[LCA2011-Chat] Some Anti-Harassment Policies considered harmful

From: David Woodhouse <dwmw2>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2011 23:08:58 +1100

On Mon, 2011-01-31 at 18:53 +1000, Sarah Smith wrote:
> What would you like to recommend to LCA 2012 that they do?
>
> Perhaps you have some concrete suggestions?

The policy says that "offensive sexual language and imagery is not
appropriate". Both the words 'offensive' and 'sexual' are problematic,
because they aren't sufficiently objective.

For example, some people would claim that merely using the word 'fuck'
violates the policy, while others would claim that breast feeding is
overtly sexual because it may necessitate displaying the mammary glands
for a period of time, and because any exposure is equivalent to nudity,
and "all nudity is obviously sexual" to some people. Both of those
interpretations would be excessive.

Better perhaps to be specific, and forbid language and imagery which:
 - marginalises or demeans a group of people
 - reinforces negative stereotypes of a group of people
 - portrays a group of people as sexual objects

But in fact even *that* is problematic. The perfectly acceptable quip
that Mark made about kernel hackers and UX? would also fall foul of such
a policy, since it demeans kernel hackers... but I feel strongly that to
forbid that kind of thing would detract from the atmosphere of the
conference. I'm not sure how you fix that without calling out a specific
set of the types of people who you *are* allowed to mock, because
they're big enough and ugly enough to cope with it, and the types of
people you *aren't* allowed to mock.

The bit about 'sexual images in public spaces' being an example of
harassment obviously has to go; even aside from the ambiguity of the
'sexual' part. An image of animals mating may offend some prudes, but I
didn't think that was the point. Perhaps that part would be better
phrased as 'images which promote sexual objectification', which would
cover the majority of the 'sexual images' which *are* actually an issue.

Banning 'unwelcome sexual attention' is also problematic. If there is a
person at the conference with whom I think I have developed a rapport
and in whom I am developing a romantic interest, *any* attempt to
discover whether that feeling is reciprocated may be interpreted as
'unwelcome sexual attention' and I may find myself ostracised for it.
I'm sure that there are many male geeks with a fairly poor grasp of
normal relationships, and that a woman who hasn't really shown
*anything* more than friendship may get tired of having to knock back
advances from clueless nerds who have misread the signs. But we cannot
legislate for human behaviour, and *forbid* any couple to ever get
together for the first time at a conference. That part of the policy has
to go, too, or be phrased a whole lot better.



But really, there is a common theme here in all the problems I've
highlighted. Any policy *has* to be implemented with common sense and
judgement, according to the situations that actually arise, as they
arise. No written policy in this area can be sufficiently
all-encompassing that it can be implemented with a "policy for policy's
sake" attitude, without heed to the guiding principles behind it.

That being the case, I think that Russell's suggestion (which was
implicit, but very clear nonetheless) was the best one ? go back to the
"very strong anti-harassment policy" that "LCA 2011 already had ... in
its terms and conditions, inherited from previous LCA's."

As Russell said: "It gives us permission to do what we dammed well
please when harassment occurs. What's more, LCA has a history of using
those permissions to throwing people behaving inappropriately out of the
conference. And as hindsight now tells us it doesn't contain [the] bug
the Geek Feminism one does."

I agree wholeheartedly with *everything* that Russell said, except for
the part where he said that having accepted the policy, it *had* to be
followed. It was an extremely subjective policy and it *wasn't* followed
to the letter. It *couldn't* be, and we wouldn't *want* it to be.
Applying discretion to the topic of Mark's presentation was *well*
within the remit of the organisers.

I hope that LCA next year will return to the working policies of
previous years. I was extremely embarrassed that LCA2011 offered such
inappropriate censure to an excellent keynote speaker. I do hope that it
does not *too* severely discourage such people from presenting at LCA in
the future.

-- 
dwmw2
? Note I'm talking about the 'are you a kernel hacker?' question which
  got a big laugh, not his *first* response which I didn't catch, but
  which was apparently less acceptable.
Received on Mon Jan 31 2011 - 23:08:58 GMT

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