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As a result of ![[livejournal.com profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
theferrett's smarmy, sexist, creepy description and advocacy of what was apparently, to at least some of the female participants, a fun experiment in sexuality and touch, I have read multiple comments and heard in person from a LOT of female fans that they will never or never again attend a convention, lest they be sexually harassed or subject to an atmosphere of misogynist hostility.
I like conventions: certain conventions, in moderation. It makes me sad to see that a venue that is already male-dominated will now become even more male-dominated, when I would like to see more women get involved and so make it more friendly to women.
But I also can't dismiss their concerns, or promise them that nothing will happen. For one thing, people are already posting to the Dragon Con comm under the assumption that now that public button-enabled sexual harrassment has been described and advocated, it will happen as a matter of course. For another, sexual harassment has occurred at cons way before this particular incident.
Conventions are not more sexist than the outside world, but neither are they less so. The world is incredibly sexist. All women are subject to misogynist taunts and harassment, and frequently have no recourse. This goes double if they are a member of any other oppressed or disrespected group: old women, young girls, women of color, lesbians, transsexuals, disabled women, immigrants, sex workers, the poor.
On a side note, it baffles me how fandom and cons seem quite happy to discriminate on every basis except that of personality. If you are a member of any generally-oppressed group, that's your problem. But if you are a fucking asshole, people will come out of the woodwork to say stuff like, "Oh, that's just Harlan/the ferrett being Harlan/the ferrett, don't mind him."
That is not OK.
I have probably experienced less random harassment than many women, and yet I have had my breasts groped twice (once before I hit puberty), been threatened with rape, murder, and sexual mutilation (in high school; the teacher I reported it to wouldn't even let me change my seat to get away the boy who was threatening me), a hostile atmosphere at work, public cat-calls, and men exposing themselves to me.
This is why many women feel that for groping strangers to be truly consensual, it must be kept in a labeled room and not in a public place. There's enough of that going on outside and non-consensually already.
However, I am not going to stop going to cons, nor am I going to stop wearing corsets and other attire which scumbags liketheferrett think mean I won't mind being asked for a grope. I assure you, I will mind. Also, I will call security and the police. However, for the benefit of the socially impaired, that does not mean that you may not look. Looking is fine. Compliments are fine. Polite requests for photographs are fine. Touching and requests for sexual access are not fine.
But I hope that what will come out of this is a movement to make cons more safe and fun for everyone except those who want to grope freely in public spaces, sorry guys; room parties only. One is that we press conventions and the venues that host them to create and enforce sexual harassment policies. The other is the brilliant plan invented byvito_excalibur, Back Up: Women Defending Women. Yes, there is a gentleman's auxiliary.
Project Back Up
I intend to wear my Back Up badge to A-Kon and every other con I go to in the future. If you need assistance of any kind, I pledge to help you out as you wish and to the best of my ability.
theferrett's smarmy, sexist, creepy description and advocacy of what was apparently, to at least some of the female participants, a fun experiment in sexuality and touch, I have read multiple comments and heard in person from a LOT of female fans that they will never or never again attend a convention, lest they be sexually harassed or subject to an atmosphere of misogynist hostility. I like conventions: certain conventions, in moderation. It makes me sad to see that a venue that is already male-dominated will now become even more male-dominated, when I would like to see more women get involved and so make it more friendly to women.
But I also can't dismiss their concerns, or promise them that nothing will happen. For one thing, people are already posting to the Dragon Con comm under the assumption that now that public button-enabled sexual harrassment has been described and advocated, it will happen as a matter of course. For another, sexual harassment has occurred at cons way before this particular incident.
Conventions are not more sexist than the outside world, but neither are they less so. The world is incredibly sexist. All women are subject to misogynist taunts and harassment, and frequently have no recourse. This goes double if they are a member of any other oppressed or disrespected group: old women, young girls, women of color, lesbians, transsexuals, disabled women, immigrants, sex workers, the poor.
On a side note, it baffles me how fandom and cons seem quite happy to discriminate on every basis except that of personality. If you are a member of any generally-oppressed group, that's your problem. But if you are a fucking asshole, people will come out of the woodwork to say stuff like, "Oh, that's just Harlan/the ferrett being Harlan/the ferrett, don't mind him."
That is not OK.
I have probably experienced less random harassment than many women, and yet I have had my breasts groped twice (once before I hit puberty), been threatened with rape, murder, and sexual mutilation (in high school; the teacher I reported it to wouldn't even let me change my seat to get away the boy who was threatening me), a hostile atmosphere at work, public cat-calls, and men exposing themselves to me.
This is why many women feel that for groping strangers to be truly consensual, it must be kept in a labeled room and not in a public place. There's enough of that going on outside and non-consensually already.
However, I am not going to stop going to cons, nor am I going to stop wearing corsets and other attire which scumbags like
theferrett think mean I won't mind being asked for a grope. I assure you, I will mind. Also, I will call security and the police. However, for the benefit of the socially impaired, that does not mean that you may not look. Looking is fine. Compliments are fine. Polite requests for photographs are fine. Touching and requests for sexual access are not fine. But I hope that what will come out of this is a movement to make cons more safe and fun for everyone except those who want to grope freely in public spaces, sorry guys; room parties only. One is that we press conventions and the venues that host them to create and enforce sexual harassment policies. The other is the brilliant plan invented by
vito_excalibur, Back Up: Women Defending Women. Yes, there is a gentleman's auxiliary. Project Back Up
I intend to wear my Back Up badge to A-Kon and every other con I go to in the future. If you need assistance of any kind, I pledge to help you out as you wish and to the best of my ability.
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no subject
I'm not particularly worried about my safety there, nor was I ever really worried. I'm just so fucking angry.
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Applause
Hooray for you. I already had stopped going to SF/F conventions some time ago because the creepiness level of the attendees had gone up so sharply. I usually interacted with a few people I already knew and tried to approach those I knew from LJ or online venues, but then I said, "Why??" It wasn't fun any more.
I hate to bring up politics, but I can't ignore the rampant, blatant sexism that the media is using against Hillary Clinton. All right, maybe you/he/we don't want to vote for her or we're for the other guy (although I *thought* that journalists and media types were not supposed to SO blatantly show their bias in favor of one over the other--they say the name of the Anointed One every few minutes, and then when SHE wins, they say, "She avoided disaster" rather than "She won.") But still, the sexism and the sexist nature of so many of the remarks bothers me. Yes, I'm happy that America is now color/race-blind, but America is still the land of the male chauvinist pig . . . and I've heard so many guys say, "I don't ever want ANY woman for president, especially not HER," and then when asked for reasons, they don't say, "She's a socialist," or "Her policies are all wrong," but instead say, "She's a b**ch." This bothers me. Even if you think someone is aggressive or ambitious or ruthless or whatever, the default nowadays is to "b**ch." It's revealing. (Now, don't everyone come argue with me that "person X *is* a b**ch," because that is not the issue I'm discussing. The issue is sexism and how eager people are to attack and lord it over someone because of gender.)
The USA seems to have a huge sexist element that is just barely buried, and it has come up to ground big time.
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Isn't that geek social fallacy number one (http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html), just with a big ol' lack of awareness? There's no examination of issues like race and class and gender in certain circles because "of COURSE I'm not sexist/racist/classist, because I'm smart*", but oh lord we must protect the socially inept geek.
*My girlfriend just left academia in part because of that kind of absurdity, so it's on my mind.
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Yeah, that. I vastly dislike the feeling that I often get that I am required to put up with the behaviors of socially inept geeks. No: I may choose to do so, and, depending on the kind of ineptitude, often do -- but I am not required to do so, especially if the behavior is offensive or harmful.
Why should I privilege the feelings of someone who has said something hurtful over my own hurt, after all? If someone understands when called on it and attempts to do better, fine, but 'I don't get it' ceases to be an excuse when what one is doing is refusing to get it because social ignorance is such an easy excuse for bad behavior.
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What's even worse is when someone refuses to get it because they think that by not being polite, they are being iconoclastic and not giving in to the man. Which means that anybody who is reserved or polite in company like that is a sheep, which, no.
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"I'm just being honest about how I feel" isn't much of a defense for rudeness at the best of times -- but it's downright hypocritical if one then complains about an honest response from someone else.
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In reading around, I found some discussion that
this scumbagbeing obnoxious beyond beliefbeing persistant.my husband's support is the only reason I'm not hating on all men right now.
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But what does he say about the guy harassing women to that extent? Boy will be boys?
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Unfortunately, I can't decry the process of "asking repeatedly," mainly because it's the only stimuli a lot of women respond to. Frankly, I think any woman who has to be begged fifteen times before she eventually accepts should be drug into the back alleyways and beaten, because her rampant need for a string of pleadings trains the wrong sort of men that no doesn't mean no. And then we should go beat up the men for good measure.
So apparently beatings for everyone, but women are responsible for rape, and it's perfectly reasonable to ask a woman 15 times if that's the only way you can get sex out of her.From:
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In withdrawing, we make it easier for them, we give them power over us.
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Gah.
I feel so angry and helpless and impotent.
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Really. What's up with that?
It's better than it was. When in my early 20s I started congoing, I was one of the youngest adults there, and the older writers and fans I met kept telling me it was just how people were. Now, there's a couple decades behind me agreeing with me that no, this is not okay.
(One of my very first cons was one Harlan was GoH at. He was better behaved there than at some, but by the end of the con I knew this was someone I did not want to interact with nohow, noway, never. I couldn't care less how generous he is to his friends. Been there, done that--if you're good to your chosen friends and horrid to everyone else, you are in fact a horrid person, and I'd rather not interact with you.)
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Growl.
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Well put, I'd say. I admit my reaction would be rather more extreme - I'd just do what I've done in the past - a sharp slap to the face and a knee in the balls. It tends to get the message across with no ambiguity whatsoever...
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I was thinking about this just the other day; a male coworker was telling me of his (very commendable) interference in a domestic violence case in the hallways of his apartment building and I was trying to think of how I could have handled the same situation. Coworker could directly interfere, being large and male. I think I'd have had to call the police.
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There are BADGES?!
...very next Con I go to, I'm wearing one.
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I felt compelled to point out to someone who was noodling about "how to do this right" -- i.e. changing buttons and stuff -- that people really were going to contact hotels about this. He said that it was too much work to actually do and he wasn't really interested... but how many other "geek fix-it types" who are are otherwise ok are going to try to make the game workable?
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I cannot wrap my head around how many people are failing to get this part: Groping in public is a violation of the people watching. It is including them in your sex life, without their consent. (For the syntactically challenged: If you are in a labeled room, its no longer public.) This is true totally independent of the how the participants feel about it the groping. Because I know for sure that watching a public grope fest will make damn uncomfortable; 5-10 years ago it would have made me nervous and uncomfortable and confused to the point of tears and vomiting and panic attacks.
I don't understand why so many people aren't getting this. Apparently Embracing The Stupid has become a key component of the Rite of Denial of The Existing of [Select as required: Racism/Sexism/Classism/Privlige] in fandom.
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I feel like I have bumped into teh Stupid all over the place yesterday. This is very aptly put.
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I'm torn because the concept of being able to freely touch another person, with their consent, in non sexual ways is a good one. I'm involved in a variety of communities where that happens. And being able to give and recieve touch/physical affection in a fully consenting, aware and conscious way can be fantastic.
BUT
It can't be done in a big public space. It can't be done without a lot of awareness and discussion of consent. It can't be done with fucking buttons, and it can't be done with people gloating about getting away with something.
I wish that more sci-fi fans would learn about both having boundaries (physical and emotional) and about not pushing them. Given that sci-fi cons are often filled with people with crappy boundaries and minimal awareness of shoving up against them, I sigh deeply.
And yes, I am confident that sci-fi fans will do this at parties in the future. Possibly being all "edgy" and "not-PC". You know, fighting The Man by acting like an entitled jerk. The usual.
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I wish I could say cons are a safe space, but outside of the small local community cons, they really aren't. Play safe, but play carefully. Be aware that there are predators out there. And while Ops at my con will pull the badge if we can catch the guy, nine times out of ten, by the time the issue gets reported to us, the harasser is long gone.
*This sounds frivolous, but I've seriously had girls come in complaining that some guy managed to snap pictures of their underwear when they were walking down the halls and such. Deeply uncool and not ok.
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I fault
But putting the responsibility for restraint on the other person as a consequence of having been told "No" is a classic sexist/hierarchical maneuver and truly reprehensible, even as a joke, and we should all take responsibility for notifying people in charge at any con where something like this might be taking place. Taking the most generous view of it possible, the people who might do something like this don't have to plan for it to be dangerous for it to become very dangerous fast. It sounds all too much like high school and no, that isn't meant to make it sound innocent (speaking as someone who was removed from junior high and educated privately because I was being sexually harrassed to such an extent).