Safety Dance -- I Mean, Rant

[lydy]

So, safety has come 'round again on the guitar. As it should. And I would just like to say that I vastly approve of being safe at science fiction conventions. But, you know, if my safety is being threatened, if someone is waving a knife or a gun or even a fist in my face, I really hope that the convention staff will immediately enlist the help of the nice men in the uniforms with guns and the power of arrest. I sincerely hope that they will not send some poor, kind volunteer with no training and no color of authority to deal with the situation. I don't like or trust cops, but honestly, for imminent violence, that's my choice.

Harassment? Harassment doesn't make me feel unsafe. It does hurt me, and it does make me angry. Spectacularly, incandescently angry. And yes, indeed, I think that as a community that we need to deal with it. But I hate the fact that we are framing this in terms of "safety." What that says to me is that, in fact, the only thing that I, as a female member of this community am entitled to, is my physical well-being. That the entire rest of my fucking existence is unimportant. That no one cares that I be treated with respect, that all of the other complicated ways in which I live my life within this community are of no interest or value to anyone, and the only, the single, the entire sum of my rights within my chosen community are that I not be assaulted. That the only time I am allowed to claim a position of equality is when I am afraid, when I am hurt, when I am damaged. When we describe it in terms of safety, we are demanding to see visible wounds, actual scars. That no one cares that about listening to what I have to say, that no one cares that I am enjoying myself, no one cares if I am respected, or accorded basic courtesy, that my preferences, skills, and knowledge are unimportant. In fact, no one actually cares about me. I am accorded the right of my body, but not my mind, not my position, not my reputation, not my joy, I am accorded a physical space, but that is it.

Honestly, I don't think that is the intent of the people using the term safety. But it is a bad frame, a poor representation of what we are actually trying to talk about. Women deserve to be full members of the community, and harassment is one way in which we are being denied that right.

Comments

[mle292.livejournal.com]

Citation needed.

Harassment? Harassment doesn't make me feel unsafe.

That's really great for you.

Nobody that I am aware of demands to see wounds or scars. To many people, me included, harassment includes an implied threat of escalation. I have had experiences where harassment escalated. It was unpleasant. The first thing I think of when I see harassment is the potential for escalation.

You are allowed to say that harassment just makes you uncomfortable, or it makes you feel excited, or it makes you feel ennui, but it does not make you feel unsafe. No one in any venue has ever written anything that I think reasonably contradicts your right to say how you feel when you experience or witness harassment. They're sharing their experiences, just like you are.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

I am sorry that I have failed to communicate. People feel all sorts of things when they are harassed. Unsafe is one of them. I do not mean to denigrate that experience, although it is not mine. However, I do think that when we phrase the conversation in terms of safety, we end up with the argument about whether or not a reasonable person would feel unsafe in a particular situation. The thing is, I am uninterested in policing people's emotional reactions, and determining whose emotional reaction is acceptable, and whose isn't. What I want is an environment in which my anger and your feelings of insecurity are both understood to be reactions to an unacceptable interaction based on a lack of respect and a violation of boundaries. I want it to be clear that the real issue is that we are allowed to have full, empowered, engaged lives with real agency.

if I could magically make it so that your reaction to harassment was the same as mine, if it made you angry rather than unsafe, would that make harassment ok? We both know the answer to that. I want to move the conversation in a direction so that women do not have to play the victim in order to be heard. Even when we are the victim, that should not be the card we have to play. We should be able insist on a seat at the table in our own right.

[mle292.livejournal.com]

"Insecurity" is a word I didn't use, and a weirdly loaded choice for you. Many people can be angry that there is a threat of escalation, perhaps even feel more than one thing at once.

Nobody is interested in policing people's emotional reactions. The reason that many (not all) conversations about harassment include discussions of safety is because it is a real thing that sometimes harassment escalates.

You're uncomfortable with other people saying that harassment makes them feel unsafe. That's okay, but it's not okay to say that they need to reframe the discussion for you when the topic does include real concerns that include safety. Your concerns are ALSO valid, but not enough so that other people can't discuss what's important to them.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

*blink* *blink*

I think we are badly miscommunicating, here. I am not uncomfortable with people saying that harassment makes them feel unsafe. I am supremely comfortable with that statement. I believe it to be true. I believe it to be important. It needs to be a part of the conversation. I have been made to feel unsafe by harassers (hello, Michael Flowers).

What I object to is the way in which "safety" is being used as the only reason to object to harassment, when the actual issue is much broader than that. I am very concerned that people will start demanding "did she feel unsafe?" as a way of derailing the issue. We are seeing it already, people demanding that Elise describe, in detail, exactly what Jim Frenkel did to her so that they can judge whether or not it rose to the level of harassment. To which I say, fuck that noise. I don't have to feel unsafe to object. I may or may not feel unsafe, it is definitely part of the problem. But the real, baseline issue is that women are not accorded the same courtesy and space as men.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

I get what you're saying here. Safety is at the minimum possible level in, say, Maslow's hierarchy of needs. If all a professional conference which touts itself as the top feminist conference in the field aims to provide is safety, that's pretty sad.

WisCon should absolutely provide safety, and it's appalling that it failed to do so in this case. But my transit system also aspires to provide me with safety. WisCon should provide attendees with more than mere safety---it should provide them with fun and knowledge and the chance to make personal and professional connections, among all the other things attendees could reasonably expect from a conference. Courtesy, respect, space, acknowledgment of achievements---all of these are on the level of human needs for self-actualization.

Most (sadly not all) of the people who choose to attend conferences can find food, shelter, and safety at home. They, we, go to conferences looking for something at the next level. If WisCon can't provide for basic needs like safety, that's not good. If WisCon doesn't look beyond the basics to provide even more, that's not good.

And I think that was part of why Mikki Kendall's complaint was ignored, because it didn't fit into the "safety" narrative, but into a broader picture of how women (and particularly women who are members of racial and ethnic minority groups) aren't accorded the courtesy and respect they deserve as professionals, but instead are ogled and dismissed. I know there were other similar complaints, and that the other "person's name" subcommittee seems to have been stymied by the power of the "safety" narrative (since that person committed shocking public disrespect in words, rather than by infringing on someone's physical space).

[lydy.livejournal.com]

You know, I hadn't thought about MIkki Kendall's problem in this frame, but I suspect you are right. I mean, all she had was a picture of Frenkel staring at her breasts. How could that be an issue? And so on. You may well be right about the other subcommittee being stymied by the safety narrative. I know even less about that issue, but if they are trying to understand it through the lens of safety, they are going to get it wrong.

But you know, what was the deal with Rachel Moss? They dealt with that pretty clearly, I gather. Did they use a safety model? I don't know.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

My cynicism says that Moss is a woman and not an insider, so easier to make an example of than Frenkel.

Also, sharing photos very broadly without permission is often framed as a violation of personal safety, because it certainly can be in some instances---sharing photos of someone who is being stalked can give location information to their stalker; sharing photos of someone at a trans event could result in transphobic violence, loss of job, friends, family to whom they aren't out as trans; and probably a number of other instances I haven't thought of.

[pnh.livejournal.com]

Attempts to derail notwithstanding, I think you're absolutely on to something real here.

You're not trying to say that safety, literal safety, is unimportant. You're saying that respect and autonomy and equality are even more important -- that centering the issue on mere bodily "safety" has a tendency, like it or not, to turn the question into How Can We Protect Our Valuable Female Property From Being Abducted By The Wrong Guys.

It would be nice if those arguing with you were to notice that this is what you're getting at.

[vgqn.livejournal.com]

Well said, yes. Let's keep those wimmenfolk safe, indeed.

I've also been bothered by the folks who think the concom is responsible for providing a place of safety and that member safety should trump all other concerns. Wiscon is a wonderful bubble, but no one can guarantee total safety. And as you & Lydy are saying, maybe safety isn't even the right focus.

[spacecrab.livejournal.com]

Patrick nails it. I read what you're saying as "Yes, women should be able to feel that harrassment at s-f conventions (sexual or otherwise) will not be tolerated behavior -- whether it is processed as threatening, disgusting, annoying, or just unwanted behavior. But that's just a baseline. Attempts to nurture the convention-going experience for women (and the experience of bonding with people through fandom) should be inclusive of more than just "physical safety." I haven't seen anyone else put this as succinctly as you have in all the screens of Radish/Nicoll/anti-Wiscon committee-bashing that I've been reading.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

I actually think they want to say it, but that their metaphor is interfering with their ability to frame the discussion. I could be wrong, of course. I also think that the safety metaphor is subject to hijacking by bad actors, and I've seen that in the comments on various blogs.

I will say that I flinched at the term "nurture." I don't think you meant it badly, but again it has this feeling of "helping the girls." I don't so much feel that I need help as I feel that I need to be not hindered. Do you see the distinction?

This stuff is genuinely hard. And I am going to say stupid things, and things that upset people in trying to talk about it. And stuff that rubs me the wrong way will be exactly the right thing for someone else. So take the above paragraph with an appropriately-sized salt mine.

[spacecrab.livejournal.com]

You voiced a concern about concoms working with a larger issue than "personal safety" -- that "no one cares that I am enjoying myself, no one cares if I am respected, or accorded basic courtesy, that my preferences, skills, and knowledge are unimportant."

That's what prompted my reading of "attempts to nurture the convention going experience for women" ((and everyone, for that matter)). I'm sorry it hit you the wrong way. ## I'm not advocating for gender-based special treatment; but I thought you were suggesting that con-committees and sponsoring boards may need to develop policies and practices that watchdog discrimination and suppression. (gender-based and other types). That conventions should attempt to stimulate feelings of community and (comfortable participation), may be my own subjective addendum to what you've expressed.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

You seem to understand me very well indeed.

You know, I kind of wish I hadn't said anything, because I think that it has muddied things between us, and I'm sorry about that. I had an emotionally negative response to one word in your post. I probably should have just read past that and gone on.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Yes; very well said. Safety is only one facet of an issue encompassing the need for respect and autonomy and equality - humanity. Wimmenfolk are people too.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

This is something I have been trying to think how to articulate for ages.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

Funny you should say that. I've been pondering an essay, set off by a number of people who suddenly all feel the need to say to me: "Have a safe convention!"

I'm certain it's well-meant, but I'm profoundly startled by the shift in the way they address me, or frame me, or categorize me, or something -- see, the reason the essay isn't written yet is that I'm not coherent on it yet. But there's something going on there, and you've got a piece of it in this post, or something in here crosses over, or something.

Anyhow, yeah. I am REALLY GLAD you are discussing this. I really want to see the conversations about it. Got a hunch they might be crucial. Because the most recent time someone wished me a safe convention (which NEVER happened before I wrote the "How To Report Sexual Harassment" essay), I felt a complicated volcano of reactions which eventually erupted in the privacy of my kitchen with me saying to the empty air, "What, I'm fucking fragile now?" Which wouldn't have been a thing to say to the nice person who was only wishing me an unharassing time at the convention. And yet. There's something there.

Good on you for saying something about it. I'm trying to think of something to say about it too. Because whatever it is, it's really getting under my skin, and I need to be able to say it better -- without receiving the sort of response you got above from mle292 above. Because I am aware of people demanding to see wounds and scars. Hell, there's a lot of people who want to Internet Vote on whether the details of one particular incident were bad enough in their judgement to count as harassment -- but it's not just the "details, please, or it doesn't count" bunch. I've gotten the same thing from some of the most supportive people. They've apologized for it, but they still do it.

About a year ago, I showed Juan a message from someone who was trying to say sympathetic and supportive things but framing it all as how much this terrible thing must have damaged me. They used the words "broken" and "destroyed." Juan snorted, and said, "On the phone the next morning when you me the heads-up that you had just reported this thing? You didn't sound broken or destroyed. Pissed off, yeah. Broken or destroyed? Not so much."

Like anybody else, I have my own reactions to whatever happens, and those reactions will or won't make sense to people who aren't me, and ... argh. Devolving into rant again. So I'll just say that when mle292 says "Nobody is interested in policing people's emotional reactions," that is a statement directly contradicted by my own experience. Some people have been very interested, enthusiastic even -- though always with sympathetic smiles if I toe their line -- about policing my emotional reactions. Some of them seem to be comfortable with conversations about emotion and safety, and try to steer everything there, which leaves out something so fucking fundamental I shouldn't even have to mention it, but apparently I do: ANALYSIS.

Huh. Something just came clear. Not the heart of the essay-in-pondering-progress, but a key bit of it. It's like that passage in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, where characters are talking about garden design and philosophy and the move from thinking to feeling.

Something in the way people are talking about safety has me winding up feeling like they're trying to keep me out of the room where the grownups or the real people or the People of the Unmarked Case or whotever are discussing ideas and doing passionate insightful analysis. And I want to say, "Sorry, dude, my feminism is IN THAT ROOM and I resent you trying to levy a FEELINGSTAX (in the phraseology of Captain Awkward) or a FEARTAX on me about this, when I'm trying to get in there."

Argh. Still not clear. But here, have a fucking supportive comment, and a hope that this gets discussed more. A selfish hope, even. BECAUSE I NEED TO SEE THIS DISCUSSED MORE, I WOULD FIND IT PROFOUNDLY SUPPORTIVE, MUCH MORE SO THAN BEING WISHED A SAFE CONVENTION ONE MORE TIME ARGH.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

And goddamnit I wish Joanna Russ was alive because I want to hear what she would have to say about this.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

Also, I reserve the right to disagree vehemently with people who agree with me.

Just because I'm posting any one place? Doesn't mean I'm singing Kumbiyah with everybody else posting in that place, on every subject, either. Definitely including here.

Dammit, we used to have that as a basic axiom. What the fuck happened?

:stomps around, thumping cane*, muttering about good old days arguing fiercely TO BUILD STUFF:

* Nice cane, too. Gotten at the urging of my physical therapist, it sports vaguely unnerving cheerful flowers on a black background, and really ought to be called the Perky Goth model.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

"Also, I reserve the right to disagree vehemently with people who agree with me."

That works for me.

Me, I reserve the right to disagree vehemently with myself, as necessary.

Fuck, this stuff is hard.

[joycemocha.livejournal.com]

Yes. This. I find that when I get angry about disrespect or unequal/unfair treatment, all sorts of folks want to police my emotional reactions, and that sure isn't limited to conferences and conventions. But I absolutely agree about the FEELINGSTAX or FEARTAX. Honestly? Most of the time this sort of treatment or harassment when done to me makes me angry and not fearful or broken. However, I don't think people deal well with that sort of reaction by a woman to harassment. Just another form of victimization.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

a number of people who suddenly all feel the need to say to me: "Have a safe convention!

Good grief! Better they should say to every male going, "MAKE a safe convention."

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

"Have a safe convention" bugs me because it puts the onus for "safety" on you, and, well, that is backwards.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

She said harassment did not make her feel unsafe.

What possible citation could you want besides her statement about her own feelings?

To state that her description of her own reaction is an attempt to police emotions seems to me utterly bizarre and logic-free.

[mle292.livejournal.com]

Before you replied, I deleted the comment because I knew that I couldn't think of a good way to phrase what I was trying to say.

The original "Citation needed" was to this part of the post.

" That the entire rest of my fucking existence is unimportant. That no one cares that I be treated with respect, that all of the other complicated ways in which I live my life within this community are of no interest or value to anyone, and the only, the single, the entire sum of my rights within my chosen community are that I not be assaulted."

I don't know who is accused of saying these things. I think I'm arguing with Fox News's "Some people say..."

This isn't a discussion that I want to be involved in. Have a nice day.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

I am sorry this is not a discussion you want to be involved in, but it is the discussion I wish to have, which is why it is on my blog. One of the reasons I haven't posted this in one of the many discussion threads elsewhere is because I do not wish to derail other people's conversations.

As for citation needed... I have been reading a great many comments in a variety of places about the Wiscon Fail, and I am getting frustrated because I think that many people are failing to understand the ways in which harassment do damage to the community as a whole. I have absolutely seen people insist that recipients of harassment perform victim-dances. I have absolutely seen people attempt to minimize the implications of harassment by focusing on a "safety" narrative which elides all the other ways in which harassment is a problem. And I have seen people of clear good will make mistakes about how to respond to harassment because they are using a safety paradigm. If you have not seen these same things, then I'm not sure how to illuminate them for you, since I'm pretty sure we're reading the same blogs and comments.

[mgs.livejournal.com]

I would speculate that part of the negative reaction to "have a safe convention" is it elevating a metric to primacy that is not one you would normally judge a convention on. It's like telling someone who is going out to the store "Don't get killed!" instead of "Remember to pick up some cauliflower." It feels like a kind of derailment.

[quadong.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this.

[redbird]

A couple of early-morning thoughts. One is that "have a safe..." in my mind is completed with "trip" (and specifically "flight" or other long-distance travel, people rarely wish me a safe bus or subway ride.

The other is that I think I understand the reason for having a "safety" team, in the sense that one team/group/department is supposed to be dealing with assault and harassment complaints that also should be where to look for first aid for accidents, and keeping the hallways clear enough for wheelchair users and in case of a fire. "Security" doesn't feel like the right word for that either.

The men in the uniforms with the power of arrest are the right choice for some threats, but not all: they aren't the first place to turn for a tornado warning or a norovirus outbreak. When someone I had gone to get lunch with at a Minicon fell and hurt her leg, I sent for people who work in uniforms, but it wasn't the ones with guns, it was the ones with the ambulance and the oxygen tanks and such.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

If you don't mind me expanding on your point, different problems require different solutions. A medical emergency is distinct from a violent assault, and require different responses. Harassment is hard to deal with, in part, because it is actually a complex set of things, not all of the bits are like all the other bits of it. Harassment is a bit of an umbrella term.

As five-year-old Judy Rosenberg once told me, "Metaphors are bad for you." We are using the metaphor of safety, and it is vastly incomplete. And I feel that some of the things that this metaphor elide are actually things which lie at the root of harassment in the first place. Violence against women is predicated on the assumption that women have fewer rights in the world. But that assumption is damaging even when it doesn't lead directly to violence.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Not sure how this fits in, but having read all the rest of these comments and seen "respect and autonomy and equality," mentioned, I realized another piece of it is agency - needing recognition that I am here for my own purposes. Harassment, any sort of harassment, seeks to frame me as subject to someone else's purposes and that's an outrage against the whole concept of individual will and purpose.

There are many potential emotional reactions to such an outrage, but that's not the issue. I'd frame the issue as one of a) stop that right now; it's not acceptable and b) here's how to prevent recurrences and do better in the future.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

From outside the trees, I see two parts of a forest. The word 'safety/safe' is being used in more than one sense.

1) old obvious unmarked meaning of 'safety', ie safe from physical harm
2) safe from unwanted physical touch
3) safe from unwanted non-physical communication

In 2), the word has already been stretched to include an unwanted pat or hug, and 'harm' has been stretched to include any emotional upset as trauma.

3) is like when a blogger says her private, identity-protected blog will be a 'safe space' for people of a certain group to discuss without offensive remarks by outsiders.

Some people are saying that stretching 1) 'harm' to include 2) and 3), can label the complaining person as a victim, fragile, etc. We should be able to strongly object to all 1, 2, and 3 without having to claim 'harm'.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes.

One of the big problems with expanding the definition of harm to include emotional harm is that, off of a sudden, we are policing people's emotions. Was the harassed person upset enough?

Which is a far cry from saying that there is no such thing as emotional damage. I come from an emotionally abusive home, and have done a decade of therapy to find ways to cope with that. It is an incredibly real thing. Harassment does, indeed, do actual emotional damage to many people. And some people it doesn't do much damage to. But just because a particular person fails to be damaged doesn't mean that this kind of behavior is permissable in our community.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

It's tempting to expand 'harm' to include 2) and 3) because claiming "I was harmed" is something that the people who have the power (both the authorities and the harrasser) will take seriously. Because if they ignore you, they may get the same claim from your lawyer.

But if too many women begin using that claim in far-fetched ways* -- it will lose its power and all women will lose credibility.

* or in ways that the people in power will consider far-fetched -- and that no lawyer would support

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

Yes this.

I'd also argue that we need to separate the actor from the recipient -- and focus on the actor. (Not the best terms maybe, but descriptive.) Because focusing on harm still ignores the point that the actor behaved badly. And the bad behavior is the main problem.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Yes! A foul is a foul, whether anyone got harmed or not.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Wait, do we now have to explicitly list every right women have at conventions? I thought there was a general assumption that it was all the same rights men had -- and that we wrote formal policies to bring attention to cases where the general social understandings weren't working right (due to local social conditions, these tend to be against women, in practice).

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Ok, I know you don't think that I think that. So I'm not sure what you're trying to get at with your initial question.

It is my belief that we are using safety as a metaphor and a heuristic and an umbrella term to stand in for the rather more complicated goal of according everyone the same rights and space and respect. And I think that this metaphor and heuristic are leading us astray in ways that are problematic, that they are eroding some of the fine detail that needs to be in the discussion.

It used to be that mental illness was largely seen as a deficiency of character. In the last century, people started using a disease model. This model is a vast improvement for a bunch of reasons. The problem is that mental disorders do not, in fact, neatly mirror physical disorders in all ways. And while the disease/medical model has been absolutely crucial to improving our understanding and treatment of mental disorders, it also is causing some deformations in our understanding and preventing certain types of inquiry and treatment. It is my contention that the safety model for harassment has similar problems. Moreover, I think that there are bad actors who are using this model for their own ends, and that we are letting them do so because we are failing to understand how the map his hiding the territory.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

Am suddenly wondering whether there's also generational stuff coming into play here. Is the "safety!" wording is coming from younger women who aren't so familiar with the feeling of having concern for our safety used to limit us?

Oh, wait a minute. Where's that cartoon? Drat. Cannot find it. But it's a Maxine cartoon where a man says something on the order of "But we only want to protect women...." and Maxine says, "... from equal pay and equal rights." I cannot recall the dialog exactly, but it makes the point.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

I believe Sylvia said it first?

[seajules]

I think you have articulated something very important here. It's been long enough since a certain case of harassment happened to me that I can look back, now, and see that part of the reason even most of the supportive comments I got after the fact made me so frustrated and furious was because they were--inadvertently, but there nonetheless--dismissive of my fury at the harassment. Given that part of the harassment was a dismissal of my anger in the first place, you can probably see why that aspect of those comments did not help.

Now, I have been reading the discussions of "safety" at conventions as including "safety from anybody attempting to dictate what you feel," but maybe I'm wrong in that reading. There's been no clarification either way, after all. Certainly, I feel quite strongly that that is one of the rights I deserve; I have ceased communication with whole swathes of my family for trying to deny it to me.