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#MeTooCAA (Chicago 2010)

TW: sexual assault

98th CAA Conference – Chicago 2010. Written on 9 June 2011, in a letter to my rapist (never sent). The night from my point of view:

I had finished interviewing and a bunch of [university redacted] folks met in the lobby to go out for the evening to celebrate the close of the conference and the successful interviews for many of us. We ended up going to the place where I met * and his wife, a few nights prior. A good time at the bar. Drinks flowing freely. Felt good about the evening’s social dynamics. Even you made me feel comfortable because you weren’t up to your normal, controlling antics. ** and I were not ready to go home, and you decided to join us for a nightcap at the Hard Rock Hotel. Afterwards (it was quite late, and I was drunk), I accepted your invitation to walk me home – your hotel was just a few blocks past mine. I felt safe. Outside my hotel you grabbed me and kissed me. I didn’t expect it. want it. or respond. I WAS DRUNK. Everything happened so fast. We were in my room. Removing my clothes. I thought it would just be easier, professionally, if I let it happen. I didn’t want you. My heart was with ***. I tried to just let my mind go blank. Could you not tell that I wasn’t my normal, active self? Did you just chalk it up to alcohol? When the blood came [a perineal tear], I was terrified. Horrified. Remember that this happened before, long ago with **** (my first sex partner). I told you to go shower while I assessed the situation. I felt immediately sober. Blood everywhere. A pint? You surely didn’t cause this with the (insignificant) size of your cock. It was that I was bone dry, and clearly not even my body was consenting. You showered. I realized the blood had stopped. I sat, crumpled on the floor, against the window. No longer able to bear your presence, I finally got the guts to tell you to leave. You told me to get dressed and walk you downstairs, because “if I bled out in the night,” you didn’t want the last person the hotel staff saw me with, and then asked me if I was clean, since you didn’t bother to use a condom. Had me promise to double-check. Never offering me the same. As if I wouldn’t after this. I didn’t bleed out in the night. Instead, I woke, showered, went to the [university redacted] breakfast. Told *****. Smiled and put up with the bullshit for ‘[university redacted] propaganda photos’ at the AIC. (Which I still occasionally see on the website [even on social media in 2018]). Freaked out to ****** on the phone outside of the MCA. Ate a cheeseburger at the Billy Goat Tavern (I did lose a lot of iron.)

Asshole. Self-absorbed asshole. Rapist (I said it, even if most of the time I cannot even think the word).

It [the blood] happened again. A few months later. I don’t think I was fully healed. It happened with ***. And it was one of his kindest moments. Used humor to pull me back out of the hole I was slipping into.

Every time I have sex (or any permutation thereof), it’s always at the back of my head that it [the blood] will happen again. Only when I know that it won’t horrify the other person if it does, can I relax. Only when they know what happened can I relax.

Asshole.

I went to CAA in NYC [in 2011] and was on the edge of a panic attack the whole time that I would have to see you. Interact with you as if you were not the worthless human being that I know you are.

I am getting help now. To get past this. You may have damaged me severely. But not permanently. You will NOT continue to fuck with my relationships. Or my professional life. You are not that important. You are just a rapist.

PS: Stop trying to communicate with me, as if all is fine. Pretend that we don’t know each other. I wish that were true, anyways.

99th CAA Conference – New York City 2011 (written January 2019)

I couldn’t even call it what it was: rape. I spent the conference on the verge of a panic attack, worried that I would run into you again. I had drinks with ********, she named it (rape), and encouraged me to go and get professional help. I was so thankful for her kindness and friendship.

100th CAA Conference – Los Angeles 2012 (written January 2019)

[university redacted] (forgoing the breakfast at the crack of dawn for the first and perhaps only time) held an evening reception. I was hanging out with my former professor and now friend, *********, and another friend of hers. We first went to another mixer (her alma mater), before wandering over to [university redacted]’s. I was making small talk with folks when I saw you wander in. It was at that point that I decided to take my leave. I said goodnight to *********, and made it out into the hallway when ********** (the director of the school) followed me out and asked me to come back in because he wanted to introduce me to some older alumni. Because I respect him, I reluctantly came back into the room. He made the introductions and moved on, leaving me to make small talk (which I can do, and do well). Suddenly you made yourself part of the conversation, and I could feel my blood pressure rising. I tried to politely excuse myself, and you followed me, shifting the conversation to how you knew that I had blocked you on social media. My body language gave everything away to *********. She knew that I had survived a sexual assault, knew it was with someone from [university redacted], but didn’t know any of the other details. I am not sure how much time passed with me again mentally shutting down as you interrogated me, and I don’t remember the details of your monologue, but I do remember ********* and her friend suddenly appearing on either side of me, informing you that we were leaving. They flanked me as we left the room, and you followed us out, continuing your monologue. I remember bits and pieces of it – something about you claiming that you did care about me (bullshit), and other such nonsense. ********* and her friend just made sure I had my eyes and my focus on them (instead of you) as we walked out in to the hotel lobby, and finally away from you.

We spent the rest of the night out at a restaurant, talking about the rape and them supporting me. I was so thankful for those two amazing women.

The next day you were at it again, this time staring me down from across the entry expanse into the convention center. I was sitting on a bench outside, and you made sure I saw you, and stared at me, keeping your head turned my way until you entered the building.

104th CAA Conference – Washington DC 2016 (written January 2019)

Thankfully there were fewer interactions this time, but I am always on my guard. You found me while I was waiting at a bus stop, headed across town to see a friend from undergrad. You made sure to tell me that you knew where I was working now. I still refrain from staying at the conference hotel, while that was also true the night of the rape, I do it now to make sure I have someplace away from the conference for retreat, this time though, you walked towards what was also my hotel. I was on even higher alert as I went into and out of the hotel.

At the [university redacted] breakfast (the evening reception was a short-lived experiment), you made sure to pass directly behind me each time you made your way to the breakfast buffet spread. There were other paths you could take. While we were not at the same table, don’t think I didn’t notice. I only half paid attention to the conversations at hand.

Mercat a la Planxa, restaurant in The Blackstone Hotel, written July 2018:

It’s still light outside, and there are people settled at tables around me, seemingly happily conversing with each other over drinks, steaks (and grilled green onions – which look quite good). I’ve ordered a 9 oz pour of their driest Spanish white, some croquetas de jamon, and the ‘pa amb tomaquet’ al estilo Catalan. It’s intentional that I’m seated here, at the end of a conference (this time the Midwest Museums Conference), writing this reflection. I stayed at The Blackstone for the 98th College Art Association Conference. I can’t quite remember when I checked in – either the 9th or 10th of February – and checked out late on the 13th. This AMM conference has me thinking quite a bit about that span of days – in many ways there are some resonances that I hadn’t quite realized would exist when I signed up for a room (this time) at the conference hotel – the Chicago Marriot. As I drove up, I realized that the hotel was just across the street from The Blackstone. Again, I was splitting a room with one of my closest friends from my master’s program, whom I hadn’t shared a room with since the 98th College Art Association Conference. She, again, was leaving a day before me. A few nights prior, at the after-conference drinks at the hotel bar, I recognized the all-too-familiar expression of a young colleague who was squirming under the unwanted attentions of a senior conference attendee. I had made the young colleague’s acquaintance earlier in the evening and knew that this was their first conference; that they were trying to find their sea legs as a salesperson, and the older colleague had (and I will be generous here) misread the younger colleague’s attempts at networking for interest. I decided to excuse myself from my conversation, insert myself in their conversation and see if the younger colleague wanted to join me at the bar to refill our drinks. They thanked me for helping them out. It happened again the next evening, with the same older colleague pursuing the younger colleague, and I again stepped in to put myself between the more senior colleague’s unwanted advances and their intended target. It was then that I realized that there was more operating here than basic human kindness: I was responding as a result of my sexual assault that happened just across the street, as I too tried to traverse the professional landmines of being a conference attendee, navigating the complex power networks of a professional conference.

(written January 2019)

I had been thinking for some time on how to turn the events of that night in February 2010 into some additional good. I say ‘additional’ because I already mark that night as the moment from which I would take no more shit. That I would do my best to always be assertive and speak truth to power. I’ve also trained and worked as a rape crisis counselor in Erie County, New York, hoping that I could provide a tether to resources for others that eluded me that night and the morning after. In this moment of presidential pussy grabbers and Supreme Court predators, #NotSurprised, #TimesUp, and #MeToo, it was time to take this conversation back to CAA and think about systemic change. I tell my story not because I think it is unique, in fact, I tell it because there are many others who have been the unwilling targets of predatory behavior by academics who “use informality, alcohol, power hierarchies and enforced proximity to exploit and harass their victims.”[1] It happens across academic conferences – a quick look at this year’s twitter threads from AHA and ASA (especially #MeTooPhD), and the beginnings of systemic change such as the 2017 American Political Science Association survey on harassment at annual meetings[2], the Women��s Classical Caucus’ statement on harassment at the Society for Classical Studies[3] (2017), the report “Open Secrets and Missing Stairs: Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment at Scientific Meetings” [4] (2017), and the American Library Association ‘statement of appropriate conduct’ for conferences[5] (2014).

CAA’s “Restatement of Values”[6] (2016) and “Guidelines for CAA Interviews”[7] (2015) start the conversation but leave open the question of onus and power in the situation.

#MeTooCAA, an Idea Exchange roundtable taking place at 10:30 am on Friday (2/15) begins a conversation on structural changes to power dynamics at CAA, providing space for and centering the marginalized and less powerful. In the meantime, feel free to share your own stories here or use the #MeTooCAA hashtag to converse across social media.

[1] Tweet by Dr. Charlotte Lydia Riley (@Lottelydia) 1/2/19

[2] http://www.apsanet.org/portals/54/files/apsa%20ethicscommitteesexual%20harassment%20report%20final.pdf?ver%3D2018-02-01-133219-887

[3] https://classicalstudies.org/scs-news/scs-statement-harassment-annual-meeting

[4] https://static1.squarespace.com/static/51a662bde4b06440a1627b96/t/58b067e846c3c4cf659bd4e3/1487955946386/Open+Secrets+and+Missing+Stairs.pdf

[5] http://www.ala.org/conferencesevents/statement_appropriate_conduct

[6] “We defend academic freedom as forcefully as we reject discrimination, bigotry, sexual assault, and violence against the vulnerable.” See http://www.collegeart.org/news/2016/11/22/caa-restatement-of-values-november-2016/

[7] “Conduct meetings in neutral spaces such as the interviewing tables and booths provided at the conference by CAA or in hotel suites which offer neutral spaces outside of bedrooms. CAA does not condone interviewing candidates in hotel bedrooms.” See http://www.collegeart.org/standards-and-guidelines/guidelines/etiquette

Written by Claire K.

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