I know the comparison between gaming/comic/anime/sci-fi/fantasy nerds and sports fans isn't new, people have been talking about this for a while: how people in both groups are overly enthusiastic in the way they dress up and obsess over minor details. But there's one similarity we don't talk about: both subcultures have elitist, gatekeeping assholes.
Yesterday I went into the heart of Boston to watch the Red Sox parade, and while I was waiting I met a woman who had taken the D line into the city. For those who don't know the MBTA, that's the train that goes from Newton into the city, stopping at "Fenway" (of course, the Kenmore stop is actually closer to the park). For many living in the metrowest area, parking at Riverside or Woodland station and taking the D line into the city is the cheapest and most convenient way to get into Boston, especially for Red Sox games. Naturally, it was packed yesterday. The woman I'd met recounted two men on the train who, when not chanting "LET'S GO RED SOX," loudly insisted that anyone who didn't know the stating lineup get off the train.
Douchey, I know. But I get where he's coming from. When people find themselves competing for resources, in this case space (not even seats, just space), it's natural to convince themselves that only a select few actually deserve those resources. In this case, these men believed that there just wasn't room on the train for casual fans.
Look, if someone wants to wake up early on a Saturday, drive around Newton to find parking because the huge lots at the green line stops are already full, and take a packed train into the city with a bunch of assholes, that's enough dedication, and they deserve to be there. Just like if someone wants to drop money on a badge or ticket to a convention and pay the expense to get to the convention, they deserve to take up space at that convention. If someone's been waiting in line longer than you to get into that panel, there's a good chance they care about that topic, and have just as much right to a seat in there as you - maybe more. No one should have to justify their right to take up space.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Monday, September 23, 2013
Requests =/= Censorship
Today Jill Pantozzi of The Mary Sue tweeted this:
I mentioned this tweet to my followers on Facebook, and one friend of mine got pissed. Because apparently this request is totally unreasonable. Apparently she was requiring that people be forced to draw characters they don't like. Apparently she was abusing her influence in geek culture to coerce poor artists to draw characters they didn't wanna draw.
Look, if someone is drawing character art at a convention, they're usually drawing multiple characters from multiple fandoms. Female characters may be marginalized in most corners of geek media but they're not non-existent. If someone's drawing character art and not featuring one print of a female character, that's a little odd. And if women are absent from so many booths that Ms. Pantozzi felt the need to make this request, then maybe it is necessary for her to use what influence she has to suggest that people include a little diversity in their art.
Seriously, most people who only draw men don't do so because they only like to draw men; most either don't think to draw women, or don't bother because they assume the prints won't sell as well.
Artist alley tables aren't cheap. Even at a relatively small event like ConnectiCon, I believe a table is upwards of a thousand; I'll bet a table at NYCC is a lot more. These artists may not be in it for the money, but I'll bet most of them would at least like to break even. Artists want to feature art that will sell, and they may think that prints of men will do just that. The pictures of women I see at most booths are highly sexualized; outfits are skimpier, waists are thinner, and breasts are bigger than they usually appear in the official media they appear in. Why? Because sex sells; I've heard an artist admit that as I browsed through his portfolio full of female characters drawn as 1940's pinups. There's no shame in wanting to make money, this is America after all, and we all gotta make rent somehow. Maybe if a highly influential woman suggests they feature pictures of women, they might be more likely to do so, knowing such a product will actually sell.
I could talk about how a convention floor that features art, comic books, t-shirts, and other merchandise that's pretty much all made with men in mind, but every time I talk about women feeling alienated and unwelcome in geek spaces, some jerkface assumes I want every convention to be some warm fuzzy hug lounge where people greet each other with tea and stuffed animals. So forget it, I won't bother this time.
Ultimately, yes, people can and should draw whatever they want. This is America after all, freedom of speech and stuff. No one is asking for some weird quota system where all artists at a convention must sell X number of prints featuring women. Pantozzi may have fans, she may write for a publication, but if people are staunchly against drawing women, they're probably going to ignore her, and they'll probably brush it off if some angry feminist calls them out for only selling pictures of men.
I mentioned this tweet to my followers on Facebook, and one friend of mine got pissed. Because apparently this request is totally unreasonable. Apparently she was requiring that people be forced to draw characters they don't like. Apparently she was abusing her influence in geek culture to coerce poor artists to draw characters they didn't wanna draw.
Look, if someone is drawing character art at a convention, they're usually drawing multiple characters from multiple fandoms. Female characters may be marginalized in most corners of geek media but they're not non-existent. If someone's drawing character art and not featuring one print of a female character, that's a little odd. And if women are absent from so many booths that Ms. Pantozzi felt the need to make this request, then maybe it is necessary for her to use what influence she has to suggest that people include a little diversity in their art.
Seriously, most people who only draw men don't do so because they only like to draw men; most either don't think to draw women, or don't bother because they assume the prints won't sell as well.
Artist alley tables aren't cheap. Even at a relatively small event like ConnectiCon, I believe a table is upwards of a thousand; I'll bet a table at NYCC is a lot more. These artists may not be in it for the money, but I'll bet most of them would at least like to break even. Artists want to feature art that will sell, and they may think that prints of men will do just that. The pictures of women I see at most booths are highly sexualized; outfits are skimpier, waists are thinner, and breasts are bigger than they usually appear in the official media they appear in. Why? Because sex sells; I've heard an artist admit that as I browsed through his portfolio full of female characters drawn as 1940's pinups. There's no shame in wanting to make money, this is America after all, and we all gotta make rent somehow. Maybe if a highly influential woman suggests they feature pictures of women, they might be more likely to do so, knowing such a product will actually sell.
I could talk about how a convention floor that features art, comic books, t-shirts, and other merchandise that's pretty much all made with men in mind, but every time I talk about women feeling alienated and unwelcome in geek spaces, some jerkface assumes I want every convention to be some warm fuzzy hug lounge where people greet each other with tea and stuffed animals. So forget it, I won't bother this time.
Ultimately, yes, people can and should draw whatever they want. This is America after all, freedom of speech and stuff. No one is asking for some weird quota system where all artists at a convention must sell X number of prints featuring women. Pantozzi may have fans, she may write for a publication, but if people are staunchly against drawing women, they're probably going to ignore her, and they'll probably brush it off if some angry feminist calls them out for only selling pictures of men.
Friday, August 16, 2013
My Reaction to Heroes of Cosplay - or why I think the show was horribly misnamed
I finally got to watch Syfy's much-anticipated and highly controversial show Heroes of Cosplay last night. I'll admit, watching the show was actually kind of fun, in that the show did feature names I recognized and was about cosplay and conventions - a huge part of my life.
For a while I'd been wishing for a reality show that profiled people with geeky hobbies, and followed them as they prepared for various conventions or tournaments, because we are pretty damn interesting if I do say so myself, and many of us do put a good bit of work and dedication into our hobbies, so it would be cool to have that recognized. But while most of us work hard, or as hard as we're able, very few of us are as obsessed as the people on Heroes of Cosplay.
The show ought to be called "The Dark Side of Cosplay." Or "Obsessed with Cosplay."
Not that I'm shocked a reality show would highlight the worst of the worst in any scene. I'm sure not all pageant moms are as nuts as the ones on Toddlers and Tiaras, nor are all coaches of competitive dance teams as craycray as Abby Lee Miller - although I have heard both worlds are fairly toxic. Or maybe we all just think they're toxic because of TV. Either way, the lifestyles of the people on Heroes of Cosplay seem toxic as all getout, and I don't want this show to normalize that.
Of course I have some criticisms from a social justice/feminist standpoint. I didn't like the way Becky was so focused on her body type. I know it's not uncommon, I myself have wanted to be in better shape for this cosplay or that, but again, it was shown from a Heroes of Cosplay angle, not a "this is the dark side of cosplay, this is what women sadly have to deal with" angle; the latter is a realistic criticism, the former goes in the dangerous direction of normalizing the obsession. Of course, all of the people on the show were slender, attractive, white people. And one guy.
It is interesting that cosplay seems so female dominated, because so much of it is considered feminine. Sewing is a traditionally female task and hobby, and dressing up (especially for attention or for a competition) is primarily associated with women. Typically, when you think of men making cosplays, you think of men making cosplays. They construct suits of armor, craft mascot suits, and forge weapons - y'know, man stuff. That may have something to do with the fact that many male characters involve that kind of craftsmanship.
But while men's manly forging abilities may be up for criticism, female cosplayers and feminine costumes are subject to a high level of scrutiny. God forbid you not have the body type to portray the character you wish to dress as (despite the fact that these characters are usually drawn with unrealistic proportions), then people will comment on your waist being too big or your boobs being too small. Wear a revealing cosplay and you're asking for sexual harassment, but choose to be more conservative and you're a prude - not to mention the majority of female characters wear revealing costumes, and any changes to make them more conservative may be criticized. Women can cosplay as male characters and it'll be seen as empowering, but if a man dresses as a women, it's rarely well received - think "Aaaah, my eyes!" or "It's a trap!" or "Is that a guy??"
Men will rarely be accused of "just wearing that for attention," whereas female cosplayers are constantly assumed to be doing just that: wearing sexy costumes and showing off for the sexual attention of their male peers. And yeah, some of us do that - the attention one gets while in cosplay can be glorious (when it's not sketch b'getch) - but it's certainly not the sole reason why most of us cosplay.
How about a show where people trying to overcome sexism, racism, and transphobia to do what they love in a space that isn't as "equal" as we've been led to believe? I'd watch that.
Monday, August 12, 2013
A Girl Worth Saving: What Anita Sarkeesian Failed to Mention
So first of all, I like Anita Sarkeesian. I don't love her, but I like her. I didn't like her commentary on Sucker Punch, but I did enjoy her original Tropes vs. Women series because it touched on tropes people either didn't know about or hadn't thought of; she briefly summarized the trope and gave what I thought were compelling arguments why they were problematic. I think her video game project is worthwhile, but three videos on a row on the same trope? It's been months since the first video came out and all we've heard of are damsels in distress; I want to hear her talk about other tropes - any other trope will do. Just please, god please, stop talking about the damsels in distress.
But I am going to add to the conversation on them. Because for all of her talk on sexism, her three friggin' videos have been completely devoid of intersectionality. None. At all. Anita, you're better than this, I know you talked about race . . . once. You talked about it once. Which when you consider all the videos you've made one might expect more, but okay, you did it once, so I know you know race is an important component to the representation issue . . . right?
It is, and it's worth mentioning that here's very little diversity in the damsel role.
With a few exceptions (I assume), damsels are all created to be girls the player will deem worth saving. The damsel is pretty, she's young, she's thin, she's pure - conservatively dressed, wearing white, and/or stated to be pure of heart (like in Kingdom Hearts). Most notably, she's always white. Have there been any damsels of color? Er, no really I don't know maybe there has been one or two somewhere in gaming history. But all the damsels I've seen have been white. Let's face it, we may have a black president, but the gaming industry knows that their audience - or at least their mythical audience made up of only white teenage boys - and they know that some guys won't want to save a black princess, and they certainly wouldn't want to lose that audience.
EDIT: one of the Princesses of Heart in Kingdom Hearts was Jasmine, who's not white. One exception!
Remember, all the Disney princesses that had to be rescued in some way were white. The one black princess they had was independent, which was great, I don't mean we should be reducing black girls to damsels with no power or agency. Perhaps we've actually spared them the damsel role, which is certainly one way to look at it. But let's face it, we're not relegating white girls to damsel roles because we hate them or think they're worthless. Our world values girls who are worth fighting for, and there may be some cruelty in telling girls that only some of them are worthy of being rescued.
But I am going to add to the conversation on them. Because for all of her talk on sexism, her three friggin' videos have been completely devoid of intersectionality. None. At all. Anita, you're better than this, I know you talked about race . . . once. You talked about it once. Which when you consider all the videos you've made one might expect more, but okay, you did it once, so I know you know race is an important component to the representation issue . . . right?
It is, and it's worth mentioning that here's very little diversity in the damsel role.
With a few exceptions (I assume), damsels are all created to be girls the player will deem worth saving. The damsel is pretty, she's young, she's thin, she's pure - conservatively dressed, wearing white, and/or stated to be pure of heart (like in Kingdom Hearts). Most notably, she's always white. Have there been any damsels of color? Er, no really I don't know maybe there has been one or two somewhere in gaming history. But all the damsels I've seen have been white. Let's face it, we may have a black president, but the gaming industry knows that their audience - or at least their mythical audience made up of only white teenage boys - and they know that some guys won't want to save a black princess, and they certainly wouldn't want to lose that audience.
EDIT: one of the Princesses of Heart in Kingdom Hearts was Jasmine, who's not white. One exception!
Remember, all the Disney princesses that had to be rescued in some way were white. The one black princess they had was independent, which was great, I don't mean we should be reducing black girls to damsels with no power or agency. Perhaps we've actually spared them the damsel role, which is certainly one way to look at it. But let's face it, we're not relegating white girls to damsel roles because we hate them or think they're worthless. Our world values girls who are worth fighting for, and there may be some cruelty in telling girls that only some of them are worthy of being rescued.
Girl Univited from Supehero Party, Because Comics Are For Boys
A woman recently wrote to the New York Times Social Q column about her daughter being uninvited from a boy's birthday party. According to her letter, which you can find here, the girl was initially invited, but the parents decided to uninvite the girls because they determined the party's superhero theme was too masculine, and planned a separate party for the girls.
Now I see there are a couple issues, the first is the parents being overly concerned with making sure everyone has a good time. My mom did this too, but in the much more reasonable form of making sure there was a good variety of games and party favors so there was something for everyone, and yes sometimes this meant the girls would get one thing and the boys would get another. Parents do this all the time, but to have two different parties because you assume girls wouldn't like the original party is dumb, and sends a message to the kids that boys and girls are so different they need separate parties to have fun. Nope.
Look, themed parties are fun, but at the end of the day the theme is little more than decoration, a way for the birthday kid to express his or herself, not please the guests. Whatever the theme is, at the end of the day the kids really only care about playing together and eating cake.
In this case we have parents probably making the insulting assumption that girls don't like comics and superheroes. Well, some might not, but how do you know if you never even encourage them to check 'em out? If you purposefully keep girls away from things like comics and video games, you tell them "these aren't for you, you won't like them, and you're not supposed to like them."
And no, this is not the same thing as girls-only princess parties. I honestly don't care who gets invited to those (although personally I'm not a fan of them in general), but saying that having a boys-only thing is okay because some girls have girls-only princess parties is a false equivalency. Comics have both male and female superheroes; it's not inherently a boys-only genre, so why do we keep acting like it is? And why are we passing that "comics are for boys" attitude down to our kids at such an early age?
What I will say is this: if I have kids, they will be exposed to video games and comics regardless of gender. If they like it, great, we'll dress 'em up and take 'em to comic conventions. If they don't, that's fine too, but I'm not going to assume my son would like comics and my daughter will only like princesses and ponies.
PS: it's rude as hell to uninvite someone from a party without a good reason why they're no longer welcome. If you don't want someone there, y'all better think of that before sending out the invites.
PPS: I know the parents can plan the party however the hell they want, what they did isn't illegal, just awful.
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Recap of "The Social Politics of Cosplay"
Apologies for this taking forever to get up, I was beyond exhausted when I got back from ConnectiCon, had to get back to work, and then I went to the Cape with my family for a few days and I couldn't access the internet from my laptop. Long story.
Anyway, the panel went okay. It had a low turnout at first since it overlapped with some Cards Against Humanity/50 Shades of Gray event that everyone wanted to go to. People did trickle in as the panel went on, especially in the discussion section. It was shorter than I thought it'd be, probably because I was tired and forgot a lot of points I wanted to make. On the bright side we had plenty of time for discussion, which it great because it lets people talk about what's on their minds, focus on what they wanna talk about, and lets them offer their own take on the issues.
The slides are on slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/allisonwilhelm50/the-social-politics-of-
cosplay
So, what's next for Allison?
I am set to present a panel on gender/race representation at Coast City Comic-Con in November.
I submitted a panel called "So If You're An Anime Character, Why Are You White?" panel to New York Comic Con (NYCC). To clarify, I don't actually think anime characters are "white," but a lot of anime fans - particularly younger, newer fans, or fans who haven't been able to take a fancy course on Japanese popular culture - ask that question, so I want to tackle the issue. I know this is a long shot and it's really hard to get a panel at that convention, so I know what even with a clever title it still might not get in. This is not self-deprication, this is reality and I'm okay with it. But either way, I'm expecting to know on or around August 8th, and I will let you guys know if I'm accepted.
I will probably submit that panel to Anime Boston and Otakon when possible.
Speaking of intended submissions, I'm also planning a few other panels:
"Geeks Gone Wild: Raunch Culture at Anime Conventions" to be submitted to Anime Boston 2014.
"Blue Drop," a panel on the anime series of the same name, so be submitted to Anime Boston 2014 assuming I can come up with an angle to make it interesting. I don't have one right now.
"Government and Horror Movies" to be submitted to Balticon* and ConnectiCon.
Balticon is a convention in Baltimore that focuses on science fiction but, judging from the website, seems kind of multi-genre, similar to ConnectiCon.
A panel on Mary Sue characters, no name yet, to be submitted to Balticon and possibly other conventions.
A panel on Neurotically Yours ("the Foamy cartoons") to be submitted to ConnectiCon 2014.
I'll keep y'all posted.
Anyway, the panel went okay. It had a low turnout at first since it overlapped with some Cards Against Humanity/50 Shades of Gray event that everyone wanted to go to. People did trickle in as the panel went on, especially in the discussion section. It was shorter than I thought it'd be, probably because I was tired and forgot a lot of points I wanted to make. On the bright side we had plenty of time for discussion, which it great because it lets people talk about what's on their minds, focus on what they wanna talk about, and lets them offer their own take on the issues.
The slides are on slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/allisonwilhelm50/the-social-politics-of-
cosplay
So, what's next for Allison?
I am set to present a panel on gender/race representation at Coast City Comic-Con in November.
I submitted a panel called "So If You're An Anime Character, Why Are You White?" panel to New York Comic Con (NYCC). To clarify, I don't actually think anime characters are "white," but a lot of anime fans - particularly younger, newer fans, or fans who haven't been able to take a fancy course on Japanese popular culture - ask that question, so I want to tackle the issue. I know this is a long shot and it's really hard to get a panel at that convention, so I know what even with a clever title it still might not get in. This is not self-deprication, this is reality and I'm okay with it. But either way, I'm expecting to know on or around August 8th, and I will let you guys know if I'm accepted.
I will probably submit that panel to Anime Boston and Otakon when possible.
Speaking of intended submissions, I'm also planning a few other panels:
"Geeks Gone Wild: Raunch Culture at Anime Conventions" to be submitted to Anime Boston 2014.
"Blue Drop," a panel on the anime series of the same name, so be submitted to Anime Boston 2014 assuming I can come up with an angle to make it interesting. I don't have one right now.
"Government and Horror Movies" to be submitted to Balticon* and ConnectiCon.
Balticon is a convention in Baltimore that focuses on science fiction but, judging from the website, seems kind of multi-genre, similar to ConnectiCon.
A panel on Mary Sue characters, no name yet, to be submitted to Balticon and possibly other conventions.
A panel on Neurotically Yours ("the Foamy cartoons") to be submitted to ConnectiCon 2014.
I'll keep y'all posted.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
Why telling a staff member won't fix the problem of harassment
Many times when the issue of harassment comes up, an exasperated convention staffer exclaims "GUYS, if someone gives you trouble just TELL A STAFF MEMBER!" That say it as though we wouldn't have this problem if we just told staffers about it when it happened, it would be a non-issue. Just tell the staff . . . problem solved?
Nope.
In a perfect world, if someone was harassed, they would report the incident. They'd feel comfortable and confident calmly telling someone what happened, and the staff would hunt the jerkwad down and subject them to effective disciplinary action, probably taking away their badge. This would teach the harasser a valuable lesson and they'd never do it again, and even take the time to educate their peers so others don't do it either.
But that doesn't happen.
I'll get to that later though. The fact is, even if reporting an incident had a happy ending, by the time someone needs to report harassment, it's too late. Something bad has already happened, the damage has been done. Even if justice is served, it won't undo anything, nor will it prevent others from doing it. Those concerned about the problem want to see a geek culure where harassment is very rare, and we know it's not a scattered series of unrelated events, but that harassment is a trend, and a result of problematic attitudes toward women at conventions.
Part of the problem is that douchebags think anything goes at conventions, and thus it's okay to be their true douchebag selves. To be sure, a lot of harassers are cock waffles. But let's look at the other reason why this keeps happening. In geek media - anime, comic books, video games, science fiction, etc. - women are objectified. That's not news. They're usually drawn to be attractive to the male protagonist and presumably male audience. They're often sexual and romantic partners for the male protagonist. They're there for the protagonists, and rather than subjects who act, they are objects who are acted upon. When one consumes a lot of this media, media made - again - for male audiences, they often internalize two messages: 1) that this stuff isn't for girls, and 2) girls in nerdy spaces exist for the men in those spaces, specifically as potential sexual or romantic partners. I mean, it's not like those girls could possibly be "real" fans, right?*
When it comes to cosplay, these messages usually translate to problematic discussions. If these characters are drawn to turn men on, one may then assume that women dressing as these characters for the same reason: to be sexy. We often use the term "self-objectification," which implies that they're turning themselves into objects, thus it's okay to treat them like objects. Or that they wouldn't dress like that if they didn't want sexual attention.*
This is why we have the CONsent project, or the "Cosplay =/= Consent" campaign, to try to drill home the idea that just because someone's wearing a costume doesn't mean you can treat them like an object. It's a great idea, but I'm not sure it does anything. I have yet to hear from someone who's been "turned around" by seeing the campaign. In fact, I've even met a so-called supporter of the CONsent project who saw nothing wrong with harassment. He felt that it came with the territory and wasn't such a bad thing, and that we should only focus on physical assaults at conventions.
In any case, because the issue is so widespread and caused by attitudes that run deep in our subculture, reporting the issue and punishing the harassers is a band-aid solution to the problem.
And we're not confident it'll do anything.
I'll preface this by saying I've never reported harassment at a convention. I'm lucky that I've never had to. But if I was in the situation, I wouldn't want to. Staffers have so much to deal with, and on top of that now they gotta go hunt down this guy? It's a big convention with so many people, what are the chances of finding him? Do they have the time and energy for it? Is it worth it? What would they do if they caught him? They have zero evidence that anything actually happened, it's my word against his, can you really confiscate a $50 badge without evidence? No, that's not logical. Whether he denies it, defends his actions ("I just did X, come on are you really gonna ban me for that?") or show enough remorse that the average staffer would probably let him off with a warning. Either way, I don't see any real action taken unless someone actually sees someone doing something really bad.
If he is kicked out, the only thing he'll learn is that the convention is run by a bunch of tyrants. He'll probably just go to other conventions and do the same thing.
Convention staff, if you feel that you can handle a report of harassment well and effectively handle the situation, hats off to you! If staffers can actually do something, that's great. But no matter how good you guys are at handling situations that occur, you need to understand that your actions alone are not going to remedy the problem. The only way to stop convention harassment is a radical change in cultural attitudes.
*I'm not saying that ALL geeks feel this way, or that all men feel this way, just that it's a common way of thinking and is usually a result of so much exposure to media that caters to the male gaze.
Nope.
In a perfect world, if someone was harassed, they would report the incident. They'd feel comfortable and confident calmly telling someone what happened, and the staff would hunt the jerkwad down and subject them to effective disciplinary action, probably taking away their badge. This would teach the harasser a valuable lesson and they'd never do it again, and even take the time to educate their peers so others don't do it either.
But that doesn't happen.
I'll get to that later though. The fact is, even if reporting an incident had a happy ending, by the time someone needs to report harassment, it's too late. Something bad has already happened, the damage has been done. Even if justice is served, it won't undo anything, nor will it prevent others from doing it. Those concerned about the problem want to see a geek culure where harassment is very rare, and we know it's not a scattered series of unrelated events, but that harassment is a trend, and a result of problematic attitudes toward women at conventions.
Part of the problem is that douchebags think anything goes at conventions, and thus it's okay to be their true douchebag selves. To be sure, a lot of harassers are cock waffles. But let's look at the other reason why this keeps happening. In geek media - anime, comic books, video games, science fiction, etc. - women are objectified. That's not news. They're usually drawn to be attractive to the male protagonist and presumably male audience. They're often sexual and romantic partners for the male protagonist. They're there for the protagonists, and rather than subjects who act, they are objects who are acted upon. When one consumes a lot of this media, media made - again - for male audiences, they often internalize two messages: 1) that this stuff isn't for girls, and 2) girls in nerdy spaces exist for the men in those spaces, specifically as potential sexual or romantic partners. I mean, it's not like those girls could possibly be "real" fans, right?*
When it comes to cosplay, these messages usually translate to problematic discussions. If these characters are drawn to turn men on, one may then assume that women dressing as these characters for the same reason: to be sexy. We often use the term "self-objectification," which implies that they're turning themselves into objects, thus it's okay to treat them like objects. Or that they wouldn't dress like that if they didn't want sexual attention.*
This is why we have the CONsent project, or the "Cosplay =/= Consent" campaign, to try to drill home the idea that just because someone's wearing a costume doesn't mean you can treat them like an object. It's a great idea, but I'm not sure it does anything. I have yet to hear from someone who's been "turned around" by seeing the campaign. In fact, I've even met a so-called supporter of the CONsent project who saw nothing wrong with harassment. He felt that it came with the territory and wasn't such a bad thing, and that we should only focus on physical assaults at conventions.
In any case, because the issue is so widespread and caused by attitudes that run deep in our subculture, reporting the issue and punishing the harassers is a band-aid solution to the problem.
And we're not confident it'll do anything.
I'll preface this by saying I've never reported harassment at a convention. I'm lucky that I've never had to. But if I was in the situation, I wouldn't want to. Staffers have so much to deal with, and on top of that now they gotta go hunt down this guy? It's a big convention with so many people, what are the chances of finding him? Do they have the time and energy for it? Is it worth it? What would they do if they caught him? They have zero evidence that anything actually happened, it's my word against his, can you really confiscate a $50 badge without evidence? No, that's not logical. Whether he denies it, defends his actions ("I just did X, come on are you really gonna ban me for that?") or show enough remorse that the average staffer would probably let him off with a warning. Either way, I don't see any real action taken unless someone actually sees someone doing something really bad.
If he is kicked out, the only thing he'll learn is that the convention is run by a bunch of tyrants. He'll probably just go to other conventions and do the same thing.
Convention staff, if you feel that you can handle a report of harassment well and effectively handle the situation, hats off to you! If staffers can actually do something, that's great. But no matter how good you guys are at handling situations that occur, you need to understand that your actions alone are not going to remedy the problem. The only way to stop convention harassment is a radical change in cultural attitudes.
*I'm not saying that ALL geeks feel this way, or that all men feel this way, just that it's a common way of thinking and is usually a result of so much exposure to media that caters to the male gaze.
Friday, June 7, 2013
My Reaction To "The Greak Geek Sexism Debate" (Part 2)
Okay, now that I've had something to eat, it's time for Part 2! In the second incident in The Great Geek Sexism Debate roundup, we have a feminist skeptic that was harassed for her feminist beliefs at The Amazing Meeting, a big skeptic conference. She was then harassed online after the conference, and her address was posted online.
All becase she dared to be a feminist in a space that largely regarded feminism as irrelevant at best and bullshit at worst.
I choose "bullshit" because one of the most famous atheists, at least in mainstream culture, is Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller. He also says "feminist" the way Draco Malfoy says "mudblood." He's not a fan. I don't actually know if they did an episode of Bullshit about feminism, and quite honestly I'd rather not know if they did. No really, please don't tell me. Athesists and skeptics have notoriously bad attitudes toward feminism. What's sad is that a lot of these atheist public figures, mostly men, have great things to say about other topics. I'll watch their videos and agree enthusiastically with almost everything they say. Then they bring up feminism and there's an old-school, cliche record scratch in my head. This often turns me off from these figures completely, or almost completely, but that's because I am a feminist. The non-feminist viewers will follow these anti-feminist viewpoints as "religiously" as they follow everything else these men have to say. They'll insist that they think women should be equal, but come on, this guy makes some good points . . .
Not what you'd expect, huh? Especially when you think of how many women must stray from religion and become atheists and skeptics to escape sexism.
That's why feminism is so relevant to the skeptic community. Just like it's relevant to the nerd community. It's not directly relevant to the subject matter, but it's necessary because the community breeds anti-feminism and misogyny, making the community hostile toward women in general, especially women who vocally challenge the status quo. Like the woman who complained about the man who propositioned her in an elevator at 4am at an atheist conference, only to have Richard Dawkins sarcastically compare her frivolous problem to women in Africa having their genitals mutilated. Because if women are experiencing really bad oppression, we're never allowed to talk about our own problems regarding harassment and microaggressions.
I'm not saying that a conference focusing on pseudoscience should have programming with regards to women in the community, at least not on par with their relevant programming. But aside from a better approach to convention harassment, the community in general should have a place for people to talk about this issue. Maybe host an after-hours roundtable discussion, or host a separate conference for the issue. Either way, since this issue is plaguing the skeptic community, feminism is absolutely relevant.
All becase she dared to be a feminist in a space that largely regarded feminism as irrelevant at best and bullshit at worst.
I choose "bullshit" because one of the most famous atheists, at least in mainstream culture, is Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller. He also says "feminist" the way Draco Malfoy says "mudblood." He's not a fan. I don't actually know if they did an episode of Bullshit about feminism, and quite honestly I'd rather not know if they did. No really, please don't tell me. Athesists and skeptics have notoriously bad attitudes toward feminism. What's sad is that a lot of these atheist public figures, mostly men, have great things to say about other topics. I'll watch their videos and agree enthusiastically with almost everything they say. Then they bring up feminism and there's an old-school, cliche record scratch in my head. This often turns me off from these figures completely, or almost completely, but that's because I am a feminist. The non-feminist viewers will follow these anti-feminist viewpoints as "religiously" as they follow everything else these men have to say. They'll insist that they think women should be equal, but come on, this guy makes some good points . . .
Not what you'd expect, huh? Especially when you think of how many women must stray from religion and become atheists and skeptics to escape sexism.
That's why feminism is so relevant to the skeptic community. Just like it's relevant to the nerd community. It's not directly relevant to the subject matter, but it's necessary because the community breeds anti-feminism and misogyny, making the community hostile toward women in general, especially women who vocally challenge the status quo. Like the woman who complained about the man who propositioned her in an elevator at 4am at an atheist conference, only to have Richard Dawkins sarcastically compare her frivolous problem to women in Africa having their genitals mutilated. Because if women are experiencing really bad oppression, we're never allowed to talk about our own problems regarding harassment and microaggressions.
I'm not saying that a conference focusing on pseudoscience should have programming with regards to women in the community, at least not on par with their relevant programming. But aside from a better approach to convention harassment, the community in general should have a place for people to talk about this issue. Maybe host an after-hours roundtable discussion, or host a separate conference for the issue. Either way, since this issue is plaguing the skeptic community, feminism is absolutely relevant.
My Reaction To "The Greak Geek Sexism Debate" (Part 1)
I'm sorta kicking myself for not seeing this article when it first came out, or maybe I did but didn't read it because I was at work. Not sure, either way, I just read it today. It's a roundup of three women's experiences at conventions, all nerd-related. It summarizes the incidents and aftermath pretty wekk, I think the piece speaks for itself, but I do have some commentary to add.
You can find the original article here.
This ended up being a little long so I'll write this in three parts, each entry dealing with a different incident in the article.
The first incident deals with a woman at Readercon, a literary convention in Burlington, MA. A convention volunteer followed her around, making sexual comments, and her attempts to walk away and shake him passively didn't work. At an evening event, things got physical as he pressed against her in front of a lot of people, and she loudly told him to cut it out. Even then, he continued to follow her around for the rest of the convention. She filed a complaint, but despite the convention's zero-tolerance policy, the volunteer wasn't banned because he was "sincerely regretful." At least not at first. Eventually the whole board of directors resigned and the volunteer was permanently banned.
I see the problem here. See, volunteers are extremely valuable to conventions. Most of the conventions are run by nonprofit organizations that can't pay for a huge staff of people, so running these cons is a labor of love for all involved, and I have a lot of respect for volunteers. They sacrifice their time, energy, and sanity to make sure things run as smoothly as possible, and dealing with their fair share of entitled douchecanoes in the process. So when someone willing to do this breaks the rules of the convention, not only do people find it hard to believe that one of their own could do something so distasteful, but the decision-makers are reluctant to let go of someone who - in their eyes - is an otherwise valuable asset to the convention. It's not like they have people lining up to take his place. No convention has a surplus of volunteers.
I don't mean to justify his behavior, of course! He still did a bad thing and should have gotten the banhammer right away. Fact is, as a volunteer he is representing the convention and needs to act as such. How can someone feel safe at a convention and trust the staff to act on incidents of harassment when even the volunteers are guilty of it?
Also, the entire board resigning was a little hasty. Yes, they made a bad decision, but I'd rather see them release an apology and then proactively work toward preventing this in the future, learning from their mistake. The problem with a changing of the guard with regard to conventions is that it never really works. They have experience planning the convention, and they've built a relationship with veteran attendees, and completely replacing the entire board may have negaive consequences for the overall convention.
You can find the original article here.
This ended up being a little long so I'll write this in three parts, each entry dealing with a different incident in the article.
The first incident deals with a woman at Readercon, a literary convention in Burlington, MA. A convention volunteer followed her around, making sexual comments, and her attempts to walk away and shake him passively didn't work. At an evening event, things got physical as he pressed against her in front of a lot of people, and she loudly told him to cut it out. Even then, he continued to follow her around for the rest of the convention. She filed a complaint, but despite the convention's zero-tolerance policy, the volunteer wasn't banned because he was "sincerely regretful." At least not at first. Eventually the whole board of directors resigned and the volunteer was permanently banned.
I see the problem here. See, volunteers are extremely valuable to conventions. Most of the conventions are run by nonprofit organizations that can't pay for a huge staff of people, so running these cons is a labor of love for all involved, and I have a lot of respect for volunteers. They sacrifice their time, energy, and sanity to make sure things run as smoothly as possible, and dealing with their fair share of entitled douchecanoes in the process. So when someone willing to do this breaks the rules of the convention, not only do people find it hard to believe that one of their own could do something so distasteful, but the decision-makers are reluctant to let go of someone who - in their eyes - is an otherwise valuable asset to the convention. It's not like they have people lining up to take his place. No convention has a surplus of volunteers.
I don't mean to justify his behavior, of course! He still did a bad thing and should have gotten the banhammer right away. Fact is, as a volunteer he is representing the convention and needs to act as such. How can someone feel safe at a convention and trust the staff to act on incidents of harassment when even the volunteers are guilty of it?
Also, the entire board resigning was a little hasty. Yes, they made a bad decision, but I'd rather see them release an apology and then proactively work toward preventing this in the future, learning from their mistake. The problem with a changing of the guard with regard to conventions is that it never really works. They have experience planning the convention, and they've built a relationship with veteran attendees, and completely replacing the entire board may have negaive consequences for the overall convention.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
So, where IS our Wonder Woman movie?
I began writing this when I was somewhat agitated, and it turned into more than just an angry rant, but I will warn that some writing may not be the most perfect, tactful, intelligent feminist writing on the internet. In fact there may be some snark in this piece. I am not apoloizing for how I feel about this issue, but you have been warned.
So I heard the new Superman movie was good. I'm actually pretty happy about that, but it got me thinking. We have a SuperMAN movie, and a SuperMAN TV show. We have a huge BatMAN franchise, and the Avengers movie (featuring a total of one female superhero) was great, and tangentially related are the movies about the men of the Avengers. We're even seeing sequels to Iron MAN, Captain America, and Thor. Great movies of course, but it would be nice if Natasha had her own movie rather than just appear in movies that center around the men of the Avengers.
But we really haven't seen any movies about female superheroes since the early 2000's, and we haven't really seen any good movies about female superheroes since . . . ever. We've heard murmurings about Joss Whedon directing a Wonder Woman movie, but then Marvel scooped him up and they're never letting him go, so there goes that dream. Yes, she had a brief TV show in the 70's, but that's about it. The attempt at a more modern show on the CW recently failed.
So we're clear, I get that she appears in some animated TV shows that almost no normal person over the age of 10 watches. I know she's going to be in the Justice League movie that may or may not happen - that should be a given, she's one of the most iconic comic book characters in history.
But all that is not enough. You can bring it up to make me feel better all you want, you can condescend to me and tell me again and again that she appears here or there or she'll be in this or that movie about someone else or that centers around a male dominated group of superheroes, but it's not enough. We need a Wonder Woman movie aleady!
Why her? Well, a movie about any female superhero would be great. A Zatanna movie would be awesome, and a Black Widow movie would be a great addition to the Avengers franchise, but Wonder Woman is, as I've said, one of the most iconic superheroes we have, and probably the most popular female superhero out there. Go to the comic book section of Barnes and Noble - yeah yeah I know, I'm not gonna make you buy anything, but I do want you to get a sense of what's popular. Look for the books about female superheroes. Ignore the Avengers and Justice League books, they have women in them but that's not the same as being about women. You probably see Wonder Woman books, one or two Batgirl books and . . . well if you can find books about any other woman you're lucky, because like I mentioned months ago, I could only find books about those two ladies. I loved both of them, but I that's not the point, I wanted more options. More choices. More variety. But even that's not the point here, I'm trying to illustrate that if there's one woman that's even remotely comparable to Superman or Batman in terms of popularity, it's Wonder Woman.
And it's time. She's been around since WWII, the fact that there are zero movies about her, let alone good movies, is not okay.
Don't tell me it won't sell tickets. The myth that movies about women won't have a wide appeal has been debunked thanks in large part to The Hunger Games, Bridesmaids, Brave, and if you wanna get nerdy, ALL the Hayo Miyazaki films. They do still need to be good, of course. Do we hold movies about female superheroes, or women in general, to a higher standard? Yes, absolutely. People are quick to bring up the fact that pretty much all movies about female superheroes have sucked. And that's true. But there have been just as many movies about male superheroes that have sucked, but we can ignore them, and not use them to dismiss all male superhero movies, because there have been so many good ones as well. The Batman movies, at least Michael Uslan's movies, are pretty much all great, especially the last trilogy (last as in the last made, not final). The Iron Man movies have been wonderful (or at least the first and third). Thor was good and Captain America is one of my favorites. So we can easily forget about awful Green Lantern Green Hornet movies, or the mediocre Spider Man trilogy.
We wouldn't feel the need to hold female characters, and movies about women, to a higher standard if we had more of them. But since there are so few out there, we expect the ones that do exist to work extra hard.
These movies being good goes beyond the mere fact that they're about men, but the fact that they're about men did play a part in their success. People believed these movies would do well, so the best of the best were willing to work on it, and the powers that be were willing to pay for the talent to make these movies successful. They were also willing to invest in quality special effects and the time to make the movie awesome. I don't think the same time, money, or effort has gone into any movie about a female superhero, and that's one of the reasons why those movies had so much tits and ass - sex sells, but it's a cheap sell. It's what producers rely on when they want lots of men to see and appreciate their movie without really trying to make the movie actually good.
So I will acknowledge that a Wonder Woman movie would need to be spectacular, and a disappointment may be better than no movie at all. But enough people have taken the risk with Superman, Batman, Spider Man, and almost all of the male Avengers, and while in hindsight not all of those movies were amazing, someone took the risk and they all had a great turnout at the box office. I have complete faith that we would see the same success with a Wonder Woman movie, we just need someone to take the plunge.
And again, I'd rather people not take it upon themselves to tell me where Wonder Woman does show up on TV and/or film. I know people do it to make me feel better, but don't. I don't think it's greedy to want a movie about her specifically when we have so many movies about her many male counterparts.
So I heard the new Superman movie was good. I'm actually pretty happy about that, but it got me thinking. We have a SuperMAN movie, and a SuperMAN TV show. We have a huge BatMAN franchise, and the Avengers movie (featuring a total of one female superhero) was great, and tangentially related are the movies about the men of the Avengers. We're even seeing sequels to Iron MAN, Captain America, and Thor. Great movies of course, but it would be nice if Natasha had her own movie rather than just appear in movies that center around the men of the Avengers.
But we really haven't seen any movies about female superheroes since the early 2000's, and we haven't really seen any good movies about female superheroes since . . . ever. We've heard murmurings about Joss Whedon directing a Wonder Woman movie, but then Marvel scooped him up and they're never letting him go, so there goes that dream. Yes, she had a brief TV show in the 70's, but that's about it. The attempt at a more modern show on the CW recently failed.
So we're clear, I get that she appears in some animated TV shows that almost no normal person over the age of 10 watches. I know she's going to be in the Justice League movie that may or may not happen - that should be a given, she's one of the most iconic comic book characters in history.
But all that is not enough. You can bring it up to make me feel better all you want, you can condescend to me and tell me again and again that she appears here or there or she'll be in this or that movie about someone else or that centers around a male dominated group of superheroes, but it's not enough. We need a Wonder Woman movie aleady!
Why her? Well, a movie about any female superhero would be great. A Zatanna movie would be awesome, and a Black Widow movie would be a great addition to the Avengers franchise, but Wonder Woman is, as I've said, one of the most iconic superheroes we have, and probably the most popular female superhero out there. Go to the comic book section of Barnes and Noble - yeah yeah I know, I'm not gonna make you buy anything, but I do want you to get a sense of what's popular. Look for the books about female superheroes. Ignore the Avengers and Justice League books, they have women in them but that's not the same as being about women. You probably see Wonder Woman books, one or two Batgirl books and . . . well if you can find books about any other woman you're lucky, because like I mentioned months ago, I could only find books about those two ladies. I loved both of them, but I that's not the point, I wanted more options. More choices. More variety. But even that's not the point here, I'm trying to illustrate that if there's one woman that's even remotely comparable to Superman or Batman in terms of popularity, it's Wonder Woman.
And it's time. She's been around since WWII, the fact that there are zero movies about her, let alone good movies, is not okay.
Don't tell me it won't sell tickets. The myth that movies about women won't have a wide appeal has been debunked thanks in large part to The Hunger Games, Bridesmaids, Brave, and if you wanna get nerdy, ALL the Hayo Miyazaki films. They do still need to be good, of course. Do we hold movies about female superheroes, or women in general, to a higher standard? Yes, absolutely. People are quick to bring up the fact that pretty much all movies about female superheroes have sucked. And that's true. But there have been just as many movies about male superheroes that have sucked, but we can ignore them, and not use them to dismiss all male superhero movies, because there have been so many good ones as well. The Batman movies, at least Michael Uslan's movies, are pretty much all great, especially the last trilogy (last as in the last made, not final). The Iron Man movies have been wonderful (or at least the first and third). Thor was good and Captain America is one of my favorites. So we can easily forget about awful Green Lantern Green Hornet movies, or the mediocre Spider Man trilogy.
We wouldn't feel the need to hold female characters, and movies about women, to a higher standard if we had more of them. But since there are so few out there, we expect the ones that do exist to work extra hard.
These movies being good goes beyond the mere fact that they're about men, but the fact that they're about men did play a part in their success. People believed these movies would do well, so the best of the best were willing to work on it, and the powers that be were willing to pay for the talent to make these movies successful. They were also willing to invest in quality special effects and the time to make the movie awesome. I don't think the same time, money, or effort has gone into any movie about a female superhero, and that's one of the reasons why those movies had so much tits and ass - sex sells, but it's a cheap sell. It's what producers rely on when they want lots of men to see and appreciate their movie without really trying to make the movie actually good.
So I will acknowledge that a Wonder Woman movie would need to be spectacular, and a disappointment may be better than no movie at all. But enough people have taken the risk with Superman, Batman, Spider Man, and almost all of the male Avengers, and while in hindsight not all of those movies were amazing, someone took the risk and they all had a great turnout at the box office. I have complete faith that we would see the same success with a Wonder Woman movie, we just need someone to take the plunge.
And again, I'd rather people not take it upon themselves to tell me where Wonder Woman does show up on TV and/or film. I know people do it to make me feel better, but don't. I don't think it's greedy to want a movie about her specifically when we have so many movies about her many male counterparts.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Thoughts on Bioshock Infinite (spoilers toward the end)
PLEASE READ THE WHOLE THING BEFORE COMMENTING, because whatever knee-jerk reaction you may have, I probably address it somewhere in this post.
I finally finished the game! Great game, seriously weird ending, but in doing a little research on various theories and explanations I have a somewhat better grasp on things, and the game in general makes a whole lot of sense. On the whole, very different from the first game, but very good. Not sure if I'll play it as often as I've played the first game (a lot), but I'd say it's got some replay value. All in all, worthwhile.
(And worth the wait - as my friends know, I didn't buy it when it first came out, my birthday was May 18th so I decided to wait until then and got it as a birthday present)
Anyway, I don't so much have a theoretical analysis as a bunch of scattered thoughts. Let's begin.
As I expressed months before the game was released I was very hesitant about it, since Elizabeth looked like a damsel in distress on the cover art cirulating the internet shown above. I also saw some gifs that basically showed her getting taken, or begging the protagonist . Er, not cool guys. Then Ken Levine, the creator, admitted he wasn't interested in marketing the game to women, and that the target demographic for the advertising was the typical frat guy. Great. I mean, it made sense, gamer nerds were gonna buy it regardless of how it was marketed and they wanted to draw in some new fans, but stillm just frat guys? Not sorority girls? Or any type of "normal" woman?
Then the trailer came out. By this time I was sold(ish), but again, it showed Elizabeth about to be hanged, and the protagonist rescuing her. While she did nothing. Awesome.
Anyway, seeing Elizabeth largely shown as a helpless woman to be rescued and protected rubbed me the wrong way, despite my friends telling me she was gonna be awesome and useful. Then the game came out and surprise, she was a strong, independent woman and not at all a damsel! Yay!
When I started playing, she immediately struck me as strong willed. There was nothing weak about her. She seemed like the love child of Disney princesses Rapunzel and Belle - in voice, appearance, and character traits. That's not a terrible thing when you realize how strong both those women were.
And since the game only allows you to carry two weapons at a time, and doesn't let you carry any health kits or phials of salts (Infinite's version of Eve hypos), I certainly appreciated her throwing those things at me during combat. But it would have been even cooler if she participated in the fighting as well. That system would have been much better than one that makes the player rely on her for everything. Men in the 50's relied on women for a lot of things, didn't make those women their equals.
She does revive you when you "die," rather than have the game send you to a Vita Chamber, but women have been healers in games, especially RPGs, for decades. Healer may be a step above "damsel," but it's still not exactly progressive.
It is true that the game isn't one huge escort mission, which is a step up from the last Bioshock games. God I hated escorting that little girl toward the end. Seriously, that sucked, and I'm awful at escort missions. It's good that she (mysteriously) never gets hurt, ever, and doesn't need to be protected.
That said, Elizabeth isn't entirely without flaw from a feminist standpoint. As a character, she's strong, capable, and ambitious. But despite people arguing that Infinite is her story, not Booker's, I can't help be seeing that more often than not, she's an object to be acted upon. She's put in a tower to protect her, and seemingly to protect others from her. She's rescued from that tower. She's taken again and things are done to her. This whole story is about what's done to her. As Anita Sarkeesian said in her first video about damsels in distress (no I haven't seen the second as it was taken down before I could see it, but I'm keeping my eyes open), "it's been said that in the game of patriarchy, women aren't the opposing team, they're the ball." Elizabeth does get tossed back and forth, and from man to man, for various reasons. This doesn't reduce her to a weak, helpless character, but rather strips an otherwise capable woman of her own agency.
Elizabeth is not an annoying, useless, weak dolt that exists solely as an objective, but she does fit the basic definition of "damsel in distress," in that she is captured and needs to await rescue. The fact that she does act with some agency during combat, and the fact that she can pick locks for the player/protagonist does help detract from her objecitification, but I don't think it balances it out completely.
Elizabeth, in some ways - mostly in terms of her characterization - does show us how far women in video games have come. In other ways, she's a lot like women in ealier video games. She's strong, but still needs to be rescued. She's not on the sidelines, but she's not exactly in the middle of the action either. She's a supporting character, not the protagonist. She's a step up from the Little Sisters in the ealier games, but she's not exactly at the top of the staircase. She's great, I'd definitely cosplay as her, but we still have a long way to go.
On a slightly unrelated note, I would like to praise this series featuring female scientists in at least two of their games. You had Dr. Tennenbaum in the first game, and Lutece in this one. For games that took place so long ago, having women of science play prominent roles in the backstory is pretty awesome.
But enough of these white women. It's intersectionality time! It's also spoiler time. I tried to avoid them, but alas, I can't talk about Daisy Fitzroy without giving something away.
I noticed that racism is a prominent theme in the game; we, the modern gamers, are supposed to know that that's wrong. It's there to illustrate that Columbia, while beautiful, has an evil and creepy side. Much like I'm sure Rapture did before it went down the tubes (no pun intended). It's supposed to Columbia, not us, who think that Daisy Fitzroy (still one of the few prominent women of color in mainstream gaming) is evil. We're even supposed to support the radica uprising, although we're only aiding it to get the airship back.
Then why does Daisy become the enemy? Elizabeth has to kill her to keep from killing a child, and the final battle involves fighting off the Vox and destorying their zeppelins in order to protect your ship. If Levine wasn't such a fan of racists, why did he write a black radical to be so violent that she's a vile, child-murdering antagonist who needs to be killed? If the game was really anti-racist, why does the Voxpopuli turn against Booker and Elizabeth so quickly, despite Booker supposedly being a martyr? Well, I remember the stated reasons, I'm more questioning the writing choices than the characers' choices.
This may only be slightly problematic if video games in general had plenty of racial equality, people of color were usually present without being enemies, and nerd culture wasn't chock full of white privilege. Sadly, this isn't the case, and the racism in this game's storyline is at best more of the same, following a not-so-great trend in modern video games.
As a feminist, it's great to see women in general placed in prominent roles in video games, even if they're not protagonists. From an intersectionality perspective, however, it's disheartening to see a woman of color in such a negative portrayal of black radicals.
I finally finished the game! Great game, seriously weird ending, but in doing a little research on various theories and explanations I have a somewhat better grasp on things, and the game in general makes a whole lot of sense. On the whole, very different from the first game, but very good. Not sure if I'll play it as often as I've played the first game (a lot), but I'd say it's got some replay value. All in all, worthwhile.
(And worth the wait - as my friends know, I didn't buy it when it first came out, my birthday was May 18th so I decided to wait until then and got it as a birthday present)
Anyway, I don't so much have a theoretical analysis as a bunch of scattered thoughts. Let's begin.
As I expressed months before the game was released I was very hesitant about it, since Elizabeth looked like a damsel in distress on the cover art cirulating the internet shown above. I also saw some gifs that basically showed her getting taken, or begging the protagonist . Er, not cool guys. Then Ken Levine, the creator, admitted he wasn't interested in marketing the game to women, and that the target demographic for the advertising was the typical frat guy. Great. I mean, it made sense, gamer nerds were gonna buy it regardless of how it was marketed and they wanted to draw in some new fans, but stillm just frat guys? Not sorority girls? Or any type of "normal" woman?
Then the trailer came out. By this time I was sold(ish), but again, it showed Elizabeth about to be hanged, and the protagonist rescuing her. While she did nothing. Awesome.
Anyway, seeing Elizabeth largely shown as a helpless woman to be rescued and protected rubbed me the wrong way, despite my friends telling me she was gonna be awesome and useful. Then the game came out and surprise, she was a strong, independent woman and not at all a damsel! Yay!
When I started playing, she immediately struck me as strong willed. There was nothing weak about her. She seemed like the love child of Disney princesses Rapunzel and Belle - in voice, appearance, and character traits. That's not a terrible thing when you realize how strong both those women were.
And since the game only allows you to carry two weapons at a time, and doesn't let you carry any health kits or phials of salts (Infinite's version of Eve hypos), I certainly appreciated her throwing those things at me during combat. But it would have been even cooler if she participated in the fighting as well. That system would have been much better than one that makes the player rely on her for everything. Men in the 50's relied on women for a lot of things, didn't make those women their equals.
Is it just me or does she look like Wonder Woman?
She does revive you when you "die," rather than have the game send you to a Vita Chamber, but women have been healers in games, especially RPGs, for decades. Healer may be a step above "damsel," but it's still not exactly progressive.
It is true that the game isn't one huge escort mission, which is a step up from the last Bioshock games. God I hated escorting that little girl toward the end. Seriously, that sucked, and I'm awful at escort missions. It's good that she (mysteriously) never gets hurt, ever, and doesn't need to be protected.
That said, Elizabeth isn't entirely without flaw from a feminist standpoint. As a character, she's strong, capable, and ambitious. But despite people arguing that Infinite is her story, not Booker's, I can't help be seeing that more often than not, she's an object to be acted upon. She's put in a tower to protect her, and seemingly to protect others from her. She's rescued from that tower. She's taken again and things are done to her. This whole story is about what's done to her. As Anita Sarkeesian said in her first video about damsels in distress (no I haven't seen the second as it was taken down before I could see it, but I'm keeping my eyes open), "it's been said that in the game of patriarchy, women aren't the opposing team, they're the ball." Elizabeth does get tossed back and forth, and from man to man, for various reasons. This doesn't reduce her to a weak, helpless character, but rather strips an otherwise capable woman of her own agency.
Elizabeth is not an annoying, useless, weak dolt that exists solely as an objective, but she does fit the basic definition of "damsel in distress," in that she is captured and needs to await rescue. The fact that she does act with some agency during combat, and the fact that she can pick locks for the player/protagonist does help detract from her objecitification, but I don't think it balances it out completely.
Elizabeth, in some ways - mostly in terms of her characterization - does show us how far women in video games have come. In other ways, she's a lot like women in ealier video games. She's strong, but still needs to be rescued. She's not on the sidelines, but she's not exactly in the middle of the action either. She's a supporting character, not the protagonist. She's a step up from the Little Sisters in the ealier games, but she's not exactly at the top of the staircase. She's great, I'd definitely cosplay as her, but we still have a long way to go.
On a slightly unrelated note, I would like to praise this series featuring female scientists in at least two of their games. You had Dr. Tennenbaum in the first game, and Lutece in this one. For games that took place so long ago, having women of science play prominent roles in the backstory is pretty awesome.
But enough of these white women. It's intersectionality time! It's also spoiler time. I tried to avoid them, but alas, I can't talk about Daisy Fitzroy without giving something away.
I noticed that racism is a prominent theme in the game; we, the modern gamers, are supposed to know that that's wrong. It's there to illustrate that Columbia, while beautiful, has an evil and creepy side. Much like I'm sure Rapture did before it went down the tubes (no pun intended). It's supposed to Columbia, not us, who think that Daisy Fitzroy (still one of the few prominent women of color in mainstream gaming) is evil. We're even supposed to support the radica uprising, although we're only aiding it to get the airship back.
Then why does Daisy become the enemy? Elizabeth has to kill her to keep from killing a child, and the final battle involves fighting off the Vox and destorying their zeppelins in order to protect your ship. If Levine wasn't such a fan of racists, why did he write a black radical to be so violent that she's a vile, child-murdering antagonist who needs to be killed? If the game was really anti-racist, why does the Voxpopuli turn against Booker and Elizabeth so quickly, despite Booker supposedly being a martyr? Well, I remember the stated reasons, I'm more questioning the writing choices than the characers' choices.
The Uncharted franchise is notorious for putting people of color in antagonistic roles.
This may only be slightly problematic if video games in general had plenty of racial equality, people of color were usually present without being enemies, and nerd culture wasn't chock full of white privilege. Sadly, this isn't the case, and the racism in this game's storyline is at best more of the same, following a not-so-great trend in modern video games.
As a feminist, it's great to see women in general placed in prominent roles in video games, even if they're not protagonists. From an intersectionality perspective, however, it's disheartening to see a woman of color in such a negative portrayal of black radicals.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Zatanna: My New Comic Book Love
First I read Wonder Woman, the cliche feminist go-to. I liked it.
Then I started reading Batgirl, and fell in love with Gail Simone's writing.
And now I'm in love with Zatanna.
Not an easy book to find, mind you. Volume 2 of the series is the only book still in print, and no one had it. Not Comicopia, not New England Comics, not Newbury Comics. But wanting to support a local comic book shop and not just order it from Amazon, when Comicopia offered to order it for me I enthusiastically accepted the favor. And it was worth the wait!
A comic that centers around a woman? Yes! A story about a creepy, possessed marionette? Hell to the yes! A female magician? Oh yeah! Well not magician, sorceress that does magic shows . . . and it's never clarified if the audience knows about her powers . . . but still, yay!
Really my only complaint is the way she's constantly sexualized. Her usual outfit wasn't too problematic, although I dunno, pants would be nice. But in some of the chapters her breasts were insane. Not all of them, sometimes she had normal sized boobs, but what purpose did those melons serve? And then the fan art is all about sexy sexy sex times, further reducing her to a sex object. The fandom seems to be mostly male and mostly concerned with her appearance than her character or the stories told in the books.
really?
seriously?
Oh come on . . .
. . . she had better be doing an escape act here!
Look! Pants! Finally!
Zatanna: Because a successful female magician is so inconcievable, she only exists in comic books.
Well sort of. I know there are female magicians out there, but I once heard that there is not one female magician with her own show in Vegas. I went to a magic bar that sold black shirts that said "escape artist" - "for the boys," the headliner said; and "for the girls," they had pink shirts that said "I <3 [the magician's name]" Don't get me wrong, I did really like him, as do many young ladies, but the way the shirts were gendered rubbed me the wrong way, and ultimately reminded me how far south I'd traveled. I want to take this moment to talk about women in magic, and keep in mind that magic is tengentially related to nerd culture, there seems to be a considerable overlap between the two interests.
Part of the problem lies in the way women's clothing is designed. Dresses and women's suits are fitted and rarely have functional pockets, leaving little room for women to hide things. Women tend to have small hands, making sleight of hands illusions especially difficult (yet I still can't palm anything smaller than a quarter). While women are never actively discouraged from pursuing magic, they're not exactly encouraged either. A lack of female magicians out there mean that lots of girls don't even consider learning magic, and girls are still socialized not to be too outlandish or "attention seeking," because it's not ladylike to show off the way boys do with their magic tricks. And if those shirts at the magic bar say anything, it's that we just don't expect women to be interested in things like magic and escape artistry, their role is that of a groupie or, if they're lucky, the lovely assistant.
(Don't get me wrong, I loved being called up on stage that night; if it happened again I would not complain in the slightest)
Er, I guess that's it really. Obstacles, not cool. If would be awesome if the series addressed the gender disparity in the magic world, maybe showing Zatanna deal with sexism from male magicians. Maybe it has happned, but it's not gonna be cheap to track down the back issues or out-of-print graphic novels, gotta get a new job first to see what happened in Every Day Magic and Zatanna vol. 1. But if it hasn't happened in her story, it probably won't, since the series that centers around her has been disconinued. Zatanna was not part of the New 52 series of reboots. Maybe it's time to start writing some fan fiction.
Anyway, the series is not overtly feminist, nor are most of the fans, but I'd say the series is worth checking out if you're looking for something new to read.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
The lack of women on Free Comic Book Day
If you're looking for an intellectual, unbiased, well thought out analysis, keep looking because I'll be honest this is a bit more more anecdotal than some of my other writing, and I'll admit I haven't written in a while. And it's a bit, shall we say "whiney." You have been warned.
Today was Free Comic Book Day, my first in fact. I went to the local New England Comics to see what they had to offer. It was a pretty good deal, really. They were giving out a free Tick comic, plus two from the table and an additional two from a box at the end of the table. Five total. Plus a ton of great deals throughout the store, almost everything was on sale, so I got my fill of books for a while. Although Comicopia just got my Zatanna book in (Volume 2, currently the only Zatanna book in print >_< why has it been so friggin difficult to find this damn book?) so that'll be a priority when I'm able to pick it up. Speaking of comics featuring female protagonists, they were scarce. There was an Aphrodite comic on the table, which I picked up even though I've never heard of the series, but all the other books featured men heavily or exclusively. I also snagged an X-Men comic from the box since it featured Storm on the cover. I don't read X-Men that often but I do like that, despite the title, they do feature women pretty well. Or maybe that's just the impression I got in my Women of Marvel book - maybe those issues were the exception to the rule.
And while checking out the comics, the trend carried over to most of the store. All of the action figures were men, all of the special harcover books on sale were about dudes, and the Buffy books in that display were on the second to last shelf - I almost didn't see them. Yes, we have Wonder Woman, we have Batgirl, we have Buffy and Black Widow and Supergirl and Zatanna (barely), and they are awesome characters. Their presence counts, but it doesn't count that much when their male counterparts are still the ones dominating center stage.
I realize that it's not fair to only read comics about female characters, and trust me I don't limit myself in that way. I just seek them out more actively because I do identify more with Batgirl and Wonder Woman than I do, say Spider Man. I still read comics about men, just less frequently. Besdies, I'm voting with my wallet, I know I'm one consumer but if I can contribute to the demand for more badass women in comics, maybe more will be published. One can only hope.
Now, there were girls in the store! Not a lot, the store was still mostly dudes, but so often I'm the only girl in the comic book shop (unless it's Newbury Comics, but that doesn't really count these days, especially the one in Fannuel Hall which at any given time these days is loaded with high school kids let loose on a field trip) that it's refreshing. And two of the kids, the cutest little ones in the store, were African American - and yes, this is significant to point out, since nerd culture may be becoming more egalitarian gender-wise but it's still overwhelmingly white, which is arguably an even bigger problem.
So while things are getting better, but if Free Comic Book Day 2013 is any indicator of how things are progressing, we still have a long way to go.
Today was Free Comic Book Day, my first in fact. I went to the local New England Comics to see what they had to offer. It was a pretty good deal, really. They were giving out a free Tick comic, plus two from the table and an additional two from a box at the end of the table. Five total. Plus a ton of great deals throughout the store, almost everything was on sale, so I got my fill of books for a while. Although Comicopia just got my Zatanna book in (Volume 2, currently the only Zatanna book in print >_< why has it been so friggin difficult to find this damn book?) so that'll be a priority when I'm able to pick it up. Speaking of comics featuring female protagonists, they were scarce. There was an Aphrodite comic on the table, which I picked up even though I've never heard of the series, but all the other books featured men heavily or exclusively. I also snagged an X-Men comic from the box since it featured Storm on the cover. I don't read X-Men that often but I do like that, despite the title, they do feature women pretty well. Or maybe that's just the impression I got in my Women of Marvel book - maybe those issues were the exception to the rule.
(my haul, of the day, plus cat)
And while checking out the comics, the trend carried over to most of the store. All of the action figures were men, all of the special harcover books on sale were about dudes, and the Buffy books in that display were on the second to last shelf - I almost didn't see them. Yes, we have Wonder Woman, we have Batgirl, we have Buffy and Black Widow and Supergirl and Zatanna (barely), and they are awesome characters. Their presence counts, but it doesn't count that much when their male counterparts are still the ones dominating center stage.
I realize that it's not fair to only read comics about female characters, and trust me I don't limit myself in that way. I just seek them out more actively because I do identify more with Batgirl and Wonder Woman than I do, say Spider Man. I still read comics about men, just less frequently. Besdies, I'm voting with my wallet, I know I'm one consumer but if I can contribute to the demand for more badass women in comics, maybe more will be published. One can only hope.
Now, there were girls in the store! Not a lot, the store was still mostly dudes, but so often I'm the only girl in the comic book shop (unless it's Newbury Comics, but that doesn't really count these days, especially the one in Fannuel Hall which at any given time these days is loaded with high school kids let loose on a field trip) that it's refreshing. And two of the kids, the cutest little ones in the store, were African American - and yes, this is significant to point out, since nerd culture may be becoming more egalitarian gender-wise but it's still overwhelmingly white, which is arguably an even bigger problem.
So while things are getting better, but if Free Comic Book Day 2013 is any indicator of how things are progressing, we still have a long way to go.
Friday, January 25, 2013
Do they or don't they?
Okay so this isn't really a feminist issue, although it is worth saying that social issues are interlinked so this could be related to feminism if you try hard enough. This is about video games and their relation to violent behavior.
Some people say they do and they blame the video games for school shootings and the general increase in violence in our society. Others are offended at the mere implication that video games, or really any form of media, could possibly impact our behavior. They think you'd have to be really stupid to let that stuff influence you at all. Well, this issue isn't exactly black and white.
If a mentally healthy person plays a violent video game, it's probably not going to have much of an effect. Mentally sound people know it's just fantasy and that's not how you behave in real life. If anything it'll provide an outlet for any aggression they do occasionally feel. However, exposure to violent video games while one is developing may skew one's view of reality a tiny bit; they may become desensitized to violence, or some of the gorier stuff may be disturbing to younger gamers. Not good. But if someone with a mental illness plays video games, they may interpret the violence a little differently, and they may see it as an inspiration. It may fuel their illness, or it may encourage their violent behavior, and that's where a problem occurs.
Think of it as an energy drink. Energy drinks may have a minor impact on a healthy person's wellbeing - digestive problems, heart palpitations, insomnia, etc. Nothing serious, but still unpleasant stuff. Only a major overdose is going to have really negative consequences. But we still allow adults to make their own decisions about them. Energy drinks do, however, endanger their less healthy consumers. If you have a heart condition or other such health problems, an energy drink could kill them, or at least put them in the hospital. This is why adults are advised not to consume them if they have health problems, and a big part of why minors are often not allowed to buy them at certain stores. I know CVS doesn't let minors buy the stuff, they even carded me.
Now, I'm not sure I'm totally against restricting the sale of M-rated video games to minors. Maybe not in the form of a law, but I do see the value in letting video game stores require an ID for certain games. It's not censorship, it's putting the decision in the parents' hands. If parents want their preteen kids playing Bioshock, they're free to buy them the game. If parents don't want their kids playing, say, Grand Theft Auto, it's probably not the end of the world for the kids. So you have to wait until you're a little older big whoop. My dad made me wait until I was 12 to play MediEvil, and I was pretty much never allowed to own any GTA games. I thought it was unfair at the time, but I grew up and I got over it. It was inconvenient but they weren't trying to oppress me, they were just doing what they felt was right, an they were probably on to something. Parents have the right and the responsibility to take charge of their kids' psychological development.
On the other hand, restricting the sale of video games may only lead to these games being torrented, and video game companies losing money. Then again, that's a sale they may never make if the kid is forced to wait, and outgrows the game before he or she is allowed to play it.
So again, I'm still sort of on the fence about this, I just can't seem to get myself all riled up either way. I think teenagers flipping out over the possibility of not being able to play whatever game they want whenever they want to be a tad immature, but I think there are some issues with an age restriction as well. And we certainly can't run mental health checks or background checks on kids who want to buy Gears of War, that would be ridiculous. And while I do think Penn Jillette has a point about the need for better, more attentive parenting, I've never been a parent so I don't think I'm in a position to judge most parents or tell them how to raise their kids.
Okay, I've said my piece. Not totally relevant to the blog, but screw it, it's my blog and I'll write about whatever the heck I want.
Some people say they do and they blame the video games for school shootings and the general increase in violence in our society. Others are offended at the mere implication that video games, or really any form of media, could possibly impact our behavior. They think you'd have to be really stupid to let that stuff influence you at all. Well, this issue isn't exactly black and white.
If a mentally healthy person plays a violent video game, it's probably not going to have much of an effect. Mentally sound people know it's just fantasy and that's not how you behave in real life. If anything it'll provide an outlet for any aggression they do occasionally feel. However, exposure to violent video games while one is developing may skew one's view of reality a tiny bit; they may become desensitized to violence, or some of the gorier stuff may be disturbing to younger gamers. Not good. But if someone with a mental illness plays video games, they may interpret the violence a little differently, and they may see it as an inspiration. It may fuel their illness, or it may encourage their violent behavior, and that's where a problem occurs.
Think of it as an energy drink. Energy drinks may have a minor impact on a healthy person's wellbeing - digestive problems, heart palpitations, insomnia, etc. Nothing serious, but still unpleasant stuff. Only a major overdose is going to have really negative consequences. But we still allow adults to make their own decisions about them. Energy drinks do, however, endanger their less healthy consumers. If you have a heart condition or other such health problems, an energy drink could kill them, or at least put them in the hospital. This is why adults are advised not to consume them if they have health problems, and a big part of why minors are often not allowed to buy them at certain stores. I know CVS doesn't let minors buy the stuff, they even carded me.
Now, I'm not sure I'm totally against restricting the sale of M-rated video games to minors. Maybe not in the form of a law, but I do see the value in letting video game stores require an ID for certain games. It's not censorship, it's putting the decision in the parents' hands. If parents want their preteen kids playing Bioshock, they're free to buy them the game. If parents don't want their kids playing, say, Grand Theft Auto, it's probably not the end of the world for the kids. So you have to wait until you're a little older big whoop. My dad made me wait until I was 12 to play MediEvil, and I was pretty much never allowed to own any GTA games. I thought it was unfair at the time, but I grew up and I got over it. It was inconvenient but they weren't trying to oppress me, they were just doing what they felt was right, an they were probably on to something. Parents have the right and the responsibility to take charge of their kids' psychological development.
On the other hand, restricting the sale of video games may only lead to these games being torrented, and video game companies losing money. Then again, that's a sale they may never make if the kid is forced to wait, and outgrows the game before he or she is allowed to play it.
So again, I'm still sort of on the fence about this, I just can't seem to get myself all riled up either way. I think teenagers flipping out over the possibility of not being able to play whatever game they want whenever they want to be a tad immature, but I think there are some issues with an age restriction as well. And we certainly can't run mental health checks or background checks on kids who want to buy Gears of War, that would be ridiculous. And while I do think Penn Jillette has a point about the need for better, more attentive parenting, I've never been a parent so I don't think I'm in a position to judge most parents or tell them how to raise their kids.
Okay, I've said my piece. Not totally relevant to the blog, but screw it, it's my blog and I'll write about whatever the heck I want.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Why I'm Doing These Panels - a response to some bad critiques
Apparently Facebook has an "other" inbox, where messages from pages, events, and non-friends go to die. Sort of. I didn't know about this inbox until last night when I was looking for a message from a friend in my recent archives, and to be sure this "other" inbox is useful in making it so I don't have to wade through spammy updates and random guys trying to "chat" with me to get to messages I actually give a crap about, but it also kept me from seeing a pretty interesting message about my recent(ish) panel at ConnectiCon.
It was pretty critical, dare I say scathing at points. She did raise constructive comments about how I should moderate the discussion better, keep things moving and change things up because we pretty much talked about the same thing the whole time. But she also raised a concern that I was too "one sided" and "man bashing," and that I made the atmosphere too intimidating for the likes of her. She then went on to say that maybe she has a thick skin, but she doesn't have a problem with video game harassment. Then ended to say that I'm always going to have some opinionated feminist in my midst and I shouldn't let it bother me too much.
Well, maybe I need to make this abundantly clear at all times: I am a feminist. I believe in gender equality, and since I am a woman, most of my opinions are going to side with the concerns of women over the concerns of men. I care about men's rights, I support efforts to question our society's definition of masculinity as well as femininity, but I'm probably going to focus mostly on women's issues from a feminist perspective. So yeah, while I talk about gender as a general topic, and while I may incorporate men's issues and issues of gay men, and acknowledge opposing aruments (in future panels), I don't think it's possible for me to ever be completely unbiased. This is reason #1 why I allow for discussion, so my panels and presentations aren't just my own opinions but other people's input as well. I let people disagree, and I let people talk to each other. I want a forum of various opinions, although I prefer that they be respectful and, ideally, informed.
Reason #2 why I feel discussion is important is that I hope to create a safe space where people can share their experiences. They can talk about incidents of harassment, or anything that's made them feel frustrated, angry, upset, or just plain uncomfortable. And they can do this without someone immediately dismissing them, telling them to get over it, calm down, grow a thicker skin, you're overreacting, it's not a big deal, not all women have this problem so why are you whining? So if that's what my critic wanted to say, a part of me is glad she was too "intimidated" so say it, and I would like to think that she actually listened to what others have to say but I'm unconvinced that was the case.
Don't worry, I don't mean this as a passive-aggressive response to her. I'll get back to her once I get home tonight, I just couldn't deal with it last night because this week has been overwhelming as all get-out at work and I knew if I responded without thinking out a mature, polite way to acknowledge her feedback, I would further ruin my reputation. It's bad enough someone's been going around telling everyone I made a rape joke* and banned men from talking during the discussion**. But as I was formulating a response today, I came across this essay on convention harassment (at Anime Boston of all places), and it reminded me that there are lots of women like me who share my frustration, and my panels are not only there to make people think, but to let people speak where they may otherwise feel silenced. I hope I get to continue these presentations.
My next one will be at NerdNite Boston on the 28th, if anyone's interested. The Facebook event already a ton of confirmed guests which is starting to freak me out. Unfortunately I have to somehow keep my presentation to 20 minutes, which is not easy since my first two were given hour-long time slots.
*I kinda did, maybe. I recounted someone telling me to "relax and enjoy" something I thought was problematic, and I mentioned that that sounded like something a rapist would say. It wasn't meant to be a joke, but it did make people feel uncomfortable and I probably shouldn't have said it. Still, if she's going to tell people she really ought to acknowledge the context, because she's making me out to be a much bigger bitch than I am. My biggest concern is that the CTcon coordinators won't invite me back - they've completely ignored my e-mails since the convention thus far and I can't help but think it's because they heard this stuff.
**I don't recall this at all, but I am sorry if I said something that made men feel like they couldn't talk. If someone wants to tell me what she meant by that I'm all ears. The only thing I can think of was when I told a male friend of mine to shut up, and I'm not even sure that happened. I did participate in the discussion but I mostly let others talk amongst themselves.
It was pretty critical, dare I say scathing at points. She did raise constructive comments about how I should moderate the discussion better, keep things moving and change things up because we pretty much talked about the same thing the whole time. But she also raised a concern that I was too "one sided" and "man bashing," and that I made the atmosphere too intimidating for the likes of her. She then went on to say that maybe she has a thick skin, but she doesn't have a problem with video game harassment. Then ended to say that I'm always going to have some opinionated feminist in my midst and I shouldn't let it bother me too much.
Well, maybe I need to make this abundantly clear at all times: I am a feminist. I believe in gender equality, and since I am a woman, most of my opinions are going to side with the concerns of women over the concerns of men. I care about men's rights, I support efforts to question our society's definition of masculinity as well as femininity, but I'm probably going to focus mostly on women's issues from a feminist perspective. So yeah, while I talk about gender as a general topic, and while I may incorporate men's issues and issues of gay men, and acknowledge opposing aruments (in future panels), I don't think it's possible for me to ever be completely unbiased. This is reason #1 why I allow for discussion, so my panels and presentations aren't just my own opinions but other people's input as well. I let people disagree, and I let people talk to each other. I want a forum of various opinions, although I prefer that they be respectful and, ideally, informed.
Reason #2 why I feel discussion is important is that I hope to create a safe space where people can share their experiences. They can talk about incidents of harassment, or anything that's made them feel frustrated, angry, upset, or just plain uncomfortable. And they can do this without someone immediately dismissing them, telling them to get over it, calm down, grow a thicker skin, you're overreacting, it's not a big deal, not all women have this problem so why are you whining? So if that's what my critic wanted to say, a part of me is glad she was too "intimidated" so say it, and I would like to think that she actually listened to what others have to say but I'm unconvinced that was the case.
Don't worry, I don't mean this as a passive-aggressive response to her. I'll get back to her once I get home tonight, I just couldn't deal with it last night because this week has been overwhelming as all get-out at work and I knew if I responded without thinking out a mature, polite way to acknowledge her feedback, I would further ruin my reputation. It's bad enough someone's been going around telling everyone I made a rape joke* and banned men from talking during the discussion**. But as I was formulating a response today, I came across this essay on convention harassment (at Anime Boston of all places), and it reminded me that there are lots of women like me who share my frustration, and my panels are not only there to make people think, but to let people speak where they may otherwise feel silenced. I hope I get to continue these presentations.
My next one will be at NerdNite Boston on the 28th, if anyone's interested. The Facebook event already a ton of confirmed guests which is starting to freak me out. Unfortunately I have to somehow keep my presentation to 20 minutes, which is not easy since my first two were given hour-long time slots.
*I kinda did, maybe. I recounted someone telling me to "relax and enjoy" something I thought was problematic, and I mentioned that that sounded like something a rapist would say. It wasn't meant to be a joke, but it did make people feel uncomfortable and I probably shouldn't have said it. Still, if she's going to tell people she really ought to acknowledge the context, because she's making me out to be a much bigger bitch than I am. My biggest concern is that the CTcon coordinators won't invite me back - they've completely ignored my e-mails since the convention thus far and I can't help but think it's because they heard this stuff.
**I don't recall this at all, but I am sorry if I said something that made men feel like they couldn't talk. If someone wants to tell me what she meant by that I'm all ears. The only thing I can think of was when I told a male friend of mine to shut up, and I'm not even sure that happened. I did participate in the discussion but I mostly let others talk amongst themselves.
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