looking for answers

[chaos_wrangler]

Within a couple of days I saw this post and a couple of links on FB to women's first person accounts of being harassed at cons apparently just for being female and physically there, and I started thinking about all the time I've spent in fandom, whether at cons or other gatherings, and how I don't recall ever being treated as "less than" or as an

Comments

[ladymondegreen]

It's a really good question. There is a degree to which I think I was either oblivious to some of this for a really long time, or I was just really lucky in selecting for a crowd that doesn't do this stuff.

I've had some of it happen on panels where I'm unknown to the panelists, but often I've been able to win them over by the end of the panel, and I usually took that as 'prove yourself' not 'prove yourself because you're not a dude', though it may have been there.

There are, at least to my mind, a couple of perpetual offenders in the 'but let me do it, 'cause you're just a lady' category, but in large part they back down or leave when faced with competence or with being ignored outright.

I am not unwilling to take help, particularly competent help, but not if it comes with a side order of patronizing and weird. I'm pretty straightforward about my desire to work with others and get things done.

That being said, I think filk in particular and parts of New York fandom in general are more lacking in this than I would have expected given some of my more recent experiences. I think also, the fact that I was part of an established gang of fannish folks helped insulate against this to a degree. I didn't intend to come in with my own posse, but given that we were running conventions before we really understood organized fandom as such, we seem to have de facto established a modicum of safe haven in an otherwise hostile territory.