While Outdoor Retailer focuses on cool聽new gear, the convention is also a time for brand executives and nonprofit leaders to connect and discuss issues facing the industry. Today聽we sat in on a talk with Charlie Lieu, a data scientist, and Callie Rennison, a criminology professor at the University of Colorado Denver and veteran of the Department of Justice, who spearheaded a survey to explore sexual harassment in the climbing industry.
The survey marks the first step in what organizers聽hope聽will be a movement to educate brands, organizations, climbing gyms, and other companies on how to talk about and respond to harassment. It comes months after several high-profile incidents of bullying among professional climbers.
Roughly 5,000 people responded to the questionnaire, and Rennison says she was blown away by the level of care and detail in participants鈥櫬燼nswers. 鈥淕enerally, people don鈥檛 fill out open-ended questions,鈥 she says. 鈥淏ut 20 percent of people responded to ours, speaking about their own experiences.鈥 An equal number of men and women participated聽in the survey.
Though the data is private until August 27, Lieu says it鈥檚 roughly in line with recent population-wide research,聽which found that one of every two women and one in six men had experienced sexual harassment.
What鈥檚 the next step? On August 27, alongside survey data,聽the initiative will present guidelines for companies looking to improve workplace culture. A big part of that will revolve around the 鈥渘eed to create a baseline understanding of what harassment is and what behaviors we鈥檙e looking out for,鈥 says Lieu, rattling off a list of scenarios, from inappropriate touching to lewd聽comments.
Ultimately, Lieu, Rennison and partner Katie Ives at the Alpinist, who is leading the press coalition that has formed around this initiative,聽hope to educate companies and everyday climbers alike, not only on how to respond to harassment聽but on the very definition of it. 鈥淪exual harassment is harassment in the eyes of the person who is experiencing it,鈥 Rennison says.聽鈥淚t鈥檚 not about intent. It鈥檚 about impact.鈥
Lieu says that聽the survey prompted聽other industries to reach聽out in an effort to address harassment in their own communities. 鈥淲e have laws聽sure,鈥 she says. 鈥淏ut as organizations聽we can do better. We can be bystanders who intervene.鈥