Showing posts with label #MeToo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #MeToo. Show all posts

Sunday, February 18, 2018

#MeToo

The ever-efficient KAK already grabbed this cover for the sidebar, but I thought I'd officially share here. THE SNOWS OF WINDROVEN, originally in the holiday anthology AMID THE WINTER SNOW, will be out March 12! If you didn't grab the anthology - or if you did, but want the standalone, too - you can preorder now. It's the same story, either way - the continuation of Amy and Ash's rocky romance in THE TEARS OF THE ROSE, and fitting in the timeline between THE EDGE OF THE BLADE and THE SHIFT OF THE TIDE.

This week at the SFF Seven is a topic of our choice - whatever is on our minds. So, I've decided to tell a story I haven't publicly told before. There's been a lot of conversation in publishing this last month about sexual harassment in the industry, largely springing from this article in the School Library Journal and the followup survey by Anne Ursu.

I spent some time yesterday catching up on the source materials - though I'd been reading lots of the ensuing conversations and fallout. Which included reading the comments, something I normally protect myself from but felt I should survey this time.

In talking with a friend about it, I said something about a parallel of when it happened to me. She immediately replied that she had no idea it happened to me.

Of course she didn't, because I never went public. There were good reasons for that, which I'll share.

It happened to me at a convention, only a few years ago. I was already an established author, with awards and a good record, bright future. My agent parked me with a male editor we hoped to dazzle. We were in the bar, with a bunch of people, drinking. And he started touching me. Knee, thigh, arm. And he wanted to talk about my writing! Oh, but he *really* wanted to know about the erotic stuff. By the third time he asked about my erotic writing, while touching my bare knee yet again, I became profoundly uncomfortable.

And I didn't know what to do.

For those of you who know me, that's pretty unusual. I'm not a shy person. In fact, "confident" is a word people often pick first to describe me. I have good boundaries and I'm firm and decisive in guarding them. I am not shy or at all hesitant to speak my mind.

But, sitting there in that bar, surrounded by people I knew - none of whom noticed anything - I felt suddenly powerless. Because this guy could influence my career. My agent wanted me to please this editor, not piss him off - though my agent had disappeared and was nowhere in sight.

For the first time in my entire life - at a fairly ripe middle age - I understood how this kind of thing happens.

I got up to go to the Ladies Room. On my way back I whispered in the ear of a female agent friend. I simply told her I needed to be extracted. Thirty seconds after I sat down, she got up, swept over and said, "Oh, I'm so sorry to interrupt your meeting, Jeffe, but I just found out [important person] is unexpectedly free - can you come meet her?"

And that was that.

I wanted to leave it at that, but my agent argued with me to report it, at least to the editor's boss. My agent offered to handle it and I accepted. The boss was livid, spoke to the editor. Days later the editor offered an apology via my agent, along with the news that he was on performance improvement and would no longer be drinking at conferences.

That satisfied me. I was ultimately glad we handled it that way, because - as my agent argued and convinced me - other female writers in that position would not necessarily have an agent friend nearby to rescue her. Or might not have the same confidence in her writing and career. It was important that I take action, not for myself, but so it wouldn't happen to someone else.

Because that's something I see a lot. Many guys who get pointed at are shocked that anyone saw them that way. Myke Cole was pointed to in the comments of that SLJ article and took a long, hard look at his behavior. I respect him for posting about it and taking decisive action to correct himself. I like to think that editor did, too.

This is why #metoo is important - because we have to bring these behaviors into the open, or they won't change. In reading those comments, I see a lot of people casting accusations of lying or attention-grabbing. I didn't go public with what happened to me because I didn't want to be that year's scandal at the conference. The conference organizers never knew, because we handled another way.

That's fine, because I had the personal power to handle it, and the strong backing of my agency. Not everyone has that. Not everyone has agent friends who happen to be sitting nearby and who can respond without question with such grace and effectiveness.

(That, by the way, is why I argue that harassment policies should include a provision for reporting to an industry friend to intervene. Firmly telling the person to stop never felt like an option for me, because of the power imbalance. Which is why it happened in the first place.)

One thing I'm leaving out is how shaken I felt at the time. With the buffer of years, I'm no longer bothered. But at the time, I wondered at how badly I'd handled that. I really felt I should have been able to tell him to knock it off. It was very instructive for me to be more compassionate when others tell their stories about feeling powerless in a situation.

I also thinks this speaks to the power of networks, friendships, and collegiality. We can all watch out for each other. And if you ever need to be extracted, just whisper in my ear.


Friday, October 20, 2017

Trigger Warnings and Owning Recovery

If you're recovering from sexual assault, it's been a rough couple of weeks. Again. This week saw the #MeToo hashtag sweep social media. There were no trigger warnings. And yes, people were triggered - people who are in the midst of attempting to recover their sense of safety and their sense f of self. Seeing all the #MeToo hashtags brought their trauma roaring back at them. Some were women. Some were men. Some were nonbinary. It didn't matter. Their only option for protecting themselves was to swear off social media for the week and pray the rest of us moved on in that time. As we usually do. If these folks are lucky, they have someone they can trust who can tell them when it's safe to tread the social media water once more. If they aren't lucky, they have to dip a toe in the water to see if Jaws is still down there waiting to chomp bits off of them.

Bringing awareness to the depth and breadth of the sexual assault issue in this society is a worthy goal. The problem is the cost of that awareness is blood squeezed from the already broken bodies and psyches of those abused in the first place. Do I believe that those of us who've been assaulted regain our power when we can stand up and say 'hey, this is a thing?' Yes. But it isn't my call to make. I don't get to drag someone else healing in their own time, in their own way through a simple hashtag. I guess I'm saying that a few people are realizing that every female, a few males and a few nonbinary folks they know have been assaulted. Yay. More eyes on the issue. I'm also saying that maybe there should have been a trigger warning somewhere.

On the other hand.

Most of you know I've had my issues with depression - the kind of depression that bottoms out in suicidal ideation. Translated: I get depressed and stare Death in the eye. He's not a bad dude. He does promise you won't have to feel any more and that can be mighty damned attractive. However. I have a firm grip on what we say to Death. So I sought treatment. It worked. It worked well enough that I no longer require treatment.

However. I know my limits and I own them. It's on me to take care of my mental health all day every day. I do not require or ask for trigger warnings. My issues are my issues and it's on me to handle them the same way I handle food triggers for migraines. If I don't want to wind up in an ER, I read ingredients and quiz the wait staff. Peanuts anywhere near this dish? Cheese? How about wheat? No? Woot! I get to eat! Mental health gets handled the same way. Post a graphic animal or child abuse video to my social media feed and get your ass blocked. My health. My responsibility.

So. Am I going to post trigger warnings to my fiction? Probably not. Simply because there are too many triggers out there in the world and I cannot possibly encompass them all. I will always alert readers to graphic sex scenes so parents can decide who gets to read what. I will also do my damnedest in the book descriptions to make it clear EXACTLY what kind of read you're going to get. Because let's be real. If you're writing trying to purposefully ambush readers with awful, you aren't edgy. You aren't an artist. You're just an asshole.