{"id":7113,"date":"2015-04-27T08:30:28","date_gmt":"2015-04-27T15:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/?p=7113"},"modified":"2015-04-27T08:30:28","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T15:30:28","slug":"some-things-which-leapt-out-at-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/2015\/04\/27\/some-things-which-leapt-out-at-me\/","title":{"rendered":"some things which leapt out at me"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A couple of impressions leapt out at me from the Norwescon 38 panel photos posted on Facebook on Friday<\/a>. It’s only a small number of photos – eight pictures, representing seven panels. One of those panels was one of my nwcMUSIC panels; “What the Frak is Filk?” if I remember correctly.<\/p>\n

First, let’s get one big thing said up front; I don’t want to make undue guesses about race, but at least in photos, this looks like Mighty Whitey Incorporated. That’s a problem.<\/p>\n

But also, let’s talk about this:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

        men          women      recognisably gender-variant\n         1             0                   0\n         3             1                   0\n         5             0                   0\n         3             0                   0\n         2             2                   0 **\n         1             2                   0\n         0             1                   0\n     -------------------------------------------\n        15             6                   0\n\n**: One of mine; I actively work to gender-balance nwcMUSIC panels.\n<\/pre>\n
<\/code><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Now, I work this con. I’ve worked it for years. I know the last couple of heads of programming. I know they’re trying not to do this<\/em> – moreover, they’re trying specifically not<\/em> to do this. And Programming Head has told me that the list of attending pros and performers actually is<\/em> roughly equal. So in reality: they aren’t<\/em> doing this.<\/p>\n
And yet, despite all those facts, here are the numbers we see represented in these photos:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Excluding single-person panels (one reading, one workshop):\n          Male panelists: 14\n          Female panelists: 5\n          Women are 26.3% of panelists.\n\nIncluding single-person panels:\n          Male panelists: 15\n          Female panelists: 6\n          Women are 28.6% of panelists\n\nMultiperson panels, majority male: 3\nMultiperson panels, majority women: 1\nPanels gender-balanced: 1\n          Women are a majority in 20% of panels;\n          Men are a majority in 60%.\n\nIn majority-female panels, 33% of panelists are men.\nIn majority-male panels, 8% of panelists are women.\n\nExcluding single-person presentations\/workshops:\n          Panels without men: 0\n          Panels without women: 2\n\nIncluding single-person:\n          Panels without men: 1\n          Panels without women: 3\n<\/pre>\n
<\/code><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Sure, it’s a small number of photos, of a small number of panels. But it’s what’s posted. It’s what’s online right now.<\/p>\n
And remember all those things I’ve talked about, how 17% women is representationally balanced and 33% women is seen as kind of being ‘mostly women’<\/a>? Well…<\/p>\n
Again, and I really want to stress this, these are not<\/em> representative. But that’s kind of the point: they aren’t representative, but you can’t tell that from the photos<\/eM>. The reality doesn’t show up here.<\/p>\n
What does<\/em> show up here are the choices made about which panels to photograph and which photographs to post. From a record-of-events standpoint, a perceived history standpoint, those choices override<\/em> the reality.<\/p>\n
And that’s called erasure. Not in a big way; in a very small way, in fact. A grain of sand, striking a mural on a wall. But one grain of oh so many<\/em>.<\/p>\n
I do not believe or even suspect for a second that the photographers or the social media group did this shifting on purpose. I truly, genuinely, do not. Do not<\/em> go after them.<\/p>\n
But the numbers say that it happened nonetheless. I didn’t go looking for it; it leapt out at me, and then I did the numbers to see whether I was making it up. I wasn’t. And so it proceeds.<\/p>\n
This comes in a context. I was just reading about studies showing that two and three year old children play with gender-assigned toys when adults are around, but that they play freely across toy gender boundaries when they think adults aren’t watching.<\/p>\n
That’s how ingrained this is, that’s how deep it runs, and how early. Two-year-olds get it. You don’t need conscious sexism, or even adult- or teen-acquired sexism. It’s taught so early that the erasure is unconscious<\/em> and automatic<\/em>.<\/p>\n
But still taught. Not instinctive, as the shift in playing habits shows. Taught. And learned<\/eM>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A couple of impressions leapt out at me from the Norwescon 38 panel photos posted on Facebook on Friday. It’s only a small number of photos – eight pictures, representing seven panels. One of those panels was one of my nwcMUSIC panels; “What the Frak is Filk?” if I remember correctly. First, let’s get one [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7113\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crimeandtheforcesofevil.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}