World Fantasy Convention: A Possible Sexual Harassment Policy
If you haven’t heard about the latest pile of B.S. already, then you need to read this, this, and this. The short version: A man at the World Fantasy Convention made several women incredibly uncomfortable by a) inappropriate comments made towards them, b) groping or touching them inappropriately, and/or c) blatantly disregarding their complaints and the complaints of others who had witnessed his behavior. To start, we should probably get a few things out of the way: The man in question is most likely mentally ill, as comments he made about his magical abilities seem, in my mind, to extend well beyond typical masculine bravado about one’s prowess with the opposite sex. Being mentally ill doesn’t excuse bad behavior. Conventions in our community must have a clear, printed, and official policy and procedure for dealing with any instance of harassment, sexual or otherwise. #3, to me, is non-negotiable. The incidents discussed by Stina Leicht, Alisa Krasnostein, and others are not unique to World Fantasy Convention. These things happen at conventions all around the country (and elsewhere). They may not occur in the same form, but they happen nonetheless. We are not immune to sexual harassment in our genre community, and at no point can we pretend that perverts, the mentally ill, the socially inept, the socially insensitive, and so on don’t exist or won’t exist. This all makes me feel like the problem has never been adequately addressed. That can’t continue. With that in mind, I think what we need most is a procedure for dealing with harassment that can be adopted at conventions, placed in program books, and made publicly accessible to convention attendees. Part of that will hopefully discourage people from engaging in inappropriate behavior, but it won’t do much to those who, quite frankly, have never been properly punished for their conduct. I don’t know if I am qualified to provide a set of procedures, but I’m going to give it a shot anyway. Folks are more than welcome to contribute to improving these guidelines. If anyone is a lawyer or knows sexual harassment law, it would be great to get your input. A Guide to Harassment at Conventions — For Convention “Staff” Convention staff should be briefed on how to deal with potential harassment reports, and should be provided relevant phone numbers, information on where to find security personnel, and other relevant information. Convention staff should have a “group” designated to maintain a “database” of complaints. They should be easily locate-able (such as at a general information desk), should take down relevant information about the alleged offender and the alleged victim, and should follow the procedures listed below as necessary. Convention staff should assess the severity of an incident before deciding on a course of action. Convention Procedures for Harassment — For Anyone Actions should be divided, broadly speaking, into the following: notification, warning, temporary removal, permanent removal, and ban. These can be explained as follows: Notification: telling an individual that their behavior is inappropriate (either by the convention staff or the victim) Warning: telling the offender that continued behavior will not be tolerated Temporary removal: a stern version of a warning, in which the offender is asked or made to leave an area Permanent removal: the offender is removed from the convention grounds or arrested Ban: the offender is permanently removed from the convention and all future conventions. The first course of action is to alert the individual of his or her inappropriate conduct. In many cases, people are simply ignorant of appropriate social behavior and having someone — whether the victim or a person in a position of authority — tell them so can do a great deal of good.* However, if the offense is serious enough, speaking with convention staff or deferring to appropriate authorities may be important. The severity of the action should determine where convention staff begin their procedures. The second course of action should be to warn the offender that a serious response will be made if the conduct continues. Serious offenses (which I’m not sure how to define) should be reported to staff. The third course of action should be to remove an offender from a certain area, perhaps as a way to tell someone to “cool off.” The fourth course of action should be removal from the grounds. This might mean police need to be involved (and I would strongly suggest that the police be informed if there is a legal component to the offence). Multiple offenses should be addressed promptly and with precision. At no point should an individual who has harassed multiple people (or the same person multiple times) be allowed to continue participating in the convention. If one’s conduct does not change after a warning (or two), then that person should be kindly escorted from the convention. Serious discussion could be had about whether their membership should be revoked. If an individual is a repeat offender, they should be arrested and appropriately charged and permanently banned from the convention grounds indefinitely. This should be treated as a kind of restraining order. To be fair, all of the above procedures are poorly constructed. I don’t know how to put these things together. How do you know when to issue a warning or when to talk to the offender? How do you know when something is serious enough to deal with immediately (with authority figures present)? Is there a way for convention staff to easily assess the accuracy of reports? I don’t know the answers to these questions. But we still have to have this discussion. Not next month. Not next convention. Now. ————————————————————- *I’ll use myself as an example. It is likely that I have said or done something that another person deemed as harassment. It’s just as likely that I have sexually harassed someone without meaning to. I think a lot of people don’t intend to harass someone, but intention is rarely relevant in cases of sexual harassment. And if I’m am guilty of such
I’m Not Disappeared (Updatery)
For the record, I haven’t disappeared. Nor have I quit doing all the stuff I like doing, such as reviewing books, writing, and so on. Rather, I’ve been doing worrying or thinking intensely about the following: My upcoming paper presentation for the English Graduate Organization Annual Conference (entitled ““Escaping Apartheid: The Speculative Renaissance in South Africa”). I’ve got a week. Yikes. My paper and abstract for the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, which is held in Orlando every year. China Mieville will be guest of honor, though he likely won’t attend any of my panels as I am not in his fields of interest. But you never know. The paper is on Kage Baker’s The House of the Stag (a rewrite of a previous paper). The class I am teaching next semester called “Writing About Postcolonialism and Genre Fiction,” in which I will be teaching students about the rise of genres like science fiction and fantasy (and their connection to the formations of empire) and how writers from the postcolony use such genres (including mystery, magical realism, etc.) to interrogate empire. I’m going to teach some Tobias S. Buckell, Nalo Hopkinson, Amos Tutuola, Amitav Ghosh, Salman Rushdie, Lauren Beukes, Nadine Gordimer, and many others. It should be fun. My oncology appointment on Monday. I’m turning into a hypochondriac right now. Every little change in my body makes me wonder whether I have some terrible new form of cancer, which is always a possibility for survivors of cancer. It’s stressing me out and all I want right now is for my cancer doctor to get some tests and tell me I’m a little overweight, have high natural cholesterol and asthma, but otherwise I’m a-OK. Because paying for chemo, surgery, etc. etc. etc. is not something I can manage right now. There’s no way… The 70 students I am currently teaching (two classes of “Intro to College Writing” and one class of “Professional Communication”). Over the next 8 weeks, I will be busy busy busy. But if I keep on top of things, I’ll do just fine. The two papers I have to write this semester (one a short conference-length thing, and the other a full 20ish-page monster). With all the work I’m doing, and all the personal stress, you can imagine what those papers look like on the other side of the hill: a giant, paper-filled, ink-spewing monster! I’ve got lots of other worries too, such as finishing WISB and some stories I’ve still got to write for the WISB project. They’re coming. I’m drowning in work and having a hard time keeping it all together. But I’ll manage. What’s got you stressed or busy these days?
Science Fiction Dreams: What do you dream?
I usually don’t remember my dreams. But when I do, they are weird. Take, for example, one of my more recent dreams: For some strange reason, I and a bunch of friends — whose faces I can’t remember — were transported by an unknown party to a semi-real replica of Earth somewhere in the vicinity of Cassiopeia. I say semi-real replica because parts of the world that I was able to explore looked exactly like the hill my grandma lives on. In any case, somehow we were sent to this planet, in which strange, tattooed humanoid people — who refused to speak to humans — drove around in camper trucks and Winnebagos. And then there was the crazy lady in the tiny white Nissan truck. I managed to flag her down and ask her for help and she explained to me that we should all watch out for the Green Nothings, the apparent villains of the dream. And then she got on a motorcycle, drove off a cliff, and landed on top of a Winnebago half-submerged in the ocean, where a boat full of Pops and Fruitloops (among other brands of cereal) floated. Is that not a weird dream? I also dream about zombies. Specifically, the zombie apocalypse, in which I, for some odd reason, become a bit of a hero due to my mad skills in zombie killing. In any case, dreams are a wonderful way to come up with ideas for stories — or at least to explore your subconscious brain, where crazy happens to live. But the one thing I’ve always had trouble with is trying to understand why my dreams happen. That is: what sparks these little details? Why did I dream about Green Nothings and biker chicks and Winnebagos? I haven’t thought about a Winnebago in years, as far as I can remember. And I don’t want one either. And why Cassiopeia and a semi-real replica of Earth? What crazy thing is behind all of this? I don’t know, and I’m sure you don’t know either, but it makes one wonder… So here’s the deal: I want to know what kind of crazy dreams you have had. Leave a comment. And if you know what my dream is about, leave a comment about that too!
Replacing Your Favorites: How Do You Survive When the Series Ends?
I recently had a brief, but amusing discussion with one of my friends in my graduate program about surviving the end of a series. I’ve probably noted something like this before, but the completion (or cancellation) of some of my favorite series (books, TV shows, and movies) has left an endless void in my life. It’s like getting excited about going to Disneyland, finally going, and then having to cope with the knowledge that the event is over when you come home. But you can re-experience Disneyland in a variety of ways (returning to it when you’re older, taking your children there, etc.). Yet, the same could be said of creative series. I can still re-experience Battlestar Galactica, and just as Disneyland can change when they add new rides, so too can BSG when the producers add new material (Caprica and Blood and Chrome, for example — though the former wasn’t all that great). The same is perhaps less true for book series. Though J. K. Rowling can certainly return to her world, it’s not as likely that she will, or that her return will garner the same attention as before. We are notoriously overly critical of authors who return to their favorite worlds and try to tell new stories within them. The completion of Harry Potter, sadly, puts Rowling in a strange position as a writer: on the one hand, she wants to please her fans, who are clambering for more HP, but on the other hand, she wants to move away from that to new things (to make a new “name” for herself). But even if you can re-experience BSG or HP or Star Wars or Star Trek or whatever else you became obsessed with in your youth (or middle age, as the case may be), it’s not the same as experiencing the anticipation and love in the moment. So the question is this: how do you move on when your favorite series ends? How do you find something to fill the void? If you loved BSG, what did you replace it with when the show ended (the same goes for HP or Star Wars or whatever other thing you fell in love with)? I suppose another way to put it is to ask: how do you survive series withdrawal?
Committing Blasphemy Against Doctor Who (or How to Kill a T.V. Show)
I haven’t watched the latest episode of Doctor Who yet. It’s not because I live in the U.S. and can’t afford cable. In fact, I have the episode sitting there and waiting for me. Rather, I haven’t watched the episode because I’ve lost interest. Not entirely, mind you. I know I’ll watch the episode eventually, but it won’t be tomorrow or the day after. It may not happen next week. Who knows? I might end up with all the episodes from the final half of this season sitting on my computer before I decide to watch them. Okay, so that worst case scenario is unlikely to happen, but it is true that the excitement I once held for the new season has waned. The new season isn’t a bad one, so I know it has little to do with the quality.* Rather, I think it has to do with the three month gap between episode seven and eight. A similar thing happened with Stargate Universe. I spent the first half of the first season watching every episode (at the time playing catchup, and then doing the week-by-week thing). But then the episodes dried up and I had to wait months before the rest of the season would play. By the time those episodes appeared, I didn’t care about SGU anymore — at least, not as much as I used to. I’d moved on, or I’d simply forgotten a lot of what had already happened and couldn’t be bothered to watch the episodes again to put everything into proper context. I still wanted to watch the show, but I never did… And that’s where I’m at with Doctor Who. Episode seven left us on a cliffhanger. At the time, I really wanted to know what was going to happen, but as time passed, other things flew into my life — new shows took DW’s place to fill the gap, life got in the way a whole lot, and so on. Now that DW has started up again, I’m sort of apathetic about it. I’ve lost all of the rabid excitement I had when April rolled around and the new season hit the airwaves (or digital stream, if you will). I can’t help thinking it has to do with the time gap, this despite the massive gap between the Christmas Special (A Christmas Carol — which was amazing) and the new season. I’ve never understood why producers and T.V. people insert the gap in the first place. First, it’s unreasonable to assume that your entire audience will have access to digital copies (sometimes those digital versions are only around for a short while before they are replaced and a lot of the time there aren’t any digital copies at all — this, of course, is changing). But more importantly, it’s disruptive. It tears the narrative cohesion by breaking the traditional T.V. season model and filling it with emptiness. It’s a terrible model, and one that isn’t all that new to DW.** To me, the traditional T.V. season model works because the gaps between seasons are book-ended by a reboot structure. The new season of Castle will likely include a first episode which offers something new to the existing narrative in order to draw us back into things. Mid-season breaks, however, don’t do this (at least, not in my experience). They are little more than continuations of the previous story, which works when you only have 7 days between episodes, but falls apart when you insert an enormous gap. Think of it as memory fatigue (or brain fatigue or something like that). The longer you draw out the wait, the more likely it is that members of your audience will get bored and move on. That’s a quick way to kill a T.V. show. I say this knowing full well that DW isn’t going to disappear. It will retain a large enough audience regardless. But it will bleed viewers. Those folks will likely not be super fans, but no T.V. show can survive the long term on the backs of super fans. It doesn’t work. You need the average fans and moderately interested too. But maybe DW is a bad example, since its viewer-base is filled with super fans (or appears to be). It’s a show that survives because so many people love it to do, both because the new show snatched them up and because a whole bunch of people have been fans of DW since the early days. Yet I can’t help thinking that the gaps aren’t helping it. DW has lost a sizable chunk of its viewers already (more likely because the tone/vision of the show has changed — for the better, overall, I think) and I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that many folks simply didn’t come back to DW for the latest episode. Not because they don’t like the show, but because they’ve moved on. For me, the gaps are nothing but bad. I lose interest. I lose my love. I move on. And I don’t want that. I want to feel like I have to watch the new episode right away or my brain will explode. The nostalgia of that feeling is necessary — desirable. It’s the same feeling I had when the Star Wars prequels appeared in theaters. The same feeling I have for Castle and, in the past, for Battlestar Galactica. Three month gaps and annoying life are taking that away from me for DW, a show I consider to be the last good science fiction show worth watching on TV (re-runs of BSG don’t count). There’s no viable replacement, and the void is deafening. What do you think? Do you dislike the gaps, or am I just being silly by blogging about this? ———————————————————— *I think the new season has a lot of flaws, but that it still reaches for and acquires the spirit of DW we’ve come to love in the years prior. **I started watching the show when Tennant entered
The Sexy Geek Ideal Imaginary: Do We Have a Problem?
I’m going to direct you all to read Geek Feminism’s post entitled “‘Geek Girls’ and the Problem of Objectification” as a starter, because much of what I’m going to say below stems from the fascinating discussion taking place there. But to start, I’ll offer the following quote: There’s nothing wrong with wanting attention and approval in one’s community. What cosplayer and geek wouldn’t want those things? What female geek doesn’t want to be welcomed into the community with enthusiasm and excitement (instead of derided as a harpy feminist or annoying squeeing fangirl)? The problem, then, isn’t what women do, but a culture in which the only way that women can be recognized as a desirable part of the culture is when they participate by making themselves consumable sexy objects for geek men. One of the problems with geek culture is how readily it has moved to adopt the paradigms of the cultures that exist outside of it (the very cultures which at one point looked down at geeks for being, well, geeky). I don’t have a problem with sexy geeks, or sexy geek clothing. In fact, most people don’t, in principle. There’s nothing wrong with looking sexy, or wanting to look that way. The problems arise when the sexy geek becomes the image we hope to attain (or, rather, that women hope to attain, since men, by and large, are not compelled to fulfill particular and very impossible physical images in order to achieve acceptance and “love” from others).* Specifically, it’s a very particular kind of “sexy image.” An image which says “only people with certain dress sizes and certain body proportions look sexy in the sexy clothes.” Because that’s an image that women will try to fit, even if their bodies aren’t designed for it. Even if doing so is bad for them. Even if doing so could end up killing them or destroying young girls from the mind out. There’s nothing wrong with sexy, but there’s something very wrong with the way we use it. Geek culture really shouldn’t have ideal body images. Not in any immediate sense. We should be just as willing to commend someone for wearing cat ears and a tail in any body shape (or gender) as we would someone wearing a skimpy ninja costume (is it fair to say that certain clothing is body specific? I don’t know. It seems horrible to suggest as much…). They should be seen as equal forms of expression. But I don’t think we’ll ever be there, in part because we have and will always be a highly sexualized culture. Clothing deemed “sexy” will always elicit seemingly positive responses (objectifying responses, but positive nonetheless because of our perceptions). I would be lying if I said I didn’t have those responses for Slave Leia cosplayers, or that sexy geek calendar everyone is talking about (I won’t buy such a thing, but seeing the images will undoubtedly elicit a reaction). But I’m aware of those responses. And it’s never stopped me from saying hello to people who don’t dress like Slave Leia (and, in fact, it’s helped me talk to those people, because I’m uncomfortable around half naked people in public). But I’m also aware of how many of those responses are socially conditioned — of all those times when I’ve seen someone who doesn’t look like a “hot girl” and reacted poorly in my head. I’ve had to shut those things out, because geek culture should always be about the geekery, not about what people look like, how they dress (unless they dress in people’s skin or something), and so on. It’s not about who should be pretty or who wears the sexiest clothes. It’s about a whole different set of ideals (in my head). This is turning into a ramble, though, so I’ll shut up and move on. I say all of this as a geek and someone who has attended geek-oriented events (and hopes to do so in the future). I’m not particularly pleased by the subversion of geek culture’s original disaffected attitude towards standardized models for engagement. Maybe what I see in my head is utopian nostalgia, wherein women were more likely to be accepted into the group as people because they were geeks too and not because they wore bikinis. And, well, it probably is utopia and formed out of nothing. Because women haven’t been a part of geek culture, largely speaking. They’ve been excluded for all kinds of stupid or sexist or unintentional reasons. Not to the extent that women weren’t a part of it at all, mind you, but certainly to the point where you could look around and not find a whole lot of them there. Now? It seems like they’re all over the place (and hello to you all), but following on their heels are the ideologies that still turn entire generations of young women into anorexics, etc. Nobody should have those things forced on them. What are we going to do about it? I don’t know. I really don’t. —————————————————- * — I don’t want to suggest that men are not susceptible to “ideal” body images. They are. But the pressure is less pronounced than it is for women, and likely not as well-researched.