The End Of The Pier Show

I’ve just come back from EightSquaredCon, the 64th annual conference of the British Science Fiction Society, which was held on The Ice Planet Hoth in Bradford. As it’s held over the long Easter weekend it’s known as ‘Eastercon’.

As SF conventions go, Eastercon tends to the bookish and literary, so there are fewer people dressed up as Klingons than one might find at other Cons (though they are there.) Instead there are lots of panels on various aspects of SF as literature; workshops for writers and wannabe writers; book launches; a dealer’s room full of secondhand books where one’s tsundoku habit might be indulged, and so on and so forth in like fashion.

It was an unusual conference for me, for several reasons.

First, whereas I was there representing myself, publicizing my SF trilogy The Sigil (get 25% off the omnibus edition if you use coupon code CON25 before 4 April, folks) and meeting my many friends in the world of SF authors and fandom, I had been prevailed upon to give the George Hay Memorial Lecture, whose intent is to bring SF and science closer together. Therefore it was that Easter Sunday found me talking and answering questions about my day job, notwithstanding inasmuch as which being an editor at Your Favourite Weekly Professional Science Magazine Beginning With N. More on that, perhaps, in another post.

Second, I was accompanied by my daughter, Crox Minor (15). She’s been with me to other SFnal activities, but never longer than a day at a time. I hope she won’t be embarrassed if I say that she’s now old enough to participate unsupervised in any and all the activities at Eastercon. She attended panels on Young-Adult literature (some presented by extraordinarily precocious teens.) She sat through panels on hard science. She got engaged in one-on-one discussions about writing with the editors at publishing houses. She bought books in the dealer’s room. And a T shirt. And a rather fetching top hat.

She even took part in an improv group that put on a show on Sunday night. I gave Crox Minor a white feather a room key, made sure she had credit on her phone in case she needed to call me, and a few quid, and encouraged her to go out and enjoy herself. Which she did. On Saturday night, after I’d surrendered decided to turn in, she was at the disco boogying with the other convention goers. On Sunday, when I was lecturing, she went to a writers’ workshop.

Before the Con, Mrs Crox was perhaps understandably worried about this proposed degree of freedom. Crox Minor shouldn’t, ventured Mrs Crox, talk to any strange people – to which Crox Minor replied that talking to strange people was the whole point of a conference. I added that the people at Eastercon are very strange, but only in the ways we were – yet always friendly and welcoming without prejudice, irrespective of age, gender, species or number of heads. And so it proved. We both had a blast. We bumped into each other at mealtimes and in the evenings to compare experiences. I certainly had much more fun than had I gone alone.

Only on my return was I given pause by having seen this blog post on the FB stream of my friend, a Dr J. T. of Calgary. The post is from a woman working in the computer/internet industry. It’s addressed to the male delegates at the kinds of industry conferences she attends – male delegates who consider themselves the ‘good guys’. Men who try very hard not to show ‘sexist’ behavior and to treat people as they find them, but might, perhaps unwittingly, do things that women will find offensive or threatening.

Those who know me will realise that whereas I do try hard to behave in a way that is completely nondiscriminatory, I am therefore surprised and not a little hurt if I am accused of showing such behaviour (those who don’t know me, and have made such accusations, can go hang.)

This is why, on reading the post and the comments, I was utterly shocked by the descriptions of the behaviours described, none of which I have ever witnessed at any conference during my long years of going to such things, and would sooner die of shame than indulge in myself. I shan’t elaborate here on the various sorts of improprieties committed against homogametic delegates by heterogametic ones – go read the blog.

My correspondent Dr J. T. of Calgary, someone I have known well as a fellow conference-goer for many years, assures me that such behaviour goes on, and is a serious bar to women who wish to conduct themselves as professionals in what is after all a professional setting. That I haven’t seen such behaviour myself, of course, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t go on. I guess my reaction was similar to those who can’t believe that antisemitism exists in academia – but because they wouldn’t dream of being antisemitic, and have colleagues of a similar mind, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen.

Why haven’t I, then?

First, I tend to attend conferences that are generally relaxed and/or academic, in a milieu that is well aware of gender issues.

Second, I don’t work well after hours, and hard drinking doesn’t agree with me, so I am unlikely to be around in situations when and where people lose their inhibitions such that such infelicities are more likely to happen.

Third, and perhaps most important, I am almost always at a conference as a representative of my organization, which will – rightly – expect me to behave in a professional manner.

What’s important here is professionalism. Several commenters on Ruth Burr’s post pointed out that some of the behaviours mentioned weren’t so much ‘sexist’ as ‘inappropriate’. As Burr herself says, ‘context is everything’. Behaviour that’s de rigeur in a singles bar might not be acceptable at an industry networker.

Two related if tangential matters.

Once upon a time when I had nothing better to do I decided to play with Second Life. Being the contrarian old git that I am (quiet at the back, Grant) I decided to register my avatar as female. No sooner had my avatar stepped into the virtual environment than she was the recipient of all sorts of comments and propositions that one might deem off-colour, irritating, offensive, even frightening – and which my avatar would probably not have received had it been male.

Second – a problem that comes up at conferences is that name badges are invariably printed too small, and worn at chest level. This, combined with the fact that men are on average taller than women, means that for a man to read a woman’s name badge, he has to stoop in some kind of stagey leer, and goggle with what might seem obsessive attention at a woman’s embonpoint. I remember being at a conference at which I earnestly wished to meet my opposite number, an editor at an inferior rival publication. I didn’t know what this person looked like – only that she was homogametic. I found myself circling the room staring at the badges pinned to the upper torsos of women. About five seconds later I realised what this might have looked like, and then stopped. I never did get to meet her. My modest solution to this problem (which my colleague Dr J. T. of Calgary is already working on) is to offer the option of displaying a name badge as headwear – a kind of tiara, rather than a brooch. This would make it easier for men to read, without embarrassment.

Lastly, I must now wonder at my parental responsibility. Did I do the right thing, allowing my 15-year-old daughter to roam free at a conference? In doing so, might I have exposed her to the kind of uncouth, loutish behaviour described in Ruth Burr’s blog? Was Mrs Crox justified in her concerns? To be sure, such worries are easily pilloried, as follows:

Q: What’s the difference between a Jewish Mother and a Rottweiler?
A: The Rottweiler will let go … eventually.

On reflection, I believe I did do the right thing. First, I’d scoped out the area: I knew from previous experience that Eastercon (and SF cons in general) are very friendly and welcoming, and have a very low tolerance for such behaviour. The Eastercon Code of Conduct says quite specifically that

Unwanted or unwelcome touching is unacceptable. We shouldn’t have to say that groping is wrong, but it has happened. Less blatant forms of unwelcome touching also go on. No matter how friendly the atmosphere, don’t assume everyone wants or welcomes a hug or the offer of a backrub.

and

Your fellow con members are people, not objects, so treat them as people. Men – you won’t make a woman feel comfortable by conducting conversations with their chest. If you want a close look at what someone’s wearing, ask if they mind first. Above all, what someone is wearing is their outfit, not an invitation. We will give very short shrift to anyone who tries to justify unwelcome behaviour by saying otherwise.

In addition, delegates at SF cons sometimes bring their own offspring; and that quite a few program items are designed to appeal to delegates who are, as Eastercon put it, too old for the crèche, too young for the bar. I also know that Crox Minor, being a pupil of an ordinary secondary school, is a hardened veteran (and exponent) of playground rudery of quite eye-watering frankness, and could give as she got – very loudly, and in extremely flowery language.

Not that one shouldn’t have such concerns. For, it seems, such concerns are, in some circumstances, justified.