Wiscon Day 2: The part I blanked on

[bcholmes]

I'm totally mistaken. It turns out that I didn't miss a panel just after lunch on Saturday: looking over my notes, it turns out I went to Vigorous Debate or Harassment:

Vigorous Debate, or Verbal Harassment?

One of the strengths of the SF community is that it's almost always open for discussion and debate. Unfortunately, when discussions get intense, the line between "vigorous debate" and "verbal harassment" can go from blurry to invisible. How can we tell when a discussion has crossed the line? What do we do if we're the one who's crossed it? How can we step in to call back a friend who's crossed it? Let's discuss how to recognize verbal harassment and brainstorm strategies for addressing it within a community where everyone is a friend of a friend.

Jess Adams, Andy Best, Michelle Kendall, Kate Nepveau, Maevele Straw

I enjoyed this panel, although I don't think it quite stuck to its panel description. A lot of people debated responding to fail.

Kate recommended "A themed summary of Racefail" as a good resource for understanding one of fandom's most famous fails. She also cautioned about two key phrases that might be warning signs that you're about to comment fail. One is "I don't mean to sound like a [racist|sexist|homophobe|transphobe|whatever] but..." I *think* the second phrase was "This may offend some people but..." I didn't write the phrases down, so my memory may be failing me.

Jess made a comment about using "active listening" techniques -- "It sounds to me like you're saying <this horrible thing> -- is that really what you mean?" She argued that it gave people the opportunity to weasel out of the implications of their words, which sometimes helped diffuse the situation. (She also commented that most people recognized weaselling for what it was).

One woman in the audience ran with that comment, saying that, in the workplace, negative feedback is always given to someone in private which allows people to save face. Me, I'm deeply suspicious of people's need to save face. I think that the whole "let me save face" reaction leads to tremendously fucked up behaviours.

Maevele bemoaned the fact that it's impossible to make the "OMIGOD I can't believe you just said that" face on the Internet.

There was also a bit of a conversation about what it means to "take it to email." It seems that sometimes people feel like public conversations should stay in public spaces, and that suddenly continuing the conversation in email can be seen as a hostile act. Some people seem to feel (especially with private mailing lists) that once something is off-topic, it should go to email. And an audience member talked about the difference in attitudes between, for example, Dreamwidth, where comments are threaded and, say, Disqus, where the comments are all in line. Interesting stuff.

Some points that came out of audience participation: one woman mentioned Charles Rules of Argument. The original site that these were on is having some problems right now, but I ganked this from Google cache:

Seeing as arguing is largely pointless, one of the best things to do is to severely limit what you end up arguing about:

• Never seek out things to disagree with. There are too many of them out there, and correcting the ills of the world just isn't your job.
• If you come across something you disagree with while randomly browsing, let it pass without comment (see rule 1). If it's truly frustrating, write a reply, then delete it without sharing it with anyone else.
• Even in the limited scope remaining, it is not your job to correct everything you find that you disagree with. Try to limit yourself to things where the subject is at least something that makes some practical difference to your life.
• Do not argue about politics, religion, or matters of personal taste or comparative morality.
• DO NOT argue with Lisp programmers, believers in the Semantic Web, or furries.
• Saying something controversial in your own space (i.e. your weblog) is only arguing if you directly reference somebody you are disagreeing with (or it is clearly understood in subtext who you are disagreing with), and that person is likely to give a shit about what you said.
• If someone disagrees with something you've said, you're already in an argument. See below.

Once you find yourself in an argument, your job is now to make your point clearly, and then leave. You are allowed two passes:

1. State your case
2. Clarify any misunderstandings

Having read that, I can't say that I fully agree with it.

Another recommendation for making argument go a bit more smoothly was to make your case much more concrete.

I asked a question about looking for strategies when discussing oppression with other minority groups. I specifically commented that some of the worst, ugliest conversations about racism I've had have been with white trans women. And, y'know, that is sadly true. The panelists started to talk about the dynamic of "more oppressed than thou," but that wasn't actually the dynamic I saw. It was more, "I know what oppression is that that's not it." I probably have to add this: many of the white trans women I know are perfectly lovely and I can't imagine them ever being the kind of doofus that I'm describing here. A number of white trans women I know (especially on the internet) have been actively involved in promoting anti-racism. And yet, I know a lot of white trans women, and they are diverse in their attitudes.

(I did not complicate the question by raising the other point that frustrates these kinds of discussions: the way that "privilege" discussions are often used to try to exclude trans women from women-only spaces resulting in, I believe, a knee-jerk reaction to conversations about privilege.)

Later, one woman in the audience made a comment that I took to mean "we really need to inculcate an Internet-wide notion of etiquette" which, I confess, made me anxious. The history of etiquette, I believe, is that it has long been a weapon to browbeat people who are not like you. I think Kate made the comment that etiquette can be enabling as well as restrictive, and I agree with that.

The last part of the panel talked about, basically, when it's okay to warn people that certain folk are creepy debaters. One particular name was attached to this conversation -- for the sake of anonymity, I'll call that person Phil Betterly. At what point is Phil enough of an asshat that it's okay and meaningful to post preemptive cautions about how creepy, vile and/or intellectually dishonest his debates are? Is it bad to agitate for his shunning? I think that this part of the conversation really touched on the whole, "when does it become verbal harassment?" question. Or maybe it's just trying to overcome the Geek Social Fallacy that ostracizers are evil? No clear answer came to this question -- people acknowledged that Phil has kinda-sorta taken his ball and gone away for the time being, so it's not a pressing concern. But it's the sort of question that probably needs to be pondered.

Edit: One of the audience contributions, here, that I should have mentioned was the discussion of predator theory -- the theory that some really icky people (such as, for example, rapists) constantly test pushing other people's boundaries. Also: book recommendation for The Gift of Fear.

It was a good panel. Also: Jess was a really good moderator.

Comments

[jiawen]

That sounds really good! It went a lot of places I've been thinking about.

(I did not complicate the question by raising the other point that frustrates these kinds of discussions: the way that "privilege" discussions are often used to try to exclude trans women from women-only spaces resulting in, I believe, a knee-jerk reaction to conversations about privilege.)

Can you clarify? I kind of don't know what you mean by the last clause. Also, I'd be interested in examples you've heard of white trans women saying racist things (partially, I have to admit, because I'm worried some of it might've been from me).

[bcholmes]

I've never observed you to say racist things, so I'm definitely not including you in this criticism.

Re: privilege. One of the criticisms that often been levelled at trans women, especially w.r.t. women-only space, is that trans women have "male privilege" that upsets the dynamic of that space, and this privilege is used to exclude trans women. Julia Serano tackles this in Whipping Girl. For my part, I think that the issue is complicated, but that usually the exclusion is wrong-headed. And yet, I think it's true that most trans women who've encountered the term, when they hear the term "privilege", they immediately hear another refrain of "you aren't a real woman; you need to get out of this space." I get that, but it does make some conversations harder.

[jiawen]

I think I understand. You mean (going back to your first example) that a lot of white trans women don't handle the concept of white privilege well because they've (we've) built up defenses against hearing charges of privilege leveled against us, right? I'm pretty sure I know what you mean, I just want to make certain I'm not misconstruing something. If that's right, I agree.

male privilege & women-only space

[bibliofile]

IIRC, this is also one argument used in the discussions about excluding trans women from the Michigan music festival: because trans women experienced male privilege before transition, presumably as kids and while growing up at a minimum, that somehow keeps them from being "proper" women.

I picked up a copy of Lesbian Connection at WisCon and found that those discussions continue, even now, with nothing new to say on either side. Alas, LC is strictly for lesbians who are also "proper" women -- still. (Took me right back to the '80s, that did, and that's just when *I* first encountered LC & that whole discussion.)

Re: male privilege & women-only space

[jiawen]

:(