See, this is what I mean. Things I tried to convey, you have interpreted in perhaps the most hostile light you can imagine. I said “pro” and “anti” brigade in a (clearly failed) attempt to try to describe without loaded labels the way that announced-progressives catch flack from both progressives and reactionaries (those are probably better terms), while people who don’t bother to try are more able to pass as targets of neither, safe within the status quo. You read this as hostility, but I think it’s more like cautiousness and frustration.
I say I am unable to hand the project to women (beyond seeking advice and feedback), and you chose to rephrase that as “refusing” to do so. If it were a production you were viewing here instead of statements, a production would not overcome that kind of hostile mis-interpretation - and that is what I fear.
So if I was open about it, my impression is that an effort would not get a fair shake from you, but by keeping its origins under the radar, it can avoid your hostility and have a chance to delight you purely on its own merits, which is the best outcome I could hope for. Since I would prefer to be cautious about risks, I look at things like Age of Ultron - it looks like it was held under a microscope that similar action movies escaped, in part because Whedon is open about trying to reduce sexism. Whereas by contrast Mad Max was lauded as progressive by people who had not yet seen it, arguably in part because the marketing avoided Whedon’s path. They didn’t claim that the (all-male) Mad Max writers and directors were trying to be less sexist. Instead, just before release, the marketing deceptively (imo) cast it as The Movie A MRA Hates! (So You’re Allowed To Like It!) And that approach worked much better, which the idealist in me isn’t entirely happy about. I think these curious pitfalls may be more of a problem for people (more incentive to not stick your neck out) than you think it is, so we differ in our hostility to them. Seeing how the disincentives play out, I think there are ways where the perfect is being the enemy of the good which bothers me. I can understand why you would bristle at my interpretation of things that way, because the bar could hardly be lower, and I don’t yet have good answers for a better way to apply pressure. But I think I have a fairly good grasp of my situation, and while there might be nothing I can say that won’t be interpreted uncharitably, I at least request a charitable reading. I think many people do respond better and rise to it.
However, I shouldn’t have brought it up. It’s a derail. I was attempting to expound on why “but you didn’t try hard enough” bothers me, but this is not the place. I’ll step back a bit.
As it should be. It’s not about keeping white, cis-gendered men from weighing in at all, but about amplifying the voices of people historically marginalized. When it comes to issues that impact them, start there, and then also include white, cis-gendered men.
You are a very easily wounded individual and if you’re willing to throw fits while simultaneously not telling anyone what you’re doing leads me to assume you have zero interest in your messaging/communication, and are doing this entirely for ego.
If you’re sincere, you’ve got a lot of work to improve your ability to connect with others, as your pre-emptive outbursts don’t suggest sincerity.
announced-progressives
Project much? You’re more interested here in how you’re perceived than doing the most good, and seething when people suggest that efforts may be better spent not excluding women from your plans slash going it alone.
It’s one thing to have an all-male conference on women’s rights (like that one in Saudi Arabia that’s had pictures floating around on Twitter, everybody in pink head-scarves) when your purpose is mostly to find ways to delay recognizing them, but it’s quite another to have an all-male panel at an event where there really are women who know something about the field and you supposedly are trying to be non-discriminatory. (It’s not like the panel ended up all male purely at random.)
The women-less panel happened on Saturday. On Sunday at the Denver Comic Con, women-in-comics historian Trina Robbins, playwright Crystal Skillman and comics journalist Hannah Means-Shannon created an unscheduled “flash mob” Women In Comics panel. They also got comics superstars Amanda Conner, Marguerite Bennett, Meghan Hetrick and Joëlle Jones to join in. The room was packed and enthusiastic! Sadly, the most important event at the con was overshadowed by the notorious SNAFU that inspired it! Anyhow, never count Trina Robbins out!
PS I was a guest of the con and I’m a colleague and friend of several of the women-ful panelists.
The original Saturday panel sounded awful, and only one of the three all-male panelists wasn’t embarrassed by the absence of women. From Asselin’s article, Christy Black aka @GeekChristy on Twitter:
The panel was basically Kevin Robinette (I’m pretty sure that was the main, old, white guy as they didn’t even introduce themselves) lecturing via slide show about the first women to appear in comics. It pretty much came across as let me tell you what I know, and he didn’t really know much… He did mention Trina Robbin’s work with Miss Fury and that she was at the con.
They had 60 seconds at the end for questions. At this point more than half of the people had already left. I stood up and asked why there weren’t any women in the panel. Kevin’s response was that it was a last minute addition to the schedule and that he didn’t know any. The other two guys said, you’re right there should be women on this panel… Later that day I met Trina Robbins and that panel came up. She was appalled that it happened and threw her hands up in the air saying, “hello! I’m right here!” And calling their excuses bullsh–.
“Includes an introduction to many of the female illustrators/creators attending the convention.”
None of whom were invited by Mister “I don’t know any.”
Here’s comics writer Marguerite Bennett on how the Sunday response was organized:
We had Joelle Jones, Amanda Conner, Trina, Meghan Hetrick, Hannah Means-Shannon, and a young woman from a podcast whose name I’m afraid I can’t recall. A good mix of experiences. Playwright Crystal Skillman, who moderated, came around to all of us through the day at the con and invited us to participate–it was all last minute, but I think a lovely idea. (I do want to note I had no idea there had been a previous panel; I said yes simply because it sounded like a fun time.)
The roundtable was, intentionally (and I hope successfully), very informal and largely conversational–we even started with everyone scattered through the auditorium coming up and sitting close to the front. Half of us never even used our mics–really lovely to get to chat instead of promote. We had an interesting mix of expertise and experiences–we had artists and writers from both indie and superhero publications, podcasts and print journalism, critics as well as a historian, with careers spanning from decades to less than two years. We shared stories, took questions, agreed and disagreed. At an attendee’s invocation of Kelly Sue’s admonition to move beyond “Women in Comics 101,” we jumped in the deep end–shared frustrations, stories of accomplishment as well as disappointment, and listened to those of the readers.
This is a total non sequitor, but the wide shot in the photo makes the keffiyeh most of the men are wearing look pink, so my initial reaction to the photo was to wonder what lecture brought together so many Arab men willing to show solidarity to women by wearing pink.
Unfortunately, that was not the reality in this picture.
I appreciate that they were embarrassed, but why not step down?
Why not make your statement “we need to organize better panels” and then mic drop? Why not ask for any comic professionals who have experience with the matter and trade places? So many better and less embarrassing/hostile options
At least one of the panelists should have worn a dress and horse head mask. (Thanks @SteampunkBanana, I watched that damn video eight times yesterday!)
My first instinct were I on this panel would be to look over it, shake my head, and say, “Excuse me, are there any women in the audience who do writing for comics or comic art? Professionally, or even just for fun. I don’t care if it’s just published on a site on the Internet and gets ten views, or hell, even if right now it’s just in your binder, raise your hands. Okay, you. Will you please switch seats with me? Because this panel would literally be better off with you on it than me.”
(Of course, in actual fact I’d probably just be very quiet and wonder how someone who fears speaking in public as much as me even wound up on any panel at all, much less one on this topic, but assuming I was a more daring kind of person I’d hope that’s what I’d do)
Exactly. How could one put any effort into participation and not think and work towards this? If you can’t get any women to show up, cancel the abomination and do better next time. Also, if you can’t get any women to show up, you’re to blame. You are either not bothering to consider them ahead of time and make the necessary connections, or you’re actively not considering them and pushing this to the last possible minute and then throwing your hands up and pretending it’s out of your control.
If you can get a pack of guys to show up and talk about the topic, you can get women to show up. If the women all cancel, they can offer alternatives who would be glad to show up.
There’s really no excuse for all-male panels on feminism. Even if it’s “what can men do better”, still make the effort to have women there, it’s insulting and myopic to think that a group of men know better what men can do without consulting any women. That’s being a shitty isolated “ally”.
