How to Report Sexual Harassment, by Elise Matthesen
July 7 Update: Per Patrick Nielsen Hayden, an editor with Tor, James Frenkel is no longer with Tor Books.
ETA: Elise has said she’s comfortable with the following comment being shared. “My name is Sigrid Ellis. I was one of the co-hosts of the party Elise mentions. The person Elise reported for harassment is James Frenkel.” (Source)
I am beyond furious.
In 2010, in response to a series of specific incidents involving an editor in the community, I posted a list of resources for Reporting Sexual Harassment in SF/F. A number of people made reports about this individual.
I thought those reports had made a difference. I was wrong.
What follows is an account and essay from Elise Matthesen describing the process of reporting an incident that took place this year at Wiscon. While I’m not in a position to name names on my blog, I will say that the individual in question is the same one I was hearing about in 2010.
I ended up speaking to this person a while after I wrote that original blog post. He seemed genuinely contrite and regretful. I thought … I hoped … that he had learned, and that he would change his behavior.
I was wrong.
From what I’ve learned, nothing changed. Because the reports weren’t “formally documented,” this person was able to go on to harass other women.
Please read Elise’s essay. I’ve bolded one section about filing a formal report. If you’re aware of the situation and want to do so, I’ll be happy to do whatever I can to help hook you up with the appropriate contacts.
My thanks to Elise for her relentless work on this.
#
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 publicly-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.
During the incident, the person I reported said, “Gosh, you’re lovely when you’re angry.” You know what? I’ve been getting prettier and prettier.
ginmar
July 2, 2013 @ 9:55 am
Rape and other events like it on the sexual assault scale show what people really think of women.
Oh, sure, they might do the vague disclaimer thing—–‘yeah, rape is terrible, but—-; yeah, nobody should get raped, but—-; sure, I believe in equal pay for equal work, but—-yet when it comes down to it they believe that women have this deep desire to lie about rape so as to——something or another. Or that certain women were not
really raped because even though they said no and tried to
resist, they had no *right* to say no, because they *asked
for it* and he gave it to them. How many completely
sincere and earnest statements about being falsely accusedare coming from actual rapists, who are either flat out lying or who have this twisted definition of rape such that only dark alley rapes meet the standard? If I can’t hear the victim’s side of it, there’s no way I’m going to listen to just the guy.
Celia Marsh
July 2, 2013 @ 12:14 pm
Not to mention that false or not, the act of reporting a rape automatically taints the woman. It’s okay for guys to have sex, after all, but women admitting they do, even involuntarily, means they’re ‘bad’. (And Bad Girls get what’s coming to them, after all, so it’s a total catch-22.) Reporting a rape or harassment is hard enough, so the likelihood that large numbers of women are going through all that trouble for fun, with the smallest possible likelihood of it actually paying off (given the conviction rate even for rapes that *do* have oodles of evidence), is about as likely as the idea that pro-choice laws means women immediately run out to get abortions for fun.
Amy Sterling Casil
July 2, 2013 @ 12:51 pm
Ginmar, I am a rape survivor. I was also falsely accused via the internet of murdering my own baby by someone who believed it was a way to win a custody battle (not my children). I honestly don’t know why the couple didn’t go full-on false sexual abuse charges. I suppose it’s because they could not fully convince the children to lie about those things. None of the promised public “disclosures,” videotapes or tales of how much the children supposedly hated their “abusive” father ever appeared.
Being falsely accused and suffering consequences, especially when children are involved, as occurs in custody battles (which are the primary motivators for such charges) does cause severe trauma.
When I was diagnosed with complex PTSD, many people in the support group I attended had been falsely accused of crimes. Imagine being a mother falsely accused of molesting her own baby. There was a lady in the group in that exact situation and she’d even been in jail for several months before charges were dropped. I was just a girlfriend who suffered an extreme tragedy that was co-opted by sick, twisted abusers.
Nikki P
July 2, 2013 @ 1:06 pm
Yes he is married to Joan Vinge. When I sent an email to her site he is the one that answered. I didn’t know about his behavior but we had a long email exhange and he was polite to me. I’ve only had the email exchange which lasted a few months and he seemed really nice. I guess you just never know.
ginmar
July 2, 2013 @ 3:19 pm
I’m going to be blunt, and it’s going to be ruthless.
Your case has nothing whatsoever to do with false accusations of rape and you are harming women by bringing it up in the manner that you do. You have far more similarity with a rape victim than you do with a man who cries that a woman has lied about him. The former will be called a liar, the latter a truth teller.
A woman falsely accused of anything is more like what an actual rape victim goes through—–when many if not all are
falsely accused of making a false accusation—-than it
does with the way society supports those who claim women lie for shits and giggles. The claims of false rape
accusations are themselves false accusations. Women tell
the truth and get called liars. Men tell lies and get called
truth tellers. You were another victim of the former. It is
nothing at all like the latter.
I am very sorry that that happened to you, that people attempted to do that to you, bit you have nothing in common with the people who say that false rape accusations are common, or even likely.
To claim that women commonly lie about rape is to help the rapist off the hook. But women are far more likely, I think, to be slandered by accusations of lies simply because society does not wish to hear the truth.
A innocent person, wronged, is far different from the guilty person who impugns a victim he knows society wishes to silence—–and is complicit.in the process. Who is more likely to succeed? A rapist—-knowing that the conviction rate in this country is less than 10% and that 100, 000 tape kits languish in warehouses—–or a rape victim, knowing those same things? Add to that, too, the culture we live in. It does NOT aid the rape victim. It aids the rapist.
ginmar
July 2, 2013 @ 3:21 pm
God, I’m sorry about the formatting. I’m on my phone.
power and supervillainy | Crime and the Blog of Evil
July 2, 2013 @ 5:26 pm
[…] – I’d've written about that last week if I hadn’t been on the road; and Jim Hines talks about how Mr. Frenkel’s been doing it for years, because people get talked out of formally reporting […]
Amy Sterling Casil
July 2, 2013 @ 5:41 pm
You know, all the false accusation cases I know of were instigated by males. Either the male made the accusation, or pressured women and children to make the accusations. False accusations against females made by or instigated by males are far more common than many people are aware. I know of two mothers, the lady who was actually imprisoned due to patently false accusations against her (her son was severely Autistic, so his father “interpreted” these horrible, almost impossible and improbable acts based on “evidence” only a corrupt therapist would relate to authorities), and the second was a Native American woman with outstanding educational achievements who was made homeless and whose life was nearly destroyed by her vengeful ex-husband and his unscrupulous attorney. In her case, they called up the school where she worked and made false accusations that she was a firestarter (had burned a school down in another state) and a molester of her own child. In fact, both these mothers became homeless, unemployed and at rock-bottom as a result of the false accusations which took far too long to clear up.
Even Reese Hopkins, who was imprisoned for almost four years awaiting any type of trial on very thin, almost non-existent evidence, was falsely accused because the young woman was so afraid of her father she told him that her behaviors were a result of her friend’s father, Reese, raping her when she was only 11 years old. This young woman was so terrified she was coerced into a situation she later found herself unable to escape.
Yes, it is primarily men taking advantage of assumptions and cultural norms. Every time it happens it makes it that much harder for real victims to be believed or for something to be done.
Attack of the Girl Cooties | Cora Buhlert
July 3, 2013 @ 12:18 am
[…] was sexually harrassed at this year’s Wiscon and decided to report the guy who did it. She also shares advice on how to report sexual harrassment at Jim Hines’ blog. The big shocker here is not that this thing happened, but that hardly anybody was surprised, […]
SunflowerP
July 3, 2013 @ 2:09 am
I’m very uncomfortable with the implication that real victims can be distinguished from false accusers by whether they are sufficiently traumatized. I don’t think you intended that, Amy, since you are also talking about the way that many of those who make false accusations have been pressured/terrorized into doing so, and have their own traumas. But it’s there, nevertheless, however unintentional.
It is true that many survivors of rape have difficulty speaking of their experiences. It is true that many of them show overt symptoms of traumatization. But it is also true that many do not. The reactions are as unique as the individuals.
When the relevant authorities (police, medical personnel, judges, etc) have preconceptions – of whatever sort – about how Real Victims (TM) react, that’s yet another barrier to reporting, for those who fear they will not match the preconceptions. And whether the person is ‘traumatized enough’ gets used as a measure of whether a violation of consent was ‘really’ rape-rape or ‘just’ a violation of consent – by everyone from the rapist, to the cops, to the courts, to the survivor themselves as they second-guess whether their experience ‘counts’. (It’s a vestige of rape-as-property-crime, I suspect: the severity of the crime still hinges on ‘how much damage was done to the “property”?’ rather than on the criminality of the act of violation itself.)
Sunflower
SunflowerP
July 3, 2013 @ 2:19 am
I see that I should have clicked your link before I posted.
Sunflower
How To Be An Ally, Speaker Edition | Geek Feminism Blog
July 3, 2013 @ 2:05 pm
[…] the subject appeared on the blogs of several well-known SF writers, including Mary Robinette Kowal, Jim C. Hines, Seanan McGuire, Brandon Sanderson, Chuck Wendig, and John Scalzi (hat tip to Mary Robinette Kowal […]
Allison Moon
July 3, 2013 @ 5:54 pm
I think we need to temper our need for justice with the keen awareness that not everyone feels safe publicly reporting. Just as the SFWA incidents prove that rape and death threats are common companions to speaking up, we need to be aware that not everyone is as willing as Elise to go to bat against this kind of thing.
The first step is making sure people have a safe space to disclose, should they want to. We need to shore up our resources, build a culture of victim-allyship, and institute zero-tolerance policies before we can reasonably expect people to disclose. To actively encourage people to disclose before these systems are in place ignores the real experience of victims having to stand by their words in public and often vitriolic forums.
A Timeline of the 2013 SFWA Controversies
July 3, 2013 @ 11:41 pm
[…] […]
Witch Hunter
July 4, 2013 @ 9:07 am
I’ve had people make unwelcome sexual advances many times – one deals with it. If that’s what this is about, then I think everyone is over reacting. Being a drunken cad with backward social skills is lame but does it warrant this?
I’ve had someone basically stalk me at work – everywhere I went, there they were. They obviously wanted something. It was annoying to me and went on for a long time, even after I talked to the person. I could see that being threatening to someone. That was different, because it was not a social situation, and in the end it was dealt with through a supervisor. I don’t think the person was a bad person, just socially inept and maybe neurotic, but I had to get on with work.
My first point is that these two scenarios are different. One is just an obnoxious part of life that has been part of life since time began. The other is something that might be a problem, depending on the people involved.
My other point is, this editor person is being ‘outed’ when no one has any idea what happened. Obviously some people are more familiar with the situation but the rest are just mobbing, and the self-righteousness is a little thick.
I’ve spent time in Sharia countries (not in the military, btw) and some behaviors I see here are reminiscent – there, women must be protected at all cost, making a sexual advance or looking at women can be a punishable offense, and consequently the women are covered head to toe and hidden away so that they are ‘safe’. Women may think they are empowering themselves with these appeals to authority and obviously no one is thinking about this in moral terms or wearing burqas, but there are parallels. The thought process might be different but the behaviors are the same. For me, it seems like a step backwards for women. The powerful thing to do is to tell the guy to take a leap.
Martin
July 4, 2013 @ 9:44 am
The comparison with the Sharia countries is completely off. First the background is more the tribal system and less the islamic law. Women are there seen as object belonging to another man (husband or father). By harassing them, you are hurting his honor. The insult/injury to the woman is deemed insignificant compared to that. That is a completely different concept. The burqua is not to protect the woman but to protect the men from impure thought.
Unwelcome sexual advances are never to be accepted. Even if they are harmless or due to the lack of social skills, when they don’t stop on a “stop” i would sanction them no matter which environment (professional, private, conference, etc.) they occur.
I have cut people from my social circles because female friends complained about them being obtrusive on my party after some drinks. We fired a freelancer working for us on the spot for trying the same thing on a company event. In all such cases i knew the people on both sides and there has never been a question if i believe the story.
If the only way to stop such a thing is to publicly denounce the culprit, i will do it. I am not bound to hold a trial before i judge for myself. But i have to carry the consequences of my actions myself. So, believe me, i will do some thinking before i act.
In this case, the editor and the affected person seem to be well known by the people denouncing the editor. So i give those people the same credit to take action i grant myself.
Jim C. Hines
July 4, 2013 @ 10:14 am
“If that’s what this is about, then I think everyone is over reacting.”
Thank you for acknowledging that you’re not clear on what this is about.
“The other is something that might be a problem, depending on the people involved.”
Given that the victims and targets involved have determined that it is indeed a problem, who are you to second guess that, and what’s your basis for doing so? Further, as you’ve admitted a lack of knowledge about the situation, why should anyone pay attention to your judgment in this case?
“this editor person is being ‘outed’ when no one has any idea what happened”
This is untrue, as you admit in your very next sentence.
Vicki
July 4, 2013 @ 10:34 am
So, you think that being a “drunken cad” is a vaguely bad thing, but not so bad as to warrant having other people know that he’s a drunken cad. Because that would interfere with his ability to enjoy being a cad.
Your “one deals with it” apparently means that everyone must deal with “unwanted advances” in the same way you have done. This entire post is about how Elise dealt with it, and some information on how to do that well.
As Jim notes, you admit you don’t know what happened. Nobody except you has suggested that Frenkel was drunk during any of this. Apparently your world is one in which women being followed around and groped must be accepted as if it was the weather. But one in which the weather has the right to make people cold, wet, sunburned, or worse, and in which umbrellas, winter coats, and weather forecasts are an unreasonable interference with the natural right of the weather to make people miserable, cancel pleasant activities, and cause serious injury or even death.
Elise and other victims of sexual harassment are not witches; stop hunting them and inventing false narratives in order to prove to your satisfaction that they are at fault.
F.J. Bergmann
July 4, 2013 @ 4:20 pm
I’ve waited awhile to post here in an effort not to become intemperate. I, too, am disturbed at the naming of names in the absence of a specific accusation; that is to say, I find the absence of any detail as to what exactly happened peculiar and evasive. It is clear that, once a presumed perpetrator has been named, that the thread is no longer simply about how to go about making a report. “Sexual harassment” is a rather broad term and, at the low end of the spectrum, is open to redefinition. I’m not questioning anyone’s right to feel legitimately threatened here, and I can’t speculate on the level of aggravation that took place, only observing that it took place in the immediate presence of other people, and while at a party, where different social standards apply, making it difficult to say just how inappropriate the behavior was.
I will say that I have attended two conventions in Madison, WI, OddCon and WisCon, for the last 14 years. Jim Frenkel has been at both nearly every year as well. I know Jim as a social acquaintance, as part of the OddCon ConCom, and was a slush reader for him for a while. I’ve talked with him at parties outside of conventions and elsewhere. I have never observed him acting in a manner that could be considered sexual harassment. None of his closer or more long-term friends with whom I’m acquainted have ever mentioned any incidents of misbehavior on his part–and we do gossip.
Jim can be snarky and abrasive. He frequently attempts witticisms (and generally succeeds); I have heard him say “You’re lovely when you’re angry” before, but clearly intended as obnoxious humor, not as sexual innuendo.
I am sorry that Elise Matthesen, whose presence at WisCon I’ve enjoyed, should have been made uncomfortable (a euphemism not intended to downplay whatever took place). I am also sorry that Jim Frenkel, who has a long, long record of service to the local SF community that went far beyond anything required by his professional status, should have been placed in the position of being publicly vilified by so many folks who know no more than I about what actually happened and have nothing better to do than aggrandize themselves by fomenting rumor and innuendo.
I don’t know whether whatever Jim did is defensible in any way. Based on my personal knowledge of him, I rather suspect that the incident has been blown way out of proportion. But the thing is, I DON’T KNOW. And neither do nearly all the people who have been posting vilification here. In the absence of direct knowledge of the incident, this is a despicable thing to do.
Jim C. Hines
July 4, 2013 @ 5:05 pm
F.J.
I know Jim as well, and have known him for more than a decade.
So you know, your euphemism — however you might have intended it — *does* downplay what took place.
I’m also sorry that Mr. Frenkel has chosen to put himself in this position through his actions toward various women in the community, actions going back at least 11 years that I’m aware of.
I apreciate you admitting that you don’t know. But you seem to then proceed to assume that nobody else discussing this matter knows either, and to use that as the basis for judging and condemning those who are talking about Jim’s actions over the years.
Both your assumptions and your conclusions are flawed.
Celia Marsh
July 4, 2013 @ 5:13 pm
Elise did not name any names in her story. Names were added later, with her permission, yes, because this incident was not in a vacuum and others witnessed it as well. Elise doesn’t talk about what happened to her because a) we don’t need to know in the context of this report–this is not ‘how someone harassed me at a con” it is “How to report harassment.” and b) it really doesn’t matter because the only person–THE ONLY PERSON–who can say if she was harassed is Elise. It does not matter if you would consider what he did a minor issue or a big deal. It matters only to Elise. And, you will notice, that as she reported what happened, people took it seriously. To me, this suggests that everyone who knew the details felt it was as big a deal as Elise did. But again, that wouldn’t matter. The point of this article is also not how to get someone banned/fired for inappropriate behavior.
Naming the name is not the point of the article, it is, if anything, the point of the later portion of the article, where she said, “really, no one has ever complained about him before” and they said ‘Not the right way to get things changed.” At that point, when they said if he’s behaved inappropriately with others in the past, those others can still report him now, *THAT* is when giving his name became helpful (and it still wasn’t elise who said it. And it still wasn’t only elise who had witnessed the interaction.) Giving his name was important then because–among women con attenders, at least–he is widely known as someone who acts inappropriately at cons, and Elise, and others, believed that his behavior had been reported before. Giving his name means that any of the people who thought they had reported him know that actually, the process was incomplete, but they can still do something about it.
Celia Marsh
July 4, 2013 @ 5:27 pm
Also, can I suggest, very politely, that the next time someone says “[Person] is known for harassing [group of people]” that you take a good look at yourself and see if you fall into that [group of people] BEFORE you start saying “no that can’t possibly be true, no, I know him and he’s never behaved like that around me.” Because if you are not a member of that [group], that’s quite possibly why you never saw that behavior towards yourself, or saw that behavior as upsetting to others.
Because I swear, if I see one more guy saying that Elise couldn’t possibly be right about how JF made her feel, or one more white person saying that Nora is exaggerating things, I am likely to turn rabid and start biting things. We do not get to decide other people’s experiences are invalid.
F.J. Bergmann
July 4, 2013 @ 6:02 pm
I’m a heterosexual woman and an SF fan and writer. I don’t know what [group of people] that puts me in. Nowhere did I say that Elise’s experience is invalid–but I think it is premature to go after the presumed offender to this extent with (still) no idea about what took place. I am NOT saying that Elise can’t be right–this report is disturbing, and she has corroboration, therefore I presume that whatever she says happened, happened–but I’m saying that I want to know specifics before agreeing to label the incident as harassment for purposes of applying penalties–including public shaming. This does not negate how Elise is entitled to feel. I’m saying that from my personal knowledge of Jim Frenkel, I would like to know considerably more about the incident before passing judgement. From reading the posts, only two people of the many who have felt compelled to add their two cents here have actual personal knowledge of the incident–or, indeed, any purported previous incidents. And they’re not saying what actually happened.
Manny
July 5, 2013 @ 12:39 pm
Heinlein was signing books at a meeting of the L5 Society. I was so excited, brought my book, stood in line, squee. He took the moment he was signing as a chance to tell me I should walk naked on a beach, just out of the blue. That was creepy even if it wasn’t technically creeping. I babbled something about sunburn and ran away.
Witch Hunter
July 5, 2013 @ 2:44 pm
99 percent of the people buzzing on all the forums have absolutely no idea what happened, nor do they care. There was no need to reveal the person’s name except to try them in the court of public opinion. It’s a tacky thing to do.
Witch Hunter
July 5, 2013 @ 2:52 pm
As I said, the thought processes are different, but the behaviors are the same. As well as the black-and-white worldview.
Jim C. Hines
July 5, 2013 @ 2:53 pm
You’re entitled to your opinion, of course. The made-up numbers, eh, I’m not going to fight about those.
Suffice it to say, many of us believe there was a need. Many of us have explained the need. As you seem unwilling to accept those explanations, and are simply doubling down on your assumptions about everyone else knowing as little about the facts as you do, I think this conversation has reached its end.
Eric M. Van
July 6, 2013 @ 5:46 am
I want to disagree (and fairly violently) with one thing you’ve said. Just one thing, because you immediately follow with an “And …” where you get it right.
Inappropriate behavior worthy of sanction is simply not defined by the reaction or assessment of the possible victim. That’s catastrophically wrong. If it’s true that the ONLY PERSON who can say whether Elise was harassed is Elise, then many battered women were not battered, because they would not say that they were. We define inappropriate behavior objectively, by the facts about the behavior, and the assessment of the behavior is made, as objectively as possible, by an appropriate group of people, which might be a concom safety committee, HR at a corporation, a D.A.’s office and then a trial jury — or just a social circle.
The reason why we do not need the details of the harassing behavior is because Elise is a trusted member of our community, and the behavior was witnessed and corroborated. I find it disheartening that someone would say “I want to know specifics before agreeing to label the incident as harassment,” when the unanimous opinion of those who *do* know the details is that the incident needed to be reported to corporate HR.
Galactic Suburbia 84! | Randomly Yours, Alex
July 6, 2013 @ 8:37 pm
[…] Matthesen reports sexual harassment at Wiscon, kicking off a long conversation across various spots on the internet about harassment, procedures, […]
Galactic Suburbia Episode 84 « Champagne and Socks
July 8, 2013 @ 1:24 am
[…] Elise Matthesen reports sexual harassment at Wiscon, kicking off a long conversation across various spots on the internet about harassment, procedures, […]
Kristen
July 10, 2013 @ 9:46 am
WARNING To any female cosplayer in the Chicago (And surrounding) areas!
An example of why these posts matter and why it’s important for people to make this stuff visible. People of all genders just want to feel safe while sharing the joy of the nerdy things they love with others.
I appreciate your thoughtful and impassioned blog posts, Jim. It’s good to see that other people care about these issues. You won me over as a new fan and I’ll be sure to spread word of your awesomeness.
F.J. Bergmann
July 10, 2013 @ 10:38 am
I don’t reply quickly, because I want to give a considered answer. So far, to the best of my knowledge, the only person who has reported harassment (rather than second-hand, unsubstantiated rumors) is Elise. Sigrid Ellis confirms here only that Jim Frenkel was the person reported by Elise. I have spoken to Jim; his account convinced me, in the absence of other, direct testimony, that Elise, who is partly deaf, misunderstood the conversation.
I have a particular interest in equitable process because of a situation–not sexual–that threatened me and my livelihood. I was reported, in an official capacity, as having verbally abused a child and beaten her pony at a horse show, in the ring, in front of a large audience. THIS DID NOT HAPPEN–yet two different individuals testified that it had. I am extraordinarily fortunate that someone else had videotaped the pony’s entire round, from before entering the ring until the end–and it could be clearly seen that I was comforting the crying, hysterical rider and patting the pony (who had experienced a major panic attack upon being confronted with Jumps Covered With Cornstalks) reassuringly. Without that serendipitous video? I would have been screwed. Moreover, I have no doubt that according to the individuals who reported me, who continued to vilify me privately to their cronies and all who would listen, the incident was “hushed up.”
If there are other individuals who observed the incident with Elise who are posting elsewhere, they are not named, linked, or reporting here. No reports of any other incidents are first-hand, and I personally doubt that they are correct. And the specifics of the incident with Elise have yet to be described.
I applaud any encouragement of reporting sexual harassment and facilitation of same, which is overdue in many venues. I personally pushed for the adoption of a stated policy at OddCon earlier this year. But I completely abhor the public denunciation of anyone a) without describing the actual incident; b) in the absence of verification by others present; and c) before investigation by those entities to whom the behavior has been reported, i.e., the WisCon concom and Tor HR. This most certainly IS a witch-hunt and rumor-mongering. Shame on you.
Jim C. Hines
July 10, 2013 @ 10:46 am
While I won’t share other people’s stories for them, your knowledge is wrong. Period.
Jonathon Side
July 10, 2013 @ 5:33 pm
Bergmann
You bare-faced hypocrite.
You lay on all this sanctimony and high dudgeon about ‘naming of names’ and then in the next breath you oh so casually, callously drop an aspect of Elise’s personal life into the conversation in a brazen attempt to discredit her.
You can not be trusted.
Celia
July 10, 2013 @ 5:55 pm
I’m pretty sure “she must have misunderstood” is on the list of things creepers say to defend their behavior. Probably right after ‘I just meant it as a joke”. The fact that Elise is partly deaf makes for a wonderfully supporting detail for his arguement, but it doesn’t actually prove anything. You seem to desperately want this to be a he said/she said thing, because Elise won’t share details, and other witnesses haven’t spoken up, and I know it is upsetting to have to reassess someone so completely. I don’t think this comments thread has actually been trying him in absentia, though I’ll admit at this point I think I’ve forgotten all of the early comments, so perhaps there were people calling for blood, not justice.
Samantha Henderson
July 10, 2013 @ 6:00 pm
You are discounting Elise’s account because of her disability?
Shame on _you_.
Jackie Lee
July 10, 2013 @ 6:42 pm
It’s really shitty to discount someone’s perception of reality based on their disability.
PD
July 10, 2013 @ 11:32 pm
Elise is not “partially deaf”. The term you mean is “hard of hearing” or “hearing-impaired”, depending on Elise’s preference. I am not aware of what happened, but harassment does not consist merely of speech acts. There is also a word for what you are doing by questioning Elise’s judgment: “gaslighting”.
Jaime Moyer
July 11, 2013 @ 1:55 am
Ms. Bergman,
I’d like to say I’m surprised to see this line of reasoning from you, but really, I’m not. Prior knowledge of a person’s patterns of behavior is a wondrous thing. And it’s after midnight, I’m tired, and I really shouldn’t lose it with you on Jim’s blog, so I’ll keep this short.
At the very first WisCon I went to in 2005, two male writer friends warned me that if I was ever invited to a party at Mr. Frenkel’s house, or to dinner with him, or was asked to have ANY social interaction with him, to say no. Note that this warning came from two men who’d seen him in action and considered his behavior toward up and coming female writers inappropriate. JF is one of the men women warn other women about at cons, and apparently, some men warn women too.
Please explain how much detail is enough for you in regard to Elise’s story to make it credible. Is there a rating scale for amount of physical contact, or a sliding scale for verbal suggestions vs actually asking for sex? Does backing her up against a wall rate lower than actual groping? How personally embarrassing or humiliating does her account have to be before you think there might be a chance she’s telling the truth?
Note that I don’t know the details myself, but I’ve been harassed in the past. It’s not difficult for any woman who’s been in that position to imagine what MIGHT have happened. And please believe me when I say that when harassment happens to you, you’re not mistaken about what’s going on. You know.
You might want to consider that there are LEGAL ramifications and reasons for not flinging every detail onto the internet. A formal report has been filed with his employer. HR has to investigate and gather statements. Procedures have to be followed. Federal law is involved with sexual harassment.
I’m going to echo Jim. I can’t tell tales out of school, but there are a great many things you don’t know.
Shame on you for trying to lay blame on the victim.
Eric M. Van
July 11, 2013 @ 2:15 am
Semantic quibble: no, this isn’t gaslighting, because it’s not directed at Elise. Gaslighting is manipulative action directed against someone designed to make them question their sanity, or undermine their self-confidence about their perceptions and judgments. (Saying something offensive to a hearing-impaired person, and then immediately denying that you said it while substituting something innocuous — that would be classic gaslighting, if it had its desired effect.)
I think the technical term for this is “obvious bullshit.”
Sandra
July 11, 2013 @ 2:49 am
Lorien, You don’t know me, but I’m a 36 year-old married woman. I am going to Dragon*Con for the first time, my husband will be presenting a panel. I don’t know anyone else who is going for sure, but I am looking for people to hangout with and enjoy the con with since the hubby will be busy with his panel at times. If you are interested let me know, no pressure 🙂
F.J. Bergmann
July 11, 2013 @ 9:07 am
Elise makes a point of informing people who speak to her in public situations that she is partly deaf; therefore I do not consider this to be sharing information meant to be private. This particular disability is highly relevant to the discussion. It is quite clear that the entire subject of this thread is judging in absentia and promoting defamation, in advance of ongoing investigations, rather than how to report harassment. THAT IS NOT RIGHT.
Jim C. Hines
July 11, 2013 @ 9:28 am
F.J.,
Why is it highly relevant? Are you assuming that Elise is unable to compensate for her partial hearing loss? That it has rendered her incapable of saying, “Wait, what did you just say?” if she thinks there’s any chance she misunderstood? That she’s not familiar with her own disability, and doesn’t take steps to make sure she hears and understands people? Does deafness render her unable to interpret body language? Does it create a selective filter that transforms innocent conversations into harassment? Does it fill her with malicious intent to start a conspiracy to destroy a well-known editor? Does it give her the PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER to alter the accounts of witnesses to support her, and to force others to make up stories of Frenkel’s harassment going back at least 11 years?
I have no doubt whatsoever that Frenkel has insisted this is all a misunderstanding. He said similar things to me three years ago when other accusations came out.
You have the right to believe whatever you like. You have the right to judge despite your admitted lack of knowledge beyond what the alleged perpetrator has said to you.
But unless you have something more to contribute than trying, without evidence, to undermine the credibility of Elise and the others who have shared stories of Frenkel’s harassment, I’d appreciate it if you exited the conversation now.
Vicki
July 11, 2013 @ 9:32 am
It is true that Elise’s disability is in no way a secret.
It is also true that there is a long cultural history of disabled people’s reports of harassment and outright assault being dismissed specifically because the person is disabled: any disability is used to dismiss the validity of the person’s reporting, either “s/he must have imagined it” or “well, maybe something happened, but s/he can’t know who did it” combined with not taking precautions on the theory that “I think it was so-and-so” may not justify an arrest but is more than enough reason to assign a different caregiver and keep the suspect away from the person making the report, because the report might be accurate.
Without telling anyone else’s story for them, we know that Jim Frenkel is aware of Elise’s disability: as you say, it’s widely known. In this or any context, that means the responsibility is at least as much on him, to be sure he is heard and/or lip-read and understood, as it is on Elise to read lips in a crowded party. I know Elise, and she does not hesitate to ask people “Say what?” to get them to repeat something.
Celia
July 11, 2013 @ 9:53 am
So you know to whatever extent, JF and Elise. But you believe that Elise would be so cavalier with someone’s career and reputation
as to go through all the hassle of a formal complaint process over something she innocently misheard and never asked for clarification on? I don’t know Elise outside of cons and friends of friends, but that is certainly not the impression I have gotten from her.
EMCaines
July 11, 2013 @ 10:43 am
Oh my God, I just saw that James Frenkel is no longer with Tor Books. I am so glad Elise stepped forward to report his actions, and I’m happy to see Tor stepped up and handled this situation appropriately.
This is why we all need to speak up in defense of ourselves–and also to protect others.
Rachel
July 11, 2013 @ 10:45 am
Thank you for this news!
Celia Marsh
July 11, 2013 @ 10:51 am
I went looking for a source (Trust, but verify!), and while I haven’t found one yet, his wikipedia page has already been updated: “James Raymond Frenkel (born 1948) is a former American editor of science fiction, fantasy, mysteries, thrillers, historical fiction, and other books for Tom Doherty …”
Vicki
July 11, 2013 @ 10:53 am
Wikipedia has that sourced to a tweet from Patrick Nielsen Hayden, which I think counts as a reliable source here.
Rachel
July 11, 2013 @ 10:58 am
Yup:
https://twitter.com/pnh
P Nielsen Hayden @pnh 36m
If you don’t have a particular editor in mind, you can re-submit it via Diana Pho (diana.pho@tor.com) who will route it appropriately. (5/5)
Expand
P Nielsen Hayden @pnh 36m
Finally, if you had something on submission to Tor via Mr. Frenkel, you’ll need to resubmit it via some other Tor editor. (4/5)
Expand
P Nielsen Hayden @pnh 36m
This process will take some days or even weeks, so please be patient if you don’t hear from us instantly. (3/5)
Expand
P Nielsen Hayden @pnh 36m
We’ll be contacting the authors and agents Mr. Frenkel worked with to discuss which editor here they’ll be working with going forward. (2/5)
Expand
P Nielsen Hayden @pnh 36m
James Frenkel is no longer associated with Tor Books. We wish him the best. (1/5)
Celia Marsh
July 11, 2013 @ 10:58 am
Aha. https://twitter.com/pnh/status/355330955835224064
Particularly as it’s a professionally based tweet series, that seems about as reliable as they come.
Jim C. Hines
July 11, 2013 @ 11:06 am
I was just coming over here with that link.
Yep, I’d call that a reliable source.
I also think it suggests that Tor had adequate testimony and evidence to support the complaints.
Jeff Linder
July 11, 2013 @ 11:19 am
We have to be careful about making assumptions… There are many other reasons to leave a job, both voluntarily and involuntarily. We have no way of knowing for sure (and should not have any idea) of how much this situation may or may not have affected the separation.
Also, despite his apparent behavior/self-inflicted wound, I have to admit I am having a hard time cheering for anyone losing a job.
Jim C. Hines
July 11, 2013 @ 11:26 am
It’s true that all we know is he’s no longer with Tor, not whether he was terminated or voluntarily resigned, or how much it had to do with the sexual harassment situation.
However, I also think it’s safe to assume this was a major factor.
I’m sad that it came to this. But I do cheer that he will no longer be in a position of power from which to harass others.
ULTRAGOTHA
July 11, 2013 @ 2:11 pm
Ken White, a lawyer who blogs at Popehat.com, has posted a statement:
http://www.popehat.com/2013/07/11/a-statement-of-support-in-the-event-of-legal-threats-or-lawsuits/#comments
Recovering Writer
July 11, 2013 @ 2:53 pm
I wrote for Jim Frenkel–until, like various other writers who’ve written for him, I refused to work with him anymore. And on the basis of having worked with him, I found him habitually mendacious. That is, he lied. He lied a LOT. He lied in the face of written evidence (including his own emails) that directly contradicted the lies he was telling. And, again, he did this a LOT. As a HABIT. He claimed things that had happened had NOT happened. He described in detail conversations that had never taken place (with me; with other people who had not actually spoken with him). He denied events had occurred which had, in fact, taken place. He claimed events had taken place which had never occurred. And, again, he did this in numerous instances when there was documentation DEMONSTRATING that he was speaking falsely. Rather than acknowledged the evidence, my experience was that he’d just switch to a new lie.
Because of my own frequeny experiences with his habitual mendacity, I am disinclined to believe his explanations for this incident–which is one of many instances that women have been describing with him.
Eric M. Van
July 11, 2013 @ 3:29 pm
One important point. As someone else who has been unjustly accused, I truly empathize with what you had to go through. But when you have been unjustly accused yourself, you do have a tendency to naturally side with any accused party and wonder if they were also a victim. *That tendency needs to be recognized and held in check.* Every case needs to be treated on its own merits. And a way to establish the legitimacy of your own claim of innocence, I would hope, is to show that you are still capable of recognizing guilt when it seems evident.
Note that this is not meant as self-aggrandizing. My only interaction with Frenkel came from inviting him many times to Readercon, and I think it’s fair to say that he’s the only person who ever declined those invitations in a way that struck me as a little creepy. So I found these reports to be instantly credible. However, if I hadn’t know him at all (and hadn’t known of Elise through mutual friends), I can’t say that I wouldn’t initially have been unduly sympathetic to the possibility that he had been falsely accused, because of my own background.
But I would have tried to fight against that sympathy, because I would recognize that I was projecting my experience onto his. False accusations suck. But they remain very much the exception, and when you have been the victim of one, *it becomes all the more important to remember that.*
Jonathon Side
July 11, 2013 @ 3:53 pm
Bergmann
Elise (or perhaps I should say, Ms Matheson, as I do not know her outside of this blog post) may indeed be free with the information that she is hearing impaired. But you are not Ms Matheson.
Quite simply, it is not your story to tell.
Not everyone who reads any of this will know the players involved, Frenkel, Matheson, or even anyone else writing comments here. While I only have myself as prime example, I am not a special snowflake. People will arrive at this post in all manner of ways, I’m sure, and they won’t all be acquainted with the long histories and interactions that various people have had.
Frankly, I’d never even heard of you, Bergmann, until yesterday, and what I have now heard has not been complimentary, nor have you done anything at all here to make me think that what I have heard has in any way been wrong.
So, what I do know about you from your own conduct here is that while you fret about the supposed defamation of Mr Frenkel (which is not people gossiping as you suggest, it is people giving their own firsthand accounts of dealing with Mr Frenkel or with peopke who have dealt with him. Gossip would be if someone like me started sharing the stories around) and denounce others about naming Mr Frenkel as the one reported and judging in absentia, et cetera, you have absolutely no compunction about telling complete strangers the personal details of another person. Details that may not be exactly secret or private, but are still none of your business. Or mine, or anyone else that Ms. Matheson has not personally told.
And, since you have adopted an adversarial position on the matter, there seems to be no other interpretation but that it was done either vindictively to actively discredit Ms Matheson, or simply callously because you don’t actually care about any ideals or impartiality of justice, only that your buddy is being criticised.
As a self-proclaimed writer, you should probably be more aware of such nuances.
And so you are a hypocrite. Not only that, but the tone of your post seems distinctly ableist, so we have discrimination on top of it. Hardly surprising.
Do Mr Frenkel a favour and stop trying to defend him. With defence like you, he doesn’t need enemies.
Jonathon Side
July 11, 2013 @ 3:56 pm
That went on longer than I expected. Sorry all, and my apologies for not addressing the ableism the first time around.
KB
July 11, 2013 @ 8:29 pm
Questioning what someone heard just because they don’t hear well?
Yeah. Shame.
KB
July 11, 2013 @ 9:22 pm
Mr. Hines, I think you’re being inappropriate here. Ms. Bergmann’s posts have for the most part been calm, and she has clearly tried to make them carefully reasoned. Part of her position has been to accept evidence she has (what Frenkel said to her) in favor of evidence she doesn’t have (Elise’s version of the incident). I think this is a mistake on Bergmann’s part, as she’s choosing to believe the party who has the far more obvious reason for lying. But that seems an understandable mistake to me.
And the other part of Bergmann’s position has been to argue that there’s a widespread assumption of guilt going on here, based entirely (as far as I can see) on statements to the effect of “Oh, but If you’d only heard the stories _I’ve_ heard…” As she correctly points out, actual relatings of those stories, much less the evidence to support them, are entirely absent.
After reading this thread, my conclusion is that Ms. Bergmann is on the wrong side of the argument. There seem to be too many people who “have stories,” or have stories about stories, for it to be likely that Frenkel is innocent. But for you to lash out at Bergmann as you do, and to ask her to “exit the conversation” is, as I said, inappropriate. And your demand that she provide “evidence” to support her position is quite sadly ironic. You may be on the right side of this issue, but that post puts you squarely on the low road.
Jim C. Hines
July 11, 2013 @ 9:34 pm
KB,
I would love for you to show me where I demanded that she provide evidence.
As for the inappropriateness of me setting boundaries on conversations on my own blog, well, I guess we’ll need to disagree on that. You might believe something constructive can come of Ms. Bergmann continuing to post here. I doubt that very much, particularly if she continues the same attacks she’s been making.
-Jim
Jonathon Side
July 11, 2013 @ 9:42 pm
I think KB misinterpreted the bit about Bergmann attacking Ms Matheson’s credibility without evidence to mean you wanted evidence.
Jim C. Hines
July 11, 2013 @ 9:57 pm
Very possible, yes. Mostly, I just have a very low tolerance for victim-blaming, false-accusation derailment, and baseless attacks on people’s credibility when those people speak out about stuff like this.
Eric M. Van
July 11, 2013 @ 11:06 pm
Something I apologize for not catching sooner: “You’re lovely when you’re angry,” when said by a man to a woman he has directly angered, is neither sexual innuendo nor obnoxious humor. It is *fundamentally harassing*. It refuses to recognize the woman’s distress with any semblance of empathy, and hence is dehumanizing. And it appropriates that distress and turns it into a vehicle for the man’s aesthetic pleasure. It is hence *designed* to make the woman feel powerless.
(Fine print, because I’m a psych major and I’m thorough: if the evoked emotion was merely annoyance, irritation, or frustration over something relatively trivial, rather than true anger, this probably qualifies more as just “being a dick” rather than harassment. And one can imagine a situation between intimate partners where the language is essentially shorthand for something more complex, and thus actually serves to defuse the anger. But for the most part, this is one of the least defensible things one human being can say to another.)
InnocentBystander
July 12, 2013 @ 12:51 am
In regards to Ms. Bergmann’s position, I only mostly disagree with her. Freedom of speech is important. Reporting the harassers name is nothing more than free speech. The women who named him publicly put their own names, reputations and fortunes on the line if they are lying. There is nothing dishonorable about speaking the truth to power. Cry Havoc and let slip the dogs of war! I know none of the people involved, for me to pile on or accuse him would indeed be wrong. The tricky part comes from anonymous corroborators. If you are going to make troubling accusations about someone, hiding behind a cloak of anonymity is troubling because your corroboration adds psychological weight and credence to the accusation without any real evidence that you know anything. Since most of the accusers have proudly put their name on their accusations- God Bless Them. If you are anonymously piling on, you should really be contacting Elsie Matthesen in private.
Roel Hinojosa
July 12, 2013 @ 11:57 am
Please pardon My obviously uneducated questions and comments lest my words be misconstrued. Similar to when a person says “I don’t mean to sound Racist” a second before making a insanely racist comment. Now first of all When did this world become so overly prissy that a simple heartfelt apology wasn’t good enough to resolve a problem? Better yet and I have tried this before let the other person know that they have offended you or otherwise besmirched your delicate sensibilities. Too bad that gone are the days when you could simply slap them across the face with your lily white glove then take up arms at 20 paces. But I suppose in the day where the pen is mightier than the sword and the Blog is equal to a vial of Ricin being released in a crowded room publicly outing someone over an incident that could have been handled internally is perfectly acceptable if not totally expected. Hooray that this man who DARED to call a woman Lovely has been publicly flogged and beheaded for the amusement of the masses. I say we bring back Scarlet Letters we can even update the concept by using an emoticon or perhaps even armbands with the Star of David replaced by an appropriate symbol for “I Unwittingly make Harassing comments” maybe a photo of Bill Clinton. I believe its time we not only begin asking our mommies to go knock on their door and ask they be put on punishment like when we were children but should also be allowed to break one of their toys. Holy Mountain out a Molehill Batman! Good thing this man wasn’t given the chance to apologize he may have gone on to ruin some other innocent damsel life with some such comment as, “I like the perfume you’re wearing would you mind very much sitting on my face?” or “That’s a very stylish dress, it sure makes those humongous Blouse Balloons take attention away from your mouth watering ass.” Thank You PC Fascists the world is sooo much better now that this man is no longer editing books. Next step take on world hunger by killing the kid I saw throw away his happy meal apple slices last week. I applaud your overly vengeful and litigious behavior. I’m sure this is exactly how Mahatma Gandhi would have handled it. didn’t he say “Freedom is not worth having if one does not include the freedom to make mistakes.”
Jim C. Hines
July 12, 2013 @ 12:00 pm
Roel – I’ll leave this comment alone as a reminder of the ignorance and attitudes that contribute to sexual harassment being such a problem. But please be aware that any further trolling comments will be removed and/or goblined, depending on my mood.
Roel Hinojosa
July 12, 2013 @ 1:09 pm
[This comment eaten by a FASCIST PC fire-spider!]
Celia
July 12, 2013 @ 1:27 pm
I’m replying, even though her comment has been torched because I think others have been trying to claim the lovely when angry quote was also the extent of the harassment, and to be honest, so did I the first time I read it. The “angry” that he was talking about was caused by his harassment. This statement was more along the lines of rubbing salt in the wound. See eric’s very nice explanation of that, and realize that in this situation the harasser was basically saying “not only do I know how insulting the things I have said/done are, I did them intentionally to make you mad.”
Damn, there was another point I wanted to say as well, but it has escaped.
Sandy
July 12, 2013 @ 4:46 pm
I third that. Definitely splits the harassment hair, does it not?
Jonathon Side
July 12, 2013 @ 5:26 pm
“I unwittingly make harassing remarks over 11 years and even though people talk to me about it I never seem to learn or stop doing it”…
Hmm. Bit long for an armband. Maybe a t-shirt?
Jonathon Side
July 12, 2013 @ 5:28 pm
Also, I’d love it if Roel could point us to the simple, heartfelt apology that Mr Frenkel has made?
Black Gate » Blog Archive » James Frenkel Leaves Tor
July 12, 2013 @ 7:24 pm
[…] departure from Tor comes following accusations of sexual harassment, stemming from an incident at Wiscon reported by Elise […]
Geekish Links (2) [GeekishTV]
July 13, 2013 @ 10:01 am
[…] specific to a sci-fi or fantasy film/show, I think it’s important to point you over to Elise Matthesen’s essay detailing her experience reporting sexual harassment at WisCon. Tansy wrote a round up about the incident here. Tansy […]
Roel Hinojosa
July 13, 2013 @ 4:08 pm
[“Smudge, stop eating those comments,” Jig said worriedly. “Don’t you know ignorance is fattening?”]
Roel Hinojosa
July 13, 2013 @ 4:36 pm
here, here!
SibB
July 15, 2013 @ 4:59 pm
Not true, actually. That is a stereotype about D*C. Besides the writers workshop, there is a very nice publishing track which I find worth its weight in gold; separate tracks for SF literature, fantasy literature, and YA literature. The alternate history/steampunk track is very heavy on literature also. Lorien, you will find lots to enjoy as a writer.
hunter
July 16, 2013 @ 8:43 am
As a life long SF fan I find the hijacking of the genre by politically correct losers to be disheartening. But lefties always end up eating their own any way.
Elise makes me think that Harlan Ellison’s famous essay about disgusting fans was prophetic.
The good news is that even late in his distinguished career, Frenkel will undoubtedly land on his feet.
Elise has had her moment of fame and will soon recede back to being another politically correct loser.
Jim C. Hines
July 16, 2013 @ 8:54 am
Thanks for stopping by to express your support for a known sexual harasser. Best of luck in your future trolling endeavors.
hunter
July 16, 2013 @ 10:55 am
[This comment stolen by goblins and used to flavor a delicate elf souffle.]
Martin
July 16, 2013 @ 11:14 am
Jim, thank you for this post and the comments it created. It shows that i imagined the world to be better than it is and there is a long road ahead to what i had considered to be a matter of course. I am still astounded how many defend the indefensible.
Shay VanZwoll
July 16, 2013 @ 10:24 pm
I’m coming late to this thread, but I just want to throw in a new comments after reading through the entire thread and Jim’s excellent post.
Thank you, Elise, for reporting this. It takes courage, especially to report someone – especially if it’s someone in the industry you work in! While I will say that my relationship with the editor in question has been 100% professional over the years that I have known him and worked with him during my time staffing conventions, I do not doubt what happened to you even though that was not my experience. And I applaud you for having the courage to stand up and make a report, because nothing ever changes if you don’t make the problem officially known: I was sexually molested as a 19 year old temp working at my first “real” job out of college, and had the courage to speak up to HR. The company surprised me and fired my supervisor, and that showed me that taking action does work, even when you’re just a temp who isn’t even an actual employee of the company.
Also, thank you, Jim, and posting this and getting the word out. Hopefully this will cause more people to follow the proper channels in reporting harassment.
Eric M. Van
July 17, 2013 @ 12:15 am
Let’s assume for a moment, for the sake of your argument, that there *has* been a hijacking of sf by feminist interests. (There hasn’t, but let’s pretend there has.)
What would this have to do with *a specific, well-documented case of sexual harassment?* Logically, it would be like defending a Soviet spy caught red-handed in 1950 just because of the ongoing McCarthyism. The spy was going to be stealing U.S. government secrets whether there were folks up in arms over a phony Red Menace, or not. Frenkel got caught harassing women at a time when feminists in the field were justifiably enraged about harassment at cons and — according to you — had gone too far with their outrage and “hijacked” the field. But Frenkel has apparently been doing it since the days when nobody was talking about harassment at all. They just have no causal connection whatsoever.
It turns all of our stomachs that you are giving a free pass to a known harasser, simply because you believe *it took place in an atmosphere* where feminist concerns had become unduly emphasized.
John Weis
July 23, 2013 @ 9:48 pm
Don’t know him. Don’t want to know him. Used to know Elise. The original post about how to report was valuable. The discussion of an incident that the insiders seem to know about seems irrelevant to the purpose of the post. The flaming of people who assert that there may be 2 sides to a story are out of line. No one other than the people involved know what happened, or are likely to know what happened. Each person has a perception of an interaction that may or may not jive with the other person. Elise is clearly entitled to her perception and feelings on the matter.
That being said, not all matters are created equal. I remember once in church telling a woman who usually wore scrubs to work (in the presence of her husband and my wife), that I liked her outfit. This was deemed offensive (for reasons I still do not fully comprehend). Obviously she saw the comment differently than I did. In this context we have (and probably should not have) and first hand data from either party. Accordingly I think folks should confine flaming to the reporting of (perceived) abuse, and not to the specifics of the event or to piling on a missing combatant, or of someone who advises about the lack of facts.
Clearly it is distressing that an event has happened. I hope Elise recovers successfully from it, and that it brings whatever consequences are merited. I was also sorry to learn she is hard of hearing. While you folks take it as common knowledge, it isn’t to everyone.
Jonathon Side
July 24, 2013 @ 5:29 am
@John Weis
I find it interesting that you condemn ‘flaming of people trying to assert two sides’, but say nothing about those who ‘flamed’ by trying to dismiss and belittle the experiences and person of Ms Matheson, under the guise of asserting that there was another side.
Vicki
July 24, 2013 @ 12:54 pm
I appreciate that you are standing up for Elise, but please note, her surname is spelled Matthesen.
Jonathon Side
July 24, 2013 @ 3:04 pm
Well, that was rude of me. *hangs head in shame*
My apologies to Ms Matthesen! I would edit my previous comments if I could.
Michael Capobianco
July 25, 2013 @ 3:41 pm
I realize it’s fairly pointless to respond to a comment this long after it’s been made, but I want to go on record as saying that Amy’s statement about me and my collaborations with William Barton are flat-out ridiculous. Bill’s and my collaborations have been extremely rewarding to me artistically and the “perverted sex scenes” are, in actuality, an extremely nuanced way to depict realistic human realtionships against a hard science fiction background, something that very few others accomplish, let alone achieve. Here’s a link to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, which says it far better than I can: http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/barton_william_r
Also for the record, Bill has never been edited by Frenkel. Iris was edited by Jana Silverstein and most of Bill’s solo books were edited by Betsy Mitchell.
Michael Capobianco
July 25, 2013 @ 3:58 pm
Almost forget. And finally, for the record, I wrote my share of the collaborations’ “perverted sex scenes.”
Jim C. Hines
July 25, 2013 @ 8:05 pm
I’ve still got folks stopping by to read this piece, so it’s not *completely* pointless 🙂
I appreciate you commenting, Michael.
Fuse Commentary: A Call to (Proper) Arms — Why a Science Fiction/Fantasy Fight Over Sexism Matters » The Arts Fuse
July 27, 2013 @ 9:06 am
[…] offender was banned for life and the entire board resigned. In May, author Elise Matthesen formally reported an editor – an editor – for sexual harassment at WisCon, in Madison, and as of July 7, he is no […]
Qwui
July 28, 2013 @ 2:30 pm
“It’s not difficult for any woman who’s been in that position to imagine what MIGHT have happened.”
Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it?
Anybody can *imagine* what happened. But, what DID happen?
Jim C. Hines
July 28, 2013 @ 2:34 pm
“Anybody can *imagine* what happened. But, what DID happen?”
What happened was that James Frenkel sexually harassed Elise Matthesen.
I thought that was pretty clear, but maybe I was mistaken.
Qwui
July 29, 2013 @ 6:25 pm
“I thought that was pretty clear, but maybe I was mistaken.”
Correct; you were not clear at all. You were (and continue to be) evasive. In fact, you are so evasive on the subject that I think that you are trying to cover up the fact that you don’t know what it was that he said or did.
I find it somewhat disconcerting that people are quite eager to be explicit about the name of the person involved, but are reluctant to give even hints as to what he did.
What did Frenkel DO to sexually harass Elise Matthesen? As you said: I can imagine a lot of things.
Celia Marsh
July 29, 2013 @ 6:47 pm
“I find it somewhat disconcerting that people are quite eager to be explicit about the name of the person involved, but are reluctant to give even hints as to what he did.”
You find it disconcerting, but I find it reassuring that, were I in Elise’s shoes people would not be talking about what some creep did to me, but rather what I did to some creep.
You do not need to know what happened to Elise. This post is not “how to recognize harassment.” It is “how to report harassment.” It is not “how to fill the prurient needs of strangers who feel they deserve to know how you were talked to or touched or hell, looked at.” You don’t need to know. The people who did need to know–con security, JF’s employer, Elise’s friends–they have been told, and we can tell that it was actually ‘valid’ and ‘serious’ and not, you know, some woman being hysterical or whatever, by the fact that everyone took it seriously.
Jim C. Hines
July 29, 2013 @ 9:02 pm
Well Qwui, fortunately for us all, it’s not about you. It’s not about what you want, or all of the details you feel entitled to. It’s not about proving anything to your personal satisfaction. It’s not about your discomfort about women daring to name the men who sexually harass them.
If you take nothing else from this post and the comments, please take this: it’s not about you.
Qwui
July 29, 2013 @ 9:17 pm
Ah.
So it’s true: you DON’T know what actually happened. You’re telling me “take a guess” because “take a guess” is all you know yourself.
OK. I’ll stop asking.
Jim C. Hines
July 29, 2013 @ 9:27 pm
You’re done on this blog post, Qwui. Go play somewhere else.
Shay
July 29, 2013 @ 9:42 pm
Qwui, there is no need for anyone TO know. I’m pretty sure that Jim does know, but again, why would Jim need or want to share these details on his post? The details of the encounter at this point would do nothing except to satisfy the curiosity of some people. The facts are this:
1. Someone was harassed – this person was harassed by someone who was in a position of power so that other has not reported him in the past, either fearing his influence or fearing that they wouldn’t be taking seriously because the location/atmosphere that they were harassed in.
2. The person who was harassed spoke up and actually reported the harasser to the proper authorities – in this case, the con officials and the harasser’s job.
3. The harasser is no longer employed at his job, which means that regardless of anyone else’s feelings or thoughts on the matter, they took it seriously enough that he is no longer affiliated with them.
4. This article was written to help people recognize the signs of being harassed and to help others know how to report it. It was NOT written to provide a play by play or graphic detail on how this poor woman was harassed. You are not her personal confidant or friend. Nor are you her relative, spouse, or (to my knowledge) of any particular significance to her. So until she sells to the rights to the movie, you are not entitled to the details of the encounter.
Neither am I. And I’m not asking.
So join the rest of us are don’t really care… because it shouldn’t matter.