Procedure Fail: WisCon, Feminism and Safe Spaces

Many SF fans are very disappointed that a serial harasser was allowed to attend WisCon 38 despite reports against him laid during WisCon 37, and that the official response to much criticism during and since the convention has been to provisionally ban him for a few years rather than ban him in perpetuity.


Geek Melange: Debunking the Fairy Tale of WisCon, Feminism and Safe Spaces





Frenkel asserted during his interview(s) with the Subcommittee that due to a NDA with his previous employer he was not allowed to speak publicly about anything related to his departure from their employment, and that this precluded him from addressing or even apologising for his actions. This factor was apparently crucial in the Subcommittee’s decision to make the ban only provisional and subject to reconsideration upon expiry of this purported NDA, but the Subcommittee reportedly never checked with the employer whether Frenkel’s assertion was true before making their ruling. Surprise – it wasn’t true.


I am Jane’s total lack of surprise.

Elise Mattheson has just had a guest post published at several blogs about her perspective on the procedural failures at WisCon since she first submitted her report on Frenkel’s harassment. Unsurprisingly she has lost a lot of trust in the competency of WisCon to responsibly and transparently deal with harassers so that con-goers are adequately safeguarded.

The Geek Feminism Wiki: Jim Frenkel at WisCon 38 has a comprehensive outline of the situation with links to many responses/analyses. Those who wish to learn more about relevant patterns/precedents/procedures regarding other harassment events in a variety of communities can check the GF Wiki’s Incidents page for frequently updated information.

Categories: arts & entertainment, gender & feminism, social justice

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8 replies

  1. I go to very few cons, but I did visit WisCon once years ago. I was so impressed by the egalitarian, considerate atmosphere, and by how much fun it was, I even wrote an admiring blogpost about it.
    The most surprising and repugnant thing about this whole crappy incident — aside from the crappy incident itself — is that it happened at WisCon. How was that even possible?
    I wonder if that was part of the problem for the various committees looking into it. Not that that’s any excuse. But I wonder if they weren’t sitting there in stunned disbelief. “Who did what? Here? Couldn’t be!” And then the old standby of committees everywhere kicked in: let’s do something half-assed and hope it goes away.


      Yep. Way too common in all sorts of orgs, especially those with a history of the co-founders being friends with all the extra feelpinions thus involved.

  2. There seems to me to be a bit of ‘these hysterical or lying women’ tang about it too. It seems strange that they asked the alleged offender and based their response on that rather than asking the victims for clarification if that’s what they needed.

  3. Mindy: I know a lot of the participants reasonably well at least in electronic form, and I am not getting that sense. Elise is herself a long-time, well respected fan (I still can not figure out why Frenkel picked her to harass, as he otherwise seems to have a superb knack for picking vulnerable newcomers).
    I am getting a lot of complete cognitive dissonance – the best I can come up with is that a whole heap of fans just cannot get their head around the idea that their friend is a harasser. I have a feeling that, watching this, you get some idea what might have happened in the church, or the BBC entertainment section, for so many years.

  4. Sorry AotQ, I didn’t mean to suggest that about the victims. I meant that I thought that must have been part of what made the people making that decision make the decision they did.
    Less garbled: that’s what the people making the decision thought (IMO) not what the victims actually are.
    My sincere apologies for not making that clear in the first place.

  5. I don’t think the people making the decisions thought the victims were lying or exaggerating. But there was a disconnect between what they thought of the victims and their decision-making. Probably because they had no experience or training to fall back on.
    I’ve been following this on Scalzi’s blog, and one of the commenters (Grace Annam) had a good point. When people are in stressful situations that they have no experience with, they often do things they would never imagine they would do in that situation and which don’t make sense, even to them (later.) She’s a police officer, and so has some experience in situations like that. She describes, for instance, people who are choking to death running away and hiding when someone asks if they can breathe.
    Her point was that you need training, especially walking through (and role playing) a variety of concrete situations. You need procedures, detailed procedures (which you revise as necessary based on previous incidents.) And you need people to understand that you have to follow them even when they think, “Oh, we don’t need to do _this_ Micky-Mouse step.” Being smart and/or caring are no substitute. Because in the stress and confusion of the moment, you can’t think clearly. As this incident shows.
    This is why airline pilots spend hours in simulators dealing with situations you hope never happen in real life. It’s why good police departments don’t just tell their officers how to handle situations, they _train_ them to handle them that way. (And do post-mortems on situations to see how they could have been handled better, and add that knowledge to training. Cf.: Attica Prison Riot.)

  6. Yes, I think it’s got to be something like AMM describes.
    Sorry Mindy, I didn’t think you were claiming the accusers like Elise were hysterical or lying, but that the committee might have thought they were. I still find that hard to imagine, because as mentioned, Elise is a fan of long standing and friends with the people who are making these incomprehensible decisions. (I can fully understand if she isn’t friends with them anymore!)

  7. Thanks AotQ and AMM for clarifying those things. I was looking for a rational explanation where none existed.

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