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Let's get a little louder

juliaelman.com

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Re: Let's get a little louder

#2

Post by stdbrouw »

That really sucks, and maybe the conference organizers could have been better at coming up with a way to deal with this, but I don't know what a sexual harrassment policy would solve. Sexual harrassment is immoral and depending on the nature punishable by law. Spelling that out would be like spelling out that you'd prefer people not to defecate in the hallways. We need to find solutions, not add organizational scar tissue (see http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/dont_scar_on_the_first_cu...).

Re: Let's get a little louder

#3

Post by jnoller »

This sucks, period - there's no two ways about it. Things like this are why I am glad PyCon (us.pycon.org) has a code of conduct in place (https://us.pycon.org/2012/codeofconduct/) which is enforced by staff. There is no place for this type of behavior, anywhere.

I am sorry this happened to you Julia, it should not have, and the conference organizers should not have blinked before ejecting the responsible party from the conference.

Re: Let's get a little louder

#4

Post by supernooneo »

Careful that she is making an accusation here, but it is not proven, and prior bad behaviour (that's also an unproven accusation) is not an indicator of present guilt.

I don't think we should ban people from conferences based on unproven accusations.

Re: Let's get a little louder

#5

Post by SeanOC »

stdbrouw wrote: post #2

That really sucks, and maybe the conference organizers could have been better at coming up with a way to deal with this, but I don't know what a sexual harrassment policy would solve. Sexual harrassment is immoral and depending on the nature punishable by law. Spelling that out would be like spelling out that you'd prefer people not to defecate in the hallways. We need to find solutions, not add organizational scar t…

While I agree that this problem could have been handled better in absence of a sexual harassment policy, there's a lot to be gained by having such a policy. In this situation I don't agree that conferences having sexual harassment policies are "scar tissue".

First and foremost, the scare tissue complaint largely relies on a policy being applied to an extremely rare event. Unfortunately this kind of thing is almost certainly less rare than you think. If you run a large or frequent enough event, sexual harassment will happen. It really sucks, but it's a reality of the world that we live in that we need to deal with. To make things worse, it probably will go un-reported and the person that it happened to will simply feel uncomfortable with the event and the community as a whole.

By having an explicit policy that addresses sexual harassment you accomplish a number of things:

  * You make attendees more mindful of their actions.  Often people who commit sexual harassment don't really realized the full extent and consequences for what they are doing.  By stating that this type of behavior is unacceptable, upfront, at least some people will be a bit more likely to think before they act.
  * Should something happen, the path to action is clear.  Running a conference is a bit of a crazy job.  You're keeping track of a hundred things at once and dealing with a dozen people's problems.  This is not the best state to be in when you need to decide how to handle a delicate situation.  By stating upfront how this type of behavior will be handled, it takes a load off of the organizers' shoulders on the day off.
  * A strong signal is communicated to people who are concerned and possibly afraid to attend an event.  People go through all kinds of horrible things in life.  Often those experiences leave people (understandably) cautious about situations that might lead to similar experiences.  By having an explicit policy, people with fears and concerns are given a strong signal that the event in question will be a place where they are safe and welcome.
As with anything you need to weigh the costs and benefits of introducing a policy given the context of your situation and as far as I am concerned, having a sexual harassment policy for conferences is an easy win for everybody involved.

Re: Let's get a little louder

#8

Post by bnegreve »

Honestly, I don't think the conference should be in charge of this (specially when it doesn't happen where the conference takes place). This is a very general problem and should be handled by state/federal laws rather than arbitrary decisions taken by conference organizer.

Re: Let's get a little louder

#10

Post by stfu »

Somehow I see no causation between a conference and the drunken comments by its attendees at a bar. Trying to argue that a conference organizer should hold some moral responsible for the people attending seems to me just ridiculous. He looked at me and sighed, confessing that he never should have allowed this guy to come to the conference. Here the Wait. What? Really? seems to be better placed - is there somebody really demanding the banning people from conferences who potentially may or may not be saying stupid things while being drunk at a bar?

Apparently the world is full of idiots, but it makes a difference if something is said/done/etc in a closed work environment or at some random bar among random people who just meet at some random event. Just because they like the same kind of things (music, coding languages, other "stuff") doesn't make them having some supreme ethical and moral standard. Demanding stronger sexual harassment laws is a legitimate request, but trying to paint the tech community as misogynist because of some random bar encounter is in my opinion unacceptable.

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