Hi Richard, On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 07:19, Richard Darst <[email protected]> wrote:
> You may have seen that recently, a loose geek feminism group has > produced a draft anti-harassment policy for conferences (technical > conferences in particular). Based on their experience and > consultations, they have produced something which can be taken and, > with minimal effort, adapted to us: > http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment_policy It seems to me that the text is mixing up harassment, which is defined by the Oxford dictionary as "aggressive pressure or intimidation", with sexism. For example: it implies that hiring somebody to be a booth babe (sic) is harassment, which is clearly not. I'm not saying I find them OK, but that's just diluting what harassment means. Also, what I read there would forbid stuff that happens in other kinds of conferences: cosplay (as it could be interpreted as "sexualised" clothing), which is not really relevant here, but to me shows that the text is not good. What about kilts (I think some people found them sexy :)) or cleavage? And in the end, what makes clothing sexualised? That can change drastically; for example, some people think that women should hide their hair for similar reasons (at least orthodox Jews and Muslims) It also forbids the appearance of "sexual images in public spaces", which would forbid most mainstream publicity that you could find in the bus stop, cafeteria, etc. Or it could mean also that you cannot have a wallpaper in your laptop with some cute boy/girl scantly clad when you sit in the hacklab. I have been suggested by a friend to change my wallpaper in DC7 because she found it objectifying, and I complied with the request on the grounds of not making anyone feel bad; but forbidding is quite a different thing. Also note that this has nothing to do with harassment. So, to conclude, I don't think it is a good idea to adopt this text. -- Martín Ferrari _______________________________________________ Debconf-team mailing list [email protected] http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team
