This one’s for the catgirls
Don't make this weird.
Happy International Women’s Day, everybody!
In honor of this highest and holiest of high holy days, I’m going to reveal something that may shock some people, and here it is: We’re really actually not living in a post-sexist age. Your mind’s blown, isn’t it?
I’m not here to tell you it necessarily sucks to be female, although concerning some parts of the world we can certainly make that argument. For me, though, in all my incredible comparative privilege, I more or less like being a chick and I’m not ready to turn in my pussy card just yet.
But even nestled in the bosom of Western culture we haven’t attained the basic equality that women set out to achieve generations ago. We’re closer, but we’re so not there. Equal pay for equal work is still a goal rather than a reality. Our culture produces children who believe that violence against women is easily justified. One in six women is sexually assaulted in her lifetime, and all too often it’s perfectly acceptable to blame her.
Women are still sexual objects, not just to some people, but to society as a whole. I know 20-year-old women who have anxiety over being “too old”. Too old to have a kick-ass career? Too old to make a difference politically or socially? Nope. Too old to be a doe-eyed ingenue; too old to be Miley Cyrus. Apparently legal is the new expired. And realizing that being pretty gets us more appreciation and success than any other positive trait, way too many of us have a near-religious conviction that we’re ugly: too fat, too tall, too short, too flat-chested, too pimpled, too muscular, too pale, too dark, too scrawny, too imperfect. We think that our toes are weird or that our stretch marks mean that no one will ever love us. And if no one is going to love us, we are somehow worthless.
If we mention that these things are unfair, we’ll often get called unbalanced, emotional, or irrational. There are still so many things to tackle, but as a small nerdy she-fish in an ocean of crap I wish women didn’t have to deal with, I’m starting tiny.
I’m starting with sexual harassment at the Sci Fi Conventions I go to.
Here’s an imagination exercise: Take a bunch of people who likely faced romantic rejection and isolation growing up, making sure that a healthy percentage of these are shitty at recognizing social cues. Add a common interest they may not get to talk to real people about all that often, and all the excitement and adjacent libido that would naturally result. Put some of these people in costumes designed to make the wearers look (with varying success) like cartoon and video game characters, and put others in corsets. There will also be people inexplicably wandering around wearing cat ears.
Hi there. It looks like you have a Fan Convention on your hands. You realize, of course, that with all those roiling factors in play, someone is going to try to fuck up this nerdy utopia by being super creepy, right? Some guy will inevitably think that the hot costumes exist only for his personal enjoyment and that any woman who likes the same TV shows he does must be praying nightly for someone just like him to appear and grope her tits.
Which is why I’ve taken on the daunting task of organizing an anti-harassment project at my local con. The convention has a sexual harassment policy in place already, but it hasn’t been implemented all that well, and some creeptastic geek-on-geek crimes have been perpetrated.
Creeps have been routinely grabbing or hugging people without permission or warning, commenting on their bodies uninvited, flirting aggressively… you know, the things that you might have heard about cons that make you reluctant to ever go to one, but that shouldn’t be tolerated. Worse, the injured parties have been afraid to report these incidents to con staff because they’re worried about seeming hypersensitive, or like trouble-makers.
But how fucked up does a culture (or subculture) have to be to alienate the victim and make the offender feel justified? Just because men tend to outnumber women at these things doesn’t mean they get to make it a boys’ club where the women attending are just so many sacrifices to the communal hard-on. And neither do women get to harass men, nor men men, nor women women. Let’s just be universally uncreepy.
Of course, nerds flirt at conventions. They get laid at conventions and have glorious, debaucherous times in an environment where free love and free energy drinks reign. I don’t want to put a damper on that, but seriously, the creepy people need to back the fuck off, practice common respect, and only put their hands where they’re expressly invited.
So I’m going to work to make sure the harassment policies are accessible to everyone, to educate the con staff and the con guests how to deal with creepy person encounters, witnessed or experienced, and to open a dialogue about this stuff. I’m going to try to make my little corner of fandom safer for catgirls and cosplayers.
In reality, though, there’s a good chance I’ll set a terrible example for everyone by shouting off-color jokes all over the place. But at least my horrible behavior will be a good talking point for whichever brave warrior takes over my post after I’m escorted off the premises.
I still like “The Proprietary Boob Project.”
Hi!
Perhaps of help would be the Con Anti-Harassment Project, in case you’ve not heard of it before? It’s been around for a couple of years, and spins off another project supporting women in the Comics industry (both fictional and real).
Either way, I applaud your efforts — this is something we need far more of at Cons. Def. will keep reading!
@Holly Pervocracy You only like it because it’s perfect. :D
…but I’m probably going to have to end up going with something more inclusive. And less personal, considering a bunch of the Open Source Boob Project founders and participants will probably be there and I don’t want them to think this is about them. Rest assured, though, there’s no way I’m ever going to come up with a better name than that.
@Noir Yes! I’ve found their website very helpful, along with Back Up. I’m optimistic that we can bring about changes just by opening a dialogue and letting people know that such behavior is a problem. Hopefully, there will be less and less creepery every year if I can implement this well.
I think you have two totally separate issues here, sexism and sexual harrassment. Lots of those creeps at cons think it would be WONDERFUL to be so attractive as men that random women were grabbing them; they have probably fantasized about it. They aren’t quite imaginative enough to know what it would be like living that way, and never thought much about dealing socially with being grabbed by a string of malodorous ugly girls while they’re trying to focus on something else. That’s ignorance rather than sexism.
I think you’d find the most effective and useful counter in a male-heavy population would be based more on sexist gallantry rather than a set of lawyer-requested super-PC guidelines a la corporate environments. Those are intended not to stop sexual harrassment, but to protect the company in court if anyone files a case. In the typical sexual harrasment seminar, all men are guilty and some just haven’t been caught.
Overstating things will make good guys uncomfortable and bad guys ignore it. Make sure the guidelines don’t make an attendee second-guess a clean compliment or a request for a photograph; don’t try to tell anyone that someone goes to a con dressed like Ivy Valentine and wants to be ignored.
I think that the more you encourage the guys to play White Knight policing each other, the better the results will be for making the con fun for everyone. Catgirls and cosplayers will get more polite attention, and guys will feel good about keeping an eye on the other guy’s interaction with them, and making sure Open Source Boobs is opt-in rather than opt-out.
The more you make it another job for underpaid con staff, the more it will be enforced pointlessly, randomly, and rarely. The nice guys who respect the rules will avoid looking at all, complaints about bad guys will be dealt with by busy staff thinking mainly about con profits.
I forgot to say, on a personal note, I think anything that makes that woman feel comfortable wearing that Ivy costume is a good thing!
@Mousie00 In my opinion sexism and sexual harassment are definitely linked. I realize that men can be sexually harassed too and/or that women can harass, but it’s usually a male-on-female offense, and I believe it’s often down to men feeling entitled to sexually engage women in one or another sense. It’s objectifying, disrespectful, and dehumanizing. That’s sexism. This entry does have two distinct parts, but I put them together because to me it’s a clear progression.
I have enough faith in humanity (however misguided it may be) that I’m going to try to get people talking together about respect and consent rather than exploiting the reflex some guys have to whiteknight and try to rescue damsels in distress. I’m not interested in turning my con into a politically correct, sterilized environment, but I do want to remind people that certain types of interaction require permission. I’d ideally like to enlist the well-meaning men and women and get to the point where we all remind each other what’s acceptable, which I guess you could interpret as a form of “rescuing”, although to me it’s just being supportive.
Also, the con staff (all unpaid volunteers who want to make the con fun, successful, and safe) are very involved with the project. Paying attention and giving voice to people who have been harassed or assaulted is a job they understandably want to take on.
Also, the Open Source Boob Project WAS opt-in, although it’s over and will probably never be revived. The problem with that was never that it ignored consent. I’m more concerned that people would feel internal pressure to participate, trying to be “down”. Also, if you make touching boobs into a major event at any con, you’re fostering an environment where people are likely to ignore the actual rules and spirit of something like the OSBP and feel more free to explore new depths of creepiness.
I’m definitely not saying that we shouldn’t look at and enjoy costumes– or even bodies– at a con. Some people do attend cons partly to get positive reinforcement about their bodies; some work tirelessly to make amazing costumes. But it’s no fine line that separates looking and admiring from leering creepily. (Holly Pervocracy wrote an excellent post about this a while back.) And touching always requires permission. There’s really not much gray area there.
I completely agree that this chick in her Ivy costume is incredible, and I totally swoon for her. I’d be upset to learn, though, that some guy came up to her and grabbed her ass or “accidentally” brushed against her tits. We all lose when that kind of behavior is tacitly accepted, because then fewer hot chicks dress like Ivy Valentine. I don’t want to live in that world.
@quizzical pussy
We’re in total agreement as to the ends you want to achieve, but disagree as to the cause of the problem. I think from your history here that you know more problem guys than I do, so maybe you’re right and I’m wrong. But I still think the problem, or a big component, is actually a lack of appreciation of different gender perspectives, men treating women just like they’d expect to be treated, a lack of sexism.
“I’d be upset to learn, though, that some guy came up to her and grabbed her ass…” When I was in college, (and younger and in better shape), some girl came up to me and grabbed my ass. I did not know her name, though I’d seen her before. I was not in costume, I was just walking down the hallway of my men’s dorm in my usual biker-looking clothes. I didn’t feel significantly cheapened or disrespected, I felt admired, a much more concrete and believable praise for my looks than words would have been. I knew better then and now than to think a woman would feel the same way under the circumstances. But I’d guess the typical con harrasser doesn’t know better. He doesn’t act out of a lack of respect, so talking to him about it will miss the point. He doesn’t know or understand why a woman would feel disrespected instead of admired.
So I think that is where the respect dialog should go. Starting from the insulting and alienating premise that the listener doesn’t respect women and should will get you tuned out. Instead talk about what acts are perceived as disrespectful and why they are perceived that way.
In my example, security is a big difference. If there had been any real threat, as a fairly muscular young 6’3″ 230-lb. person, I could have stopped it easily. If not objecting on the spot caused her to follow up by wandering in through my open dorm door that evening, I would still not have felt in danger.
Another difference is prevalence. There are lots of men that wish that women would touch them, even briefly; I can’t imagine the reverse is a real problem for the Ivy cosplayer. If you are drowning in opportunity, being in control of acceptance is much more important than if you are thirsting for opportunity.
I’m sure that you can think of other reasons. The point is to explain which expressions of admiration or apprecation are creepy, threatening, and uncomfortable, and as far as possible why, rather than assuming attendees would deliberately offend. As for the hardcore bad people who would deliberately offend, I don’t think you’re going to get through to them by talking anyway.