(no subject)

[coyotegoth]

As far as Readercon goes, is there anything to say beyond seconding shadesong's "I absolutely condemn the Readercon board for refusing to adhere to their stated policy and privileging Rene Walling's precious feelings over Genevieve Valentine's safety."? Rhetorical question; questions and discussion are and will continue to be crucial here. Through chance of circumstance and convoluted social chains, I spent quite a bit of yesterday in the company of people far, far more knowledgeable about the people involved, Readercon's makeup, and the social network in which all this occurred than I; as usual when one is the least well-informed person in the room, 90% of my contribution consisted of listening carefully and choosing my vocal contributions with (one hopes) equal care.

One of the more hotly contested points was the degree to which the usual chief perpetrators of such harassments were relative newbies to the scene, who had no one to warn against their behavior; my own hunch- and it is mere speculation; I've been to all of perhaps two dozen conventions in my life- is that quite a lot of such behavior may well be perpetrated by people more central to the scene, with a strong degree of social enabling in play- Jack's a good guy; he couldn't have... (One also thinks of the Polanski case, and how friends and former coworkers came to his defense, as well as how the loss of his parents in the Holocaust, the murder of his wife and unborn baby by the Manson family, and his being a brilliant Oscar-willing director were all queasily mixed together by the press.) During the discussion mentioned above, someone mentioned the question of what one could do for the victim; I could only think of lines from a poem by John M. Ford: "Say what you mean. Bear witness. Iterate."

Comments

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

My hunch is that there are two main types of perpetrators of harassment: the ones who are names (ask people about Asimov's harassment of women, for example, and how often it was handwaved away as "he's just like that") or who are good guys often enough that no one can conceive of them being awful, and new people who may be doing one-shot appearances/infrequent appearances (in this case, think of the noxious people who wander into piano bars to see the quaint queers in their natural habitat). Both are awful, in different ways.

[redbird]

I think you're right about that. But it's a lot more comfortable to think of harassment as something "they do," because it lets people not just feel safe around their friends, but around their friends' friends, around the people you don't actually know, but you've seen him at the con suite several years running, or you know he went out to dinner with one of your friends. Some of that is necessary to relax and enjoy a social event; but most of that feeling of "this random person at the party isn't going to suddenly start punching people" is that people don't usually do that, not that you can trust that person because he's a friend of so-and-so who's a friend of someone you know.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

Yes, and there must be other types too. It's those gradations that worry me more. (Not thinking of the Readercon thing here, at all.)

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

The gradations are often the hardest, most painful parts.

Something that's come up in this situation, I note, is the whole apology issue. When is it appropriate to apologize/inflict an apology/faux-apology on someone? When do you leave them alone, or send it by mail, or via another person?