Re: Promoting the GNU Kind Communication Guidelines?

[Alex Sassmannshausen <alex.sassmannshausen@gmail.com>]

Hello,

I agree with Ricardo's email that really we should be discussing the CoC
in relation to specific patches against it, to avoid circular debate.
So I will only respond to the specific bit directly asking me to provide
evidence.

HiPhish writes:

> On Monday, 29 October 2018 12:08:56 CET you wrote:
>> I think you a have burden of proof here, given that our culture at large
>> has serious issues with harassment.  Why would you think FLOSS community
>> is somehow different from the wider community?
> No, you have a burden of proof that "our" culture (whatever this "our" is
> supposed to mean, I have no idea where you live and you have no idea where I
> live) has a serious issue with harassment.

[I apologise for the narrow focus on sexual / gender / sex based focus
of the stats below; it's what I'm most familiar with.]

"According to a TUC/Everyday Sexism study on sexual harassment, 52% of
women have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace and 80% did
not report it to their employer."
[https://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=9127932a-455f-4d0c-909d-3563c17dc7c5,
available from
https://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/sexual-harassment-in-the-workplace]

"In 2014, SSH commissioned a 2,000-person national survey in the USA with
surveying firm GfK. The survey found that 65% of all women had
experienced street harassment. Among all women, 23% had been sexually
touched, 20% had been followed, and 9% had been forced to do something
sexual. Among men, 25% had been street harassed (a higher percentage of
LGBT-identified men than heterosexual men reported this) and their most
common form of harassment was homophobic or transphobic slurs (9%)."
http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/resources/statistics/

"Almost fully one third of the approximately 90,000 charges received by
EEOC in fiscal year 2015 included an allegation of workplace
harassment. This includes, among other things, charges of unlawful
harassment on the basis of sex (including sexual orientation, gender
identity, and pregnancy), race, disability, age, ethnicity/national
origin, color, and religion." and "Roughly three out of four individuals
who experienced harassment never even talked to a supervisor, manager,
or union representative about the harassing conduct."
[from https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/task_force/harassment/report_summary.cfm]

In 2012, in Belgium, the film Femme de la Rue directly influenced the
passing of legislation to make street harassment
illegal. [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/aug/03/belgium-film-street-harassment-sofie-peeters]
It also helped kick-start movements in Belgium and France where street
harassment is fairly common.  In london, UK, 4 in 10 women between ages
of 18 and 34 experienced street harassment in 2011 alone
[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/may/25/four-10-women-sexually-harassed].

"54% (272) had experienced some form of workplace sexual harassment."
This is from a 2008 study in Singapore
[http://www.aware.org.sg/training/wsh-site/14-statistics/].

The stats bear out 2 things: a) harassment is very prevalent; b) if
anything, harassment is underreported, not overreported.

Of course the above are all related to a relatively narrow geographic
domain.  I would be very surprised indeed if there was a place that
conducted similar studies, where the picture would not be roughly the
same or worse.

You are correct that I don't know where you're from, but it kind of
doesn't matter, because harassment, especially that on the basis of
gender, sex or sexuality, is a global phenomenon.

Best wishes,

Alex