Very cool, if true

Re the conventions: Geek Social Fallacies rear their head again! There was an LJ thread a couple of years back full of horror stories like this.

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On that sexual harassment one:

> Defining the Behaviors: To help define these behaviors,
> we need input, and that comes from all of you.

No, nobody needs more input. Sexual harassment is already perfectly understood in a feminist context and the wheel doesn't need reinvention for fan conventions.

The "input" they are asking for will consist of massive amounts of derailing by ill-informed men (and a much smaller number of women, and perhaps even people of other genders).

The project should instead be about direct lobbying of conference organisers to put explicit anti-harrassment guidelines in place immediately. There are plenty of good guidelines out there already - perhaps getting in touch with some feminist conference organisers would be the best first step.

Those guidelines should be imposed in an absolutely dictatorial way, and many people will be angry and put off. Good. We could do with less sexists in fandom.

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Really all they need is a big sign saying, "Normal rules of social behaviour still apply."

I'm not sure it is sexism, though, so much as ignorance.

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Given that normal rules of social behaviour include groping on public transport and that people can even get raped without bystanders even intervening (there have been a couple of cases of this recently), I think we need better-than-normal rules.

I'm not interested in debating whether or not the behaviour is sexist - let's talk about that once the molestation is split equally along gender lines between molestors and the people they molest.

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Given that normal rules of social behaviour include groping on public transport
Which they don't. Some people successfully break the rules, because people are crap at enforcing them, but that doesn't mean the rules actively include groping as normal.

I do wish that people _would_ enforce the rules more, but I know that a lot of people are scared of making a fuss, not helped by media portrayal of people who attempt to deal with unpleasantness as inevitably ending up being stabbed.

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First, I hope you agree that "normal rules of social behaviour" is not the same as "the law". Given that, I never read the book which contains the "normal rules". I just look at the behaviour society endorses through (lack of) action. Given the ubiquity of the experience of being groped, it's fair to say that this is part of the normal social experience and fits within the "rules".

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What percentage of people that you encounter grope you? 75%? 50%? 25%? 5%? 1%? Less than that?

Because if a behaviour isn't being shown by more than 25% of the people you're bumping into then it doesn't sound like normal behaviour to me.

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Don't talk to me. Talk to women who've been groped - especially in the United States. And why are you focusing on the men? "Normal" experience is to be groped. Of course that means that less than 100% of the men are groping. So what? What matters here is that only in a very low % of the cases are people intervening - just as is the experience at cons.

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You were the one who said "normal rules of social behaviour include groping on public transport", not "the normal experience of travelling on public transport involves being groped". These are two very different things, and I was pointing out that your statement was categorically wrong.

And I agree that more people should intervene! I said that myself four comment upstream.

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> I was pointing out that your statement was categorically wrong

Why? Do you really think I believe that 25%, 50%, 75% of men grope on public transport?

Because I spent the time responding to those comments under the assumption that you didn't get it, not that you were just interested in pointing out that I said a thing in an imprecise way.

If you basically get it, don't waste the time of activists with this kind of thing. I spend enough time debating with utter bigots that I have only so much energy to expend on this.

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I don't know what you believe. You may well have information I don't - that there are situations where the majority of men are groping women. I believe that Japan has a massive problem with this on its subways, but I lack any kind of deep knowledge of that situation, so if you had said "Well, it's not that bad in the UK, but in Japan men really do behave this way - see this appalling article" then I'd have been shocked, but better educated.

We both have to operate under limited information. You don't know whether I "get it", I don't know if you know things better. If you believe that I do generally get it then feel free not to debate with me - I'm not going to think any less of you because you say "It's just bad, let's leave it there."

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And yet I'm "categorically wrong"? Make up your mind. Are you asking to be educated by stuff I might know and you might not, or are you showing me how wrong I am? If you were looking to be educated, that's not how to go about it.

If you don't know if I know things better, ask me. Say, "Do you know something I don't? I don't understand what you said."

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I'm disagreeing with what you're saying (because you said something that I believed, and still believe to be wrong), but willing to be proved wrong myself. That's how debate works - thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

You said that the rule is to grope, I said that it wasn't. We debated it back and forth and eventually you admitted that you'd mispoken, and actually the common experience is being groped. You could have persuaded me otherwise, if you'd happened to have extra information, but as it turned out you'd simply said something different to what you meant. Which is ok, I do that too :->

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Here's a way to help the progress of anti-sexist politics:

Say, "I am willing to be persuaded otherwise. Or did you actually mean this instead?"

Don't go into this bullshit debating mode, because that is exactly the same mode used by bigots who want to defend sexist opinions and derailers who want to avoid discussing sexism.

If you want to distinguish yourself, that is how.

Otherwise, run the risk of being misidentified as a bigot or a derailer.

Engaging with you in the same way I'd engage with a bigot or a derailer is not a mode I enjoy, and probably not one you enjoy either. It wastes my time and emotional energy.

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Then don't do it. You're not being forced to, you know. Assume my good faith, and proceed from that.

I assumed that you meant exactly what you said, and disagreed with it on that basis. I'm not going to go around assuming you mean things that are different to what you say, or constantly asking you to clarify.

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Thing is - though there are plenty of predators - I don't think pyjama-groper guy was being strictly predatory. Rather what he did was inappropriate and intrusive.

He was probably labouring under the - yes, OK - sexist assumption that girls "who dress like that" *want and invite* intimate gestures from strangers.

So, though I might well have punched him and not felt bad about it, I think the problem is in part due to socially maladjusted males mistaking the atmosphere of a con for some sort of swingers party.

For that reason, just telling people: "Sexual harrassment: No, actually the same rules apply as for Real Life, no matter how people dress and act" might actually help alleviate the problem.

The real predators - the bastards that create the groped public transport *experience* you cite - will still be predators piggybacking off the Geek Social Fallacies.

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You can't separate it out into Real Predators (complete with plastic macs and a sketchy moustache) and Otherwise Nice But A Bit Clueless Guys.

Instead, look at the social attitudes which say "women are for touching". The NBABCGs have a bit of that, gropers have a bit more, more serious sexual offenders have even more.

Sexism is a scale, harassment at cons exists on that scale.

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You called my statement "categorically wrong". So either:

1. I have very surprising information which you don't

2. There has been a misunderstanding

3. I am fundamentally deluded on the subject

Given that (1) and (2) are the likely options, "asking me to clarify" is exactly what you should do.

Alternatively, if you think I am fundamentally deluded, say so. Don't mansplain at me.

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Mansplain???

And I thought you were deluded - I directly contradicted you. I thought you were making that claim that the truth was A, and was saying that it was not A, but B. But I was perfectly willing for you to come back and show me that actually it was A, and B was based on incorrect information. I don't see a problem with this - why do you believe there is one?

If I said "There is no sexual oppression any more!" I'd expect you to say "Yes there is! It's everywhere!" and, if feeling charitable, follow up with a few links to sites which showed the scale of the problem. I wouldn't expect you to say "Would you like to clarify why you think there's no sexual oppression?"

Edit: I could be wrong here of course - would you come back with the request for clarification?

Edited Date: 2010-02-01 02:52 pm (UTC)

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Yes, I suppose, looked at that way most harassment is sexist in motivation, and exists on a sliding scale of sexism.

However, that means that it's cultural, and sometimes culture can be changed by simply educating people.

In other circumstances, pyjama tickle guy might get a girl drunk and rape her, since he probably thinks thats why con-going girls get drunk. So I don't think he's otherwise nice.

The Real Predators, on the other hand, are different. There was a thread this time last year, I think, where there were some pretty awful con stories that amounted to attempted stranger rape. People like that are toxic abusers and predators. They break rules knowlingly. They probably also steal stuff, rip off friends, and engage in all sorts of petty bullying. (For some reason, geek social circles seem very bad at identifying and ostracising people like that.)

So, I still think there's a definite distinction between men with sexist ideas about women at cons, and real predators. The former can be educated, the latter must be watched for.

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Mainsplaining is a way to call someone deluded / an idiot without coming out and saying, "You're deluded / an idiot". It's great because it has all the effect of calling someone deluded / an idiot without the accountability. In fact, it makes the mansplainer look quite reasonable!

What you do is take the deluded idiot by the hand and walk them through, in a patronising manner, exactly why they are wrong. What you don't do at any point is check your understanding that they're wrong; you just present them with detailed evidence of their wrongness (often by pointing out very obvious "mistakes").

As a reminder, these was your post:

What percentage of people that you encounter grope you? 75%? 50%? 25%? 5%? 1%? Less than that?

Because if a behaviour isn't being shown by more than 25% of the people you're bumping into then it doesn't sound like normal behaviour to me.

That is patronising as hell. I'm ok with numbers, you know, as are quite a lot of us. I'm capable of putting something on a percentage scale without you suggesting helpful breakpoints. I also don't need it explaining that the definition of "normal" and "less than 25%" are not usually compatible. In common I would think with the majority of your readers, I know what a bell curve looks like.

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Oh, and on mansplaining:
http://kateharding.net/2010/01/27/me-a-mansplainer-let-me-mansplain/
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2010/01/it-looks-like-were-going-to-have.html
http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/2010/01/29/there-are-molecules-in-the-brain-called-neurotransmitters/

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I still don't see the dividing line. Sure, people are at different postions on the "internalised rape culture" scale, and different strategies are needed to keep those people away from the con. And sometimes education is best and sometimes someone needs chucking out the door.

But I think that the "real predator" category is very unhelpful because it tells everyone else, "You're *not* a real predator", or indeed, "The behaviour you experienced wasn't *real* predation", and at the end of that line is Whoopi Goldberg's lovely "it was't rape-rape" line.

Why not just say that lots of sexual harassment happens, and that it's all shit, and that some of it is worse than others but it all remains unacceptable, and that a multitude of strategies are being used to handle it.

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Well, logically they are different. One set belongs to a culture that says predation is not predation. The other set include sociopaths and criminal types, and they know what they are doing.

Is it helpful? I'm not sure. It certainly sets a lower limit to safety at any event.

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