Maybe I'm missing something but why not handle it with the safeguards at the venue? The conference is not in the business of protecting its attendees from unwanted advances, especially outside of the conference areas/sponsored events.
Why not speak to the manager of the bar and have him escorted out? If it happens at the hotel, do the same with the hotel manager. People in the service/hospitality industry know how to deal with these situations and do so all the time. If it happens again call the law.
There are much better mechanisms for dealing with harassment than a conference organizer.
There are much better mechanisms for dealing with harassment than a conference organizer.
It doesn't sound like she had any problems handling the advances at the bar. To wit, " I told him he should be ashamed of himself and walked away."
The question to me is whether the advances should have been reported to the conference organizer in addition to whatever happened at the bar.
If the harasser had been merely an attendee, then I would argue that there is little that a conference organizer would gain by knowing about it or be able to do about it. But we're talking about a speaker, someone who may have been invited, who probably had the cost of the conference waived and possibly even been reimbursed or given a stipend for airfare and hotel, and very likely appears in name and photo in conference promotional materials. To me, she was doing the conference director a big favor to let him know what happened. Since the director already had misgivings about allowing the harasser at the conference, you would think that the director would at least trust his judgement the next time and possibly spread the word to other organizers/directors. I certainly wouldn't want to appear to tacitly support this kind of behavior if I were organizing a conference.
Finally, I think it's very difficult to divorce the after hours happenings from the conference itself. Conferences often last several days, and there are often optional social events featured as part of the conference. You're probably going to see some of the same people the next day. I've never been sexually harassed, but I was bullied as a child. I know that the fear and humiliation imposed by a harasser don't go away just because the venue changes. If I were a conference director with the opportunity to gain specific knowledge that could help me prevent that kind of environment, I think I'd want it.
Silence and lack of consequences perpetuate harassing behavior. I think Ms. Elman absolutely did the right thing in speaking to the conference director.
Agreed. Why is the development community (this conference in specific) being held responsible for the acts of an individual who happens to reside within? This is clearly something that should be taken care like an adult of outside of a private community. The story is a bummer, but the author's response to the situation is quite childish and this blog post seems somewhat irrelevant.
I can't think of a community that doesn't act, to one extent or another, to regulate the behaviors of its members. If nothing else, to protect the integrity of the community. But often also in support of shared values.
That's certainly true of tribes, towns, cities, and states. It's true of every virtual community I've used. It's even true of anarchic communities like Burning Man.
And the response from the organizer should have been very simple and straight-forward: Ask the person to leave the conference and ideally, if it still had to take place, canceling their talk as well.
I doubt anything but praise would have resulted from that, even though the best outcome would be that it was kept private and became a little piece of background gossip floating around the Django-community.
Sorry to go all patriarchy here, but the little Schneier on my shoulder just explained to me how to get anyone's talk cancelled at a conference that institutes this sort of policy.
I'm not sure that's a workable fix, either. This is sort of a hard problem.
> The conference is not in the business of protecting its attendees from unwanted advances, especially outside of the conference areas/sponsored events.
The conference is in the business of getting people together in a way that they find enjoyable and useful. Maybe it's just me, but being harassed by an asshole is neither enjoyable or useful.
I'm organizing a 300-person (non-conference) event right now, and getting the right attendees is something I think about a lot. If I were a conference organizer, I'd take this very seriously. There are an infinite number of things people can do with their time and money. If I want to be the one they pick, I wouldn't want them worried that the experience will suck. Whether it technically happened on the conference grounds would be irrelevant to me, in that attendees see it all as part of the conference experience when deciding whether to attend or not.
After conference drinks are usually pretty close nit affairs. A group leaves the conference together and arrives at the bar as a group. It's one thing to complain to the bar
management that a stranger is harassing you. It's entirely another thing to explain that someone you arrived with is a problem - here you could easily imagine getting the response "your friend, your problem", rightly or wrongly
I used to work club security for a lot of years and it happens all of the time. The people at the bar have seen it before. When the alcohol starts to flow some people can change their whole demeanor and surprise even the people that they are with. So you gently escort them out and if they become too belligerent then you have the police handle it.
It's amazing what rises to the surface for some people when they get a few drinks in them. I'd agree with the above posters and advocate the immediate handling fall to the establishment. It doesn't sound like this is a isolated incident and is likely to be an issue in the future. Being a public speaker you have to consider how you present yourself and if you behave like this it shouldn't come as a surprise if you end up being omitted from future events.
It's real simple.
Sexual harassment is not okay.
Tolerating that behaviour in others is not okay.
Inviting a known problem-person to conferences is not okay.
We can prevaricate about the "truth" of her story (and this particular incident) all we want, but the core message here is that these things do happen, women do get sexually harassed by people who are invited to tech conference, and that is not okay.
Why not speak to the manager of the bar and have him escorted out? If it happens at the hotel, do the same with the hotel manager. People in the service/hospitality industry know how to deal with these situations and do so all the time. If it happens again call the law.
There are much better mechanisms for dealing with harassment than a conference organizer.