[Noisebridge-discuss] How is the anti-harassment policy holding up?

[Adrian Chadd]

Hi,

There's a working group that's been formed and has been meeting to
sort through some of these issues.

https://noisebridge.net/wiki/SafeSpaceWG

It's unfortunately very light - I'll ask Dan and others if they can
write up some more on it.

I'm working through one of the outstanding harrassment cases between
two Noisebridge participants. The process is there - it needs people
who feel they can enforce it and it needs others to work as mediators
to sort through these issues. I'm mostly taking on the latter at the
moment because I'm not an SF local and aren't at NB every week.



-a


On 20 June 2014 05:47, Jen Kotila <jen.kotila01 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello fellow anarchistic, the-users-decide-policy, do'ocracy hackerspace
> members! I am a member of Labitat.dk and biologigaragen.org who has been
> severely sexually harassed for many months. You can read an account here.
>
> Labitat and Biologigargen didn't have any structures in place to deal with
> this so the proposed solution of dealing with this sensitive issue was worse
> than the cure as I ended up getting mobbed and having a nervous breakdown in
> a meeting on May 22.
>
> After that I became somewhat desperate to seek justice within an
> anarchistic, DIY framework and reached out to the DIYbio community. Some
> were supportive some weren't. Oh, also, amusingly I did that in part because
> I was silenced on the Labitat and Biologigargen.org mailing lists arond that
> time. In fact, I was stripped of my moderator privileges on the
> Biologigaragen list by someone, probably one of guys who harassed me. felt
> like that meant I would not be heard and felt somewhat desperate. Also, I
> was moderated on that list and ONLY me. I was not informed that I was unable
> to post, it just happened.
>
> Late, I reached out to the local anarchist community in Copenhagen (which is
> VERY active but to which I am not that connected as I am new in DK-- someone
> else should have handled this I think) and finally found a well regarded
> mediator from within that milieu (the other side was suggesting business
> mediators, lawyers who knew one of the guys involved in bullying me, and a
> guy I had been in active conflict with).
>
> On the day before mediation, June 16, they finally posted their response to
> my allegations which were publicly stated on May 17.
>
> I was hoping that through mediation, I would be able to get the opposing
> side to stop the Kopenlab Festival. You see, I was originally on the
> organizing group for this Festival and a lot of the harassment took place in
> that group. I'm also firmly of the position that unrepentant harassers who,
> instead of listening to the person coming forward instead react with
> increasing hostility that leads to very dangerous mobbing behavior and
> baseless threats of libel and slander (see the most recent post on our
> Discuss list here for that gem) instead do not deserve to be in charge of
> anything.
>
> So I come to you now asking for a few things.
>
> 1, I have been posting about Noisebridge's case and talking about it without
> knowing the details. Are they somewhere in narrative form?
>
> 2. Is anyone here willing to work with Labitat to help sort this out? If so,
> you can try posting on our Space mailing list to offer help:
> http://lists.labitat.dk/listinfo or write to the board
> bestyrelse at lists.labitat.dk
>
> 3. I created a site called opendiscriminaiton.org to help deal with this
> incredibly serious and systemic problem in hacking. If you guys want to add
> to it (threre's a brand-spakin' new wikia with nothing on it because my
> collaborators and I are too busy with Occupy Kopenlab to do any work on it),
> please knock yourself out. Eventually I would like it to expand, become more
> general and maybe grow to the point where it functions as a movement wide
> "staff handbook" or "hr" of sorts so that every new anarchistically
> organized male-dominated hackerspace doesn't have to reinvent the wheel
> every time harassment happens.
>
> 4. Speaking of Occupy Kopenlab, the group behind opendiscrimination.org is
> organizing action against the Kopenlab Festival. Basically, the idea is that
> since it's supposed to be a non-hierarchical open knowledge festival they
> should welcome any and all opposition, well, openly. Of course, you are all
> in the States but there's ways to take action online if you want to.
>
> You know, I really miss the States right now. This whole ordeal has made
> damned homesick. DK has the highest rate of sexual harassment in the EU, 37%
> of all women in DK have been harassed compared to only 25% in the States. I
> was warned by others in Labitat that the general community would probably
> believe me but would be PISSED at -me- for stirring up conflict as Danes are
> conflict averse. Yep. That is by and large what has happened (although I get
> a lot of doubt and misogynistic abuse as well).
>
> Maybe you can help Labitat solve this. Or maybe Labitat is in its death
> throes over this and it'll just be interesting for other spaces in the
> movement to watch. Let's see what happens.
>
> Thanks for your time,
>
> Jen
>
>
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