lessons

Things learned from SCSU board meetings, #2358:

Don't actually do your job. If you do so, you may get censured. Failure to do your job will result in absolutely nothing of consequence (in a number of different ways).

TBTB

Aw fuck, I've got 15 minutes left to get my Take Back The Blog post in.


I'd been thinking about what to write all day, and realised that I didn't really have much more to say, other than to re-tell what I wrote for Blog Against Sexism Day:

This summer, I was harassed because of decisions I made while serving on the student union. These decisions offended a small group of people (one person, really, two or three max) who are generally the disgusting type. And instead of being criticised with rational reasons as to why they disagreed, I was (to be expected given their history) instead berated as a woman. I was called a bitch and a whore. I was made fun of for my weight (which is actually pretty average). Pornographic pictures were posted with labels indicating that I and the SCSU were double-penetrating the students. This person drove by my house in the middle of the night screaming at me. I had to get the Administration and the Community Safety Office involved. That was six months ago. I don't even want to know what they're saying about me now. My office-mate and fellow female executive, Lisa, faced similar insults when it came to some of her decisions.

My male colleagues? When they made a decision or said something people didn't like, their characters were gone after as well. But the names they were called didn't have anything to do with their sexuality. They didn't have anything to do with their body. No, they were called "power hungry" and "corrupt." Their actions were criticised more, they were "not accountable," they were playing political games and being manipulative.

Most of this happened on the Internet, because the decisions were in relation to an online forum that the SCSU was running at the time. The Executives were moderating it. At one point I was the forum admin, and the person who drove by my house was someone who I had banned.

There's a whole lot of stories behind this forum - when I was helping to run it, it was its third incarnation. It was taken down the previous two times (and ultimately, a third) because people couldn't play nice in the sandbox. And as I said, Lisa and I got a lot of shit on that forum whenever we said something, in ways that our male colleagues did not, and that was part of why we took the thing down. I was losing sleep over the harassment I was getting and it fucking sucked.

I really can't explain it, other than to rehash what is a given already: it's a lot of hatred for women, and fear of women in positions of power, and an inability to accept that we could possibly be right and they could possibly be wrong. According to people who know the guy behind all this, he was never a physical threat to me, just talk. They told me this months later. But how was I to know this while I'm lying awake in bed at 3 AM unable to sleep because I've just been screamed at for no good reason by a cowardly asshole who can't accept that he broke the rules? Way to discredit my feelings.

The other awful part was how hardly anyone stood up for me publicly. I got supportive e-mails and phone calls and talks over tea, but no one ever came out and said, STOP to his guy. And I don't know what to say about that, either. Maybe they were afraid of being targeted themselves. Maybe they didn't know what to do. I don't know.

But, I do know that I haven't let it stop me. Thankfully it was also never as bad for me as it was for people like Kathy Sierra, and hopefully it never will be. We deserve to be here just as much as anyone else.

Execs Behaving Badly

I just read this post by Erin Millar over at the Macleans Education section about RSU President-elect Nora Loreto's little freak-out on Bob Rae in the middle of an interview being conducted by Eyeopener editor Robyn Doolittle.

“She starts on about reducing tuition since it's expensive to live in Toronto,” Doolittle described in an email, “then goes off about the Millenium scholarship. Rae tries to answer briefly. She interupts him, talking louder and louder in typical [Canadian Federation of Students] scripted rants. [Rae and Loreto] speak overtop of each other for a bit and I finally bring it back. She interrupts again.”

Sounds strikingly familiar to two incidents with Chris Bentley earlier this year. Hmmm.

To be quite honest, I'm sick of people acting this way, screaming and yelling to try and get their way (and in the case of the SCSU, trying to destroy the entire sandbox since they broke the rules and can't play in it anymore). When did temper tantrums become effective means of communication for anyone over the age of two? Hell, at least in my family, they were never effective at that age, either. Interrupting interviews, press conferences, and meetings like this, in my opinion, only gets you limited results, such as the following:

1) A reputation as immature and unwilling to engage in meaningful dialogue. You know, like a civil discussion where you can present proposals and work with people to get something positive accomplished.
2) Your name on public figures' lists of People Not To Let Near Me, Ever. If anyone ever did that to me while I was trying to work, I'd consider it harassment, and at the very least blacklist that person, if I didn't press charges. Not being able to go near someone is something that tends to get in the way of that Meaningful Dialogue thing.
3) Reports like this telling everyone that you're a tantrum-throwing fool, thus exacerbating 1 and 2.

Seriously now. This is really just common courtesy, good manners, things like that, things we should've all learned in kindergarten, being thrown out the window by people who should damn well know better. Students are paying their representatives to advocate on behalf of their needs, and should expect these representatives to present themselves and behave in a professional manner. I hope they're angry when they read about this.

ETA: Here's the editorial from Doolittle discussing the incident, and another one with a U of T candidate.