Wednesday 17 September 2014

Now I know

Hey, it's been a while. How are you doing?

Where do I start?

Must be important for Peter to bash the keyboard more than 140 times after a few years.


As someone who is heavily involved in the dev community with ScotRUG, ScotlandJS and IslayConf I am very aware of the safety concerns women have about attending events.

In the past a number of women have confided in me about the sexual abuse they have suffered, in every case by someone they knew and trusted. The grim reality is that we live in a very horrible world.

How can we prevent people being left with nightmares for the rest of their days?

To the best of my knowledge there have been no incidents at any of the events I am involved in, however the terrifying, stark reality of the situation is that this can happen anywhere!

How does all this start? It only takes a look and/or a noise to unnerve someone.


Take a quiet minute to walk through a scenario:

Think of how it must feel being in a place filled with mainly people who YOU don't know and then for someone to walk past YOU, all the while staring at YOU.

They Stop.

Look YOU up and down.

Then let out a loud (enough), lingering, seedy 'MmmmmmMMMMmm'.


Put yourself in that position. How does it make you feel?


Why am I writing this up?

Awareness

The scenario described above is exactly what happened to my 8 YEAR OLD SON at the weekend at an event.
Fortunately he was completely oblivious.

I stood, rooted, in complete disbelief.

Why would anyone do that?
Why would they do it to a child?
Far less when both his parents are stood next to him.
This does not make any sense.

I turned to my partner. 'Who was that directed at? You or...' and I nodded at the wee fella not to draw his attention to it. Doubting myself as it simply could not have happened.

It was confirmed.

When I turned back the person in question had vanished from sight.
There is no doubt as to what he meant.

Unfortunately I never caught sight of this person again during the event that night or the following day much as I searched.

To be clear, nobody else was near us. My family and I had gathered round a standing table in a corner. It could not have possibly been directed at anyone else.

We know the world is full of horrible people and we assume/hope they are nowhere near us or loved ones. Unfortunately if there is a large enough group then statistically speaking they will be.

Clearly this isn't a problem restricted to tech events and is the world we live in and I have no idea how to solve this?

The safety of my family is my highest priority. Naively, I had no hesitation in taking them to an event knowing I'd be with them and know plenty of people in attendance. I was keen to introduce them to friends I have made through the community.

We have learnt a very harsh lesson.

To organisers of events, I would like you to be in no doubt the problem of safety is bigger than you previously though.

Yes, the kids are targets too!

Lena Reinhard mentioned many great things during her talk, however a quote from Jeoseph Ratz kept ringing in my head.
"If the culture is decaying...the options and opportunities open to a group's members will shrink."

This applies to society and our events.

Currently I am not comfortable with gathering a large number of people together. Why would I goto the effort of putting on events when my family are not safe to attend or help out?

At the same time why should I let these people win?

To all the women who have suffered even a look or an inappropriate comment, now I know, what a gut wrenching, WTF and terrifying feeling that can give you.