Tag: Internet Librarian

Librarians, Gender, and Tech: Moving the Conversation Forward

"Woman teaching geometry" Illustration at the beginning of a medieval translation of Euclid's Elements (c. 1310 AD) via Wikipedia CC.
“Woman teaching geometry”
Illustration at the beginning of a medieval translation of Euclid’s Elements (c. 1310 AD) via Wikipedia CC.

Dear Internet,
Nearly a year ago, there was a small explosion over a post I had written on why men should not write about gender and technology, which stemmed from conversations that were being held simultaneously over several similar mailing lists and blog posts.  At the end of the post, I had proposed in the following to help keep the conversation flowing:

  • Donate to the Ada Intiative.
  • Start/chair an interest group for women in technology in LITA, the technology arm of ALA
  • Start a GeekGirl Dinner in your area.
  • Use Meetup.com to start/find groups in your interests (there were loads of Women in Technology interest groups on MeetUp).
  • Depending on where you work, what you do; start off-site initiative for women to have a hack-a-thon
  • Find local hackerspace communities to start a women’s initiative
  • Use professional conferences to propose panels/groups/discussions to get more people aware but also to pay it forward
  • Create a women in tech book club at local bar/coffee house
  • Donate time to do mentoring to high school and middle school girls
  • Donate to or become a sponsor for a nearby women’s conference, like GeekGirlCon

In keeping with the spirit of my suggestions, this week I presented with a load of great people on gender, technology, and libraries at Internet Librarian.
Twenty four hours later, I was publicly sexually harassed. Like I said, the irony was not lost on me.
Now that the conference is over, I am home and I have had a few days to simmer on the events of the week, I’ve decided to take up the mantel permanently on the topic. My reasoning for this is layered, but primary cause is I don’t think we’re doing enough in the profession to bring this to the forefront of our mind. I only tend to write about it when something has happened either to me or I’ve become impassioned for another and my opinion must be heard! I’ve noticed that others seem to act the same way, thus the discussion tends to dip and rise depending on what is getting peoples ganders up at the moment.
I was curious as to how others are discussing it within the profession, so here are a few examples of how we’re not addressing this topic:

  • A search of “sexual harassment” in American Libraries turns up only 23results, most on opinions on events occurring in the late ’90s and on public court cases
  • A search of “gender technology” in American LIbraries Magazine turns up 27 results, much on the concentration on gender in the classroom
  • ITAL, the journal for LITA, has no results on “sexual harassment,” and two results on “gender,” one of which about the financial disparity between men and women and discussion on the roles of women in technology, which is low, in a profession where the role of women is high
  • Code4Lib Journal has no mention of “sexual harassment” in its journal, and “gender” brings up conference reports on forums on inclusion and diversity. To be fair, a lot of the big discussions happen on their mailing list, but that doesn’t entirely erase the fact there is no discussion happening in their journal
  • As far as I can find, until now, there is no known topic or panel of women, technology, or gender that have taken place on local or national forums in terms of panels, posters, or discussions at conferences
  • There was no known Code of Conduct at ALA Annual 2013, or any other ALA related conference. When I asked and asked, I was constantly told this was a “topic of discussion” stretching back for many years but no one was actively working on it because it was assumed it was not needed. Thanks to Andromeda Yelton, who rocks my little socks, and others who helped get this out of the discussion period and into the actual tangible thing. Hopefully this will be taken up by other arms of ALA for their future conferences.

Then there is always the other side of sexual harassment — the side of men being harassed by women. I had a conversation with a male librarian while at Internet Librarian who regaled me of stories of sexual harassment occurring towards him while at conferences, meetings, and the like. Now what is interesting is social convention states that as a male, he’s supposed to not only take it, but be flattered by the attention. Why are we also not discussing this?
Another intriguing thing about this topic is the fact the discussion seems to be happening all over and around librarianship, via national outlets and personal blogs, but not within the profession itself. Some good examples of these conversations that give a lot of food for thought are:

Now some of the above writers are librarians, others are not, so when I say “within the profession itself,” I explicitly mean within professional journals, organizations, and conferences.
Now this post is meandering all over the place, but lets add more on what to do to keep the conversation going:

  • Started near the end of 2012, I formed LibTechWomen with Becky Yoose, Bohyun Kim,  Andromeda Yelton, and many other awesome people as a way to create a safe space for women and their allies to talk about these and every other issue under the sun. You can find us, mainly, via Facebook, Twitter as @libtechwomen and #libtechwomen, and GoogleGroups.
  • A national summit, Leadership-Technology-Gender, is happening at the end of Electronic Resources & Libraries conference in March, 2014. Great start, but we need to keep this at  local level as well
  • Start doing panels, proposals, forums, Q&As at at library related conferences, local and specialized
  • Use this topic as a launch pad for discussion in your classes. (Thanks, Nick!)
  • Start implementing a Codes of Conduct1 at your conferences, meetings, and other large gatherings
  • Start writing on this topic on a regular basis both in personal blogs AND professional journals, most specifically NOT just when something happens
  • Push this topic on Twitter using #libtechgender

Over on my professional site, I’ve started to curate all of this into a page of its own. You can track the updates by subscribing to the tag here when I write a new article or checking the page manually or subscribing to the page’s RSS feed to get updates when the page itself is updated.
As always, I have obviously not covered everything so if you have an article, link to an already happened or upcoming panel, or whatever, please feel free to drop a comment below or contact me.
I also encourage discussion on this topic from all perspectives, as more voices the better, whether here, your own blog, or on Twitter using #libtechgender. But please keep it civil.
xoxo,
Lisa

1. I’m going to be writing more on this topic at a later date, as I think this is just as important as talking about sexual harassment and women in library technology

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2012

Live Action Sexual Harassment

Dear Internet,
It started out innocently enough.
I was standing outside of a karaoke bar with some friends, when an obviously drunk guy invades my personal space, got into my face and said, “Can I ask you a question?” I said sure and he asked how I liked his football jersey. I replied I had no comment on it. He said he liked my shirt and wanted to know if I would take it off for him. I said no. He said how much would it take for me to take it off. I replied a million dollars. He said he didn’t have that much and wouldn’t I just want to take it off for him? Again I said no, and as I was speaking started inching closer to a male friend of mine who was near me. A girlfriend who was also with me interjected and said I wouldn’t have anything to wear if I took off my shirt. Drunk guy gestured to his jersey and said I could have his jersey in trade if I wanted. I again replied in the negative while by this time, standing so close to my male friend I could feel the fabric of his clothes on my bare arms. Mr. Drunk got distracted for a brief moment and I took this as my opportunity to get the fuck inside. Bouncers figured out what was going on and started steering the guy into a waiting cab.
This all took place under the span of five minutes. Probably even less.
I’m in California for a conference; presenting on sexual harassment with the emphasis on being a woman in technology, a primarily male dominated profession. The irony of the exchange above is not lost on me.
The rest of the evening took a dark turn in my head. I’ve been in a really great space for a few weeks now and I’ve been enjoying this conference immensely. While this is the first conference I’ve attended in a long time solo, meaning I had no obvious conference buddy or TheHusband with me, I’ve not been alone. I’m seeing a lot of old friends while meeting new. I am pissed that out of all the obvious places for this could have happened, it had to be here.
Getting sexually harassed is not a new thing to me and I would argue it’s not a new thing for any woman. But in that scant amount of time, this jerkoffs attitude towards me stripped me emotionally naked and for that I am angry. I was made to feel like an object of someone’s whim, someone who could have hurt me, someone who felt I could have been bought for a few dollars. Someone who took away my power as a person.
In the beginning of the evening, the hours had flown by but now, the rest of the evening slowed to a crawl. Several of us were game on closing the bar down but all I wanted was to get back to my hotel room and protect myself. I tried to shake off the fact perhaps I was overreacting – I continued with the facade of happy go lucky: Guinness was still consumed, I still sang at karaoke, and to the world it seemed like nothing had happened but internally, I no longer felt like me but a piece of meat being appraised, valued, and reappraised again. To Mr. Drunk, who will have forgotten it by the morning, it was probably nothing. He was drunk. He didn’t mean it. He was not that type of person. He’s a married man.
Excuses will be made, by him. By me.
Once I made it safely to my room, I stripped down and took the hottest shower possible. I scrubbed myself several times over and brushed my teeth so hard, my gums were almost bleeding. When I get back to Michigan, I’ll probably throw the shirt away.
Being overly self-aware, this stripping of power by Mr. Drunk has accelerated the feeling of fragility. I’m clawing to not feel anxious, to not feel exposed, to not feel sub-human. He obviously doesn’t know my story – because why would he? I was just a random woman who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. But I know my back story, I know how I struggle with my own emotional boundaries, and all of the protection I have worked so hard has now been weakened, my borders are compromised. I start to question how even my most benign of clothing choices became the object of his attention, his needs, his wants.
Some are going to read this and think,”What’s the big fucking deal? You were at a bar, some drunk asshole was a dick, you weren’t hurt physically. Get over it.” But that’s my fucking point, it IS a big deal. This has NOT been the only instance of sexual harassment that’s happened since I’ve been here. Shortly after I presented on my panel, I was out with a group of people, many who were at my panel. Without fucking fail, several of those in our group spent longer than necessary staring at my rack. Yes, I do have a nice rack. It’s pretty apparent I have a nice rack. But when I’m sitting there having a conversation with you and I’m watching your eyes flick from my tits to my face and back again CONSTANTLY as we’re talking; when it becomes clear you’re not really paying attention to “me” but the aforementioned nice rack, then any respect I’ve ever had happened for you has been stripped.
As it was, so it will be; this will be fodder for future panels, for examples and illustration purposes. The cycle continues.
xoxo,
Lisa

Of broken bricks and forgotten combs

 

My view of the ocean from the Monterey Marriott.

Dear Internet,
Despite all the scrupulous packing (and re-packing) and organizing, I discovered upon my arrival in Monterrey I had forgotten a comb. Now granted my hair is short and doesn’t really need a good brushing, but as the gods willed, if you forget something that may not have been that big of deal now it becomes a massive big deal later. Thankfully I was able to make my way to Walgreens before my world collapsed from 3″ strands of hair not being properly sorted out, which could have proved disasterous.
I’m in Monterrey, sitting in a Starbucks around the corner from my hotel on my one day off this week. Tomorrow kicks off the conference in full gear, and I wanted this day to be one of me time and relaxation as I knew as the week wore on, the conference would wear me down. While my energy levels have reappeared since I came off the lithium, I’m more conscious of personal space and needing to escape into my own world for awhile before any major social interactions are going to occur, even more importantly when there are large groups of people I do not know.
I arrived in Monterey after a very full day of traveling, which started at 8AM EDT and ended at 5PM PDT, which mainly included my hopscotching my way around the US.  As I was checking in and getting sorted, I ran into one the panelists who will be presenting with me, and his partner, both whom graciously invited me out to dinner.  After the hopscotching around various airports, I was delighted to get a chance to get a bit of a stretch around the area before heading to bed. We had dinner on the wharf and I was so determined to have my bit of vodka and Guinness, which I made happen, before anything else occurred. By the time the evening wore down, combined with jet lag, travel lag, and other wordly lags, I was hoping to fall asleep when I got back to the hotel and make it a fairly early night.
But nothing is ever really that easy as the fates again decided I had not sacrificed the correct amount of virgins to satiate them as not only was I not able to fall asleep at a reasonable hour, I was wide eye awake starting at 7AM local time despite the alcohol consumed the night before and coupled with jet lag meant I was running on 5-6 hours of sleep.
I laid in bed most of the morning, pondering what I was going to do for the day while watching terrible reality television that I seem to only care about when I’m not at home. I caught  an episode of SECRET PRINCES, which turned out to be the pilot of the second season. Later, I gleefully regaled my breakfast companions the background stories of four unlucky in love royals who came to America, Austin specifically, to find love while undercover from their true identities. The whole show is a bit daft, of course, but there is some kind of glee about these bumbling fish out of water experiences that I can view like Margaret Mead, except all virtual and not with binoculars in the grass.
The rest of the day has been lazy, walking around the downtown core and grabbing coffee to keep the energy going. The weather, and as one must always talk about the weather when travelling, turned for the worse, I ended up back in the hotel earlier than anticipated because sitting in a coffee shop with my back against the drafty window is neither noble or smart and the outcast seemed to huddle on rain for the rest of the day. It was like I had never left home.
I decided to use the rest of my time to work on personal and work projects, only to discover my charging brick for my MacBook Air is dead, which explained why some of my other devices were not charged this morning when I grabbed them on the go. Here I thought the problem was with the room outlets but that is turned out to not be the case. Even with next day shipping, I missed the window to get a new brick to me via Amazon tomorrow as it won’t show up until Tuesday and I’m leaving ungodly early (4:30AM) Thrusday morning fot the airport.  Thankfully I brought along my iPad, so the laptop will only get used in extreme emergancies while I mainlined everything else elsewhere.
I had some cause of worry for this trip, not of the conference or the people I was going to see, but the worry of my own behavior the further I get from my last dose of lithium. The same week I was first drug free, I was hit with PMS enough to cripple me and the mood swings enough to remind of all the 100s of reasons I wanted to be on mood stablizing drugs. Once that was over, and my inner world was smooth again, I’m finding myself feeling much more of myself than ever before.
I am desperate to not let this be a manic episode stemming from coming off the drugs, but it’s difficult when I’m only sleeping on 4-6 hours a night, I don’t get catch up sleep when I can sleep in, and I seem to exist on zoom the entire day with very little caffeine. The crash will come, there is almost always the certainy with that, but I’m praying to whatever will listen to not let it be so terrible that it is crippling and more importantly, I can have the forsight to be self-aware of it as it happens. It seems like a lot to ask, but if the drugs are not helping then I need something to guide me through the uncharted spaces to get me back on track again.
x0x0,
Lisa
 

two pints of lager and a packet of crisps

Dear Internet,
Randomly discovered today this week is Mental Health Awareness Week. I’m not sure if I had found out sooner if I would have done something to celebrate, you know, other than going off of Lithium. So we’ll just chalk it up to it’s the thought that counts.
Hello there.
I’m coming down from my last dosage of Lithium and the last few weeks have been kind of an emotional nightmare. Keeping it all together has been much more exhausting than I would have figured and I’m attempting to save all of my energy when I head to California at the end of the month for Internet Librarian conference, of which I’m on a panel. Professional development for the fucking win! The cost of the trip is bordering on staggering as flights are more expensive (GRR is a large but not really airport. Monterey is the same.) then if I had flown out of a metro area. The conference and pre-conference times start from the weekend until the middle of the week, which jacks the flight price higher. So then, of course, I have to have more days at the hotel (5 nights, 6 days). Now I’m whinging about money and time, which wasn’t my intent.
I just hope I’m somewhat back to normal by then. By back to normal I mean not what I’m feeling right now.
At first the way I would describe myself is sharp, like a knife. Anything coming close to me will get poked. My physical boundary space is highly protected. I shut down how I feel emotionally, about anything really, unless provoked. Being provoked could range from someone outwardly doing something to me to someone annoying me enough in some capacity I snap and give them a what for. Or, more often then not, I’ll just choose to ignore them. It’s much easier online, and as expected, in person is much more difficult.
As one would expect, it’s quite lonely here.
Some days I grasp at the straws of which I proclaim, silently mostly, I AM Lisa Motherfucking Rabey! I have done great things! Before turning into a sobbing mess a few minutes later. Those brief seconds are the sign I know not is all but over. I’ll keep taking those flashes, no matter how minute.
One of the small steps I did to help with, well, everything was getting rid of using our bedroom (and bed) as my personal office space. The tired laptop hobbling along I’ve been using as my desktop has finally bit the dust and I just decided to dock my Air.  Moving all of my electronics out and also forcing me to sit up and use a desk should start the mental separation of tranquility and solace (bedroom) and pew pew of the digital world (physical office).
I should move my DS3 as well but you never know when you have to check turnip prices in Animal Crossing.
x0x0,
Lisa
 

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