Learning to recognize harassment: Anti-gas lighting

[sasha_feather]

Not sure if I should post this locked or unlocked. I'm putting myself out there a lot with this post-- please don't link w/o permission.

Content note: discusses harassment/bullying and responses to it.



There is a sea change going on in society. It's happening at science fiction conventions; at tech and scientific conferences; in the atheist/skeptic communities; in gaming; in the library community; on college campuses; and no doubt elsewhere. I don't have the answers but I am a part of the conversation and I am learning a ton. I am mostly learning from people my age and younger. These folks are saying that what might be termed "low-level harassment" or bullying is not acceptable and should not be tolerated anywhere.

Activists are creating and using language such as microaggressions, gas lighting, mansplaining, trolling, and other terms to label common behaviors. I've seen tons of discussing about cat calling, for instance, and it even made it onto the Daily Show (thanks to Jessica Jones Williams).

All this reading I've done, conversations, this cultural shift, has trained me. When I post about being upset (for instance, when I was yelled at by homophobes at the dog park) and friends say "that really sucks" and validate my experience-- that has worked to un-brainwash me and realize that yeah, this shit happens to me too and it is not acceptable, even if the wider society says it is.

Feminism and other activism movements, if you spend enough time in them, can un-brainwash you. But I think in this discussion in particular, the older wave of feminists are still brainwashed. Because many of them think that a certain level of harassment is acceptable.

I heard it from my mom when I got in an argument with her on the phone. I love and respect my mom A LOT but sometimes I think she is really wrong. "Sometimes in these situations you have to empower people to take care of it themselves."

But what if people can't take care of it themselves? What if they try to, and it doesn't work? That doesn't exactly encourage them to keep trying.

I hear it from older women who use this double-speak word "harmless". As in, "Oh him, he's harmless." If you hear that word, it is a major red flag. I don't know exactly what it means, but it does NOT mean that the person is question is not harmful. It may mean that he has not physically harmed the woman you are speaking to.





A couple of years ago I had two bad interactions with a person we code named "Prickly Pear". She was in the Dealer's Room and said some upsetting things to me, so I decided to avoid her and warned my friends (using the whisper network, basically) to also avoid her. I found out later that she had negative interactions with the Publications person and 2 registration volunteers. She got a hold of my phone number because I am an Access Coordinator, and someone gave it to her. I checked my voicemail late at night as I was leaving the convention, to hear a message where she yelled at me for long minutes about something disability / accommodation related. (I am very capable of working and dealing with difficult and upset people-- this was way above and beyond that.)

After this I refused to deal with her, and send antarcticlust into talk to her. Antarcticlust eventually failed and got yet another person to deal with her, a long-time WisCon volunteer who is an attorney. It was antarcticlust who very helpfully labeled Prickly Pear's behaviors as "bullying".

Based upon all of these behaviors, Prickly Pear should have been kicked out of the convention. Instead, in what was the WisCon way, people bent over backward to accommodate this bully. The hotel tried to meet her accommodation demands (which we, the Access Team, said no to). One of the con chairs, an older woman, had tea with her to try to work it out.

Antarcticlust brought up the fact that we probably had code-of-conduct reasons to refuse her re-entry into our con, and did some work on this point. But instead, the WisCon leadership did nothing and just waited for her not to return. This is the way the way the old guard, the feminists we looked to for leadership, were carving out for us. This is they way they thought best to deal with such behavior. As a young(er) feminist, I looked to them for leadership.

As for me, I was so upset by being yelled at that I had one of the worst stomach aches of my life. I also called into question my authority as Access Chair (because the a con chair over-ruled me), even though jesse_the_k backed me up on this and was offended on my behalf.

The point being, I thought all of this was normal and reasonable. WisCon is my "home" convention and the concom are my friends and colleagues. I didn't even recognize what happened as harassment until this year: 2 years later. (Aside: I certainly didn't recognize my brother's actions when we were teens as bullying until almost 10 years after those incidents. So I'm getting faster.)

I think when we get into these conversations; it can bring up a lot of baggage for all of us. We can get caught up in unexpected memories. And so we should be gentle with each other. It's uncomfortable to think about times when people have bullied us and no one stood up for us. It might feel like a betrayal. Or maybe we were the person being the bystander or even the bully.

The point is to try and move forward. To find a new way. It is largely young people who are taking the bull by the horns on this one.

When my roommate sent me pages of vitriol, and I cried at work, it was my undergrad office mate, someone more than 10 years younger than me, who suggested that her behavior could be considered harassment.

It was my good neighbor, also younger than me, who said "you don't deserve to be treated like that."

I didn't learn these healing phrases from my elders. I'm learning them from the youth, and I'm listening.