Last week prominent sci-fi author John Scalzi made a pretty big splash when he announced that he will no longer accept invitations to fan conventions (more commonly known as “cons“) that don’t have clear, well-publicized anti-harassment policies.
The problem of harassment at cons has been getting a lot of attention recently, with a growing number of people speaking up about bad experiences. There’s been quite a bit of really ugly pushback, though, includingsome from very high places. The whole discussion has illustrated the extent of the casual harassment (sexual and other) that goes on at such events, as well as underscoring the importance of having solid reporting and response procedures in place.
It’s a discussion that needs to be foregrounded in political environments as well.
The problem of sexual harassment and sexual violence in movement spaces was a focus of considerable reporting in the Occupy movement. Some of those claims of bad behavior were invented or exaggerated by Occupy’s critics, but the issue itself wasn’t an invented one — sexual predation is a particular
