(no subject)

[serene]

I'm signed on to the Open Source Women Back Each Other Up Program.

This is not a joke. This is not satire. This is not a test.

(A quote, but you need to go read the whole thing:

Here's my pledge: if I see somebody groping you in public, and you're not moaning Yes! Yes! Yes!, I will break through your Somebody Else's Problem invisibility field and come over and ask if you're okay. If your situation looks dangerous enough I can't help on my own, I will call over friends or, if it's a situation in which I think the cops would be on your side, I will call the cops. If you're being harassed by a guy, you can say so to me, even if you don't know me. I pledge I will distract him so you can get away, or I will tell him that he needs to leave, or whatever I can do to the best of my ability. I pledge that yes, actually, because you are a woman I will give you the benefit of the doubt. If you tell me that a guy just did something shitty to you I will not refuse to look at any evidence and tell you that I know him and he's a great guy and you must have been imagining things. I have great loyalty to my male friends but I will not allow that to blind me to the fact that none of us are saints and even my best friends can screw up and may need to be called on it. I pledge that I will walk you to your car if you don't feel safe walking alone at night, and then you can drive me to mine.

)

Comments

[clawfoot.livejournal.com]

This is my initial knee-jerk reaction, so feel free to dismiss it as such or bring up points I may not have seen on my first pass at the topic:

One of the most disappointing factors about stuff like this sometimes is the fact that it is rarely, if ever, truly gender-neutral in its vows of protection and support.

I'm sorry if this makes me a crankypants, but I will not vow to give the benefit of the doubt to a woman against a man because she's a woman and he's a man. I will, however, vow to do what I can to help people feel safe. If that means taking action against a man on a woman's behalf, so be it. If that means taking action against a woman on another woman's behalf, so be it. If that means taking action against a woman on a man's behalf, I'll do that, too.

I recognize that this is in direct reaction to the unfortunately misogynistic feel of the Open Source Boob Project, but countering misogyny with the assumption that only men can be creeps and assholes and only women can be victims is really not the best way to go about it.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

I am not aspiring to be gender-neutral, nor did I think the language of the pledge attempted to be so. I also don't think it assumes what you say it assumes. What it does assume is a fact -- women face this kind of creepy behavior in hugely disproportionate numbers, and with hugely disproportionate societal support for male perpetrators.

It is what it is. As I like to say, I'll be post-feminist in the post-patriarchy (I didn't make it up, but it works for me).

[clawfoot.livejournal.com]

I understand that. It was the I pledge that yes, actually, because you are a woman I will give you the benefit of the doubt. that gave me the biggest pause. If a woman I don't know from Eve comes up to me and levies accusations of creepy behaviour against a male friend of mine whom I know quite well, I'm not going to give her the benefit of the doubt simply because she's female and he's male. I'll investigate the accusations on my own, certainly. I'll probably assume that she believes he was being a creep and that there was likely some hideous misunderstanding going on. I can promise not to dismiss her as a total nutcase out of hand, but I'm not going to take decisive action against my good friend on the word of a stranger, genders be damned.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Where do you read "decisive action against my good friend on the word of a stranger" in this?

I pledge that yes, actually, because you are a woman I will give you the benefit of the doubt. If you tell me that a guy just did something shitty to you I will not refuse to look at any evidence and tell you that I know him and he's a great guy and you must have been imagining things. I have great loyalty to my male friends but I will not allow that to blind me to the fact that none of us are saints and even my best friends can screw up and may need to be called on it.

It's about not refusing to look at her evidence. It's about not allowing the fact that a male friend is my friend to blind me to the *possibility* that he was giving someone unwanted or creepy attention and "may need to be called on it".

[clawfoot.livejournal.com]

It was all the stuff beforehand that gave me that impression (asking him to leave, distracting him, calling other friends to help, calling the cops, etc.). On second pass, you're right in that it doesn't necessarily include all that in the male-friend scenario, but that's the impression I came away with from my first reading.

I still think that mentioning that you will give someone the benefit of the doubt simply because she is a woman implies, perhaps not directly but there is a presupposition there, that a man who reports being victimized will not be given the benefit of the doubt and may well be dismissed out of hand.

I think this reaction in me is likely all stemming from a few years back, when people were circulating a "repost this" meme, directed at men about "how to not rape a woman." The LJ version of it was a perversion of the original: an email chain letter that was written in reaction to the one directed at women about how not to get raped (don't go out alone at night, don't dress provocatively, don't make eye contact with strangers, etc.). It was meant originally as a parody and a satire of the email chain letter, intending to point out how ridiculous and misogynistic it is to couch women on how to not be victims by showing how ridiculous and sexist it was assuming all males are capable of and willing to rape. The LJ version was about a third of the length, deeply flawed and cut out pretty much the entire point, and people were passing it around as though it was The Answer.

I guess my knee got the best of me, and I think I saw a lot of that meme in this, warranted or not. I still think it does unintentionally promote the idea that only men victimize and only women are victims, if only in the fact that it only mentions men in a victimizing role and only women in a victimized one.

I recognize that women are disproportionately victims, but I've known male victims, and it sits poorly with me to see them swept under the rug.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

I think you may be missing something.

If I see a male friend of mine in that situation, then what I do is go up to him and explain to him that he's making someone uncomfortable and to back off. If he's my friend, he doesn't want to harass anyone; he was doing it by accident; he'll step off. I don't have to try to trick him into anything or call the cops on him, because if he's my friend, he'll listen.

If I'm so scared of him I don't dare talk to him myself and need to call the cops, he's not my friend.

because you are a woman I will give you the benefit of the doubt

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*nod*. you're not alone. i can't pledge that. i won't pledge that. i've experienced too much woman-on-woman and woman-on-man violence and lies from women about men to do that.

that does, of course, not stop me from trying to break up two people who're having an argument, or a fight -- it doesn't matter in that case who started it, the scene ought to stop and everyone needs to calm down. so yes, i might take decisive action anyway, even against a male friend, if i feel things are out of hand. and i am not gonna treat her like a nutcase, and i'll listen, and i'll walk her to her car or drive her home, and i'll call the cops if needed. but not just because she is a woman. i'd do the same for a male in distress (and have done so, for either).

it's this kind of stuff that makes me not call myself a feminist.

forgot to add: but this is certainly a way more worthy project than the misbegotten OSBP, and it might do a lot of good at cons where apparently more women feel unsafe than i had expected before harlangate.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

When it comes to harassment, think of "benefit of the doubt" as being like playing the odds.

She says he was harassing. He says he wasn't.

Which is more likely? That she made up a story about his harassing her, or that he was harassing her? I'm not saying that the former is *impossible*; it clearly isn't. But which way would you bet? Which do you think happens more often, harassment or false accusations of it?

And if the response is protective, not vindictive, the benefit of the doubt going to the accuser is safer.

[clawfoot.livejournal.com]

I completely understand and agree with that. But what if the genders were switched?

He says she was harassing. She says she wasn't.

Who is more likely to be believed? I'm still going to go with the protective response and give the benefit of the doubt to the victim. Saying that you'll give the benefit of the doubt to the victim because she's a woman indirectly says, to me, that you wouldn't give the benefit of the doubt to the victim if he was male, possibly because he's male.

And that, more than anything, is what sits poorly with me.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Okay, I see that point.

[fluffthebunny.livejournal.com]

Vito is obviously full of teh awesome.

[post-ecdysis.livejournal.com]

(Let me say off the bat that these are nascent, uninformed opinions. I'm not putting them forward to defend them, but to learn more.)

Really? This seems glorious (and overdue) from a perspective that there are evidently women who don't come to cons because they perceive that it tolerates skeevy predators who feed on ingenues. If this is saying "We know who those six people are and we know their script and now they're on notice," then yay.

But it also gives me a bitter taste of paternalism, like the room is full of nuns who are making sure that you're not dancing too close. Isn't your right to allow a man to touch your breasts compromised by knowing that there are a dozen people in the room calculating whether they should intervene or whether you "enjoyed it enough"? Surely, I'm reading too much into the "moaning Yes! Yes! Yes!" line. But just like the OSBP was a cover for rapists, could not the OSWBEOUP empower sex-negative crusaders who would ordinarily not have a button that allowed them to question your judgement?

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Maybe.

It's to some degree a question of which side you want to err on.

So far we seem to be erring SO FAR on the side of "not my business if someone gropes someone else, maybe freezing up for five solid minutes and then running off is her way of having a good time" that I think we could swing quite a bit the other way and still be good.

Seriously, though, did you look at the yes! yes! yes! link? Because Portlydyke is hella funny but she also makes a good point.

[post-ecdysis.livejournal.com]

Probably. I have a long-standing concern about Internet-based communities that 90% of members are fantastic but 2/3 of the output is generated by the other 10%. If your example is behavior that is currently being tolerated, I'm sure you're right that much good and at best little harm will come from activism. And, as you might point out, when con parties turn into scenes from The Handmaid's Tale, then you or someone else can address that problem.

I hope that people choose to share the stories that come from their empowerment; they are bound to be educational and inspirational.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Done that in real life. Stopped a guy who was giving a backrub to a miserable-looking woman and asked if she was okay. She said no. Turned to him and said that in future, he should ask before touching. His reply was "Well she looked like she was enjoying it." She then said "Actually I wasn't and I'd like you to stop now."

Win, and hopefully they both learned something from it.