I hope this is okay to post about, as the essay I'm linking to does name names. But I read the whole thing and I think this is very, very important:
How to Report Sexual Harassment, by Elise Matthesen (via Jim Hines)
http://jimhines.livejournal.com/685600.html
This is in the context of the SFF community, but I think it probably applies across the board. Matthesen describes every step of the incident in question, and goes deeply into the important differences between a formal and informal report. (She doesn't pressure people to do one or the other, as she understands why people may not want to report formally, but I for one had never known the different outcomes that might result here, and it's very valuable knowledge to have.) There's also a lot of good information and links to how to proceed should something like this happen to you as a writer trying to interact with the publishing world.
As a new writer, however, what stood out to me the most was this (bold in the original, not mine):
How to Report Sexual Harassment, by Elise Matthesen (via Jim Hines)
http://jimhines.livejournal.com/685600.html
This is in the context of the SFF community, but I think it probably applies across the board. Matthesen describes every step of the incident in question, and goes deeply into the important differences between a formal and informal report. (She doesn't pressure people to do one or the other, as she understands why people may not want to report formally, but I for one had never known the different outcomes that might result here, and it's very valuable knowledge to have.) There's also a lot of good information and links to how to proceed should something like this happen to you as a writer trying to interact with the publishing world.
As a new writer, however, what stood out to me the most was this (bold in the original, not mine):
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.
[...]
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.
[...]
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.