August 5th, 2009
by
Yonmei
I registered at the Palais des Congress for the 67th World SF Convention yesterday, and have been looking through the programme to check where I am supposed to be at any given time, and where I want to be in the intervals of being where I’m supposed to be.
I plan to write up the panels I’m on, and possibly some of the panels I’m not on. I’d like to meet up with other feministsfers at the con.
The first panel I wouldn’t miss for the world, though, isn’t one I’m on: I proposed it to Anticipation after I’d posted on my journal about the Werewolves of Brigadoon, and they took my idea: the panelists are George R. R. Martin, Kari Sperring, and Peadar O’Guillin, whose name I am spelling wrong because I cannot remember the HTML for accents. (Sorry.) It’s one of the 90-minute panels, P-512BF, in the “Human Culture” strand, about the appropriation of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales as lands of “Celtic fantasy”.
Following that, the panel I’m tempted not to miss is the 2pm “Introduction to WSFS Business Meeting”, which promises that each and every member of Anticipation has an equal say (and democratic vote) in how the WSFS functions: the rules of the Worldcon, the Hugos, etc…
…well. It did occur to me, browsing the programme on the Metro last night, that we (and by ‘we’ I mean, well, me) could propose a change to the Hugo rules: for one year, everyone proposed for a Hugo shortlist must be a woman. I know exactly how the (mostly male) SF fans likely to be present at the WSFS business meeting will react to this: indeed, we could probably write their dialogue without ever actually going to the meeting. After all, if no man, no matter how good his work, can be considered for a Hugo, doesn’t that downgrade the quality of the award? Isn’t it meant to honour the writers that Fandom thinks are the best? Doesn’t that mean considering all writers? Hm, yes, quite so.
Still. An apple that would be interesting to throw, and watch the wasps flurry at it, yes? After all, given the number of excellent women writers who have been ignored by the Hugo shortlists since the awards were instigated, how would it be unreasonable if, for just one year, all the fans who do Hugo nominee-ing were required to ignore all the doubtless-excellent men writers and seek out the excellent women writing in SF?
Yes, I know. I’m being an unreasonable and dodgy feminist. But there you go.
My first panel is at 7pm Thursday (P-511BE) in the Media strand: “The Most Slashworthy Shows on TV”. The blurb is slightly confusing/conflating fanfic with slash, and in pre-panel email discussion we decided to unconflate it, so the panel is now about: “Why do some shows lend themselves to slash? And what makes certain characters ripe for speculation? Which shows have inspired the best slash?” To avoid trouble, we also workshopped a brief definition of slash we could all agree to for the purpose and duration of the panel: “Slash is fanfic about a sexual or sexually-charged relationship between two characters of the same sex.” I think it’s going to be a good discussion.
Whether I end up wandering on to the next panel I’m quite interested in (“Overpaid, Oversexed, and In Our Time Zone” – 8pm, sexualisation of Doctor Who) – partly depends on whether the converstion about slash that I hope we will be having continues through to the bar. As it were. Or whatever they have at American cons. The only other two American cons I’ve been to both had a remarkable lack of interest in the bar – remarkable at least to a British fan. (I was at WinCon the year the fans drank the bar dry: the manager had refused to believe that a couple of hundred people could possibly want that much real ale and cider for a long weekend.) But I hope that, bar or not, we’ll be still wanting to talk.
On Friday, I’m hoping to meet friends for breakfast (probably at the local Eggspectations). I may then head on to the Friday morning First Contact panel at 10am (Teen Programming), in preparation for the one I’m on this afternoon – though an Ursula K. Leguin bookgroup discussion of Always Coming Home is calling to me.)
My only Literature in English panel is Friday lunchtime, 12:30: “Snobs R Us”, in which apparently we are to discuss what kind of literature in the SF world we “ignore, put down, or exceptionalise”. P-511A. It’s a 90-minute panel, and while I don’t know the other panelists, it should be interesting.
The single panel I’m probably most excited about is at 3pm Friday (P-516E), only an hour, but: “First Contact: Create and Design Aliens”. My ideas for this are radical: I want to get the attendees (it’s a workshop panel, not a discusson) talking about the 7 indicators of life, and how they might be expressed in a non-terrestial lifeform: to move away completely from the restrictive ideas of “human being with bits glued on” that we tend to see on TV/films, or even the ideas that an alien must resemble a human, in order to have human readers find it comprehensible. I told the First Contact strand organiser that I could draw “badly, but with enthusiasm” – and we’ll have flipcharts and marker pens, hopefully. It’s meant for 13-23s. Seriously: I am jazzed at the idea of this panel: I love the idea that we can come up with something new.
I’m also on another media panel at 8pm Friday (P-511CF): “The Doctor and the Dalek”, about where Doctor Who fanfic is going now, and asking “Are there new opportunities for slash fiction?” (Hey, there are always new opportunities for slash fiction…) which is, well, a chance to hear what’s going on in New Who fandom versus Old Who fandom. (I am an Old Who fan by heritage, though I’ve been enjoying New Who fandom as far as I’ve encountered it…)
Saturday I have no panel committments, but on Sunday I had two (and one got lost in editing): I would still like to go to “Writing Rainbow Futures” at 3:30, in the Media strandm about how media SF deals with LGBT characters and asks “Can SF show us a future where sexual orientation isn’t a big deal?”) But I’m still on the gender panel:
At 4:30, in the Creative Writing strand, “Writing Gender Issues” (P-513B), where the blurb blurbs as they do, about “What’s taboo?” and “hitting people over the head”. Three women, three men. This could potentially be fascinating or disastrous, or possibly both. But I wish I could also have done “Writing Rainbow Futures”…
I blogged about all this because I have hopes to meet up with any and all of you at the con, at least in passing, and perhaps to meet for dinner post-con? Ide Cyan was suggesting Monday night….
…and shall we propose women-only shortlists for the Hugos?
(Photoblogging the Worldcon)
![[Slashdot]](http://slashdot.org/favicon.ico)
![[Digg]](http://digg.com/favicon.ico)
![[Reddit]](http://reddit.com/favicon.ico)
![[del.icio.us]](http://images.del.icio.us/static/img/delicious.small.gif)
![[Facebook]](http://www.facebook.com/favicon.ico)
![[Technorati]](http://technorati.com/favicon.ico)
![[Google]](http://www.google.com/favicon.ico)
![[StumbleUpon]](http://www.stumbleupon.com/favicon.ico)
- More blogging by
Yonmei at
http://yonmei.insanejournal.com
Previous:
Support Writers Writing --- Next:
Four Girls Travelling in Time
Filed under Awards & Recognition, Cons & Community, TV & Film, fandom, slash | Comments (23)
I think it was you who suggested Monday night for a post-con meet-up.
I might buy a week-end membership, and thus not be at the con on Monday, but go to the meet-up only.
Excellent idea re: Hugos.
If you are serious about that Hugos motion, come and find me.
It will, of course, fail, for all sorts of reasons, but it would be interesting to see the reactions.
I’ve been thinking about this in the shower. Here’s what I would propose.
If all of the nominees in a given category are male, and there is at least one woman in the top 15 candidates by number of nominations, then the top-ranked female will be added to the final ballot.
It is nowhere near as amusingly radical, but it does have a chance of getting discussed, whereas you idea would, I am afraid, never get out of the Friday meeting.
BUT: new business has to be submitted by 4:00pm today. I’ll be at the masquerade table in the morning and have a 2:00pm panel.
Okay. Thanks to Cheryl and other SMOFs, I have an amendment in the correct form, as follows:
Moved, to amend the WSFS Constitution by inserting the following into the end of Section 3.8:
3.8.n If in the written fiction categories, no selected nominee has a female author or co-author, the highest nominee with a female author or co-author shall also be listed, provided that the nominee would appear on the list required by Section 3.11.4.
(Section 3.11.4 is the one which specifies thahe top 15 nominees plus whoever gets at least 5% of the vote, must be published within 90 days of the Worldcon.)
It will probably die on Friday, but if it gets through to Saturday, it might get referred to committee. Anyway. Debate.
A similar proposition to include people of colour would be equally worthwhile.
[...] through my blogs this morning I noticed a post on Feminist SF that suggested introducing a motion to the Business Meeting that would require all [...]
Ide:
It certainly would, and indeed such a motion was suggested today. However, it may not have much effect. Our current motion relies in part on the assumption that if no women make the top 5 (which is by no means always the case) there should still be at least one good female nominee in the top 15. With POC the issue at present is not that we don’t always get some in every category, but that we don’t get any at all, even in the top 15. Given that difference, it may be better to help them in another way.
As Yonmei has noted, we don’t expect this to pass (though we’d be delighted if it did). However, if it gets sent to committee to report back next year we could certainly widen the remit to include other diversity issues. (And you don’t have to go to Worldcon to be on such a committee.)
How did this Hugo proposition turn out?
Voted down without discussion on Friday morning. Sparked (by report) considerable and vituperative discussion on the SMOFS mailing list.
Some comments on the proposed amendment:
http://kevin-standlee.livejournal.com/754540.html
GeekGirl
Thanks for the link. It somehow doesn’t surprise me that Charlie Stross’s wife would not want to believe there were better writers than Stross on the “long shortlist” who only didn’t get into the top five because of statistical bias against women writers…
…but hey. I really, really need to go write the long post on this amendment.
[...] I could propose a change to the regulations that amends this bias!” and wrote the post In anticipation of Anticipation, which Cheryl Morgan read, thought over, had a shower, cried “Eureka!” and set off to [...]
>Yes, I know. I’m being an unreasonable and dodgy >feminist. But there you go.
No you aren’t being a feminist. Feminists want equal rights for women (I count myself among them). You’re being sexist, not feminist.
Hi Karl. Can I direct your attention to Finally, a Feminism 101 blog, which has many useful resources for you to thoughtfully consider before you return here to comment on this thread again. Thank you.
“Voted down without discussion on Friday morning. Sparked (by report) considerable and vituperative discussion on the SMOFS mailing list.”
Just to clarify for the historical record, between Kevin Standlee’s announcement of the proposal (on Thursday evening) and some AOL user posting as ‘Gary’ announcing its defeat, there were a total of 9 brief posts on the subject, 3 of them facetious. There were also 4 strong objections, of which 3 were from women.
Much of the actual flamage about the proposal was whether seconding a proposal was an actual endorsement of it, and similar matters of procedure (ah, sweet SMOFS list!).
Much of the actual flamage about the proposal was whether seconding a proposal was an actual endorsement of it
Uh huh. I really don’t see much of a distinction between flaming someone for endorsing a proposal you dislike and flaming the proposal itself, except that the former is clearly completely despicable and the latter is arguably a form of free speech.
there were a total of 9 brief posts on the subject, 3 of them facetious.
There was considerably more comment dissing the proposal on LJ, then – which was what I read, Friday night.
Colin:
The trouble with the SMOFs list is that it is a private forum whose members strongly resent anything they say there being made public. Therefore those of us who are not on the list have to rely on rumor and hearsay as to what goes on there. I must admit I’m surprised at how little discussion you report. I’d been given to believe that there was a torrent of abuse (possibly by people who wishes that there had been).
“I really don’t see much of a distinction between flaming someone for endorsing a proposal you dislike and flaming the proposal itself”
The discussion had gone completely beyond the proposal at that point…..they were looking at the matter from a Rules of Order perspective (because, you know, the SMOFS LIST, right?).
they were looking at the matter from a Rules of Order perspective
With Tim and Kevin’s assistance, how could anyone doubt the amendment had been proposed perfectly in order with the rules?
As, indeed, it was.
I think what Colin means is that some of them were looking for an excuse to have me lynched while others were saying that they had no legitimate excuse because seconding a motion does not automatically imply support for it.
Yes, that’s what I thought Colin meant. That’s why I thought their behavior ranged from despicable to questionable.
Cheryl,
Lynching? Uh, no. More like, “Well, why would someone want to second a motion without endorsing it?” ANS: “So that it can be debated and (hopefully) a workable proposal be hashed out.” (I paraphrase highly, as I don’t have the archives handy right now, but really it was pretty civil.)
“The trouble with the SMOFs list is that it is a private forum whose members strongly resent anything they say there being made public.”
This is basic list netiquette, and shouldn’t be trifled with. Nothing’s preventing you (or anyone else) from being a list lurker.
Colin:
You are right that it is basic netiquette, but it also encourages the idea that the SMOFs really are a secretive cabal who run things from behind the scenes – the very thing that “SMOF” was supposed to parody. These issues are of concern to all of fandom, and they ought to be discussed openly, as they are here.