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One Consequence of CreepingOne of the reasons guys harass women is that they can. Their actions get excused as harmless flirting, or simply, “Bob being Bob.” The target of their aggression, whether it’s unwanted physical contact, stalking them around a convention, focusing unwanted attention and commentary on her body, or whatever, has generally been conditioned to not raise a fuss. If she does say something, she’s told she’s overreacting, or looking for reasons to be offended, or simply to lighten up. So much of the time, the harassment appears to go unchecked. But you know what? Fandom is a fairly small, interlinked community. People in fandom tend to know each other. Take a purely hypothetical situation where you, a random writer, were harassing a woman at a convention. Maybe she didn’t say anything to you. But–hypothetically speaking–she might have said something to a friend later, warning that friend about you. They might have started keeping an eye out for you, watching each others’ backs and passing the word. They might even have mentioned what happened to someone like me. I admit, I sometimes have to fight my own White Knight syndrome, the desire to charge out on my horse and smite creeps like you from our ranks. But of course, I didn’t witness what happened. And this was told to me in confidence. The only reason I’m talking about it here is that it happens so often that there’s no way to identify the specific person–the specific people–I’m talking about. Heck, just at ConFusion, I’m aware of at least three different instances of this kind of crap happening to people, and unfortunately, that’s not unusual. If you’re worried that the creeper I’m talking about might be you, well, that seems like something you really need to sit down and think about. I won’t get the rapier out of storage and go on a smiting spree. Nor will I call down the Wrath of the Internet to publicly shame you. On the other hand, I get a fair number of review copies from various publishers. And what do you know, I recently noticed that you were the author of one of those review copies. Yes you, the same dude who was creeping on a friend of mine. What a fascinating coincidence, eh? Guess which book will never get reviewed on my blog. Guess which author will never get a retweet, a linkback, or any kind of promotion from me whatsoever. I may not have the biggest following on the internet, but I’ve built up a pretty good readership over the years, and your actions toward this woman–actions you probably didn’t even think about…actions you assumed would have no consequence–have cost you the chance to have your book plugged to thousands of SF/F readers. It’s a shame, really. And I can’t help but wonder how many potential readers you lost, all because you couldn’t treat a woman with more respect… Hypothetically speaking, of course. 251 comments to One Consequence of Creeping |
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Copyright © 2013 Jim C. Hines - All Rights Reserved |
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Very proper, sir. The nice thing about being asked for your thoughts about thing/person/action/whatever is the ability to withhold those thoughts because said whatever is something you do not wish to encourage in any way.
Nicely done. I would expect no less from a man with legs like yours.
“I would expect no less from a man with legs like yours.”
::Snicker::
This post makes me happy.
Well, I picked a good day to come across this blog – a “white knight” sounds apt to me! I’m one of your presumably many new followers thanks to that great BBC article, and just wanted to stop by and let you know that a blog like this will hopefully not only change some minds about book covers with integrity, but that you’re likely to turn some Internet admirers into fantasy readers. I love to read, but have pretty well staged a silent protest against books with glaring sexism – fantasy and Harlequin romances alike. This might just break down the wall and give some books a chance.
One thing I often do, which you might find interesting when you write reviews, is doing a Bechdel test – (1) are there more than two women, (2) who actually talk to each other, (3) about something other than men? It doesn’t mean it’s totally sexist if it fails, or that it’s progressive and fair if it passes, but it’s worth asking sometimes! Many, many movies fail. I’d be interested to see how books fare.
Oh yes, I’m rather fond of the Bechdel test. You’re right, it’s not the be-all and end-all determinant of sexism, but looking at just how many works fail the test is a pretty powerful statement about our assumptions and the prevalence of sexism.
I’ve explained people that the Bechdel Test (or Mo’s Movie Test, as Bechdel herself calls it) is a good first-order approximation of whether a work treats women, as a group, as beings with agency, as characters with goals, interests, and motivations of their own. Yup, passing the test doesn’t PROVE that it does, and there are works that DON’T pass the test, but nonetheless treat women as human beings. But, still. It’s a simple, objective test which is good for analyzing populations of works. Yes, there are individual exceptions. But it’s real, real good for statistical analysis of the scope of the problem. If that was the only thing that DYKES TO WATCH OUT FOR created, I think that would be enough, on its own, to count Allison Bechdel as a Hero of the Revolution.
If such a hypothetical thing were ever to occur, I might hypothetically think you’re awesome. Hypothetically speaking, of course.
My hypothetical thanks
Bravo! I’m a new reader to your stuff (tried one randomly at my library over Christmas) and I’m hooked, tracking down all of your books I can find.
This makes me even happier to be reading your books.
A friend sometimes covered tables at different Cons for the company she worked for and had lots of horror stories. She eventually started bringing her (220 lb, 6′ 2″) husband with her because having a guy with her would dissuade most of the creeps from even approaching.
It’s a general shame to both males and the community that this is so prevalent. It’s wonderful to see yet another person push back against this sort of crap.
Thanks, Dan. It’s depressing how often this happens, but I’ve been very glad to see more people speaking up in recent years, and more action being taken to try to put a stop to this crap. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but it’s a start.
I never enjoy even having to think about such cases. If they are clearcut, they are easy to deal with:
* An freelancer working for us was inviting a woman in a verbally abusive way to his bed. She may have felt restricted since she wanted to sell to us. Luckily another employee (male) noticed and reported it. All contracts with him were terminated within one day and our CEO called her and apologized.
This is easy and there was no discussion and nobody even suggested an alternative measure.
But usually it is more complicated and a gray area:
* People working for long time together can develop a peculiar humor that may be abusive in language and even sexually charged. Evil is not intended, everyone gives and takes and they don’t even think about it. Now add a 18 year old female trainee to the mix.
How do you tell them to cut back but not to treat her differently than the other guy? This is a lot more difficult
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Actually, this isn’t the situation which was being discussed at all. What I understand Mr Hines to be talking about is the perfectly usual situation where women share information about which men in their circles are Not Safe In Taxis. Generally speaking women are perfectly clear about which such men are and, indeed, the same characters have frequently featured on such informal lists for years if not decades. This, though an oldie, is a good example of how institutions cover up for the NSITs, and therefore the informal networks becomes an essential safety valve for the women effected:
Baker & McKenzie Marty Greenstein case.
Suggesting that this is all inexperienced women misreading and overreacting to an established workplace dynamic is just another variant on “Bob being Bob” and therefore an excuse not to combat NSITs.
and suggesting that their perceptions are skewed by inexperience or misinterpretation of an ongoing dynamic or anything else is just another example of the phenomenon this piece opened with
Sorry, if i got this across wrong.
I don’t want women having to rely on informal networks. I want creepers to get immediate and clear feedback and all the consequences to carry. Institutions have to provide a safe environment.
But in order to do so, you are bound to act already early on. And this turned out more difficult than i thought…
You may not want women to have to rely on informal networks and I agree; they are a rotten solution to an endemic problem. But given the problems outlined above, namely that women are not generally believed when they raise issues of this type and institutions (by and large) are only interested in providing a safe environment to the extent that they’ll be sued if they don’t then informal networks are going to be the way to go for the foreseeable future, and drawing attention to the fact that other people may tap into those networks and make judgements accordingly makes those networks more effective than formerly.
Yes, exactly. I have an issue at work where this guy is constantly touching me and asking me out and I’ve told him multiple times to stop and brought it up with his supervisor and other coworkers and have been told everytime that I’m over reacting, that its not like he’s doing anything bad and isn’t it cute that he has a crush on you and that’s just how he is you know he’s a bit stupid anyway. When that’s the kind of attitude then a network is definitely necessary (except in my case I’m one of 3 women so not much of a network especially when one of the others is 60+ and the other is the president of our company’s wife so they’re not really targets for this sort of thing)
Oh, how absolutely rotten for you. And I’m quite sure that he’s far from stupid in the sense that if he knew there was any likelihood of serious fallout he would cut it out. The worst bit I’ve found in my own experience with that sort of thing is how one ends up self-limiting, eg there are works events that you’d normally go to but you end up calculating the chances of the harasser being there, and work out when you have to leave so as not to get trapped in a corner with him and all that sort of jazz. But the worst is that everyone sits around telling you that your perceptions are wrong; that’s more insidious even than the primary harasser’s actions.
I forgot to add that the other benefit of the informal network is that nothing is more liberating after that sort of “you’re overreacting/misinterpreting signals/being mean” treatment is just hearing some other woman say, “Oh, God, not him again.” The sheer joy of being listened to by someone who’s been there too just has to be experienced to be appreciated.
“Stop” isn’t a word you should have to use multiple times and the reaction of the company you describe is a massive organisational and moral failure.
I agree with AJHall that they’re not only negligent but assisting your harasser.
Viewed from my background, it is humiliating that such organisations can actually survive in our present time.
I’ve worked for five organisations over the course of my adult life. Of the five, three of them would have acted (did act) like the one Mai describes; obviously I’ve no way of knowing whether those organisations I left some time ago have moved on and changed but I will say that the biggest thing that caused any changes of which I’ve been aware in the industry has been the big stick not the quiet word.
Perhaps there is one thing that may work beside the big stick: younger heads.
I come from an industry where i (a few years below 50) am considered a grey-beard. In total i have about 10 companies i work closely together with and where i have a varying degree of influence. In none of them i could ever get away the behavior Mai is describing.
So i’m hoping that if reason alone does not favor decent behavior, perhaps time will.
Please don’t destroy my hopes for humankind
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Unfortunately the comment threading doesn’t allow me to reply directly to you, Martin, but I don’t share your faith in the power of youth, given the last year has shown, in the UK alone, Imperial College student magazine publishing a Valentine’s day article explaining how to synthesise Rohypnol, the Sussex Univeristy magazine has also published pro-sexual assault material and the University of Oxford and Cambridge Unions have made a point of issuing speaker invitations to Dominic Strauss-Kahn and Julian Assange, who admittedly have things to say on economics and internet secrecy respectively but who attracted no such interest from the universities before the sex crime allegations were raised against them.
I don’t expect the problem to get fixed due to new people, but i expect it to get better. On the other side: the examples you have mentioned are pretty disturbing.
Would you agree on that the current generation being better at that topic? I cannot rule out, that just my personal bubble is getting better
. And from the way the discussion is going, that option has gotten a probability raise the last 24 hours.
Universe itself has a peculiar sense of humor. We have this discussion and just today there is an incident here which leads me to doubt the existence of at least two working brain cell in some other people.
I sometimes think that in employment issues the probability of having a working brain cell is inversely proportioned to the number of higher degrees and advanced professional qualifications possessed by the person in question. There’s a precedent sexual harassment case in English law, usually referred to as “the rude food sexual harassment case” and it begs the question, “in what possible universe could anyone think it was a good idea to take creme-filled chocolate genitalia to their office departmental Christmas party?”
In this case it was nothing sexual, but making photos of a co-worker who was extremely over-medicated with pain relievers doesn’t strike me as a brilliant idea neither.
The problem was not the lack of capability answering the question “Is this a good idea?” but to ask the question upfront.
Mai, if you’re in the USA, and your company has an HR department, then you do have at least one alternative.
Retain a lawyer to make sure this is the right advice first.
Keep track of the times and dates that this happens. Continue to say “stop” and “no.”
Go to a supervisor again and mention it.
Keep track of the date you speak with supervisors. If necessary, record the meeting.
Then, when you hear “You’re overreacting” you can go to HR and say, “This is the last opportunity you have to stop the sexual harassment of this individual against me. I will sue.”
Continuing to ask even ONCE for dates, sexual favors, whatever, after being told not to do so ONCE is sufficient grounds for sexual harassment charges, if it’s clear that you are not interested and do not want that kind of attention.
It is clear grounds but that doesn’t mean that it is safe for a woman to make those arguments in a company. It could cost her job, and in a recession, that’s no small fish. In many states in the U.S., for instance, they have gotten “at will” laws up so that employers can fire an employee for any reason, and bugging them about a guy bothering you they’ll use, even if they give a lip service other reason for firing. So if the woman believes the HR and supervisors will possibly help or react to reminder of lawsuits, then she has a resource. If she can afford a lawyer, she might have another resource, but a lot of women can’t. If she doesn’t have that support, then banding together with other women or sympathetic men at work to try and protect herself may be the best she can do, or simply putting up with the harassment because she needs the paycheck. And in the many, many companies that women work for that are not large corporations and don’t have HR departments, and the harasser may also be a boss, women are pretty much screwed. Only if there is a business culture society-wide that this behavior is bad for business and will not be tolerated do women have much protection against sexual harassment. And given the laws and striking of laws that are currently occurring — such as the blocking of the Violence Against Women bill in the States — the business culture is not advancing very much because it doesn’t have to, especially in a slow growth/recession situation.
Not that I think spending money is the way this should be handled, but http://www.amazon.com/Sony-Digital-Flash-Recorder-ICD-PX312/dp/B004M8SSZK/ref=sr_1_1?s=office-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1359435603&sr=1-1&keywords=recording+pen might be sufficient for proof. At least it works on politicians.
Rob – Even with a recording to use as evidence, that doesn’t help her survive in the short term if she gets fired *now*. And even if the threat is enough to make them fall in line, her chances of advancement have just become nonexistent. It’s really hard to prove “complaining about sexual harassment was the reason I never got promoted again.”
Not only may it cost her her job, it could mean she won’t get employed ever again. It’s become common for companies to require (besides background checks, drug tests and credit checks) “legal history” checks as a condition of employment. These checks include whether or not you’ve ever filed legal complaints. A woman who has spoken up is considered a troublemaker and not worth hiring. HR departments are complicit in this. I’ve been in management in the supposedly progressive biotech industry, and I’ve seen this in person. There can be serious long term costs of a woman taking action against harassment. It very much depends on the company culture.
I don’t think Martin’s example indicates that it’s putting any blame on a coworker’s inexperience. His example shows that two people have developed a relationship that they both find acceptable, but will almost certainly be unacceptable, in a harassing way, to a participant unfamiliar with this particular relationship. I don’t think it matters if the new worker is 18 or 65, male or female, trainee or mentor. Especially because the new person doesn’t know the relationship, things that were “no problem” yesterday are now inappropriate (and depending on the new individual’s personality, may never be acceptable). It’s not that the perception is skewed, it’s that the behavior itself is in a different situation than it was.
Of course that leaves the point that if the behavior itself is unacceptable in any situation, even if typically acceptable, then one should re-evaluate the behavior anyway. A sexist joke is still a sexist joke even if the marginalized gender isn’t present. A personal comment directed at one person, however, may be acceptable in private but not appropriate in public — my wife and I discussing our physical relationship, for example. So that would depend on what the behavior itself is.
The real concern I have with Martin’s comment, though, is the “cut back but not treat her different.” There would need to be a lot of definition of terms there. Of course you “treat her different.” You’re not going to use the language and innuendo you were using before. You can still treat her as a peer and a human being though.
If inexperience or gender isn’t being cited as an issue, why specify that the trainee is 18 and female?
Think about yourself and what you were like at 18. For myself – I was not at all assertive, I was easily shocked, and I lacked the breadth of experience that I now have regarding social and work situations. Men are trained to be more assertive in general than are women. I believe that is why the hypothetical newcomer was both young and female – because she is more likely to feel threatened and not to know how to deal with it.
I agree that I was horribly upset the first time I experienced significant sexual harassment in a workplace situation (I was 22) but I dispute that the problem of harassment should be blamed on lack of experience and/or lack of assertiveness on the part of the victim. That’s what this post was all about; the fact that harassers harass because they can, and hence actively target the young, shy and non-assertive.
As proud president and long-time steward of a 94%-female union local, I can assure you that harassment happens to 50-something-year-old women as well, if the harasser can get away with it. For some of them (not all), it’s like rape: it’s a power thing, not a sex thing.
For others, of course, it’s a complete-cluelessness thing: “This is how we are around here, how dare you try to change it! Nobody ever complained before!”
As a fifty something woman, I know.
Sorry, for the delay in answering. My dentist was doing a root canal on me in the time between
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From there back to the topic: If i had to chose between having to handle a type 1 incident (from my original comment) and receiving a root canal, i would choose the root canal any time.
Incidents are always bad for an institution. But you have to solve them the hard way. I am not sure if the original event portrayed by Jim is such an incident. It sounded like one. In that case an informal reaction like Jim’s is better than none but it is far from the best solution.
The main goal of an incident response should be to minimize the chances of a re-occurrence. As long as the culprit experiences no negative feedback associated with the event, the chances rather for a re-occurrence rather rise. I don’t know if Jim (or someone else) communicated to the person causing the distress, that he has been noted.
But even in the event of a full scale incident response, the chances for a real learning are rather slim. The person, like the one cited in my first story, feels too much humiliated to analyze their own behavior. But at least the chances of a re-occurrence has been reduced by physically removing him from the scene.
That’s why i mentioned the second story. No real damage has been done there yet. The chances for a learning experience are much higher. The desired outcome is “Develop an antenna what is appropriate around other people; in doubt err on the side of caution” and not “No dirty jokes when around X”. That’s what i meant with “cut back but not treat her different.”
Such learning is much required, when the levels of power (e.g. boss – employee) differ a lot. The levels of power (at least the ones perceived by the less powerful person) between an 18 year old trainee and a veteran nearly three times her age differ a lot.
It is hard to cover that topic in a forum posting. I am going over the comment for the third time and i am still missing some nuances. But so be it…
The question with all of these incidents is of course whether there is any desire for real learning. You stated fairly categorically when describing the second scenario that “evil is not intended” but all of your assumptions assume good faith on the part of the institution concerned and on the part, in the second case, of the people going in for “peculiar humor that may be abusive in language and even sexually charged”. However, one of the classic forms in which workplace cultures become toxic is in-group/out-group behaviour of that type, where the use of abusive and sexually charged language is used to demonstrate “being one of the gang” and is therefore used as a barrier against outsiders joining the team. In those circumstances even those who actually feel uncomfortable with the type of language are intimidated into appearing to go along with it. And then you’re left with the situation of how does someone who finds themself in that environment cope with it.
You are, of course, correct. You cannot look into the head of people.
But usually i assume the capability and willingness to learn and the lack of evil intent. I would say in 90+% of my personally observed cases, this has been a correct assumption.
I can (and have been) proven wrong in the past. But if the educational measures don’t work, there are more forceful measures.
Respect for the colleagues (of any gender, race, sexual orientation) is a “sine qua non” condition for any company where i will work. I know that this is easily said, but this is the standard i want to be measured against.
But if you see something that may turn into such a toxic environment, fetching the club may bring you less results than some teaching.
As i wrote before, there are so many nuances to the topic. I can easily imagine details to the discussed scenario that would require immediate and massive action.
I think this is a diversion from the situation described by Mr. Hines, and kind of a rat-hole, but it’s generated some interesting comments.
A workplace is not the same thing as a convention, for most people anyway.
Public behavior in a “semi-public” place where someone feels “safe” is not the same as public behavior in a workplace.
The ‘difficult’ situation you describe is not a normal one, but here’s the point: At no workplace is it appropriate to allow behavior that would make any member of the team feel personally marginalized (code phrase for ‘oppressed’), threatened, or unsafe.
Words, every much as actions, have an effect not just on the participants but on everyone around them.
If you have people whose joking relationship includes the kind of thing that would make an innocent 18 year old feel terrible then it isn’t an appropriate relationship for the workplace. Period. They need to stop, immediately.
That’s the answer to your hard question.
The hard question is not, if it has to stop.
The question is how to achieve the best results. As i wrote in a different comment, what you want to achieve is “Develop an antenna what is appropriate around other people; in doubt err on the side of caution” and not “No dirty jokes when around X”.
The later is easier to achieve and any hammer can do it. But this will also incur costs on the person you try to help. So this is, at best, an emergency measure.
The first result benefits more people and has a lasting effect. And getting there is hard.
Furthermore you first have to determine whether a person feels uncomfortable in the situation.
Personally i wouldn’t make the same wide distinction between companies and conventions as you do. Both are organisation where we have stronger (boss/author) and weaker (employee/fan) members. Both have to make sure, the differential in power is not abused.
To the extent there is even a perception that an author has more power at a con than a fan, we have degenerated from fannish ideals. One of the joyous parts of fandom is the ideal that a “dirty pro” is just another fan, who happens to make a living with the stuff. Now obviously if the pro is an Asimov the ideal is weakened; but that should be the attitude we seek to cultivate.
Funny you should mention Asimov…
I was just thinking that same thing…
‘Twas no accident that I pulled that name out of my memory banks; although I could name a few more, including at least one allegedly “hip” New Wave icon with a nasty sexist streak that shows through in his writing as well.
See my comment elsewhere in these comments on my teenage con experience…
I agree with your ideals, but reality has chosen a different implementation. I didn’t mean my statement as an insult to cons but just as an observation. I hope i don’t touch of another comment storm.
::Starts handing out umbrellas::
Do you ship to Germany? In that case i take one
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P.S. I am not an expert on cons. But one thing my job told me is to recognize power structures and how to work with them.
You can observe the same thing any software conference between the people working for companies writing the software and the customers (who theoretically have the power since they carry the money).
Here is my issue – we are too reliant on the “just joking” defense for bad behaviour.
Yeah, he’s a jerk and makes inappropriate comments in public but hey, he’s just joking. Which leads to “can’t you take a joke?” and too often then quickly devolves to “geez, what a b… no sense of humor.”
I have been involved in this loop far too often to take it lightly. It started when I worked with a guy who thought that rape jokes were the height of hilarity. No one said a bloody word to this jerk because, you know, it was just the way Rob was. He pulled this idiocy on me and having had a bad year with horrible bosses and being a temp (no worry, if this doesn’t work another job will arise tomorrow) I said something. I flat out said that I saw absolutely nothing funny about rape. And wow. It was just a joke, it was just Rob, it was just Rob’s sense of humor. And hey, Rob is basically a good guy. He can’t be sexist because well, Rob’s been married forever. When it happened again (because now he had to goad me) and I spoke up again, I didn’t have a sense of humor. I must hate men. Perhaps I was a closet lesbian. And besides, no one else has complained… never mind that it is exactly this sort of response that keeps every one else from complaining.
So yes, perhaps more women need to speak up. Which should work. Until you see what happened at Readercon this year. Even with the heartening response to that incident, the fact that it took Ms. Valentine turning to the internet and the threat of a massive boycott – not to mention completely overthrowing the board of the con – to get justice. And at that? The number of people who went out of their way to find a reason why the guy should be excused for his behavior was of a high enough count (men and women) to be ridiculous. Among them – well, he’s French, (I know a number of French men, none are so crass as to harass a woman they barely know), maybe he has mental illness issue, maybe he has Asbergers. The truth was that he was just a jerk. AS a result of the attention, for 15 minutes cons were safer to go to. Until the Fake Geek Girls arose.
And so it goes. Every time you buy into ‘it is just his sense of humor (or hers, for that matter), every time you find an excuse for bad behaviour – such as we all have worked together for a long time and have “develop[ed] a peculiar humor that may be abusive in language and even sexually charged.” (And shouldn’t the very idea that you are using humor as a justification for abusive language be a sign that maybe, just maybe, you’ve gone around the bend?)- every time you do that, you add to the problem. You make it just that much harder for your daughter, for your sister, for your gay sibling, for anyone who isn’t brash and bold, for the 18 year old intern who is afraid to speak up, for the 50 year old who is uncomfortable with the language, for the woman who would just like to go to a con and maybe meet an author or two. Because you’ve made it their fault, the object of the language, the humor, the bawdy pawing. You’ve said to the creepers and the jerks and the self-styled ‘alpha males’ that no, really, we’ve just so misunderstood you; sorry it had to come to this, but you know how women are…
I don’t know the answer. I would like to believe that at least part of the answer is for all of us, male or female, to speak up more. To call it when we see it, either in a polite aside, in a question to the person we thing is being harassed (I’ve been watching what’s going on, how can I help/support you?). Part of that is to stop calling such help ‘white knighting.” As I said on another blog, this fight belongs to all of us and anytime a man wants to stand shoulder to shoulder with me in battle, I’m happy – grateful – to have him in the melee.
Kathryne, i wouldn’t include “rape jokes” in the humor section. And i agree that this isn’t just joking. On a con or at a workplace, this has no justification.
A reason why i am always reluctant to enter such discussion is, that you can not provide an accurate image. If you interpret my “develop[ed] a peculiar humor that may be abusive in language and even sexually charged” in the light of your experiences, you may see a complete different scenario than what has happened and what i tried to describe.
If someone were to crack a rape joke to an 18 year old trainee, he would find himself in for a shock frost treatment at least.
There are several levels less severe than this. But even with the jokes there, people may already start to feel uncomfortable.
My goal at that point is:
- The culprits become aware that not everyone may be OK with their style.
- That they find out if someone is OK and rather err on the side of caution.
- That they adjust their behavior accordingly.
I am not shy of using a big stick to teach. But i rather try to change heads than cut them off.
I agree with the “speak up” thing. That is not only targeted towards the women involved but also towards male witnesses noticing someone wincing at a joke or avoiding a certain office.
My biggest concern is not about acting wrongly but not realizing something is wrong.
Martin, I’m in complete agreement with you. My ire is with those who try to find excuses, who use the “just joking” brush off to turn the tables on to anyone who might object. And too often the rest of us are complicit either through our silence or willingness to go along because we are afraid of being seen as humorless, not one of the guys, whatever. That was really the gist of my rant, because we should be past this. We should have been past this decades ago.
I agree, and yet further down this very thread we get “How could you construe that as patronising? It was just humour.” The idea that there’s some sort of rigid and/or between humour and humiliation implies there are a lot of people out there who’ve never seen a custard pie joke.
I, for one, very much appreciated your White Knightiness. Please continue on as you have been.
Jim isn’t a White Knight. He’s a caring human being who listens and acts!
White Knights swoop in and don’t necessarily listen. White Knights might think it’s natural that their work around battling creepy behavior gets valorized in a way that women doing similar work does not… because White Knights are about rescuing and that creates a active-hero->passive-victim relationship.
Jim’s a great ally and does great work. Part of that is that he fights alongside and his feminist action isn’t a big white charger that tramples over and renders invisible all the other feminist action that’s going on.
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/White_Knighting
http://feministallies.blogspot.com/2007/12/what-men-can-do-wednesday-avoid-being.html
Thanks for those links, Liz. I forget sometimes that not everyone uses the phrase the same way. But yes, this is what I meant about fighting my own White Knight impulses.
Good point, Liz, and you’re right, Jim is not That kind of White Knight. One of the ConFusion incidents to which he referred involved me; Jim deftly intervened with finesse and grace that managed to get the “that’s uncool” point across without causing any sort of scene. Not once did I feel as if Jim swooped in to rescue me. Instead it was a “got your back” that I’m quite grateful to have had. As a bonus, the offender offered a sincere apology and perhaps attained a degree of enlightenment.
Yay (to the help). It’s such a feeling of relief to have a comrade at arms
For the record, I pay attention to the books you mention on your blog. I’ve purchased a not-insignificant number of the titles you’ve called out.
Jim has challenged books to duels?
AND I HAVE THE PAPER CUTS TO PROVE IT!
Hi Jim,
I feel bad as I still haven’t read any of your books but my excuse is that I just recently discovered your blog (found you through John Scalzi’s blog, which I discovered through Wil Wheaton’s blog. So, it’s Wil’s fault that I’m harassing you online). I have to say though that your attitudes and opinions alone are making you one of my favourite authors.
We all need to take a stance on harassment when we see it and giving some one a metaphorical “slap” for their behaviour is definitely appropriate. Why offer support of a person’s work, if the person behaves objectionably? The pocket book is definitely the right place to hit these people. Though maybe directly pointing out what they’re doing and why it’s wrong wouldn’t hurt either.
PS: I really do want to start reading your stuff. If you were going to recommend one book as the best place to start, which one would you recommend?
Marc,
I recommend Goblin Quest as a first book to read.
Soon.
Thanks Christine!
“Libriomancer” was my first of Mr. Hines’ books and I highly recommend it.
Then Goblin Quest and Libriomancer will be my first two. Thanks to you as well chacha1.
I’m a new follower too courtesy of the BBC, and have started the stepsister scheme
please carry on being the white knight 
I think its a brilliant plan 
Sneaky too (in a good way)
A reasonable and thoughtful approach to a most-troubling trend. Even if it’s only hypothetical…
Thanks for staying on the white horse, Jim. One trend that I’m enjoying is the sudden growth of “Nerdiquette” panels at several of the cons I’m booked at this year. The first time I saw it was at Illogicon this year, and they do panels on how not to be a creeper to educate people on how to interact with each other. It’s a shame that these panels are needed, and it’s a greater shame that the people who need them the most are the least likely to attend, but at least it’s a step by con organizers to acknowledge that there’s a problem. See you around!
Bravo Jim! Don’t give the [hypothetical] creeps negative publicity. Give them NO publicity.
Well Id have to agree. I don’t know if it’s increasing incidents of this creeper behaviour or more coverage or maybe I’m paying more attention but it seems there’s a definitive increase of these types of behavioural malfeasance in 2012. From the argument of fake geeks versus real geeks and women cosplayers and convention goers being basely harassed I feel it comes down to a few key misconceptions that actions (either online or in person) don’t have consequences. You’re right Jim in your assessment that there’s a lack of accountability for these actions. I getting on my soap box here but we, as men who presumably do not engage in that behaviour bear a lot of the fault for allowing this to take place. Until we realize that there is a collective burden on the males in the genre community that looks the other way (as you say awkward attempts at flirting or “Bob being Bob”) but then admonishes the person after the fact only perpetuates the issue.
While you may not want to play Don Quiote to the windmill of sexism, you can point out behaviour that you find reprehensible (provided you have witnessed it.) I see no issue calling someone out on their behaviour; now I know there is a move not to humiliate creepers publicly but I’ve tried the quiet pull aside conversation and was told it’s my opinion only. Until they suffer very real consequences creepers will assume their behaviour is acceptable, and you know what? Maybe we’ve made it acceptable; maybe our complacency has turned to complicity. We worry about hurting feelings or embarrassing the person, but maybe we need to worry more about the damage that behaviour does to the community as a whole.
Thank you, Rob. Correction from within the peer group (i.e. from other con-going males) is going to go farther, faster, than any amount of nagging and finger-pointing from outside.
That is not to say that I disagree in principle with nagging and finger-pointing. People behaving badly should be shamed as frequently and as loudly as required to prompt an amendment to their behavior.
I wouldn’t say that incidents are happening any more or less than they ever did, but people are more willing to speak up when they do happen, and that’s making a huge difference. Fandom desperately needs to get over the idea that we’re a magical safe space or that fans are somehow more enlightened than the non-fan. It denies reality, silences those who are victims of harassment, and provides cover and encouragement to the predators. The more we talk about these issues, the better — and safer! — it’ll be for everyone.
You’re definitely right, genre fans like to think they are above the trappings of humanity. In truth I’ve found myself withdrawing from some of the community because of the other fans; in an effort to combat the terrible stereotyping and general mainstream mild disdain for genre, fans have built this insular community and in doing so have become fiercely protective of upsetting and excluding anyone even when someone needs to grab and shake creepers.
This is one of the reasons why I like you. That and you look hot in fishnets.
Seriously though, the world needs more men (and women) like you standing up and saying, “This is wrong, and there are consequences.” It can be so difficult because sometimes the harassment is subtle. I had a creeper boss once who made a few veiled comments that he could just blow off as, “I was only kidding; it was a harmless joke. You’re blowing this out of proportion.” I never said anything — and frankly, how could I? He was it — it was a small company, he was the president, there was no “human resources” — I had no recourse except to quit my job and stop eating until I found a new one. He knew he had the power. Creepers know how to leverage whatever power they have, they know how to work the system, and they know how to choose their victims — just like every other sexual predator.
Shunning is such a wonderful thing.
I never knew how prevalent this was, just because I never went to cons.
I’ve now been to V-Con (up here in Vancouver) twice, and this last time there was a full panel on this subject that was very eye-opening.
I have never had the displeasure of seeing this behaviour, so I haven’t had the chance to step in, but I like to think I would if I did see it happening.
Something like what you’ve said above, I’m sure these creeps have never even considered.
You continue to be a shining light for how men should behave. You give me hope for the future.
You have my permission to go smiting. Smite away, Jim, smite away!
You rock, sir. I hope this creep recognizes himself and reacts accordingly.
I don’t think it’s new or increasing: rather, it’s the situation where if you encourage people to react and act, you suddenly get a surge of reports of what was going on unremarked all these years. I do think that all these years after second-wave feminism hit mainstream society, the message is really starting to percolate down to those circles of fandom that don’t attend Wiscon. I was once young and desperate and certainly cringe at some of what I did back before I found and married the femmefan of my life [32 years come June 12].
Jim, you are a White Knight, in the best possible sense. You are standing up and saying, as a man, that certain behaviors by men toward women are unacceptable.* As a woman, I applaud you and the public stand you take on this issue. It’s only when members of BOTH sexes make it clear that harassment is unacceptable that people will begin to change their behavior — and eventually, one hopes, their thinking. It’s sad but true that when women speak up, they are often dismissed, brushed aside, condescended to, or turned upon.
What I see in your post above is completely consistent with what I see in your writing and in your cover pose posts: you are a man who respects women as fully equal individuals, with every right to feel and be safe from objectification and sexual harassment/intimidation. For that, I thank you. If I hadn’t already discovered your books, I would be racing off to read them right now. Suffice it to say that I will be buying your books from now on (as opposed to waiting for the library to get them.) You are absolutely right that one way to discourage poor behavior is to hit the perpetrator in the pocketbook; well, one way to reward admirable behavior is through the pocketbook as well!
*I would add that the same behaviors by women toward men are also unacceptable, but rarer. They also go against culturally traditional roles, which means they probably don’t have quite the same psychological effect on the victim.
Dear Mr. Hines,
Thank you. I will be making it a point to read your books, and checking your blog for author recommendations. And, I have to tell you, I am here through John Scalzi’s blog, and I appreciate that men are calling out other men for being creepy jackwagons, through means subtle and not so subtle.
Supporting non-creeping, one author at a time,
Kate F.
Not just his being a decent human being but also his wicked sense of humor is what made me (and keeps me as) a fan. The first time I heard him on a panel, he was so entertaining that I immediately went up to him and purchased all his Goblin and Princess books and made him sign them all.
After reading them, I lent them to my mother who also loved them and had to buy her own copies.
I find wit to be a rare thing and do my best to reward it as much as I like to reward goodness, talent and kindness. It’s wonderful when they all come in a complete package like Jim.
Jim,
I found you through Wil Wheaton referencing your book cover photo shoots with John Scalzi. I’ve heard your name before in the SF field, but I have been sticking with female authors for some time now, due to my preference for strong female protagonists and finding that much more often with female authors.
So thanks to Wil’s repeated links to awesomeness of yours, I’ve been reading your blog. I deeply admire what you are doing, with the photo shoots and this post among others. I want to start reading your books. Where do you suggest I begin?
And keep up the good work. The world needs a lot more guys with your attitude.
Hi Penelope!
Thank you! I hadn’t actually seen Wheaton mentioning the cover shoots. I don’t suppose you have a link?
As for the books, let’s see … Goblin Quest would be good if you like humorous send-ups of some of your typical fantasy cliches … The Stepsister Scheme if you want a fairy tale retelling with Snow White as a witch and Sleeping Beauty as a martial artist … and Libriomancer is my latest, and is about a magic librarian from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula who kills sparkling vampires, among other things. I’ve got previews of everything linked from the main page of the site.
I think that if you are looking for Strong Female Protagonists in general, your best bet is to start with The Stepsister Scheme, and then branch out to his other stuff after you decide if you like his writing.
if you’re very specifically looking for strong female protags who kick ass, then the Princess books. i swear, these books need to be used as a class to most authors on “How to write believable female characters CORRECTLY”
i mean, a wife and mother, going on adventures, and it WORKS! and that’s not all!!!
Another voice of appreciation from a new (female) fan.
The common, garden-variety American harasser typically offers a lot of excuses for his behavior, most of which boil down to “she asked for it.”
This response is, in my opinion, a FAIL in any situation; and particularly in light of recent events in India, to which a hefty proportion of the male population are responding by saying “she asked for it.”
Thanks for being a hero, Jim. It’s awesome to be at cons, having a lovely time with people with whom you share all kinds of great fandoms, meeting new people–but once there’s that record-scratch of sexual harassment/creeping (whether it’s you or a female friend or just a random stranger), it can suck a lot of fun out of the whole experience. Flirting and/or trying to make new friends is all fine and well, but being made to feel powerless–even if you’re the one witnessing it and don’t want to say anything because, hey, you really just need to lighten the hell up–is awful. I know many of these offending creepsters don’t mean to be gross, but that doesn’t keep them from being just that. Guys, we’re here to have a nice time, same as you, but that doesn’t mean we’re here as part of the scenery and available for your recreational purposes. When everyone behaves like a human, everyone has a nice time.
Hearts & stars, Jim. It’s nice to know we’re not the only ones who notice it–and recognize how gross it is. Hero status!
I am a professional massage therapist. I have worked at Cons. I am a man.
I make my living trying to get people (and, the way the market is skewed, mostly women) to allow me into their personal space, to do relatively intimate things to them (if touching a persons back, and arms, is “intimate”; definitions vary). This is something that does not happen when the people I am seeking to work with do not feel safe around men.
So, I have a very personal, selfish reason to appreciate your efforts to educate people against creepy behavior.
Totally aside from which, I still think you are right, and awesome.
Thank you for your efforts.
As a married woman I don’t have to deal with this too often anymore, but still happens and I see it happen to other women all the time. I appreciate that more guys are noticing the problem and acting in what ways they can. Also, the sexism in fantasy art has annoyed me for years, and I applauded when I saw your book cover work recently!
I have not read any of your books yet, but your work was on my to do list, and I will be even happier to donate money to your coffers now. All the best.
I’ve been going to various conventions since I was fourteen, and it’s strange that–in high school–my girl friends and I came up with strategies to avoid unwanted attention. I’m a cosplayer, and while the costumes I wear give everyone, men and women, the invitation to look, it’s harder to impress upon them that a corset is neither an invitation to touch nor a display of goods for sale or rent. I’m a fairly lenient person in regards to punishment, but I have no problem calling out creepers. That said, I am also not yet a published author who might need to worry about upsetting fans or gaining a reputation as a “troublesome” guest at conventions. I have a number of friends who ARE published female authors and have had to deal with, or watch their friends deal with, this uncomfortable, self-compromising balancing act.
Thank you!
In the local area (Ann Arbor) we have had our share of creepers. I can think of two in particular.
One attended a panel on Fannish Ettiquette, recognized himself, and GOT BETTER. (And once when he backslid, although I didn’t know him well, I felt okay going to him and mentioning the transgressions. He apologized and I’ve heard no further complaints.)
So might your hypothetical “never” be revisited if his behaviour turns around enough to be mentioned by a preponderance of women?
The other was someone I’d known fairly well for a fair length of time, who was behaving in an inappropriate manner toward a woman, limiting where she felt safe. I could recognize who it was by the behaviour she described. I confronted him, and he suggested that she was just being too sensitive.
So if someone thinks they can’t POSSIBLY be the creep you were talking about, perhaps they should think again.
Margaret – I’d say that if someone demonstrated that he (or she) had heard, understood, and acted on feedback regarding his creepy behavior, then yes, I’d probably take another look at that “never.”
“If you’re worried that the creeper I’m talking about might be you, well, that seems like something you really need to sit down and think about.”
I might add that if you are positive you are not the creeper you might also want to think about your actions as many perpetrators think they are the good guy. The number of times I’ve listened to a guy upset by “creeper” or other bigoted behavior (done to someone they care about) that immediately turns around and does the same to a stranger/acquaintance/co-worker is sad.
I was brought to your site by a Scalzi post a while ago. I love what you are doing to help bring attention to sexist problems.
That’s a very good point, thank you.
Do you happen to have suggestions on how females without popular blogs might politely discourage creepers? Ignoring them does not make them go away…
Depending on the situation and your comfort level, one option is to simply confront the behavior: label the behavior and tell the person to knock it off. Another option would be to report it, again, depending on where you’re at. (I had a post a little while back on reporting sexual harassment in SF/F circles.
Being loud can be very effective, but it’s still important to balance things like your comfort and safety.
Travel in packs with people who are loud and generous with their “She said NO, now go away!” and “Dude, you are being creepy, leave and do not bother us again.” It’s not an ideal solution, but in my experience it works more often than not. Social pressure works.
You don’t have to be explicitly ugly (e.g. profanity, insults). Just polite, repeated, firm, GO AWAY.
What’s worth mentioning about the term “white knight” is that it is simply a silencing term thrown at men who are supportive of women in situations like this. It’s designed to embarrass us and make us think our masculinity is phony (in the same way that “mangina” is meant to make us think our masculinity is basically nonexistent) if we ever come out and say that sexism is a bad thing. Sexists like their sexist privilege, and there’s really no depth to which they won’t stoop in defending it.
There’s an extreme to the “white knight” behavior, though, that takes it from helpful into another kind of sexism.
Say that I’m carrying a stack of books into a building. They’re heavy, but not more than I can manage on my own.
Some men might let me open the door by myself. It’s a bit tough, but okay — I wouldn’t have taken such a large stack if I wasn’t able to carry them on my own.
Some men might open the door for me. That’s cool; a bit of help is welcome, and small acts of kindness are awesome.
Some men might offer to carry some or all of my books. That’s cool, too. Offering to help is great, but it’s up to me whether or not to accept it. Respecting my judgment means a lot to me.
But then some men might just take the books out of my hands without asking and carry them inside for me. Maybe I don’t say anything because I’m embarrassed or flustered, or worried about what this strange guy might do to my stuff if I complain. Maybe I do protest and am blown off, overridden, or ignored. The point is, I didn’t ask him to carry my load, and I really was fine by myself, but now I’m in suddenly the position of “owing” him gratitude. I’m disempowered, put in a position of helplessness, and while technically I *can* complain, the entire weight of my culture tells me that to do so would be horribly rude.
That last guy? He’s the bad kind of White Knight.
And of that last kind of White Knight that Droewyn was talking about, there are gradiations.
I used to have a professional scientific diving license. During training, there was a man older than me, VERY traditional, who was mortified that a Young Lady (snort, snicker) would do some very normal diver things…..like carry my own tanks. Most of the time it was simply annoying, but then there was the time he dropped his own tank on the deck of a boat (remember, dive tanks are giant aluminium bombs with demand valves), pushed aside another diver, and stepped on my foot in his mad scramble to make sure that I did not have to lift my own weight belt. It was dangerous to him (running on a wet deck), dangerous to me (my poor fot), dangerous to my dive buddy (could have been knocked overboard), all because the Little Woman couldn’t do that.
I pulled him aside and explained that if we were in the shop, he could hold doors for me all he wanted, but once we were on site, I expected to be treated like a capable, competent professional. Were his feelings hurt? Oh yeah they were. Did I care that his feelings were hurt? Yes, I did. It was a Distress of the Privileged kind of moment, and even while I was telling him off for doing what every inch of his acculturation and socialisation ordered him to do, I did it kindly. But that doesn’t mean that I should be placing myself OR my colleagues in a dangerous situation just to cater to what he was doing. Nor should I subject myself to sexist, infantilising behaviour (I can open a door, for goodness’ sake) simply because that’s how this White Knight behaved.
That man? It was annoying and physically dangerous, but it stopped when I asked. There’s a more dangerous kind of pseudo-White Knight, the one who creates drama so that he can come to somebody’s rescue (after which they are, in theory, obligated to him). Those kind are at best dedicated riders of the Drama Llama and at worst are predators, manipulating the social behaviour contract to get what they want. It’s the same thing the Hare Krishnas used to do, thrusting copies of their book in your hand and then expecting a donation in return (which they usually got, grudgingly, and pissing a lot of people off in the process). When you get a creeper or sexual predator acting as a White Knight, who creates drama, rescues somebody from said drama, and expects sexual favours in return? Those are very very dangerous people indeed.
Contrast this to the situation that you are thinking of, which is better described as “ally.” Allies let nations fight their own battles if the wish, and step in IF ASKED.
Your experience as a professional diver resonate so much with my experiences as a Yachtmaster and yacht skipper. Obviously when doing a manoeuvre (such as mooring the boat) the skipper’s job is to allocate jobs to the crew, and that allocation has to take into account the strengths and skills of individual crew members. Equally, that takes into account labour saving gadgets such as winches and pulleys, which allow sensible gearing of effort. The number of times I’ve seen a man drop the job allocated to him so as to “help” a woman pull in a rope without using a winch, when she’s using the winch perfectly properly, sensibly and with due regard to safety beggars belief. And not only does that mean the man’s neglecting his proper job and making the woman feel inadequate but he’s expending more energy than necessary on each task. Since crew fatigue is a major contributory cause of loss of life at sea, this is another example of that type of White Knighting being dangerous as well as annoying.
Getting down into the weeds a bit here–your comment about “the man’s neglecting his proper job and making the woman feel inadequate.” Oh wow. Oh yeah.
LEARNED HELPLESSNESS. If you put a person in a situation where everything they do is wrong, or in which they are undermined every step of the way, or in which they are in control of the situation and somebody wrests control from them, that person regardless of age, gender, or social situation WILL be trained to take no initiative, to not make the effort, to ask permission. The stereotypical Helicopter Parents who swoop in and undermine their children and other adults around their children are doing the same darn thing.
This is a common symptom of a seriously abusive, controlling intimate relationship, but by no means is it limited to intimate relationships. You describe perfectly how a capable, competent female sailor can have her ability thoroughly trashed by a man: and in his head, he’s being a hero and saving/helping her.
Yeah. White Knighting is BAD.
I was once doing a training course aboard a yacht which =featured exactly the kind of undermining you refer to. It wasn’t the instructor-skipper’s fault; he was doing his best to deal with it, but there were two individuals out of the four trainees who were simply toxic and eventually it came down to damage limitation (it didn’t help that there were winds so strong that the Queen’s harbourmaster came out of Portsmouth in his launch to ask if we had seen the weather forecast, and did we really want to leave port in those conditions? Anyway, in the course of his damage limitation he told me a story about his experience on being on board a round the world yacht race on a boat which had a substantial percentage (but less than 100% because of the need for corporate commercial sponsorship, which set up its own problems) of Services personnel (I think a mixture of Army, Navy & Airforce). Anyway, the boat lost its mast somewhere near Cape Horn, and he made a particular point of explaining that one reason the mast went was that at the crucial tipping point when the forestay broke there was a sailor on the helm who was Services but who wasn’t an officer. And he paused before doing the obvious thing (which the skipper explained to me was bracing the mast using halyards as guy ropes; something which about eight months later meant I actually saved my own mast when the forestay broke) because he didn’t feel able to act without permission from an officer.
And that was a brilliantly non-gendered way of explaining learned helplessness and showing how it wasn’t the victim’s fault. It was the worst course I was ever on, but in many ways it was also brilliant because the instructor didn’t white knight in the wrong way, but actually showed incredible insight. He also mentioned that his personal hero was Shackleton, the man who said, “He who would be a leader, he must be a bridge” something I don’t think was a coincidence.
Holy Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Horn. Of ALL places to get dismasted. Even taking into account that the weather around the Horn is the kind of weather that will cause a dismasting, it’s still probably the last place on earth I’d like to be with no/limited propulsion. (I am no longer a diver, but I still work on ships for a living.) That’s the stuff nightmares are made of.
Another brilliant, non-gendered example of how truly vicious and destructive learned helplessness is, is evidenced by myths and facts about racial minorities in the USA. The entire concept of “putting the uppity negro in his place” was, in effect, a way of enforcing the power structure by creating and enforcing learned helplessness–if any attempt to do anything differently led to a savage beating, being lynched, having one’s relatives assaulted, etc, then people learned very, very quickly to NOT take initiative, NOT stick out, NOT do anything that would lead to horrible consequences. Then, as if enforcing a regime of learned helplessness with extraordinary systematic violence wasn’t enough, these people who learned to be helpless to save their own lives and that of their families were berated, shamed, and vilified for being lazy, parasitic, servile niggers. And as if that weren’t enough, the well-meaning social welfare and poverty reduction programs put into place in the 1960s were new and subject to the growing pains of all new things, and despite their best intentions, when combined with the drug war had the unintended effect of trapping people in intergenerational poverty and leading to the zombie myth of the cadillac-driving welfare queen. And as if THAT were not enough, even after legal segregation in the USA ended in the 1960s, the dominant narrative was, well, segregation is over, they need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get on with it and oh by the way affirmative action is reverse racism, totally ignoring the effects of previous 300 years of enforcing a mentality of helplessness in the face of state-sanctioned violence and terrorism.
I could probably go on at length, but I think I’ll stop there, and let that pickle for a while.
I have a “white knight” illustration story.
So, about 15 years ago, I was driving home from work — as usual, well after dark. Dallas freeways. My tire blew out in a somewhat deserted area just before an interchange; I coasted until I could park under a very bright light, got out with my trusty tire iron, and began to get things done.
Four pickup trucks stopped for me, all driven by men.
Now: remember, deserted Texas road, I’m all by myself, stranger in a pickup truck. I am fully capable of fixing my own tire. I have no broken limbs. I have, in fact, changed OTHER peoples’ tires. I’m simply female, and kind of short. But pretty strong.
The first guy asked me if I needed help, and I told him no, thanks, I’m fine, while continuing what I was doing. He waved and drove off.
The second guy asked the same, and added, “Do you want me to call someone?” Well, no, because I don’t give out phone numbers to strangers, but I thanked him kindly and sent him on his way, and he was good natured.
Ditto Guy #3.
I was in the process of tightening the lug nuts on the newly-replaced tire when a fourth pickup pulled over, a guy got out and began walking toward me without saying a word. I stood up with the tire iron in hand, and he said, “Here, give me that, I’ll fix it.”
I said, “Thank you, but it’s already almost done, I’d rather finish it myself. It’s kind of you to stop to check, but I’m okay.”
He kept coming. Didn’t pause. I backed up until I was very clearly in the light and visible from any cars driving by, and he said, “Just give me the tire iron and I’ll get it done in no time.”
I said, “Thanks, but I don’t know you, and I’d rather you moved on. I just don’t feel comfortable right now.”
He then began screaming at me and calling me a bitch and saying that I deserved whatever I got. But I had the tire iron, he didn’t, and he calculated his odds and found them less than satisfactory. I was hoping like hell he didn’t have a gun, because of course that trumps everything. Either he didn’t, or he was afraid he’d been seen where we were. He got back in his truck and roared away, swerving toward me to scare me as he went.
Had I give up that tire iron I am totally convinced I would be some kind of statistic right now.
So my motto is: never, ever give up the tire iron. Trust people, fine; at least (from this sample size) 75% of them are good people willing to help and perfectly safe.
But still.
Never give up the tire iron.
From one white knight to another, thumbs up, my man! Sometimes what a person does to promote their idiocy really does come back to bite ‘em on the arse. Many kudos!
Thank you Jim. I am glad you brought this up. It’s a tough situation to handle for females in male dominated industries. You make good points and I love the discussion that has ensued in the comments.
Nerd drama sounds like to me. Not sure what this is all about and it gets “A” for effort but if said bad boy is good enough then your boycotting him will not have any impact.
Well shoot, and here I thought my boycotting him would singlehandedly destroy his career and bring about a worldwide end to sexual harassment everywhere.
Thank you for setting me and my fellow nerds straight.
ah, your sarcasm is a thing of beauty and wonder
Golf clap, good sir, golf clap. You’re doing on a grander scale what is one of my standard tenets of promotion. Anyone of the douchecanoe variety who comes into my radar gets a good hard dose of The Flick.
Thank you for this post. It’s so good to see men who understand this issue and are willing to help. It’s been years since I’ve been to a con, but used to go as a teen (way back in the 70s) and remember my disenchantment about finding out the hard way that Very Famous Author was a lech. It’s encouraging to see more awareness of this and acknowledgement that it’s a problem.
My interest began waning after a Very Famous Filker grabbed my ass and felt me up when we were alone in an elevator at Dragon*Con. The premise was that he was giving me a hug because he recognized me from a prior con. It was not a hug. I was 19, and so shocked and hurt that all I could do was walk out when the doors opened.
I’ve never supported any of his endeavors since. And I (privately) discourage people from giving him money.
This was 18 years ago. I wish things would get better.
Oh man ,where to begin and not sound like an asshat.
Jim, while I completely agree that repeated unwanted sexually advances and/or groping is totally unacceptable, I feel the need to caution you in your efforts to chastise people for their behavior at a con.
I say this because what my limited (4) experience with cons has taught me, and what I often expound to others unfamiliar with them, is that cons are a place where people of all walks of life who share a similar interest can come together. It can’t be denied that these interest are not always limited to the defined theme of the con. For example, Penguicon is an Open Source Software/Sci-Fi/Fantasy convention, yet it has panels on polyamory, the LBG community, erotica, and other adult theme events. Many of the people who attend Penguicon also attend Confusion. My point here is that many people attend cons to hang out with other con goers. I am not saying that other people’s interest in these topics gives them license to harass others, but it could be said that people gather at these cons to escape the societal norms present in their everyday life. In the “real world” they are required to march to the same drum as everyone else. If cons are meant to foster an acceptance of everyone, how can you place limits on their behavior? Don’t get me wrong, I still believe that there are boundaries that need to be enforced, but sometimes those boundaries are very gray. Especially to a congregation of people who, on the aggregate, are not known to fit society’s opinion of “normal”. To put it another way, a convention can be a place where someone who is normally excluded from participating in social activities due to their perceived differences can gather with others who they know will be accepting of them, regardless of their social awkwardness.
I understand that this is a very touchy subject, but I feel it is worth discussing from all angles so I will provide an example I experienced at Immortal Confusion. A friend of mine received several unwanted advances at the convention, but it can’t be said that they were unsolicited. She wore a corset that accentuated certain features and definitely drew the attention of others. She was there with her boyfriend and was not interested in acting on any advances, but at the same time, I could tell she relished the attention. We even discussed many of the advances afterword and had a chuckle over them. My friend was not offended in the least and I feel it is safe to say she was flattered. I know this sounds like I am perpetuating the false “she asked for it” view, but I am really not. What I am saying is that some actually DO ask for it, even if they do not intend on acting on the advances.
To further this point, I recently read a Reddit post that asked why many women fawn over the arrogant, condescending, over confident male and the response surprised me, but it made complete sense. I have always been on your side of the aisle when it comes to respecting women and treating them as equals. I have even been called out for being “too nice” to the point where I seem condescending because I treat women with kid gloves in an effort to not offend them. (side note: I have been very happily married for over ten years so these views are from someone who is an outsider to the whole dating/flirting scene) A woman’s reply to the Reddit question was along the lines of “When we see a confident male who treats women in a way that objectifies them or puts them on a pedestal, we feel that they are very discerning with women. The reason we are attracted to them is because we want to be that woman. We want to be the one who meets their high standards. We don’t want to be the one that a less confident male settles for because they lack the confidence in themselves to be discerning.” Many women agreed with her post with one even saying “I feel like you are in my head”. So with that knowledge, how does a convention attendee who may already lack self confidence (I know, gross generalization) act when on one hand they are told that almost any advance of a sexual nature will be frowned upon, but on the other hand they know that there are many people who attend cons in order to receive that kind of attention? It is quite the conundrum.
I have great appreciation for what you are doing with your charity and the cover poses. They are ridiculous and you are drawing much needed attention to the problem. With that said, I want to mention something else I experienced at Confusion. I attended the cover photo reveal and was giddy with excitement when you asked Pat to explain his pin-up calendar. I thought, “Here we go. An unstoppable force is going to meet an immovable object. This should be good. I wish I had popcorn.” Unfortunately, I was vastly disappointed when I realized that the situation set Pat up to be humiliated (not intentionally of course). The whole room was full of anti-objectification energy and then you asked Pat to explain why he helped create a calendar with the obvious purpose of looking at half naked women. His inevitable failure was evident when he asked the room for a simple show of hands from everyone who “likes looking at beautiful people” and only about 2% did (including my wife and I). What this told me is 98% of the people in that room were liars who were caught up in the moment. It is in our DNA to like looking at attractive people. Everyone’s opinion of what is attractive is different, but anyone who denies enjoying looking at what they consider attractive is inhuman. By not raising their hands they essentially said they find nothing and no one attractive. I only wish Pat were not exhausted from the con so he could have stood up for his beliefs.
To summarize, I agree that some go too far with their advances and am in no way defending harassers, but the only solution to the problem is to completely sterilize conventions and make them no different from any other social situation that many in fandom loath due to the inherent limitations placed on them by having to meet the lowest common denominator of societies (prudish) views of acceptable behavior.
Bring on the hate.
Rob
Rob,
Don’t have time for a full response here, but…
-Pat and I talked about the pin-up calendar beforehand, and he specifically encouraged me to bring that up.
-Reddit had a whole range of interesting opinions, from some awesome and well thought-out discussions of SF/F to an area where rapists are praised for talking openly about their crimes.
-There’s a big difference between flirting and harassment.
-Finally, you asked, “If cons are meant to foster an acceptance of everyone, how can you place limits on their behavior?”
Cons don’t foster an acceptance of everyone. I would love to see conventions become more accepting and welcoming, but part of that process is to set some boundaries and make it clear that certain behaviors are not accepted or welcome. If we try to be accepting of people who repeatedly cross boundaries or harass others, what we’re doing is creating an environment that’s *less* accepting–in fact, is downright unwelcome–to those being targeted by the behaviors in question.
<iIf we try to be accepting of people who repeatedly cross boundaries or harass others, what we’re doing is creating an environment that’s *less* accepting–in fact, is downright unwelcome–to those being targeted by the behaviors in question.
Yup, this.
Cons and comment threads have that in common: you can’t accept everyone. If you don’t make the active choice to exclude assholes, you are making the passive choice to let assholes exclude others.
If someone doesn’t understand that Yes Means Yes and No Means No even in spaces where ‘adult’ activities are occurring or being discussed, that person has no business in those spaces. Full stop. The fandom folks I know who are involved in the kink community would be the first ones to tell you that.
In practically every discussion about bad behavior at cons, someone pops up to say that it’s not fair to hold people accountable for harassment and assault because some people just don’t know any better. We’re talking about people who select targets who are unlikely to protect themselves, engineer situations where they can creep without consequence, and plausibly deny their behavior later. That kind of maneuvering takes excellent social skills. And saying we shouldn’t do everything in our power to put a stop to it because it would mean only prudish behavior would be acceptable is like saying we shouldn’t hold world-class pickpockets accountable because it might stop people from asking their friends to spot them a dollar.
I’m glad your friend had fun engaging in consensual flirting. Good for her. But the fact that she was wearing a corset wouldn’t have given anyone the right to stalk, harass, intimidate, or assault her.
Getting bullied is awful. What I don’t understand is why someone who will rush to the defense of men who are bullied for poor social skills isn’t equally willing to rush to the defense of women who are bullied just for being women. We’re geeks too. Don’t we deserve a place where we, who are normally excluded from participating in social activities due to our perceived differences, can gather with others who we know will be accepting of us, regardless of our perceived sexual availability?
Let me clarify, again. I am not “rushing to the defense” of harassers. I agree with you, Jim, and just about everyone else on this comment thread. I am just offering a slightly different perspective. Everything you stated regarding boundaries I stated in my post. I am not implying that people who “repeatedly cross boundaries or harass others” should be accepted. What I was trying to get across is that those boundaries need to be clarified at times. I am not making excuses for the assholes of the cons, I have ran into my fair share. I was just pointing out the difficulty of the task of eradicating said behavior.
I was just pointing out the difficulty of the task of eradicating said behavior.
I’m not sure why you think those of us who have to put up with this behavior on a regular basis, and who have been working to eradicate it for years, need to be told that it’s difficult.
You may think you’re providing a ‘different perspective,’ but you’re actually providing the exact same perspective that people who don’t have to deal with this and don’t want to think about it provide every time someone has the audacity to start a conversation about it in public: the perspective of someone who has an easier time identifying with lonely, socially-awkward guys than they do identifying with women who have to live in constant fear of harassment and assault.
No matter how socially awkward someone is; no matter how badly they are bullied and ostracized in their life outside of conventions; they are not entitled to other people’s social attention or affections. They are not owed a chance to hit on people without fear of being rejected. They are not owed an opportunity to engage in their sexual fetishes or fantasies with non-consenting people. Period.
When you say that “the only solution to the problem is to completely sterilize conventions and make them no different from any other social situation that many in fandom loath due to the inherent limitations placed on them by having to meet the lowest common denominator of societies (prudish) views of acceptable behavior,” you are not “pointing out the difficulty of eradicating said behavior.” You are saying that you do not believe that eradicating that behavior is desirable, because the only alternative you see to women suffering harassment and assault is creating a social situation you would loathe.
Ursula K Le Guin has a fabulous short story called “The Ones Who Walked Away From Omelas.” It’s about a paradise where everyone has access to creature comforts. But that paradise isn’t real. It’s maintained by a very powerful magic spell. To maintain the spell, and by extension the paradise, an innocent child must suffer a lifetime of misery and neglect. Everyone in Omelas knows this. Everyone knows that child is suffering so that they can enjoy a life of ease. And like everyone in Omelas, you are telling us that it is Too Hard to build a just community where innocent people don’t have to suffer so that others can enjoy the illusion that everyone is happy.
Those of us who have to play the role of the innocent child to maintain your paradise are not particularly interested in how hard you think it is. We just want to stop suffering. And you’re acting as if we should care that Omelas might crumble.
When you say that “the only solution to the problem is to completely sterilize conventions and make them no different from any other social situation that many in fandom loath due to the inherent limitations placed on them by having to meet the lowest common denominator of societies (prudish) views of acceptable behavior,” you are not “pointing out the difficulty of eradicating said behavior.” You are saying that you do not believe that eradicating that behavior is desirable, because the only alternative you see to women suffering harassment and assault is creating a social situation you would loathe.
Agreed. And I would like to point out that there is no MAGIC ANSWER that will get rid of this kind of harassment forever. It’s got to be a constant dialog between convention goers about what kind of behavior is welcomed and what is not, and what to do about it. Likely, each fresh crop of convention goers will turn up new creepers that will have to be shown how to behave since, as you pointed out in one of our exchanges, not everyone is able to pick up on those signals.
Just like our society is only recently shifting the message of “don’t get raped” to “don’t rape people”, conventions are beginning to pick up that flag and shift the “don’t complain at getting crept on if you’re wearing a corset” to “a corset is an article of clothing, not an invitation”.
“No matter how socially awkward someone is; no matter how badly they are bullied and ostracized in their life outside of conventions; they are not entitled to other people’s social attention or affections. They are not owed a chance to hit on people without fear of being rejected. They are not owed an opportunity to engage in their sexual fetishes or fantasies with non-consenting people. Period.”
I never said or implied any of those things. We are arguing the same side of the coin here. Who is making the assumptions? Who said that I haven’t been on the receiving end of this? I have actually, on numerous occasions. I have even experienced getting unexpectedly groped, just as Jim has. I am fairly certain I have never been on the giving end because I don’t even give out compliments to people for fear of it being misconstrued as an advance.
I have never said that women should accept the behavior. There are soooo many assumption being made about my intentions. Too many for me to refute.
“I never said or implied any of those things.”
Yes, you did. You said it in your initial post, right here:
” If cons are meant to foster an acceptance of everyone, how can you place limits on their behavior? ”
You were arguing that you can’t tell people not to behave certain ways. That is, frankly, insane and counterproductive, and as others have pointed out, not placing limits on behavior is exactly the kind of thing that fosters an atmosphere of harassment. You HAVE to limit behavior if you want to eliminate creeps.
^Yes.
So I am the friend Rob speaks of, *waves*. Yes I did wear a corset at the convention while wandering around room parties and such, and yes I did receive attention. I think it can be assumed that if you are well endowed and you wear a corset that you are going to attract attention from others. The things left out of the original post and the comments were that I mostly wore that corset because it made me feel good about myself and I thoroughly enjoyed wearing it. I am known as a very outgoing person, I have no problem talking to new people, especially at conventions. That being said, there were plenty of creepy moments at ConFusion this year. One in specific was a guy rubbing my shoulders without any invitation while my boyfriend was standing next to me, all because I had a conversation with him ( without any flirting on my end). It got creepier after that until I had to address it and walk away. Lucky for me, I am thick-skinned and have no problem telling someone off if I have to, but not everyone is comfortable doing so and that is why I think that all creepers, men and women alike, need to figure out how to act socially acceptable with others, especially at conventions where people dress up in fun costumes and outfits and are having a good time. Rule number one being do not touch unless you are given consent.
Basically, watch this for starters if you think you are bordering on creep-tastic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=U2Df2AihAao
That’s a great video.
Great video. Thanks for the link.
*waves back* Thanks for clarifying Kristin. I was trying to make a point that some attention is good and some can be creepy, but I fear that message got lost due to my unwillingness to share all the details.
Jim,
I kinda sensed that the question was planned. I never thought that you were calling him out. I just think Pat was surprised by the response he got. I think he wanted to provoke thought and discussion, but he sensed that it would be a losing endeavor in that environment (not to mention the lack of time). I just seemed that Pat was made out to be the bad guy when I think that he holds similar beliefs when it comes to equality for all.
Ohhh, reddit… Bad reference. There are some sick people out there. I was just trying to highlight the fact that some times, people can’t win. For example, if men are confident and pay a women a compliment, they are chauvinist and only care about her body. If they don’t compliment her looks, they are uncaring. If men cry during a heart wrenching movie, they are pansies, if they don’t they are heartless. If we don’t hold the door for women, we are rude. If we do, we place women on a pedestal and are sexist. The same goes for women. If they stay at home and raise their kids, they are letting men stifle their abilities and dictate to role in society, if they work outside the home they are bad mothers who are more focused on their careers than their kids. If they wear revealing clothes, they are sluts. If they don’t they are prudes. See what I mean? Too many absolutes when we all know that these assumption are not reality.
I agree that there is a difference between flirting and harassment. I never meant to imply that their wasn’t. Creeps are creeps are creeps.
I agree with you regarding acceptance of people at cons. There are certain unacceptable behaviors that are universal, regardless of the crowd or event. I was just attempting to keep people from jumping from one extreme to the other and make people think before they jumped on the bandwagon.
I am going to reiterate a point I made earlier.
I’m a cosplayer, and while the costumes I wear give everyone, men and women, the invitation to look, a corset (nor any other form of revealing attire) is neither an invitation to touch nor a display of goods for sale or rent. A compliment is one thing. An expression that the other party finds me attractive and would be interested in getting to know me is acceptable, as long as my answer–whatever that may be–is respected. (That goes for guys too. I know guys who have been followed and harassed.)
However, if the comment or “compliment” is made in a lewd or sexually aggressive/derogatory/demeaning way where not explicitly invited (any manner of dress does not count as an invitation), that’s unacceptable.
I agree that conventions should be a place where people who are polyamorous or into BDSM etc. should be welcome. That does not, however, give anyone permission to assume that any or all other people at the convention will be comfortable with that sort of behavior.
It’s not hard. As John Green says: Use your words.
Introduce yourself. Indicate you find him/her attractive. If that goes well, express interest in him/her. If that goes well, ask if he/she’s into whatever it is you’re into. If at any point the response is negative, for the love of all that is awesome about conventions, STOP.
“Introduce yourself. Indicate you find him/her attractive. If that goes well, express interest in him/her. If that goes well, ask if he/she’s into whatever it is you’re into. If at any point the response is negative, for the love of all that is awesome about conventions, STOP.”
And therein lies the key. When the boundaries of acceptable behavior are fuzzy, people just need to learn when to STOP when it is apparent the behavior is not welcome. That is the essential skill that creepers either lack or choose to ignore.
That is true. Many creepers lack the ability to see that line or choose to ignore it, which is why having an open dialog about creeping (like this) is so important–ignoring it ain’t going to make it go away.
When the boundaries of acceptable behavior are fuzzy, especially when it comes to anything that might jeopardize someone else’s sense of personal safety, I think the best thing to do is back off rather than push one’s luck.
That said, the first time I attended a convention “by myself”, I still knew a large number of the people who were there because we were all podcast fiction folk. I invited some attention, turned other attention away. I was groped, and let the guy know it wasn’t okay. I was backed up on that point, and the guy apologized to me publicly and privately over twitter. If he was fuzzy on the boundaries before, he surely isn’t now and I doubt he wants to feel that kind of embarrassment again.
That said, it’s nice to know there other other folks at con who will drop everything to back up an almost-stranger. Nobody stepped in and put me behind them, which is good, since I didn’t feel so much threatened as that the guy had overstepped a line. I think it’s great that, even though these uncomfortable situations happen, there are always folks around who will help out.
Ah, but the solution doesn’t just lie in stopping when the behavior is evidently unwelcome (as in, girl or guy withdraws and flinches or ignores your attention). It lies in stopping when your behavior is not openly welcomed. A friendly conversation without sexual innuendo is great, as is light flirting. But if the person you’re talking to ignores, skips over, or simply doesn’t return your flirtatious behavior? Stop. Be friendly if it still feels comfortable, but stop right there. There will be someone else to flirt with, someone who will be much more receptive.
Summary (also, here be minor DS9 spoilers!): if you find someone attractive and want to talk/flirt/whatever with them, it’s fairly safe to say “Wow, that’s an awesome outfit. You look great in it. How’d you make it? [or something else interesting, like the character they're cosplaying or whatever happens to be near, or whatever]” If they don’t react like Leeta* does to Rom* before the two of them finally admit they’re in love*, stop. Do not pass go. Let them make the next move, if they want to, or just keep up light conversation because, hey, friends are great. People you meet anywhere, no matter how they dress or act or whatever, owe you nothing – not flirting, not friendliness, and certainly nothing more than that.
* – See http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Doctor_Bashir,_I_Presume_(episode) if you don’t get it.
^^^^ This.
” His inevitable failure was evident when he asked the room for a simple show of hands from everyone who “likes looking at beautiful people” and only about 2% did (including my wife and I). What this told me is 98% of the people in that room were liars who were caught up in the moment.”
More likely it means that they are not stupid and can recognize a leading question when they see it. Also that they were annoyed enough at a man defending a calendar full of imaginary sexualised women deciding that suddenly he was going to talk about people – and beautiful ones at that, as if the issue was with how pretty they were, not with the combination of gender and objectification.
Not raising your hand at such a rhetorical question does not necessarily mean that you are saying “no” to the question. When we are talking about audience members it’s more often a sign of overall disapproval. Of refusing to engage with someone that they don’t feel is engaging with them honestly or fairly.
Considering the arguments he’s used to defend the calendar in the past, this would not shock me in the least.
I can see why you would feel that way, but it is good to remember that not everyone shares your views. Like I was told a friend of mine that is very opinionated is very set in his ways, “Your perfect world is one where everyone agrees with you, correct? (Yes, I know, thats a leading question too) He said enthusiastically, “YUP!”. I told him that my idea of a perfect world is where EVERYONE understands and is ok with the fact that not everyone shares their believes or values.
I whole heartily agree with the purpose of Jim’s cause, but I also understand that there will be some people (women included) who are ok with with the status quo.
I’m pretty sure everyone in this conversation is very well aware that not everyone shares their views. At least, I’ve seen nothing to suggest otherwise.
Not trying to speak for everyone else, but in reading through the comments, I don’t think anyone is trying to say that we all have to think and believe the same things. They are saying that people need to respect boundaries, and that if you’re harassing people, there should be consequences for that behavior.
Yes, this. Some folk at cons should grow some tact. Or perhaps, a conscience. There shouldn’t need to be succinct rules telling you the basic precepts of society…
honestly, if a written list of rules is what it takes to convince creepers to keep their hands, personal space, and unsolicited opinions to themselves, let’s grab some butcher paper for the con suite. Maybe get a sky writer. I’ll spring for the sharpies.
Absolutely. I just wish more people would actually grow a conscience or a bit of empathy and understand that their actions have consequences. Use the big brain, not the little one. There’s a difference between being flattering and a jerk. Thankfully, even when I’m published, I’m not Misery material. But my wife want, no idea why, and I’m good with that.
Aww and here I was thinking we could just use the Sharpies and write “CREEPER” on their foreheads, a la “Snow Crash”.
I forgot to include that I think you would have been pleasantly surpised by Pat’s views if he had shared them fully. He just understood that it was not the time or place for it.
Also, beauty is subjective. You make it seem like he was being piggish by bringing up beautiful people.
Part of the issue is, you don’t want to drive away the women of geekdom from cons. They’re awesome!
I understand that “put on a pedestal” comment that women gave on reddit, but there are better ways to do it. More chivalrous ways. Those stalkerish guys, the macho, overconfident, condescending, shark in the waters sort of guys? I’ve known them. They’re typically in it for the short sell. I put my wife on a pedestal all the time, because she deserves it. And I did when she wasn’t my wife. But I also didn’t treat her like a fine piece of meat in a butcher shop case. Or someone that I could bang that could get me what I wanted. That’s not a pedestal. That’s objectification. I’ve flirted before. People like to feel like they’re being paid some attention to, but there’s a line. And crossing that line could get you made a pariah at future cons due to word of mouth, or worse. Especially if those women are established writers in their own right or agents, or editors, or shop owners, etc, etc. And how to tell? There’s a chasm of difference here between compliments/flirting, and downright harassment, which is the crux, I believe, of what Jim’s posting about. Know the limitations, and know when no means go the heck away and don’t come back because you’re giving me the creeps now.
Agreed.
I’m pretty sure that the cons should NOT be accepting of everyone. I don’t want to go to cons where murderers, rapist, pedophiles, thugs, etc. are welcome. If I guy can’t figure out that making lewd comments or advances to a stranger is wrong than he should not attend cons. If I guy doesn’t understand the word “no” than he should not attend cons. These guys could get some education on how to behave appropriately. A simple socially challenged nerd/geek is not the problem. It’s men using sex as power and blaming those behaviors on the women “asking for it” that are the problem. And there is no way to know if the guy harassing you might be a rapist and reason to believe he might if he can’t understand no.
Wow, I guess I should specifically excluded criminals when I said everyone. I didn’t think is was necessary in a rational discussion, but it is the internet after-all.
As I pointed out bully/harassing behavior can lead to criminal behavior rape, stalking, violence. By saying behavior that objectifies and harms women is acceptable because “some women don’t mind it” or “find it funny” you set up cons to be a place where criminal behavior may be believed to be acceptable because you’ve condoned socially unacceptable behavior towards women. And yes as a women when being harassed/bullied I do worry about the behavior going into the criminal as it happens.
Again, I never said that behavior that objectifies and harms women is acceptable. All I was saying is that some women seek out POSITIVE attention from males and visa versa. I never said they seek out CREEPY attention. There is a HUGE difference.
As a matter of fact, you were the one who specifically included criminals when you said In the “real world” they are required to march to the same drum as everyone else. If cons are meant to foster an acceptance of everyone, how can you place limits on their behavior? Don’t get me wrong, I still believe that there are boundaries that need to be enforced, but sometimes those boundaries are very gray. Especially to a congregation of people who, on the aggregate, are not known to fit society’s opinion of “normal”. To put it another way, a convention can be a place where someone who is normally excluded from participating in social activities due to their perceived differences can gather with others who they know will be accepting of them, regardless of their social awkwardness.
You may not be aware but a very high percentage of the objectionable behaviour at cons which gets swept under the umbrella term “harassment” includes criminal behaviour of one sort or another, including sexual assault, common assault and battery. The fact that it rarely results in complaints to the police and virtually never results in convictions is for a whole host of reasons, including
- most people regard the law and still more the criminal law as the last resorts for problem solving, not the first port of call
- if victims are (justifiably) nervous about the kick-back of making any response, however mild, from the con community and the pressures are particularly strong when that response is a criminal complaint
- evidential issues including problems of identification and reluctance of witnesses to be drawn in
- the very factors you mention of lack of conformity to social norms making complaints from people in that group less likely to be taken seriously by law enforcement
- historic lack of effective enforcement of allegations of sexual crimes by law enforcement generally
- transience of victim and harasser in location of crime – if both of them have travelled several hundred or indeed thousand miles to attend a con from two different states or conceivably sovereign territory the difficulties of a successful prosecution are increased several hundred-fold
etc, etc.
In any event, you’re perpetuating the myth that harassers harass because they can’t read social cues. This is simply not born out by relevant scientific evidence. See the studies linked here
Or, if that’s too much work, just consider this simple example.
How many men when hearing this from a friend “Where do you want to go to watch the match? There’s a great deal on lager at Benjy’s and they’ve just installed new wide screen TVs, but I suppose we could go to the Nag’s Head as usual” have any doubt which bar the speaker prefers? And yet, the very same men are supposed to get all confused about what communication is intended when a woman they’ve been pestering at a con all evening leaves their vicinity on five separate occasions, retreats to the loo for half an hour at a time, surrounds herself by a defensive wall of female friends three deep and, finally, when pressed for her phone number hands over -scrawled in leaky biro on the slimy side of an individual butter pat wrapper from the buffet – a number which turns out to be that of a Domino’s pizza in an industrial district on the far side of the county which closed down three years ago.
BLACKOUT BINGO!
Rob B.: “I know this sounds like I am perpetuating the false “she asked for it” view, but I am really not.”
Yeah, you really are. You’re saying, if you are female and cosplay, you should put up with guys coming on to you because you are just asking for it. You are saying that women should be treated according to what they wear and what activities they participate in. If they are dressed in what you think is a slutty way and doing slut-like activities, then men are going to hit on them and the women should put up with it. Also, that women who do cosplay are doing so because they are sluts who like sexual attention from men, so of course they should put up with it, (no matter how threatening it may be to their personal safety.) Now I’m sure that you would never think of your friend as a “slut,” except that’s how you’re thinking of your friend. And you’re insisting that since she handled it one way and expressed certain sentiments to you, that’s how all women should have to react. So you are really saying “she’s asking for it” which is an argument about female cosplayers we’ve been hearing all year. Because then it’s all the woman’s fault, never the man and the man doesn’t have to think about or change his behavior so that the woman cosplayers can simply enjoy the con.
“but it could be said that people gather at these cons to escape the societal norms present in their everyday life.”
Yes, it is for many people a societal norm that a woman is a human being who should not be forced to interact with people against her consent at a recreational con. Look, if you want to go to a con to hook up with a fellow S&M enthusiast, fine. But that doesn’t mean that the female cosplayer or anyone else actually is a S&M enthusiast and that harassing her will get you some fun time. Social and sexual interests you may have at a con does not take preference over my getting to experience the con my way just because I’m female.
“someone who is normally excluded from participating in social activities due to their perceived differences can gather with others who they know will be accepting of them, regardless of their social awkwardness.”
This is a Bob is being Bob argument. The women have to be accepting of behavior that threatens, bothers and spoils the con experience for them, but the men should not have to feel icky ever. The assumption that any woman must be accepting of what you want because she is also at the con is a large part of the problem and what allows creepers to do all the stuff they like to do.
“So with that knowledge, how does a convention attendee who may already lack self confidence (I know, gross generalization) act when on one hand they are told that almost any advance of a sexual nature will be frowned upon, but on the other hand they know that there are many people who attend cons in order to receive that kind of attention? It is quite the conundrum.”
Your argument here is that some women may be looking to hook up at a con, and (most) are not. Because some might be willing to hook up at a con, all women at the con must not be upset if they are sexually harassed as if they wanted to hook-up, because it’s just too hard to treat all women like individual human beings. Instead, we must treat them all as sexual objects and potential sex partners and if they are not, well they just should be okay with the mistake and not make the guy who made them feel icky feel icky over it. Which is pretty much the whole of sexist culture in a nutshell.
“agree that some go too far with their advances and am in no way defending harassers, but the only solution to the problem is to completely sterilize conventions and make them no different from any other social situation that many in fandom loath due to the inherent limitations placed on them by having to meet the lowest common denominator of societies (prudish) views of acceptable behavior.”
This is known as the men should not have to restrain their sexual desires and women should be okay with them being forced on them because they are women defense. Also known as the everything allowed but rapists argument. Because if men have to be conscious of their behavior at cons and treat women as individuals, not potential sex partners, then they won’t have a good time. The convention will be “sterile,” i.e. men can’t do what they want to women at the convention in pursuit of sex. Nobody worries if the women have a good time, or feel safe, or get to do the activities they wanted to do without having to worry if men regard this as a sexual invitation. Men’s needs come first, women get to suck it. And that is the societal norm. Which apparently women don’t get to escape at the con.
Look, you’re a nice guy who’s married, but in trying to defend that the men’s needs should take preference over the women’s at the con and that all women should be open to sexual advances because some women there might be horny or because they are wearing a costume for a costume competition, you are taking the position that boils down to “men want, women shut up.” Men are people whose needs get to be met and women are not people and definitely not individuals but those who must accommodate male needs whatever they may be and just short of the rapey-thing. Because it’s a social setting. And in social settings, men apparently are in charge. So you might want to think about it.
Think about it in terms of having an 18-year-old daughter. She puts on a costume because she wants to compete with a team in a competition at a con. She’s not there for S&M group sex, even if some people are. Men harass her, make sexual suggestions, grab her breasts, get angry and tell her she’s a slut because she’s wearing a costume when she’s upset and tells them to leave her alone. She gives up trying to do the contest and comes home from the con early in tears. And your response is, “Well, what did you expect when you wore a costume? Of course they thought you wanted sex. And I bet you enjoyed their attention, even if you didn’t act like it. You shouldn’t be so upset with them. They probably just are socially awkward nerds or unconventionalists trying to escape societal norms at the convention. They didn’t do anything really bad to you. You’re over-reacting. You should have been nice to them.” To your daughter. What then are you telling her about what her place in the world is supposed to be as a young woman? What are you telling her about how to behave with men out in the world? You’re telling her to defer to men, watch what she wears and put up with sexual harassment so as not to hurt the feelings of men. You’re telling her she isn’t a person with any rights at all, even if she doesn’t wear a costume. Men will touch her and say things to her and this is good and fine and she should let them without objection, and even be flattered. Because she’s female and that is apparently, according to you, her job.
This isn’t “hate.” I’m trying to point out what you are actually saying about women that you don’t even realize you’re saying. Put simply, if it is a choice between a “sterile” convention where men don’t get to harass women, or women being treated as men’s play-toys whether they want it or not, then I will take sterile, thanks. Because in the sterile one I apparently get to be a human being even though I have boobs.
Wow, thanks for lumping me in with the a-holes. You misinterpreted my post. I in no way agree with everything that goes on at a con and I don’t think that problem behavior should be ignored or allowed.
The intent of my post was not to rationalize or excuse the behavior. It was only intended to spur further conversation. Mission accomplished.
I’ll get back to your other arguments after I eat dinner.
I didn’t lump you in with the a-holes — that’s the point. You made the same arguments that many perfectly reasonable men make, and you weren’t even making them wholeheartedly. The problem is that you aren’t saying what you think you are saying. I didn’t misinterpret your post — I pointed out what your statements were actually saying for women. And you can either spend your time defending yourself against what you think are accusations of a-holery, thereby making it all about you and ignoring the issues that women face, or you could consider that what you said put women in a position of being potential sex partners first, people second, when it really is the other way around and usually only the human being part. Women are not in charge of agendas that con participants have, whether it’s sitting around in a bar talking to people, joining a tiddlywinks competition at the con or going to a sex party with trapezes. Women are not in charge of the agendas, interests and beliefs of other women, nor do those other beliefs then get to represent them or be the excuse for guys hitting on them. Women are not in charge of making sure all the straight men participants in the con get to hit on them freely and without censure or consequences. Basically all the things you brought up are pretty irrelevant to the whole issue, and they are all focused on the needs of men at the expense of women con participants.
My daughter’s generation is very different from mine, as mine was from my mother’s. They dress sexy and they don’t accept that means they are offering sex. They put up with a lot less insistence that they be nice, accommodating women. And the young guys are more likely to “white knight” stand up for their right to be that way. There are young women who aren’t that way and frat boys who still think it’s the fifties — but there are fewer of them. And if we avoid the Atwood dystopias that some want to have, there will be fewer of them every year. And the young women get called bitches, etc., for speaking up, but they also get called oversensitive, unreasonable, not sufficiently nice in tone, etc., by not a-holes but perfectly nice men — because they are not being accommodating to the needs of men, because their views of what is “problem behavior” are deemed not sufficiently narrow, not sufficiently gray about say touching them, hitting on them, and following them around. And that knocks some of them back a bit, but most of them get back up again, and again, more and more will each year. Which means when you start babbling about corsets and some women liking sexual attention from men and unconventional escaping from societal norms, more and more people are going to see you as not an a-hole, but as clueless about what you’re thinking women should simply accept. So clueless, in fact, that you may not even get that you are asking women to accept the behavior.
For SFFH writers, this issue is going to have a bigger and bigger impact. Most fans who go to conventions are deep fans who read and talk about a lot of books. They are what in the book business are called persons of influence, since fiction is predominantly sold through word of mouth, and they are often given the early scoop in hopes that if they like a book, it will build good buzz. And at this point, about 50% of those persons of influence, if not more given all the females in poor money book publishing, are women. And fiction authors are also symbiotic — they help each other sell, which is why we have conventions at all. So, with each year, male SFFH authors who creep at conventions are cutting down more and more opportunities for good buzz, even without guys like Jim. And with the younger male fans, that behavior gets less and less acceptable too. Can they surmount it? Yes, very possibly. But with each year, it’s going to get harder.
KatG,
I agree with your views on sexism and the crap that women have to deal with. Maybe in my enthusiasm for discussing the issues I inadvertently drew the wrong attention to it. I never meant to marginalize the experiences of women regarding sexual harassment or their place in this world. Quite the opposite actually. I was actually hoping to discuss how to solve the issues at conventions. I wasn’t asking anyone to accept any type of behavior. Sometimes its not about having all the answers, but about asking the right questions. I am glad that my post spawned this discussion.
Rob B. “I never meant to marginalize the experiences of women regarding sexual harassment or their place in this world.”
Yeah, we knew that; that’s why we didn’t actually think you were an a-hole.
The biggest way to change the situation at conventions is unfortunately slow, but it works — keep talking about it and don’t back down on why it’s a problem. And go right at the people who run the conventions with that conversation, who cannot prevent everything but who can run a con with a culture that the con’s main purpose is not to serve as a hook-up service or excuse men who use it that way, however nice or prominent those men are. So Jim is going to get a lot of crap for saying what he says, for being angry about that behavior, but he keeps talking about it. It takes a lot of effort because it’s making people, men and women, look at things that they don’t want to look at, in ways that may require them to change some of their behavior, and in ways that treat women as human beings who can yell, rather than as biddable sweet things who need harassment explained to them. (Or for that matter, that in the majority they are vicious manipulators who exaggerate to harm men.) It’s very risky, physically, for women to do, and certainly it’s not a requirement that women do it. But like water making canyons out of what seemed immovable sheer rock, it cumulatively, gradually changes things so that women do have more equal status as human beings, and can more more freely about the cabin.
I’d like to point out that none of this is new to us. Every time this subject comes up, multiple people drag out the ‘for further discussion’ points you are. In fact it came up so often in the Readercon debates I’m surprise we don’t have a three letter acronym for it yet.
You seem like you’re an ok guy, and I am not intending to be mean or to start a fight, but when women talk about this subject, you may want to really pay attention to what they are saying. They have been socialized from the moment they were born in a way you never even saw. Even before birth now, I guess. I’m not saying you can’t grasp what the experience may be like, but you’re not acting like you’ve seen it here, and I think these people are being very kind and patient trying to explain it to you. Have you read Schrodinger’s Rapist? I’m not bringing it up because we’re talking about rape (though we are on that continuum) but that the article explains how differently women seen things than men do, in a really straight forward way, and if you can see how different that is, maybe you could just believe some of these women say.
And bringing up the socially awkward nerd, and the non-conformists who want to be free of societal who-sis isn’t a lead in to more discussion, it’s a way to get some people to reiterate something that’s been talked to death until you understand it. These are not new issues, they are not new ideas, they are defenses we have seen over and over from people who don’t want to have to change. I’m not saying that’s what you’re doing, but you are using their arguments, that’s why you’re getting lumped in with them.
I can understand where you are coming from. I did not participate in the Readercon discussion (but I was aware of the uproar it created), so if I am bringing up topics or arguments that have already been discussed, I apologize. I also should have made it more clear that the problem didn’t need to be explained to me.
I have read many books on the subject of socialization of the sexes and the different ways men and women view the world. As you said, it is not new to me. With that said, aren’t men also socialized since the day they are born? Couldn’t the problem stem from there? If so, what more can be done that doesn’t create a boring homogenized world? Our differences (even of opinion) are what make this world worth living in.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PEOPLE, I NEVER SAID HARASSMENT WAS OK!!!!! OR THAT WOMEN SHOULD BE OBJECTIFIED!!! OR THAT THEY SHOULD BE OK WITH IT!!! OK THAT IT SHOULD BE IGNORED!!! OR THAT WOMEN ASK FOR IT!!! OR THAT MENS NEEDS COME FIRST!!!! I should have know this would go badly when someone assumed “everyone” included rapist, murders and thugs. Oh the joy of internet conversations with strangers.
I seem to have riled up the feminist when if people actually knew me they would understand that I whole heartily support feminism up to the point where it tries to place women above men. At that point, they are just as evil as the male with a superiority complex.
Rob – I’m not sure what you mean about riling up the feminist, but may I suggest that this would be a good time to step away from the internet for a while?
I’m not necessarily a feminist so much as a humanist and feel all should be treated with the respect they deserve. No matter gender. Or attributes.
Thank you! I almost said I am a humanist, but there are too many meanings to that term so I didn’t.
My meaning of humanist is that all of us are of one race, no matter gender, color, nationality, religion, sexual preference, clothing type, etc, and are all worthy of my respect, unless they show me otherwise.
Agreed. That is my view of it as well.
As a side note: it sure seems like you are using “feminist” as a perjorative here. “Riled up the feminist” is rarely perceived as a complimentary turn of phrase. If a feminist (or many feminists,) are telling you that your words are coming across as sexist, then ask yourself how you “heartily support feminism?” And please explain how any of this conversation places women ABOVE men? Those evil feminists… always trying to get equal rights, how dare they. Maybe they need to just chill out and see it from the man’s side.
My apologies, Jim and Stacey. It was not intended that way. It was not meant as a pejorative at all. I feel that ALL should have equal rights. I just don’t like people making assumptions about me because I choose to offer a different view point, but I also can’t correctly articulate my thoughts in this medium.
Maybe you need to look at why you are getting the response you are. Reread your original post. Read the comments especially from KatG where she pulled quotes and explained what those phrases sound like. Sit down with a few female friends and go over your original comment and ask them for help in stating what you mean so you don’t sound like you are saying its ok or women are asking for it. One thing I’ve learned is that if people are misunderstanding me I need to look at how I wrote something and also ask myself tough questions about what I really think.
But whenever you find yourself saying things like “I know this sounds like/seems” 99% of the time that should be a hint NOT to say it. Frankly I can’t figure out how to read your comment:
” I know this sounds like I am perpetuating the false “she asked for it” view, but I am really not. What I am saying is that some actually DO ask for it, even if they do not intend on acting on the advances.”
BUT “some women ask for it” .
So I’m sorry if we took your comments wrong but that is why choosing your words carefully when knowing you are going to post something controversial is so important.
Understood. What I meant by that sentence was that some women seek positive attention from men. Not that they ask to be harassed.
Yeah I don’t think anything you think you meant came across at all the way you wanted. I really do suggest you look at the language your using in the original comment and your responses and take some time to figure out how you could have written the comments in a positive way that could have been heard. The only way to get better in this medium is to work at it.
When I have something important to say that I’m concerned will be taken wrong I write an offline draft, I take 24 hours to think about reworking the draft, then I have 1 or more people read it and tell me what they think before posting. It’s done wonders for my being better understood on the Internet.
For other helpful hints you might want to check out http://tasha-turner.com/intelligent-poster/
I don’t like people making assumptions about me, either, but that very seldom stops them, especially when it’s a guy talking about women’s issues. What you seem to be saying is that you’re all for feminism — equal rights for both genders — but if you think a woman is being uppity about it, she’s a riled up feminist and that’s bad. It’s a polite way of telling a woman she’s being a bitch because she made you feel bad. And the implication is that women better not be bitches and say those things to you. Which is not exactly equality, is it? You get to natter on about how some women like getting hit on, using as an example your friend who then came forward to say that actually she didn’t like getting hit on. And we’re supposed to discuss it, but only the way that you want to discuss it, apparently. Again, this issue is not how you feel about how women express their concerns or complain about what you said. It’s about what women have to put up with at cons. And the fact that some women jump guys’ bones at conventions, or don’t mind or at least put up with without complaint men looking at them at conventions, is actually utterly irrelevant to that issue. But you thought it was relevant and so you might want to think about why it was so important to you to bring it up and in the terms that you did. You might want to think that maybe your bringing up that some women seek out or like sexual attention from men at conventions was indeed implying that it’s reasonable for guys to hit on them/harass them because some women might like it. The things you are bringing up are things that women in these discussions have heard hundreds of times before and they’re all used as arguments that women are going overboard on this sexual harassment area and maybe should be nicer and accommodating to groups of men judged by men to be okay guys in their behavior. If you meant it differently, you really, really did not make that anyway clear. And if you have a script that there are bunches of feminists trying to vault women over men and that better be put down right now, harumph, I’m not inclined to buy the just raising conversation line.
This is beautiful. I’ve heard the “I’m a nice guy, so don’t take this the wrong way, but here’s how you’re totally wrong about what you girls think is harassment” argument so many times, but this is the best response I’ve seen yet. My response is a little less sophisticated, ie: Instead of “short skirts make men have rapeythoughts, so girls shouldn’t wear short skirts,” why not “if men can’t control their rapeythoughts when they see short skirts, they shouldn’t go where they can see short skirts.”
Rob, judging by your responses to people’s responses to your original post, I don’t think you’re getting why your original post feels like more of the same apologism we constantly hear on behalf of harassers and stalkers. Here is why it feels so gross.
We women are not stupid. We know the difference between the well-meaning, socially awkward guy and the guy who is purposefully, actively harassing us. If anything, we’re more likely to excuse the bad behavior of the real creeps because we’ve been socially conditioned from the first day we sprouted breasts to accept that as normal behavior. When we go to our friends, or to authorities if there are anti-harassment policies in place, we are not misunderstanding a well-intentioned but awkward advance. We are dealing with someone who refuses to take no for an answer, and even the most socially awkward person in the world knows the meaning of the word “no.” The word is so basic, it’s the same or similar in many languages- “NO.”
“I feel the need to caution you in your efforts to chastise people for their behavior at a con.”
Herein lies the problem. You are coming on to a comment thread where the subject is Jim’s *ahem* “hypothetically” shunning an author who harassed his friend. Not shunning a socially awkward dude who wasn’t sure when to back off, but someone who was actively making his friend uncomfortable. In this situation, since NO ONE was suggesting that we need to shun the socially awkward people who “just don’t know any better,” (though, given the amount of discussion this topic has had on the internet, that pool of people who “just don’t know any better” is surely shrinking) your post is of course going to be interpreted as apologizing on behalf of harassers who hide behind “social awkwardness” to get away with predatory behavior.
I guarantee you, the people we are complaining about know what the fuck they’re doing.
“Bring on the hate”
Oh, I get it now. Trolling. Having fun?
High five! Good to know karma still bites people back.
Mr Jim “The WHite Knight” Hines, you remain one of the most amazing people on earth. Thank you for this post.
For me personally (and I speak only for me, not anyone else of any gender)I usually don’t mind the initial advance within reason. If I am at a social event (especially in certain costumes), if a person wants to approach me in a civilized (no touching, no derogatory terms etc.) manner I usually don’t mind. It’s once an individual is turned down or rebuffed and than they won’t leave you alone, or makes an initially innappropriate approach that it becomes not ok for me. I especially hate it when I say no to a person and that person then starts to make disparaging remarks on the reason I turned them down or just won’t take no for an answer, that is unnacceptable. Also, unless you know me and I give you permission, please don’t physically touch me, that is always creepy. Sorry about the spelling/grammer errors
I forgot to add I love your books, can’t wait to start Libromancer and think you are an amazing human being for trying to make all of humanity as equal as any one person can do Thanks!
I have never read any of your books or your blog, but I will start doing so now! I found this post via one of my favorite authors, Faith Hunter. It is so refreshing to find a male with such a refreshing way of bringing attention to this matter without sounding too pious.
I look forward to reading some of your books. Any suggestions on where to start?
Thanks, Seabeegirl! Another commenter asked the same thing upstream, so I’m going to cheat and just copy/paste that response.
Goblin Quest would be good if you like humorous send-ups of some of your typical fantasy cliches … The Stepsister Scheme if you want a fairy tale retelling with Snow White as a witch and Sleeping Beauty as a martial artist … and Libriomancer is my latest, and is about a magic librarian from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula who kills sparkling vampires, among other things. I’ve got previews of everything linked from the main page of the site.
Jim, the one thing that really disappoints me: you leave your rapier in storage??? For shame, sir, for shame.
I have a very curious but not all that coordinated seven-year-old…
I understand. I had a three-year old who thought he could eat a broadsword. We moved stuff higher, and by ten he was more trustworthy. Fencing lessons never start too young though, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVSn5Eogv5Q.
Jim, you aren’t a White Knight so much as… hmm… too important to be a sidekick…
A partner and ally who happens to have a bigger megaphone than the rest of us.
I also encourage you to recycle the book you mentioned. Then the paper can become something more worthy in its next life. If you donate it, the creep’s work lives on and spreads. If you throw it out, it might still be found at a dump or in a future archaeological dig. Nope, recycling it is the best use.
I think the word you are looking for is mensch. Jim deserves an honorable mensch-un.
That is indeed the word!
One other consequence of this informal network is that, as a person who helps to run a small local convention, if I somehow come into the knowledge that this particular author has engaged in harassment then I will be telling my fellow con programming people. We definitely want to ensure that our con is a safe space for all attendees. And then that author has one fewer place at which to promote his latest book.
Thank you! I can usually quell the creepers with a stern look or sharp word, but by far the biggest help is usually being told by others (especially other men… and most especially other men who are prominent in our geeky corner of the world) that it is NOT ok. So thank you for being all white-knight-like today, and for your long memory about the creeper’s actions.
Well this is certainly a lively blog post. I agree with pretty much everyone here to some extent. Should men feel that they have the right to harass a woman simply because she’s at a Con, or wearing a costume, or a corset? Absolutely not. And as a woman, I feel like if I say no or stop, that should be the end of it. As we know, there are some men who just don’t get it, or who chose to ignore it for whatever reason. I don’t feel that wearing a revealing outfit excuses bad behavior or that women are asking for NEGATIVE attention when they wear something that makes them feel better about themselves. At the same time, I am a realist. If I put on a corset or a cute outfit or a costume, it’s because it makes me feel better about myself…WHY does it make me feel better? Because it LOOKS GOOD! I feel better about myself when I like the way I look. That’s just human nature. It’s also human nature to notice OTHER people who look good. What I think looks good and what you think looks good may not be the same thing…but if you deny that you enjoy beauty, you’re a liar. If you walk around in public wearing a whole lot of nothing, people will notice. Men will probably hit on you. That is to be expected regardless of how you may feel about it. As a woman, you KNOW this. If you didn’t want ANY attention and you were truly ONLY wearing it for yourself, you would wear your lovely outfit in the privacy of your own room, and sit admiring yourself in the mirror. I don’t think leaving your room and wearing whatever you want means that you’re asking for some creeper to get all handsy with you…I do think it means that you understand that people are probably going to look…some of them will come talk to you…some of them might even ask if they can touch you (honestly, a con is the ONLY place I have EVER heard a man ask permission to touch a woman). The question is, HOW do you enforce a line of what’s acceptable and what isn’t in this type of event where so many people’s lines are in a different place? I think that was Rob’s point. I believe he was intending to spark a conversation about HOW this can be addressed. There is certainly never any reason for a man to touch a woman without her permission no matter when, where, or why. When a woman says no, she means no…end of story. (Realistically, this issue goes both ways. I don’t feel like a woman should be able to walk around groping every guy that walks by with no consequences. If we’re all talking equality here, why has no one else mentioned this? There are some pretty creepy women out there too.) I know Rob B, and he would be the first person to step in if some creeper wasn’t taking no for an answer. He is actually quite the opposite of how he comes across here. I’m sure there are many of you who will disagree with me…but this is the way the world is at this point in time. I am all for trying to change the status quo, but denying it won’t help accomplish that. Whether you agree or disagree with my assessment, this is our reality in 2013. It’s the reason why more and more books are being released every day with women in ridiculous poses wearing clothing that barely covers their naughty bits…and people buy them.
I agree with you on a couple points: 1)When Kristin (my lovely girlfriend) left the room with a corset on, she did and should have expected a certain level of admiration, 2) I really do believe that it is human nature to appreciate beauty, but it needs to be done respectably. She should not have had to expect to be followed around, leered at, or made to feel uncomfortable in any way, let alone have to expect to be hit on simply because the clothing she was wearing, and especially not expect to have strangers ask to touch her (all of which happened, repeatedly). I think that most women who dress up in revealing clothing know all of these things will happen, and that is the problem, and instead of passively aggressively accusing people of being out of touch with reality if that isn’t something they can accept, we should be discussing how to change it, and quite simply, that means not making excuses for the poor nerds with no social skills, and making them aware that their behavior is not acceptable. I know my girlfriend, she is tougher than most, there was nothing she couldn’t handle, but not everyone is cut from the same cloth as her (myself included) and I think it’s a really unfair expectation that women be expected to “handle” anything. It’s not a burden we ask of men. I think a HUGE misconception that’s been perpetuated in some of these posts is that boundaries are “gray” at conventions. Social norms and boundaries are exactly the same at a convention as they are in any other social situation, specific to the individual, and should always be respected to an extreme. It’s a true statement that when a woman says no, it means no, but for God’s sake, don’t make her say no. If you want to know if you can touch her, you have to take the time to say hi, get to know her, flirt, see if she reciprocates etc, the same thing that happens in male-female relationships anywhere else. Anything short of that is harassment and despite being a reality in 2013, shouldn’t be condoned. The convention is not a magical place where social norms disappear, it is a place where, in appropriate situations, they can be circumnavigated. Some are harmless, like dressing up as your favorite character and not have people look at you like you’re crazy. Others, like BDSM and polyamory have to be approached very carefully so as to protect all uninterested parties (ie erotica BDSM panels, poly meetups). But to make a blanket assumption that boundaries are gray because we are at a convention is a dangerous and socially irresponsible stance.
Well said!
I think what you’re describing is what I call “the leopard in the living room fallacy” (perhaps I was overly impressed by Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby at a young age). That is, there are undoubtedly people who could cope with finding an escaped leopard in their living room and emerge unscathed and not in a state of gibbering panic. But is it reasonable to expect anyone to do so, still less expect them to do so and have their behaviour judged against that of people who aren’t having to deal with leopards in their living rooms on a daily basis?
Nick, I agree with you completely. I don’t think it’s a GOOD thing. I absolutely do NOT think these things are OKAY, and I don’t LIKE it…but that doesn’t mean they won’t happen. I was simply pointing out the absurdity of thinking that it doesn’t or won’t simply because we don’t want it to. I agree that it should be expected for regular social rules to be followed no matter the time or place. Unfortunately that doesn’t always happen. That’s true at cons, at work, at the store, and any other public place. I don’t think what someone is wearing should give people license to leer or follow or make someone uncomfortable in any way. I was simply stating that some attention is to be expected. Negative attention is never okay (which I clearly stated above) and shouldn’t be expected or condoned. If people are making me uncomfortable, I tell them to back off. At a con, if someone isn’t stopping when you tell them no, you should go report them. That sort of behavior should have consequences and said creeper should be asked to leave. I do find it kind of strange that men at cons will actually ask to touch…although personally I would prefer the awkwardness of someone asking as opposed to the voilation of him taking it upon himself to touch me without my permission. It’s a trade off. I think he should certainly put forth some effort first (talking, flirting, etc. as you said) but at least asking first gives me the opportunity to say no and have that answer be respected.
Thank you for this post. I’ve admired your blog for a while now because of posts like this, but, like several others have mentioned in the comments, have yet to read one of your books. I just bought Libriomancer. Looking forward to reading it. Cheers.
This:
is what’s currently happening in Germany regarding a politician who felt the need to comment on a female reporter’s chest. She wrote an article mentioning it and the amount of “it’s not sexism” and “why would anyone want to crack down on flirting” that’s being offered up by members of his party to protect him is remarkable.
The basic issue is that in society, men and women are trained culturally that women don’t own their own bodies and sexuality, at least not entirely — that they are not full human beings but must be sexually accessible to men. Women’s bodies are there for men to look at, and society dictates how uncomfortable women are allowed to be with sexual attention. If a guy came up to me and grabbed my purse and touched it, started going through it, that would not be considered okay. If he insisted I give him my purse and stuff, or said that he wanted it and shouldn’t I want to give it to him, and clearly I do because I have a purse that clearly people are going to want and ask for, and I’m now a bitch because I won’t hand over my stuff, all of that would be considered quite wrong by society. But if a guy comes up and touches my body, that is not considered wrong. If a guy hits on me and aggressively asks me for sex, that’s not considered wrong. I own my stuff more than I’m allowed to own my own body and sexuality because I am female and the society works on the belief — which perfectly nice, feminist men may also endorse — that women are equal and own their own stuff only to the extent where it does not inconvenience men, whereupon it’s not allowed.
The socially awkward men argument works on this theorem. And since any man might be socially awkward, women are to remain nice, accessible and receptive to all men who ask for their stuff and want their attention. This is what people mean when they talk about rape culture. It’s not about rape per se. It’s about the ingrained notion taught to both men and women that women only own their bodies and sexuality to the extent that the society feels like letting them. For a woman, going to a convention is exactly like the regular world. She doesn’t get to escape that world, throw off social conventions of proper female behavior, and indulge her inner geek on. Instead, she’s in a social place with a concentration of men who think it’s a sexual buffet and she is to allow them to try to touch her body and coerce her sexuality because she’s there and she’s female. If another male is with her, the flirter may back off because then the woman’s body is her husband or boyfriend’s property and he’s probably not going to give it to the other man. The same with a “white knight” — a male friend who asserts that he’ll protect the woman’s body and sexuality. But if the woman is alone, she’s fair game because she is not an equal and she does not own her body and sexuality. So the woman has to face each man as someone who is going to view her as potentially his property and how far he’s going to push it and whether that will include violence and rape first off, at a convention, an office, the grocery store, etc. There is no place that a woman is actually safe from anything, from rape to being asked for her sex stuff, because she is not seen as owning her body in the society.
So it’s not just a matter of shutting down the creepers and assholes who indulge in openly sexist, extreme behaviors. It’s a matter of changing the entire culture, of people’s perspectives, to a view of actual equality where women own their own bodies and sexuality. And it’s definitely better at conventions than it was when the Good Doctor went around and grabbed young women’s breasts. But not that much better, because the notion persists, and it is a notion born of power in the society, that women don’t own themselves because men want to have sex with them.
So that’s something to think about — when you are tempted to tell a woman that she’s overreacting and that the attention she’s getting is only natural and that there are grey areas about what men are allowed to do to her, consider if instead of her body you were talking about her purse and men who wanted her to give them her purse. Would you say the same things? Probably you wouldn’t.
So
Jim, as always a fine post. I honestly have a hard time expressing my admiration at your continual battle to point out the unconscious ways women are treated differently—and worse—by men, particularly within the sf/fantasy community.
That said, I have a concern about your hypothetical shunning concept, based on two personal experiences.* I’m somewhat reluctant to bring this up because I don’t want to make excuses for people who truly behave badly; nor create the impression that I believe that many people who complain about being harassed are imagining things. But there are people who imagine things. When you decide you’ll punish the alleged creeper for something you didn’t witness and didn’t discuss with the person, you make yourself a judge with only an accuser as witness. If you know the person well enough, that may be all you need (although people occasionally do horrendous things that surprise their friends). In other circumstances, I’m not so sure.
I hope you—and anyone who likes this idea—will be cautious before punishing someone without a trial. It’s easy to look at some of the horrible, even criminal, things women get exposed to and want to be a white knight. Alas, when punishment is removed from evidence, we get a downward cycle of grievances and pain.
*My experiences ended without any significant harm to me, other than a ruined night out. In one case, another employee accused my manager of singling her out as a black woman when my white manager told her (a smoker) about a new smoking policy, but not me (a non-black non-smoker). The absurdity of the claim was evident to all but the complainer. She grew up in a very racist time and place and I sympathize with her difficulties accepting that white people could treat her fairly. But with less obvious counterfactuals, could her distrust cause a lot of harm if championed by a white knight ignorant of the facts?
Another time, I had gotten tickets to a concert I knew a friend would enjoy. On the way to the venue, she wanted to get off at the wrong stop. I told her it was the next stop. She insisted I was wrong and I assured her I had been to the venue many times and was certain the next stop was the correct one. Then she began screaming very loudly. For a very long time. Why? Because she thought I assumed that, as a woman, she wouldn’t know what stop to get off. If you met her in most circumstances, you would have never imagined such a thing. Heck, I knew her fairly well and was still caught off guard by the way she turned a simple disagreement over a factual issue into a gender issue and the extent of her rage. (And for those who might look for an answer in the events early in the evening, prior to arriving at the incorrect stop, we had been having enjoyable conversation.)
In some ways, because the accusations were so obviously false and bizarre, it trivializes the real risk that we take in acting too strongly on unverified testimony. Had either accusation been more credible or the triggering event more gray, I could have found myself being reviewed by my employer or even the police.
Good grief. You do realise that your argument comes down to “Two women once behaved in a way I consider irrational which might (but in fact didn’t) have had severe consequences for me if their irrational behaviour hadn’t been obvious to everyone else and therefore no woman’s report of anything can be trusted unless it’s bolstered by sufficient independent evidence to stand up in a criminal court” don’t you?
No.
My experiences were with women, but could have just as easily been with men. The problem isn’t that two women behaved irrationally, it’s that people sometimes egregiously misunderstand. When we charge in to correct the problem, we add to the confirmation bias that lead to the misunderstanding. If we harm somebody in the name of doing justice, we damn well better make sure we’re actually serving justice.
Jim means well and in many cases, his approach would probably do something good (or as much good as can be done without letting the person know what they’ve done—read Emily Bazelon’s recent NYTimes Magazine cover story on restitution for child porn victims). But in many cases isn’t in all cases. I want to put in a word of caution.
The “harm” in this case is not giving air-time to the hypothetical creeper’s hypothetical book. Are you suggesting that it’s somehow obligatory to do favours for people one has been told something detrimental about because you might otherwise risk doing them an injustice? And isn’t it rather more sensible for the person who knows the people involved and the particulars of the allegation to decide how credible he finds it, not go with these “might be mistaken” weasel words? The last thing that’s needed in the area of sexual harassment is more disbelief: I can’t better Genevieve Valentine’s comments on that score: Coming forward is not an easy decision; it turns you, for a while, into an object lesson. I’ve been told I was both too rude and not nearly rude enough; that I was too quick to decide I was being harassed and also that I waited too long to decide I was being harassed; that I overreacted to what was clearly a well-established Canadian mating ritual, and also underreacted and should have kicked him so hard a lung collapsed. and 1. Even if it’s easy to decide to report (it isn’t) and even if the people around you are supportive (they were), and even if the organization takes it seriously (they didn’t, and then they did), and even if the community is supportive (the initial outpouring was amazingly supportive; the encroaching of naysaying is…unsurprising), you will spend an untold amount of time dealing with fallout.
2. The fallout may not be, but will certainly seem like, a Kafka novel.
There will be creeps in comments. (I’ve opted not to publish some anonymous ones, including the person who informed me, “You have absolutely no right to deny someone looking at you or in your eyes.”)
There will be threats. (I won’t link to the worst of these, but it’s not hard to find if you search Readercon and “they take people like you and kill them with rocks” together. Trigger warning for pretty much everything. It’s not a fun read.)
The responses by self-proclaimed rational people questioning your veracity, or the necessity of the discussion, will be somehow worse. In discussing the idea of actively discouraging harassment at conventions, they will use phrases like “thought police” and “mob mentality” and “lynching.”
3. You will have to relive what happened a thousand times.
You’ll describe the sequence of events to people on the scene whose help you enlist. Should you report, you’ll describe the sequence of events to convention authorities. Should you go public, you’ll have to describe the sequence of events on the internet. The level of detail is up to you; no amount will ever be sufficient.
Suggestions as to the best way to have handled your situation will be many, varied, and illuminating. Many will suggest deploying a martial art as the best way to counter harassment; many will suggest that you have just never experienced flirting, and were never harassed at all. None of them will come from people who were on the scene. People will question minutae like they’re Poirot in a drawing room with five minutes to credits.
Anyone who has ever described (even in a blowing off steam, what a bad day I’ve had sort of way) an incident of sexual harassment, assault, groping, stalking or whatever will know perfectly well that the last thing they need is someone standing up to say “Are you sure you weren’t mistaken?” Trust me, you can fill stadiums with people who’ll say that. It serves no useful purpose whatsoever. All it does is make someone already dealing with a bad situation feel worse about it. The number of false accusations in such cases is vanishingly small. The percentage of convicted rapists who turn out to have had a steady progression from minor acts of harassment and got bolder as they saw what they could get away with is practically 100%. The risk/detriment analysis you’re putting forward prioritises the wrong thing.
Ah! A misunderstanding
Either you think women never misconstrue a man’s intent or that all people who are accused of misdeeds are guilty; or I have miscommunicated the nuances of my position.
So sayesth AJ Hall: “The number of false accusations in such cases is vanishingly small. The percentage of convicted rapists who turn out to have had a steady progression from minor acts of harassment and got bolder as they saw what they could get away with is practically 100%.”
All that is probably true,* but blackballing an author who is on such a path won’t change his or her behavior—if you don’t know you’re being punished, you won’t know that changing your behavior would change the outcome.
My word of caution is not a denial of either the pain caused by sexual harassment and various related incidents, nor a suggestion that most such accusations reflect to a large extent the reality of the reported situation. It is a word of caution that anyone can misperceive, misunderstand and misconstrue, sometimes with horrific results.
I’ve been accused of having too much sympathy for the perpetrators and perhaps I do. But I’ve studied the misdeeds of the criminal justice system and how all sorts of biases have caused people harm. Social outcasts are often continual victims. That doesn’t excuse them if they do wrong, but it does mean we need to be aware of our own biases and exercise caution.
While nobody is owed a review by another author, minorities and women have often suffered because white male authors haven’t done them any favors. What’s another white man not getting help matter? It matters if you want to work towards a just society where everyone is afforded a reasonable chance at success.
* I use the word probably not because i doubt that your statement is true, but because rape and sexual harassment are hard to document. The lack of a report doesn’t mean a crime didn’t happen, nor does the lack of a conviction. False convictions do happen—particularly when the crime is black on white—but they are probably rare. The incidence of false accusation is most likely impossible to know.
Yeah, no. You are making the argument that men might be inconvenienced or hurt by the crazy women folk, and therefore all women should put up with harassment unless it happens in front of other people and can be proved in a court of law, because the possibility of the man being in a sticky situation from his behavior is more important than whether or not the woman is victimized. And that Jim should not believe any woman he knows or other witnesses of her being harassed, but only trust his own eyes that harassment occurred, because let’s face it, bitches be crazy a lot of the time. And he’s also not allowed to refuse to help out an author who he reasonably decides harassed a friend. Which is all curiously the exact same argument that sexual harassers use regularly to deny they did anything wrong or that anyone should be unhappy with them ever.
And your two examples of this had nothing to do with sexual harassment and a great deal to do with privilege thinking. In the first, your manager should have announced the non-smoking policy to all the employees in your office, male or female, white or black, currently believed to be smoker or non-smoker. That’s standard business protocol and it is standard exactly to avoid singling out employees and putting them in awkward situations in the office. Instead, the manager did single out the black woman smoker, which plays into business stereotypes that black employees, especially black women, need to be watched for bad behavior and carefully told exactly what to do. This is a stereotypical perception that your black co-worker probably has encountered more than once, and there may have been other incidents where this manager singled her out that you weren’t aware of. But instead of considering whether she might have a point, your office went with the racial stereotype of the crazy, oversensitive black woman and covered their asses for what was, in fact, bad business practice.
In your second example, I don’t suppose that it occurred to you that you may be regularly condescending and domineering with your female friend, that there may have been a number of past incidents where you’ve treated her like a clueless female who knows less than you and overridden her, that other men have treated her like she’s a know-nothing child because she’s female, and that your manner on the train was such that it boiled over for her. But no, she’s just an irrational female because you were right, right, right, and she should have just listened to you. And instead of dealing with her anger as your friend, the important thing you tell us was that your night was ruined.
We have no way of knowing if these women were indeed “irrational” and the events occurred as you say, since, as you argue, we weren’t there to witness them. You are insisting that you, the white guy, should be the one to interpret these women’s experiences for them and label them as mistaken and crazy. But if we know the women involved, we might be able to make a reasonable assessment of their positions that is quite different from yours. And yet, the reality is that your assessment — the women are mistaken, crazy and have no valid point — is the one that is regularly assigned to women who dare to complain about sexual harassment at a convention or elsewhere. For that matter, it’s regularly assigned to gay or straight men who experience sexual harassment from men or women. They are regularly told that they were mistaken that anything sexual was even involved, much less harassment. We are told that the victim’s perceptions are always most likely wrong, and that if there’s even a slim chance of that, no one can get angry at the harasser, even if they may be a witness to the harassment. And this is the number one argument used to protect harassers, even though it is exceedingly rare that these incidents ever involve police and courts, and even if there are witnesses and clear policies for an event such as a convention or for an office workplace concerning the harassers’ behavior, as we saw with ReaderCon.
And lastly, the idea that you think that people who have been harassed and their friends don’t consider the potential damage to the accused of making a claim, the difficulty if there weren’t other witnesses in having that claim believed, the dangers involved in antagonizing the accused with a claim (such as the danger of the crazy black woman losing her job at your office,) and the consequences they face in speaking up or taking “shunning” actions, is adorable. And also condescending. Jim doesn’t have to be reminded of what you feel is terribly important to remind him. He’s well aware of what is involved and actually happens to have a past of working professionally with women dealing with these situations.
And no, I don’t think you’re an a-hole either who is ignoring the plight of victims. I think you are a white male who doesn’t understand that women and black women live in very different worlds from the one that you live in.
Well said. I was going to respond last night but realized I was too angry to sound reasonable. You’ve said it all for me. Thanks.
Interesting. At no point did I say that somebody shouldn’t help somebody out. I said they should be aware of the difficulty of sorting out the truth and proceed with caution.
I shouldn’t have brought in my personal examples, since the only possible response to them is personal. I will defend my manager: she handed everyone a pamphlet on the rules changes. She spoke to everybody she knew was a smoker, telling them their was a rule change. Was this a matter of her demonstrating some unknown class privilege or inability to imagine how this might be perceived by somebody with different experiences. Perhaps. Perhaps naïvely, I believe a strong majority of people would want to be notified of policy changes that could cost them their jobs (the penalty for smoking in non-designated areas were extreme since it was a hospital). I’ll let that stand for my personal stories.
Since the rest of your answer involves personal attacks, I’ll just repeat: I called for caution and did not single out Jim. I greatly respect his efforts to make people aware of gender issues, but I have doubts about blacklisting people.
Why, as a matter of interest, do you characterise it as a “personal attack” when a poster simply points out to you that you may have misconstrued a particular situation, when your entire thesis in this thread has been that women need to realise that they can misperceive, misunderstand and misconstrue, sometimes with horrific results when it comes to sexual harassment?
I have to say, actually, that I personally find it somewhat difficult to misconstrue what a man has in mind if he puts his hand up one’s skirt or down one’s blouse and, when one moves away from his vicinity several times, follows one and repeats the gesture, but in the spirit of openess I’m prepared to concede that it is at least possible that he has simply mislaid his cigarettes, believes one is concealing them in the more intimate parts of one’s anatomy and if one will just sit still and let him frisk one, once he’s satisfied himself that they are not in fact concealed there the two of you can go back to discussing the decline of the Western economy, no harm, no foul.
But if women shouldn’t be offended by being told they’ve misconstrued scenarios like the above as aggressive sexual harassment crossing the borders into assault, why on earth should you get all put out about the possibility that your comments on an internet thread might be misconstrued as “bitches be crazy”? Sauce for the goose sauce for the gander, no?
KatG, I just reread this and it bothers me quite a bit:
“You are making the argument that men might be inconvenienced or hurt by the crazy women folk, and therefore all women should put up with harassment unless it happens in front of other people and can be proved in a court of law, because the possibility of the man being in a sticky situation from his behavior is more important than whether or not the woman is victimized.”
What bothers me isn’t your misreading of my argument (although, I must admit, that’s annoying), but the idea that one group of people deserve punishment in place of evidence. You seem to be arguing that one group of people should be punished for suspicion of a misdeed because of other members of their group have done those misdeeds.
I find that chilling and it has nothing to do with my race, sex or gender. I understand harassment is a serious, real issue and people who care about women (or just people in general) want to find a solution. I support that. But where I part company is where we begin to disregard guilt and innocence in the name of solving the problem. Of course we can’t have perfect evidence. But if we throw off caution, we don’t get justice, nor do we get a solution to the problem.
Harassement is a form of bullying. Bullying is best stopped by making people aware of what is and preventing it from being acceptable. When we see bullying, we—anybody who cares about other people—need to stand up and say no. Saying nothing does nothing. An author who doesn’t get a review won’t know why, and without knowing why, won’t have any additional empathy nor social pressure to change.
The reason I have such respect for Jim C. Hines is that he works tirelessly at educating people. That’s the path that has the pay-off.
After your patronising (and grammatically peculiar) “So sayesth” I no longer have any difficulty in believing that otherwise calm and rational people might be driven to yell at you on public transport.
And that’s before we even get onto your leap of illogic from my isn’t it rather more sensible for the person who knows the people involved and the particulars of the allegation to decide how credible he finds it, not go with these “might be mistaken” weasel words? to your Either you think women never misconstrue a man’s intent or that all people who are accused of misdeeds are guilty.
No; I’m suggesting that Mr Hines might have a perfectly good set of reasons for believing his friend’s account including the length of their acquaintance, how reliable he’s found her in the past, what else he knows or has been told about the creeper in question and the specifics of the allegation.
My “So sayeth AJ Hall” was meant to be a humorous variation of “AJ Hall said,”. If you wish to explain how you found that patronizing, please do. Perhaps I’ll learn how to avoid having people yell at me on public transit.
Please note that the sentence you quote was a complex clause: the ending was, “or I miscommunicated.”
In retrospect, my original post was poorly constructed. My examples only muddied my point and made it easy to read that I believe, as KatG put it, “let’s face it, bitches be crazy a lot of the time.” I regret posting the original late at night, having not written it for clarity.
Regarding Mr. Hines: he’s shown tremendous courage with these posts. If he feels I’ve wronged him, I’m sure he can tell me himself.
In the past month, Mr. Hines has read comments about how he should cut off his own dick, and how the mere sight of his flesh has caused people to gouge their own eyes out. (I’m pretty sure the latter was joking, though.)
Nothing in this thread has come close to making me feel wronged
“All that is probably true,* but blackballing an author who is on such a path won’t change his or her behavior—if you don’t know you’re being punished, you won’t know that changing your behavior would change the outcome.”
This is probably true. However, publicly stating that this is my policy might change the behavior of other authors, or at least encourage them to think a little more about what they’re doing. It also helps me and others to support those authors who do, to the best of my knowledge, treat others with respect. Finally, I hope it allows me to express support and perhaps solidarity with those people who’ve had to endure this kind of creepy behavior.
Jim, I just wanted to let you know that as a life-long reader of fantasy novels who has slowly but surely been turned off by the cover art your blog posts on the topic have lead me directly to your books! I just picked up my first kindle book in one of your series and I suspect I will be sharing these with my young nieces in time.
Thank you!!
I’d like to add that although certainly the most common and generally most menacing scenario is a man creeping a woman… there are a lot of non-sexual, gender-neutral scenarios, too, that I think stem from a similar root, which is a given individual’s refusal to accept that a person who doesn’t want your social company is 100% entitled to that choice and that, once they have made that choice, you should leave them alone.
I was friends for several years with another woman whom I eventually decided I did not want to be friends with any longer. I increasingly felt that this person, though amiable and kind, was a user, she crossed the line too many times despite my protests about it, and this trend was accelerating noticeably rather than slowing down. I decided I didn’t want someone in my life who treated me like that, so I ended the friendship. I tried to do so kindly. When that didn’t work, I did so very firmly: I said I wished her well and hoped to be cordial to her if we encountered each other in public, but our friendship was over and we would not socialize together anymore.
Thereafter, I kept finding email messages from her every few months, as well as the occasional phone message, inviting me together with her. I responded with a simply “no” the first few times, and soon ceased responding altogether. These contacts from her persisted over a period of four years and followed me through (unrelated to this) two changes of email address–which new addresses she managed to find even though (obviously) I did not give them to her. I blocked her on each address after realizing I was going to continue hearing from her, but the block doesn’t always work, and I found another message from her a few months ago. I have also (unrelated to this) changed my address and phone number, so I hope not to hear from her again… but am not confident.
I don’t feel at all threatened, menaced, or concerned about my safety in this particular matter. But I do feel that this is someone who has completely refused–over and over–to respect my right not to want and not to be in her company… Much like a creeper doesn’t respect a woman’s right to choose not to be in his company.
On the flip side, and unrelated to the above situation, another woman with whom I was friends for years started avoiding me several years ago, then stopped returning my calls, then stopped returning my emails. Since her voluntary explanation was always that she was very “busy,” I took that at face value for a while… until I finally realized she wasn’t too busy for friends, she was too “busy” for ME, specifically, and no longer wanted my company. I was very hurt by this, and I have my own suspicions about the reasons (there was no falling out or specific incident; I think this person just lost interest in the friendship for various reasons)… but I have never seen this as case to confront her and demand she JUSTIFY her reasons for vacating the friendship, let alone felt she had an obligation to remain in contact with me when she clearly doesn’t want to. My feelings were hurt (and, indeed, still are), but I let it go… because that person has the right, 100%, to decide she doesn’t want my social company or contact, and I don’t have the right to override that.
But I have direct experience of dealing with a former friend who continues to believe she DOES have the right to override my clearly-stated and consistent choice to have no further social contact with her. Just as, like so many women, I have experiences of a man refusing to accept that I have the right to choose not to accept his social company–and have been the subject of verbal insults and threats, as well as physical menacing and physical grabbing, when I have asked to be left alone.
London Crockett: “At no point did I say that somebody shouldn’t help somebody out.”
I never said you did. You did seem to be saying that Jim should help the author even though his friend informed him the author had harassed her and other friends of hers he knows further observed this author’s behavior, and despite the fact that authors are under no obligation to help each other promotionally. So basically what I said was you were saying that people should always do favors for harassers because they might be wrongfully accused harassers. Which you kind of were, but I don’t think you really realized that’s how it was coming out.
“I said they should be aware of the difficulty of sorting out the truth and proceed with caution.”
The assumption there again is that being cautious would not have occurred to Jim, but instead he’d rush right out and not do favors for this author. Which would be just way more horrible than his friend getting harassed. The thing you do not seem to be getting is that when you guys start talking about caution, blacklisting, crazy women who make false accusations or overreact, etc., you are saying the exact same thing that these harassers say about the women they’ve victimized, even if there were twenty witnesses. And that the reality is that even if the woman is believed about harassment and has witnesses, very little is likely to happen to the guy, while the woman, even if she is believed, will be endlessly victimized further by well-meaning folk who are way more worried about the guy who harassed her than anything that happens to her. This is again part of the ingrained culture that women don’t own their bodies and sexuality and therefore may be lying or mistaken, and so women should put up with harassment and not speak out unless it is very, very bad, on the faint chance a guy might be uncomfortably confronted about his actions. You are contributing to the culture that coerces women into enduring and staying silent about harassment because the cost of making the accusation (which is assumed in most cases to be false,) is way too high. So here’s a tip: stop talking about caution to women (and men who help them,) as if caution weren’t the watchword of every woman’s life.
“I will defend my manager” — Since you are completely unwilling to find out anything about the black woman’s experiences, you really don’t know whether your manager screwed up or not. You don’t know how she talked to this woman or how she’s talked to her in the past, and even if you think there wasn’t a problem with it, again the black woman has to live in a very different world than you do and put up with stuff on a daily basis that you are unlikely to ever really understand. Maybe she overreacted, but given the enormous potential of losing her job by making a complaint, maybe she had more grounds than you are aware of. That doesn’t mean the manager is an awful person either. It means that it is indeed complicated and maybe you don’t have the answers for everybody’s experiences, especially those of different genders and races. So yeah, you might want to hold off on calling people irrational, especially as that is a stereotypical term used to deride women and non-whites when they complain about prejudicial treatment.
“Since the rest of your answer involves personal attacks,”
None of my post contained personal attacks beyond exasperation. I’m trying to point out that maybe you are not as aware of things and of what you are saying as you think you are. Maybe there’s another viewpoint that you might want to consider, like, say, that your friend could have had a legitimate beef about your behavior towards her that came to a head on that train.
“I called for caution” — which was completely unnecessary “and did not single out Jim.” — you addressed Jim’s behavior directly. “but I have doubts about blacklisting people.” — Jim isn’t blacklisting anyone. People deciding that they don’t want to deal with you or do you favors is not the same thing as a blacklist. By dressing it up as blacklisting or shunning or other melodramatic words of punishment, you are again saying that people should first protect the harasser and be highly skeptical of the victim because she’s probably lying or wrong. You’re also claiming that victims have tons of power in the system and harassers little, which is backwards of reality.
“What bothers me isn’t your misreading of my argument (although, I must admit, that’s annoying), but the idea that one group of people deserve punishment in place of evidence. You seem to be arguing that one group of people should be punished for suspicion of a misdeed because of other members of their group have done those misdeeds.”
Well no, I didn’t say anything of the sort. You were the one who said that you knew women who had committed misdeeds and therefore all women must be viewed with extreme skepticism. (Also, again, you have a very melodramatic notion of what “punishment” harassers actually face when they are accused of harassment, including with multiple witnesses of their behavior. They very seldom are ever punished at all, while the victim is repeatedly punished for speaking up, including by people who say that we should always worry about the harassers first.) Your entire argument is that most women are lying or wrong about being harassed, even though every woman puts up with dozens and dozens of incidents of sexual harassment throughout her lifetime; that we all want to rush off and pummel harassers as soon as a woman opens her mouth without reasonable assessment of what occurred, and that the only time we should believe a woman about harassment is if we actually see it occur ourselves, no matter what other evidence. Which is again exactly the favorite argument sexual harassers use too. You’re scolding us, buddy, on the assumption that we’re eager to be a lynch mob. Which is again exactly the favorite argument sexual harassers use too.
“But where I part company is where we begin to disregard guilt and innocence in the name of solving the problem.” — Which no one was doing, but your assumption that most of us are doing it comes back to that cultural ingrain that says sexual harassment is rare (it’s not,) that women have difficulty determining it (they don’t as they deal with it regularly,) that women should listen to others as to whether they were harassed or not (cause bitches be crazy,) that most acts of harassment don’t have witnesses (most do,) and that the majority are eagerly rushing forward to railroad poor men just caught in a mistake (the opposite is actually true of society,) and that men accused face horrible punishments and social shunning (they don’t and are often rewarded for that behavior which is reinforced throughout the culture.)
“Of course we can’t have perfect evidence.” — And yet, you were insisting we have it, specifically direct eye witness evidence with the woman not trusted at all ever, no matter how well one knows the person, nor other witnesses. If we have not personally witnessed the harassment, we should not believe the woman and should do favors for the harasser, like book reviews. “But if we throw off caution, we don’t get justice, nor do we get a solution to the problem.” — Women don’t get justice for sexual harassment. They get emotional trauma and then sometimes a ton of social scorn and that’s it. And they don’t want justice anyway — they just want the behavior to stop so they can enjoy a frigging convention. Again, you’re putting forth the idea that lynch mobs are common, that men are getting wrongly accused all over the place and horribly punished thereby, which all happens to be statistically wrong. And that is a very large part of the problem, almost as large as the harassment itself.
KatG,
First, can we leave me out of this? I’ve acknowledged my examples weren’t well chosen. You’re making assumptions about me and how I handle my life that are not in evidence. You don’t know me or the situations I’m talking about well enough to speculate on them individually. If you wish to talk about such situations in general, feel free. If your exasperation is so high that you feel the need to blight my name, send an email to ihateyou@yournotana*holejustacluelesswhiteguy.com. I’ll be sure to check it regularly.
Also, please stop speaking for Jim. This is his blog! He’s already shown that he can pop in and speak for himself.
I’m going to try to summarize my concerns:
1. I am aware of how serious harassment is and respect that Jim—personally—would handle reports to him well. I am also aware of how harassers try to minimize their actions and deflect responsibility onto their victims.
2. Regardless of how harassment has (not) been dealt with in the past, I am uncomfortable with individuals deciding to single out people for punitive action without talking to more than an accuser
3. I don’t think Jim’s solution (beyond proclaiming it—I agree with is logic about that) will change behavior
4. I strongly believe that if we want a better world, we have to do the difficult work of finding solutions that change things, not just do things for the sake of action
5. My concerns would stand regardless of race, gender, sex, sexual orientation, or any other status/identifier queue you want to drop someone in.
As a clarification, my acknowledgement of the lack of perfect evidence was to indicate that I don’t expect anyone to use a court trial to deal with non-criminal actions.
Finally, in regard to AJ Hall’s comments, it is possible that “Creeper” has some specific meaning I’m unaware of. If someone has physically groped you, I call that sexual assault. My discussion has not been about groping.
I’d say that you need to bring your vocabulary up to date. I refer you to Captain Awkward which lists the specific creeper behaviour complained of as including:
Offering to drive my stranded friend home from a party, then informing her that he expected sex as “payment” when he dropped her off; following her to the house after she said no
Sending gross, inappropriate or just plain crass messages over Facebook
Texting my friend about how he’s “jerking off” while thinking about her
Straight-up fondling (fully awake and conscious) girls that he’s just met, or at the very least getting uncomfortably touchy-feely with them
Attempting to have sex with his friend’s girlfriend, on more than one occasion
and John Scalzi giving his incomplete guide to not creeping which includes at point 5 5. Don’t touch. Seriously, man. You’re not eight, with the need to run your fingers over everything, nor do you lack voluntary control of your muscles. Keep your hands, arms, legs and everything else to yourself. This is not actually difficult.
If you seriously have been having this entire conversation on the assumption that unwanted touching of a sexual nature isn’t part of what people include in the blanket term “creeping” what did you think the hypothetical bloke had hypothetically done?
My operating assumption was that a creeper was a sexualized creep. In other words, somebody who stalks, who won’t let somebody out of a conversation that he’s made sexual, violations of personal space, and any inappropriate sexualized behavior (gestures, texting, messages, etc.).
At the risk of giving KatG more license to drag my personal life into her discussions… One of my personal shames is that when I was in high school (15, or so), an older guy I was vaguely friends with told me about taking a girl to an isolated spot and telling her to put out or get out. I didn’t tell him that was rape or just wrong. I didn’t cheer him on, but didn’t do anything to stop him. I regret that quite a bit.
The only way to stop a proto-rapist from becoming a rapist (if it’s possible) is to create an environment where peers know that coerced sex is rape, full stop. I didn’t think about it in those terms until later. Had I identified what he was doing as not just horrible but criminal, I would have at least confronted him. If I had been taught to report such things, I would have gone to the school counselor. I was by no means a brave child, but I had enough of a sense of moral grounding that education could have changed my actions.
This is why I think caution is vital. Harming people for things they didn’t do isn’t only unjust, it causes resentment and backlash. While I suspect this column may make a few people reluctant to misbehave at a con, its the bulk of his work that will help boys make better choices at the point where their peer pressure can change people’s thinking for life.
This is why I think caution is vital. Harming people for things they didn’t do isn’t only unjust, it causes resentment and backlash. While I suspect this column may make a few people reluctant to misbehave at a con, its the bulk of his work that will help boys make better choices at the point where their peer pressure can change people’s thinking for life.
Some responses to hearing about this kind of behavior aren’t about education, legal justice or punishment, which is the point I believe Jim is trying to make, here. An account of this kind of behavior, related by someone who one trusts, along with an understanding of the prevalence of the problem and empathy for the victims of the behavior, will influence one’s feelings and one’s own behavior in response, simply because they will. Behavior influences reputation in every area of life. When people are reminded of this, when they get an “I see what you did there” message from someone whose response could potentially affect them, they may reassess their behavior and they may not. One hopes that they will, but one will feel the way one feels, regardless, and act accordingly. It’s at least as advisable to bear that in mind as is your assertion that one shouldn’t jump to conclusions.
Jim, would you throw a bit more line spacing between paragraphs into your CSS? It’s a bit difficult to read longer comment with the current paragraph spacing.
Cheers.
I would, but in all honesty, I don’t have a clue how to do it. I poked around the WordPress theme settings and glanced at some of the CSS code, but couldn’t find anything for comment paragraph spacing. Sorry.
Hmm… I looked at my own CSS, which is a bit of a mess of non-standard tags (must clean up blog, must clean up blog). My p tags don’t have anything creating extra space. I use two returns. My h1, h2, etc., tags have padding-bottom: (pixel value) in them. If your theme has a comments tag, you could try adding it there, but I’m not enough of a CSS monkey to know how that will play in actuality.
Thanks for trying to do it, no matter what the result.
London Crockett: “First, can we leave me out of this?” — Oh goody, it’s the this woman criticized me so she’s clearly irrational and overreacting and hates me and men in general response. You dragged yourself into it; trying to assert that I shouldn’t address what you said is an attempt to deflect from considering anything that I’ve said about what women deal with on the grounds that I’m making you feel bad. Which is the argument that women get a lot regarding sexual harassment and women’s issues — you’re making me feel bad so shut up and stop making me feel like I’m the bad guy. You’re not the bad guy; you’re a guy who is shoving his male privilege around and then sputtering when he’s called on it. You want to scold everybody here, but land sakes if we scold you back or simply ask you to consider stepping out of your own viewpoint for a sec.
Women have been dealing with all forms of sexual harassment for, oh, FOREVER. Some men in only some parts of the world decided that this was an actual problem only thirty, maybe sort of forty years ago, and that mostly because women kept saying the exact same things I’ve been saying to you while being called irrational or bitches. Washington state in the U.S. is only now debating — debating mind you — removing the law that says marital rape isn’t actually rape. And the help that is being offered to us from a lot of perfectly nice guys is that we have no real understanding of what harassment is and they’ll explain it to us, and that we should be very careful if we say anything about anything we go through. Because surely we women are planning to horribly condemn tons of men through hearsay and stick them in camps and not let them have pudding, or something. Or because we’ll make the harasser feel so bad that he’ll turn right around and become an even worse harasser and it will be all our fault.
Any group of women will be giving you solidly large numbers when you ask: how many times have you been groped in public? How many times have you been touched inappropriately by strangers in public? How many times has a man pressed his body against you in public? How many times have men said aggressive sexual and crude things to you in public? How many times have men followed you or come over to you and forced you to talk to them or backed you into a corner of a room in public? How many times has this happened to you when you were over the age of thirty? How many times has a man gotten angry, insulting and threatening when you’ve complained about his behavior or simply tried to walk away, in public? How many times have others, even if there are witnesses, told you that you misunderstood and the harassment wasn’t harassment? How many times have you been told that X woman did or said this or was seen as doing something and therefore, you and most women may be completely wrong/lying/hysterical, and should not get so worked up about this harassment thing? How many times have you had to explain to men and women that sexual assault includes more than rape and that many actions that they think are non-criminal and no big deal are actually criminal? How many times have you ended up getting death and rape threats over the Internet because people know you complained about being harassed or complained about sexual harassment in general? Because all of this happens to women all the time. Some of it is happening now in this conversation on the reactions front.
The reality is that if you sexually harass me, most of the time, I will or will have to let you get away with that crap. On the rare occasions when a woman complains, even if there are witnesses or many incidents known about the harasser, nine times out of ten, the harasser will get away with that crap. On the tenth instance where the claim is taken seriously, the harasser usually will get a “punishment” that consists entirely of a stern talking to or being asked to leave an event. And yeah, that includes groping a woman in front of witnesses. And the woman who has raised the complaint will be told sternly not to push the complaint further — often because it would inconvenience the harasser and make him look bad to others or inconvenience others having to deal with it — and faces actual shunning, endless interrogations about whether she’s really sure she was harassed, and again possibly rape and death threats for complaining. And no matter how many instances of sexual harassment women talk about, there are still others who explain that they don’t really know what harassment is and therefore should be careful even privately talking to friends about it because the important thing is to protect the person and reputation of the harasser, not that of the victim. What makes you uneasy is that Jim might have believed a woman he knows and her friends who observed the guy’s behavior and decided that he’s not doing favors for this person, who is not named or being punished in any way by any authority. What makes you uneasy is that a woman might be seen as credible about harassment. What doesn’t make you uneasy is that a professional author harassed a woman at this convention, which is something that happens to women all the time and is so unpunished that women have to form informal networks to warn other women about dangerous guys. And further, you’re so sure that it’s never occurred to women that they have to be careful about this whole issue that you’ll just gently instruct them to be so. Oh, and admonish me for talking for Jim, which I didn’t do. I talked about your criticism of Jim.
We are arguing with you not because we’re hysterical and again for the umpteenth time not because we think you’re a bad guy. We’re arguing with you because you’re making assumptions that don’t align with facts and mansplaining up the ying-yang. And you were the one who made the conversation about you and keeps making it about you. I certainly like having conversations with men about these issues without them making it about themselves, but it’s rare. So I will concede the argument so that Jim doesn’t have to keep moderating it. I’ve made my points; maybe some day you’ll consider them.
KatG,
You and I have a philosophical disagreement about the nature of justice and appropriate measures to take in the face of a continuing tragedy that substantially harms many women. We do not disagree that creeping is harmful. We do not disagree that it happens and that victims have difficulty finding help or justice. We differ in how cautious people should be in pursuing their own justice.
I have striven to be polite and respond only to arguments in a non-personal manner (except for noting personal attacks). I’ve laid out a gender-neutral set of concerns, expressed sympathy and understanding of harassment and acknowledged that my initial examples were poorly chosen. As you and AJ Hall pointed out areas where I had communicated poorly, I have worked to clarify my positions, editing out my sometimes snarky initial responses.
Yet, no matter how conciliatory and polite I am, you continue to insult me, make wildly untrue assumptions about me, my ethics and my capacity to understand others. You ignore most of my points and harangue me on things I acknowledged were poorly chosen examples. In short, you are a bully. You appear amply armored against such charges, ironically, much in the same way the men you loathe do. I am categorically, absolutely NOT making an equivalency between your poor behavior and the despicable crimes of creepers. But the path towards a lack of empathy starts by people not being called out for their words. I formally call you out.
I don’t believe further communication will be helpful to you, me, or anyone still reading this woeful thread. If you wish to contact me, I’ve provided an email address above you may send hate mail, mash notes and bicycle maintenance tips to.
Have a wonderful day, full of smiles and joy.
As someone who has tried to stay out of this discussion because your wording constantly made me see red due to tone and choice of words used I can honestly say that you might want to print off this entire discussion, sit down with a female you trust to be truthful, and have her help you see where you went wrong so if you enter similar discussions in the future you might be able to get your point across. You might try this post for advice on communicating on the Internet http://tasha-turner.com/intelligent-poster/ .
You seem to imply that those talking about the issue are possibly going to be wrong about who is an abuser and don’t take into consideration the harm that such allegations might cause said accuser. Again read what was written by you & only you with a female friend (or better your mom/grandmother/sister) and see if after they read your comments they can tell you what you were saying and that it does not fall into “knowing better than women” or condescending or insulting.
I can assure you that it is the rare women indeed who does not take time to consider the situation before saying something.
Either you give Jim credit for being smart or you think he is easily duped by a woman who “just misunderstood” something. Me I tend to believe Jim is not only smart but based on the education he has and things he has done I’m very confident that Jim is able to make good decisions when a female friend comes to him claiming to have been harassed/stalked/etc. Checking into someone’s background before cautioning/advising them in their own home/blog is usually a good idea.
Unless more men like Jim get involved in this and take steps to stop or at least not support the abusers women will continue to not be safe anywhere because we know most of the time we won’t be believed.
May you find peace and blessings and the women you care for see compassion and able to get the help they need if they are ever abused/harassed/stalked/raped. Have you seen the figures for how frequently a woman is sexually or physically abused? Do you realize if you know a dozen women chances are at least 4 of them have been abused? Do you know who those women are among your friends and family? If yes, than that is the women to ask for help in writing posts/comments on this topic. If not, why not?
Hi Tasha,
Thank you for replying cordially. I had dinner with a female friend and talked about it. She didn’t read what I wrote (we weren’t going to bring out an iPhone at the bar), but I had to convince her it was possible I wrote something as misguided as you seem to believe I have. It’s possible I presented my words too kindly (she did agree, as do I, that my initial examples were mistakes that could only cause problems).
Insomuch as I can tell, this is not a disagreement about whether women are harassed, or that I think women make things up You’re confusing me for somebody else if you think so. If my poor examples are at fault, I apologize. If my writing has been worse than I believe, I regret it. But I am well aware of all the statistics you’re likely to bring to bear and none of it matters to my point.
The difference between me and the people who have posted responses to me is that I believe that punishing innocent people is worse than letting offenders get away with crimes. Many people don’t believe that, or believe than in measured doses. (Even I’m not an absolutist about it, but clearly my inclinations are much stronger than the respondees).
No amount of horrific crimes on the part of individuals will change my belief that we must work diligently to fight against misunderstandings, innuendo, and false punishments. I understand the harm of bullying, both against women and men. I’ve witnessed the damage being a victim of even unintentional harassment. I know rape victims and the sometimes lifelong suffering they experience. You may disagree with me, but if you want to engage me in debate, challenge my ideas. Tell me why an innocent person should suffer to save another innocent person from harm.
I hate that I live in a world where people are bullied and harassed; I hate that there is no good solution to preventing a jerk at a con from ruining a woman’s experience or worse; I also hate that my government imprisoned people without charge and tortured them. I hate that men and women sit in jail, abandoned by many of their friends and families due to false convictions.
I do sincerely appreciate your attempt to address me calmly and compassionately. I hope that whatever red you’ve seen has turned into something beautiful
The problem that a lot of us may have when confronted with someone whose first response to a post like this is “Whoa, there, partner! This alleged abuse may not even have happened! Think very carefully before you base any sort of action on this report, because the guy might not have done it!” is that there are way, WAY more guys who have done it than there are guys who have been accused of doing it but who haven’t. It’s much, MUCH more likely that the villain of a piece isn’t a crazy, vindictive bitch who makes false accusations against men for fun but an evil, predatory asshole who hurts women, because there really are many more of those out there. There are also way more of those predatory assholes running around cons and other spaces, hurting women, without consequences than ever have been or ever will be slapped on the wrist by reluctant con-comms or other groups. There are also many more women who have been hurt by these men and who haven’t come forward than those who have, and the reason for that, in part, is because of people who are more interested in creating a safe space for the accused than they are for the accuser. Part of that protection of the accuser involves insisting that everyone remember that he may not be guilty, because she may be making it up or may not be qualified to determine whether she’s been victimized or not, when she’s actually the only one who IS qualified to know that. Immediately insisting that everyone in the convo remember that he may not be guilty (and especially without any knowledge of the incident that’s being discussed) says a number of things that people are likely to take issue with: That she may be lying, crazy or stupid; that people who hear her report and form an opinion are likely to lack the discrimination or the inclination to consider whether her story is likely to be true before making that judgement; that even the remote possibility that that her story isn’t true is more important than the much less remote possibility that it is; that the worst outcome in a situation where few if any people not directly involved CAN know as well as the victim does whether a report is true is that someone should form a negative opinion of an accused that isn’t warranted, rather than that a man may be or become a serial offender or that his crimes may escalate because he never receives any consequences for his behavior. Protecting offenders creates an environment where offenders thrive and incidents and crimes multiply. Wanting everyone, even those who know the reporter well, to doubt the report and never deliver, or express the intent to deliver, consequences as your addition to a discussion of this type does more than offend participants of the discussion who’ve been hurt by offenders (and those who care about those victims), it supports a culture that makes it easier for offenders to offend. THAT’S the worst possible outcome, not that Jim should choose not to promote someone’s work.
(That should be “Part of that protection of the accused”, not accuser; it’s very late here.)
Assuming that the woman is guilty of lying/”misunderstanding”/blowing things out of proportion tends to be the default for a lot of people. It gets old fast.
So, too, do the constant demands for “more” and “better” evidence, especially when it’s always accompanied by arbitrary decisions to rule out large swathes of the evidence of guilt on the grounds that it comes from untrustworthy sources eg the victims. This was highlighted in the recent BBC scandal about Jimmy Savile, when a Newsnight investigation into the Jimmy Savile abuse allegations was dropped and, in a damning trail of emails, one of the management team behind the decision to drop it used the phrase “our sources so far are just the women” – all of whom had already, independently of each other, made complaints to the police. It emphasises what a huge burden of institutionalised assumptions women carry when making complaints of harassment or sexual abuse.
Yes; as a woman who’s been dealing with this since childhood, I know.
Your position, if I may put it this way, is a perversion of the rule of law, respect for which is one of the fundamental underpinnings of a safe and just society.
Yes, the presumption of innocence is a corner-stone of the rule of law. But “presumption” is all it is; that is, someone is considered innocent until proved guilty. And proof has different standards. To prove someone guilty of a criminal charge requires proof beyond reasonable doubt; to prove someone liable in a civil matter requires proof on the balance of probabilities. But The law is a blunt instrument and you can’t expect every single social interaction you have to be subject to a lawsuit before you allow yourself to act.
I am pretty certain, incidentally, that you probably are fully accustomed to making business and personal decisions based on a far lower standard of proof than you’ve been urging on everyone here. If, for example, someone comes into your office looking rough and says, “I had a hell of a weekend, you know that new Italian that’s opened on the corner? Me and my wife ate there on Friday and we’ve been vomiting ever since” do you immediately rush out and book a table there? And if not, why not? After all, you’ve only got the word of an accuser to go on, and you claim to hate misunderstandings and false punishments.
If you had ever shown an sign of realising that the women attending cons where creepers are allowed to run rampant are innocent victims who are being punished by non-action and try to put forward some constructive suggestions as to how their rights are to be protected you might have had an easier ride, but “Being sexually assaulted sucks but so does Guantanamo Bay, so suck it up and deal” doesn’t cut the mustard as a constructive approach to curbing sexual harassment.
CC, Jim, AJ Hall: I want to be clear that from the beginning, my purpose has been to sound a note of caution, not enforce a standard of justice. I don’t have the answer as to what the proper balance of protecting the victims vs. ensuring nobody is further made a victim. Nor have I tried to undermine the notion that women making such accusations need to be taken very seriously. Perhaps I failed in communicated that.
AJ Hall, “if I had ever shown a sign…and try to put forth constructive suggestions…” please reread my posts. I don’t believe either is lacking. I regret you didn’t post that comment initially. My comments were unintentionally, but certainly, colored by the sense of being attacked personally. I tried to be dispassionate and polite, but your post would have focused me directly on the philosophical and pragmatic issues at hand.
Beyond my concerns about protecting the innocent when pursuing the guilty, I am concerned that silent punishment is a tactically poor choice. The people who can be changed by peer pressure and awareness experience neither when they are secretly denied reviews and their names silently circulated among those who consider themselves crusaders against sexual harassment.
When you combine a punishment that won’t change behavior with a procedure that doesn’t try to ensure there hasn’t been a misunderstanding, you, by my standards, are more likely to end up on the wrong end of the balance of justice.
The only solution I can think of that can change creeper behavior at cons is speaking out. Jim does a fantastic job here of fighting that fight, both humorously and seriously. At conferences, its the duty of all attendees to call people on bullying. I know that a lot of creeps don’t take well to being called out and I certainly understand if a a victim choses to walk away. Unfortunately, I can’t think of anything else that will change the culture that makes creep feel entitled or justified than calling them out when they act. If you’ve got better ideas, have at it.
I’m off to find Pancho Sanchez and continue my little ride. Enjoy the rest of your days.
We are clear that, from the beginning, you’ve been trying to “sound a note of caution”. We’ve been trying to tell you that we don’t WANT your note of caution, that your note of caution is BAD, that your note of caution is PART OF THE PROBLEM, but you won’t hear anyone tell you that. Perpetrators live in a comforting habitat built largely out of notes of caution sounded by people like you, while victims suffer in the vacuum of your doubt. Perps have all the consideration they need, and more; our culture is overflowing with concern for the well being of the accused. No one needs to be reminded to consider the poor predators, but people do need to be urged to consider and BELIEVE the victims. Your note of caution not only isn’t needed, it’s causing damage.
We’ve tried to explain this to you repeatedly, that Jim and others who hear and act on reports are ALREADY aware of everything you’ve said because they’re intelligent, discerning people, and that this post isn’t about punishment but IS about natural (and needed) consequences. You can’t think of anything else that will change the culture that enables creeps to hurt women? That’s what posts like Jim’s are about–changing the culture from your note of perp-protecting caution to one of believing the victim and acting on those beliefs. We’ve moved past your note of caution; we’ve evaluated and considered and decided on the side of victims. You aren’t Sancho Panza, tilting at the windmills of culture, you’re a rape apologist, you’re part of the cultural problem. You’ll be treated like part of the problem everywhere you sound this victim-doubting note, which you will no doubt continue to do because you appear to have been deafened by it.
Well said, all of that.
I’d add:
Not merely that but when LC has been asked – over and over again – why he has any reason to suspect that caution is not being applied here he’s dodged the question.
Furthermore, further up the thread LC has explained that his approach to caution is so extreme that even when a rapist admitted a rape to him in high school it didn’t occur to him either to identify it as a rape or to do a damn thing about it (including mention to the authorities that his mate might present something of a threat to the girls in the school). Now I gather he feels bad about that doing that now (how many more women has his schoolfriend gone on to rape?) but it doesn’t seem to have registered even now that inertia is the enemy here, not lack of caution.
I just want to thank everyone who has done such great clear headed, intelligent, to the point posting about this, especially in response to LC and Rob B. I know if I try to list you all I’ll miss someone
I’d only add that a beautifully perfect and perfectly horrible illustration of why women don’t report (and even how the law in the US was supposed to work, though I think we may have improved a tiny bit since, but I wouldn’t bet on it) are the confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas and especially Anita Hill, who is one of my heroes. She didn’t come forward originally because she knew what would happen but when it became so important, she did and what happened was exactly what she expected. Especially her integrity being questioned. And Long Dong Silver and a pubic hair on a coke can are pretty damn hard to miss as instances of sexual harassment.
I’ll say again ’cause I can’t help myself. Women are already so damn cautious they will not come forward without eyewitnesses (even though a corroborating witness is all that is required in sexual harassment cases). And most women will just withdraw from whatever situation rather than come forward because they would be insulted, hounded, threatened, and probably blacklisted if they do.
Clarence Thomas is a supreme court justice. How much more cautious should we be?
London, I want to say that I think Jim was using your ‘caution’ as he never posted the authors name. People who are not personally acquainted with both Jim and his friends (like myself) will not have any idea who this author is. How much more caution do you want?
Just when I thought you couldn’t get more awesome. Bless.
I wish there were more respectful men like you out there, who were not afraid to stand up and show it. Thanks for writing!
I hate being wrong. There’s a point where maybe you could change your mind, but the person whose complained has done so with personal attacks—I can ignore that. Another person says you’re doing something wrong, but then tells you that your unusual word-choice means that people should yell at you on the train—no need to bail from my position for that. Then come the other people who think you’re wrong, but you’re dug in. But finally, the tide is so great, you have to reconsider. CC’s 12:36 post was that moment for me.
CC is correct: I was arrogant. I walked by a conversation and assumed my concerns hadn’t been already discussed. I was dispassionate to the point of being tone-deaf. I retreated into logic and philosophy without thinking about the place and history. And I was insensitive to people who feel passionately because these issues aren’t something that happened to a friend or acquaintance, but to them.
I apologize to those I’ve offended and hurt.
CC, there’s one point you made which I hope you’ll forgive me from diluting my apology by commenting on. You said, “…our culture is overflowing with concern for the well being of the accused.” This may be true in the case of sexual harassers, but I hope you’ll take some time and examine how American culture’s thirst for vengeance has made showing sympathy for even rape victims in prison difficult. Our criminal justice system does not harm just the perpetrators, but the families and communities they come from and return to. The severity of our laws undermine the safety of the people who are yet to be victims by taking resources away from stopping the people most likely to commit crimes. This isn’t just philosophical noodling—it’s real lives that are being severely damaged, including children whose parents have made (or not made, in some cases) mistakes.
AJ Hall, you can loathe me as you wish. You don’t know me except in a forum where I’ve behaved badly. However, you make a tactical error when you bring up someone’s confession of childhood mistakes to make a point of educating others so that others don’t repeat the mistake. Boys need adults and their peers to tell them harassing is wrong. If you shame men from ever admitting their errors, the most powerful voice a boy will have is taken away from them. Hate me if you want, but please don’t shame people like that.
Again, my apologies to those I’ve offended and thank you to those who persisted in showing me that I was being arrogant and overly concerned with intellectual noodling.
LC, I appreciate your willingness to reevaluate your views and to say so; I do think that in future you might consider leaving out the Parthian shots and references to tactics when apologizing, as they tend to make you appear to have been (and still be) playing a game, one which you’re still determined to win, at least a little bit. We’re not jousting, here; those of us who are advocating for victims are very serious about what we’re saying. It’s not a game to us, and the subject is far more important than an individual’s ego. It’s not about winning, it’s about being heard and understood.
I don’t feel the need to take any time out to examine “America’s thirst for vengeance”, and I’m not sure why you assume that I should. Wanting to help victims of sexual harassment and assault as opposed to protecting the perpetrators from consequences and wanting to ensure that those who have been convicted of crimes are dealt with humanely are two very different issues, and the second is not part of this discussion. Nor can you deduce my position on the humane treatment of convicts from my stand on the humane treatment of the victims of abuse, and I would find it insulting that you would assume that you can, but I recognize that you’re still flailing a bit in defense of your ego and are grasping at points to fling back at me as you gallop away, so I won’t bother.
CC, I couldn’t figure out any way to detach my other comments from my apology. If I had been clever enough, I would have done so.
You’re right, this isn’t about winning. It’s about solutions. The only thing I have to offer at this point is a recognition that sexual harassment and assault are not isolated from the the conditions, social and physical, men find themselves in society. Men won’t stop harassing unless they’re taught not to. That means getting rid of shame for people who are willing to admit to having been wrong and are willing to offer useful help. That doesn’t mean letting men off because they plea, “I just want to help.” But if somebody wants to turn their errors into learning, embrace that. If they haven’t quite figured out what the right lesson is, help them get there.
It doesn’t effect the overwhelmingly white and middle class con environment* much, but our criminal justice system has a huge impact on how men behave outside of prison. As such, it significantly influences how women are treated—not just by ex-offenders, but by everybody they interact with. Out culture isn’t overflowing or even trickling concern for the well-being of the accused. This may just me flailing to salve my ego, but the words I’ve just used originated as yours. Perhaps, just maybe, there is something there for you to consider.
Everybody needs to pick the battles they want to fight. Even If yours don’t extend to my concerns, I appreciate your dedication to where you’ve planted your flag.
*This is at least my (limited) experience of cons. I don’t recall hardly any people of color at the ones I’ve been too.
“overwhelmingly white and middle class con environment*
*This is at least my (limited) experience of cons. I don’t recall hardly any people of color at the ones I’ve been to”
Lord-a-mercy, what cons have you been going to? Not Chattacon, or WisCon, or Potlatch, or Readercon, or any ICON (not even the Iowa one) or Worldcons …. I can’t think of any cons I bother going to that fit that description.
Actually, that description matches pretty well with most of the conventions I’ve attended. I just pulled up some pics from Worldcon last year, and while it certainly wasn’t an *exclusively* white convention, it was pretty much dominated by white folks. At my most recent convention, the very first panel packed the room for a discussion of inclusion in fandom. One panelist talked about how fandom was colorblind. Another panelist asked how many people in the room were white. Every single person in the audience raised their hand, except for one woman who had come with a panelist … a panelist I believe was invited to come and do this panel specifically because he wasn’t white.
*sigh*
No, LC, men at cons don’t harass women because men in prison get raped (because America doesn’t care about them) and then are released back into society where they teach all men, including con-going men, to disrespect and assault women. NO. And the “concession” you make concerning the relative paucity of men of color at cons in relation to this weird idea is frankly appalling. NO. And your entire first paragraph seems to be a thinly veiled plea for us to embrace your “apology” and you, by extension, for making it, which, again, NO.
NO, there is nothing here for me to consider except more NO. Please stop it, LC. Just cut your losses and stop it.
The only thing I have to offer at this point is a recognition that sexual harassment and assault are not isolated from the the conditions, social and physical, men find themselves in society. Men won’t stop harassing unless they’re taught not to….
Which Jim is emphatically attempting to do, by enacting what consequence he can upon a confirmed harasser.
Seriously, men really won’t stop harassing and raping until society stops treating harassment as no big deal, until society stops treating women as unreliable witnesses, until society starts enacting consequences for their behavior.
Your posts in this comment thread, despite all your lofty intentions, are part of the problem. Your pleas of “But maybe she misunderstood!” and “Be very, very cautious before you accuse him and maybe ruin his life!” are not unique; you are adding yet another voice to the chorus which constantly reinforces the message that harassers quite definitely hear: There will be no consequences, because a society convinced that false accusation is so much worse than being groped, harassed, or raped, and that women are so very prone to falsely accusing, is a society that will enact no consequences, leaving the gropers, the harassers, and the rapists free to grope, harass, and rape again, and again, again.
Jim’s part of the solution. You’re currently part of the problem. And as part of the problem, you surprise no one with your criticisms of the person who’s part of the solution: “Hey, wait, woah there, slow down before you hurt someone, let’s think this through.” It has ever been thus.
As if to illustrate all the points that we’ve been trying to hammer into your recalcitrant skull over the last few days here is an example of where your “it’s important to remember” rape apologism ends up. Someone was sexually assaulted as a teen by her music teacher. He recently came to trial. His defence barrister put exactly the arguments to her that you have been urging in this thread: that she lived a fantasy world, that she was seeking to damage him by her story, that she could not be trusted. On top of all she had suffered at his hands the cross-examination proved too much. She took her own life.
She never heard that the jury had convicted him – beyond reasonable doubt – of having done exactly what she accused him of – brutal sexual assault.
She never will hear that.
And I’m sure you’re delighted.
Because as you’ve been pointing out, it’s so bloody important to remember the harm that can be done by wrongful accusations of sexual assault.
Your link isn’t working, AJ.
Is this better? http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/09/frances-andrade-courts-son
Yes, that’s working, thank you.
“especially in response to LC and Rob B.” — They’re just trying to figure things out. This is not, as CC noted, a competition. Unfortunately, that can lead to folks insisting that the people who are arguing with them must loathe them and are personally insulting them while calling those people irrational and vicious and referring to that as logic.
But that’s part of the culture training we all get in life — only if people and especially women talk in dulcet tones about women’s issues, we’re told, will they be listened to (male privilege.) Unfortunately, even if you talk in dulcet tones, it doesn’t necessarily get heard, since these are thorny issues, and the insistence on dulcet tones tends to reinforce the culture of silence. Both Rob B. and LC definitely don’t want women to shut up, but the concerns they raised are about shutting women up and that’s the cross-section that needs to get shifted, bit by bit, in the culture.
Jim’s action with this unnamed person is essentially a choice of friends. It’s the refusal to be buddies with and support someone who is taking advantage of the community where that often happens to act unprofessional and sexually harass, again usually in public. It’s akin to a group of male friends who have one member who their girlfriends complain is harassing and threatening them. And that group of friends can ignore and disbelieve their girlfriends and keep having that guy hang around and do what he wants, or take precautions around him because “Bob is just being Bob” and they have common interests (such as being authors together.) Or they can see their girlfriends as credible and not irrational and stop having him over. You can see this as “shunning” and “punishment” and “revenge” if you like, and insist that the group has to keep being friends with Bob unless they catch him in the act of harming their girlfriends. You can insist that they are responsible for Bob’s behavior and emotional problems and that he’s just a poor boy with social problems and they are in charge of watching him to keep him from getting out of hand like a dog with rabies. Or, you can see it as them protecting the people they love, not tolerating harassment, and making a choice of friends.
It’s not about justice and certainly not about vengeance. Women are never going to get justice for anything, nor is that their goal on this issue. They just want the behavior to stop and to not have to fear for their safety because they are female, (and for that matter, male and transgender victims of harassment want the same thing.) And that’s not going to happen when women are not viewed in the society as full human beings beyond their sexual characteristics or capable of understanding their own experiences — experiences they go through on a regular basis their whole lives — and being credible. That’s not going to happen when the main concern is how Bob the harasser is feeling, if Bob is included or not, and if the woman has been thoroughly interrogated and made to feel ashamed and disbelieved. But there’s an enormous amount of ingrained cultural fear that women speaking up more over harassment means they’re coming in an extremist lynch mob and will sweep up poor, clueless guys on their side in their wake. That if women can actually improve the environment so that harassment is less tolerated, people are more aware and incidents decline — that if the society is more equal, then some men may be uncomfortable and shouldn’t we pay attention to this plight.
And the answer is, in dulcet tones, no, we shouldn’t. Bob will survive. Bob might even stop being a harasser some day, but not if his friends build an environment that is perfectly comfortable for him to keep harassing women so as not to “shame” him while shaming their girlfriends for speaking up. So Jim is saying that this guy will not be his author friend and here are behavioral standards he has for those he is willing to be author friends with. That doesn’t keep Bob from going to cons and promoting his book, although if Bob keeps it up, the con folk might end up throwing him out. But the con folk can also intimidate — and some of them have — women authors and others who speak up about harassment and threaten their careers and expel them. Certainly they usually get shamed for speaking out. And called bullies besides. That’s part of living in a world where sexual harassment is not a one-time thing but a near weekly occurrence if you’re female, and nearly every time you talk about it, specifically or in general, you’re considered to be overreacting.
Have read some comments, skimmed some more, and I see two pernicious myths that keep coming up here.
One myth is that “a lot of guys might not know if they are being creepy.” In fact, most creepers are aware at some level that they are being creepy, but they REALLY don’t care. So all these arguments about “but what if men are ACCIDENTALLY creepy and then women are mean to them oh noes” are actually a derail. If all the men who definitely knew they were creepy could be persuaded to stop being creepy, the vast majority of the creeper problem would be solved. Issues of sexual harassment are not about perpetrators who are clueless, although they may in fact be about perpetrators who get very angry when confronted with their own privilege and bluster a lot.
The other is I see a lot of advice to guys to “go get a woman you know to read your comments! She can explain how sexist they are.” Well, no, not necessarily. Maybe. But lots of women are sexist too, or lots of women are not educated about the tropes and assumptions that come up in discussions of sexual harassment or feminism, or lots of women are completely unfamiliar with the idea of privilege. Besides, people’s friends are likely to side with them. On top of that, even if they think their friend Mr. Commenter is wrong about something, maybe they just want to enjoy his company and play Halo and not get into some argument about random stuff on the internet. Or maybe they think he’ll react in an argumentative way. Or maybe they just don’t feel like being a “Token Women’s Perspective.”
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I definitely rely on my friends’ advice. But for a guy, having a female buddy say, “Oh, you’re fine, I know what you meant, also do whatever you want” is not some green card that means now he is right all the time about women’s issues. All women are not experts on feminism.
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interested. Kudos!
Thanks, I needed a laugh.
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