I want to support Deborah on how the "bits add up." I will totally admit
to being on a hair-trigger (to use a US-gun-centric expression) about
certain social interactions because of a long history (I'm now in my
mid-60's) of incidents that have created an unfortunate shit pile of
stuff that I have had to deal with in my life. A person who has dealt
with sexism or racism has had experiences that long precede a single
interaction with you. You might consider this to be "overly sensitive",
but I have to assure you that it really piles on. From the boss you
praised me with "We are lucky to have hired you. If you were a man we'd
have to be paying to twice as much;" to the professor who I spoke to
after class who later referred to me as a "young man with a good idea"
(because women obviously couldn't have "good ideas"); to the time I was
chased by a car-ful of men on my way home from the library in college
and had to save myself by jumping onto a doorstep of a house and hoping
that someone would answer the door (a friend of mine found herself in
the same situation and was raped by the guy who answered the door); and
the fact that I had to put myself through college because a 1960's
conservative family didn't think that education was important for
women.... I could fill tomes with these examples. Each time we interact
with someone, we are interacting with their entire self, their entire
past. Yes, many of us are sensitive. We should see that as a good thing,
because sensitivity is what brings about change.
Listen. Ask questions if you don't understand. And have respect for the
experiences of others.
kc
On 1/27/13 5:34 PM, Fitchett, Deborah wrote:
I'm not creating any categories. Whether or not "unintentional harassment" is "actual harassment",
it's still worth bothering with. Even if it's "a minor thing" it's still worth bothering with. Even if
someone only harasses me "a little" because I'm a woman, it still decreases my enjoyment of the community
we're participating in simply because I'm a woman and that's still worth bothering with.
Because all the hundreds of "unintentional" and "minor" and "little" bits of
harassment add up. They really, really add up, you know? That one time some guy tried to rape me actually
wasn't as impactful (for me personally; mileage varies a lot on this kind of thing) as the hundreds of times
guys merely honked/whistled/catcalled when I'm walking along the street.
No-one's trying to treat every situation as equivalent, except perhaps you. The code of conduct
allows admins/helpers/whoever to take the precise nature of the situation into account and choose
an appropriate response. So excluding types of situations from even being considered as problems is
unnecessary - and it's *really* counterproductive, because those types of "minor"
situations, in the aggregate, are as great a barrier to the inclusion of underrepresented groups as
any single "major" event.
Deborah
-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Gary
McGath
Sent: Monday, 28 January 2013 1:45 PM
To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Group Decision Making (was Zoia)
Miscommunication, error, and harassment are all legitimate concerns.
Sometimes one person says something and another person hears it as offensive
where no offense was intended. Sometimes people say things based on assumptions
that they should have questioned but didn't.
Sometimes they set out to dominate or hurt another person. These are three
different things, and treating them as equivalent is more likely to make the
situation worse than to help.
Creating the category of "unintentional harassment" diminishes the nature of actual harassment. If
the statement "I was harassed" means only "someone said something with good intent that made
me feel bad,"
then harassment is a minor thing, not worth bothering with. When words are stretched,
they're stretched in both directions; if harassment has nothing to do with intent, then
it's a relatively minor issue, and people who harass in the normal sense of the word can
hide behind the dilution of the term. If the stretched meaning of the word becomes
normal, they can say, "Hey, what's the big deal? All I did was harass her a
little."
Speech that "offends" simply on the basis that someone claims to be offended is a fourth
category apart from miscommunication, error, and harassment. If it's a private conversation and
someone says "Stop talking to me, hanging around me, etc.," that request should be
respected regardless of the reason. But if we're talking about public speech, a requirement to stop
amounts to granting anyone's emotions a veto on other people's public statements, and I've already
discussed the problem with that.
On 1/27/13 4:27 PM, Fitchett, Deborah wrote:
There's a reason the code isn't oriented around intent: which is that it's perfectly
possibly to think one's an upstanding equitable-minded person but still make offensive
comments that do in fact constitute harassment. This is another thing I can say
"been there done that" about, in various contexts. I *thought* I was being
respectful - but I wasn't. On at least one occasion I was saying something racist; on at
least another I was demeaning a friend. Completely unintentionally, but if you
accidentally step on someone's foot it's still your responsibility to back off and say
sorry the instant you become aware of the fact.
(There may not be a universal objective consensus as to what is or
isn't offensive, but nor is there a universal objective consensus as
to what someone's intent is. People say "I didn't mean to be offensive
therefore I didn't harass you" all the time, sometimes ingenuously,
sometimes (as I did) absolutely sincerely, and how are we to tell the
two apart? Meantime someone still got hurt.)
So a code of conduct needs to allow for unintentional harassment in a way that protects
the person who got hurt without being unduly censorious to the person who hurt. Which
this code does: it says ~"If you're asked to stop harassing behaviour you're
expected to comply". Because if you didn't intend offense then you'll want to stop
as soon as you're aware you've offended. So stop, and everyone moves on. You're not going
to be banned for accidentally stepping on someone's foot.
If you persist or if your actions were really egregious then that's another
matter and that's why we need to mention other possible sanctions. But these
aren't things you're likely to do accidentally, so there's no need to be
stressed.
Deborah
--
Gary McGath, Professional Software Developer http://www.garymcgath.com
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