Sexual Harassment In SF/F

[filkertom]

jimhines has put together a resource page for members of the science fiction/fantasy community who feel they have been sexually harassed at cons. It likely will evolve -- especially this week, if you help. ;)

Comments

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Tom! And yes, I would love to update the page with more links and info.

(I've got one resource in particular that I'm very much looking forward to adding ... but I need to wait for it to be created first, and I've been asked not to say more than that. Sigh.)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

No prob, m'friend. Have you considered putting it up on a free domain somewhere? That might not be a bad question to put up in this thread -- what would be a good name for such a domain? Something like sffharassment.info? Or were you aware that, while nomeansno.com is taken, a number of similar names aren't? Or...?

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I'm sadden this happens at cons. I guess even sci-fi fans have their jerks who don't know how to behave in public.

[chaosdancer.livejournal.com]

I don't go to as many cons as a lot of people, but I confess I thought this sort of behavior was the norm at cons. Certainly it's been so in my experience. I can't even imagine what conventionally pretty women go through (and wouldn't want to try). But on the plus side, it's given me practice for dealing with it in good grace when it (much more rarely) happens in the mundane world.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

(crap, my response got lost the first time)
I only go to 2 cons a year and since most of my time is spent in the filk room (where women are pretty well represented) or the panels about RPGs (where there are basically no women at all), I haven't seen any harassment. But then unless it's VERY obvious I probably wouldn't know it if I saw it.

I also don't go to con parties much and I suspect some of it happens there (geeks + beer = trouble). Since Windycon is this weekend, I'll keep an eye out there. Maybe I'll be lucky and go to the cons where this sort of thing is unusual.

[droewyn.livejournal.com]

One of the problems is that harassment tends to be downplayed, by male and female fen alike. There's this great mythology that cons are somehow "safe space", as though having a common interest acts like a magical bouncer, leaving jerks outside the door. So issues tend to get pooh-poohed as isolated incidents or worse, rationalized: "I'm sure he didn't mean it that way / he was drunk / you know he's not like that."

I'm glad that what happened at DragonCon is causing so much positive action... I just wish things hadn't had to get so very bad first.

[dysprog.livejournal.com]

It always boggles my mind a little that the same people who can contemplate the rights and dignity of sentient AI and extraterrestrial intelligences can then turn around and treat fellow humans like this.

[alverant.livejournal.com]

I know! Before I got more involved in sci-fi fandom, I had certain expectations of the fans. I was surprised to find out some of us are as backwards, bigoted, etc as normal people. I think they like sci-fi because it helps them imagine their perfect world where their own view of the world brings it to a utopia.

One answer:

[zibblsnrt.livejournal.com]

"I'm able to contemplate the rights and dignity of sentient AI and extraterrestrial intelligences. This means I am morally and intellectually Superior to most other people, and thus need to worry about self-examination or the rules in general less."

[ldyerzsie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's too bad that some people can't take no for an answer. I loaned my BF to a young lady once so she could get away from the "creepy guy" who, apparently, thought he was gonna "score" with her. All my BF did was to escort her safely to her room. It makes me a little sad, but we did make a new and awesome friend from that incident.

[lizziecrowe.livejournal.com]

This one is very near and dear to me as a woman who likes to dress up at cons. I don't care if I'm in a corset. I don't want every person in the convention drooling onto my chest or reaching out to grab my ass. That's how fingers get broken. Yes, I know exactly how I dress. That does not mean ANY form of tacit consent to being HANDLED. Blarg....

[ann-totusek.livejournal.com]

Grabbing your butt, yes. I'm not sure they can HELP droooling. I've seen you in a corset, and I couldn't...

[raven-ap-morgan.livejournal.com]

She said drooling on her chest...

Raven

[lizziecrowe.livejournal.com]

What HE said.

[ann-totusek.livejournal.com]

Ah. I misplaced my proposition. Er, I mean "preposition." I mis-read it as "at"

[lizziecrowe.livejournal.com]

*snort* So subtle, my dear. :)

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

...Well, now that a MAN's talking about sexual harrassment maybe the conventions will take it seriously.

If only ComicCon would adopt a Sexual Harrassment policy - which they haven't. The last time anyone (female) blogged about that one it led to a deluge of buttsquealing online by fanboys whining about how women ONLY come to cons to falsely accuse Nice Guys Like Them of harrassment and ruin the con for them. (Gosh, dudes, it's so awful that someone's calling you out on that quickie grope of the Sailor Moon cosplayer.)

Personally, if ComicCon continues in this attitude I'm in favor of the 2-1 Booth policy: For every 2 Booth Bunnies employed at a site, the concom has to hire one Booth Bitch. If any of the d00dz start making any of the women (bunnies, proprietresses, fangirls) feel unsafe or creeped out at that booth, it will be the duty of the Booth Bitch to punch Mr. Geeky right where he'll notice it first. Then when they run bawling to Security about how that mean girl hurt them, they can remind him that ComicCon has no official policy for prevention of sexual harrassment.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

If only ComicCon would adopt a Sexual Harrassment policy - which they haven't. The last time anyone (female) blogged about that one it led to a deluge of buttsquealing online by fanboys whining about how women ONLY come to cons to falsely accuse Nice Guys Like Them of harrassment and ruin the con for them. (Gosh, dudes, it's so awful that someone's calling you out on that quickie grope of the Sailor Moon cosplayer.)

A truly demented attitude, given the existence of, oh, the female half of fandom, without whom us a lot of us guys would still be primarily aging-virgin Heinlein/wargame buffs thrashing out the tactical problems of the Peloponnesian War. Heck, Felicia Day alone disproves the whole thing specifically at SDCC.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Wait wait... you mean every furry con in existence, no matter how tiny, has Harassment clauses in the con book, and a monster con like SDCC does NOT?! Just unbelievable.

At the same time though, I have personally seen both males and females make outrageous charges against exFriends or Exes to get them booted from the con. And as there's no evidence or witnesses, it turns into a He said/She said argument. On one hand, the conComm can eject someone with no evidence. On the other hand, the conComm can "accept" abuse and borderline rape, yada yada yada. Why anyone wants to staff a con anymore, I don't know -- too many people making it too difficult these days.

[mouser.livejournal.com]

...especially this week...

What happened THIS week?

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Nothing -- it's just that things like this tend to get a lot more input during the first few days than after.

[terriwells.livejournal.com]

Um, actually, something DID happen this week, or recently enough. http://geekfeminism.org/2010/11/07/noirins-hell-of-a-time/

[tandw.livejournal.com]

Thanks for signal-boosting this--I'm going to pass the link along to my daughter, who (like lizziecrowe) has been known to wear a corset at cons, and is kind of chesty. (Those of you who are on the DucKon committee--she's Mina's second on the dealer's room.)

[sillyfox.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure about others' experiences, but most of the sexual harassment I've been subjected to were from people who were -not- attending the convention but were otherwise sharing public space with it. (Such as sharing the Sheraton hotel with several high school baseball teams during InConjunction for a few years.)

[ldyerzsie.livejournal.com]

I've gotten quite a bit of both. Of course, since I know how to handle myself, I haven't had anything beyond verbal harassment. I learned how to deal with it in College when I was only the third woman EVER--at that point--to actually join the gaming club. I taught some of them how to treat a lady.

[sffilk.livejournal.com]

It seems that there was more than enough at this happening at Dragon*Con that there was a HUGE thread about it.