Comments | 0mindthegap0: final thoughts on the whole VVC brouhaha

0mindthegap0

final thoughts on the whole VVC brouhaha

Aug 23, 2009 18:24

I've been writing in a lot of other places about this stuff, but a few more points never really made it into any other discussions.

VVC recognises a very important female tradition, and celebrates the female gaze. This is a very important thing to protect, and I'll fight with tooth and nail (LOL, I wrote that as 'tooth and claw' the first time ( Read more... )

thinky thoughts, vidding stuff

Comments 13

milly August 23 2009, 19:23:06 UTC

While I wasn't there and have no idea whether or not men were taking up a disproportionately large amount of floortime, I'm well familiar with male privilege and social conditioning, and wouldn't be at all surprised if this were the case.My own two cents here. It's been proven that your own view of something or preconceptions are going to affect your perception of it. In a setting you see as celebrating women and women-focussed, and you already have issues with the presence of men, you're just prone to exaggerate their input/participation (the effect one can often observe in reverse in a more 'regular' western setting). It's the idea that if you don't want them to take too much space, any space they are going to take (a 30 second comment over a 45-minutes panel, per se), is gonna be too much ( ... )

0mindthegap0 August 23 2009, 20:33:13 UTC

Thank you for your two cents. : ) It's slightly surreal to see this big internet wank form over an event that less than 150 people were actually there to witness firsthand ( ... )

milly August 23 2009, 21:54:00 UTC

I think in large parts the issues we're seeing now is that certain people have decided in their minds to dub Vividcon as something it is NOT and has never presented itself to be. Vividcon is a vidding convention. It has never called itself the convention for female vidders. However, it was born out of growing interest in vidshows at slash cons, which traditionally has a more female attendance. Being that it was born from that, the original attendees (VVC is not that old, it was created in 2002) were in large part women. So without being created as a vidding con specifically aimed at women, it's what people have learned to see it as, because it was largely attended by women. But it's not a con for women, it's a con for vidders. And I think there are issues here that are way out of the concom's hands ( ... )

0mindthegap0 August 24 2009, 19:57:12 UTC

...and we're getting back to the de facto/ de jure issue about how the con (and our fannish cirles in general) is run. Explicitly it is only a vidding con, but implicitly it is a vidding con for women. Just like how the conventions they migrated from were explicitly just media cons, but also de facto 'women's cons'. I ... I just can't see this being resolved very easily, but *shrug* who knows ( ... )

Thread 7

mresundance August 23 2009, 20:12:03 UTC

I wasn't at VVC this year, so I will take both sides of the story into account as I read more, but I can say "amen" to this bit:

Instead of crying into your cornflakes about it after the con is over and it's too late, if you think some men are being systematically overbearing in panels, call them on it at the time. Like giving out a warning before someone gets TOS'd.

It can be really hard to speak up, I know, but no-one learns anything unless they're made aware of the problem in the first place.

0mindthegap0 August 23 2009, 20:39:42 UTC

Communication fail seemed to be the biggest problem for the con in general this year. I still can't get why more people didn't make the effort to just talk to each other in the first place.

...maybe it's a valuable lesson learnt for next year. Maybe.

bop_radar August 24 2009, 02:46:22 UTC

OMG WORD TO YOUR ENTIRE POST. &hearts

I found in my discussion that I was getting conflicting messages. On the one hand, I heard 'we want everyone! really!' and on the other I heard 'er... we really want to protect our space'. I understand how human it is to have both impulses, but it's really making things messy right now. Also, I personally believe it's possible to both respect history and change moving forward. But then I would... I'm a historian and a linguist. :p

But more importantly: VVC = not centre of universe. Just 'a' place. YES PLZ.

0mindthegap0 August 24 2009, 20:04:16 UTC

...and also an optimist. : P

And I do agree with you that things will undoubtedly change sooner or later, for better or for worse, but for now... MESSY. SO VERY MESSY.

ALSO, WE NEED MOAR CONS.

bop_radar August 24 2009, 21:56:51 UTC

Workin' on it! :)

(The comment has been removed)

0mindthegap0 August 30 2009, 21:56:20 UTC

And it's slightly awkward when the in-person con issues come to the online space, because they're not really the same issues and can't be addressed effectively in the same ways.

You've just put *exactly* what's been troubling me the most about this far more effectively than I could. Systemic male privilege is a very serious business real issue, and when you raise it to a bunch of people who weren't there to take action on, I can't exactly just write that off. But on the other hand, everyone's take home perceptions are going to be coloured by their own prejudices, so it's really not the best move to assert your own opinions to an online space that wasn't there to see for themselves. Awkward.