Carding Harrassment

The Code of Conduct debate around Open Source conferences has been much on my mind again lately. Just today somebody called my attention to this blog post about yet another attempt to fix what some see as a real problem.  I have to admit that my take is a little different, and some will find it disloyal to my gender (as I was accused back when I gave a keynote at OSCON a few years ago).  I actually like the cards the blog is talking about.  Its a clever hack and one that promises to at least create more timely communication when people feel uncomfortable, which IMHO is preferable to some of the passive-aggressive behaviors we have witnessed recently.

I've not written until now about my take on all this appropriateness chatter over the past couple of years. When it all started I happened to be the only female CTO in the top 10 most popular websites in the world and I felt my opinion on it would be artificially amplified by my position. I was troubled by what I saw as strong-arm tactics employed to force conference organizers to police attendees, and I did have a number of conversations privately with women who agreed with me and were also troubled, and also with women who completely and vehemently disagreed with me.

A little background: I have worked in the Tech industry for more than 20 years and in some pretty visible positions. It is not unusual for me to be the only woman a room full of men in meetings or at conferences, and I've seen my share of inappropriate behavior.I've also worked for several of the larger Tech companies, which means I've seen a variety of approaches to training people about these issues (most Tech companies present between 15 to 45 minutes of training on this issue during new employee orientation, and many require additional training for managers).

The watershed moment for me was when I experienced Intel's orientation. People tend to work at Intel forever, and dating amongst co-workers is really common there. They also have a melting pot of cultural expectations because they hire from all over the world. Their policy says (my paraphrase) that its every person's responsibility to set clear boundaries. Their orientation on the subject (which was the longest I've attended) included skits showing how to ask a co-worker out on a date, how to decline an unwanted advance and how to act after you've been told "No, thank you". The orientation went on to explain that if you set a clear boundary and the other person continues to harass you, then Intel's management would support you in a grievance against that person.

My eureka was to hear them explicitly say "It is up to you to clearly say "No" initially". I know at least one woman prominent in the Code of Conduct movement who felt that this was too much of a burden, that it created a hostile work environment, but I thought it was clear and brilliant.

So here's my general take: some of the women who want to see strict Codes of Conduct are really seeking to be absolved of their fundamental obligation as human beings to set clear individual boundaries. They want the organization (or the conference) to do this for them so they'll never be made to feel uncomfortable. The problem with this is that living in the world involves dealing with all kinds of people and just as fairness isn't an inalienable right, neither is interpersonal comfort. Its a messy business figuring out what other people's intentions are in the best of cases, and we owe it to our fellow humans to be as clear as we can on our end in just our normal interactions.

That said, there are certainly creeps out there, of all genders and both intentional and unintentional ones. I think its positive for people to be given tools that help them give effective feedback (such as the clever cards used at DefCon). I just hope they come with instructions for the card-bearer to hand them out AFTER exhausting more normal feedback with an offender. Otherwise I fear handing out these cards will become a proxy for normal human boundary setting and will further contribute to the death of authentic interactions between people wherever they are used.

Comments

[Neil K]

Hey, since I know both of you, I am obviously qualified to talk about this. ;)

I think there are a few different things in play here. The red card/yellow card idea isn't the same thing as the idea that conferences should have rules about conduct. And inappropriate relationships or behavior between individuals aren't the same thing as systemic issues.

I agree that official policies about how people behave with each other can be dangerous. They can get in the way of human interactions. And when there are official sanctions and a process for achieving them, some people can manipulate the process to their advantage.

The cards are the opposite of an official policy. Conference attendees spontaneously participate. No coercion other than personal request, no punishment other than shame. I see the cards as being a kind of peer to peer conversation, and they're even optimistic about human nature, because they suggest that personal interactions may change behavior.

The rules you quote about Intel have a couple of virtues... one is absolving the company of all responsibility. ;) But it also seems that the organization then supports what boundaries people want to set, rather than the organization having a universal model for how people are going to interact. I approve of that.

That said, the Intel policy seems to be limited to personal interactions. I don't think that Intel ever had a problem with someone projecting hard-core pornography in a public area, which is something that I witnessed at the last tech event I went to. KC encountered a scavenger hunt for tit-flashing, that was perpetrated by the security of the conference themselves. There's no personal boundary setting to be done here; it's that a collective expectation of a safe space has been breached. Some people could argue that you need conference rules to stop this, and maybe they are right. But I'm not sure that I'd like to see official rules as a response. This particular conference had alternative thinkers of every stripe, and it's hard to make a rule that stops frat-house style crassness while also making a space for people to express themselves about sex and sexuality. So I still like the card system in that instance.

[Charles Miller]

Except we've seen exactly what happens when somebody tries to declare their personal boundaries by, say, stating quite matter-of-factly in a web video that she doesn't appreciate being cornered in an elevator and propositioned.

[alecmuffett]

Oh, Charles, you mean this, don't you? http://www.atheistrev.com/2011/07/elevators-and-sexism-in-atheist.html

[Danese Cooper]

alecmuffett: thanks for linking to all that again, and how the heck have you been?

NeilK: your comment is pretty close to one of the process loops I've traversed contemplating how to talk about the whole complex of issues. I came to the conclusion that the Code of Conduct trend isn't a bad thing so long as it is applied rationally (and I really think the Ada Initiative version's suggested penalties for infraction are a step too far). I like the card thing for the same use case you do but I'd hate to see people handing them out to people in their everyday lives (in other words not in the special circumstance of a conference or other meeting) because its too easy to distance oneself from any personal responsibility if you just slap a card on anybody who makes you uncomfortable. And as the mother of a young man, I'm also concerned that the cards inform infringers post-facto of the victim's boundaries in a way that may well feel like an ambush. I can imagine usually very respectful son saying "She was really pissed off and I can't figure out what I did to upset her, and she wouldn't even tell me".

[Suzanne Axtell]

Hi Danese, thanks so much for your post.

Have you seen this guide to not creeping at cons? It also calls for taking responsibility, but by potential creepers, to avoid being harassers in the first place.
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/08/09/an-incomplete-guide-to-not-creeping/

Looking forward to the con where everyone takes responsibility for their own boundaries *and* behavior! :)

See you soon I hope,
Suzanne

[Emanuel]

Great Read! I totally agree with your points and hope that others can relate to your experience. Keep up the great work!

[John]

To much sensitive work.Its a deference article to cared ourselves. I like this one.Thanks for share.

[Homa Sapiens]

Danese, as you point out, life isn't always fair, and it's a shame that life won't always be fair for your son either. Perhaps you can introduce your son to the concept of "Schrodinger's rapist" in explanation of those mean women who didn't want to talk to him.

But seriously,

I think you have mischaracterised almost all of the code of conduct women. Yes, we would like people to take on the burden of thinking about what they do before they do it. (obligatory women as well as men inserted here)

yes, we know that may not be possible for many people, for many reasons-- not the least of which is the overwhelming culturally nurtured notion that they shouldn't have to behave respectfully. We would like to change that cultural assumption.

Yes, we know that a few people will accost other people regardless.

In fact, we know that some few of those people will continue to accost others no matter how many times or how clearly the words "NO" have been said.

In which case, we would like to know that there is some way of removing those few people from the many. We would like that knowledge to be widely known and assumed. We would like it very much, if a guy would decide one day, to NOT accost a woman in an elevator, because he knows he will be ejected from the conference for doing so.

[Homa Sapiens]

also-- those cards might not be effective when one has to hand over a red card.

http://singlevoice.net/redyellow-card-project/#comment-305

[petpost]

I think there are a few different things in play here. The red yellow card idea isn't the same thing as the idea that conferences should have rules about conduct. And inappropriate relationships or behavior between individuals aren't the same thing as systemic issues. Keep up the great work!