The book world is a warm and intimate community, and it’s easy to feel safe at conferences because the vast majority of authors, readers, publishers, bloggers, etc. are genuinely wonderful people.

Many festivals have no anti-harassment policy in place whatsoever, and no place for conference attendees to report predatory behavior.
The boards are queasy about legal issues, obviously, but authors and readers are arguing that festival organizers also have a duty to provide as safe a space as possible to conference goers.
Here is a partial list of specific situations I and female
author friends have experienced at various crime conferences.
Each one of these was a different man – either an author or
a publisher. Some of the behaviors have been reported about more than one man.
I’ve included nothing that I haven’t personally experienced,
witnessed, or been told by the woman/women involved, and I haven’t included some of the
more serious accusations I know of. And I’m going to phrase this as a question to
men, because I think part of the problem here is that even the most woke of our
male friends and colleagues have no idea what goes on, and are putting
themselves through emotional contortions thinking, “Wait, have I done it?” My answer to the good guys is NO, you haven’t
done it – just check yourself against this list.
At a conference, have you ever….
- Stayed
late in the conference bar chatting up the youngest and drunkest woman in the
place, to the point that other authors have had to intervene and escort her
home safely?
- Taken
photos of a woman’s body parts without her knowing?
- Stood
outside the hotel window of a woman who just turned you down at the conference
bar?
- Stroked
the leg of a woman you’ve just been introduced to, saying you like her tights?
- Had
a conversation with a woman without once lifting your eyes from her chest?
- Followed
a woman you were attracted to around a conference telling everyone “She’s so
sexy” and trying to talk to her even when she is in the middle of a
conversation with others, on the phone, or obviously otherwise engaged?
- Shoved
a woman up against a wall, held her there and kissed her without her consent?
- As a publisher, told a female author who just won the
Edgar that "women belong barefoot and pregnant"?
- Comforted
a friend going through a nasty divorce when she’s broken down sobbing at the
bar - by walking her up to her room, then closing and chain-locking the door
and trying to kiss her?
- Draped
yourself over a woman, just to be friendly?
- Touched
the arm of a woman you don’t know two dozen times during a group conversation
about sexual harassment and rape?
- Pursued
and started relationships with three different women you met at a con without
telling any of the others about the others – or informing any of them that you
have a wife, a steady girlfriend on the side, and a serious STD?
- Alex
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2 comments:
At a storytelling conference, a friend was dealing with, not sexual harassment, but bullying, serious enough that we began having an escort with the targeted person at all times, not hard to arrange; she had many friends. We pondered having a universal signal, like the "hey Rube" of circus folk, to call friends to intervene. I suggested waving a handkerchief as a distress signal.
I do recall, though, a long-ago party at which my friends rallied and surrounded the guy I'd just punched. My punch was weak and harmless, but the gesture was radical enough to get the needed assistance to boot him out.
Kudos to you for defending yourself and your friends! But it's beyond time that conference organizers took on the responsibility of keeping people safe. Bullying is covered under the new anti-harassment policies, too. I'm hoping word gets out and people know to report these incidents instead of or as well as dealing with them themselves, so that conference attendees who many have a bevy of friends to come to their rescue will have recourse as well.
Thanks for sharing your story!
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