here a copy of an email I sent after reading that article. It's not only guys hitting girl, it can take may other forms. The problem is, being mostly outcasts, we lean to tolerate untolerable behaviour.
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Following an HN link, I read your article today on LWN http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/417952/bf6a55b67170ff0e/ and it rang a bell. There's an event I remember from a conference in LSM around 2002 IIRC in Bordeaux, France where I was part of the org team and giving a couple of conferences. It is way more social than most other conferences I attended at that time - in fact, it's now the only conference I keep attending. Everyone is housed on university dorms, the conferences are given in a university, and many social events occur during the conference.
There's a big "dinner night" which I can only compare to the dinners in Harry Potter - long lines of tables, everyone seated to eat but also demoing some technical stuff time to time.
Anyway, that year the dinner was preceded by a cocktail. We were all enjoying french wine and appetizers, when a guy grabbed a bottle from the table next to which we were standing and started running around with the bottle in his hands. I thought this was a playful way to show its running skills, and back then since I enjoyed running too, I started running after him, caught him and started laughting. When I asked him as a prize for my win, with a smile and in a non threatening way, to share the bottle with the rest of us, he suddently turned weird. There was 2 or 3 people around, and he started telling about us about growing in Illinois, having had bullet wounds, knowing how to defend himself, and finally threatening violence.
It was so weird. I didn't know what to do at that time. I let it slip over as the actions of some socially awkward guy. Now if something similar was ever to happen again, after reading your paper I would act very differently - including clearly stating that he should apologize, that such behaviour is not acceptable, and if he thought he could get away with it, as part of the organisation team I would do my best to have him expelled from the conference at once - not the next morning, but right now. And if that could not be made to work with the rest of the team, I would call the police and them deal with him.
It did strike me as odd, because I've been attending that conference since the beginning, 10 years ago, and never noticed something like that again. I went to the OSCON, Linux World and various others I can't remember ATM, in north and south america, but this is the only example I have.
Yet I'm sure the guy had the potential to scare away many other guests. I am forwarding this message to the organizers
, along with a link to your original article to make sure a policy get enacted against unacceptable behaviour by guests.
I think this is the crux of what happened, but I don't really understand what it means:
"he suddently turned weird. There was 2 or 3 people around, and he started telling about us about growing in Illinois, having had bullet wounds, knowing how to defend himself, and finally threatening violence."
To me, this sounds like someone with PTSD, (sort of a Walter Sobchak character, if you're familiar with The Big Lebowski). Could you explain a little more? Is the main idea that the guy threatened violence when you thought you were playing something akin to tag?
I still don't exactly understand why he did that. Maybe PTSD as you suggested. And I still can't believe someone would steal from an open bar. He was laughing all the while. It really looked like playing tag to me so I played along. Then he became weird.
Anyway I posted that anecdote to push the message that sometimes we build rationalizations about other people behavior. The article is enlightening - as someone else said, others articles reeked of feminism. This one looks quite serious to me. It made that anecdote flash in my mind.
Now I do not care about the reasons why people do something or something else. In a tech conference, you do not threaten other people. That's wrong. Our mistake is to let such persons get away with that.
(Some details I forgot to say: the cocktail was in big garden. it was summer time. people where waiting around a table to have their glasses refilled)
Please enlighten me.
I have 2 scenarios - either he stole or he was playing tag. If he played tag, threatening is wrong.
If he stole, what exactly should I have apologised for ?
- letting him steal from an open bar ?
- letting him run away with what he stole ?
- daring to catch up with him ?
- smiling to him ?
- asking him to fill the empty glasses of the people around him with the full bottle he stole ?
For god sake, he was no hobo but a kernel hacker invited to a conference!
I believed it was a dare - like playing tag. Maybe he did believe otherwise - but why exactly would you take a full bottle from an open bar and run around laughting?? But when confronted I repeat in a non threatening way, why try to escalate instead of going back to normal mode and sharing with the folks having empty glasses around?
I mean it's an open bar. You are not paying per drink, but that's not a reason to grab a bottle and run away or like come with a big back and fill it up as in a supermarket.
That's rude. Following up with threats of violence now crosses my line of "non acceptable behaviour".
How did you "catch" him? If you grabbed onto him a certain way it could have been a trigger for PTSD behavior from a similar thing someone did to him in a fight or something.
I encountered a person with very similar behavior at a party once. There was a bunch of horsing around in a mosh pit sort of thing and this other guy grabbed onto him from behind. He flips the other guy over his back and slams him onto the floor so hard the other guy's ankle literally breaks in two.
Be careful with doing things that may potentially be seen as aggressive to other people, your story could have turned out worse.
For the record, the guy with the broken ankle wasn't angry about it, and there's now a pretty cool photo of the broken ankle on the Internet (I mean it literally got broken in two - his foot was fully separated with the bones sticking out). I talked to the PTSD guy about it later. He was defensive and wanted to kick my ass at first, then he also told me about the rough things that happened to him, and then we shared some drinks. He was on ok guy otherwise.
In your case I'm not sure trying to get the guy kicked out would have been the right thing to do. It would have probably escalated a situation that he didn't intend on creating and wasn't consciously responsible for. Handling it so that the guy would have calmed down instead of threatening people would have been better for maintaining decorum and for helping the guy get over his PTSD.
Honestly I can't remember about how. I think I might have tapped twice on his shoulder but I'm not sure. Anyway it was during the following conversation that it happened - when I asked to share the wine and that I remember quite well.
The situation you describe looks like an honest mistake to me - being grabbed from behind is weird. I wouldn't blame him for reacting and hurting the grabber while he was simply slamming him onto the flow. Bad things happen.
But later on, the guy is still threatening you? To me, the honnest mistake apology is gone. PSTD my *ss - he's abusive. I wasn't there and can't say for sure but to me that's totally different.
Oh no, he was doing it totally indirectly - like, sizing me up while being defensive. I guess that's not being threatening, but only after the interaction I realized that he was really preparing a plan for how to kick my ass in case I did anything wrong, until I calmed him down. It was also pretty appropriate for the setting.
So what's your plan? Should someone like this do as he please, regardless of the consequences for the others? That's exactly the attitude the article attacks!
To follow up on the original subject, let me rephrase what I understood from your one liner: "maybe the female attendees, by daring to show up in non-unattractive clothes, provocked the gropings". Sounds acceptable to you? Not to me.
> To follow up on the original subject, let me rephrase what I understood from your one liner: "maybe the female attendees, by daring to show up in non-unattractive clothes, provocked the gropings". Sounds acceptable to you? Not to me.
Huh? I'm saying physically attacking someone (if that's what they perceive) may result in the same.
I think that's fairly obvious, so I've reported your comment.
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Following an HN link, I read your article today on LWN http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/417952/bf6a55b67170ff0e/ and it rang a bell. There's an event I remember from a conference in LSM around 2002 IIRC in Bordeaux, France where I was part of the org team and giving a couple of conferences. It is way more social than most other conferences I attended at that time - in fact, it's now the only conference I keep attending. Everyone is housed on university dorms, the conferences are given in a university, and many social events occur during the conference.
There's a big "dinner night" which I can only compare to the dinners in Harry Potter - long lines of tables, everyone seated to eat but also demoing some technical stuff time to time.
Anyway, that year the dinner was preceded by a cocktail. We were all enjoying french wine and appetizers, when a guy grabbed a bottle from the table next to which we were standing and started running around with the bottle in his hands. I thought this was a playful way to show its running skills, and back then since I enjoyed running too, I started running after him, caught him and started laughting. When I asked him as a prize for my win, with a smile and in a non threatening way, to share the bottle with the rest of us, he suddently turned weird. There was 2 or 3 people around, and he started telling about us about growing in Illinois, having had bullet wounds, knowing how to defend himself, and finally threatening violence.
It was so weird. I didn't know what to do at that time. I let it slip over as the actions of some socially awkward guy. Now if something similar was ever to happen again, after reading your paper I would act very differently - including clearly stating that he should apologize, that such behaviour is not acceptable, and if he thought he could get away with it, as part of the organisation team I would do my best to have him expelled from the conference at once - not the next morning, but right now. And if that could not be made to work with the rest of the team, I would call the police and them deal with him.
It did strike me as odd, because I've been attending that conference since the beginning, 10 years ago, and never noticed something like that again. I went to the OSCON, Linux World and various others I can't remember ATM, in north and south america, but this is the only example I have.
Yet I'm sure the guy had the potential to scare away many other guests. I am forwarding this message to the organizers , along with a link to your original article to make sure a policy get enacted against unacceptable behaviour by guests.