Serious question

[liv]

So jenett is being a superhero-librarian. She conspired with her friend elisem [ETA: and others] to get a really well written post about being sexually harassed at an SF con posted simultaneously on six highly trafficked blogs. And now she's curating the conversation and reactions that are arising from this bombshell.

Conversation, both in comment threads and response posts, is going somewhat less badly than these things sometimes do. I think this is partly because elisem's post has been carefully constructed to head off some of the obvious awful responses. I'm reminded of Livesey's BSFA talk at Eastercon: even though this is sexual harassment of an adult, not sexual abuse of children, there is still the expectation that Elise's post must be either confession, hence people clamouring for more details of what exactly happened, or testimony, hence people mouthing off about innocent until proven guilty. elisem has quite intentionally chosen not to discuss the details of what happened to her, so she's not confessing anything, and she's published the post on other people's blogs so she's not dealing with people trying to police her emotions. And she's done exactly the right thing in terms of making a formal report of harassment to the perp's employer, precisely so that they can follow the appropriate processes to determine whether he really did the things he's accused of. That hasn't entirely headed off commenters trying to set themselves up as amateur, unbriefed defence lawyers, including tearing down the character of the accuser to undermine her credibility, but it's somewhat mitigated this problem.

More speculatively, I think another reason that the conversation is going relatively well is that elisem is pretty much the ideal victim. She's extremely well-connected within fandom, in fact she possibly even outranks the status of the rather influential person she's making an accusation against. I mean, the fact she was even able to get her post on Whatever and other very prominent blogs speaks volumes about her being friends with the movers and shakers. Even other senior people at Tor, colleagues of the editor who is accused of harassment, are willing to push the envelope legally speaking by linking approvingly to elisem's post. I think it also helps that elisem is middle-aged, white, and averagely good-looking (but not notoriously "sexy"). Which is a depressing thought, but there you go. As Elise describes herself:

The thing is, though, that I’m fifty-two years old, familiar with the field and the world of conventions, moderately well known to many professionals in the field, and relatively well-liked. I’ve got a lot of social credit.

But in spite of starting from a relatively ideal situation, in spite of being backed up by some really big names, the usual pattern of minimizing responses hasn't been eliminated completely. One thing that always always seems to come up in these discussions is, but what if he was just a bit socially clueless and now he's getting lynched [sic] by the internet for an honest mistake? I mean, that could hardly be less relevant in this case: for a start, we're talking about a guy who holds a senior job at an influential publisher, and one who has a decades-long history of making women uncomfortable and being the sort of guy those in the know warn eachother about.

I'm sort of interested in why people always jump to worrying about that possibility, though. One interpretation is that it's part of a great misogynist conspiracy to stop women from taking any effective action when they get harassed. I don't find that very likely, because I don't believe in conspiracy theories, and because while I'm seen some unambiguous misogynist troll comments, I have definitely seen more that look to me completely sincere. There does seem to be a great terror that if sexual harassment of women at cons is taken at all seriously, it will lead to disaster for socially clueless men.

So the question I have is, how many people reading this personally know someone who has ever been falsely / inappropriately accused of sexual harassment? Just how widespread is this problem, really? I'm particularly concentrating on accusations made against men, but judge for yourselves whether accusations against socially clueless people of other genders are relevant to this conversation. Anon comments are on, and in many ways I'd prefer anonymous comments if personal anecdotes are involved.

Comments

[liv]

Thank you very much for these stories, for telling them in a way that's both informative and discreet. I was really starting to wonder whether treating "what if he's socially awkward?" as purely a derail was the only model that fits the facts, which is why I made the post. I wanted to do something to alter whatever it is that leads to me not habitually hearing these sorts of stories.

I'm not entirely sure I understand what creep shaming is. Is a fair summary, calling someone creepy purely because they're attracted to women with higher status than them?

[nameandnature]

Have you read The Fourth Meditation On Creepiness and the followup? (I think you might because Jack has commented on them. I commented on one and told him to pay less attention to Internet feminists, more or less: comfort the disturbed, and all that).

One of the problems with the "creepy/creeper" thing is that it's much more ambiguous than a con harassment policy (so perhaps it's a more genuine concern for a guy to worry about being called a creeper than it is to worry about the con security people clamping down on people walking down the hallway). There are people who get very angry if you suggest it's ever just about social status but there are also people who appear to use it that way. Frex, some of the so-called "creepy" guys at dancing are merely very bad at it or a bit awkward without the suggestion that they're lechers, as far as I can tell, but there's a lot of debate on the subject ("creepy leads" here = "creepy guys", usually, although there's a lot of debate on that subject, too).

[siderea]

Maybe it is; my own definition may ultimately boil down to that, I'm not sure yet. I've been trying to formally, er, formulate a definition of "creep shaming" -- at least what I mean by it when I use it -- and I'm not sure it's ready for prime time. Here's my alpha-version crack at it:

Creep shaming exists in parallel to slut shaming. Like slut shaming, it's a form of policing social behavior on sexual grounds by holding people under constant threat of being assigned a stigmatized identity. These stigmatized identities, where they stick, mark a person as unacceptable company, unworthy of inclusion in "polite society"; once so labeled, all that person's behavior is interpreted in light of the stigmatized identity such that they can do no right, and all behaviors are understood to be, circularly, evidence of both the crime and the sentence. Men to whom the label "creep" has gotten stuck are considered to be acting "creepy" when they engage in courtship behaviors identical to ones that are acceptable from men not so labeled, simply because they "are" "creeps" and all their courtship behaviors are interpreted as "creepy", axiomatically; further the fact they they behave "creepily" (engaging in otherwise normative sexual behavior, but while being a "creep") then is construed as further evidence that they are a "creep".

Which yes, may boil down to status. Though the issue isn't attraction, it's behavior: men of low status are supposed to be terribly, terribly attracted to high status women. (Status wouldn't be any fun if you didn't have anybody to lord it over, would it? :/) But they're supposed to know their place and never have the impertinence of pursuing superior women. The pangs of unrequited desire are their punishment for not conforming adequately to hegemonic masculinity to earn higher status; serves their lazy asses right for not growing up tall or not being born first or screwing around with poetry or cooking or telescopes.

Which is why I, personally, really, really, really wish we would stop using the term "creep" to describe sexual harassment and a wide range of other sexual (and non-sexual!) misconduct. It's like trying to discuss irresponsible female behavior around STDs while using the word "slut". Okay, one reason. There are others.

There are multiple category of problem here, and they're getting thrown in the same bucket labeled "creep", and that is producing more smoke than light:

1) There really are "socially awkward" people -- more accurately, individuals with social behavioral deficits or social behavioral flaws -- who make mistakes. I think these people are more prone to get creep shamed when they transgress, ironically and unfortunately: the real predators manage to evade the label more successfully, precisely because of their social adroitness.

3) There really are predators -- people who are looking for victims, who enjoy victimizing others in a range of severities from ruining someone's day to killing people. These people have excellent social skills, if you're meeting them at any event in a hotel. That's how they get away with it. They know what they're doing, they know it's wrong, they know why it's wrong, and they like doing it because it's wrong.

2) In between those two is the really problematic case: people who enjoy dismaying others, who really don't see what's so wrong with it -- especially or exclusively if the other is a woman, and thus (they don't realize of themselves) not as much a person. They see groping a woman's breast or bodily picking her up and carrying her against her will as on a par with tying a string around a cat's tail or pretending to throw a ball to a dog. They think it's adorable to confuse, frustrate, frighten, or thwart a smaller creature than themselves toward which they feel fondly and which they think is cute.

[liv]

Just wanted to say, I have read this and I've been pondering it quite a bit over the week. I don't want to go around picking holes in an alpha version; it seems like it could be a really useful framing. Threat of getting stuck with a stigmatized identity, I can definitely see how that's a problem.

I can very much see the point of not using the word "creep" to describe predators. Partly because of the shaming issue you mention, and also partly because of conflating people who make people uncomfortable because they don't behave in the expected ways, with charming suave deliberate predators. I feel like part of why people are saying "creep" or "creepy" is because sexual harassment and sexual assault are actual legally defined crimes, and I can exactly see why someone might be reluctant to state outright, this person committed a crime against me, especially if they've been manipulated into the kind of, did that really just happen? did I invite it? was it a misunderstanding? kind of doubt. But your argument against that euphemism is a strong one.