On Harassment and Policies: An Open Letter to Skeptic and Freethought Leaders
June 28, 2012 By Hemant Mehta
This is a guest post by Todd Stiefel. He is the President and founder of the Stiefel Freethought Foundation.
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I write today regarding an important and timely topic. I have read an enormous volume of dialogue online about how to make skeptic/freethought conferences safer and more welcoming, especially for women. There is a call for all conferences to have anti-harassment policies in place, mostly to address sexual harassment. I agree and feel we need policies to discourage such behavior and provide a safety net for when the behaviors do happen.
I have heard of many instances of extremely rude, inappropriate, aggressive and threatening sexual behavior within our movement. There are stories of people being relentlessly propositioned, groped under tables, threatened with rape, stealthily photographed for voyeuristic pornography, and many other transgressions. Even if any of the specific cases were unintentional, misconstrued, or dubious, the fact that so many of them are coming to light should concern all of us. It is unclear if all of this harassment is even coming from other skeptics and freethinkers, or if some of it is just being directed at us. Regardless, in no uncertain terms, I condemn these horrific behaviors. I doubt these activities are more common in our movement than elsewhere. I hypothesize that we are hearing so much about these issues in our movement because our victims, as skeptical people, are more skilled than the average person at directly challenging difficult problems.
Most of the issues I have heard of involve men harassing women. I want my readers to understand that I can empathize with these victims, as men can be victims as well. Policies need to protect both men and women. As a monogamous, straight, married male, I have been very inappropriately propositioned for sadomasochistic sex by an important female customer at a business convention. I have also personally had my genitals groped against my wishes by a woman at a freethought event. I bring these stories up as a preemptive defense against the critiques that I know will come from those who will attack me for some points I am about to make. I am sure someone will attempt to diminish the value of my opinion because I am a man and cannot possibly understand what women go through when they are harassed. I believe harassment is harder on women, but I still understand better than some may think.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/06/28/on-harassment-and-policies-an-open-letter-to-skeptic-and-freethought-leaders/
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