This is my first post for NaBloPoMo 2016, and I’m cheating a bit by reusing something I wrote a few weeks ago for a friend. I hope others might find it helpful too.
harassment
Friday Hoyden: Kathy Sierra
There is a new and important article by Kathy Sierra available, that we should all read.
Procedure Fail: WisCon, Feminism and Safe Spaces
Readers who are already part of SF fandom have probably seen a lot of this WisCon 38 fallout already, but since this sort of institutional memory-holing of relevant history regarding serial harassers is precisely the sort of social convention that serial harassers rely upon in order to keep getting away with what they do, alongside the fallacy that harassers are obvious deviants who could never be part of my well-ordered community (when in fact they are commonly those with the well-liked/respected status to be given the benefit of the doubt when/if reports are made against them), it’s worth reading about the mistakes of communities with which one isn’t familiar so that one can learn about patterns to watch out for and procedural standards which need to be known and practised by decision-makers.
Today in Anita’s Irony and Lewis’ Law: my threats will show you that harassment is a myth
Sending a woman rape threats to prove that sexual harassment doesn’t exist proves feminism’s point, not yours.
The attempts to shut women down continue
Two women who have been the subject of floods of contemptuous and dismissive abuse as part of their public life write about their experiences and point out that their experience is the cultural norm, not any outlier experience.
Today in Tangential Learning: the smell of chloroform
As part of following PZ Myer’s account of a campaign against him on campus from the editor(s) of a right-wing student newspaper, I have learnt what chloroform smells like, and it smells like something present in every office and classroom and most private homes.
Then I searched online for a bit more information about chloroform…
Bora disappoints (again)
Unfollowing Bora by Dana Hunter at Freethought Blogs summarises all that’s wrong about Bora Zivkovic’s blithe attempt to just come back to science blogging as if nothing ever happened.
Storify CEO enables a stalker and thinks it’s no big deal
“There is no plausible way that Xavier Damman doesn’t know that he alerted a stalker to a conversation [taking] place about him. There is no plausible way that Xavier Damman doesn’t know that he sent a list of people who care about online stalking to a known online stalker.”
Recently in Documenting Incidents: the SFF harassment revelations
SFF joins the Deep Rifts! club.
More silencing tactics aimed at Anita Sarkeesian and Tropes vs Women in Video Games
A short while ago Anita Sarkeesian published another video to her Feminist Frequency YouTube channel. Within an hour it was taken down by YouTube because it had been flagged as containing objectionable content. Feminist Frequency appealed the takedown, and it was quickly restored. Good on YouTube for restoring the video so quickly, but why doesn’t YouTube have a better mechanism for immunising known target accounts against vexatious complaints?
Hoyden About Town 