Wiscon Day 3 - Report 8

[julieandrews]

After the Torchwood panel, I went back to the room for a nap. Yes, I skipped a panel block! At any other con, I probably would've attended any number of panels in that block. They sounded interesting, some had people I would've liked to hear on a panel, and I'd even circled one as my top pick.

But as I'd woken up early, intended to go to dinner with people, and also had intentions to hit the parties as I hadn't done the night before, I went for that nap. I'm not sure how much I actually slept, but I think I was unconscious for some of it. Lying around in a dark, quiet room is nice all by itself.

I went to dinner with two of my instructors, and all three of my classmates who were at Wiscon, plus some of the same people from dinner the night before. No GoH with us this time, but I got to meet Kelly Link. I pretty quickly decided she's pretty cool. Now I need to actually read more of her stuff. ;) We ate at a Spanish tapas bar, where I got to show my ignorance of what the heck tapas were. Turns out, they're good, and it was fun trying a little bit of lots of things. I had carmelized banana and ice cream for dessert. If I go back next year, I'm totally going for the mousse.

Next up was the Tiptree Auction, which I did not want to miss. I'd heard that Ellen Klages is the auctioneer to watch. I didn't want to miss the show! And it was even more of a show than I thought it would be. Not only was Ellen entertaining, but there was a bit of a skit involving Spacebabe and some villains. Plus a random interruption by some cyborgs. I don't know if they were from a party the night before or a panel. There was even an intense battle for one auction item -- I think it was one of Tiptree's mother's books -- culminating in a traditional Japanese janken death match!

After about 90 minutes, people started leaving for panels. There were panels I might have attended in this block, but the auction was holding my interest.

After the auction ended, I went to my final panel of the evening. I probably felt bad about skipping two panel blocks earlier. In retrospect, I should've either attended the panel S was on then, or skipped out to go find the parties. But I went to...



What If You Don't Want to Have Children? Redux
M: Carrie Ferguson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Gerri Balter, Maddie Greene, Isabel Schechter

This panel sounded interesting as I was reading program descriptions and I circled it as my top pick in that timeslot. It turned out I didn't take many notes. In fact, here's the only note I took:

child-free

Which is the phrase people on the panel were using to differentiate from people who are 'child-less', ie, people without children who would like to have some.

There was discussion of what it's like in the workplace, where people with kids get certain benefits that people without them don't. Sometimes intangible benefits, or unofficial benefits, but also the actual codified benefits. Like what good does maternity or paternity leave do you if you never intend to take it? And people with family healthplans get more benefit after paying less (per person) in. So there was talk about how some companies have sabbaticals and other leave options, or a benefit package where you can pick and choose what you want.

The discussion veered off into birthrates and immigration and which populations were growing more in which countries. And what it means if your young workforce is all from other countries and giving all their money back to their home country. I think it was Iceland that was mentioned as having a particular problem with this.

Which led to one member of the audience saying she didn't want the Muslim population in America to take over because she didn't want girls learning to be second-class citizens. Someone on the panel shut down this line of discussion really quickly by saying it was off-topic. Which it wasn't really, given where the discussion had gone, but was probably the best way to handle it.

I promised in my last post to talk about the panel that made me uncomfortable. Well, this was it. And it wasn't just the Muslim comment, though that did leave me pondering it even days and weeks afterward. I know it's wrong, but I couldn't have articulated why then, and I'm not sure I can now. Though if it came up again and I felt comfortable doing it, I'd take a stab at arguing against it.

The whole panel made me uncomfortable though. I'm not sure I can say why. Maybe it wasn't a fault of the panel topic itself, and definitely not of the panelists, but of just the way the conversation ended up. Depressing, when people mentioned how non-English speaking women were given operations to make them sterile with questionable consent. Annoyingly political, with all of the aforementioned being discussed. Or maybe it's just a culture I'm not ready to buy into, even though I'm unlikely to ever have kids. Or want to have kids.

But Sarah Jane Smith was discussed. And nodnod, yup, exactly. That first episode of the Sarah Jane Chronicles was completely, entirely, utterly annoying with the way it ended. (And that's without bringing the sonic lipstick into it.) She adopts whatshisname and is all happy because she'd lived this full life and traveled the universe and everything, but that left her no time to have kids and she totally regretted it now. That bugged me when I saw it, and I hadn't even grown up on Sarah Jane. I didn't know who she was 'til she showed up in Season 2 or whenever it was. How much more annoying and frustrating for the people who identified with her until that completely OOC turn?

The panel tried to come up with examples of child-free women in sf/f, particularly media, and had no luck at all. So if nothing else, I'll be keeping that in mind in the future.



I was sleepy for a lot of this panel, so before the panel had completely wrapped up, I left to go check out the parties. At least, I'm sure that's what my intention was, but I think I just hit the consuite and wandered a bit up there. Then crashed.

I haven't mentioned it yet, but the party floor corridor was covered in plastic. Or clear tape. Or something like both. When you walked around, it felt and sounded kind of like you were walking on bubble wrap. I'm not sure if that was to protect the carpet from spilled food and drinks or from wear and tear from the foot and wheel traffic. It was rather surreal in any case.

Comments

[nojojojo.livejournal.com]

Which led to one member of the audience saying she didn't want the Muslim population in America to take over because she didn't want girls learning to be second-class citizens.

WHAT. THE. FUCK. ::facepalm::

Yeah. So. What you felt was a bit "off" about this panel? Racism. This is my biggest problem with the childfree people. Well, I should clarify that I have several problems with them, including:

a) Many of them hate children, not just for themselves but for anyone. I'm not a big proponent of any movement that's rooted in hatred of other human beings -- even if they are noisy and annoying.

b) As on this panel, they feel there's some quintessential unfairness in maternity/paternity leave (and other parental "privileges") and the fact that there's no corresponding leave for people who choose not to have children. But there's a reason for that -- people who choose not to have children don't experience many situations that are as comparably life-changing and health-damaging as new parenthood, short of long term illness/death in themselves or a family member. (And there's usually leave for that.) A sabbatical doesn't correspond -- the purpose of a sabbatical is to allow time/energy for creative endeavors. The purpose of maternity leave is to allow time/energy to recover from the lifestyle equivalent of being hit by a Mack truck. Technically a creative endeavor too, but that's not what the leave addresses. So I find such complaints disingenuous because they smack of envy, not any real desire for fairness.

c) As you've described here, there's a deeply creepy racist contingent within the childfree movement which couches its racist language in eugenics or population control terms -- though only of Third-World, brown-skinned, lower-class, or other "undesirable" populations. Muslims, for example. I almost never hear these people calling for zero population growth in the US and other Western countries -- even though the people born in these countries grow up to be grotesquely disproportional consumers of the world's resources. No, they want to get rid of the people who have next to nothing, and are struggling just to have that -- because of the people born in the wealthier countries. So what makes more sense -- producing more people whose greedy consumptive habits will make the world a worse place? Or producing more people who at least know how to live within their means? ::growl:: Once you scratch beneath this surface, you see the same rabid nastiness that you see in the KKK. This is just the liberal pseudointellectual version.

This is not to say that all the childfree are jealous, phobic racists. I happen to agree with the principle of the movement (though I personally want kids); the choice not to reproduce should be respected, especially since the world doesn't really need more people of any kind. I just have a real problem with the way a lot of childfree people express and execute their beliefs.

[maryrobinette.livejournal.com]

Point A. There's only one panelist that I think had an active dislike of children. I don't (http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/childfree/) and I'm glad you backed off from characterizing everyone who chooses not to have children as jealous, phobic racists.

In point B you've just expressed a lot of what I felt as one of the panelists. I think I was the only one of the panelists who came into the room with the point of view that people who choose to have children make a social sacrifice to provide the next generation. By not having kids, I've opted out and am not paying the same societal price. In other words, the people who have kids are raising my gerontologist. If nothing else, it is absolutely in my best interest to make sure that their children are raised happy and healthy.

Point C - Actually... I think this is misrepresented or at least misinterpreted. The point that one of the other panelists raised was that people in countries like Germany and Australia were being encouraged to HAVE children in order to prevent minorities from moving into their countries and taking over. (This is what led us into taxation issues. Aside from mentioning other countries, I found the general tone of the discussion tended to be American-centric, so I brought up Iceland because that's the only other country in which I've lived for an extended period.)

I should also fess up that I was the one who shut down the Muslim comment as off-topic because, oh my god, that was a can of worms that I did not want to see opened. And no, it wasn't really off-topic, but it was a HUGE, HUGE discussion that would have had to start with educating the audience member about Muslims and THAT was not something I felt qualified to tackle.

[julieandrews.livejournal.com]

Saying it was off-topic is probably what I would have done if I was on the panel. Because while I know the comment was wrong, I don't have the knowledge to make a very coherent argument. Certainly not a concise one.

Maybe Wiscon 33 needs a panel or two to clear up some misconceptions about the Muslim faith, Muslim communities, and Muslim women in particular. Most Americans think they know more than they do.

[maryrobinette.livejournal.com]

I think that's a very good idea. Let's both suggest it, eh?

[nojojojo.livejournal.com]

I never meant to characterize all childfree as jealous, phobic racists. But I've met enough of them who claim the childfree identity -- spent awhile on the community childfree back when I first heard of the phenomenon, trying to understand them -- who are rabid and unashamed in their various hatreds that it literally made me flee in revulsion. It's not all of them, or even most. But from what I saw, the ones who were full of hate and eugenecist ideas weren't being chastised by the ones who weren't, and IMO that's pretty much the same as condoning the hate/eugenicism.

Re shutting down the Muslim comment -- I'm glad you did. There's no point in trying to engage someone who's that deeply entrenched in blatant racism. It's sad to see people like that at Wiscon, really, but I'm not surprised to hear they're there.

[maryrobinette.livejournal.com]

Funny. I was warned away from the lj childfree community because they tended to attract the rabid proponents. There's apparently another group that is more balanced, but I can't remember what it's called.

Just scanning through, I can see why you fled.

[julieandrews.livejournal.com]

It was specifically mentioned near the start of the panel that most child-free people don't hate kids. I didn't get a sense that panel members or audience members hated kids, or even actively disliked them.

And the audience was quite against the idea that women in the US were being sterilized without fully informed consent. Surprised and shocked, even. And I think some people were like me.. confused, at first anyway, as to how this could go on in America without the responsible medical personnel being called out and prosecuted on it. Just seems like one of those things that shouldn't happen in the US, in the 21st century, in more than very isolated cases.

Not to treat it lightly, but I really did wonder how if this is going on, it hasn't gotten a mention in all those medical shows I watch. ER, Grey's Anatomy, or Strong Medicine in particular. Television dramas are great for bringing mainstream attention onto things.

[nojojojo.livejournal.com]

The forced sterilization has been happening for literal decades. It's still happening, in many cases with the support of major feminist organizations. (http://brownfemipower.com/archives/2365) I continue to be surprised and shocked that so many feminists are "surprised and shocked" at what's been going on right under their noses since the 1800s or so. And while some of them are obsessing over the supposed second-class citizenship of Muslim women 6000 miles away, no less. ::sigh::

[maryrobinette.livejournal.com]

Now you are going to make me go and write a story about it.

[maryrobinette.livejournal.com]

You know, I was uncomfortable, too.

The opening discussion was framed to talk about workplace inequalities, which I just didn't agree with. Among other things.

[julieandrews.livejournal.com]

The panel did make me think, which I suppose is one sign of a good panel. I'm not ready to attend a similar panel again though.

I would've liked to hear more about women in sf/f, media or print, who're going about their lives without kids. The Sarah Jane comment was the part of the panel that piqued my interest the most.

Another trend I've been noting lately and being annoyed by is girls who become mothers to groups of boys. Wendy, most obviously, but also Nancy in the musical Oliver (I haven't read the book), and a line in last season's Smallville where a female superhero is invited to join Green Arrow's gang of superhero boys and is basically told she can take on a motherly role.

So maybe a panel along those lines. Does every female character have to be motherly?

[tomomi.livejournal.com]

I think it stems from the fact that even when there is a female in these sorts of stories, she's the ONLY female. It's like when you have a group of characters, you have a hierarchy of roles to fill: fighter, nerd, healer, comic relief, and so forth. Now, not that a male couldn't fill the mother role, but if you have a female there she tends to get naturally slotted in. (Either that or girlfriend). If you add a second female you tend to get tomboy, and after two you've probably crossed the line out of tokenism and they are equally mixed into the general roles.

So... I think it's a problem with both assigning women stereotypical roles but also exacerbated by the lack of female characters in general.

[julieandrews.livejournal.com]

That's a good point.