Women call for sexual harassment policy at Comic-Con

[bnmc2005]

Geeks for CONsent brings sexual harassment to center stage at San Diego's Comic-Con convention

July 28, 2014 4:53PM ET Source is here:
by Marisa Taylor   @marisahtaylor

An estimated 130,000 people attended Comic-Con International in San Diego last weekend, but the annual celebration, where many fans dress as fantasy heroes, seems to have brought out

Comments

[chaya]

Anyone else kind of amused/creeped out by the choice of header picture at the source?

[bnmc2005]

I don't know anything about the characters they're playing.

[spiegel11th]

Blue woman is Mystique (X-Men, Marvel), woman in white is humanised Princess Celestia (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic). I don't know why someone would be "amused/creeped out" by that, though.

[chaya]

Either they changed the picture or my computer at work cropped it weirdly - when I saw it there, you only got the middle of the picture. (Meaning, it was focused in on the boobs, and there was almost no face at all.)

[nesmith]

the relative newness of cosplay and comic-related events in the mainstream view has meant some attendees haven’t learned how to behave properly.

What's really depressing is that if we had a decent society that taught respect for women's bodies AS A FUCKING DEFAULT, we wouldn't have to teach these fucking neanderthals proper behavior, which I usually call "behaving like an adult instead of a baboon."

[bnmc2005]

This. And I also like how they try to pass the idea that harrassing women isn't something we see every.fucking.day in the mainstream.

[soleiltropiques]

So far, in my (not so well informed) opinion, it doesn't look as though cons are doing such a good job of addressing harassment

[moonshaz]

It sounds like Wiscon may at least be trying to address the situation you're talking about:

Concom update for July 26th, 2014
Update From the Concom, Monday, July 21, 2014
WisCon Subcommittee Statement on Jim Frenkel, Friday, July 18, 2014
Statement from Joanna Lowenstein, WisCon 38 Co-Chair, Monday, July 7, 2014
Statements from WisCon Safety Chairs, Monday, June 30, 2014

The situation seems to be evolving as we speak. I am favorably impressed by the (at least seeming) transparency of this process, and I think it will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

[soleiltropiques]

Not disagreeing with you, but I do find it unfortunate though, to put it mildly, that it takes this amoung to public pressures for cons to even live up to their own anti-harassment policies (and that's if they even have them).

It's very depressing, IMHO.

[girlomega]

I stopped going to Orycon because of the shady shit that I kept seeing, year after year. And I was a minor when I was going, I've got at least one sexual harassment story per con year. This has been happening for way too long and I'm glad that it's finally being talked about but sad that it took us until now to have a widespread voice about it instead of just on message boards and mailing lists.

TRIGGER WARNING: Sexual Assault, Violence

[qara_isuke]

And somehow, there are people that laughed at these women.

17-year old in critical condition after Comic Con assault.

My thoughts and prayers are with her and her family. I sincerely hope she recovers fully, and is able to heal both physically and emotionally from her ordeal. I also hope her attacker is convicted to the fullest extent of the law -- they have a man in custody now, but we don't know yet whether or not he's the guilty party.

Re: TRIGGER WARNING: Sexual Assault, Violence

[soleiltropiques]

OH DEAR GOD.

How horrible.