Wiscon Day 3 - Report 8
Jun. 9th, 2008 05:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
julieandrewsAfter 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.
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.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-10 05:47 am (UTC)The opening discussion was framed to talk about workplace inequalities, which I just didn't agree with. Among other things.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-10 05:34 pm (UTC)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?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-13 12:32 am (UTC)So... I think it's a problem with both assigning women stereotypical roles but also exacerbated by the lack of female characters in general.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-06-13 12:49 am (UTC)