With summer con season now formally ramping up, it’s as good a time as any to remind folks that harassment is not okay – and what to do about it.
Over at Scalzi’s Whatever today, writer Elise Matthesen shares how she reported her sexual harasser at recent convention. It’s a fantastic post with great advice about making sure things are formally on the record – the perpetrator in her case is not a first-time offender.
Inspired by Matthesen, Maria Dahvana Headley shares some of her own tales of being harassed at genre conventions. A former pirate negotiator, she has this chilling statement: “The pirates in the maritime industry were generally a great deal more polite than the creeps in the SFF world. They stuck to terms.”
It’s been a while since we’ve addressed this topic, and sorry to be a downer as we approach the weekend, but this is important stuff for everyone to know.
As some of the commenters point out after Elise Mattheson’s article, not all conventions are up to speed on providing a safe environment and having the ability to document harassment cases. Some of them are starting to get the message, but they need to also publicize that they have these resources available and a zero tolerance policy on harassment.
True. This did happen at WisCon, which is a feminist con and thus perhaps more likely to be on the ground floor of such issues.