I realize, reading this, that your reply to me would probably echo a lot of your reply to Mely, so I'm going to explain a bit in advance where I'm coming from.
::blink:: BUH?? What th...I mean, the thing is, sexism and sexual CAN be talked about, because the sexual and the female-dominated characteristics of fandom is pretty damn inherent. The demographics of the audience are pretty damn all skewed towards one side, or as many people call it, a 'safe haven'.
I think I'm probably a bit older than you, and also came into fandom through books/zines/the written word, rather than media. In that corner of fandom then, women were a very small minority, and even now, if you go to a written-word-focused convention other than Wiscon (a specifically feminist convention) the gender balance tends to be either 50-50 or predominantly male. And my first online experience with fandom was rasfw on usenet, which seemed to be about 25-30 percent female, and where I stayed for about five or six years.
When I said that I'd seen fannish conversations about gender/sexism in art going on, I was referring not just to the media/fanfic section of LJ, which is indeed female-dominated, but to my entire fannish experience, which ranges from male-dominated to 50-50 to female-dominated. And yes, there's more agreement when everyone in the room is female. But it is perfectly possible to discuss sexism in art with a mixed-gender group, and still have a non-hostile, non-metaphoric discussion.
You get none of that with race, that despite not being able to see race, there's many from BOTH sides of the issue Right There (provided you see the issue as "Us" versus "Other"). And while I *get* that people are trying to create a 'safe haven' to discuss it, it does not exist in this forum, not *easily*, not without friction, because it's hard to discuss it head-on with both parties in the room.
See above.
I mean, maybe this particular LJ is not a safe haven. But I disagree that having people of different races discussing race together inherently procludes discussion. I had a discussion about racism in casting TV shows in my LJ a couple months back, with actual examples from an actual TV show I'd worked on, and people of a number of different races managed to participate, agree and disagree with each other, and post links to hot actors of different races without any virtual blood being shed, and without anyone saying, "It's just a fun TV show! We shouldn't pay attention to the race of the actors who are in it!"
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Re: my response part 1 of 2
::blink:: BUH?? What th...I mean, the thing is, sexism and sexual CAN be talked about, because the sexual and the female-dominated characteristics of fandom is pretty damn inherent. The demographics of the audience are pretty damn all skewed towards one side, or as many people call it, a 'safe haven'.
I think I'm probably a bit older than you, and also came into fandom through books/zines/the written word, rather than media. In that corner of fandom then, women were a very small minority, and even now, if you go to a written-word-focused convention other than Wiscon (a specifically feminist convention) the gender balance tends to be either 50-50 or predominantly male. And my first online experience with fandom was rasfw on usenet, which seemed to be about 25-30 percent female, and where I stayed for about five or six years.
When I said that I'd seen fannish conversations about gender/sexism in art going on, I was referring not just to the media/fanfic section of LJ, which is indeed female-dominated, but to my entire fannish experience, which ranges from male-dominated to 50-50 to female-dominated. And yes, there's more agreement when everyone in the room is female. But it is perfectly possible to discuss sexism in art with a mixed-gender group, and still have a non-hostile, non-metaphoric discussion.
You get none of that with race, that despite not being able to see race, there's many from BOTH sides of the issue Right There (provided you see the issue as "Us" versus "Other"). And while I *get* that people are trying to create a 'safe haven' to discuss it, it does not exist in this forum, not *easily*, not without friction, because it's hard to discuss it head-on with both parties in the room.
See above.
I mean, maybe this particular LJ is not a safe haven. But I disagree that having people of different races discussing race together inherently procludes discussion. I had a discussion about racism in casting TV shows in my LJ a couple months back, with actual examples from an actual TV show I'd worked on, and people of a number of different races managed to participate, agree and disagree with each other, and post links to hot actors of different races without any virtual blood being shed, and without anyone saying, "It's just a fun TV show! We shouldn't pay attention to the race of the actors who are in it!"