I thought this point was worth bringing up from the comments: as we talk about tech conferences enforcing standards against use of sexualised imagery, we’re hoping to replace the “ho ho ho, we’re all het men here, what we have in common is coding and finding women attractive, don’t we all feel closer now, boys, for having shared our two great joys?” vibe.

But Melissa Gira Grant left a comment on Selena’s post reminding us that these kind of structures can be easily turned and used against women, as follows:

I think I get the thinking around these guidelines — and the totally male-dominated conference circuit that needs to hear this sort of guidance — but I just am stuck on this:

How do we keep guys (or anyone) from non-sensically using sexual or sexualized imagery and language in their presentations and preserve the right of people to use that information when it’s actually really, really what the presentation concerns?

This might be beyond the scope of these guidelines, but I am thinking back to the first BlogHer, during a “Birds of a Feather†session organized by self-identified mommybloggers, who were irritated that when they discussed the biological particulars of childbirth and childrearing, they were told they were being unprofessional, NSFW, or “overshare-y†— or, obscene.

It’s hard to address intent in this stuff. And I don’t want to sit through anymore stuffed-shirted dude “presos†on boring web marketing that just have some naked women sprinkled throughout to “sex things up†— because usually, those are the same dudes who don’t actually want to hear women talk honestly about sex, either.

In the FLOSS community, this may be a more specific concern with a history of problematic presentations, I know, and I’ve followed some of that through this blog — but tech/geek conferences can be pretty influential in establishing norms, and I’d not want to see a very flattened idea of what “safe†is promoted when those kind of norms can end up used to curtail women’s speech & expression, too.

I think one of the big problems here is that conferences will be very reluctant for various reasons to use any phrasing of guidelines that itself sounds exclusionary. It’s much easier to say “unprofessional content is banned” or “no naked pictures” than it is to try and draw a line between annoyingly exclusionary and usefully challenging or even just usefully informative, especially if that line may have anything to do with differentiating “men talking about women’s bodies” and “women talking about their own bodies.”