Something is Better than Nothing

You might remember a few days ago, I linked this post by John DiBello on this blog. This post has, naturally, been linked many other places and prompted interesting discussion and even some dissention.

There are two types of dissention that I've noticed most prevalent. The first is of the type that questions whether some of the instances are indeed sexual harassment. Some of this is in the "Asking for a date is now harassment?" or "We can't criticize someone's art now?" vein of questioning. Personally I think those questions ignore fairly obvious details from John's post (namely things like not taking no for an answer or the critics targetting only female artists) but it's a fair discussion and not everyone's going to agree.

The other type of dissent though gets me just a bit angry. It's the type that uses the argument "Well, it's a he-said-she-said thing and it's really hard to prove..."

Did I say angry? I meant to say furious.

Look, I'm a pragmatist. I'm also a law student. I know how difficult it is to prove any sort of accusation like this on little to no evidence. I also know how important innocent-before-proven-guilty is, and I'd certainly not want to see someone kicked out of a convention based on a misunderstanding or even a lie.

I'm realistic. I realize that if SDCC actually HAD a policy in place, the employees there would only be able to institute it a very small percent of the time and much sexual harassment will go unreported or un-dealt with.

In all actuality, a policy like that would probably be damn near useless.

But it would be a GESTURE.

Right now the fact that SDCC has nothing in place for a sexual harassment policy just tells me that, as a woman, I am not welcome or wanted at SDCC. This tells me that my safety and security doesn't matter.

And you might point out that men are also likely to be victims of sexual harassment, and you're correct. In essence, they're saying that the safety and security of these men don't matter either.

It doesn't need to be much. How about just "If you're a victim or witness to an act of sexual harassment, please report it at room so-and-so." Or maybe just "all violators will be removed from the convention." Basic, simple, and while hard to enforce, it would at least be SOMETHING.

Oh, and to any and all commenters who have said something about what John could-have-should-have done during these instances, go fuck yourselves.

Have a nice day.