Elise Matthesen Speaks Out About WisCon

Elise Matthesen, who a year ago went public about the sexual harassment report she made at WisCon, now has followed with detailed criticism of the WisCon committee’s handling of the report and others made about the same person, who nevertheless was allowed to attend this year’s con.

Matthesen’s guest post “What Happened After I Reported” has been published on half a dozen blogs, including The Radish. It begins:

Last year at WisCon 37, I told a Safety staffer that I had been treated by another attendee in a way that made me uncomfortable and that I believed to be sexual harassment. One big reason I did was that I understood from another source that he had reportedly harassed at least one other person at a convention. I learned that she didn’t report him formally, for a lot of reasons that aren’t mine to say. I was in a position where I felt confident I could take the hit from standing up and telling the truth. So I did.

I didn’t expect, fourteen months later, to have to stand up and tell the truth about WisCon’s leadership as well.

Mary Robinette Kowal, who also is hosting the comments, framed them with this introduction:

This is a follow up, which I think provides a representative example of why so many women who experience harassment don’t report it. This happened to Elise at the “world’s leading feminist science fiction convention.” Leading means setting an example and a standard.