[sudo-discuss] Fwd: Re: Fwd: [Noisebridge-discuss] Consensus on Barring Shawn Landden from the Noisebridge space and community (Was Re: On Asking People To Leave (Was Re: Shawn L. ))

[netdiva]

I think while its apparent that a discussion on issues of privilege, who is sheltered from what types of harm by existing social structures, and related topics are beyond the reach of this discussion, some of the statements i'm seeing in this sound like garden variety victim blaming. If that many people had been that overwhelmed by him, there wouldnt be criminal charges on record.

On 3/23/2013 8:42 PM, Naomi Most wrote:
> Yeah... I'm going to chime in here to perhaps add some perspective as
> to why it did take so long.
>
> Shawn seemed like a pretty decent guy.  I thought he was a little
> skeezy (he was always heaping more attention on the ladies at
> Noisebridge than was warranted by normal dictates of conversation /
> situation) ...
>
> ...but I just figured "slut", not
> multiple-misdemeanors-warrant-for-his-arrest-etc.
>
> And I'm (probably) a lot more socially aware than most hackers. I'm
> also pretty fearless for someone of my gender.
>
> What that means is that someone like Shawn instinctively goes after
> women full of fear and self-doubt, who don't see his manipulation
> coming.
>
> So while people like me, who interacted with Shawn on a very regular
> basis (he was there almost every afternoon I happened to be there),
> figured, "hm okay, nice enough guy, here a lot, whatever..."  he was
> able to throw down some major bullshit in other social territories.
>
> When you've got victims being fearful and unconfident people in the
> first place, it's extremely unlikely they will come forward about
> whatever happened to them.
>
> And in this case, the victims all (reportedly) said, when they were
> approached about his actions, "I thought I was the only one!"  The
> subtext of a declaration like that is, "I thought there was something
> wrong with me, so I didn't want to tell anyone."
>
> ...
>
> I hope that helps.
>
> The huge question Noisebridge is presently dancing around right now
> is, how many of our current cultural disturbances are based on
> Noisebridge being broken, and how many are basically inevitable
> outgrowths of NB having grown to 10 x Dunbar's Number in community
> size?
>
> My money's on situations like Shawn L. coming up again, and not
> because NB is broken, but because these are the problems of our time.
>
> The positive side of that is, maybe, despite these being hard problems
> that nobody has yet been able to solve, hackerspaces can figure this
> out. And then we'd win Civilization!
>
> --Naomi
>
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 7:18 PM, rachel lyra hospodar
> <rachelyra at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Feel free to follow through on the ideas you have posted here and report
>> back to the group.
>>
>> If you believe that people acting on their own agency haven't gone far
>> enough it would be more productive (and considerate of mitigating factors,
>> such as the social shitstorms heaped on women who pursue harassment
>> remediation within the tech community) to go for what you see as the next
>> step, rather than criticizing the tactics chosen.
>>
>> I disagree with some of what you have stated (re permanent demonization of
>> bad actors) but you are welcome to that opinion.
>>
>> R.