WisCon, again
Jul. 7th, 2014 12:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catherineldfThe last week has seen a rash of apologies: one for poor record keeping and lack of process on the part of those responsible for safety and security (here) and a new one today from one of the con chairs, Joanna Lowenstein, essentially for poor judgment around letting Frenkel roam free around WisCon 38. Are these necessary? Yes. Do they address some of the problems? While they certainly answer some questions, they leave a number of others open.
Stephanie Zvan has an excellent post on some of the events leading up to WisCon38 on her blog here, as well as an analysis of how events can and have dealt with similar issues around harassment. You should read it. What I'm going to talk about is what's missing, sticking to those events that have become public knowledge. as much as possible, Opinions are my own.
1. Last year, the information that was circulated by the con com regarding Jim Frenkel was that he was not going to be banned because the con didn't have a process that demanded it and because it was deemed to be a single, isolated incident. This turned out to be untrue on a variety of levels, one of which is recorded in the poor record-keeping apology linked above.
2. By the time WisCon38 rolled around, Frenkel was not merely not banned, he was on the preliminary programming schedule. He stepped down from being on programming EDITED: for reasons still to be fully explained. The fact remains that he was put on programming to begin with despite warnings given beforehand (see Stephanie's post) or just plain common sense based on the experience of other conventions with high visibility harassers (see pretty much anything about Readercon and harassment for examples). He was then permitted to volunteer in the consuite, because what could possible go wrong at this point? Neither of the women he targeted at WisCon 37 were warned that he would be there, let alone volunteering.
3. Somewhere along the line, Story #1 about why he wasn't being banned became "He wasn't banned because Elise had insisted that he not be banned." This story was circulated by multiple members of the con com (one has apologized) at various levels, and was provided as an excuse when the second target of his harassment at WisCon37 asked why he was not banned. Elise had to publicly deny that this was true in order to put an end to it after the con. It should be noted that this denial had to be issued after she found out that this delightful bit of fiction was being circulated and requested that they stop spreading this around, back in April before the con.
And this is the thing that gets me: this was done deliberately. I don't know who started this story as a convenient excuse and frankly, I don't care. The people circulating it should have recognized it for the victim-blaming b.s. that it was and stopped it then and there. Instead, they opted to throw a long-standing member of the convention community under a figurative bus to protect themselves from the consequences of what they were doing:
protecting someone whose behavior was such that it caused the publishing company he worked for to release him back into the wilds in 2013, shortly after WisCon37. Reporting harassers is hard, reporting powerful harassers is even harder. Punishing the reporters by undermining and spreading rumors about them is, as they say in these parts, a nasty bit of work.
As I've said previously, I've been attending this con for about 25 years. It is one of my home cons. I've released several books there, done multiple panels and readings, volunteered, got my spouse to table in the Dealer's Room and in the Art Show, and talked many, many people into attending. And I can't do that for next year, new processes or not. I feel too angry and frustrated and betrayed over what's been said and done. And I'm not sure what they can do to fix that. I hope they can. That starts with recognizing victim-blaming when it happens and choosing another course.
Stephanie Zvan has an excellent post on some of the events leading up to WisCon38 on her blog here, as well as an analysis of how events can and have dealt with similar issues around harassment. You should read it. What I'm going to talk about is what's missing, sticking to those events that have become public knowledge. as much as possible, Opinions are my own.
1. Last year, the information that was circulated by the con com regarding Jim Frenkel was that he was not going to be banned because the con didn't have a process that demanded it and because it was deemed to be a single, isolated incident. This turned out to be untrue on a variety of levels, one of which is recorded in the poor record-keeping apology linked above.
2. By the time WisCon38 rolled around, Frenkel was not merely not banned, he was on the preliminary programming schedule. He stepped down from being on programming EDITED: for reasons still to be fully explained. The fact remains that he was put on programming to begin with despite warnings given beforehand (see Stephanie's post) or just plain common sense based on the experience of other conventions with high visibility harassers (see pretty much anything about Readercon and harassment for examples). He was then permitted to volunteer in the consuite, because what could possible go wrong at this point? Neither of the women he targeted at WisCon 37 were warned that he would be there, let alone volunteering.
3. Somewhere along the line, Story #1 about why he wasn't being banned became "He wasn't banned because Elise had insisted that he not be banned." This story was circulated by multiple members of the con com (one has apologized) at various levels, and was provided as an excuse when the second target of his harassment at WisCon37 asked why he was not banned. Elise had to publicly deny that this was true in order to put an end to it after the con. It should be noted that this denial had to be issued after she found out that this delightful bit of fiction was being circulated and requested that they stop spreading this around, back in April before the con.
And this is the thing that gets me: this was done deliberately. I don't know who started this story as a convenient excuse and frankly, I don't care. The people circulating it should have recognized it for the victim-blaming b.s. that it was and stopped it then and there. Instead, they opted to throw a long-standing member of the convention community under a figurative bus to protect themselves from the consequences of what they were doing:
protecting someone whose behavior was such that it caused the publishing company he worked for to release him back into the wilds in 2013, shortly after WisCon37. Reporting harassers is hard, reporting powerful harassers is even harder. Punishing the reporters by undermining and spreading rumors about them is, as they say in these parts, a nasty bit of work.
As I've said previously, I've been attending this con for about 25 years. It is one of my home cons. I've released several books there, done multiple panels and readings, volunteered, got my spouse to table in the Dealer's Room and in the Art Show, and talked many, many people into attending. And I can't do that for next year, new processes or not. I feel too angry and frustrated and betrayed over what's been said and done. And I'm not sure what they can do to fix that. I hope they can. That starts with recognizing victim-blaming when it happens and choosing another course.