I agree that this is really important. When I started working at CEA in 2015, one of the main things my predecessor had been working on was developing anti-harassment practices for CEAâs conferences, and I continued her work. The conference materials from Geek Feminism were helpful to us in developing our practices.
The place where all EAG and EAGx attendees agree to the standards is the code of conduct, which must be acknowledged when registering for an event. The text on the registration form for the upcoming EAG Bay Area is:
At EA Global and social events associated with EA Global, you agree to:
Respect the boundaries of other participants.
Look out for one another and try to help if you can.
Adhere to national and local health and safety regulations, as well as any additional policies we institute for EA Global.
This is a professional learning and networking event. These behaviors donât belong at EA Global or related events:
Unwanted sexual attention, or sexual harassment of any kind.
Using the event app to request meetings for romantic or sexual reasons.
Offensive, disruptive, or discriminatory actions or communication.
We understand that human interaction is complex. If you feel able, please give each other the benefit of explaining behavior you find unwelcome or offensive.
If youâre asked to stop a behavior thatâs causing a problem for someone, we expect you to stop immediately.
By submitting this form, you confirm that you will adhere to this Code of Conduct, which applies at the conference and all related social events.
You can contact us at hello@eaglobal.org if you have any questions.
This text wasnât on our website, but weâve added it to our FAQ page now. Thanks for suggesting this! Itâs also referenced in the attendee guides, for example this text from the EAG DC guide: âHarassment, bullying, or unwanted romantic/âsexual attention is unacceptable at our events, and we encourage you to report any of this behavior to us.â
All our conferences have at least one community contact person, whose role is to be available for personal or interpersonal problems that come up. When a problem is raised during a conference, theyâre there to deal with it as soon as possible. Sometimes attendees contact us after an event with something theyâve been mulling over.
Iâve often been one of the contact people. My sense is that pre-specified criteria for what constitutes something like âoffensive actionsâ or âunwanted sexual attentionâ and what the response should be isnât realistic or a good idea. A lot of factors play into what constitutes a problem â words, body language, setting (the career fair vs. an afterparty vs. a deserted street outside the venue at night), power and status differences between the people, etc. Responses should be shaped by the wishes of the person who experienced the problem â people have different preferences about how much action they want us to take, whether they want us to act immediately or give them time to think over the options, etc.
Besides the community contact people at events, attendees can also report problems anonymously on the event survey, or on the community health teamâs anonymous contact form.
My sense is that pre-specified criteria for what constitutes something like âoffensive actionsâ or âunwanted sexual attentionâ and what the response should be isnât realistic or a good idea. A lot of factors play into what constitutes a problem â words, body language, setting (the career fair vs. an afterparty vs. a deserted street outside the venue at night), power and status differences between the people, etc.
This makes sense to me + and I agree RE: other factors that can change whether something is a problem or not. I think I was too certain in my wording of the original bullet point, and can see where it could be harmful if applied too broadly. I guess my prior here is that most people are not intentionally wanting to cause harm, but do so because of different expectations or communication norms or social abilities. If true, I wonder whether some clear examples that are generally seen to be controversially unwanted by those on the receiving end can help reduce the frequency of harmful actionsâit might be helpful in getting folks on the same page in terms of what a lower bound for acceptable behaviour in this context looks like.
For example, someone might not consider an particular action âsexual harassmentâ, but 80% of women on the receiving end might find it uncomfortable and would prefer it if it didnât happen. In some of these cases itâs probably valuable for there to be a norm that such actions just shouldnât happen. Agreeing to the text as stated doesnât do much to reduce these âmisunderstandingsâ. Giving some examples (while being clear that you can report incidents that donât fit these examples) also mean that if someone then does [inappropriate action], that folks donât really have the excuse of âsorry I didnât think this was inappropriateâ /â âdidnât consider this sexual harassment, it was just a harmless jokeâ. It also has fairly little downside risk, because if there was some hyper-specific context where it was seen to be appropriate by the receiving party even if it fit an example given, they just simply wonât report it. Iâm uncertain about this though, since I donât have a clear sense of what the distribution of harm and cases look like.
Responses should be shaped by the wishes of the person who experienced the problem â people have different preferences about how much action they want us to take, whether they want us to act immediately or give them time to think over the options, etc.
Yeah, totally agree with this, hence âpotentialâ action, though I think I wasnât clear enough here.
I am interested in your thoughts whether data collection at EAGs have been effective or useful for capturing these kinds of incidents, how the community health team has responded, whether any of this is share-able in a deanonymised way? Also, does the community health team expect to continue sharing summaries similar to what you published in this appendix going forwards? I found this quite useful personally in getting a sense of how the community health team operates and think itâs somewhat useful for trust-building and accountability.
I am interested in your thoughts whether data collection at EAGs have been effective or useful for capturing these kinds of incidents, how the community health team has responded, whether any of this is share-able in a deanonymised way?
Learning about what kind of problems people have experienced has led us to changes like asking attendees not to use Swapcard for dating purposes.
does the community health team expect to continue sharing summaries similar to what you published in this appendix going forwards? I found this quite useful personally in getting a sense of how the community health team operates and think itâs somewhat useful for trust-building and accountability.
Iâm glad you found it useful! Getting the right level of anonymity with that list was tricky, so I could imagine doing it at some interval but not every year.
I agree that this is really important. When I started working at CEA in 2015, one of the main things my predecessor had been working on was developing anti-harassment practices for CEAâs conferences, and I continued her work. The conference materials from Geek Feminism were helpful to us in developing our practices.
The place where all EAG and EAGx attendees agree to the standards is the code of conduct, which must be acknowledged when registering for an event. The text on the registration form for the upcoming EAG Bay Area is:
At EA Global and social events associated with EA Global, you agree to:
Respect the boundaries of other participants.
Look out for one another and try to help if you can.
Adhere to national and local health and safety regulations, as well as any additional policies we institute for EA Global.
This is a professional learning and networking event. These behaviors donât belong at EA Global or related events:
Unwanted sexual attention, or sexual harassment of any kind.
Using the event app to request meetings for romantic or sexual reasons.
Offensive, disruptive, or discriminatory actions or communication.
We understand that human interaction is complex. If you feel able, please give each other the benefit of explaining behavior you find unwelcome or offensive.
If youâre asked to stop a behavior thatâs causing a problem for someone, we expect you to stop immediately.
By submitting this form, you confirm that you will adhere to this Code of Conduct, which applies at the conference and all related social events.
You can contact us at hello@eaglobal.org if you have any questions.
This text wasnât on our website, but weâve added it to our FAQ page now. Thanks for suggesting this! Itâs also referenced in the attendee guides, for example this text from the EAG DC guide: âHarassment, bullying, or unwanted romantic/âsexual attention is unacceptable at our events, and we encourage you to report any of this behavior to us.â
All our conferences have at least one community contact person, whose role is to be available for personal or interpersonal problems that come up. When a problem is raised during a conference, theyâre there to deal with it as soon as possible. Sometimes attendees contact us after an event with something theyâve been mulling over.
Iâve often been one of the contact people. My sense is that pre-specified criteria for what constitutes something like âoffensive actionsâ or âunwanted sexual attentionâ and what the response should be isnât realistic or a good idea. A lot of factors play into what constitutes a problem â words, body language, setting (the career fair vs. an afterparty vs. a deserted street outside the venue at night), power and status differences between the people, etc. Responses should be shaped by the wishes of the person who experienced the problem â people have different preferences about how much action they want us to take, whether they want us to act immediately or give them time to think over the options, etc.
Besides the community contact people at events, attendees can also report problems anonymously on the event survey, or on the community health teamâs anonymous contact form.
Thanks for the response and clarification!
This makes sense to me + and I agree RE: other factors that can change whether something is a problem or not. I think I was too certain in my wording of the original bullet point, and can see where it could be harmful if applied too broadly. I guess my prior here is that most people are not intentionally wanting to cause harm, but do so because of different expectations or communication norms or social abilities. If true, I wonder whether some clear examples that are generally seen to be controversially unwanted by those on the receiving end can help reduce the frequency of harmful actionsâit might be helpful in getting folks on the same page in terms of what a lower bound for acceptable behaviour in this context looks like.
For example, someone might not consider an particular action âsexual harassmentâ, but 80% of women on the receiving end might find it uncomfortable and would prefer it if it didnât happen. In some of these cases itâs probably valuable for there to be a norm that such actions just shouldnât happen. Agreeing to the text as stated doesnât do much to reduce these âmisunderstandingsâ. Giving some examples (while being clear that you can report incidents that donât fit these examples) also mean that if someone then does [inappropriate action], that folks donât really have the excuse of âsorry I didnât think this was inappropriateâ /â âdidnât consider this sexual harassment, it was just a harmless jokeâ. It also has fairly little downside risk, because if there was some hyper-specific context where it was seen to be appropriate by the receiving party even if it fit an example given, they just simply wonât report it. Iâm uncertain about this though, since I donât have a clear sense of what the distribution of harm and cases look like.
Yeah, totally agree with this, hence âpotentialâ action, though I think I wasnât clear enough here.
I am interested in your thoughts whether data collection at EAGs have been effective or useful for capturing these kinds of incidents, how the community health team has responded, whether any of this is share-able in a deanonymised way? Also, does the community health team expect to continue sharing summaries similar to what you published in this appendix going forwards? I found this quite useful personally in getting a sense of how the community health team operates and think itâs somewhat useful for trust-building and accountability.
Learning about what kind of problems people have experienced has led us to changes like asking attendees not to use Swapcard for dating purposes.
Iâm glad you found it useful! Getting the right level of anonymity with that list was tricky, so I could imagine doing it at some interval but not every year.