The Blood is The Life 12-04-2012

[miss_s_b]

• German Pirate Party overtakes Greens, survey by Forsa shows
  (tags: politics )
  
• Carbon nanotubes: The weird world of 'remote Joule heating'
  Mysterious science thing is cool!
  (tags: )
  
  
• The BBC Wants You!
  ... if you're good at sewing. Sadly this is slightly too early in my skill attainment cycle for me to consider, but...
  (tags: )
  
  
• Eastercon: It was fun, but…
  This makes me sad, because I know that the people who run Eastercon are good people with good hearts.
  (tags: )
  
  
• BREAKING: The range of published science fiction caters overwhelmingly to a white male audience.
  More on the Eastercon thing, with some suggested solutions.
  (tags: )
  
  
• These 17 Actors Were in Multiple Geek Properties, Get Over It
  Is anyone else a bit disturbed by the erasure of McKellen's political activism here? I mean, here he is, trying to make a point about LGBT acceptibility and they blithely cover it up with geekery... I'd be pretty pissed off if they made Patrick Stewart's "This is what a feminist looks like" t-shirt into "this is what a starship captain looks like" too... But judging by the comments on the entry, I guess I'm just being a bit oversensitive and squee-harshy :(
  (tags: problematic )
  
  

Comments

[innerbrat]

Yes, it bothers the hell out of me, and has done since I first saw the Harrison Ford T shirt photoshop.

Funny, I'd be fine with McKellen wearing the original photoshoppped T-shit, because "A gay man was Magneto and Gandalf" is still activism.

But. Yeah, the meme take-off misses the point and erases his sexuality and activism.

[miss_s_b]

Glad it's not just me.

[blazingskies]

*reads the Eastercon post and bashes head against a wall*

For the love of Cthulu. It wasn't that long ago that Eastercon (and indeed, much of the con scene in general) was so dominated by the Gold 'Ole White Boys club that women and non-white people could barely get a look in. The sort of people who can afford to go to cons tend to be middle-aged white people, because they're in the nice, wealthy demographic who can afford it.

We (and I do count myself among the Eastercon crowd after being on committee for it last year) are trying to raise awareness among the privileged, we are trying to be open and welcoming and a safe space to everyone. We haven't yet succeeded, but can you name me ANY large event that has???

Eastercon was a GREAT event this year, where lots of people had a REALLY good time. I didn't see the BSFA awards, but please remember that though the BSFA awards are hosted at Eastercon, they are NOT affiliated with it. The BSFA have already apologised for John Meaney's conduct during the presentation. I understand the convention committee was less than impressed, too. But all-in-all, the win outweighed the Fail. And, as always, the Win is often very under-reported.

Oh, and for the record, Rite Medany, the convention chair, is a non-white female.

*End Rant*

[miss_s_b]

* snuggle *

[blazingskies]

*cuddles back*

Sorry. I'm just getting very pissed off at people tearing down all the months/years of hard work my friends on the concom have done because of a few minutes of one bloke being an idiot at an awards ceremony.

*goes to hide in a corner*

[matgb]

The write ups I've seen have mostly been overwhelmingly positive-and we agree dtrhis evening to buy passes early and make sure we could go next year-given the location it'd be hard not to if we can afford it...

[blazingskies]

YAY! Welcome to the family.

(sorry for late reply. This week has been weird)

[drunkwriter]

I wasn't at the event, but I bashed my head against the wall too. I even called the author out on one point (about congratulating non-Anglophone speakers).

I feel that making big foamy ranty posts about gender/race/whatever 'fail' at conventions does seem to have become this year's equivalent of accusing Russell T Davies of being racist, misogynistic or homophobic. I suspect some of them are trying to build their online profile more than they're trying to bring justice to the world.

I was at some of the SFX Weekender panels that attracted online hysteria earlier this year, but I barely recognised it as the same event, frankly.

I've read great things about Eastercon elsewhere and hope to go next year.

[blazingskies]

Come to Bradford next year and we'll be sure to make you welcome. :)

[drunkwriter]

I might hold you to that :)

Yes, really keen to do more cons in general, and yours is top of the list (yay books!)

[drunkwriter]

Also - Doctor Who and Manics? Why aren't we friends? We should be friends. You're my friend now.

[nanila]

I feel that making big foamy ranty posts about gender/race/whatever 'fail' at conventions does seem to have become this year's equivalent of accusing Russell T Davies of being racist, misogynistic or homophobic. I suspect some of them are trying to build their online profile more than they're trying to bring justice to the world.

Did you read my post or foxfinial's original post linked above? I don't believe either of us were being foamy or ranty. (OK, maybe foxfinial was being a little ranty.) And when you say things like "some of them are trying to build their online profile more than they're trying to bring justice to the world", it certainly doesn't make me feel welcome to comment about the con - which I attended as a speaker and a panelist. It makes me feel like my feedback isn't valuable if it isn't all positive. :/

[drunkwriter]

I honestly can't imagine why anything I might have to say on any subject would have any impact on you at all.

I've read both your posts now (but hadn't read yours when I made the above comment), and agree with almost everything you said, and only agreed with a bit less of foxfinial's piece. Did I think they were foamy or ranty? No. But I've read posts elsewhere, by other people (and relating to other events), that certainly qualify on both counts. I wouldn't take my comment personally.

[nanila]

Heh. Well, I made the assumption that a comment made on a post containing a link to my post was related to my post. I don't think that was necessarily a stupid assumption (disregarding the usual caveat that when you assume...). But I'm glad to hear it was a mistaken assumption. Thank you for clarifying. :)

I haven't read anything particularly foamy or ranty about Eastercon itself, but that's probably because the friends I have who attended mostly had a good time.

[drunkwriter]

Yeah, I guess that is a fair assumption. :)

I'm a furtive work reader, and don't always have time to read every link that appears in these posts. I'm still saving carbon nanotubes for my mid-afternoon coffee, for example.

[purplecat]

I was at Eastercon and, it must be said, I deliberately dodged a lot of the panels I thought might be prone to fail. But the one I did attend `multiculturalism in Steampunk', while it didn't contain too much overt fail, only avoided that mostly because the panelists seemed somewhat bemused to be asked the question and chose to use the occasion to talk about things like classism and homophobia instead (both useful topics to discuss but not my understanding of the question as asked).

I thought the representation of women, throughout the con, was generally excellent, but the representation of non-white people was frankly minimal. The committee is to be applauded for fielding a number of panel topics that addressed these problems, but perhaps less applauded for the choice of moderators and panelists, or the extent to which those people were briefed about what was wanted/expected.

I had a great time but I'm white and middle-class and grey-haired.

[blazingskies]

The important thing to understand regarding the representation among Eastercon panellists is that people on the panels are all volunteers - in other words, the programme organisers only had a limited pool of people had had already volunteered to be on panels and to be moderators. From what I understand, the programme organisers were having trouble finding enough female participants to acquire some measure of gender parity (I was one of the people drafted in, btw). This does mean that the problem tends to feed itself and 'the usual suspects' tend to turn up repeatedly, which, as I've already noted, tends to skew it towards the white male end of the spectrum/

It has been noted that there is a dearth of non-white panel participants, and discussions have begun into how non-white fans can be encouraged to step forward and have their voices heard also. I'm not really qualified to comment on how best to accomplish this, but its my general feeling that the more open and friendly we make the event, the easier this will be.

Eastercon used to have something of a reputation for being a very cliquey old boys club. This is slowly changing and I hope that it continues to do so and indeed, the changes gather pace.

[purplecat]

I thought this Eastercon did much better on gender parity than the previous one's I had attended. I get the point about how panelists can only be drawn from volunteers.

As an aside I have a strange disconnect about the fact I was on a panel with, I later discovered, a GoH who had refused to be on any panels that didn't have gender parity. It made me start second guessing whether I was on the panel only to make up the numbers. On the other hand I am an expert in the relevant field so if my name wasn't down to be on that panel in the first place then it clearly needed a GoH making a point in order to get my name on the panel.

I think a good first step to encouraging more participation from non-white people is not to become defensive when the one's who are already engaged with the community point out problems that have arisen, understandable as it is to want to defend something you and your friends have worked hard to make as inclusive as you could. Everyone agrees, I think, that progress has been made, but I think everyone also agrees that there is a long way to go.

[drunkwriter]

Ooh, was that on the Sunday morning? I think I caught some of that on the live feed.

[purplecat]

The multiculturalism in Steampunk panel? It must be said the panels all blur a bit, but I think it was Sunday evening.

[drunkwriter]

I missed the start of the panel so no idea what the actual subject was, but when I logged in on the Sunday morning Adam Roberts and some other writers were talking about classism and Occupy and stuff.

[purplecat]

Nope, that wasn't it. A quick glance at the program suggests it was probably `Occupy the Metaverse' that you saw.

[drunkwriter]

Could well have been. They did keep coming back to Occupy for no apparent reason, which does suggest it was supposed to be the theme.

[andrewducker]

That's pretty much how I feel about it.

Also, this: http://andrewducker.livejournal.com/2694767.html

[londonkds]

It's good that the Mary Sue post did draw attention to the McKellen source, and link to Stonewall prominently.

[strangecharm]

Is anyone else a bit disturbed by the erasure of McKellen's political activism here?

YES. I actually didn't know that viral thing was a thing (I'm uncool enough to be safe from most internet viruses) but have seen the ...I was going to say "original," but what I mean is actual, real-life, existing thing with the message that Ian McKellen knew he was spreading and I physically reacted to reading about what has been done to it, I actually moved back away from my computer screen a bit, as if to get away from this news.

But part of that's probably because I get so goddam sick of "geek" culture being just about crossovers or mashups. It all seems to go back to eight-year-old boys' "What if Superman and Spiderman had a fight?" level of thinking, which has just never appealed to me. "What if there were werewolves fighting vampires?" or "what if there were werewolves housesharing with vampires?" or "what if steampunk zombies were airship pirates?"...just makes me tired having to move my eyes over the words. I'm not saying no story like this can be done well, but a lot fewer of them are done well than many people seem to think, because it's not enough on its own to make a story.

[miss_s_b]

But if you put EVERY bad guy in the one story then it IS automatically more awesome! ;)

* runs away giggling *