If you’re not IAmCuriousBlue, you can the next paragraph, it will be interesting and generally applicable after that, especially if you see yourself as aligned for (or against) a particular ideological group within the Atheist “community.”
We’ve known each other (distantly) for a while. We’ve argued on the same side in many comment flamewars, and opposing sides in a few. You may believe that I avoid speaking with or to you. If you feel this is deliberate on my part, then you’re right. To explain why, let’s look at an example here:
Some context. There have been hours and hours of words regarding the dust-up over DJ Grothe’s PR and HR mistakes (to put it mildly, especially since he managed to do make both with one poorly-thought-out answer), but my opinions as to why this clusterfuck Internet Fight is completely unnecessary are best summed up in the words expressed by this commenter at the JREF forums, but according to IACB I’ve somehow been taken in by one side in a tribal war of some kind. (here is my previous post with links to many posts about what started this mess).
Let’s unpack that a little. rather than getting behind JREF stepping up and doing what most organizations do, which is affirm that there are already existing policies regarding sexual harassment (when what they really mean is Simple Assault), implement issue tracking so you can tell how well those policies work or if they’re a hindrance (if you’re not tracking them already, which JREF apparently wasn’t), and generally reassuring everyone that the idea of TAM is not to paint targets on certain classes of attendee and presenter, what does the online skeptical community do?
They continue to have the same tribal fights along similar tribal lines that they have been having since whenever (with very few people changing sides), and generally do a great deal to obscure the issues involved and make it all about personalities and cliques. Yes, I’m talking about a good number of bloggers and commenters at FTB and elsewhere. I’m not naming names besides IACB (who this post was inspired by), because making this conflict about individuals and their insecurities is perhaps the biggest reason this isn’t being solved If it IS being solved, it’s happening without anyone knowing about it because of the shitstorm that’s happening (AGAIN).
Seriously, in the words of Scary Dave, “Fuck your team.” I don’t care what team anyone belong to, about the team identity and how just its cause is, and most especially I have absolutely no fucks to give about y’all’s teams “leaders” urgings to fight for (or against) each other, because this obsession with teams and personalities over actual facts has knocked you intellectually and emotionally back into the goddamn third grade, and I will not join you (despite the claims of some that I’m even worse than most of you).
Now that I have your attention, why don’t you try and look at this issue as a rational human being, rather than as part of a team, or as the opponent of one personality or another, or one ideology or another? What do YOU want, and what are YOUR problems or suggestions with the solutions being proffered? Seriously, is the idea that in the larger scheme of things, we are just another group of humans which has a statistically significant number of fuckheads within it such a horrible thing to contemplate? If you are a harasser, then sure, you should be worried.
If not, I would like to direct your attention to the following for consideration:
And truthfully, because sexual harassment is something any gender can do to any other gender, the best sexual harassment policies are gender-neutral. So please, think about it. Isn’t it worth trying to make our community better for us. This isn’t rocket science, and there is no need to reinvent the wheel here. You may not like the above video, but the core is simple: recognize that other people feel differently than you do, and accept that we will need to do just a teeny-tiny bit of work to get along in large numbers. So let’s do this thing.
That’s the whole point. Sexual harassment isn’t about gender wars or fights between world views. You don’t even have to hit on someone to be guilty of SH. It’s about creating a hostile work environment. Two women could be having a loud ‘saucy’ conversation about some paramour with say a married man as well others in the room. All of them would be potential victims of SH from those two women. It’s not just about hitting on someone who’s not interested. Of course in some people’s heads (looking at you IACB and Thunderf00t) it has to be about nut cutting Feminists out to ruin everyone’s fun
So are you saying you have NOT been taken in by those people?
I don’t know, I’m starting to become suspicious! :)
*For the record*, I have never been against all anti-harassment policies, but I do think they need to be tailored to fit the venue. I do think that –gasp– sexualized imagery should not be prohibited from DragonCon, but that would be a perfectly reasonable rule for, for example, American Society for Cell Biology. That’s all I started out arguing, and for that, I’ve had my throat jumped down mercilessly. Which, I’m sorry, makes me tend to stick to a position rather than persuade me.
And as to this:
“It’s about creating a hostile work environment. Two women could be having a loud ‘saucy’ conversation about some paramour with say a married man as well others in the room. All of them would be potential victims of SH from those two women.”
Well thanks for the gender-neutral framing, but my complaint was never that such policies weren’t pro- or anti-male, but anti-speech. And as a matter of fact that kind of draconian atmosphere described above is what I wish to avoid (questioning who’s the “victim” here), especially in an environment like a convention that could not be said to have a captive audience. And I think the “every place is a workplace” idea has some really bad outcomes, for the reasons Eugene Volokh outlines here:
http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/harass/substanc.htm
In any event, my feelings about Cehbeach’s pronouncements about “the way things are” is a matter of record, and I’m not going to be dragged into a lengthy argument over it.
And *in any event*, cooler heads (not entirely yours, Stealthbadger) have convinced me that being an asshole toward corresponding FTB assholes isn’t moving things forward, so I’ve decided to lay off the drama.
Understood. Since your tweet was plural, I figured it wasn’t me, since this blog post was definitely not calm and collected, just another manifestation of “when I’m arguing, it’s for fun, but when it’s time for activism or action, it’s usually unglamorous work that can only be hindered by taking things personally.” I hoped that it might give you (and any others who saw this) a moment of pause for thought. That’s really all I could ask, because the rest is up to the person doing the thinking.
Now to more important things: first, there are problems with the “any place is a workplace,” and almost anything can be perceived as sexualized if you’re moving outside of standard business apparel (and usually even then), but there are indeed free speech limits that should be considered – replace “saucy” with “graphic, including brand names of lube and waving around the applicator used in the event being spoken of?” How about if a victim of domestic violence is going to be hearing about a heavy BDSM session? Sex is intimate, personal, and filled with all sorts of moments that are ecstasy to one person and terror to another. These are very personal boundaries that are ignored at our peril.
Second, framing it as “sexual harassment” does lead to the idea of any place as a workplace, which is why I referred to it as “Simple Assault” in the post above. Not completely accurate, but a little closer to the idea.
Thanks for stopping by!
First, *this* is the article I meant to link to:
http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/harass/slippery.htm
On to this point:
“but there are indeed free speech limits that should be considered – replace “saucy” with “graphic, including brand names of lube and waving around the applicator used in the event being spoken of?” How about if a victim of domestic violence is going to be hearing about a heavy BDSM session? “
It doesn’t even have to be BDSM. The “geek feminist” wiki points out that some women are “triggered” even by images of conventionally attractive women. The point of it is, to what degree does anybody reasonably get protection from something like that? True, in “captive audience” situations, a more restrictive standard might well apply, but even that is going to be relative to the nature of the workplace or classroom. Could an art gallery reasonably be asked not to have an exhibition of some strongly erotic art, say, Richard Kern or Audrey Kawasaki, because an employee chimes in that such images are upsetting to them? (Keeping it deliberately gender-neutral here.) Closer to the convention example, how about Seduction Cinema showing movies at DragonCon or Justine Joli having a booth there? (Real examples, BTW.) Must these be done away with because someone might potentially not want to attend DCon knowing these images of “hegemonic sexuality” will be on display? Would it “harass” conference staff who might not like such images?
If I should ever teach biology, should I refrain from teaching evolution as a fact even if a student perceives that as an attack on deeply held beliefs? (And keep in mind, I’d never single out a student and say their beliefs are stupid, and really loathe any prof who would hide behind academic freedom to treat a student that way.)
It is simply not enough to say that something is upsetting or triggering and therefore one deserves some absolute protection from that stimulus. It really depends on the time and place and the context.
So the fact that a convention is arguably a place of public accommodation doesn’t affect that at all?
The idea that at heart we are emotional critters, and can be triggered and driven out of a rational frame of mind doesn’t conflict with the idea that a conference is a place where people need to, at least in the hotel lobby and other places, not be constantly on their guard against Gilbert Gottfreid walking in and doing his rendition of “The Aristocrats” (which would be awesedome, but could be distressing to many)??
The fact that we don’t get to say whatever we want is a fact of adult life, because adulthood is about moving beyond the “you shouldn’t because we say so” and into the idea of formulating a degree of self-restraint and acknowledge that we need to take at least partial responsibility for the consequences of our actions, to the degree that we actually are the cause for whatever happened.
I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I try to make a serious point backed by evidence, and you make some cheap implications about lack of “maturity” those of us who actually give a shit about free speech? Well, whatever.
There’s damn good reasons for broad free speech protections overall in a democratic society, and I probably don’t need to provide a long civics lesson as to why, and even within the subset of private communities and venues that can regulate speech any way they want (so don’t try that counter-argument on me), narrow party lines and a stifling atmosphere are *not a good thing*.
Those who have been taking the bizarre “free thought does not equal free speech” line I guess don’t care to have a secularist movement with a diversity of approaches and points of view, at least from what I can gather. And that’s too bad, really, because that just makes the secularist movement that much weaker. But then “movement atheism” was never all it was cracked up to be anyway.
Bye.
I’m still puzzled about this. My reply was serious criticism, not snark.