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Why so surprised? At it's heart the fan community is a bunch of socially-backward emotionally-arrested man-children who have problems dealing with fantasy and reality. And women have Wonder Woman and She-Hulk, so why can't they shut up and let the boys get back to their fantasies of being disciplined by Emma Frost. The community will be able to dissemble and play 'blame the victim' even should the day come when a woman ends up dead.
The problem with this, though, is that it doesn't offer an out. If you are a woman who is interested in science fiction and fantasy, and want to share that interest in a social environment with others, your options become limited to giving up on the idea, only organising in groups of people you already know and trust, or all-women groups, or accepting the possibility that you will be harrassed or assaulted if you go to a con. I'm not sold on con culture myself, but I know people who get a lot out o it, and it sounds pretty awful to say that women just aren't safe and will never be safe.
To address that, changing the culture is one approach. Establishing strong boundaries - and, in fact, the open source boob project provides some hope on that. The bright boy who reported it took a lot of convincing, and was a thorough douchebag during the convincing, but he did eventually take on board that this was not acceptable behaviour, even if he could not be disabused of the notion that the first time it happened it was like Memory of a Free Festival. You don't want to have to spend that much time on every one, but perhaps a degree of momentum can build. One of the things that reassured me, to an extent, was one of the guest authors at that convention, when she found out what had been happening, made it clear that she would not attend a convention where it was on the books, and would push to have anyone trying to set it up expelled from the space. That kind of push from the people who draw attendance in the first place seems to be a vital part of a fightback, along with making venues aware of their responsibilities and conventioneers aware of their rights and responsibilities.
I think it's worth not sectioning off fandom totally, as well. Sexual harassment and the lack of safety in crowds is something that women have to deal with in many, many environments. Fans may seem odder about it, and might be more likely to propose a systematic approach to it on their livejournals, but they are by no means unique. |
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