james_nicoll

Minicon 27 in 1992 had an official anti-harassment policy, which included sexual harassment.

Do we still?

There isn't one stated in the Minicon 47 program book, so I can't say.

I was thinking "piloted in the 1990s, spread explosively after around 2000".


Doug M.

When will such a policy be applied to everyone?

Sexism: When a man leaves a woman after 25 years, that's "abandonment', but when a woman leaves a man after one, that's "moving on with her life"; when a man has a fantasy involving two women, that's "perverted", but when a woman has a fantasy involving a man and a horse, that's "romantic".

Fortunately, they're equal: when a woman leaves a man after 25 years, that's "abandonment" and when a man leaves a woman after one, it's "moving on with his life."

And if the woman has the man and the horse doing the same thing in her fantasy that the two women are doing in the man's fantasy, well, I suspect it's perverted and illegal in a number of states and provinces. And apparently the Budweiser commercial already got there. (I haven't seen the actual commercial, being in Canada, but Jon Stewart's commentary indicates it's a sexual fantasy.)

Somehow I doubt you've ever had a problem with women coming up and pinching parts of your body, unless you were taking a tour of a slaughter house and a female employee mistook you for part of the inventory.

How about that.

It does happen. See http://www.jimchines.com/2012/07/groped-at-fandomfest/

These days anti-harassment policies are taken very seriously and, yes, applied fairly. Here's an example from another fan-run SF&F convention:

http://convergence-con.org/about-us/policies/#antiharassment

Generally they are.

Heterosexual White Male claims he's being oppressed. In other news, world's smallest violin was heard being played.

We intended it to be. The only people we got complaints about were men, that year (well, leading up to that year; we managed to intimidate somebody, I hope the harassers, and didn't get complaints from that convention).

Interesting; that 1992 Minicon is the first one I chaired (and the first one to have a single chair in ages; I'd been on the Executive Committee before), and we put in that policy in response to a number of complaints about a small number of people who had been around local fandom for a while doing inappropriate things.

I'd be surprised if that was actually the first time one was enacted.

Two people were allowed in only after being read the riot act (or our local equivalent) by me or the Operations department head (co-heads?), and were warned that we'd eject them and stop accepting future memberships if there were credible complaints about them. In the event, there were not any complaints about them lodged with me or Operations or our lead person on the anti-harassment effort (who was cakmpls).

As chair of that con, I had no power to bind policy beyond that year. (Actually, the threat to refuse future memberships is also not absolute; I can pass on the recommendation, but I can't enforce it.) I can find no sign of a published policy in the archived materials from last year, and don't remember our having one.

That was the year I wrote "The Essay We Wish We Didn't Have to Write" (I think that was the title) for the program book.

On page 6 of the program book. Links to too-small and too-large PDFs here.

I Am Not A Lawyer, but I think you did a pretty good job of setting a clearly defined policy. I can understand being apprehensive about the nitty-gritty legalities of what constitutes harassment, but when I look at Convergence's anti-harassment policy I see the same basic points being made there in order to discourage people from abusing said policy.

Is this a trick question?

What would make it a trick question? "No such policy has ever been enacted" or "Every SF con since the beginning of time has had such a policy"?

I figured there aren't any policies against it.

I think the issue is you'd need to begin by finding out when the first convention Harassment Policy was set up, before you can therefore detirmine when the first harassment policy was laid out that encouraged only non-sexual harassment.

Back at my very first Minicon the rules were pretty basic, to say the least:

http://www.mnstf.org/minicon16/Minicon_16_program_book/2.cooked/02.png

I don't remember anyone being lit on fire at least...

Can I killfile someone in LJ?

Depends on your browser – I've got greasemonkey running a LJ killfile script on firefox, it's pretty good.