thoughtfulBecause this is a guest post, I will be watching the comments carefully for signs of incivility, but will not be responding to all comments.
Thank you for reading.
ETA: The contact list mentioned below is at http://www.jimchines.com/2012/07/report
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How To Report Sexual Harassment, by Elise Matthesen.
We're geeks. We learn things and share, right? Well, this year at WisCon I learned firsthand how to report sexual harassment. In case you ever need or want to know, here's what I learned and how it went.
Two editors I knew were throwing a book release party on Friday night at the convention. I was there, standing around with a drink talking about Babylon 5, the work of China Mieville, and Marxist theories of labor (like you do) when an editor from a different house joined the conversation briefly and decided to do the thing that I reported. A minute or two after he left, one of the hosts came over to check on me. I was lucky: my host was alert and aware. On hearing what had happened, he gave me the name of a mandated reporter at the company the harasser was representing at the convention.
The mandated reporter was respectful and professional. Even though I knew them, reporting this stuff is scary, especially about someone who's been with a company for a long time, so I was really glad to be listened to. Since the incident happened during Memorial Day weekend, I was told Human Resources would follow up with me on Tuesday.
There was most of a convention between then and Tuesday, and I didn't like the thought of more of this nonsense (there's a polite word for it!) happening, so I went and found a convention Safety staffer. He asked me right away whether I was okay and whether I wanted someone with me while we talked or would rather speak privately. A friend was nearby, a previous Guest of Honor at the convention, and I asked her to stay for the conversation. The Safety person asked whether I'd like to make a formal report. I told him, "I'd just like to tell you what happened informally, I guess, while I figure out what I want to do."
It may seem odd to hesitate to make a formal report to a convention when one has just called somebody's employer and begun the process of formally reporting there, but that's how it was. I think I was a little bit in shock. (I kept shaking my head and thinking, "Dude, seriously??") So the Safety person closed his notebook and listened attentively. Partway through my account, I said, "Okay, open your notebook, because yeah, this should be official." Thus began the formal report to the convention. We listed what had happened, when and where, the names of other people who were there when it happened, and so forth. The Safety person told me he would be taking the report up to the next level, checked again to see whether I was okay, and then went.
I had been nervous about doing it, even though the Safety person and the friend sitting with us were people I have known for years. Sitting there, I tried to imagine how nervous I would have been if I were twenty-some years old and at my first convention. What if I were just starting out and had been hoping to show a manuscript to that editor? Would I have thought this kind of behavior was business as usual? What if I were afraid that person would blacklist me if I didn't make nice and go along with it? If I had been less experienced, less surrounded by people I could call on for strength and encouragement, would I have been able to report it at all?
Well, I actually know the answer to that one: I wouldn't have. I know this because I did not report it when it happened to me in my twenties. I didn't report it when it happened to me in my forties either. There are lots of reasons people might not report things, and I'm not going to tell someone they're wrong for choosing not to report. What I intend to do by writing this is to give some kind of road map to someone who is considering reporting. We're geeks, right? Learning something and sharing is what we do.
So I reported it to the convention. Somewhere in there they asked, "Shall we use your name?" I thought for a millisecond and said, "Oh, hell yes."
This is an important thing. A formal report has a name attached. More about this later.
The Safety team kept checking in with me. The coordinators of the convention were promptly involved. Someone told me that since it was the first report, the editor would not be asked to leave the convention. I was surprised it was the first report, but hey, if it was and if that's the process, follow the process. They told me they had instructed him to keep away from me for the rest of the convention. I thanked them.
Starting on Tuesday, the HR department of his company got in touch with me. They too were respectful and took the incident very seriously. Again I described what, where and when, and who had been present for the incident and aftermath. They asked me if I was making a formal report and wanted my name used. Again I said, "Hell, yes."
Both HR and Legal were in touch with me over the following weeks. HR called and emailed enough times that my husband started calling them "your good friends at HR." They also followed through on checking with the other people, and did so with a promptness that was good to see.
Although their behavior was professional and respectful, I was stunned when I found out that mine was the first formal report filed there as well. From various discussions in person and online, I knew for certain that I was not the only one to have reported inappropriate behavior by this person to his employer. It turned out that the previous reports had been made confidentially and not through HR and Legal. Therefore my report was the first one, because it was the first one that had ever been formally recorded.
Corporations (and conventions with formal procedures) live and die by the written word. "Records, or it didn't happen" is how it works, at least as far as doing anything official about it. So here I was, and here we all were, with a situation where this had definitely happened before, but which we had to treat as if it were the first time -- because for formal purposes, it was.
I asked whether people who had originally made confidential reports could go ahead and file formal ones now. There was a bit of confusion around an erroneous answer by someone in another department, but then the person at Legal clearly said that "the past is past" is not an accurate summation of company policy, and that she (and all the other people listed in the company's publically-available code of conduct) would definitely accept formal reports regardless of whether the behavior took place last week or last year.
If you choose to report, I hope this writing is useful to you. If you're new to the genre, please be assured that sexual harassment is NOT acceptable business-as-usual. I have had numerous editors tell me that reporting harassment will NOT get you blacklisted, that they WANT the bad apples reported and dealt with, and that this is very important to them, because this kind of thing is bad for everyone and is not okay. 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. And yet even I was nervous and a little in shock when faced with deciding whether or not to report what happened. Even I was thinking, "Oh, God, do I have to? What if this gets really ugly?"
But every time I got that scared feeling in my guts and the sensation of having a target between my shoulder blades, I thought, "How much worse would this be if I were inexperienced, if I were new to the field, if I were a lot younger?" A thousand times worse. So I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders and said, "Hell, yes, use my name." And while it's scary to write this now, and while various people are worried that parts of the Internet may fall on my head, I'm going to share the knowledge -- because I'm a geek, and that's what we do.
So if you need to report this stuff, the following things may make it easier to do so. Not easy, because I don't think it's gotten anywhere near easy, but they'll probably help.
NOTES: As soon as you can, make notes on the following:
- what happened
- when it happened and where
- who else was present (if anyone)
- any other possibly useful information
And take notes as you go through the process of reporting: write down who you talk with in the organization to which you are reporting, and when.
ALLIES: Line up your support team. When you report an incident of sexual harassment to a convention, it is fine to take a friend with you. A friend can keep you company while you make a report to a company by phone or in email. Some allies can help by hanging out with you at convention programming or parties or events, ready to be a buffer in case of unfortunate events -- or by just reminding you to eat, if you're too stressed to remember. If you're in shock, please try to tell your allies this, and ask for help if you can.
NAVIGATION: If there are procedures in place, what are they? Where do you start to make a report and how? (Finding out might be a job to outsource to allies.) Some companies have current codes of conduct posted on line with contact information for people to report harassment to. Jim Hines posted a list of contacts at various companies a while ago. Conventions should have a safety team listed in the program book. Know the difference between formal reports and informal reports. Ask what happens next with your report, and whether there will be a formal record of it, or whether it will result in a supervisor telling the person "Don't do that," but will be confidential and will not be counted formally.
REPORTING FORMALLY: This is a particularly important point. Serial harassers can get any number of little talking-to's and still have a clear record, which means HR and Legal can't make any disciplinary action stick when formal reports do finally get made. This is the sort of thing that can get companies really bad reputations, and the ongoing behavior hurts everybody in the field. It is particularly poisonous if the inappropriate behavior is consistently directed toward people over whom the harasser has some kind of real or perceived power: an aspiring writer may hesitate to report an editor, for instance, due to fear of economic harm or reprisal.
STAY SAFE: You get to choose what to do, because you're the only one who knows your situation and what risks you will and won't take. If not reporting is what you need to do, that's what you get to do, and if anybody gives you trouble about making that choice to stay safe, you can sic me on them. Me, I've had a bunch of conversations with my husband, and I've had a bunch of conversations with other people, and I hate the fact that I'm scared that there might be legal wrangling (from the person I'd name, not the convention or his employer) if I name names. But after all those conversations, I'm not going to. Instead, I'm writing the most important part, about how to report this, and make it work, which is so much bigger than one person's distasteful experience.
June 28 2013, 14:59:40 UTC 4 years ago
June 28 2013, 19:13:50 UTC 4 years ago
Whenever I did training, I told every manager that they can be personally liable if they become aware of harassment — even from someone who says they want to keep it confidential. In addition, as the case with Mitsubishi showed (where the company said they never received any complaints of sexual harassment, but the courts awarded $34 million judgment against them), the company is also still liable if they *should* have been aware of a pattern of hostile work environment.
It’s hard work to pursue an allegation, let alone a claim. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had people in my office who start by saying, “I don’t want you to do anything about this, but I just thought you ought to know.” And I had to stop them and say, “I’m required by company policy, as well as by state and national law to investigate and take appropriate action.” Some went ahead to tell me what had happened. Others did not. But I can honestly say that in all the decades I was in HR, there was only one false accusation, and that very soon unraveled to reveal an attempt to cover up embezzlement with an accusation of harassment.
Elise, you have my admiration. Even if you had to grow into it, you did stand up to the bully and show the rest of us what courage, maturity, and integrity look like. Thank you.
June 28 2013, 19:29:13 UTC 4 years ago
I think people outside of HR circles typically don't know what their rights and responsibilities are with respect to their own co-workers and employer, much less others. That can make things really stressful when it's most important to talk to someone, even without the cloud of guilt and shock and the victim-blaming and other dismissive behavior founded in rape culture that we've come to expect.
June 29 2013, 00:41:00 UTC 4 years ago
Your HR experience is interesting & frustrating for me. I reported it to my manager and HR for sexual harassment. My manager was supportive, HR not so much. I also contacted my union. Then...nothing really happened. I did eventually get a cube divider so he would stop spending his spare time staring at my breasts. Six months or so after reporting the harassment I ended up leaving the job. Having to work with this guy caused me so much stress I physically & mentally couldn't take it any more. My harasser is still employed at the same job. I think when I left and was no longer complaining, work considered the problem solved.
Reporting sexual harassment fucking sucks.
June 29 2013, 17:39:27 UTC 4 years ago
One of the points that the training emphasizes is that you cannot promise confidentiality to people. If they say that they need you to keep something confidential, you need to stop them and tell them that you can't, legally. If there was an incident, you have to act on it, and while you can try to treat the situation discretely, you can't promise confidentiality. (If people absolutely want confidentiality, the university offers anonymous counseling services, but of course those can't take any action at all; it's "just" someone who can listen and offer advice.)
This stuff varies by state to some extent, but my memory of the legal cites in our training matches your point above: companies have lost big lawsuits by not doing anything about "informal" complaints. I believe that's even happened when the victim complained to co-workers in the hearing of managers but never complained directly to the managers. If you know about an incident and you're in a position of authority in the workplace, you are legally required to act.
Sadly, I can also readily believe that a lot of places don't follow these standards and get away with it because the recourse requires filing a lawsuit, which is horribly expensive and difficult and way beyond what most people are willing or able to do.
December 22 2013, 00:28:43 UTC 3 years ago
I just want to say that this particular comment is one of the ones that helped me most when bits of the internet were falling on my head after Seanan and the other five excellently helpful people simultaneously hosted my how-to-report essay. In particular, this bit:
Even if you had to grow into it, you did stand up to the bully
Because it is so completely true that I had to grow into it. (Hell, I may still have to grow into it every time I stand up for something or somebody.) And having gotten there, it was still really hard to refrain from beating myself up for not growing into it sooner or better or more effectively or whatever.
The other stuff helped too, but thank you especially for getting that piece, and for saying what you said. It helped me take a deep breath and unhunch my shoulders a little.
And thank you A LOT for the work you do!