Oh for fuck's sake.

[rmd]

I'd always meant to get around to finally making it to a Readercon. But fuck that noise unless the board seriously unfucks this situation

ETA: I've never been higher in a con hierarchy than regular staff, but I'm wondering if it might be useful or at least amusing to try and organize a feminist-friend con scheduled against Readercon next year.

Comments

[rmd.livejournal.com]

When it was Aaron Agassi, they perma-banned him. When it's a guy who's a well-known fan (arisia fan GOH, for instance) who ignored repeated very unambiguous responses from the woman in question but who said he's really sorry, well, they'll just tell him to come back in a couple of years.

Some animals are more equal than others.

By changing the policy after the fact for people they like, they've established that their policy is not actually 'zero tolerance against harassment' but 'well, we'll arbitrarily make a decision regardless of what we've claimed, particularly if the person says "whups! sorry!" and we're sure it's just a misunderstanding.'

Furthermore, and also infuriatingly, their overall response seems to indicate that they are ignorant of the real facts of sexual harassment and harassment in general. It's not only done by mentally ill strangers, but by people who are able to manipulate the people enforcing the policies as well as people they're trying to harass. Sort of like how abusive significant others can be some of the most charming folks...sometimes.

In some ways, it's the Penn State situation writ very very small.