For those of my readers who aren’t giant nerds (I suspect that this might be most of you), last weekend was the biggest event in the nerd calendar: San Diego Comic-Con.
SDCC is an enormous convention, a wild conglomeration of nerd culture, pop culture, fantasy, horror and science fiction, featuring artists, actors and creators of movies, TV shows, anime, comics, video games and novels, and more than 130,000 attendees.
SDCC 2014 was also notable for a topic that is dear to my heart: Sexual harassment.
Geekdom is popularly conceived of as a male space, a haven for guys who can’t make it with the ladies. Consequently, female nerds are often denigrated or ignored, their interests and impact in geek culture made invisible and their issues sidelined.
Over the last few years, however, female nerds have had increasing success in calling out sexism. Geek culture is being forced to confront its woman problem, from fans calling out the Ubisoft video game designers who failed to include female characters because their design was “too hard to render,” to fans pushing for a long-overdue Wonder Woman movie, to women calling out the pervasive problem of sexual harassment of cosplayers (short for “costume players,” people who dress up as fictional characters) at conventions.
This year, “Geeks for CONsent” attempted to persuade SDCC to change its code of conduct to include more explicit wording about sexual harassment. When SDCC declined, convention-goers took action, printing flyers about sexual harassment and chanting the phrase: “Cosplay is not consent.”
While it’s a shame that SDCC refused to update its official stance, the silver lining is that women are feeling more empowered to speak out about groping, cat-calling, lewd comments and disrespectful behaviour, and it appears that their fellow nerds are listening.
In just a few short years, “Cosplay is not consent” has changed from an activist mantra to basic nerd etiquette. In blog posts across the land, men are changing their language to be less sexist and more supportive, and convention harassers are learning that their behaviour won’t be tolerated in their community any longer.
Baby steps, but nonetheless important. If a conversation about sexual harassment can be productive at Comic-Con, it can be productive anywhere.
Still, if the emails I received about my piece on cat-calling are any indication, we have a long way to go. Since this is my final column before I move to Toronto, I’d like to reply to them.
Much of the response was from women sharing their own experiences of sexual harassment, and from men and women who are frustrated with a community that fails to see it as a serious issue. To these people, I would like to say thank you. Respect.
Some were from men who insisted that I was overreacting, that I was wasting valuable newspaper space with a non-issue, that I didn’t know how to take a compliment.
To which I can only say: If you become angry with a woman who doesn’t respond kindly to your unsolicited commentary on her body, then you are part of the problem. If you argue that cat-calling is benign, but you go from “Hey girl, looking good” to “Wow, screw you, learn how to take a compliment” in 0.02 seconds, then you’ve proven that your intentions weren’t benign. It wasn’t about making the woman feel good, it was about your ego. It was about power.
To the man who is afraid for his son in a world of emasculating she-warriors: If you raise your son to see women as autonomous individuals rather than as receptacles for his wants and needs, he’ll probably be all right.
To the man who suspected I was merely jealous that those men were checking out the other girl’s ass: You got me. The ink I’ve spilled in the cause of women’s empowerment was just an envious ploy for attention. What’s your number? Are you free tonight?
(Besides, the very next day, some guy tried to touch my butt while I was buying pizza. Joke’s on you, man — I do so get sexually harassed!)
And to the rest of my readers, a grateful thank you. Having a voice in this paper has meant a lot to me, and I’ve truly appreciated being part of a dialogue with you. It has been a wonderful experience for me to receive your responses and your thoughts.
Until next time.
