The Return of the Secret Feminist Cabal: Part Three of the WisCon Recap

Before the meaty part of the post starts, some politics-and-geekiness related housekeeping:

Politics! Today may be the last day I can cling onto the hope that Scott Walker, Wisconsin’s union-busting, anti-woman, and generally-horrible Governor, will not buy his re-election. And I am clinging to hope hard. If Walker wins the election, I will be in mourning and this blog space may thus be silent for weeks to come. Be forewarned.

Geekiness! Yesterday, I finally saw the Avengers. I would have been at risk of losing my nerd credibility if I’d put it off for longer. I am currently still processing my reactions to the movie, but I have three important points to make:

1. I want a Black Widow movie. Now.

2. And then I want a movie where Black Widow, the Hulk and Hawkeye run around being awesome. Much as I like the other Avengers, these three are my favorites and they need more screentime. If they drag Loki along for the ride, I’m all for it.

3. The fanfiction writers are probably having a field day with all the potential ‘ships in this movie, right? *checks fanfic archives*
Yup, they’re having a field day! Can’t blame them.

Anyways! Back to the point. Today marks part three of my epic attempt to chronicle my experiences at WisCon 36, the world’s premiere Feminist Science Fiction conference.

Space Babe insists that WisCon be recorded!

Here are the links for part one and two (I told you this was an epic chronicle, didn’t I?)

This particular post will include (among others) the Tiptree Auction (you have not lived until you’ve been to a Tiptree auction), a panel on blogging while female and a panel on the way women are depicted in comic book artwork. Oh, and the Guest of Honor speeches (“let’s work on the impossible. It’ll take longer and be more fun!”)

So! When last I wrote, I was on the verge of going to my panel. Yes, my panel – the one at which I was presenting a paper.

Me! Gah! Me!

As might be imagined from my prior posts, where I chronicled my rather massive paper-related freakouts, I was…er… nervous to be presenting. Very nervous. So nervous that I may have suggested to my younger brother that we run out of the Convention and grab the next plane to France. Or maybe I didn’t. There’s no evidence.

Hem.

Fortified with a good cup of coffee, I took my seat at the presentation table and nearly had a heart attack. Although I’m still an undergraduate, I have, in fact, given academic papers in conference settings before. But the audiences were… smaller. Which is nice, because if you’re going to undergo public humiliation, it’s always better to do it in front of smaller groups.

Sadly, there was quite a decent-sized audience at the panel. My brilliant plans to avoid public humiliation keep failing.

[You may ask: C.D., if you hate public speaking, WHY DID YOU PROPOSE A PAPER? To which I say:

-

Fortunately, my co-presenter, Kathryn Allen, was lovely. She also gave her paper first, which I greatly appreciated. I did not, unfortunately, take any notes during her presentation, since I was too busy worrying about my own [and I'd forgotten my notebook somewhere]. This is unfortunate, since her paper was rather brilliant. It dealt with the concept of the vulnerable body -  the ways masculine-oriented Science Fiction rejects vulnerability in favor of “superhumans” or posthumans while feminist Science Fiction tends to stress the importance of the body and the way shared bodily vulnerability marks us as human.

Notes! I wish I’d taken them.

Something Allen said before her presentation struck me – she discussed how her interest in bodies in feminist SF started when she herself developed an illness [I'm going off of memory here, so please forgive any errors]. I know that at least part of my literary obsession with bodies stems from my own complex relationship to my body. It’s hard to think of myself as anything but embodied and – as Allen put it – vulnerable when I’m constantly having to maneuver around conditions like chronic migraines and severe carpal tunnel (to name my two most prominent conditions).

Anyways. I’ve been mulling the issue. There may be a blog post in there somewhere.

[C.D.'s blog readers: "Please, world, STOP GIVING HER IDEAS FOR LONG-ASS BLOG POSTS, we can't take it anymore"]

I did finally give my paper, an event I have very little memory of. I’m told it went well… which is good. I think.

Just so I don’t avoid the subject completely – my paper was on the monstrous female body in Catherynne Valente’s duology The Orphan’s Tales. I’m not going to give a summary of it here (because: GAH) -  if you’re desperately interested, email me!

Afterwards, there was… relief. A lot of relief. And there were questions and a discussion, both of which are new experiences for me – my experiences with academic conferences is that papers get minimal questions and very little discussion. And the discussions were great, because by then I was so damn relieved to be done with the paper that you could have asked me to recite Hamlet and I would have gladly complied.

The absolute best part of the panel?

My brother asked a question.

Well, he didn’t exactly ask a question. He made a connection between what my co-presenter and I were talking about, and the bullying he witnesses at his middle school. I wish I’d taken down his idea, but I was too busy grinning like an idiot (what? I’m proud of my brother. I would never have talked at a panel when I was twelve). As I recall, he said that the central problem in the papers Allen and I presented seemed to be that people are afraid of people who are different from them, which is what leads to bullying…

Anyways. I was very proud.

The Tiptree Auction

If you go to only one event at WisCon, go to the Tiptree Auction. I am not even kidding. Sell your children, fight the evil hordes, commandeer a spaceship – do whatever it takes to get to the Auction. You will not regret it.

The Tiptree auction raises funds for the James Tiptree Jr. Award [which is given to a work of speculative fiction that expands or explores our understanding of gender]. It raises a lot of money. A LOT of money.

Why, you ask? Are WisCon goers particularly generous? Are the items particularly cool?

Well, yes, WisCon-goers are quite generous, and the items are cool. Indeed, things are sold at the auction. Many things. Many cool things. But the things are not the main attraction. The main attraction is the auctioneer, Ellen Klages.

Ellen Klages: Auctioneer/Comedian/Writer/Awesome

I said it in my first WisCon post, and I’ll say it again. Ellen Klages may well be the funniest person I’ve ever shared space with. And if you knew my family, you would realize that this is no small claim.

In addition to be the funniest person ever, Ellen Klages is also a Nebula Award winning writer. So. You know. She’s got cred.

Ellen and the audience of the Tiptree auction are also a living counterargument to the common belief that feminists have no sense of humor. If you get a bunch of nerdy feminists in a room together, hilarity shall ensue. Raucous, immature, wild, geeky hilarity. I could barely breath from laughing at last year’s auction (particularly when Geoff Ryman sold the right to choose which, er, cheek he would get a temporary Space Babe tattoo on (I shall refrain from mentioning what kind of cheek, exactly, he meant)). This year, I thought my brother’s head was going to explode, he was laughing so hard.

That would have been hard to explain to the parentals…

Me: “Yes, mother, my brother’s head exploded from laughter. What was so funny? Well, you see, it was a feminist joke about prime numbers! Yes! A feminist joke about prime numbers!”

Mother: “…I don’t even want to know.”

Let us begin by noting that the first item Ellen sold was a Hilary Clinton nutcracker that she found on ebay. Because: “When I’m not at WisCon, I’m on Ebay… looking for things to bring to WisCon.”

I don’t even know…

Then! Then Ellen sold a book from the 1940s called “Knitting Gay Gadgets.” Which did not mean the same thing in 1940 as it does now.

Ellen: “If you are gay, or you knit, or you like gadgets – and let’s be honest, who in this room doesn’t fall into one of those categories…”
Ellen: “I promise, if you buy it, you don’t have to reveal which category you belong to.”

Now, Ellen is a pretty dedicated auctioneer. Let me give you an example: in the course of this year’s auction, she actually sold the shirt off her back.

The shirt said said: “Brontosaurus is still a planet.”
If you don’t get it now, look it up. Trust me; it’s worth it.

Selling a “Brontosaurus is still a planet” shirt in a room full of Sci-Fi/Fantasy Nerds… a pretty lucrative deal. It got over $

[And no, I'm still not over Pluto]

And Ellen then took the shirt off (because she’d sold it! Hello, ethics?). And several female audience members threw cash at her.

Ellen: “I will do one item in my underwear, because this is the sort of convention that likes to see middle aged women in their underwear.

More quotes, for your edification/amusement:

Ellen: “Only at WisCon do sentences like “The other hat is a giant eyeball” make sense.”

Ellen: “Fifty dollars for a collection of my poetry! My poetry is collectible because there ain’t much of it… and there’s a reason for that. Let me read some. I have fifty dollars now, and I’m about to have more… *clears throat* “Expel that gentle zephyr from…”" (at this point, I was laughing too hard to transcribe, which I now deeply regret, because Ellen’s was the most moving poem about farting I’ve ever heard).

When Ellen was selling a female robot, someone in the crowd yelled: “Is it subversive?”
Ellen: “Is it subversive? Is it subversive? It’s a robot for girls!”
(room erupts into laughter)
Ellen: “Do you really think girls should play with robots?”
Crowd: “YES!”
Ellen: “Then my work here is done. “

Describing the female robot: “Her crotch says ‘Cabal’… as so many crotches in this room do.”

The evening also included a moment of general geeking out over Alison Bechdel (thus proving that indeed, it was a conference full of feminists)

Ellen: “Alison Bechdel knows what the Tiptree Award is.”
Everyone: “OOOOH.”
Ellen: “Alison Bechdel drew an extra cartoon in this copy of Dykes to Watch Out For after she found out it was for the Tiptree Auction.”
Everyone: “OOOOOOOOH.”

After proving that indeed, we were in a room full of feminists, we proceeded to prove that we were in a room full of nerds. Someone’s bid on an item was a prime number, so Ellen joked that she would only accept bids that were prime numbers. I don’t think she expected the audience to take her up on it.

We did.

Which led to a good thirty minute segment during which people tried to bid using prime numbers, and the audience would either cheer or correct their mistakes. [What? Didn't we all memorize every prime number until 500 in the seventh grade? Or was that just me? [Let us note that I've now forgotten them. But that's not the point]]

Yes, we thought it was hilarious. And yes, we are nerds.

Ellen: “I have a hundred and three going once – going twice -
Random audience member #1: “A hundred and twenty seven!”
Ellen: “You – are you looking up Prime numbers on your iPad?”

Random audience member #2: “Sixty nine!”
*Audience erupts into laughter*
Ellen: “I’m not going to touch that one with a ten foot pole.”
Random audience member #1: “It’s not a prime number!”
Ellen: “Oh, now she’s looking “sixty nine” up on her iPad. Great.”
*My brother’s brain nearly explodes from laughter.*

[Yes, apparently, my brother knows what "sixty nine" refers to. I am not pleased about this fact. Sadly, I have no control over it. Hem]

Then there was the customary “let’s make fun of the Guests of Honor ” section of the evening.

Ellen: “We have a tradition of selling naked pictures of the Guest of Honor. Okay, we did it once, so now it’s a tradition.”

Ellen: “It shows Debbie naked and asleep. You will never see Debbie this way at WisCon. Naked, yes, but asleep, no. That woman does so much. So this is what Debbie looks like asleep, if you’re curious.”

Ellen: “In the olden times, there were titles of respect. Men were squires and women were… squirrels. There’s even a tale about Debbie [Notkin's] ancestor… The Tale of Squirrel Notkin. From now on, whenever you see Deb in the halls of WisCon, I want you to curtsy and say “Squirrel Notkin.”

Ellen, after selling a box of Tiptree Award chocolates, turns to Andrea Hairston, the winner of this year’s Tiptree Award: “Andrea, you get these chocolates tomorrow. For Free. Well, you had to write a book, but how long could that have taken?”

My absolute favorite moment of the evening came when Ellen sold a Uhura barbie doll.

… so many conflicting emotions, so little time.

Ellen: “They have all the barbie dolls. Every variety. I bet there’s even a depressed barbie. What would that be like, I wonder…”
Ellen as Depressed Barbie: “I don’t care if you take me out of my box or not. I don’t go out much. I’ve been wearing the same outfit for fifty years and I have no genitals and I’m depressed…Have you seen my boyfriend? Can you blame me?”

I finally dragged my brother away, kicking and screaming, shortly after Ellen sold the Hand-Knit flying Spaghetti monster. Yes, the auction included a Hand-knit flying Spaghetti monster (it sold for somewhere around $200). I’m telling you: The Tiptree Auction is the best auction ever.

My brother did not want to leave -  I had to drag him out of the room. But it was 10:30, and Growing Preteens need their Sleep (at least according to the parentals).

I think I may have inadvertently turned him into a WisCon addict.

And so, to Ellen’s battle cry of “Pastafarians, unite! You have nothing to fear… except losing your balls” we left.

Now, during the auction, I did record all the final bid prices (because there is a land called “Obsessiva” and I am it’s Queen). And there were only a few items left to go when the Brother and I left. So I’ve got a pretty decent estimate of how much money the Tiptree Auction raised this year….

And it’s all nice and impressive! According to my completely informal and somewhat dubious calculations, the Auction raised at least five thousand eight hundred and fourteen dollars and thirty cents ($5814.30).

Close to six thousand dollars raised in about three hours?

Badass.

Space Babe Approves

My brother and I went home where I finally, finally indulged in glorious sleep. As you may recall, I had just pulled an all-nighter to finish my paper… so sleep was quite welcome.

But I did not sleep long, for the next day, I headed straight back to WisCon. Sans brother, sadly – we’d made a deal with the parentals that he could come to one day of the convention and one day alone.

(I offered to take an over-energized twelve year old – a twelve year old  who needs attention and amusement constantly – off of my parent’s hands for three days and amuse him on my dime, and they… said no. I will never understand this. Life’s little mysteries…)

Sunday

My first panel on Sunday was “But it’s not for girls!”
From the panel description: “Legitimate complaints about sexism in comics, video games and other geeky media are often dismissed with the argument that they are “for” women and girls – and since women don’t buy comic books and/or video games as much as men, they have no right to complain (…) How can we stop the vicious cycle of sexist design and marketing that pushes otherwise interested females away and then uses this to justify further sexist practices?”

I see this “but it’s not for girls” business all the time in internet discussions of sexism, and it drives me nuts. I also had a fight with my father over the subject – when I complained that the New York Times Book Review reviewed very few books by women, he argued that the New York Times isn’t marketing towards women… and that women read very different books than men (because: Romance. And Romance doesn’t belong in the New York Times Book Review because… I don’t even know).

Least you think this doesn’t happen, here are the real-time comments from Feminist Frequency’s youtube video promoting her kickstarter project “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games”: http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=l8I0Wy58adM [Trigger warning for EVERYTHING]

Helpful.

Oh, and let’s all remember the Dr. Pepper 10 advertisement, where the tagline was “It’s not for women”

Guess what drink I’m never buying again?

(excuse me for a second, I need to bang my head against a brick wall)

I’m back!

The panel was absolutely wonderful – rage-inducing, yes, but absolutely wonderful.

I think Jessica Plummer (my attribution may be wrong here) summed up the panel perfectly when she said: “We have money to spend. We’d like to buy your stuff. Stop pissing us off.”

Another panelist, responding to the “but women don’t play video games” excuse (I wish I remembered her name, because she was awesome): “If people have access to the internet, they should have no problem discovering that women play video games – at least based on the amount of Mass Effect fanfiction that appears on my tumblr.”

One of the issues I have with the “girls don’t read/play this” excuse is: oh, so it’s okay for a book to be sexist as long as no women read it? What the hell?
The gender breakdown of the audience does not matter. Misogyny and sexism are not okay, period. Full stop. In other words, even if the video game/book/movie is never seen by a single woman, it’s still not okay for it to be misogynistic. And we reserve the right to criticize it to death.

[I'm pretty sure this point was also made at the panel - I just didn't record it]

A related point made at the panel: it’s outrageous that “women don’t buy this” is considered a legitimate excuse.

Jessica Plummer: “It’s like saying “that comic is really racist, but it’s not for minorities.” Can you imagine someone saying that? But when it’s women, it’s considered a legitimate argument.”

I have actually seen the “it’s not for minorities” argument used a few times, but in my (admittedly limited) experience, whenever that excuse is pulled out, it’s only used one time, after which everyone is immediately outraged and calls out the person on their fail. I have a completely-unfounded and not-at-all-thought-out theory about this phenomenon: while we’re still a profoundly racist society, we (mostly) all acknowledge that it’s not okay to consciously stereotype people by their race  (even if we do it unconsciously). In other words, if someone says “All Latinos are criminals,” nearly everyone flinches. But we still think that it’s okay to stereotype people by their gender, because there’s a sense that women and men really are different on some fundamental level.

(again, completely-unfounded theory that I have not thought out that well. Any other thoughts on this?)

It also led to a discussion of toys that are explicitly gendered. McDonalds is the big example – they give you a toy in your Happy Meal based on your gender (this always drove me nuts when I was a kid). And when they had Power Rangers toys, or Young Justice toys, there were no female characters (even though there are female power rangers and female young justice-ers).

Here’s an idea: Why don’t you just ask the kid if they want a Power Rangers toy or a My Little Pony toy? Maybe some boys like My Little Pony!

Pat Murphy, a Nebula Award winning author and the cofounder of the Tiptree Award, talked about her current experiences working at Klutz books (she just put out a book called Make a Mummy, Shrink a Head and Other Useful Skills. I want it).

She was working on a project with Lego, and according to her: “[Lego] kept saying “we want to attract girls… we’ve tried pink! We’ve tried jewelry! And now we want to try ponies and shops!”

Which: ARGH.

Who the heck is Lego hiring?

The problem with this extremely gendered marketing is that it’s all based on what marketer’s think femininity should be. So: pink. Glitter. Shops.

And don’t get me wrong, I love glitter. I love ponies. I love shops. But I also love spaceships and explosions and superheros. [I also don't particularly like pink, but that's just me].

The panelists also recommended the website pink stinks, which targets “overtly gender-segregated, sexist products aimed at young children.”

For some reason, that led to this (rather hilarious) exchange:

Panelist:”Every time I’m on a plane, there’s someone reading Gun-Hardwear Porn – “
Other panelist: “Where are you flying?”
Panelist: “You know who I mean – James Patterson, Tom Whatshisname…”

I am now using “Gun-Hardwear Porn” in all the conversations. ALL the conversations.

The panel’s conclusion: “If you stop actively offending women, maybe they would buy your stuff, and you would make more money. And I think you would enjoy that.”

And onto the next panel!

We’re Not Contortionists: Ridiculous Female Positions in SF/F and Comic Artwork

Probably the funniest panel I attended while at WisCon – also one of the most well-attended (my friend and I couldn’t find seats and ended up standing in the back). The panel was a response to the way women are depicted in cover artwork on SF/F books and inside comic books.

(it drew, obviously, a great deal of inspiration from Jim C. Hines’s brilliant post on the same subject, and from Escher Girls, the bestest Tumblr ever.

During the Panel, Brave (Female) Panelists attempted to recreate the impossible poses! Some of them were martial artists, all of them were very brave and had a big sense of humor.

“I would stab you, but I appear to have broken my back. A little help here?”

The moderator: “Please don’t try this at home… or at least, don’t sue us if you do.”

The moderator, again: “I have also not required the panelists to acquire anti-gravity Boobs, because that just seemed like an unnecessary expense. But I wear a G-cup, and to all comic book artists who have bra-less superheroines with giant anti-gravity boobs… just, no.”

The panelists were directed in their attempt to recreate poses by the audience, which added to the general hilarity. Here are some of the actual directions from the panel:

Audience member: “One of your legs needs to be shorter!”

Pointing to picture: “Why is that woman’s foot in her crotch?”
Moderator: “Oh, she’s masturbating, it’s okay.”
Panelist: “Do I have to masturbate?”

Audience member: “You… you may need to get another knee to do this pose.”

Panelist: “This is actually the most comfortable pose so far.”
Audience member: “yes, now just take off your other leg…”

At the end of the panel, the panelists recreated the famous “Assvengers” poster. In one of the original Avengers posters, every hero was fighting in a semi-believable position, except for Black Widow, who was doing the Boobs and Butts pose

Black Widow: “Why is everyone facing forward except me? I feel left out…”

Kevin Bolk then came up with the “assvengers”

Assvengers unite!

And at WisCon, the “Assvengers” poster was recreated, first with female panelists… and then with male ones. (photos after the link)

Hilarity ensued.

(Ah, the hilarity of humorless feminists…)

Blogging While Female

[Trigger warning for misogynistic language]

The Contortionist panel let out early, to give the panelists time to rest their weary limbs/stretch/apply ice/run to the hospital, so I caught the tail end of the “Blogging While Female” panel.

As most people on the internet know, women bloggers are disproportionately targeted by abusive behavior (even if they’re writing about seemingly inoffensive topics like books, fashion or technology). Which often leads to fewer women participating in online culture (because who wants to be called a bitch twenty times a day?)

In the last fifteen minutes or so of the panel, there a general call to stand up for other marginalized bloggers, and to defend them against harassment and bigotry.  Even if you don’t like what they’re saying. To quote Shira Lipkin: “I do not need to like your politics to defend your right to speech.”

Two of the big strategies were:

1. Don’t let people harass marginalized bloggers, even if you disagree with their politics. It’s just as bad to use racist slurs against a black conservative blogger as it is to use them against a black liberal blogger. Call people on it.

2. Look at the comments section of blogs.
This one goes against common wisdom, but the point the panelists were trying to make was: if there is a feminist (or otherwise marginalized) blogger who is getting piled up on, abused or harassed for a post, one of the most helpful things to do is for you to comment – either in support of the blogger, or to condemn other people’s harassment.

In other words, if you have the capacity to deal with trolls (and not everyone does, which is fine), it’s very helpful if you do. Don’t let the trolls control the comments sections. Let the blogger in question know that there are people who support them (or, at the very least, who support their right to have an opinion without being harassed).

And if you don’t want to wade into the comments sections, send the blogger in question an email of support. Because it’s helpful.

The final message of the panel was: ” Don’t Shut up.”

Because that, of course, is what the trolls want you to do.

I took relatively few notes for the next two panels (readers: *sigh of relief*), so this should be short!

(for the record, I took very few notes because my carpal tunnel started acting up, so I started acting… down. It wasn’t because the panels themselves were bad).

Baba Yaga and Other Retired/Secret Goddesses

A few highlights:

Will Alexander’s very funny description of Baba Yaga: “You can’t bribe her and she will not get into the oven.”

During the panel, it became clear that there was an audience member who knew more about Baba Yaga than most of the panelists. So, in typical WisCon fashion…

She was invited onto the panel.

God, I love WisCon.

And there was a really fascinating discussion of the way Mary Poppins intersects with Baba Yaga. I, of course, have never read the actual Mary Poppins books, and so had no idea that she was that, er, brutal. I knew there was a reason nannies terrified me…

Oh. And read Catherynne Valente’s Deathless. Because I told you so. Also because: Baba Yaga.

Pseudonymously Yours:

From the panel description: “The Google+ “Nym Wars” and the Amina Arraf outing are recent examples of public discourse about acceptable vs. unacceptable use of pseudonyms (…) most people would agree that James Tiptree Jr. was a “legitimate” use of a pseudonym; most people would agree that “A Gay Girl in Damascus” was exploitation… is there a clear cultural line between legitimate pseudonym usage and exploitative deception?”

This panel was of obvious interest to me, because I, er, blog under a pseudonym. I know this comes as a shock, but no, in fact, my wallet name is not “C.D.,” nor is it “Culturally Disoriented” (Although those would be an awesome names). Most people who read this blog, I think, aren’t aware that I blog under a pseudonym because they know me in Real Life. But I do. And quite honestly, if it was impossible for me to blog pseudonymously, I’m not sure I would.

I’m also interested in the subject because I attend McGill University up in Montreal. Last year, the fifth floor of our administrative building was occupied by students protesting tuition hikes (among other things). Some of those students wore masks. In the wake of the occupation, one thing nearly everyone seemed to agree on was that “masking” – turning oneself anonymous – rendered those students’ actions illegitimate. I disagreed.  [I'm planning a blog post on the issues of pseudonymity/anonymity at some point, so I won't get into it now]

During the panel, one of the points that struck me was Mark Zuckerberg’s [Facebook's founder] claim that facebook can’t be pseudonymous because “you shouldn’t be posting anything you’d be ashamed of.”

As the panelists pointed out, Mark Zuckerberg, as a straight, cisgendered, white, abled and upper-class man, can say a lot more online than most other people can. There’s not much Zuckerberg can say that he’ll be discriminated against for, or abused for. While, for example, men who blog about tech are rarely harassed, women who blog about tech often are (even if they’re not talking about gender issues).

Pseudonyms are a way of leveling the playing field – of making sure that the people who express opinions online aren’t just the ones who are safe to do so.

Another panelist had a really good explanation of the difference between James Tiptree Jr. (a woman (Alice Sheldon) who gained fame as a science fiction writer under her male penname) and Amina Arraf (the Gay Girl in Damascus who turned out to be a straight American man). I quote: “The difference between James Tiptree Jr. and the Gay Girl in Damascus is the direction in which privilege flows.”

James Tiptree Jr is an instance of someone with less privilege (a woman) appropriating a male identity (privileged) to enter a male-dominated field.
Amina Arraf is an instance of someone with more privilege (a straight american man) appropriating several less-privileged identities (gay, syrian, woman).

Gay Girl in Damascus = Not so great.

The Guest of Honor Speeches

The Speeches – which are accompanied by the Tiptree Award ceremony – are one of the most attended events at WisCon – nearly everyone goes. And people dress up, which is fun to watch (I didn’t, because I’d biked to WisCon, and I hadn’t hidden a nice outfit in my backpack… whoops!)

[Biking in heels, by the way, is not nearly as hard as you'd think, but you get weird looks]

The Guests of Honor at WisCon this year were Debbie Notkin (Editor, Blogger, Head of the Tiptree Motherboard, Body Image Activist) and Andrea Hairston (Professor, Drama Queen, Theater Director/Actor, Playwriter, Speculative Fiction Author, Tiptree Award Winner). I’ve written more detailed biographies over here [Scroll down till you find 'em]. 

Andrea Hairston gave her speech first. Now, Hairston is a theater person, and it shows – she didn’t give a speech, she gave a performance. Her speech itself was great, and I’m sure it’ll be printed in next year’s WisCon chronicles, but I still feel sorry for those who didn’t watch it in person.

There was even a vocalist who sang the Star Trek theme whenever Andrea Hairston said the words “science fiction” or “the future”

And the Indiana Jones theme… and the Jaws theme…

That vocalist was great (I believe it was Pat Morigan, but don’t quote me). This was all particularly funny because the Guest of Honor speeches are close-captioned, and the poor captioneer was completely thrown off by the vocalizing – at some point, her caption was “[Yipping]“

(And yes, there was yipping)

Anyways. In her speech, Andrea Hairston discussed growing up in what she called a “science fictional family.”

She was an African-American child during the 1950s, and so therefore: “I was convinced science and technology would show everyone to a miraculous undiscovered country… the future. Never mind if the president didn’t want to include us in his government! Never mind if we had to go to different schools! We’d be storming the stage soon enough! Science fiction was necessary to survive.”

On Nuclear Air Raid drills: “I told the teacher: look, if the fools drop the bomb, we’ll either be vaporized or shadows on the wall… and who needs to rehearse that?”

“Going into theater? For my family going into the arts was going to the dark side. Oh, the horror!” [Vocalized Star Wars Theme]

On discovering surrealism/speculative fiction: “These anti-realists didn’t worship the spectacle of the real. Bertolt Brecht said art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shake it.”

Which is such a great way of thinking about Sci-Fi/ Fantasy. “A hammer with which to shake reality” indeed.

Hairston finished by saying: “”Let’s work on the impossible. It’ll take longer and be more fun.”

Again: Exactly.

Debbie Notkin followed Andrea Hairston. Notkin gave a speech about generosity, both personal and general – and I’m sorry I don’t have the transcript, because it was a wonderful speech, particularly in the way it explored the complexity of generosity. I did take down one line, which shows how nuanced Notkin’s approach was: “Whatever privilege we carry becomes a form of control over whoever gets what we have to offer.”

She had some great lines about “America, the land of imaginary individualism” and how we’re supposed to “keep ourselves healthy by force of character and then dig our own graves.”

And finally, it was time of the Tiptree Award. Andrea Hairston was the Tiptree winner for her novel Redwood and Wildfire. It’s an exciting event – the first time someone has been both the Tiptree Award Winner and the WisCon Guest of Honor in the same year. Which: Hurrah!

Andrea Hairston received a check for a thousand dollars (hurrah!), a couple boxes of chocolate (hurrah!), the Tiptree Tiara (hurrah!), and a piece of original artwork based on her book. This year, the artwork in question was a topsy-turvy doll representing the protagonists of Hairston’s novel, Redwood Phipps and Aidan Wildfire. It was handmade by Madeleine E. Robbins, with advice from Nalo Hopkinson. Details on the making of the doll (and pictures of the doll itself) over here, at The Book View Cafe.

And then! Then there was singing! Because in addition to all the fabulous Tiptree prizes, the Tiptree winner is also serenaded by the entirety of the WisCon attendees, who sing a song based on the book in question. So if you ever wanted six hundred people to sing a song about your novel: win the Tiptree Award.

A picture of the Tiptree chorus from John Kessel’s win a few years ago.
And yes, that’s Ursula K. Le Guin on the far left, and Debbie Notkin standing three people to the right of the podium.

Finally, the ConCom announced the WisCon 37 Guests of Honor…

AND THEY ARE AMAZING!

Jo Walton and Joan Slonczewski.

GAAAAH, Amazing.

You may not have noticed, but I’m a huge fan of Jo Walton’s (she just won the Nebula for her novel Among Others, and I love her Victorian comedy of manners/dragon story pastiche Tooth and Claw). She may (or may not) be my #1 pick for best novel for the Hugos (the only other book in contention for the first place position, in my book, is Mira Grant’s Deadline). She’s also a blogger at Tor.com, and she lives in Montreal (so of course, I must love her).

I do not yet know Joan Slonczewski, but she’s an author/biologist, she sounds amazing and I intend to discover her before next year.
BEST THING. She’s a Quaker, and Quakerism and pacificism feature prominently in her works.
WHY HAVE I NEVER HEARD OF HER? (Shall remedy forthwith)
[One of my best friends is a Quaker, and if I ever abandon my godless agnostic ways, it will be to become a Quaker. I love them]

***

And this, my friends, was the end of my third day at WisCon. My friend Myriad and I had a moment where we discussed WisCon gossip (specifically Moonfail and RaceFail), and then I went home… and slept.

I shall finish my Con report in my next post, which will recap my final two panels (“Are men and women really different” and “Whitewashing and De-Gaying in YA”), volunteering at the artshow, and the WisCon postmortem. I’ll probably have some final general thoughts about WisCon… so stay tuned! (I can almost swear that the post will not be as long as this one! Provisional promise!)

In the meantime… ASSVENGERS UNITE! (and go recall Scott Walker)

Related Posts:

What Happens at WisCon stays at Wiscon (Friday and Saturday recap)

A Disoriented Con Reporter at Large (Thursday Recap)

My WisCon 36 Schedule

How Power Rangers Made Me a Feminist