Convention Etiquette 101: How to Avoid Crossing the Line at Comic-Con

Of course, sexual harassment at conventions doesn’t just affect women (and men) who experience it. If you’re a guy, seeing a woman you care about as a friend, partner, or colleague get harassed, or hearing about it later, can be incredibly upsetting. But here are six great ways to be an ally to the women who you’ll be hanging out with in San Diego, stopping harassment before it happens, disrupting it when it’s underway, and reporting it afterwards, so Comic-Con can be a fun and safe experience for everyone involved.

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1. Arm yourself with knowledge: San Diego Comic-Con–which takes the time to make clear how it will screen cosplayers’ weapons–doesn’t currently publicize its sexual harassment policy on its website. But there is a policy, which Wired received from convention representatives:
“Attendees must respect commonsense rules for public behavior, personal interaction, common courtesy, and respect for private property. Harassing or offensive behavior will not be tolerated. Comic-Con reserves the right to revoke, without refund, the membership and pass of any attendee not in compliance with this policy. Persons finding themselves in a situation where they feel their safety is at risk or who become aware of an attendee not in compliance with this policy should immediately locate a member of security or a staff member, so that the matter can be handled in an expeditious manner.”
Also, regardless of the con-specific rules, California state law criminalizes both felony sexual assault and misdemeanor sexual battery. And if someone is at Comic-Con in a professional capacity, the fact that they’re at a convention doesn’t mean you can’t report them to their employer if they sexually harass another Comic-Con attendee, as the writer Elise Matheson decided to do recently after she was harassed at a convention. Knowing the law and your options means you’ll be prepared if you or a friend or colleague is harassed, and want to respond.

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2. Let people know you’re on their side before you pick up your badge: Novelist John Scalzi, who recently said he’d no longer accept invitations to appear at conventions that don’t have clear, rigorous, well-promoted and well-enforced harassment policies, says one of the best ways to help other people have good convention experiences is to step up before something goes on. “If you’re going into a situation where your female friend might catch some crap, let her know ahead of time that if she needs you, you have her back,” he suggests. “She can determine what she needs and when, and can be in control of any intervention. This doesn’t mean you have to stand around like a bodyguard, just that you’re ready to help out if she needs you.”

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3. If you see something, document something: Once you’re on the convention floor, O’Malley says the one exception to the rule about asking before you take pictures or video is when clear and obvious harassment is going down, and you need to collect evidence that could be useful for convention organizers, law enforcement, or someone’s employer later. Having documentation you can go back to is “easier than relying on a quick impression,” he says. “Plus, in a crowded venue like San Diego Comic-Con, it’s easy to get a case of mistaken identity… People can just fade into the teeming masses. A ‘caught in the act’ photo helps with that.” That doesn’t mean you should take it on yourself to dispense vigilante justice and distribute said photos or videos yourself. A great illustration of how those efforts can go wrong fast was the negative response to Adria Richards’ decision to tweet a photo of two men making jokes she found offensive at the open-source conference PyCon. Also, you also don’t want to humiliate someone who has been just been harassed by broadcasting their harassment for the world to see. So if you catch video or photos of something bad going down, offer it up to the person who was harassed as documentation for a potential report.

4. Don’t be afraid to deflect the situation: Scalzi recommends that if you see a friend or coworker in an uncomfortable situation that you “use your friend privileges for good. There have been times where I’ve seen female friends looking trapped by a dude, where I have gone over and said, ‘excuse me, I need to borrow my friend here for just a moment,’ and then gently extricated her to find out if everything was fine. If it is, no harm done and she can go back to her conversation. If it wasn’t then she can use that moment as an escape route, with me backing her up. Likewise there have been times when I have been talking with a female friend and some dude who has been making her uncomfortable comes up; I’ll tell that guy we’re having a private conversation, and that he should move along. This does mean you have to be willing to be seen as a jerk by this guy, but if this guy is making your friend uncomfortable, then that’s probably not going to be a problem.”

5. Offer yourself up as a sidekick, don’t try to be the Superhero Costumes uk: It’s easy to get rage-y, thinking about the prospect of someone you care about being creeped on at a place where they’re supposed to be having a great time. But resist your fantasies of going all Kick-Ass on a harasser. Often, the best, most productive thing you can do is offer to be a sidekick, not a superhero. Listen to your friend while she’s processing her experiences. If she decides to file a report, offer to accompany her while she talks to convention organizers, the cops, or places a call to their harasser’s employer to file a report. Matheson specifically talks about how important it was to have had a friend with her when she reported her harassment. And if your friend has a bad experience talking to convention staff or to anyone else, you can be a valuable witness to that secondary experience. Sure, it means you might miss a screening or a signing. But taking time out to support a friend who’s been harassed is a way to make the convention experience better and safer for everyone in attendance. That’s heroism, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

6. Treat friends you’re meeting at Comic-Con for the first time like they’re your real friends: Gladstone acknowledges that conventions can present special challenges, because they can be meeting places for people who have mostly forged their relationships online. But he says that only increases the obligation to act if someone you care about is being made uncomfortable–or making other people uncomfortable. “Will we stop our ‘friends’ from doing something that they’d regret (as, I assume, we’d do with our real friends)?” he asks. “Will we help our ‘friends’ avoid unwanted attention; will we be there for them as we would for people we’ve known for years?” The answer to both of those questions, obviously, should be yes.
Source:http://www.wired.com