Things we don't see (at Swancon)

[sqbr]

So I've been thinking about cons, and con panels, and at the same time I've been thinking about racism and sexism and... stuff, and I have some vague thoughts about the way "minority" (which may not actually be in the physical minority) opinions and perspectives get ignored. Unsurprisingly, these are illustrated in particular by the panel I did on Race in SFF, but I'm planning on going into that in a separate post (the combined post got too long and rambly even for me)

Now first off I don't want to be one of those people who equates huge evil social injustice like racism etc with small scale unfairness like media fans not getting the same recognition as lit fans. They are Not The Same, and anyone who says they are is an idiot. But on an individual scale some similar dynamics come into play, it's just that with sexism etc those dynamics are underscored and reinforced by society wide predjudice, making everything nastier and more complex. I'm sorry to anyone who gets annoyed at the way I blur them a bit, I'm not the most intellectually rigorous writer ever :/

In general wrt Swancon, I think people are not very good at recognising that "interestingness" is not an objective measure. There's kind of a negative spiral, where the people who run/decide on panels aren't interested in something, so it doesn't get programmed, so noone who likes that stuff gets on any panels, so...
At the "What are we doing wrong at Swancons" panel there was a lot of interest in attracting new members, but none in figuring out what it is we could do that the people who don't go to Swancon would like (for example, what they do at Waicon). The assumption seemed to be that we just needed to get people to turn up, and once they'd done that they'd be overwhelmed by how awesome the con is and never leave.

But as someone at that panel did point out: how do you figure out what POVs you don't see, if you can't see them?

This ties into a discussion at a Gynaecon panel on the way female scientists are treated in fandom. There's sort of a double whammy, where women are automatically given less respect for doing things that would get respect from a man, but also things women tend to like (craft, soft sciences, romance etc) are given less respect than traditionally male topics (electronics, physics, action etc) so that if you're a woman who likes traditionally "girly" things you get very little respect at all.
(I'm never sure how much of this sort of thing applies to me personally, since I have a self deprecating attitude but fairly male interests. Of course one could argue that that my gender isn't coincidental to my self deprecatingness...)

The way I see it there are three stages to something like sexism. There's active discrimination, ie "You're stupid because you're a woman". There's subconscious bias, ie "I can just tell that you're stupid. And as it happens, this is true of all the women I know." And then there's indirect bias caused by society's biased values, ie "Everyone knows that dresses are stupid, and thus you are stupid for liking dresses". The last sort is the hardest to root out, especially since everything gets complicated by girls who don't like dresses and boys who do.

And of course individual "sexist" or whatever acts are rarely that straightforward, there's always confounding factors like personal history, personality, etc. It's like at the "Race and the Other" panel where people were coming up with all these plausible reasons for the fact that there are no non-white technological societies in StarGate: yes, it's not impossible that any one of those could hold and the whole thing could make sense in a non-racist way. But when this sort of thing happens in show after show you eventually have to put your foot down and stop acting like it isn't an issue. Racism, sexism etc are like the death of a thousand cuts (plus a few deliberate slashes and jabs), pointing out that each individual cut is quite small and that hey, all of us get the odd cut from time to time, isn't very helpful. Some people get WAY more cuts than others, and we need to do something about it.

But what do we do? Well, I think refusing to be ignored is important, as is being as involved as possible in the decision making process. Even if certain parts of fandom never get their head around why some of us like/care about fanfic anime dresses certain things, they can at least come to terms with the fact that a large and vocal subset of us do and grudgingly give us our due (in theory. I realise it hasn't always worked out that way, thus Gynacon etc). With actual discrimination I think you just have to speak up, make people think about whats really going on and not let things slide. From the other end, we have to really listen when people complain about feeling alienated or ignored, and try and get our head around the idea that just becuase we don't like something doesn't mean it's objectively bad, and just because we don't personally have a problem with certain patterns of bechaviour doesn't mean they don't need to be changed.

None of which is easy or always works, of course. *sigh* Still, do what we can right?

Comments

[leecetheartist.livejournal.com]

Tangentially...do we ever see indigenous artists/writers/publishers at Swancon? Have they ever been asked? I guess we could look into these guys and invite them. http://www.noongar.org.au/

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

I was planning to suggest that we invite a local indigenous rep to come along and perhaps tell dreamtime stories, or teach us a traditional dance/story, or explain some artwork. I also struggle with how to express the idea without making it seem like tokenism :-(

[alias_sqbr]

Mmm. It is one of those appealing but incredibly minefieldy ideas isn't it? They had a local Noongar guy give a "welcome to country" at a medical conference I went to recently, which was great, but local indigenous groups have a much stronger connection to (and interest in) medical services than fandom. I think there isn't quite a framework for incorporating the sorts of things you're talking about, but perhaps they should be (ie people come and talk about folklore/religion from various cultures. But then again, understandably, they might not like the idea of people inevitably going "Ooh! I could use that for a story!")

Personally I think we're probably better off trying to give more voice to the various marginalised POVs within fandom before we start inviting in outsiders. Like: anime panels with japanese fans on them. Or panels about cross cultural fandom with fans from non-english speaking countries on them.

[lauredhel.livejournal.com]

Another aspect of the minefield is assuming that "Aboriginal" means Dreamtime, religion, folklore, ancient traditions.

The Sydney Olympics ceremony might be an example of this denial of coevalness: treating Aboriginality and Indigenous cultures as relics and curios while ignoring current-day, modern experiences and identities.

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

If you (anyone) go looking for mines you'll find them. I wouldn't just drag any indigenous person in off the train/street/phonebook and assume they're full of mystic knowledge. I would look for someone prepared to teach us something specific (yes ancient folklore - why not?), and I like the idea of it coming from the horse's mouth, so to speak. A passionate horse, even. Plenty of authors already "steal" lore for spec fic. I'd really like to hear a response from the people of that culture, by which I mean a representative who *identifies themselves* as a keeper and teacher of that lore.

It can't be less relevant to spec fic than the (admittedly lots of fun) stripper lessons we had a couple of years ago!

Man, I hate minefields. I bet I just dug myself into a hole. Peace :-)

BTW I learned recently that Cathy Freeman has both English and Chinese ancestry. For reasons I find difficult to identify I thought this was fabulous.

[mandragora2003.livejournal.com]

There were stripper lesons? I missed that!

[callistra.livejournal.com]

So did I!
Oh hang on, vegetus lead it?
Are they the stripper lessons?

[ariaflame.livejournal.com]

I think those are the ones of which they speak, less stripping and more ahem, exotic or suggestive dancing.

[callistra.livejournal.com]

So did I!
Oh hang on, vegetus lead it?
Are they the stripper lessons?

[alias_sqbr]

That's a very good point.

I mean I'd heard about "Welcome to Country"s before and assumed they'd be all fuzzy feel good folklore and dancing, but it was just this guy in regular clothes giving a powerful speech about the historical and personal context. Which made sense for a medical conference (he and the indigenous medical researcher who had a talk later both had a lot to say about death as a constant in aboriginal life) but I'm not sure they'd feel like they'd have a lot to discuss with a bunch of sff nerds.

But you know, maybe they would, it's not like I'm supremely qualified to talk about the interests and goals of indigenous australians. Something I think might be an idea is acknowledging the traditional owners, if nothing else it's no inconvenience to anyone.

[leecetheartist.livejournal.com]

Better some action than no action for fear of offending?

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

It's a large and justifiable fear.

[leecetheartist.livejournal.com]

I'm sure the South West Council has had to deal with good hearted people who are interested before, it'll be alright, they're probably used to this sort of thing.

[alias_sqbr]

Thinking about it, they'd probably recommend Acknowledging Traditional Owners.

[alias_sqbr]

Is that the sort of thing they do? Continuing from my discussion with stephbg below, does the stuff they do mesh with the stuff we do? If not we might want to consider widening our definition of "what we do", but I think that needs to be looked into before we invite them :)

If there are local indigenous spec fic writers etc then yes it would be good to invite them or at least do a panel on them or whatever.

Anyway, thanks for the link.

[leecetheartist.livejournal.com]

Well at the very least we can ask.

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

What I don't what to do is invite people (authors or otherwise) because they *happen* to be genetically indigenous. I want people (who *might* be indigenous) to respond to the use of indigenous culture to inspire spec fic. Is it A Good Thing? Is it Disrespectful? We've had panels like this before, but typically without representatives.

I've certainly read plenty of short spec stories with "pointing the bone" and walkabout and similar simplistic references. I'd like to know if that sort of thing annoys anyone, and if it's even a valid cause for annoyance given the strip-mining of lots of other cultures (Native American, Celtic, Japanese etc etc etc).

And then there's the racism versus culturism...

I really suck at explaining this sort of thing. I am an embarrassment to my Arts degree. I shall have to consult with BB who was an active and respected Native Title rep in the Dept of Indig Affairs. He's actually had ConTact.

[lauredhel.livejournal.com]

You don't suck at explaining it at all - I'm pretty sure I understand what you mean :) And, absolutely, soooo much better/more respectful to invite Indigenous voices on cultural appropriation than white people doing so by default (without considering inviting the people concerned to speak, I mean - I'm all in favour of white people debunking whiteness in general.)

Is there any international acafanlit on the subject?

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

*looks blank and/or thoroughly out of depth*

There's such a thing as acafanlit?

[lauredhel.livejournal.com]

Do you call it something else? :)

[callistra.livejournal.com]

Meta?
or do you mean fanlit based on academic papers?

[callistra.livejournal.com]

Meta?
or do you mean fanlit based on academic papers?

[alias_sqbr]

I want people (who *might* be indigenous) to respond to the use of indigenous culture to inspire spec fic. Is it A Good Thing? Is it Disrespectful? We've had panels like this before, but typically without representatives.

Oh, now that sounds like a good idea. I wonder what indigneous readers think of Terry Dowling's work, for example. Of course you still have to find someone who is interested and knowledgable about both the indigneous POV and spec fic.

[lauredhel.livejournal.com]

Or, perhaps, approach well in advance, find a reader open to the idea, and offer the relevant books.

[alias_sqbr]

Hmm, see I think that makes sense as an idea in and of itself, in theory. But I just have this mental image of some non-nerd coming and talking about sff books they don't 100% understand the context for to a crowd of people who aren't used to thinking about cultural appropriation and it all being..bad.

Given that there is very little dialogue of any sort about cultural appropriation at Swancon, to me it makes more sense to start with stuff we can get people inside fandom to talk about. I mean part of the point of my post was that we need to give more voice to the diverse POVs within fandom, and this would, imo, be a good place to start.