FtBCon2: Sexual Harassment Law and You, with full transcript! #ftbcon

Ken White of Popehat gave a great presentation at FtBConscience 2 about sexual harassment law and anti-harassment policies at conventions. Surprise surprise, the troll narrative about sexual harassment is about as far from the legalities of the situation as you can get!

Here’s some of his supplementary material he originally posted here:

Some related links:

Here’s the link to where the conference will be.

Here’s a short quiz in preparation for the talk.

Here’s a great resource about the recent history of calls for anti-harassment policies in the skeptic, open-source, and science fiction and fantasy communities.

Here’s the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s publications on discrimination issues.

I’ve written before about how complaints about harassment provoke disproportionate outrage and further harassment; those posts are hereand here.

The full transcript, graciously provided by Josiah BibleName (Facebook, Twitter, Flickr), is below the fold. It was provided without paragraph breaks; for readability, I’ll be editing them in as time allows.
Continue reading “FtBCon2: Sexual Harassment Law and You, with full transcript! #ftbcon”

FtBCon2: Sexual Harassment Law and You, with full transcript! #ftbcon
{advertisement}

The Truth Hurts

I’ve been feeling somewhat inured to the constant grind on the soul of people coming forward with tales of their having been sexually assaulted of late. Then along comes Pamela Gay, one of the kindest, smartest, funniest people I’ve had the pleasure to work with, however briefly, and her story has such a ring of familiarity and timeliness that people are speculating that she’s the one DJ Grothe and Barbara Drescher were talking about.

And to make matters worse, Dr. Gay is the one feeling guilty here, despite having personally done nothing wrong. She’s the one facing repercussions within the community for having spoken up last year about harassment. She’s the one being targeted for further harassment and abuse, and she’s the one whose career is on the line. Because she’s the one who has breasts. Because she’s the one who spoke up.

I am just fucking GUTTED now.

With ever increasing difficulty I’ve been dealing with issues of gender related to my career. Right now, I am struggling with hearing that an event I categorized as “A drunk ass tried to grab my boobs,” is now being discussed by witnesses as, “He tried to sexually assault her in a bar while intoxicated.” I had created a euphemism for myself, and having that euphemism striped away is making me realize that I have been hiding from myself the true degree to which I have been harmed.

Continue reading “The Truth Hurts”

The Truth Hurts

Carrie Poppy and the Nay-Sayers

In observing the way the skeptical and secular communities have melted down lately over the merest hint that some of its top members might have occasionally behaved in manners that are not beyond reproach, I’ve come to the realization that certain members of our community think that all this “rage blogging” about “drama” is about trying to steal power from other people; that the communities upper echelons are populated entirely by people who think they’re reliving a secular Game of Thrones. The political machinations, the people who are willing to sell out their principles, the people who have no such principles to begin with who rise to power, and all the toadies… toadies everywhere… who will swarm on anyone who dares scandalize someone’s scandalous behaviour. It’s all very tiresome to watch, especially when some players are willing to excuse every bad behaviour even while they’re admitting that behaviour actually happened as stated.

Carrie Poppy has been extraordinarily well-placed in some of the bigger scandals regarding sexual harassment and sexual assault recently, in having been employed as communications director for JREF and having resigned after six months due to, let’s say, philosophical differences with DJ Grothe, president of the organization. Well, if you can classify her stating her reasons for leaving as mere philosophy, being his “constant duplicity, dishonesty, and manipulation”.

So people rushed then to attack Carrie Poppy, to destroy her as an irrational harpy with a bone to grind and an axe to pick against Grothe. So when she recently decided to suggest that women should generally stay away from TAM because the JREF was unlikely to treat any incidents with any level of seriousness, people naturally resorted to the same trope — that she was trying to destroy TAM and JREF.

Only the strange thing is, the corroboration of her claims came from those very people that you’d least expect. The ones who have been trying to naysay the whole thing all along.

Continue reading “Carrie Poppy and the Nay-Sayers”

Carrie Poppy and the Nay-Sayers

More foot-gunning in the Shermer debacle

John Loftus, ex Freethought Blogger who left because not enough Christians were engaging with his posts so he could convert them, who subsequently founded and then left Skeptic Ink for the same reason, is now blogging at his original Blogspot blog about PZ Myers and Michael Shermer. (A hint, good sir — you may want to actually target your intended audience with your posts.) In his post, wherein the only possible reasons he proffers that PZ Myers might have published the rape allegation — made against Michael Shermer by an unnamed source whom he trusts — involve either naivety or malice, Loftus published the following addendum:

In a personal email to me Shermer categorically denies these accusations. If what he said about his accuser gets out, it will be apparent to most all reasonable people that PZ Myers published a bold-faced lie. He recklessly tried to destroy another person’s reputation without regard for fact-checking.

Continue reading “More foot-gunning in the Shermer debacle”

More foot-gunning in the Shermer debacle

Sexual harassment accusations in the skeptical and secular communities: a timeline of major events

In the vein of the harassment policies campaign timeline, wherein the major players in the movement fought hard for harassment policies at secular events and largely won the day despite monumental pushback, I felt it prudent to get ahead of people trying to misinterpret the timeline of events and twist the timeline to their own ends. That harassment policies campaign actually contains a significant amount of back-story for a lot of these issues. It also includes a number of charges with regard to assaults that had been reported but not dealt with by the organizations in question. Take a moment to re-familiarize yourself with that timeline before returning here, please.

As a result of the community reaching a tipping point, with many prominent voices having been subjected to harassment for years on end, these past few weeks have become something of a watershed moment for our movements. It is important that the actions are documented, even where legal threats have removed the original claims. I will be updating this on the fly, as a living document, much as I did with the previous timeline. At the bottom is a list of links I’m already planning on including, that will be put into their proper positions as I go.

Please feel free to add important events in the comments, though I am not going back as far as WiS2 and documenting the controversy surrounding it unless it’s extremely relevant to this timeline. I am also not linking every single blog commentary unless it has important or unique events or pieces of context, though I am not against comments containing links to said less-directly-relevant commentary even if it doesn’t make it into the body of the post.
Continue reading “Sexual harassment accusations in the skeptical and secular communities: a timeline of major events”

Sexual harassment accusations in the skeptical and secular communities: a timeline of major events

Some justice in Rehtaeh Parsons case

There is no justice in this universe but what happens right here, on this planet, when there are repercussions for transgressions against one another. Sometimes, though, you have to settle for what you get.

Trigger warning for sexual assault and bullying of a sexual assault victim.
Continue reading “Some justice in Rehtaeh Parsons case”

Some justice in Rehtaeh Parsons case

Ben Radford and CFI: A point of contention

Center For Inquiry’s Ben Radford, whom you might remember as the skeptic who took on a four year old over evolutionary reasons little girls might like pink, among numerous other terrible bits of skepticism and anti-science, has been accused of sexually harassing and assaulting Karen Stollznow serially over a period of four years. The story was told anonymously, but a number of independent sources on Twitter and elsewhere blew the whistle and named Radford. PZ received many emails to that effect. And Stollznow has since given her blessing to the people naming him.

An investigation was apparently undertaken by CFI, hiring a third party contractor; the investigators may or may not have found him guilty. That appears to be a point of contention presently in the narrative. From Stollznow’s post:

Five months after I lodged my complaint I received a letter that was riddled with legalese but acknowledged the guilt of this individual. They had found evidence of “inappropriate communications” and “inappropriate” conduct at conferences. However, they greatly reduced the severity of my claims. When I asked for clarification and a copy of the report they treated me like a nuisance. In response to my unanswered phone calls they sent a second letter that refused to allow me to view the report because they couldn’t release it to “the public”. They assured me they were disciplining the harasser but this turned out to be a mere slap on the wrist. He was suspended, while he was on vacation overseas. They offered no apology, that would be an admission of guilt, but they thanked me for bringing this serious matter to their attention. Then they asked me to not discuss this with anyone. This confidentiality served me at first; I wanted to retain my dignity and remain professional. Then I realized that they are trying to silence me, and this silence only keeps up appearances for them and protects the harasser.

Emphasis mine.

They had enough evidence that he was serially harassing someone in order to “suspend” him — while he was already on vacation overseas. When it would have no impact on his job, and would serve as nothing but a note in his file.
Continue reading “Ben Radford and CFI: A point of contention”

Ben Radford and CFI: A point of contention

Seelix on how to spot and how to shame fake geeks

Seelix (whom you might know as Emily, the comic book costumer) has had it UP TO HERE (err, imagine me waving my hand animatedly at forehead level) with the scourge of the fandom community, the breed of supposed fan that just sucks all the joy out of being a dyed-in-the-wool fan of science fiction, fantasy and comics: the dreaded Fake Geek.

It’s time to put our collective feet down and put a stop to the mindless worship of these faux-nerds. They ruin everything with their perfect bodies and their skin-tight costumes. They ruin everything with their laughing eyes, hiding the contempt they feel for us, the real nerds. They ruin everything when they reject us when we so kindly show them the attention they were obviously asking for with their skimpy outfits. They ruin everything when they pretend to get angry when we give them a little extra grab while they take a picture with us.

It’s why they do it. They secretly love the attention. They love the groping. They love the constant romantic overtures. They only complain because they think they’re supposed to. After all, they wouldn’t dress sexily if they didn’t want the attention.

And that’s exactly why they do it. It’s obvious. They absolutely love the attention they get when donning skintight spandex and prancing around in front of their adoring sycophants.

I mean, look at these guys. Do you really believe they’re nerds? Come on.

I demand that you read on, so you know how best to identify these fake geeks and nerds who have infiltrated our community to pick up poor socially-awkward nerd girls by putting on spandex costumes and being all hot and shit. Preying on nerdy females’ vulnerabilities by pretending to like and know about the things that they like. Bah! Bet they couldn’t even name all the Green Lanterns.

Though, I think she might just be bitter. I saw her boyfriend at CONvergence and he seems to be one of “them” — bet he doesn’t even really know who Hawkeye is, or his real name (no, his first name is NOT “Agent”!), or what his non-Avengers costume looks like. Next time I see him, I’ll ask him all sorts of uncomfortable questions rather than just taking it on faith that he’s actually a fan. Rassin’ frassin.

Seelix on how to spot and how to shame fake geeks

On drama vs conflict regarding harassment policies

I made a snide remark aimed at certain trollish parties in a comment at Almost Diamonds in a post that probably could stand far less of my snideness. Stephanie describes the repeated and disdainful dismissal of the conflict between folks who want harassment policies and folks who don’t, and the repeated and disdainful reductionistic treatment of that conflict as one between DJ Grothe and Rebecca Watson, two players who, while leaders in our skeptical communities, are really both adjunct to the overarching question of whether or not our communities need better harassment policies. You should read that post in its entirety before coming back here.
Continue reading “On drama vs conflict regarding harassment policies”

On drama vs conflict regarding harassment policies