D.J. Grothe Tackles the Problem of Harassment

Yesterday, I asked people to help Kylie collect information on why women don’t return to TAM. I included D.J. Grothe’s hypothesis on the topic. As Kylie was asleep in Australia, D.J. left a response (to what exactly, I’m not sure) in my comments as well. Rebecca Watson took the opportunity to ask D.J. to clarify part of his original hypothesis, which he did. He left an additional comment, which was largely repetition of prior points, as well.

I’d like to take the opportunity to highlight and comment on some of what D.J. had to say. Continue reading “D.J. Grothe Tackles the Problem of Harassment”

D.J. Grothe Tackles the Problem of Harassment
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Where Are the Women?

Kylie has a post up asking for information on what is keeping women from returning to atheist or skeptical conventions. As a conversational starting point, she quoted D.J. Grothe on the matter (emphasis hers):

Last year we had 40% women attendees, something I’m really happy about. But this year only about 18% of TAM registrants so far are women, a significant and alarming decrease, and judging from dozens of emails we have received from women on our lists, this may be due to the messaging that some women receive from various quarters that going to TAM or other similar conferences means they will be accosted or harassed. (This is misinformation. Again, there’ve been on reports of such harassment the last two TAMs while I’ve been at the JREF, nor any reports filed with authorities at any other TAMs of which I’m aware.) We have gotten emails over the last few months from women vowing never to attend TAM because they heard that JREF is purported to condone child-sex-trafficking, and emails in response to various blog posts about JREF or me that seem to suggest I or others at the JREF promote the objectification of women, or that we condone violence or threats of violence against women, or that they believe that women would be unsafe because we feature this or that man on the program. I think this misinformation results from irresponsible messaging coming from a small number of prominent and well-meaning women skeptics who, in trying to help correct real problems of sexism in skepticism, actually and rather clumsily themselves help create a climate where women — who otherwise wouldn’t — end up feeling unwelcome and unsafe, and I find that unfortunate.

I’ve heard the theory before, and I’m curious what information will turn up in Kylie’s comments. Please, if you’re a woman and not returning to a conference you’ve previously attended, tell her why.

Where Are the Women?

The Thing About Work

…is that you can’t just walk away. You can’t throw a fit in proportion to the idiocy in front of you without worrying about how it reflects on your employer (even if you’re volunteering). If it’s public-facing work, you’re generally constrained to be friendly and appealing, however you personally feel just then.

All of that is what makes this so particularly inappropriate.

Then, at the very end, when everyone was preparing to leave, and I was packing up the Hug Me table, answering questions, and generally socializing with other speakers and attendees, thinking about how fat my check is going to be from Big Pharma when one man and his wife, whom I’ve become vaguely acquainted with on Facebook in the last week, approached my table. He said, “Here’s a little something to remember us by” and handed me an upside-down card. I turned it halfway over, glanced at it peripherally, then thanked them.

A minute or so later, I had a “wait… what?” moment, then flipped the card over and looked at it not peripherally to discover I had not been handed a business card, but a card with a naked photo of the two of them, with their information on how to contact them should I want to fuck.

A person at work is not free. Unless coercion is your thing, you let them be in control of making your encounters less professional (assuming that’s what you want). If coercion is your thing, well, an awful lot of people are gearing up to make your life less satisfying, and I’m all for that.

The Thing About Work

A Coalition Is Not a Community

This is part of my ongoing discussion with James Croft on the establishment of humanist communities. Links to the full series of posts is below.

On Thursday, James agreed with me that the normative aspects of community can be exclusionary. He said pains would need to be taken to keep any humanist community from defining itself in such a way to cause problems. I’m not entirely sure that can happen, but I’ll get back to that later.

James said that his purpose in building communities is the political strength they offer. I agree that a community does offer more political strength than the individuals in it do alone. I was particularly struck by this quote by William R. Murry that James used, however:

Institutionalized injustice can be changed only through the exercise of power…Each person is a center of power. Our task is to use our personal power on behalf of love and justice to effect systematic change. One of the best ways to use power effectively is to form voluntary associations and coalitions of associations. Coalitions are important because there is strength in numbers. In today’s world, groups that do not exercise their power on behalf of their interests and rights are usually left out of consideration by governmental or corporate entities…Justice is won only when power is brought to bear against power.

I agree with this, but when I read it, it doesn’t tell me that we need humanist communities organized around taking action on their values. That is in some ways the opposite of what this passage says to me. Continue reading “A Coalition Is Not a Community”

A Coalition Is Not a Community

Real Progress

Five atheist conventions have reacted to my two posts on speakers behaving badly and harassment policies (plus all the commentary there and all over the atheist blogosphere O.o):

  • The Secular Student Alliance will make their harassment policy more public.
  • The American Atheists will adopt a formal, public policy.
  • Freethought Festival will adopt a formal, public policy.
  • The Minnesota Atheists will adopt a formal, public policy for their events, including their convention this summer, as confirmed to me through email.
  • Skepticon will adopt a formal, public policy.

Additionally, Zach Moore has announced:

The next secular event I attend or organize will have a clear anti-harassment policy or it won’t happen. Simple as that.

Ian Bushfield, president of the British Columbia Humanists, has said something similar about conventions he plans.

That’s a good start, particularly for all happening within three days, but it’s obviously not enough. If you go to conventions, look for their harassment policies. If you can’t find them, or they don’t amount to anything more concrete than “We’re agin’ it”, tell the organizers you want them to do better. Volunteer to help if you can. Then come back and tell us what they said or what kind of policy they have.

There is more in the works too. Continue reading “Real Progress”

Real Progress

Making It Safer in the Meantime

Dear event organizers, in response to Sunday’s post about the broad, behind-the-scenes knowledge that some of the male speakers at our conferences use their conference appearances as an opportunity to abuse women, someone has finally pointed out the obvious:

You will, of course, do whatever you want, but I find it very upsetting to be told that, “You should come to our conferences! Of course, some of the people who really have a chunk of power at the conferences (the speakers) are known to treat women badly, and thus might treat you badly. But I won’t tell you who they are, so you’ll just have to hope you don’t encounter them or, if you do encounter them, that they won’t treat you badly. But do come!”

I’ve been to one secular/atheist/freethinker conference, and I was treated badly by a man (not a speaker). As awful as it was, the one of the things that made it bearable was the thought that no one knew this was going to happen and that if they had, they would have acted to support me. To think that I might go through a similar experience with a speaker while knowing that other people knew what was going to happen but felt no need to warn me makes me very angry, and it makes me feel like I’m not safe to go to conferences.

It’s all well and good to advise “networking behind the scenes,” but I don’t have a fucking network, and that’s part of the reason I feel like going to conferences might be good for me. But if I have to network behind the scenes to be safe at conferences, then I have to already have what I’m looking for to be safe.

Maybe I’m being selfish about this. Maybe I’m too angry. But I’ve been abused enough in my life. I am not about to set myself up to be abused again, and it makes my eyes tear up and my throat constrict to think that going to these conferences means going to interact with people who everyone else may know is abusive but won’t warn me because I don’t have connections.

Are you prepared to answer Erista? Are you prepared to tell her what you’re doing to help her have a safe and fun experience at your event?

I know you’re already in a bind. I know many of you are already frustrated with the situation. I know some of you are on the receiving end of this behavior yourself as a job hazard. But there are some basic things you need to do. The good news is that these will make it easier (though not easy) to shut this behavior down in the long term. Continue reading “Making It Safer in the Meantime”

Making It Safer in the Meantime

Zero Intolerance

I’m on my way home from CFI’s Women in Secularism conference. It was an intense conference in the best way possible. Speakers I have seen give speeches elsewhere were at their most passionate here. I finally got to see speakers who should be on every atheist convention organizer’s wish list. I’ll be talking more about the conference over the next few days.

Right now, though, I’m going to talk about something that happened almost outside the conference. It had its genesis on stage, when Jen McCreight mentioned that, when she started speaking at conferences, multiple people contacted her behind the scenes to tell her which male speakers she should steer clear of.

This announcement made no noticeable ripple in the room at the time. When I tweeted something to that effect, however, discussion started. One guy I’ve never heard of before thought we should tell him who these speakers were or, well, he’d just be snarky in the future when the topic came up because he couldn’t be responsible for knowing. Another said women should do more naming and shaming. A female speaker said the same happened to her. Someone who arranges speakers for her group expressed concern that this wasn’t common knowledge.

Then the topic started infecting the barcon and hallcon. I had multiple conversations over multiple tables yesterday. It turns out I have a few things to say on the topic.

So did other people, and you’ll find some of what they had to say here. You won’t find their names unless they let me know they want to claim their words. I’ll explain why in more general terms later. Most importantly, though, we didn’t talk about whether individual statements were off the record, but one of the premises of conversations like these is that the whole topic is off the record. If it weren’t, we’d have both less and more to talk about.

Without further ado, presented in the form of a FAQ:

Continue reading “Zero Intolerance”

Zero Intolerance

Who's Going to Women in Secularism?

Tomorrow morning at far, far too early, I hop on a plane headed for DC. I’m going to rely on Brianne to keep me awake long enough to get on the flight. She is certainly enthusiastic enough for it.

I am too, even if I’m not morning person enough to enjoy getting all my stuff together for it. I want to hear all the speakers, of course, but the best parts of a conference like this are the hallcon and the barcon, the conversations where everyone gets to meet and chat. They were awesome at Freethought Festival. I strongly suspect they’re going to be epic here.

So if you’re there and you happen to see me, please introduce yourself. It’s a big part of why I’m going.

Who's Going to Women in Secularism?

Temple Talk

While in Madison a couple weeks ago for Freethought Festival, I got to meet James Croft, of Temple of the Future fame/infamy. You know, one of those humanists at Harvard who insist we need organized communities of nonbelievers to replace church congregations. When he gave his speech that Sunday, he introduced himself as one of those super-accommodationists, the faithiest of faitheists.

In reality, James seems to like messing with people, particularly if it can shake up their preconceptions. (You should have heard him calling to the students wandering past the windows who thought they were making light fun of us old people inside. Some of those boys might have fainted if there’d been an open window. Others probably would have been delighted, but that’s not getting this story any further forward. Unlike James. Ahem.) He is also passionate about changing the world to make it a more just place, and he thinks these communities are a way to make this happen.

James and I agree strongly on the first point. We don’t necessarily disagree about the second point, but I’m not sure we agree either, despite having put in a good bit of discussion on the matter Saturday night. Continue reading “Temple Talk”

Temple Talk

Let's Talk Trolls

Registration for CONvergence 2012: Wonder Women (at which SkepchickCon will be held, along with three nights of FtB room party) is about to go up in price. Register by May 15, it’s $60 for an adult. Register at the door, it’s $100. They really want to know ahead of time how many people to prepare for.

Dithering about whether to pay for a weekend of geeky goodness? Well, the schedule is just up, so I’m not spoiling anything when I tell you you don’t want to miss this.

Don’t Feed the Trolls
Friday, 2 p.m., Atrium 4

Sexism, misogyny & the internet. A discussion about the recent wave of internet bullying against women and what we can do about it.

Who will be on this fun little panel of pro tipsters?

  • Rebecca Watson
  • Greg Laden
  • Heina Dadabhoy
  • Jason Thibeault
  • Yours truly

It should be a staid and sedate discussion, I’m sure. We’re all so…polite. Sweet even.

So, come on. Register. You know you want to.

Let's Talk Trolls