Re: [DIYbio] Help end harassment in hacking!

Hi Jen,

apart from the petition, is there any other way to support you?

-lisa

On 28.05.2014 13:33, Jen Kotila wrote:
> As many of you know, there have been quite a few incidents of sexual
> harassment and bullying in hacking and biohacking culture. In fact,
> Doubleunion <http://doubleunion.com> was started after the founder Liz
> Henry suffered harassment at Noisebridge. Here is a great article that
> she wrote about harassment in hacking and what to do about it.
> <http://modelviewculture.com/pieces/the-rise-of-feminist-hackerspaces-and-how-to-make-your-own>
>
> I love this quote from her:
>
> Openness, that's great, right? Except oddly, openness can mean we get
> rape and death threats while at the same time, the only thing we can't
> be "open" about is publicly naming a person who raped us. The
> "adhocracy" form of informal organizing sometimes look to us like
> the tyranny of structurelessness,
> <http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm> where already-strong power
> structures and dynamics define our field, so already-powerful elites get
> stronger.
>
>
> I am in touch with Liz because I have now myself been a victim of it at
> the hands of those who run Biologigaragen
> <http://biologigaragen.org> and The Kopenlab Festival
> <http://kopenlab.dk> I have been working there since November and the
> harassment started almost immediately. I tried long and hard to work it
> out internally but it only got worse over time. You can read an overview
> of what happened to me here.
> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-DPJhdE71IyXx_Du9TlV5b2UvVvwkLhgOnVO-06pBCY/edit?usp=sharing>
>
> Almost no one in lab denies I have been harassed (except for Emil
> Polny). What they are contending is that Malthe Borch and Emil Polny
> should stay in positions of power despite their extreme pattern of
> harassment. For the record, the ONE other woman in lab was mistreated in
> a very similar way to how I was mistreated. This is a pattern and it
> will not change. Bullies often re-offend without prejudice, especially
> when they only get slapped on the wrist for their behavior.
>
> Since Biologigaragen is flatly anarchistically organized, it is my voice
> against that of the two main perpetrators, who claim to have founded the
> lab (which is patently a false clam as Marc Juul, who is currently
> running sudoroom in Oakland, CA <https://sudoroom.org/> and setting
> up The Omni, also in Oakland, CA <http://wiki.omni-oakland.org/>). For
> the record, Marc is one of my strongest supporters and warned me that I
> would have trouble speaking out here in Copenhagen due in part to
> thequirks in Danish culture that make it so that they have the most
> sexual harassment in the whole of the EU
> <http://www.b.dk/nationalt/vold-chikane-og-stalking-mod-kvinder-i-danmark-overstiger-eu-gennemsnit>.
>
> Everyone here agrees that I have been harassed but no one takes the
> months of suffering I have endured seriously. I have suffered immensely
> both psychologically and physically as is common in victims of
> harassment. I have basically been stripped of my rights to operate
> within the organization. Even projects I brought in were taken from me
> and interfered with. Most recently, I have been removed as moderator
> from the mailing list for speaking out about my plight and there is talk
> of forcing me out of the organization because I have hurt it for coming
> forward. I have been accused of harming Biologigaragen by going public
> but I contend that it is MORE harmful to any institution to allow known
> harassers to remain in positions of authority and to tell a harassed and
> bullied person who tried /for months/ to try to work it out in good
> faith that she has to share a lab with those who abused her.
>
> In fact this opinion is so widely held that during the last meeting I
> wasmobbed
> <http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/beyond-bullying/201304/surviving-workplace-mobbing-control-emotional-flooding>by
> a group of seven very hostile people who want Malthe Borch to stay in
> power. Mobbing is very serious and after months of the stress caused
> from harassment and I had a nervous breakdown as it came in the wake of
> months of psychological torment.
>
> A friend of mine who was harassed after whistleblowing in the UN warned
> me this would happen. She was forced out and tormented for her coming
> forward. I told her "nah, that won't happen to me, the community will
> protect me, despite the fact that we have no HR and no union rep to deal
> with this". I have been met with some support but also with lots of
> scorn and derision. It has severely affected me and I believe that its
> extreme mishandling has severely affected all of biohacking.
>
> *I have started a petition*
> <https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1q4-0qsLVLwN5msM_QfbrO2uJytEWfGi6fB8b0NswkmE/viewform> about
> the matter and I would like it if the community could show its support
> for ending harassment in hacking generally and also for ending it in
> Biologigaragen. Please fill it out honestly. I am curious to see how
> many people are ok with severe harassment and how many think it is not
> ok. I am intending to try to help biohacking over this hurdle and
> protect it from further instances of this. We should be the alternative
> to the traditional power structures and within our organizations, we
> should never allow bullying or sexual harassment to occur for whatever
> reason. I want to take what happened to me and make it into a positive
> thing for the whole community. I request your assistance in doing so.
>
> Tusind tak skal du hav (as they say in Denmark),
>
> Jen Kotila
>
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