{"id":17226,"date":"2009-07-01T21:17:49","date_gmt":"2009-07-02T01:17:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=17226"},"modified":"2014-12-29T08:40:12","modified_gmt":"2014-12-29T13:40:12","slug":"harassment-at-readercon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2009\/07\/01\/harassment-at-readercon\/","title":{"rendered":"Harassment at Readercon?"},"content":{"rendered":"

While following Melopoeia<\/a>‘s link about a bone marrow registry drive at Readercon<\/a>, one in which I hope you’ll all take part—I know I plan on using the opportunity to sign up—I read something distressing.<\/p>\n

After browsing the indicated entry, I then scrolled down the Additional Information page to find the following warning about how harassment would be handled if it were to occur<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Harassment<\/b><\/p>\n

Readercon has always had a zero-tolerance harassment policy. Until last year, we did not feel it necessary to call attendees’ attention to the details of this policy—but this year we are being explicit.<\/p>\n

Harassment of any kind—including physical assault, battery, deliberate intimidation, stalking, or unwelcome physical attentions—will not be tolerated at Readercon and will result in permanent suspension of membership.<\/p>\n

As always, Readercon reserves the right to strip membership at its discretion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And all I could think was—what does “until last year” mean? Did I miss something last July?<\/p>\n

I’ve always found Readercon to be the most accepting of places—which I recognize is an easy statement for me to toss off, considering I’m a 6’4″ privileged white male.<\/p>\n

What I’m hoping is that this notice on the part of the committee is not the result of anything that actually happened at Readercon in 2008, but rather a preventative strike to avoid some of the behaviors I’ve heard have cropped up at other conventions recently.<\/p>\n

But I’m willing to admit that could be wishful thinking. If I’m wrong, and completely out of the loop, and missed something terrible which happened last year which I could have helped prevent, or if I took some unconscious action myself by either word or deed which might have intimidated others, please, educate me. <\/p>\n

I’ve been to every Readercon going back to 1987, and want it to remain a place of safety. If anyone out there has anything to say which would enlighten me, please let me know here, or, if you’d feel more comfortable, privately via e-mail<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While following Melopoeia‘s link about a bone marrow registry drive at Readercon, one in which I hope you’ll all take part—I know I plan on using the opportunity to sign up—I read something distressing. After browsing the indicated entry, I then scrolled down the Additional Information page to find the following warning about how harassment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-17226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-readercon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17226"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17227,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17226\/revisions\/17227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}