often break up into pairs or mini-groups as the evening wears on.
All of this is idle speculation that is really besides the point. The point is that conferences should have a policy for how to deal with these kinds of situations. Those policies are probably going to depend on a certain amount of judgement from the conference organizer. They make all kinds of other judgements, about who to include as keynote speakers or accept for talks. One of their criteria should, perhaps, be whether the person in question has stepped seriously out of bounds at previous events.
> I'm wondering where the rest of the community was when this harassment was going on at the bar. The victim says they were there in a group. So a whole group of conference attendees was just standing around, letting this victim be harassed?
You have been to a bar before, right? Many of them are dark, and loud. There can be many conversations going on at once. It's pretty easy, even with a large groups present, for people to have a conversation that no one else can hear, because there's music playing, and they are involved in their own conversation.
If people did overhear, there's always the bystander effect. In groups, people are sometimes less likely to intervene in a situation, because they expect someone else to intervene, or because they see no one else intervening and feel some social pressure not to break the ice.
And we've seen several other incidents like this. Sometimes, it happens off in a corner where no one else is around; or in a hallway in the conference hotel. Those are situations we need to deal with just as much, and we can't depend on there being a helpful bystander.
The only point is that we need a policy. The policy does not need to be bulletproof. These are human situations. There will always be cases that slip through the cracks. Some of them might just turn into a he-said, she-said that can't be resolved. Some people might never come forward to the conference organizers. Some people might abuse a policy to just get someone kicked out that they don't like. But you do your best to try and provide the best, most accepting environment that you can.
And right now, we have a real problem. We have people abusing the lack of any policies, the lack of will of organizers to do anything, to continue coming to events without repercussion for repeated behavior that is clearly unacceptable. We can do better.
You know, the policy might be a warning at first. It might include some form of adjudication if the events are in dispute. It might give someone a cooling off period, and allow them back after a certain amount of time. There are lots of options, and a large space to explore. But it is fundamentally unacceptable that we just say "well, we can't tell what really happened with a legal level of proof, so we're going to keep inviting creeps to our conferences and let anyone who feels uncomfortable with that stay away."
What I'm saying, though, is that the people around them at the bar are far more likely to be able to assist than a conference organizer who's not physically there.
"The point is that conferences should have a policy for how to deal with these kinds of situations. Those policies are probably going to depend on a certain amount of judgement from the conference organizer."
I totally agree that there need to be policies. But policies are just words, and they won't get the job done alone.
What will get the job done is looking out for each other. In social situations, particularly bars, we should all be looking out for each other, especially women, since they're disproportionally the ones on the receiving end of predatory/harassing behavior.
If she went to the bar with a group, every single one of them ought to have been looking out for each other. And yes, I've been in scores of similar situations where I and others have looked out for the welfare of others. You don't need to be an obnoxious "white knight" about it; you don't even need to be overt. Creeps tend to look for girls whose friends aren't paying attention.
Example: Your female friend is caught in a conversation with a potential El Creepo. Play dumb and introduce yourself to the guy in a purely friendly way. Heck, maybe buy a round of drinks. Just knowing that somebody noticed him will often nip things in the bud.
Yes, there are things that we should do while we are there in person. And there are things that should be handled at the conference organizer level, if there is someone who has demonstrated unacceptable behavior at the conference. And, of course, there is also the police level, for things that go so far beyond the bounds as to be able to make it to that level.
I was just concerned that a lot of people were saying things like "well, she doesn't have proof, so we should do nothing" or "well, this should be a police matter, so we should do nothing," and I thought that your comment might be along those lines, "the other people in the bar should have done something, so we shouldn't do anything." Sorry for having misinterpreted you, and yes, I agree that we should fight this kind of behavior at all levels.
As somebody who's organized community gatherings himself (and made plenty of mistakes in this area himself) I do feel that organizers play an important role as you say.
To put it in really literal terms, when I organized my first meetup, we had a mix of under- and over-21 members. I was really concerned about underage drinking. I really strongly let our members know what was expected of them. I think I stopped just shy of threatening to beat them up and/or report them to the FBI if I caught one whiff of something bad happening to anybody, especially the underage members. I definitely got the message across, at least.
While that kind of approach obviously doesn't directly scale/translate to a professional conference, I think the overarching principle is the same. The organizers set the tone, outline accountability, and (if it's a multi-year event) weed out repeat offenders. The rest is up to the community.
From the post this read like a really uncomfortable /inappropriate conversation between two people, not a violent + public confrontation.
What do you expect other bar patrons to do? Listen in and chase the guy out of the bar because he made inappropriate advances? Do I need to point out that this behavior is fairly common in bars?
Look, not questioning that what the guy did was inappropriate but I think this expectation on the rest of the community is not reasonable.
Woah, hold on just a minute there!
The only reason there is no dispute is because we're getting the story 100% from one side. I don't know either of these people involved and I suspect none of the commenters here do either. There are several possible narratives that fit this story:
* "Sleazy dude attacks woman"
* "Clash of cultures; open-marriage dude meets conservative girl"
* "Crazy bitch made it all up"
A couple days ago there was a HN story about WhosHere suing WhosNearMe and the thread was full of "we need to hear the other side before rushing to judgement". This insight seems to have been lost here.
This isn't something where we need to hear another side of the story, other than maybe from the conference organizer (though even there, she's not trying to blame one conference or one organizer, just pointing out that this is something that is frequently overlooked).
If you have any decent amount of life experience, you have seen something like this happen at some point. There are men, who sexually harass women, and don't take no for an answer. In any large enough group of men, you will find one at some point. Have you never met someone who has done such a thing? Never met someone who has been a victim of such a thing? Actually, even if you think you haven't met such a victim, you may have, since most people don't like to talk about this sort of thing.
The story is that the conference didn't have any effective way of dealing with the situation, not the details of what actually happened. This sort of stuff happens. The question is, what do we do about it? Do we ignore the problem, hide our head in the sand and hope it sorts itself out? Do we say "well, if you don't like it, don't go to conferences, or don't go to meet ups at the bar afterwards"? Or do we try to do something about it, make it clear what sort of behavior is acceptable and what is not, and tell people that if they cross that line, they won't be welcome at events any more?
And your two alternative readings are quite a stretch. The second is "Clash of cultures; open-marriage dude meets conservative girl." I know many people with many alternative lifestyles, open marriages, polyamorous relationships, Master/slave relationships, and the like. In none of those cultures would this behavior be considered acceptable. He didn't take no for an answer; that's one very clear signal that he is ignoring, and no matter how open you are in your marriage, no means no. He also, after going far beyond the line to someone who had already said no and stating that he's in an open relationship and would have a threesome with his wife involved, went on to call his daughter a slut. There is no sense in which that can be considered healthy; that is either blatantly hypocritical, or a creepy sexualization of his own daughter, and he clearly has some issues.
Your third reading is also incredibly uncharitable. Here is someone who is posting under her own name. She is putting herself out in public, describing a rather personal and traumatic scene, under a real name. But you will notice, she has not named the person in question. She has not named the conference in question. She has not named the conference director in question. It is clear that she is not trying to smear anyone. All she is asking for is that we think about these kinds of issues, and have an answer for how we will deal with them in the future.
So, yes, it is worthwhile to take stories with a grain of salt. Think about whether someone could be lying; what they would stand to gain, or who they might hurt. But really? Does she stand to gain anything here other than a little notoriety as that person who was sexually harassed and spoke out about it? Does she stand to hurt anyone? As far as I can tell, the greatest thing she could gain from this is a more well defined sexual harassment policy at more conferences. Would that be a bad thing?
So, even if this was all a misunderstanding, or made up, do you really think that this isn't an issue? That we shouldn't have any way of dealing with this kind of issue?
The least charitable way to read this is that she is simply trying to make the issue of sexual harassment at conferences sound more important than it actually is. I know, from personal experience, that this is a very important issue. People like she described are extremely harmful to a community. Even if her story was entirely made up, there are people like that out there, and you need to have an effective way of dealing with them or you will get hurt or allow others to be hurt.
Here you are again putting absolute faith in one side's description of the events. Do you think Swinger Dude would describe the story in the same way? We really have no idea.
Even more importantly, conference organizers really have no way to know. Let's say you are running a conference and you get this story about one of your speakers. You talk to him and he says "it wasn't like that". What do you do? Cancel his talk?
Unless you're asking for HR-style processes, any policy you try to create will continue on exactly as it has in this case: Information flows to the event organizer, and the organizer makes future decisions based on his/her judgement of the credibility of the actors involved. Maybe the speaker won't be invited back next year. Maybe Ms. Elman won't be invited back next year. Maybe the organizer won't care. Who knows.
As far as being uncharitable: People lie. Even more often, they misrepresent situations to their narrative advantage. This story has certainly gotten the author a lot of attention, and probably many new fans of her blog. There are many potential motives here and I see no reason suspend healthy skepticism.
Do I really think this behavior isn't really an issue? I don't know. All I have here is a one-sided anecdote from a stranger. I'm not even sure it clearly qualifies as Sexual Harassment, ie intimidation, bullying or coercion of a sexual nature, or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors.[1] Even taking the story at face value, it's not clear there was actual intimidation involved - just awful behavior. Take her summary paragraph:
"It was incredibly disappointing, humiliating and degrading on so many levels. I had been turned from a professional colleague into "a hook-up" at a bar. I was disgusted by his behavior, his comments about his family and the fact he is even associated with the Django community."
There's no variation on "it was scary, I was concerned for my safety, I felt intimidated". Taking the story at face value - yes, this was incredibly boorish behavior, but the right solution IMHO was to get him bounced from the bar. This kind of behavior happens in all kinds of bars to all kinds of women - bouncers are well-equipped to deal with it. Conference organizers are not.
I am sorry this happened to you Julia, it should not have, and the conference organizers should not have blinked before ejecting the responsible party from the conference.
So just assume guilt and throw him out, sans investigation?
That's completely unreasonable and why these are sticky situations. It isn't black and white. Even with an air-tight sexual harassment policy, you can't automatically assume that the accused is in the wrong.
>"the conference organizers should not have blinked before ejecting the responsible party from the conference."
Shoot first, ask questions later?
This is a problem, and not a world I want my wife or children to be part of, that simple.
>"the conference organizers should not have blinked before ejecting the responsible party from the conference."
Not much to "interpret" there. I've been wrong before, but I'll bet he meant exactly what he said; this individual should have been removed from the conference immediately. That's all well and good for a discussion on an internet message board, but in reality it could be extremely harmful to reputations, both of the accused and the conference.
Now, if jnoller meant what you are implying he meant, he could have easily written:
the conference organizers should not have blinked before [taking action/investigating/speaking with/questioning etc] the [accused] party.
or even:
the conference organizers should have investigated, then not have blinked before ejecting the responsible party from the conference if determined to be guilty.
And that's something I could support. I think the conference representative's reaction to such a major accusation was reprehensible. But that isn't what he wrote. And I really don't think that's what he meant, either. Note the language. Responsible? At what point was that determined?
And by the way: jumping to conclusions about a sexual harassment charge is dangerous, and not at all analogous to doing the same with regards to a sentence on HackerNews.
In short; you're right - I could have spent more time wording it differently, and your second proposed text:
> "the conference organizers should have investigated, then not have blinked before ejecting the responsible party from the conference if determined to be guilty."
Is closest to my thoughts on this. However, I feel the second half of that - "determined to be guilty" puts a flair on the statement that ignores the knowledge expressed in the article from the conference organizer - namely they expressed to the author prior knowledge that this individual might be a known issue and therefore, the second portion of your sentence puts an undue burden of doubt on the author's claims.
For the sake of clarity; here's the exact steps I would have taken as a conference chair for a conference sitting at around 2500 attendees:
1> Once approached, I would have immediately noted the code of conduct outlining our policy and thoughts on issues such as this, and explained that we would immediately look into the situation, as the accusations are indeed serious, and taken seriously.
2> I would take copious notes and asked the author to confirm my summary of the events. If they were serious enough, I would then ask if the author wished for me to summon law enforcement.
3> If a No was indicated to #2 - I would ask for any witnesses and immediately pull the accused party aside, without the attendance of the accuser, with at least one other senior staff member to ask the accuser about the events, and once again point out the stated code of conduct and ask for their side of events. During the investigation portion of this, the accused would not be allowed to speak or represent the conference in any way, to allow that would further open the door to further risk or an implicit endorsement of the actions under investigation.
4> If, upon discussing with senior staff, and any witnesses we felt that the issue being faced violated with our outlined code of conduct and indeed created a hostile environment, I would ask the accused to leave the conference per the stated code of conduct.
"Without blinking" was indeed meant to "take action" without blinking - whether that is to immediately pull all parties aside to investigate and discuss, or eject the accused.
However with the evidence provided in the post - most notably the fact that the conference organizer(s) seemingly knew that this individual posed a problem prior to the events occurring, I would have a responsibility to immediately act and isolate the accused to discuss, and in all probability ask them to leave.
A "zero tolerance policy" has a bad name in the news due to the concerns you outline. It does not, however, have to be enacted in the way we are all familiar with - namely skipping the investigation and discussion portion.
I wouldn't want my child or myself ejected from school stupidly from school or an event due to some written zero tolerance policy without discussion and proper investigation - I would not do that to anyone else.
I hope that helps.
Because that's exactly what I mean. Completely. Totally. Absolutely. Or not.
Event organizers are responsible for events that occur at the event. They are not there to police attendees both at and away from the event.
I think that an unofficial meet up for beer would count as a conference event, despite not being officially sponsored by PyCon.
There is no need to split hairs here. Unacceptable behavior does not suddenly become acceptable as soon as you walk out the door of the convention center. These informal meetups at a bar afterwards are still part of the sphere of events related to the conference.
And heck, even if it was somewhere completely unrelated to the conference, we should probably try to do something; for instance, if someone has been harassing me at other conferences, and I know they are likely to show up to another one, I may ask the organizers to forbid them based on their past behavior, even if it never happened at that particular conference.
This isn't to say that event organizers need to "police" anything. No one is asking them to do that. No one is asking them to keep an eye on every talk, and immediately expel someone who makes an off color comment. What's being requested is that a policy is put in place to define unacceptable behavior and its consequences, so when something truly unacceptable does happen, you know what to do about it, instead of just shrugging and saying "that sucks, but I can't really do anything."
Nope, but the sphere of influence of the conference organizer does.
>think that an unofficial meet up for beer would count as a conference event ... >These informal meetups at a bar afterwards are still part of the sphere of events related to the conference.
I suppose so would paying a hooker and taking her back to your room or buying any number of drugs would fall under the convention organizers watchful eye as well? What about cheating on your significant other? After all you wouldn't have done either of those things there if it hadn't been for your attending the conference. While we're extending the conference attenders authority perhaps they should kick out those that don't tip enough at the dinner they have after the conference, or at the bar they went to afterwards.
You are trying to make it seem like splitting hairs, but it is not. The conference organizers only have any 'authority' over the conference and what happens at the conference. You are trying to extend that authority to basically anything that happens between conference attendees at any time or place during the days of the conference.
>we should probably try to do something
This phrase never, ever prefaces the right course of action.
>has been harassing me at other conferences, and I know they are likely to show up to another one, I may ask the organizers to forbid them based on their past behavior, even if it never happened at that particular conference
Sounds like a personal problem. One that should be handled personally, like, oh I don't know, choosing not to attend. You are now attempting to wield unrelated things as weapons against someone. Why stop at the conference, why not petition the airline not to sell this person a ticket? Or the hotel not to rent him a room? Or the rental car company not to loan him a car? After all, something should be done.
In your example, and in the event in the blog post, the group that should be 'doing something' about it is the person impacted by it, not the convention organizers. She walked off. She then tried to escalate her personal problem to others. That is inappropriate behavior as well, and it is asking convention organizers to police the actions of attendees.
> Nope, but the sphere of influence of the conference organizer does.
Obviously, the conference organizer cannot determine whether someone can go to a particular bar at a particular time. However, the conference organizer can decide who can go to the conference. And that can be based on any judgment they want that they think is best for the conference, even based on what they have done outside of the conference. Remember, they are choosing who speaks at the conference based on things that happen outside of the conference; they are choosing based on whether the person has done good work in the past, or has something interesting to say. It's not like everything they do in organizing the conference is based solely on what happens in the conference.
It wouldn't be good if they banned people on just a personal whim. But having a policy about acceptable behavior, and applying that policy whether the behavior happens within the walls of the conference venue or not, is not unreasonable.
> I suppose so would paying a hooker and taking her back to your room or buying any number of drugs would fall under the convention organizers watchful eye as well? What about cheating on your significant other?
This is a different situation altogether. It doesn't make sense to decide one case on the basis of another, much more extreme, hypothetical case, that is completely unrelated. What happens at your hotel room is not the business of the conference; but if you have an "unofficial post-conference after party" that you announce on the conference notice board, and sexually harass someone there, then that does fall under the purview of the conference organizer. It's based on the association with the conference, the fact that the people were there together and interacting because of the conference, that makes it related to the conference.
>>we should probably try to do something >This phrase never, ever prefaces the right course of action.
And that is just not true. If we decided to just give up any time an injustice happened, we would still be living in the dark ages. Sorry, there are plenty of times when it makes sense to make something our problem, to help defend the oppressed, defend minorities, prevent people from being dicks to each other and ruining a perfectly good conference.
Sure, it's possible to go from "we should try to do something" to a solution that is worse than the malady. I've seen that happen plenty, especially when things as heavy handed as the law are involved. But we're not asking someone to be locked up on just the say-so of one person. We are asking that some kind of policy be put into place on how to deal with sexual harassment at conferences and the possibly unofficial events associated with them.
> Sounds like a personal problem. One that should be handled personally, like, oh I don't know, choosing not to attend.
So you are saying that you would rather have people who sexually harass other people at the conference, than their victims? That because someone is the victim of sexual harassment and feels unsafe, that they should stop going to conferences? This is unacceptable.
Let me discuss something more personal, rather than talking about theoretical situations. I have been in a social group which admitted a man as a member who made many people feel uncomfortable. This was a social group, and it's not like people were offended by mere sexual jokes or people hitting on each other. He went further than that, saying things that creeped people out, not respecting people's personal space, not taking "no" for an answer when he went over the line. Several people brought up these problems, but no one did anything, in part because we had no formal policy for how to deal with this; once someone was a member of this group, there was nothing we could do.
Eventually, he wound up raping another member of the group. He went beyond mere creepiness to actual rape.
That is the kind of thing that women have to worry about when this sort of thing happens. It's not just something that makes them feel a little uncomfortable. If someone has demonstrated repeatedly that they don't respect boundaries and don't take "no" for an answer, they are at a much higher risk of going further. That's not so say that they will; you can't arrest someone for just creeping someone else out. But you can decide that that is not acceptable behavior for someone at your conference, or in your social group, or at your bar, and do something about it.
> You are now attempting to wield unrelated things as weapons against someone.
No one is trying to "wield weapons" at anyone else. They are not trying to punish. They are trying to keep the space safe for other people.
> In your example, and in the event in the blog post, the group that should be 'doing something' about it is the person impacted by it, not the convention organizers.
Look, conference organizers make all kinds of decisions to make their conference informative, useful, and welcoming. They are not obligated to allow anyone who applies to be a presenter. They are not obligated to allow anyone in the world to be an attendee. If someone is making other attendees seriously uncomfortable, then they are harming the conference, and it is well within the rights of the organizers to deny them access to the conference.
> Why stop at the conference, why not petition the airline not to sell this person a ticket? Or the hotel not to rent him a room? Or the rental car company not to loan him a car?
You are again extending the point beyond what anyone is arguing. You are building up a strawman, and shooting it down, not responding to what is actually being discussed.
The point of a conference it to get people together to discuss things. It cannot be very successful if people are afraid to come to it because someone else there makes them uncomfortable. I am not affected by someone I don't like renting a car from the same company that I rent it from. I am affected by them being at the same conference, especially if they seek me out even after I have told them to stop.
As for the plane example, again, it doesn't affect me if we are on different flights. But if the person sitting next to me started inappropriately hitting on me and failing to take "no" for an answer, I would take bring it to the attention of the flight crew. I would expect that they would ask the person to stop, and if they continued, would bar them from flying on the airline again, or (depending on how physical it got), land the plane early and have them arrested. No, I don't expect an airline to ban someone without a restraining order, but I would expect them to accommodate a request to change seats if I had been seated next to someone who had a history of harassing me.
And anyhow, that's neither here nor there. The point of an airline is to transport passengers. The point of a conference is to foster a community; for people to meet and share ideas. They are different purposes, and while in both cases people should feel like they have a recourse against sexual harassment, in the case of the conference, given that it is a much smaller, more intimate community, there is a much greater need to ensure that everyone feels safe and you are not simply allowing one person to scare others away.
Let’s go back to the videotape: he gets a ‘no’, he keeps chasing, he gets the subject changed, he keeps chasing. He gets the subject changed to a couple of the females in his life which matter to most guys — his wife and his daughter, and he refers to them in some of the most vile ways possible and keeps chasing. His quarry keeps physically removing herself from his presence, he keeps chasing. And he’s completely comfortable doing all of this in a public setting. What's he capable of in private?
I’m not saying he’s a potential rapist, but I wouldn't be taking any chances. If I got a bartender to throw him out of the bar, I’d be paying some burly dude to escort me to a friend’s house for the night, because I don’t know when this guy gets the message.
Let me ask you a question. Where would your head have to be for you to refer to your daughter as a slut? And that you would choose that line on your intended prey, instead of the usual sweet nothings and empty compliments in the arsenal of most other guys? Now, that you’ve mapped that mindset, how would you want any of the women in your life that you care about to handle dealing with anyone with that kind of mindset?
Personally, I not only want this guy’s name, I want pictures, interviews with his wife, daughter, and parents, and I want it on Oprah with experts present to give me a full psychological profile. I wasn’t even there and I want someone to hold my hand and tell me it’s going to be alright.
I'm conflicted because on the other hand the guy seemed like an asshole but I have only one side of the story and feel like it would be jumping to conclusions to judge this guy just from this.
Whether or not that's reasonable, I don't know; but if the guy was a real problem for her (and from her side it sounds like he was), then "telling people" at that point in time, rather than afterwards, would have been more prudent.
There's absolutely no reason for anyone to put up with this kind of shit from someone else.
But further to that, this can't and shouldn't be painted as another story about sexism in tech. This is a story (from one side) about a guy having a few drinks and trying it on in his own cringeworthy way, and lacking the forethought to quit with some dignity intact. His choice of career has fuck all to do with that, and neither does the conference.
(I'm all for policies and legislation that prohibit this sort of thing, by the by, but they're not going to stop some guy who thinks he's god's gift from making pervy remarks on a night out. Neither is walking away and hoping you get left alone.)
It kind of does, though. According to Julia's account, this was not simply an isolated incident.
When she talked to the organizer, he admitted that this individual who behaved in a harassing way had shown a previous pattern of behavior of this type. Since the organizer knew of this, this behavior presumably took place at other events related to this professional community. It makes sense for this community to expel people who behave this way.
However, I'm still loathe to apportion blame or make anyone except the individual accountable for their own behaviour, insofar as it's suggested that the organiser doesn't condone that behaviour, and merely wasn't sure what to do in lieu of the ability to refer to existing policy.
That problem, with this particular conference, has been solved, I would think. However the individual will still very much be under the impression that he's not being a dick. Because he wasn't properly called out on it as and when it was happening.
However, I'm still loathe to apportion blame or make anyone except the individual accountable for their own behaviour, insofar as it's suggested that the organiser doesn't condone that behaviour, and merely wasn't sure what to do in lieu of the ability to refer to existing policy.
That problem, with this particular conference, has been solved, I would think. However the individual will still very much be under the impression that he's not being a dick. Because he wasn't properly called out on it as and when it was happening.
(Given that we only have one account of this, I want to keep this general, because even if the story doesn't add up at the end, we know that such people do exist and that it does go on.)
I then (...) asked how his daughter was, thinking that would
snap him out of it. And with a blank stare he said bluntly,
"She's a slut."
I still believe only an asshole would talk about their son or daughter like that, particularly to someone not close.
Imagine there was some emacs guy who routinely went around harassing people who used vim. To the point where he got so offensive that the vim people felt they weren't being respected as professionals, even humiliated and demeaned. Some were hounded by him at offsite gatherings. The conference organizers had multiple reports of this occurring. Do the vim people need to "prove" something before it's appropriate for conference organizers to take action? Should their claims be more suspect than anyone else's?
I suggest that you re-examine why the 'unproven claims' thing is so important to you. If you start with the assumption that women and men, just like emacs and vim users, have equal interests in having a good technical conference, and are equally competent to determine when someone's being disruptive, why wouldn't you trust their reports?
Moreover, she could be _mistaken_. Perhaps about the guy's name. He could also be _mistaken_, thinking she's talking about another guy, or getting names and faces mixed up.
If nobody saw it happen and nobody knows either party well, I would say, record it and move on. If you have multiple reports, have a planned way to escalate, involving friendly warnings, going all the way up to removing the person and/or banning them.
Where it gets really bad - and I think everyone has seen this situation before - is when the guy is some sort of alpha geek, and may even be the kind of person that draws attendees. Everyone is inclined to bend the rules. I think that's why a standard procedure would be important.
Well, just imagine there was some emacs guy who routinely went around harassing people who used vim. He was offensive and yet they gave back words and didn't leave as he wanted. So he reported them on the next best thing that would get them baned.
E.g., the organizer could go to the culprit and say, "As you know, Joe, we take sexual harassment very seriously here. Could you tell me what happened last night at the bar?"
I could imagine a lot of ways it goes from there, but all of them seem compatible with taking a strong stand against jackassery without giving up a strong stand for fairness.
First and foremost, the scare tissue complaint largely relies on a policy being applied to an extremely rare event. Unfortunately this kind of thing is almost certainly less rare than you think. If you run a large or frequent enough event, sexual harassment will happen. It really sucks, but it's a reality of the world that we live in that we need to deal with. To make things worse, it probably will go un-reported and the person that it happened to will simply feel uncomfortable with the event and the community as a whole.
By having an explicit policy that addresses sexual harassment you accomplish a number of things:
* You make attendees more mindful of their actions. Often people who commit sexual harassment don't really realized the full extent and consequences for what they are doing. By stating that this type of behavior is unacceptable, upfront, at least some people will be a bit more likely to think before they act.
* Should something happen, the path to action is clear. Running a conference is a bit of a crazy job. You're keeping track of a hundred things at once and dealing with a dozen people's problems. This is not the best state to be in when you need to decide how to handle a delicate situation. By stating upfront how this type of behavior will be handled, it takes a load off of the organizers' shoulders on the day off.
* A strong signal is communicated to people who are concerned and possibly afraid to attend an event. People go through all kinds of horrible things in life. Often those experiences leave people (understandably) cautious about situations that might lead to similar experiences. By having an explicit policy, people with fears and concerns are given a strong signal that the event in question will be a place where they are safe and welcome.
frankly i don't entirely trust women with the ability to cry sexual harassment and have men ejected from situations
having personally witnessed this twice in bars, and once by way of a female relative coming clean about abusing her privilege
note that i am not saying actual sexual harassment should not be called out.
just in response to your unconditionally endorsing such policies; there have to be damn good mechanism in place to prevent abuse.
That said, the OP is just calling for there to be some sort of policy in place, so people aren't improvising when a complaint does arise. The policy doesn't have to be 'mandatory kickban on the first complaint'.
There'd be no point in creating a code of conduct that explicitly bans defecating in the hallways because it's simply not an everyday problem. How women are treated in tech, however, is.
I'm saying this as a guy who is a strong believer in egalitarianism but highly sceptical of feminism, mind you.
If we had a defecation problem, yes, we should have a binding code of conduct for that. And as soon as the problem is gone, we should re-evaluate it, too.
This is a little different because: (1) it's probably a common occurrence (based on the general incidence of sexual harassment & assault -- I don't know about coding conferences in particular); (2) it's something that is often tolerated -- it doesn't actually go without saying that the conference will think it's their problem or do anything about it; and (3) it's an assault by one of your guests on another of your guests, so it reflects on the experience you provide.
So to go with your analogy, suppose it was common in the industry that a few people at any given conference would try to poop on other people, and the conference organizers wouldn't know what to do about it. Then yeah, unless you were trying to cater only to a small subset of programmers with unusual tastes, it would be pretty important to come up with some sort of explicit policy and plan to deal with conference-poopers. Or coming back to reality, if you run a conference, you do have to make it clear to your guests that you will actively try to stop sexual harassment/assault. Then second of all, you have to follow through.
"Having a policy" just means (1) letting people know that sexual harassment won't be tolerated at your conference; and (2) having a plan you can execute when it happens anyway. It's pretty much steps one and two of "finding solutions."
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/index.php?title=Conference_ant...
A good chunk of that is about how the working-to-fix part works. I think that's really valuable to have thought through in advance. I have banned people before (never for this, thank goodness) and in the moment it's incredibly hard to avoid over- or under-reacting if you have to think everything through from first principles.
But, you know, when that guy walked up to me when I was talking to my (male) colleagues and specifically singled me out to ask that I allow him to photograph my "tits" as part of a conference "scavenger hunt," I told him off. Then he came back, and I told him off again. I never felt "unsafe," just angry and humiliated. If you're looking at "reporting someone if you feel fear," then it's likely that poor guy had a high possibility of being the one reporting it had he come back a third time.
tl;dr: Most of these policies make women and minorities out to be victims vs. ensuring that people just treat each other with common decency and respect. Not a fan of singling any of us out and I don't think it's productive.
I don't think we should ban people from conferences based on unproven accusations.
In the US, people are generally free to associate with whomever they want. That includes the right to not associate with people. If a bar owner or a conference organizer wants to throw somebody out, that's perfectly within their rights unless they've contracted otherwise. Equally, patrons are welcome to their business elsewhere if they choose.
It's sad that this woman was apparently treated so poorly, but there's no possible way for a conference to write a legally-binding code of conduct for how people spend their social lives outside of that conference. It's utter nonsense to even consider it.
Don't worry, in no way am I going to abuse this information to make baseless complaints against you. All my complaints will be solidly based on malice.
Of course what will happen from a complaint should take malignancy in consideration and offer at least some kind of right to respond to offenders.
Can be paraphrased to apply to "rabid hordes of adulterous men who want to make your life miserable". Better ?
I'm just pointing out that for people discussing how to best setup procedures for handling deviant behaviour, you sure assume only perfectly honest people would come to use said procedures. If you assume p% of possible culpability for the accused, shouldn't you assume the same for the accuser ? Otherwise, you are just discriminating against the accused.
This is a hard problem society as large has not solved yet - witness both the huge cost of false negatives (unreported offenses) and false positives (false accusations). I'm just skeptical a conference organiser will correctly solve this between two round of emails.
Oh sure, he can publish a boilerplate "we take all complaints very seriously" policy. I predict we'll see them appear at most tech conferences shortly.
What I'm claiming is that policies ARE needed, the current "hmm, what should I do now?" policy is the worst policy of them all, because improvised decisions aren't usually the best ones.
Such a policy can any policy, from "yes, we believe all women, be them malignant or not, and we'll ban you on the first offense" up to "I don't care what you people do outside of the venue, you should call the cops (here's the number) if you have a problem." It's important to know where the organizer stands to take your pick. There might even be a niche for "female-friendly conferences" that will by definition have harsher policies on the issue.
The organizer's reaction made it sound like he had reservations about inviting this person, due to older reports similar to the author's.
But a pretty bad one. I wouldn't mind if a murderer would give talk (if it was good). And not about the murdering, but about let's say ReiserFS.
On one hand, running a conference/convention is difficult enough without being asked to referee personal conflicts. It almost inevitably devolves into a he-said/she-said kind of argument.
But on the other hand, if we take that kind of an attitude, that's essentially a signal for predatory men to go ahead and harass women (or worse). That's pretty much what predatory men have been doing since the beginning of history - acting with impunity since claims of rape or harassment are almost impossible to prove if there are no additional witnesses or physical evidence.
What we've done is to stress proper conduct before the event, and if there are repeat complaints about somebody they're removed from the community permanently.
It's not a perfect process and we've given some "second chances" to people that we've later regretted.
FWIW, O'Reilly has had a policy - http://conferences.oreillynet.com/code-of-conduct.csp - for a while now. RailsConf also has one and I saw discussion about another Ruby event's policy recently on HN too (where people were saying 'is this really needed!?'.. answer is yes).
When I've run conventions there has always been a note that the committee reserved the right to reject anybody's membership and did not have to give a reason. We've never had to use this but we've always had it as the nuclear option and had one person who we were ready to use it on.
If the person is already at the conference then you may need an acceptable behaviour policy that allows you to act, and you need it to be worded such that it applies to all conference attendees for the duration of the conference regardless of whether they are in conference facilities at the time. It's also best if it is short and broad, it's very easy to spot acceptable behaviour policies that have grown in response to specific events, and they are deeply discouraging when viewed by newcomers and outsiders.
I'm not sure how standards in place at a conference can prevent individuals from deciding to break the law.
Sure, you might deter the weak-willed or fearful, but these sorts of asshole moves aren't generally perpetrated by those kinds of people.
Unfortunately, for a lot of this kind of stuff, after-the-fact is all we have. I would love a better solution but the items listed don't actually _prevent_ this.
Going to a bar and then being hit on is hardly the end of the world. Its one thing to respect office/professional decorum, its another to start setting rules where men can only speak when spoken to.
Discouraging men from speaking this way - in a professional community - to women who are their peers, is hardly equivalent to "setting rules where men can only speak when spoken to".
Hitting on woman = fine.
Turning up the verbal heat when she's already turned you down = obnoxious.
So "flirt" by all means but as soon as someone tells you to leave them alone, that's the absolute end of it. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be happening in most of these stories.
Another example of such laws gone wrong is maybe the sexting teenagers who are now on file as pedophiles.
So it seems to be one time unpleasant conversation. I'd hardly call that harassment.
If one time unpleasant conversation with persistent person is harassment, then I was once police-harassed. This officer wanted me to go to police academy. I said no but he didn't stop. He was quite drunk. And last weekend I was oil-change-harassed, my dad kept insisting that I'd do an oil change to my car this summer. He was drunk too.
But I have to admit that this kind of behavior towards women should stop. What is causing it? Let's go after the source, not just try to heal the symptoms.
"Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_harassment
So in my view, if the author would go to another conference, and the same creep would try again, that would be harassment. There should be a pattern of some kind. If you count single incidents as harassment, your going to have serious problems with freedom of speech.
FYI, using "FYI" feels arrogant to me. Please stop, you would not want to FYI-harass me?
"My colleague started making inappropriate sexual advances towards me. He singled me out and would not leave me alone, even when asked. I tried to shake it off, change the conversation and even moved away. He would not stop."
I'm not suggesting laws were broken, but there is no question in my mind that harassment is the proper term to use here.
"FYI" was an unproductive way to begin my comment. My apologies.
The below kinda-quote (it's disputed if it was Burke, or if it was said exactly thus.) comes to mind and rings pretty loud.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" - Edmund Burke
As an exiting thought, the pressure to be civil needs to come from peers. Meaning, guys don't let guy friends harass, and girls don't let girl friends harass.
Also this happened at a bar. So it would seem the problem is that the bar didn't handle it, not that the conference didn't.
P.S.: at last year's EuroPython conference in Italy we were greeted by a menacing organizer threatening to call the cops if we make inappropriate jokes. I blamed it on the fascist ideology still present in this country, but it seems to run deeper. Let's see how it will escalate this year: https://ep2012.europython.eu/code-of-conduct
I always wonder what would happen if a man was subjected to the same treatment. Sadly I doubt anyone would take them seriously. But we should...
Seriously. YouTube is worth a thousand zero tolerance policies.
What she should have done was to record his overtures for public amusement, then turned her back on him.
Personally, this guy deserves filming and posting, but a lot of women like being nice. Even with people being utter and complete sociopaths. She gave him some consideration, like a lot of women would. He was drunk, and she kept nicely attempting to redirect his attention away from her. Even now, she is not outing him. She has kept the details vague enough so that few probably could guess who this was.
Not everyone enjoys being obnoxious. Even with determined assholes, even with dangerous sociopaths (not saying he was one, just saying in general).
That wasn't a tease or a challenge she was throwing out to him. That was a "I said no. And by the way, you're married, so even if I was attracted to assholes, it would still be a no. And by the way, you're married with children, so even if I was attracted to assholes, it would still be a no. Oh, and by the way, have I mentioned, no? No? Then, let me say it again no."
I think it's interesting that you see her actions as engaging and escalating. I'm sure there are a significant number of males who would agree with you on that. I'm curious, because I've encountered a fair number of guys who don't seem to hear the word "no" or follow-up phrases that indicate "no": say I'm having a great time in a bar after the conference, and here comes the father with a slut for a daughter looking for some action. Are my only options to get the bartender to throw the guy out, or to leave the bar in order to have this guy -- if not to hear and respond to my "no" -- act as if he did? Or is there something magical phrase that a woman can tell a guy where he will hear "no" and actually respond as if he respected that?