I’m a little scared to write this. This topic is always really hard to discuss well. I drafted this comment about 3 times.
I really like clarity of you writing about your experiences. Thanks for taking the time and effort to do this
While I agree that I don’t expect women to write their experiences, I think is really valuable
What other ways can we try and get the same benefit
I think the fear of more rationalist EAs is kind of underrated in this discussion, so thanks for creating space for disagreement
Thank you for writing about your experiences. I think that a really healthy thing for our community here is empathy—that we spend the right amount of time empathising those involved, because how readily people come to mind affects our actions[1]. Most of what gets written is either news articles or apologies, so unless I ask my friends directly, I don’t often pieces written by women in language that’s easy for me to empathise with[2]. I’m sad these things happened to you, but thank you for taking the time and effort to write this. I think it’s much easier to not book that flirtatious meeting when I have read the outcome where someone is further exhausted by it happening.
Sometimes those who have faced situations are the experts. “[let’s not let] the burdens and costs fall overwhelmingly on those who have experienced it” is something I want to say, but I think those people are really well placed to make these arguments, so I am unsure. In particular, there is no way that I could have covered this with the nuance or grace you have. While we might not want women to spend effort doing this kind of explaining, they are, in my experience just a lot better at it[3]. I don’t know the answer here, but thank you for taking the effort to create value.
So what ways could others get the same benefits without the effort being placed on those who have had experiences?
Create a way for men to talk about experiences they aren’t sure about and for other men/women to provide feedback, perhaps having men’s groups in EA? Personally I find a lot of value in getting/receiving “training data” on how to be a kinder person, which I am sometimes not.
I’m glad to see the community health team trying to understand people’s views on the topic
Being aware of the costs this places on women talking about their experiences. I think if we can visualise that this is stressful and exhausting for someone the discussion that happens can be more gracious and flow better. This is something I’m trying to work on.
I really like @titotal’s article here, that provides some concrete experience working on this area from a community they were part of. I’d love to see more of this
I think that both parties in this current sexual norms discourse find this discussion exhausting. I do think the ability to safely push back is part of the trust required to change ones mind. I think you’ve modelled that superbly[4]. But I think it’s just so hard to do on a topic like this. I think it’s worth noting that some of those who are trying to disgree with, say, the Time and Bloomberg’s articles, are also scared of their lifestyles changing or of social opprobrium. This in turn makes all involved in the discussion tired and defensive.
Thanks for writing this, for being so clear and vulnerable and for saying on twitter that it was okay for people to disagree. I think you’ve been just hugely competent here in a way that’s underrated.
As an analagous story, I spent time reading first hand accounts of those who had lost money on FTX because I wanted them to loom much larger in my mind than those I was mainly empathising with—SBF and EAs involved. This sounds humble braggy it’s not. I just imagine I am more liable to ignore the suffering of those involved than is true to reality.
Feels like there is a counterargument like “well you should just listen to what women say” though A) I literally don’t think women’s views are the only ones that matter here, though they matter a lot and B) EA women do not speak with one voice
I am probably couching my views a bit here, so as to write something that I don’t think I will regret, but I feel a lot more comfortable discussing here than on some other articles.
Hey Nathan, thanks for sharing even when it’s hard. I’d be curious to hear more about “I think that both parties in this current sexual norms discourse find this discussion exhausting.” I think there are tremendously simple norms at play here, from Emma’s accounts of EAG in this article:
Don’t use Swapcard (or other clearly professional infrastructure) to try to get dates / flirt.
Don’t immediately start touching people until there’s a clearer context / consent for it. If you’re in doubt, either ask or don’t touch them.
If someone tells you to stop doing something, stop doing it.
There are definitely a few more norms that should be added to this list.
But I don’t think these are too hard or exhausting to think about or follow. And, of course, it goes without saying but I imagine it’s way more exhausting for sexual harrassment victims than for non-victims. Curious what I’m missing?
Don’t use Swapcard (or other clearly professional infrastructure) to try to get dates / flirt.
Whilst I agree this should be a norm, and it is often actually written in participant guides as a norm, it’s increasingly clear to me this is not a norm—and it’s definitely not one that’s been picked up by the 95% percentile
I’d like to clarify that “using the event app to request meetings for romantic or sexual reasons” is clearly listed as one of the behaviors that “don’t belong at EA Global or related events” in our Code of Conduct (also found on our FAQ and registration form). Agreeing to this is a condition of attending, we take violations seriously, and we are working with the community health team to investigate this incident.
If people are having a hard time understanding or following that rule, I wonder if establishing a bright-line collorary would help, something like: In addition, if you use the event app to obtain a meeting with someone, you may not—at any time between the day before the event starts and the second day after the event ends—suggest or propose a romantic or sexual encounter with that person.
The rationalization I could see people trying to use on the current wording is that it focuses on conscious intent when using the event app. They could tell themselves (or maybe even believe?) that they did not ask for the meeting for romantic/sexual reasons.
Yeah, we should probably do something about that. My guess is that Community Health is on this (EDIT: they are on this, sorry I missed that message!)
I imagine there’s a few things CH could do if they learn the identity of the offender—my guess is an appropriate reaction would be a warning or maybe just ban them from the next EAG, followed by permanently banning from EAG for repeated offending.
Surely directly violating the code of conduct you explicitly agreed to is an auto-ban for the next conference? I’d reserve warnings for things that are negative behaviour but not explicitly prohibited
l agree that I’m sure it’s exhausting for Emma and other women to talk about this. That Emma has done so so well is to her extreme credit. I think this is a really good piece.
But I guess Emma’s exhaustion comes from a fear of sharing something vulnerable or perhaps of not being taken seriously. Perhaps of the difficulty of writing on this forum in the first place.
My fear is different. It is of being disliked and becoming a pariah. I feel it in my spine and across my back. What if I misphrase this idea l’m playing with and everyone thinks I don’t take women’s sadness seriously?′
Perhaps one might respond “Maybe don’t play with ideas then?”
But then I don’t feel like I’m in a discussion, in this dicussion I feel like I’m being told to agree or shut up. I sense others feel it even more than I do.
I am not comparing the size of different emotions. Just talking about how I feel. I imagine those feelings make it harder for us to come to useful agreement here.
Thanks for sharing this, Nathan. As for me, I experience some anxiety that I might mess up posts or comments on this topic even though there are several factors that should make me less anxious than the average reader (e.g., I am mostly psuedonymous, I am not a career EA, my ideas are pretty mainstream-for-the-wider-culture, and I’m a professional writer). So I suspect that what you’re experiencing is pretty common and is valuable to share with others in the community.
I think it’s important for men of good faith to have a safe sandbox to think through some of these issues and learn how to be a better ally. In the area of sexual assault prevention, men who do not engage in problematic behaviors play an important part in many mitigations, like bystander intervention and combatting toxic masculinity. So, to the extent practicable, I think it is really important to avoid creating disincentives for men to engage on these issues—like fear of being seen as insensitive or worse due to a good-faith mistake.
But in the course of developing in this area, men will sometimes phrase things awkwardly and will sometimes say incorrect things. Maybe the Forum isn’t the best sandbox; I think I like the idea of a men’s group of sorts—I would favor having a trained facilitator involved in that. That way, the inevitable moments of awkard phrasing or error can be gently addressed without expecting women or non-binary people in the community to take on the emotional labor of addressing them.
To be clear, I definitely do think you take women’s sadness seriously.
Also I certainly hope nothing I’ve done has implied that you should agree or shut up—that’s not my intention at all.
I really do think benefit of the doubt is important. If you misphrase an idea and then concede that you misphrased it, I will understand that and not change my respect for you. I misphrase ideas all the time.
I mean I’m not sure I take women’s sadness seriously enough. That’s part of the whole complexity here. This isn’t just an abstract discussion for me and I guess many others, it’s a discussion about my actual actions and if I change my mind my behaviour changes, sometimes significantly (I definitely flirted with fewer people at EAG after parties as a result of this).
I know that’s not your intention, but I want to flag that that’s how it feels. I don’t think Emma could say anything that would get her cancelled here. Me? No I’m pretty sure I could easily earn scorn if I’m not careful.
As for misphrasing, I agree, though there is a discussion on twitter that suggests screenshots of the forum are fair game. I disagree—while public, this is a different kind of public than twitter. If screenshots are fair game then rephrasing or retracting is out the window.
I think your feelings are genuine, but I’m unfortunately not sure what to do about them besides what I’m already doing, which is try to be empathetic and welcoming.
~
there is a discussion on twitter that suggests screenshots of the forum are fair game. I disagree—while public, this is a different kind of public than twitter. If screenshots are fair game then rephrasing or retracting is out the window.
I had a conversation with someone that went like this:
Them—“Man, the EA Forum is like if all of EA had a water cooler to chat by”
Me, sarcastic—“Great, yeah, real smart of us to have a water cooler that is surrounded by journalists”
I think this gets at an important point that is pretty stifling / chilling, since the norms we’ve cultivated may not be upheld in other venues. I think it’s important to have these conversations in public so everyone can hear, but there are real large costs to that.
Another option: maybe have a moderated conversation in an offline space and then edit it before publishing?
I mean, in some sense I revel in this. If we can figure out how to do this discourse better than we can manage something that the rest of the internet can’t. Perhaps we can have men feel comfortable to admit failures in public without destroying them for it but taking responsibility and growing and staying part of the community. What a world.
I’m a little scared to write this. This topic is always really hard to discuss well. I drafted this comment about 3 times.
I really like clarity of you writing about your experiences. Thanks for taking the time and effort to do this
While I agree that I don’t expect women to write their experiences, I think is really valuable
What other ways can we try and get the same benefit
I think the fear of more rationalist EAs is kind of underrated in this discussion, so thanks for creating space for disagreement
Thank you for writing about your experiences. I think that a really healthy thing for our community here is empathy—that we spend the right amount of time empathising those involved, because how readily people come to mind affects our actions[1]. Most of what gets written is either news articles or apologies, so unless I ask my friends directly, I don’t often pieces written by women in language that’s easy for me to empathise with[2]. I’m sad these things happened to you, but thank you for taking the time and effort to write this. I think it’s much easier to not book that flirtatious meeting when I have read the outcome where someone is further exhausted by it happening.
Sometimes those who have faced situations are the experts. “[let’s not let] the burdens and costs fall overwhelmingly on those who have experienced it” is something I want to say, but I think those people are really well placed to make these arguments, so I am unsure. In particular, there is no way that I could have covered this with the nuance or grace you have. While we might not want women to spend effort doing this kind of explaining, they are, in my experience just a lot better at it[3]. I don’t know the answer here, but thank you for taking the effort to create value.
So what ways could others get the same benefits without the effort being placed on those who have had experiences?
Create a way for men to talk about experiences they aren’t sure about and for other men/women to provide feedback, perhaps having men’s groups in EA? Personally I find a lot of value in getting/receiving “training data” on how to be a kinder person, which I am sometimes not.
I’m glad to see the community health team trying to understand people’s views on the topic
Being aware of the costs this places on women talking about their experiences. I think if we can visualise that this is stressful and exhausting for someone the discussion that happens can be more gracious and flow better. This is something I’m trying to work on.
I really like @titotal’s article here, that provides some concrete experience working on this area from a community they were part of. I’d love to see more of this
I think that both parties in this current sexual norms discourse find this discussion exhausting. I do think the ability to safely push back is part of the trust required to change ones mind. I think you’ve modelled that superbly[4]. But I think it’s just so hard to do on a topic like this. I think it’s worth noting that some of those who are trying to disgree with, say, the Time and Bloomberg’s articles, are also scared of their lifestyles changing or of social opprobrium. This in turn makes all involved in the discussion tired and defensive.
Thanks for writing this, for being so clear and vulnerable and for saying on twitter that it was okay for people to disagree. I think you’ve been just hugely competent here in a way that’s underrated.
As an analagous story, I spent time reading first hand accounts of those who had lost money on FTX because I wanted them to loom much larger in my mind than those I was mainly empathising with—SBF and EAs involved. This sounds humble braggy it’s not. I just imagine I am more liable to ignore the suffering of those involved than is true to reality.
This feels like an ugly thing to say. But I think it’s true.
Feels like there is a counterargument like “well you should just listen to what women say” though A) I literally don’t think women’s views are the only ones that matter here, though they matter a lot and B) EA women do not speak with one voice
I am probably couching my views a bit here, so as to write something that I don’t think I will regret, but I feel a lot more comfortable discussing here than on some other articles.
Hey Nathan, thanks for sharing even when it’s hard. I’d be curious to hear more about “I think that both parties in this current sexual norms discourse find this discussion exhausting.” I think there are tremendously simple norms at play here, from Emma’s accounts of EAG in this article:
Don’t use Swapcard (or other clearly professional infrastructure) to try to get dates / flirt.
Don’t immediately start touching people until there’s a clearer context / consent for it. If you’re in doubt, either ask or don’t touch them.
If someone tells you to stop doing something, stop doing it.
There are definitely a few more norms that should be added to this list.
But I don’t think these are too hard or exhausting to think about or follow. And, of course, it goes without saying but I imagine it’s way more exhausting for sexual harrassment victims than for non-victims. Curious what I’m missing?
Whilst I agree this should be a norm, and it is often actually written in participant guides as a norm, it’s increasingly clear to me this is not a norm—and it’s definitely not one that’s been picked up by the 95% percentile
So unfortunately there’s a lot of work to do here
I’d like to clarify that “using the event app to request meetings for romantic or sexual reasons” is clearly listed as one of the behaviors that “don’t belong at EA Global or related events” in our Code of Conduct (also found on our FAQ and registration form). Agreeing to this is a condition of attending, we take violations seriously, and we are working with the community health team to investigate this incident.
If people are having a hard time understanding or following that rule, I wonder if establishing a bright-line collorary would help, something like: In addition, if you use the event app to obtain a meeting with someone, you may not—at any time between the day before the event starts and the second day after the event ends—suggest or propose a romantic or sexual encounter with that person.
The rationalization I could see people trying to use on the current wording is that it focuses on conscious intent when using the event app. They could tell themselves (or maybe even believe?) that they did not ask for the meeting for romantic/sexual reasons.
Yeah, we should probably do something about that. My guess is that Community Health is on this (EDIT: they are on this, sorry I missed that message!)
I imagine there’s a few things CH could do if they learn the identity of the offender—my guess is an appropriate reaction would be a warning or maybe just ban them from the next EAG, followed by permanently banning from EAG for repeated offending.
Surely directly violating the code of conduct you explicitly agreed to is an auto-ban for the next conference? I’d reserve warnings for things that are negative behaviour but not explicitly prohibited
And that should be stated upfront to more effectively deter violations.
Yeah I’m just going to retract my comment entirely because it looks like I misunderstood the situation.
l agree that I’m sure it’s exhausting for Emma and other women to talk about this. That Emma has done so so well is to her extreme credit. I think this is a really good piece.
But I guess Emma’s exhaustion comes from a fear of sharing something vulnerable or
perhaps of not being taken seriously. Perhaps of the difficulty of writing on this forum in the
first place.
My fear is different. It is of being disliked and becoming a pariah. I feel it in my spine and across my back. What if I misphrase this idea l’m playing with and everyone thinks I don’t take women’s sadness seriously?′
Perhaps one might respond “Maybe don’t play with ideas then?”
But then I don’t feel like I’m in a discussion, in this dicussion I feel like I’m being told to agree or shut up. I sense others feel it even more than I do.
I am not comparing the size of different emotions. Just talking about how I feel. I imagine those feelings make it harder for us to come to useful agreement here.
Thanks for sharing this, Nathan. As for me, I experience some anxiety that I might mess up posts or comments on this topic even though there are several factors that should make me less anxious than the average reader (e.g., I am mostly psuedonymous, I am not a career EA, my ideas are pretty mainstream-for-the-wider-culture, and I’m a professional writer). So I suspect that what you’re experiencing is pretty common and is valuable to share with others in the community.
I think it’s important for men of good faith to have a safe sandbox to think through some of these issues and learn how to be a better ally. In the area of sexual assault prevention, men who do not engage in problematic behaviors play an important part in many mitigations, like bystander intervention and combatting toxic masculinity. So, to the extent practicable, I think it is really important to avoid creating disincentives for men to engage on these issues—like fear of being seen as insensitive or worse due to a good-faith mistake.
But in the course of developing in this area, men will sometimes phrase things awkwardly and will sometimes say incorrect things. Maybe the Forum isn’t the best sandbox; I think I like the idea of a men’s group of sorts—I would favor having a trained facilitator involved in that. That way, the inevitable moments of awkard phrasing or error can be gently addressed without expecting women or non-binary people in the community to take on the emotional labor of addressing them.
To be clear, I definitely do think you take women’s sadness seriously.
Also I certainly hope nothing I’ve done has implied that you should agree or shut up—that’s not my intention at all.
I really do think benefit of the doubt is important. If you misphrase an idea and then concede that you misphrased it, I will understand that and not change my respect for you. I misphrase ideas all the time.
I mean I’m not sure I take women’s sadness seriously enough. That’s part of the whole complexity here. This isn’t just an abstract discussion for me and I guess many others, it’s a discussion about my actual actions and if I change my mind my behaviour changes, sometimes significantly (I definitely flirted with fewer people at EAG after parties as a result of this).
I know that’s not your intention, but I want to flag that that’s how it feels. I don’t think Emma could say anything that would get her cancelled here. Me? No I’m pretty sure I could easily earn scorn if I’m not careful.
As for misphrasing, I agree, though there is a discussion on twitter that suggests screenshots of the forum are fair game. I disagree—while public, this is a different kind of public than twitter. If screenshots are fair game then rephrasing or retracting is out the window.
I think your feelings are genuine, but I’m unfortunately not sure what to do about them besides what I’m already doing, which is try to be empathetic and welcoming.
~
I had a conversation with someone that went like this:
Them—“Man, the EA Forum is like if all of EA had a water cooler to chat by”
Me, sarcastic—“Great, yeah, real smart of us to have a water cooler that is surrounded by journalists”
I think this gets at an important point that is pretty stifling / chilling, since the norms we’ve cultivated may not be upheld in other venues. I think it’s important to have these conversations in public so everyone can hear, but there are real large costs to that.
Another option: maybe have a moderated conversation in an offline space and then edit it before publishing?
I mean, in some sense I revel in this. If we can figure out how to do this discourse better than we can manage something that the rest of the internet can’t. Perhaps we can have men feel comfortable to admit failures in public without destroying them for it but taking responsibility and growing and staying part of the community. What a world.
Yes, it may not be a good idea.