On the impossibility of a perfect Eastercon

[andrewducker]

There's something that bothers me about some of the reports about Eastercon and the handling of gender and race there.

Not that I don't think people have a right to their emotional reaction (and I am glad that the BSFA has now apologised for the awards ceremony). Anger doesn't bother me at all. What bothers me is how _surprised_ some people seem to be. Shocked that the world of science-fiction isn't an inclusive safe space full of people as enlightened as they are.

It's always been reasonably easy to spend your time in a social circle that's got relatively similar views to your own, but it's now possible to spend your socialising time online with people who are even closer to your own views, reinforcing them and making you feel that they are the ones held by all right-thinking folk.

And when that happens it's easy to lose track that even in modern Britain there are millions of people who feel very differently to you. I live in a country which is more liberal and inclusive than at any point in the past[1], but if you look at what people actually think only 43% believe in marriage equality. Where nearly 40% of people would vote Conservative tomorrow. Where two thirds of people voted against the first chance of voting reform this country has had in decades. Where, frankly, a hell of a lot of people hold opinions I don't like.

It makes sense to me to be annoyed about representations of people of different ethnicities and cultures where those things are done badly. But when I saw people being apparently surprised because of a panel of four people there was no non-white members, I found myself popping to Wikipedia and confirming that 90% of the population is White. Should we be questioning the way that cultures are portrayed? Absolutely. Should we be surprised that the British National Science Fiction convention is largely white? No. Should we want to improve it to the point where the proportions are as high as the general population? Absolutely. Inclusivity has increased the percentage of women attendees to the point of parity, which is fantastic, and I've heard good intentions regarding race being next on the list.

When we expect perfection anywhere in our lives then we are setting ourselves up for disappointment and estrangement. We should strive for our ideals, but if we don't remain rooted in reality then we end up disillusioned, which is no good to anyone.



[1]Seriously. It's only 20 years since it became possible to rape your wife, and 45 years since homosexuality was made legal - 15 years since the ages were equalised with heterosexuals. I think a lot of people don't realise how awful things were a few decades ago - let alone throughout most of history. I'm pretty resigned to the face that 80% of the planet believes things that revolt me on a deep level, and am grateful that this is down from the 99.5% that held until very recently.

Comments

[miss_s_b]

"Scifi is a marginalised community too; they should understand what it's like to be marginalised and not perpetuate it!" is the thought process, I think.

But yeah.

Once we've tackled sexism PROPERLY (cos, you know, your post kind of implies that's all done and dusted now, and it so totally isn't) and racism and homophobia and transphobia and all the other shit we can all just have cookies?

[andrewducker]

No cookies. Using food as a reward trains bad behaviors and will be banned by the New World Order.

[redbird]

This may seem like a nitpick, but it's been possible for men to rape their wives as long as marriage has existed. What changed in Britain 20 years ago is that it became illegal to rape your wife. Or, if you want more legalistic language, since the law recognized that forcible sex is rape even if the victim is married to the rapist.

[andrewducker]

It became legally possible. Before that point it wasn't legally rape. Of course, the legal definition isn't the only definition.

[coughingbear]

I stumbled over that phrasing too, though I knew what you meant.

I think I've missed people being surprised that a panel was all-white, although I did read some discussion about that being the case on a panel where they were discussing race. Most of the panels were of course all white, an inevitable reflection of the con being very white (though apparently not as much so as in previous years); it was definitely something that struck me about the convention as a whole.

You've made me reflect on whether I was surprised - I was certainly annoyed and upset by John Meaney's speech on Saturday, and probably more so because it was in a context where until that point I had been having a lovely time among people who had been very friendly; but I think what actually surprised me was how badly done his speech was - even without any sexist or racist issues, it would have been hard to listen to.

[redbird]

If you'd said "legally possible" I probably wouldn't have picked that nit.

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

Eastercon background?

[andrewducker]

Yearly British SF convention that happens every year. Largely filled with White Men until recently, when there's been a swing to being near parity for gender. An influx of women and younger people has revitalised things, and also led to lots of people questioning why things are the way they are, and why some bits of it were still being run as if British SF was a tiny clique where everyone knows everyone else.

Good piece here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/09/eastercon-sf-fantasy-convention?cat=books&type=article

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a woman who has been involved in both literary/fannish fandom and media fandom on and off since 1978... The change has come about partly because that great divide between the sercon/fannish fans (mainly male) on one side and the media fans (mainly female outside DW fandom) on the other has been bridged, at least at the Eastercon, and partly because of watervole who brought SF con-style events to media fandom with Redemption and has chaired Eastercons which have been opened up extensively.

Traditionally, BSFA membership and Eastercon membership do not overlap to a huge extent. Furthermore, most of the people in the bidding session were probably totally unaware of the Cornell initiative and uninvolved with it. I personally managed (deliberately, I'm afraid, because as I get older I get less and less likely to sound off on issues where I agree with the aims but don't agree with the methods) to avoid all the panels discussing gender equality, despite the presence of many personal friends.

I got the distinct impression - I could be wrong - that many people at the bidding session were puzzled by Farah's and Paul's questioning but vaguely in favour of gender equality. However, they were not in favour of continual questioning after the original question had been answered or of voting against a very decent bid for a future Eastercon - and I have already registered - on a political point.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, that's another thing that annoys me. "But we talked about this on Twitter/Livejournal/Scalzi's blog." - forgetting that the majority of people do not spend their time on any of these sites.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Yes. And the assumption that we can change the make-up of fandom easily.

[andrewducker]

Oh yes, it takes time. Societal changes take decades to push through.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

We went to a British Fantasy Society meet last month and were astonished how male it was. We aren't used to that any more.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Yes, well, a lot of the women (including Ina, who was secretary of the BFS in the late 70s) left when their attempts to get the society to include fantasy that wasn't horror er... failed.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

And remember that not everybody actually wants to be a fan :)

[kiffkin.livejournal.com]

1981 and 1982 were a lot fewer than 45 years ago, and same-sex relations between women have never been illegal in Britain. Lately I seem to have to be reminding people a lot that gay doesn't just mean homosexual English male - don't know why this idea's been kicking around so much lately.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

You might be interested in Afraid of the Dark, a book about the things black and white (American) people don't tell each other.

One of the points made is that there just aren't enough black people to go around for all white Americans to have black friends.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I suspect that this is a problem in the UK for colour parity too. There are roughly (good enough for government work) as many women as men. The UK is pretty white really.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

For some years I thought that Bradford was a lot less white than it actually is, but I'd arrived at this conclusion because parts of Bradford aren't very white and those were the bits that I had been wandering through once a year.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

There's a test often done to confuse Daily Mail readers which is ask them what percentage of the population they think X minority is... they'll over estimate wildly and then find out the number is actually a very very very small one.

That said, moving from London to Seattle has made me realise how 'white' Seattle really is.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I'd imagine some Daily Mail readers are very easily confused!

[del-c.livejournal.com]

It's the other way round for class. There are more than enough working class people around for every member of the privileged middle class minority to have multiple working class friends. Ad yet they still act as if having even one is a big achievement that gets them special "I can speak for the working class because I know one" points.

Same for family. Class mobility is fast enough, and the numbers skewed enough toward the working class, that having a working class grandparent is not something that ought to earn you special rhetorical points. But they talk as if it does.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I can see the apology for something terrible happening at the awards ceremony, but is there a link anywhere to what was actually said that was so appalling? I'd like to make my own mind up. Oh, and links to sources not infected by political correctness please.

[andrewducker]

Oh, the awards ceremony wasn't _appalling_, so far as I can tell. It was merely "not very good" with some elements that were meant as in-jokes and would have gone down just fine as conversation in the pub between mates, but were less good when done as the representative of the hosting organisation in front of hundreds of people not in on the "joke".

http://storify.com/nwbrux/the-bsfa-presentation has some of the live reaction.

But basically it sounds like he was making the odd objectifying remark and a couple of "Ha ha, this person is Irish" jokes. Nothing you'd worry about if a stand-up comedian was saying them, but not what was wanted at an awards ceremony when the con-runners were making a point of being more inclusive.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Nothing you'd worry about if a stand-up comedian was saying them,

That because people for some reason tolerate/expect racist jokes from comedians, which is pretty sickening.

[danmilburn.livejournal.com]

There's a reason I avoid anything featuring Jimmy Carr, but yeah, it was just bad standup and if I saw similar material from someone 3rd on the bill at a comedy club that would be, well, not fine, but expected.

In the context of the event and the weekend as a whole, it was horrifically misjudged - for me the line was crossed when he used the term New Man, which I can't recall encountering non-ironically since the 1980s..

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

It had a number of jokes that were very inappropriate. For instance, Meaney made much of Lauren Beukes (whose name he also mispronounced - it rhymes with 'Lucas', not 'pukes') being oh so really, really hot, as if this is the reason she is successful, rather than because Zoo City is exceptionally good. It was also full of in-jokes that probably sailed over the heads of most of the audience. Indeed, at one point (his dig at David Lally) he combined the two and made an ethnically-stereotyped in-joke.

(Now, John Meaney was born in the UK of Irish parents, grew up in an Irish community and culturally identifies as Irish. So in some circumstances he can perhaps perfectly well tease his old friend Dave Lally about being Irish. But not in front of hundreds of people who know neither of them and don't have the context.)

It was also looooooong. Far, far too long. Even if it had been stripped of the offensiveness and in-jokes it would have been very overstretched.

I was sitting in the front row because I was up for an award. (I had no chance of winning, but it was fun to hear my name and those of my co-editors read out.) I couldn't escape, and had to sit there wondering what the hell had got into Meaney and watching Donna Scott try not to visibly die of embarrassment.