this is not a test case

I think election week has had a detrimental effect on my temper. Yesterday I made myself delete a post on my level of exhaustion with the slasher == misogynist crap that magically pops up every so often with random uncited "But someone somewhere once said something about girlparts that could be construed as she thought they were icky!" and wow, five pages later, I put that away before something snapped.

However, this is the internet and while I totally thought I was topped out? It turns out I wasn't.

cereta posts here about the events that occurred during and after Wiscon this year. For a pretty thorough explanation, Angry Black Woman posts here about what happened. Short version:

A woman named Rachel Moss put a post on Something Awful mocking attendees not because of their politics or their feminism or their willingness to come to Wisconsin, but because they were too fat, too white, too male, or too black for her taste.

Not just a post. Pictures (faces blocked, badges not so much) of attendees.

Fannish community standards were created as a protective measure to fen from harassment that, as this has pretty much proven, still exists. We created it because we're fen, because our first reaction to being hit is to hit back as hard as we possibly can, because that shit hurts and no one wants to be around for a second punch. If we get rid of them first, they can't get us again.

(Or we vanish. For good.)

It was created to protect us, as much from each other as others. It gives everyone a quick, easy answer to the question. To protect our community. To make as safe as possible the spaces we created for ourselves.

It was not, and never has been, a way to protect the harassers. This isn't a fine line situation. This isn't even a grey spot of sliding scale. This was not the internet alone. This was real life, in the flesh, in a physical location, documented stalking of attendees and their children for the purposes of abusing them. Community standards are not a way to fuck each other over in RL and expect and require people to never talk about it.

This had nothing to do with fandom. RL harassment is not a protected fannish activity. Community standards do not apply.

...the posts I linked to say this a lot better. Go there.

ETA: Or go here, where coffeeandink gives an excellent, thorough, and well-measured response to the Unfunny Business post that I'm still--boggling over.

Comments

[ladycat777.livejournal.com]

From what I've read in the posts, her fellow students might be the ones doing that

Good. That makes sense to me, because they have a legal stake in it, and have a reason to appeal to the University in the first place. Rnadom con goers, as much as this pains me, don't. The con does, but not random attendees (they have other avenues), and certainly not people who may've heard about it on the internet and are outraged.

That is... well, standard internet logic, but it doesn't make it any less useless.

the con mods who see this will blacklist her

I have no doubt they will. It's enforcing it that I'm worried about. Then again, she doesn't seem like the Internation Spy type, to blend in without a trace. Thank god.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*g* All of the cons, I think, may require a first name. And payment of some kind. And yeah, I don't see her as being all that fantastic at identity hiding either.

[ladycat777.livejournal.com]

Use a fake name and pay with cash. At a con as large as WisCon, it's not like it wouldn't be hard to slip in. Granted, that's theoretical, only.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Watch for all people wtih cellphone cameras! ASK THEM FOR ID UPON SIGHT!

I...woudl actually consider diong that, too, if someone of her description was skulking around. She seriously creeps me out.

[ladycat777.livejournal.com]

Oh, I would too. And one thing I do think should happen is Wiscon needs a picture of her so if they do see her, they know they can get rid of her. That, to me, seems like a totally legal thing to do. But... that's a lot of work, and while the wank is huge right now, I suspect it'll have a short shelflife for most Wiscon mods and attendees.

Most. Not all. More than a few have stated they won't be attended wiscon in the future, and I really can't blame them :(

[sparkymonster.livejournal.com]

Except that the people at registration, the con com, safety, etc. know her by face. She won't be able to come back unless she drastically changes her appearance.