(no subject)

[rivka]

I hang out with really intelligent, clueful people. Which is excellent.

The problem is that it distorts my sense of my wider social environment, and then threads like this one come as a nasty surprise.

james_nicoll linked to the Con Anti-Harassment Project (Read their FAQ), which aims to encourage SF and media cons to develop clearly-articulated sexual harassment policies. And within, no kidding, three comments, we hit "lol, women who go to cons are too fat and ugly to harass."

And it goes on from there, although that's probably the pinnacle. The rest of the predictable responses just make me tired: cons will become a Kafkaesque nightmare in which anyone and anything can be threatened with punishment; aren't the poor defenseless accused the real victims; if women would only call the cops/respond with physical violence, there wouldn't be any problems and we wouldn't have to think about this stuff, so why have a con policy.

This is where I feel as though I should insert a brilliant incisive feminist rant that simultaneously heartens the embattled, illuminates the clueless, and crushes the assholes utterly. But you know what? I'm too tired and disgusted to manage it.

If a community is threatened by the very proposition that women's bodies are their own, and not to be infringed upon - if simply spelling out the right to be sexually left alone is seen as a dangerous impingment on community enjoyment - then what the fuck am I even doing there?

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Of course it's not one community, but overlapping communities. The Darkover con community is very different from the DragonCon community, I'm told. It's certainly different from the Chattacon community. I don't know if Darkover con has a written anti-harassment policy, but I'm sure that anybody harassing somebody would quickly have the attention of any number of gray-haired Renunciates and would either mend their ways or get an invitation to the world.

All in all, I think the anti-harassment project is a good idea. I hope it catches on.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

*nods* See, that's the atmosphere I remember from my early con-going years, and I'm distressed to learn that I'm apparently sufficiently privileged to have not noticed it changing. One of my earliest con memories was of someone trying to back a girl¹ in a bunny-fur bikini into a corner, and suddenly finding himself surrounded by a large group of Corsairs who made it clear that was not acceptable behavior.

¹Yes, "girl," given that she was about 13.