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.
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