Re: [Ghm-discuss] The posh talk does not complain with the policy

[Alex Sassmannshausen]

Hello,

At the risk of re-opening a thread that may have come to a natural
conclusion (apologies if so), I feel I want to clarify a few more points
from my perspective — especially in light of potentially record-breaking
attendance.

Apologies in advance for the length, but I feel this is an important
topic.

John Darrington writes:

> On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 05:45:33AM -0400, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
>
>        Be Nice, if you are not nice Bobcats will come for you.
>      
>      That alone says more than the current wording.
>
> You have a point.   I suggest the wording be discussed on Sunday morning.

I like the simplicity and elegance of Alfred's proposed wording — but
feel that retaining the more specific current wording might be preferable:

1) A recurring pattern in the conversation has been to reduce the
anti-harassment policy to an "anti-offense" policy.  This is peculiar
because the name itself already implies that it is about more than
this.  In a way, through no one's fault, the issue is trivialised a
little in this fashion.

Specific policies such as these help to combat:

- sexual harassment (anything from unwanted physical contact, to
  unwanted attention or name-calling, shaming etc.) are pretty common,
  even endemic, in wider society, especially for women.  I don't think
  tech conferences are somehow exempt from this trend
  (http://www.everydaysexism.com/ for anecdotal everyday stories by
  women affected;
  http://adainitiative.org/what-we-do/conference-policies/ may be
  particularly relevant to the geek sphere…)

- shame: by and large being put on the spot, or singled out is
  humiliating and a pretty terrifying experience.  If this is done by
  means of sexuality or racial stereotypes it is even worse. Survivors
  of sexual assaults often remain silent about their experiences because
  of this feeling of shame and powerlessness.  Furthermore survivors
  can re-experience part of their trauma as a result of "triggers" such
  as imagery or language.

Specifically mentioning forms of unacceptable behaviour experienced by,
thus far, minority groups in specific contexts helps those minority
groups to have a more powerful footing to combat that behaviour from. It
also signals to them that they do not stand alone, and signals that we
too believe that public spaces should be 'safe spaces': they should be
accessible and enjoyable by all.

2) The simpler wording is nice because it is universal. But that is also
its weakness. It assumes a form of Rawlsian Veil of Ignorance: as
detached architects of society we would probably all agree that we
should behave nicely to each-other, because none of us can know for sure
whether in a given situation we would belong to a marginalised or
dominant group.

But our daily behaviour does not derive from a detached perspective: we
are embedded in a society that has historically generated 'in' and 'out'
groups. 

Simply put, our behaviour is informed by the social relations that
surround us, which leads many men, for instance, to believe that when a
woman signals "not interested" they actually mean "please continue to
try to chat me up", simply because, in our society, the definition of
"being nice to other people" does not include "respecting a woman's
right to be left alone".

Using language in our anti-harassment policy that specifically lists
examples relating to marginalised or out-groups in our context helps to
re-define what it means to "Be Nice".

3) Finally, the language we use is not a formally defined, neutral set
of signs.  It carries within it a whole host of social context and
meaning.  This is particularly salient when it comes to humor and
stereotypes: both only work precisely because of the social context that
we assume the other party is aware of.  Because of this it does not make
sense to say that "offense is purely in the eye of the beholder".  Yes,
people have different sensitivities, but these don't float freely in a
vacuum. They are tethered to our everyday experience and thus to things
such as social hierarchies, group definitions, current affairs, etc.

>From the above perspective, when a joke has, for instance members of an
ethnic minority, or women as their objects, the joke carries with it the
role assigned to women and ethnic minorities in our society.  The joke
can subvert these established roles, or it can use them.

In the former case the joke can liberate. In the latter it serves to
keep people in their place.

(incidentally, I would argue that if the joke has an elite, rather than
an outgroup as its object, then it will almost always tend to "flatten"
social difference, which is why I don't really regard making fun of
'posh people' as problematic).

Sorry for the length — I tried to keep it brief, and may have hurried
some points as a result. I reckon it'll probably still be tl;dr for a
lot of people though…

I think a conversation on Sunday would cerntainly be valuable.

Best wishes,

Alex

-- 
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