There is the wider community, and then there is the professional ecosystem. I would put forward the following: at the point where you are reading a detailed account of sexual harassment supported by two independent investigations and a settlement, it is very easy to write a supportive comment. Especially for those with approximately nothing to lose by offering support. The real test isn’t “when presented with a publicly documented case that has strong evidence, can you say something nice?” It’s “within the professional ecosystem, if instances of potential or substantiated sexual harassment occur in your own organisation, can you respond appropriately.” The second is much harder, but it is also the thing that actually matters for the health of the community. And then we can try to extend this to wider community-building (what happens within your city group? What happens at your events?), these things also matter a lot, but it can really vary by location, group, time, etc.
I hope this doesn’t come across as ungrateful! I’m eternally thankful for the kind words I received, and those words did help me a lot. But the thing that would have helped much more was if the incident had been handled correctly by the appropriate people. The fact that it was handled poorly by so many people for so long has to indicate a systemic issue. The question is then whether CEA is uniquely bad here, or whether their systemic issues echo something that is also true of other organisations in the space. In my personal experience, it really depends and it really varies. I do think CEA is weirdly/uniquely bad, for many reasons (including its convoluted org structure and the complicated process of dissolving EV over the past year or so, and its other unique histories), but I’d also guess some organisations have similar issues and know of some that have had worrying incidinces. Others don’t, to my knowledge and they are just very well run from what I can tell. There are also many exceptional organisations in this community! It all gets quite complicated, really.
In terms of off-line actions taken: Personally, I was very touched by the incredible response of some organisations to my post behind the scenes. While I can’t talk about them, there were some legitimately exceptional and above-and-beyond responses. So anyways, I think regardless of the forum’s debates, there are people who are very sad about this problem the community has (whether or not it is better or worse than baseline), and there are people putting in significant effort to improve things. There are a lot of people who care.
There is the wider community, and then there is the professional ecosystem. I would put forward the following: at the point where you are reading a detailed account of sexual harassment supported by two independent investigations and a settlement, it is very easy to write a supportive comment. Especially for those with approximately nothing to lose by offering support. The real test isn’t “when presented with a publicly documented case that has strong evidence, can you say something nice?” It’s “within the professional ecosystem, if instances of potential or substantiated sexual harassment occur in your own organisation, can you respond appropriately.” The second is much harder, but it is also the thing that actually matters for the health of the community. And then we can try to extend this to wider community-building (what happens within your city group? What happens at your events?), these things also matter a lot, but it can really vary by location, group, time, etc.
I hope this doesn’t come across as ungrateful! I’m eternally thankful for the kind words I received, and those words did help me a lot. But the thing that would have helped much more was if the incident had been handled correctly by the appropriate people. The fact that it was handled poorly by so many people for so long has to indicate a systemic issue. The question is then whether CEA is uniquely bad here, or whether their systemic issues echo something that is also true of other organisations in the space. In my personal experience, it really depends and it really varies. I do think CEA is weirdly/uniquely bad, for many reasons (including its convoluted org structure and the complicated process of dissolving EV over the past year or so, and its other unique histories), but I’d also guess some organisations have similar issues and know of some that have had worrying incidinces. Others don’t, to my knowledge and they are just very well run from what I can tell. There are also many exceptional organisations in this community! It all gets quite complicated, really.
In terms of off-line actions taken: Personally, I was very touched by the incredible response of some organisations to my post behind the scenes. While I can’t talk about them, there were some legitimately exceptional and above-and-beyond responses. So anyways, I think regardless of the forum’s debates, there are people who are very sad about this problem the community has (whether or not it is better or worse than baseline), and there are people putting in significant effort to improve things. There are a lot of people who care.
As I’ve said, I don’t intend to discuss individual cases in the comments to this piece.
You said, “The community response to that case was pretty unified,” which was my jumping off point.
You’re right. My bad. I retract it.