open question for science fiction fans

[drewkitty]

Has it been your experience that West Coast science fiction conventions are safe space for persons of all genders?

If so, how is that safe space maintained?

Do we have the same problems that have been discussed rather a lot with respect to East Coast conventions?

If so, what can we as a fandom do about it?

Discuss.

Comments

[caprine.livejournal.com]

Ever since I developed a personality that scared predators away, I have felt quite safe at cons. During this period I have attended many West Coast cons and have not experienced the problems discussed with respect to East Coast cons. However, I have a strong belief that this is a consequence of the condition mentioned above.

Before I developed that personality, yeah, I once found myself in a unsafe space at a con.

What can be done about it? Well, aside from eviscerating rape culture and strangling kyriarchy with its guts, the Back Up Project is the best effort I've heard of. It is also the only effort I've heard of.

I'd be happy to hear other ideas.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

I don't recall ever feeling unsafe at a West Coast (or near-West-Coast, i.e., Arizona) con.

I don't recall any complaints about people feeling unsafe.

However, when I was regularly attending conventions, I was doing so with a group of friends who all looked out after each other, including gently steering people to bed -- alone! (or with a known partner) -- if they got too drunk.

The one incident I saw happen, close to 30 years ago, was actually perpetrated by someone from another group at the hotel -- he came to the conclusion that a bunny-fur bikini was an invitation to grope, and had an under-age girl backed into a corner. I started to run for the front desk (I was only 16 or 17 myself), but by the time I'd gotten 10 feet, a group of the Corsairs had descended on the scene. Some of the women took the girl off to pull herself together and make sure she was all right. The rest of the women, backed by the men, explained to the individual in question that if he wanted to leave the hotel under his own power and not before the end of his conference, he would keep his damn hands to himself.

[bradhicks.livejournal.com]

St. Louis isn't west coast, but I'll answer anyway: I've heard serious questions about whether or not Archon, here in St. Louis, is "safe" for men. Archon staff are pretty aggressive about managing drunks, and men get less benefit of the doubt than women do. And in just about any plausible dispute that comes down to he-said, she-said, Archon security and con committee are very little shy of taking her word for it 100%. Personally, having literally grown up in Archon as my native environment, these rules of thumb seem entirely sensible to me.

The only actual security disaster I ever saw, personally, was at a now-defunct local con that tried to be more "even handed" -- and ended up with a woman narrowly escaping, on her own, without any security assistance, from a guy who slipped Rohypnol into her drink. Security and con-com were in fact worse than useless, acted to try to prevent police and an ambulance from being called.

Nowhere is entirely safe, and anyone who thinks so is a damned fool. Everybody, of both genders, is in more danger around family members and people they think they know really well than they are around total strangers, and convention environments are no exception. But Archon has busted its ass for more than 20 years to make it a woman-friendly, woman-safe environment, and I applaud that.

[cheesybunny.livejournal.com]

I've always felt very safe at cons, but then again I'm almost never alone, I always have a buddy with me in places where there is potential for iffy stuff to happen. The buddy thing is less for safety and more for company though.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

Depends on what "safe=space" means, I guess. I have had a vanishingly small number of problems at the cons I've been to, only one of which was outside the Westercon region. One guy wouldn't get a clue, and kissed me against my will, in a public space, at my first con, then disappeared before I recovered from the shock or anyone around realized a) I didn't know him (we'd spoken a few times on the party floor the night before, but I'm still not entirely sure of his name) and b) I didn't want him to do that. Because it was my first con, I didn't really know what to do or who to tell. However, once people around realized something inappropriate had occurred, they were also shocked comforting, and reassuring. I was not, at any point, physically constrained -- I was in line to donate hair, not backed into a corner or anything.

I didn't not feel, then or ever, that his actions were typical or accepted by others, and within a year, I had enough friends and contacts in fandom that I did know who to go to, had it happened again -- but it never did. I've been warned to stay away from or be careful around a couple of other men; I'm not sure how justified it is / was in at least one case. (I think clue may have been successfully installed in the years between the incidents that led to the warning entering circulation and the present.)

Is West Coast convention fandom a utopia? Not at all. Is it safer than most other spaces? In my experience, yes.