Just FYI, I didn't even make it to the asterisks. I have a habit of tuning out whenever I come across the words "American Taliban" (whether uttered by someone on the right or on the left).
Second of all, when I started to talk about the thing going on at University of North Carolina involving the rape and the honor court and mentioned that the awesome thing about it was that it was all out in the open now, because 30 years ago even the Women's Studies department wouldn't talk about date rape on campus, and entire room of Baby Boomer women jumped my case.
No seriously, I'm a tough cookie, and I burst into tears on that panel. Jim Frenkel at his drunkest never made me feel as unsafe at WisCon as those women did.
That's awful. I'm having trouble imagining what they even had to say in contradiction to that.
More generally, I'm sorry your book's now in limbo.
I too can't imagine what they said and without this key detail the story doesn't make sense.
If these "baby boomer women" said something like "Date rape didn't exist or didn't matter 30 year ago." or something that would be shocking.
If they said something like, "I disagree, we did talk about date rape 30 years ago, but it was a lot harder." well, safe doesn't mean not having someone disagree with a sweeping generalization
Actually thirty years ago there were teachers in the women's studies department who said EXACTLY that: "date rape has only been an issue recently and we need to focus on other things." Which was not true and even if it was, way to not show support for the sisterhood. I think it had to do with fear of losing tenure. But whatever
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Elise Matthesen, the woman who filed the complaint, has a livejournal. Here is one of her posts:I've been reading the recent WisCon anthology, Shattering Ableist Narratives, ISBN: 978-1-61976-042-4, edited by JoSelle Vanderhooft. (Full disclosure: Debbie Notkin, who is wild_irises and I have an essay about friendship in the book that grew out of a panel we did last year.) It's got me thinking about a thousand thousand things, as did the previous post that talks about disability and my job
( ... )
I don't think this is necessarily an issue only with progressive fandom. An unfortunate social development in the United States over the past 10 or 15 years has been the increasing oversensitivity of the general public in any type of discussion
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An unfortunate social development in the United States over the past 10 or 15 years has been the increasing oversensitivity of the general public in any type of discussion.
I'd ask a few other attendees, like this one before buying into sweeping generalizations. The panel about rape as descibed makes it doubtful the consensus was to never mention rape in fiction. In her keynote speech Jo Walton praised pedophile rapist Humbert Humbert as an example "of unlikeable characters that we like anyway". That people might be unwilling to engage in a tangent about real life issues during panel discussions about writing fiction, but I doubt thousands of women spent several days together and didn't debate real life events. I can see someone only noticing what fits a preconception, kind of like responding to news of harassment by saying, "well, I know that guy and he didn't harass me."
Well, since the link offered is invalid, I guess I can't check out that person's opinion. I would love to have Elise tell us what happened, in her view, that constituted harassment. Or does feeling harraessed equal being harraessed? (apparently in Florida Elise could have just shot Jim, and been within the bounds of law.) Knowing someone gives some level of insight into their behavior. This makes it harder to believe or understand events as described. Or rather, as NOT described, because they were so, so, very traumatic. Why has there been no attempt to figure out if there was an actual problem? Or just someone feeling uncomfortable and being unwilling to correct the situation herself, instead of expecting The Authorities to do it for her? Because hey- if one situation is accepted without question because it was reported as harassment, then Angeli's comments also need to to be believed without comment, because she was made so upset. Q
That wasn't the consensus, largely because with me in the room that wasn't GOING to be the consensus ... but it was a serious argument made by a sizable portion of the room.
Some female authors like Seanan MacGuire have come out against ever using rape in fiction because it is inherently exploitative and falls into reams of anti-feminist tropes. (I think Ms MacGuire meant this only for her own writing but from that conversation clearly not everyone took it that way.)
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No seriously, I'm a tough cookie, and I burst into tears on that panel. Jim Frenkel at his drunkest never made me feel as unsafe at WisCon as those women did.
That's awful. I'm having trouble imagining what they even had to say in contradiction to that.
More generally, I'm sorry your book's now in limbo.
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If these "baby boomer women" said something like "Date rape didn't exist or didn't matter 30 year ago." or something that would be shocking.
If they said something like, "I disagree, we did talk about date rape 30 years ago, but it was a lot harder." well, safe doesn't mean not having someone disagree with a sweeping generalization
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Again, I'm so sorry that happened. That's just NOT OK.
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But I do wish there had been some redress for her complaint that didn't involve screwing over me.
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Hear, hear!
But really, why do people have to be screwed over AT ALL?! So many people, too.
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I think that's true.
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I would love to have Elise tell us what happened, in her view, that constituted harassment. Or does feeling harraessed equal being harraessed? (apparently in Florida Elise could have just shot Jim, and been within the bounds of law.)
Knowing someone gives some level of insight into their behavior. This makes it harder to believe or understand events as described. Or rather, as NOT described, because they were so, so, very traumatic.
Why has there been no attempt to figure out if there was an actual problem? Or just someone feeling uncomfortable and being unwilling to correct the situation herself, instead of expecting The Authorities to do it for her?
Because hey- if one situation is accepted without question because it was reported as harassment, then Angeli's comments also need to to be believed without comment, because she was made so upset. Q
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That wasn't the consensus, largely because with me in the room that wasn't GOING to be the consensus ... but it was a serious argument made by a sizable portion of the room.
Some female authors like Seanan MacGuire have come out against ever using rape in fiction because it is inherently exploitative and falls into reams of anti-feminist tropes. (I think Ms MacGuire meant this only for her own writing but from that conversation clearly not everyone took it that way.)
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