Re: [DIYbio] Re: Help end harassment in hacking!

First of all, thanks to all of you who are offering your support and empathy. It means a lot to me, even if you don't or can't do anything besides that. That said, some people asked how else I can be supported and if you want to do more, it would be great if you were to write an open letter to the community stating your and/or your organization's position on being against harassment that can be shared with others and that you think that the offenders in this case should not be running anything until they can demonstrate they demonstrate they have truly changed. You can also follow me on Twitter and retweet my tweets if you see fit as I am taking a page from Julie Ann Horvath's playbook and taking this matter there.

Perpetrators should not be apologized for or coddled or allowed to maintain positions of power just because they are powerful and influential. Victims should never be silenced when they speak out for any reason, but especially not if they are in weak positions. If events like these happen, they should be dealt with quickly and with honesty and openness and not refused to be discussed for many months on end as has happened in this case. Yes, they are uncomfortable to discuss but they represent structural problems within organizations (they are not merely personal conflicts as was the contention of Malthe, Emil and Søren at first) and therefore within the community as a whole and they must be addressed.

Secondly, apologies to all for starting this thread and then taking so long to respond. Instead of responding directly to everyone point by point, as I would normally do, I will write one VERY long letter and pick out pieces to respond to here and there this time in the interest of saving everyone's time. If I overlook an important point of yours, please let me know and I will try to address it in future correspondence.

Also, I deliberated on whether or not to explain why it took me so long to respond. I am landing on doing so and in so doing providing an -analogy- for those of you who seem to be asking that I lay out -all- of the evidence in this forum.

In addition to being heavily scheduled and trying to recover from the nervous breakdown I had after being mobbed in the May 22 meeting in Labitat, I have also recently learned that my mother, who is a cancer survivor, has discovered that she has a cyst on her spleen. This has caused me to become further depressed and anxious and made it very hard to be productive. Depression and anxiety are normal effects of harassment and this news intensified them in me so I felt like I needed to take it very easy on myself for a few days. I needed some time off.

In order to start proving to the community that my mother had cancer and may be redeveloping it, I will link to an email exchange between her and me showing that we have been speaking of it over the weekend. As the situation develops, I will be providing documentation regarding her condition so that I can be believed. I can also try to collect old data regarding her past bout with cancer so that I can demonstrate that she did indeed suffer from it and I am not making it up for some bizarre reason.

...For those of you who missed it, that's an ohhhhh-so-slightly-bitter sarcastic analogy. Although it IS true that my mother is sick and may have redeveloped cancer and that is a large part of why it took me so long to post, I am drawing an analogy, here: I do not think that anyone would react to me saying "my mother has had and might again have cancer and so I took longer to respond than normal" with an "oh yeah? prove it then" or by saying "well, I wasn't there and I don't know her so I can't know if it is true or not".

In order to prove this harassment case in full in this forum, I would have to expose some of my personal life that I would rather not expose to the whole message board (yet, anyway). That is part of the violation of harassment so often. It is the initial violation (invasion of privacy and violation of boundaries) and it is part of having to prove it, too. The victim is on trial as much as the perpetrator. Still, I can and will show some that are relatively easy to show, but not all, right now.

Like this:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByARLazIQy3pSlREV3ZpemZoRGc/edit?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByARLazIQy3pTXlhM2pGeFlMbW8/edit?usp=sharing

These do have a lot of context surrounding them, such as the fact that the harassment got very bad in the middle of March (which dovetailed with me starting to speak up about the growing organization problems I was seeing with the Kopenlab Space and Festival) and I was basically pushed off of everything including projects I had brought in (and what I wasn't pushed off of was interfered with). Oh, also, coincidentally we stopped taking minutes in the Kopenlab steering group at the end of January when I first really firmly stated I was uncomfortable with Malthe and Emil's behavior. That's quite the coincidence, no? Instead notes were made on the whiteboard and I only have a few images thereof. 

But you can clearly see my role being eliminated from March 4th to the 18th. The only explanation I got when I demanded one on Apr. 1 after my role was totally wiped out on the 25th was that "the structure wasn't in place yet". That is ridiculous as before the bullying part of the harassment picked up (after I confronted Malthe and Emil on Jan. 26) we were talking about me having a large role in both the Kopenlab Space and Festival. After I told Malthe to back off romantically that day, he became a very mean bully and pulled me off of everything.

This case takes so long to present as it is so incredibly complex. I could write pages and pages and PAGES instead of those few paragraphs about what happened during that time and provide a lot of supporting documentation. It is hard to know where to start or if shortcuts can be taken such as just posting those images, which tell a lot as far as I am concerned. This IS only the tip of the iceberg, that much is true. There is so much more and it will take time and some editing out of extraneous personal info to present here.

That said, many influential people in biohacking, many of my personal friends and many in Labitat/Biologigaragen have heard my full story and seen the proof and those people all believe me. Will their integrity be called into question when they come forward to support me? Do I have to tell the story to every single person here in order to be believed? It takes quite a long time to tell as it is complicated and involved. Must my privacy be violated over and over and over again in order to demonstrate how it was violated by the harassment I suffered? Maybe it will come to that and if so, so be it because I care less about myself than I do about doing the ethical thing. Hopefully it will not come to that, though. Hopefully I will be able to speak to a few credible and influential people and have them vouch for me. It's sorta like going to court and speaking before a jury of one's peers, but instead of a court I am speaking to other hackers who are upstanding in the community. That process has only recently started so it will take some time.

Also, keep in mind that if this does go to court here in Denmark, they have recently rewritten their laws so that in cases of sexual harassment the onus of proof is partially on the accused, which is different from almost all other crimes because the reaction in these cases is so terribly often to blame and mistrust the victim. Here is a translation (search in page for "Der er en tendens til at bedømme" to see the original)

http://www.advokat-olesen.dk/cgi-bin/index.pl?side-1-200301.htm

:

Cases of sexual harassment are judged from a more lenient burden of proof compared to a traditional burden of proof rules. The parties often have a very different assessment of what has taken place. The burden of proof often is often significantly composed of evidence like psychology statements, doctor statements, change of workplace behavior, if the victim has trusted in other colleagues at the workplace, and the detailed and credible statement of the victim on what happened.

There are rarely or never witnesses to sexual harassment. Because of this, if a person in a workplace views themselves as having been violated, then it is up to the other party to prove that no harassment has taken place. Thus a part of the burden of proof is shifted to the employer, who will need to present a counter case.

Malthe, Emil and Søren have issued only a non-statement. This, I think, is for a specific reason. I think they know they are in the wrong and they have been extremely careful to talk about this in writing as little as possible. I think they also want to severely limit discussion of this topic to places where they feel they have an advantage. Will is entirely right when he says :

And in my experience, people dont come forward with such important accusations unless they have been deeply hurt and feel they have no other option.

I have an absolute zero tolerance policy for sexual harassment and assault. And so should all of us. When a peer comes to us to say they feel unsafe in our midst, we need to respond and fix the problem.

I would never have done this had I not felt like I had no choice and if I did not feel extremely harassed, silenced, and now more recently mobbed and in danger of being pushed out for being "destructive" and "harmful to Labitat for causing commotion" for speaking out. Never in recent times have I been met with compassion or concern. I have always only faced hostility and silencing and deflection. Earlier on, they would express concern to my face and then turn around and become worse. Which was actually perhaps worse behavior, frankly.

Malthe, Emil and Søren have, I think, very purposefully said next to nothing in writing and they have at every turn tried to silence me or only discuss the topic in venues that are totally unfavorable to me (such as the May 22 meeting where they stacked it with their supporters and ganged up on me). As Marc Juul said in response to me (and ONLY me) being stripped of moderation rights and disallowed from speaking about this on the Biologigaragen mailing list: 

That's a bunch of silencing bullshit right there Malthe. You have a major problem in your community (more than one), and you're trying to silence the person who is speaking up, with concerns of how it will negatively affect the perception of your group? We are way beyond the point where this is a personal conflict that can be resolved in private. 

That I have experienced nothing other than silencing and increasing attacks from them has led us all to this point and it makes me very damned sad to be at this juncture as, in retrospect, I gave them WAY too many chances they failed to take.

I first confronted Emil on Dec. 19th. I then confronted Malthe and Emil together on Jan. 26. Here is some documentation surrounding the Jan 26th confrontation: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByARLazIQy3pZ1JuLUN6REZTemM/edit?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByARLazIQy3pc3huZkxObXVMRlk/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KpzkpyHEzAWTcZ4wf32_MweL6_jDyP1IXwAPmg3jfYY/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/document/d/1W0_R0-e4sDqjLkqkb-dlnV7P8_TNavRL3yOy9JOuaF8/edit?usp=sharing

Oh! Wait! Let's make sure we all understand what often constitutes proof in discrimination cases. Refer upwards to how the Danes prove sexual harassment. Again: psychology statements, doctor statements, change of workplace behavior, if the victim has trusted in other colleagues at the workplace, and the detailed and credible statement of the victim on what happened.

Also see here and here and here.

Employment discrimination cases are rarely straightforward or simple---they tend to be subtle, complicated, and highly contextualized. Employees seldom have direct evidence of discrimination, and they often have to depend upon circumstantial evidence.

We have found that the likelihood of success in a sexual harassment lawsuit is based on the credibility of the victim and the alleged harasser [uh oh, he is well known and well liked and I am a no one, this isn't good for me!]. This credibility is  bolstered by providing circumstantial evidence by witnesses that the victim's demeanor changed after an incident of sexual harassment or that a witness was told about the sexual harassment by the victim shortly after it occurred. [Oh good, I have TONS of circumstantial evidence (even though lots of it is sensitive and I am squeamish about releasing it publicly) and my demeanor -definitely- changed as before this I had not been angry in four years and I have't had a nervous breakdown since shortly after I was working as a photographer in Africa. My friends and family all saw this happening. Frankly, right now my mother is so worried for me, she thinks it may be part of why she got sick.] A contemporaneous complaint is also persuasive circumstantial evidence that the sexual harassment occurred.  Evidence can also be obtained from a social worker, psychologist, co-worker, friend or family member that the victim confided in regarding the sexual harassment.

Hopefully now we have a clearer picture. I think this is great education for the community, frankly, as before this all happened I didn't even have the clearest picture of how these things are proven. Now I know and now you do too! Information sharing is what this movement is all about, right? I'm being mildly sarcastic again but it is true that it is good for people to know this. Awareness creates a better world.

In more recent times, I was literally begging them to work it out and they were reacting to me with hostility and silence. See this letter and search for the term "begged".

Also, everyone who still wonders if wrongdoing has been committed should read through the May 22nd Labitat meeting minutes. Those alone have been enough reason for some organizations to pull out from the Kopenlab Festival. More than one person called it " barbaric". In that meeting, the bloc supporting Malthe, Emil and Søren were attempting to bully me into talking about how I was bullied and sexually harassed when I was specifically saying I felt unsafe and mobbed and unready to discuss the matter without my supporters present.  I felt like a victim of abuse in a banana republic where a lynch mob has decided that she's damned if she does and damned if she doesn't. I had to either talk about this very sensitive issue under extreme duress without many of my strong supporters present (some were out of town or otherwise unable to attend) or I had to give up the right to be present while it was the matter was discussed in plenum. The neutral people at the meeting supported suspending discussion, but they and my two supporters were shouted down as the Malthe/Emil/Søren bloc tried to force me into making that choice. Which is not a real choice as it is "be silenced or be forced to talk in an unsafe environment" and I had a breakdown which could actually, no joke,  have killed me.

See the letter I sent to the Kopenlab bloc here after the meeting for a more detailed account.

That incident was a problem of a 'peer coming forward and saying that she felt unsafe and the midst of the Labitat/Biologigaragen community' (as Will referenced in his general statement "When a peer comes to us to say they feel unsafe in our midst, we need to respond and fix the problem".

) and it was handled so incredibly poorly that it resulted in a person (who pretty much everyone who has actually sat with and listened to and seen the evidence thereof believes has experienced harassment and bullying) feeling so attacked and unsafe in the context of having been harassed for months, that she had a nervous breakdown. Again, for the record, extreme reactions to stress are not uncommon victims of mobbing and harassment. I had been mobbed ever since coming forward by the Kopenlab group and Malthe, Emil and Søren had promoted such behavior to spread into Labiat and Biologigaragen and they have used their position of power and influence to attempt to defame and silence me.

This is not remotely ok. This is not remotely how these things should be handled. This is why I am posting here. Also, the Kopenlab festival is happening in less than 20 days. That is probably not enough time for mediation or a lawsuit to be resolved in. The community needed to know ASAP and it should organize itself to demonstrate to harassers that their behavior is unacceptable. What I have heard is that ESOF/Science in the City is being accommodating to those who wish to pull out and start their own event.

It is true that mediation will be undertaken but in my view, this is solely an attempt to avoid ligation and to get them to finally see and understand that what they have done is unacceptable by any reasonable standard of human health and safety. Thye have been and continue to be so blatantly disrespectful it is almost beyond belief. I have requested that they stop using my work. Malthe has agreed to take my texts down off the Kopenlab front page but only after they rewrite. This is unacceptable to me and the texts are still on the website I led in creating (but I did not ask for that to be taken down as the site was collaborative, those texts are mostly my work besides one.That is just one of the more recent incidents in a long string of many wherein I am shown an utter disregard. This is a very good illustration of how Malthe operates. This community especially, being a nascent one wherein the culture is still forming, also needs to police itself. Many within it are doing so, thankfully. But not all. Yet. I hope eventually all will take a stand against harassment and discrimination of all kinds.

Anyway.

Part of why I felt unsafe during the May 22nd meeting was that I wanted to wait for my strongest supporter, Marc Juul, to be present via Skype to discuss the matter. Marc had overslept due to being extremely overworked (the time difference between CPH and CA is 9 hours) and missed the meeting.

Speaking of proof and Marc and taking a stand against harassment and discrimination, this brings me to discussing his role in this. Marc Juul is the original founder of both Labitat and Biologigaragen. He closely collaborated with Malthe to hand over control of Biologigaragen. Nowadays he is a key organizer and founder at http://sudoroom.org and is in the middle of setting up this collective http://wiki.omni-oakland.org/ in Oakland, CA. Marc has heard the full story. Marc has had full access to my evidence. Marc believes me and thinks that what has happened here in Copenhagen is very wrong. Marc is a credible member of the community who is in very good standing and he will vouch for me. Others in the community have listened to my story, seen the evidence and believe me and they are working on their strategies for speaking about it. In fact, I have asked Cathal to speak about it and he has refused. That raised my hackles a bit, I have to admit, as the only people who have doubted me in Labitat were those who refused to sit down with me one on one and insisted that I speak about it in the meetings only, where I get mobbed by Malthe's supporters (only one of which has talked to me at length, but who is closely personally connected to Malthe and he thinks that I was harassed but that it is not that big of a deal) when I do. So I am leery of such entreaties to bare all in a forum that does not feel quite right to bare all in and then refuse to engage in one that does due to recent past experience, I have to admit. I would like to get Cathal off that fence by presenting the evidence to him via a phone call and then linking him to documents that I explain in context and ask him to keep private. How about it, Cathal?

Ah, to answer Sarah's statement that she doesn't know much about Labitat or Biologigaragen, here's some very important circumstantial evidence/context. Labitat/Biologigaragen have three active women members. Me, Amalie and a woman whose username is Jokskitty. Jokskitty's boyfriend's username is Joks. She is clearly spoken for and off limits so she is safe. However, Amalie and I both had very similar experiences with Malthe. He romantically pursued us both upon meeting us and then when it didn't work out in the way he wanted, he treated us both like crap. Also, Sarah, I noticed that you and I have a mutual friend in common on Facebook. I would encourage you to engage in a brief correspondence with that person to get their view on this. That might help you gain perspective.

Hm, not that it should really matter as I think it is ok for -people- to have very tight boundaries. I think it is ok for, for example, a woman to not want to be touched at all and for that to be respected 100% if she states that and for anyone to ask someone before touching them. That is fine with me and I am always ultra respectful of new people until I can get a sense of how they want to be treated. I ask before touching, etc. But it is worth noting I am not someone with rigid boundaries and I give a lot of leeway to those around me. For the record, and this is disclosing a personal thing of mine: I am 100% totally and utterly fine with being hit on by a man or a person of whatever gender I turn down and who treats me ok afterward. Check out my CS profile for proof of this, Look at how many men I have stayed with and hosted. I am not anti-male or squeamish about them or prudish about touch, interaction, etc. I love all humans equally if they treat me and others well. Many of my best friends are men, I have the best boyfriend a woman could ever hope to have (ooh, I am lucky in that sphere) and some of my close friends are men I have called romantic partners in the past (I am of the opinion that if romance doesn't work out, whatever, it is best to stay friends if possible as that kind of connection means you thought the other person was really special so why not preserve some connection?). Anyway, I will NOT name names, but it was ver common to get hit on while hosting and surfing on CS. Sometimes in ridiculously awkward ways because, hey, I was surfing and hosting mainly with scientists and engineers and they are often awkward. I am used to it. And so what? In the context of CS, that's called being human and it is FINE if you make one pass but then back off and treat me with respect when I say I want no part of it. For the further record, it was always "when" while CSing. I tried to never cross romantic boundaries while surfing because I always thought that the power dynamics made that kind of behavior inappropriate and I would often use that as a polite way to deflect any come ons. 

Just as the power dynamics within an organization when the person who holds all of it and is hitting on BOTH women involved make that inappropriate as well. The way I (and many others) see it, the power in Biologigaragen is almost entirely in Malthe's hands and he is very bad at sharing it but very good at using it to control and impress others. In many organizations, it is against policy for mangers or supervisors to date subordinates due to the power difference.

Company employees may date, develop friendships and relationships both inside and outside of the workplace as long as the relationships do not negatively impact work. Any relationship that interferes with the company culture of teamwork, the harmonious work environment or the productivity of employees, will be addressed by applying the progressive discipline policy.

Adverse workplace behavior or behavior that affects the workplace that arises because of personal relationships will not be tolerated.

The exception to this policy relates to managers and supervisors. Anyone employed in a managerial or supervisory role needs to heed the fact that personal relationships with employees who report to him or her may be perceived as favoritism, misuse of authority, or potentially, sexual harassment.

Emil Polny's harassment of me included things such as joking about me and Malthe being in bed together. He did this a lot and it made me extremely uncomfortable.

Yes, Biologigargen is supposed to be non-hierarchical but it is most definitely not. The tyranny of structurelessness is in play and Malthe is clearly in charge and when he was hitting on me, I felt beholden to him and as though I had to play along and try to be "cool" with being taken to burlesque shows and dance parties that were overtly sexually themed. I felt pressured and that was not good. My friends and family remember me talking a LOT about this dynamic and how I just wished I could hack in peace without having to consider this variable as it was very unnerving and made me incredibly anxious. It took me a long time to tell him this, though, due to shyness and uncertainty about how everything worked in this sector. So I dealt with it from Nov. 14th to Jan. 26th.

When Amalie and I first talked about the treatment we had both experienced, she was so angry she said that she wanted to fork Biologigaragen then. She sent me this text and you can see in my response that I am the cooler head back the. I will rue this until the day I die but because I am trusting and naive and believe that most people are capable of change, I entreated her to stay and that she allow Malthe to stay as well. I did that. It is one of my greatest regrets in this life, not listening to her then. I instead encouraged them to talk and make up. She and I discuss the matter in conversations here.

See this excerpt:

Me: I told him also that you had felt so bad about the crap treatment that you had considered leaving lab and that I thought that would realllllllllllllllllllllllly suck for all of us and asked you to stay because you are awesome. He did say that he wanted to talk to you. Hopefully this will actually mend things! I do believe that people can look at their behaviors and grow and change. Let's hope this is what happens with Malthe. Amalie:I feel very mixed about you talking to him about me. I told you I wasn't ready for a confrontation with him, and that I'd rather have him hear it from me. I'm happy you broke the ice and tried to talk some reason into him, i respect that. Now I'm just really nervous about how to handle him on my end.

She is saying she is nervous about the coming confrontation between her and him. He's unnerving and intimidating and we both felt that way in his presence after he went from the Malthe who hits on you and gives you the world and turned into the one who ignores you, is condescending and rude and picks apart your work and who you are.

I confronted Malthe on Apr. 1 and told him that Amalie felt similarly about his treatment as I did and that meant that what he was trying to convince me of, that I was just an "overly sensitive American woman" and that "it was all just my perception" was simply not true. This type of behavior (where he is trying to make me doubt my own perceptions and succeeding) is very dysfunctional and is called gaslighting.

What happened after I tell him that she felt the same is that Malthe apologized to Amalie and approached her romantically again and was very nice to her after April 1. She has now cut contact with him again. To me, however, he became worse. He never, ever apologized to me. The closest he ever came was "I am sorry you feel that way". I wrote him a series of letters after this talk telling him I had hope that he and Emil could change and detailing SOME of the bad behavior

This is a pattern. It is not just me. She is freaked out by this and is washing her hands of it because it is now so big, but she was initially so angry she wanted to leave lab. In fact, right now she is avoiding lab and this whole debacle. She has granted me permission to use that correspondence as proof, however, as you can see at the end of the document. She wants to see me and others treated well and she thinks hers and my conversation could help accomplish that.

Besides the circumstantial evidence I will release as seems fit, I feel like speaking with credible members of the community in good standing and showing them what is happening is enough for now. No one who has actually taken the time to listen and look at the evidence is in doubt that I was harassed and frankly, it is less stress on me if I can just talk to people one on one and then they can write open letters or vouch for me. I'll do the releasing if I have to, but it is better perhaps for everyone involved to do it in a more focused way of telling specific people who can then vouch.

Marc and others from sudoroom.org are writing an open letter to the community and those involved with the Kopenlab Festival to my understanding, stating that they do not think that unrepentant harassers should be in charge of anything and that there is no doubt in Marc's mind that I have been harassed, that Malthe/Emil and Søren were given many chances to reconcile but didn't and instead reacted by attacking me further.

I am pretty sure that the open letter will say that Marc and the others involved think that what has happened in Copenhagen is very serious and should not happen anywhere, let alone within the context of vulnerable open knowledge institutions that are only recently coming to life and finding their role in society. Part of why this got so bad for me is that there is no HR, no union rep and Malthe is basically in control of both Biologigaragen and Labitat via the tyranny of structurelessness.

Marc agrees with Will when he says:

This movement needs to be a safe place for everyone -- except those who threaten their peers. Those people need to GTFO.

I also agree with this 100%. One thing I keep telling people is that if this had happened at an NGO with a structure in place to deal with it, I would not have suffered so much and there would be ZERO question about keeping them around. Since we are operating under the tyranny of structurelessness in Labitat, however, it IS a question of whether or not to expel them with just is almost beyond my comprehension as someone who is new to the male dominated tech industry and has a background in the arts and in humanitarian work where the gender ratios and operational polices are infinitely more humane than what I have endured in Kopenlab, Labitat and Biologigaragen.

Cathal rightly points out that I have made contradictory statements about anarchism lately. Well, there are different types of anarchism. I like the functional kind, ha. Not the barbaric "every manarchist for himself in an uneducated mob ruled brutal popularity contest" sort. I am not a fan of the traditional structures, no, but the kind of anarchism that is running in Labitat is amazingly dysfunctional and needs to shift as right now it is downright dangerous down there as anyone with charisma can walk in and manipulate it under the smokescreen the tyranny of structurelessness provides. This is part of why I would prefer to see if this nascent biohacking community can police itself before I head to the legal system. I don't know about the rest of you, but I dropped out of science a long time ago because I thought it was too rigid. I was so thrilled to discover biohacking because it allowed me to be in lab but not be trapped in the university or industry system. I love that there is this alternative to the traditional structure as I don't think that the traditional structures are very healthy. Of course, we may discover as I did in Labitat/Biologigaragen that the alternative is worse. That might happen. Still, I would like to give this a chance first (along with going through the mediation that Labitat has suggested after it proved itself to be incapable of handling this in a reasonable way) before filing suit.

I fully agree with Will when he says that I have an absolute zero tolerance policy for sexual harassment and assault. And so should all of us. We should. We are creating something amazing here in this nascent biohacking and hacking and generally open knowledge communities and we need to protect it and grow it. We are the alternative to industry and academia, and we should be better than them in our HR practices, not worse. If this had happened to me in a traditional organization, there is zero question in my mind that it would have been over and done with quite some time ago That is very, very, VERY bad not only for me and Labitat/Biologigaragen, but for hacking generally and it needs to be rectified.

I believe that we need to work together to stamp out this behavior in biohacking, hacking, science and tech as it is absolutely rampant. I am not remotely the only person I know who has been mistreated. So many others (women, people of color, disabled individuals) have come to me to complain of their own treatment it is utterly, deeply shocking. Many are afraid to speak openly because they fear what I am facing in Labitat/Biologigaragen, serious backlash and further abuse and ostracization. Women who lurk on the Labitat mailing list emailed me to thank me for doing what I am doing as they, to a one, said they went down there a few times and then never went back because the culture made them feel unwelcome and uncomfortable. One even used the word "harassed" to describe what it felt like to be there despite having been in the space only a few times. The ones outside of Labitat who are actively involved in others spaces, often prefer to remain silent so they can stay engaged with their spaces. I fully understand and respect them, sometimes you have to do that to survive, but I have chosen to speak out along with some others who have also done so. Speaking of speaking out, my path has been carved by other brave women. I urge you all to read about Liz Henry's experience at Noisebridge. It's sickening and it mirrors mine quite a lot. There are several other cases as well. Once you start looking, you find a great many who are speaking out but there's no centralized place besides Geek Feminism's Timeline of Incidents and medium.com's Power of Harassment series that I currently know of.

Liz eventually left Noisebridge even after succeeding in getting them to implement an anti-harassment policy and a definition on the wiki. The culture stayed toxic despite her amazing efforts and she left for doubleunion instead.

I don't want to leave. Yet. I want to help Labitat and Biologigargen overcome this. I want to hack the culture. I want to create a shift wherein it will see collectively that this is NOT OK and that the idea "you were harassed, but so what you are soooooooooooo annoying with your inconvenient emotions and, whoa, you are so upset and we cannot handle that and we wish you would just go away. Besides, we like Malthe and Emil, they are our friends, so what happened to you is less important than having them around" is beyond insane. I believe in change. Of course, that is what helped make this problem so bad-- I kept putting faith in Malthe/Emil/Søren when I should have called it long ago. I do not think that the answer of "you were harassed so you have to leave and go somewhere else" is remotely a fair one and it would not happen in a sane structure, a sane society. It just wouldn't. It is deeply unfair and it encourages and perpetuates this behavior. This is a structural problem in hacking and it needs to be solved. I am happy that many of you report having functional labs, that's totally awesome. That is what I expected in a community such as this, but it is not what I am finding here in Copenhagen. That's what we should strive for.

In having this discussion, I want the help of the community in making the vision of hacking as a safe, fun and good alternative to being within the traditional structures a reality not just lipservice. It's great that there are functional models out there. I would love to hear more about how that is accomplished and I would REALLY love to see the codes of conduct from the various labs so that when we work together in Labitat/Biologigaragen to put some in place we can see what the community has done and do-it-together as is the spirit of biohacking. We need to take as stand and say "no, we will not let harassers be in prominent positions in this field". There is precedent for this in other fields. Science blogging just had an instance wherein a very well known and prominent science blogger had to step down over his mistreatment of women. To the best of my knowledge, that community policed itself without lawsuits having to be filed. Can we do the same in biohacking and hacking? I hope so. I have faith that we can as I have only had a few people not listen to me or be unwilling to so far (outside of Labitat/Biologigaragen that is).

I hope that this unfortunate, horrible incident will have positive effects instead of merely destructive ones. I think raising awareness of this major structural problem is positive, not negative. If we always react to victims of harassment the way I was reacted to in Labitat/Biologigaragen when I first approached those I trusted within it by them saying "I believe you 100% but shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, you CAN'T talk about that kind of thing down here, woman! You will get attacked. You have to remember that you are a woman and these people cannot handle your 'histrionics' so shhhhhhhhhhhhhh, keep quiet. Shhhhhh! Hsst! SHHHHH! Say nothing. Shhhhhhhhhhhh. Play the game. Work within the system we operate under. You have to do so because, Malthe and Emil are too powerful and there is no way you can get them expelled for this because you are weak. You first need to consolidate power before you do anything against them. DO things that make you better them then and THEN you can ask for their removal" then nothing will ever change. Ever. We need to stop tolerating such behavior in those who have power vs. those who do not especially, or we will all end up way worse off for it. It shouldn't matter if I have an alpha position in the do'ocracy or not. Hell, I would have had that had they not bullied me out! I think it is highly likely that I was bullied in part (the motivations were definitely complex and wide ranging and evolved over time) so that, as one friend put it, I would not "outshine the master". Well, I have no damned master and neither should any of us. I really want a functional flat structure and I am not scared to work towards it by speaking about inequality wherever I see it. This is not about man vs. woman. Every single human being should all be equal and treated with equal respect and dignity no matter who we are, no matter what power we hold, no matter what gender we are, no matter what ethnicity, no matter what age, no matter what period. It is a ridiculously dysfunctional culture that does not treat everyone as equal humans deserving of respect and dignity and it needs to change, now.

Thank you so much if you read all of that. I will try to keep the length down in the future. I will try to be responsive but IF my mother does have cancer again, I will send a scan of a doctor's note (to prove I am not lying about it or making it up for whatever reason (...I just cannot help the sarcasm and driving the analogy home, sorry)) and bow out for a while unless she pushes me to fight on anyway. She is an inspiring woman and she didn't raise me to turn tail when I face difficulty and I will not do so in this instance. In between now and knowing her status, I will be a bit sparse but it is critically important for me to spread this information as I have been silenced for too long and it is time to speak out so I will try my best to do so. Again, I thank DIYbio for promoting the ideals of openness and transparency and for facilitating a good and respectful conversation. It is living up to what I hoped for when I signed up for this movement. I'm glad that there is a chance that what I told to my friend who was harassed out of the UN is true-- that the community might protect me in the end and in doing so protect itself as well and, as an added bonus, maybe inspire some broader societal change that desperately needs to happen.

Regards,

Jen

On 1 June 2014 20:16, Raj Venkat <vrgopal@gmail.com> wrote:

This forum is being used to discus social personal conflict and fights between workers...I dislike such discussions

On May 28, 2014 9:52 PM, "Mega [Andreas Stuermer]" <masterstorm123@gmail.com> wrote:

it's not my place to pass judgement without knowing the exact facts.

However, it's a pity that even in such highly developed societies this happens. I've heard of cases where ideas were stolen, or people were intentionally insulated.

 

Maybe you should consider attending another biohackerspace? Depends on your bond to your city (family, friends, job) of course.

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