And he apologizes, but...
Aug. 30th, 2006 06:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
leahbobetSo I'm the last on this one, because my sleep cycle is screwed and I went to bed early, trying to fix it.
Would you believe that, having left the Hugo ceremonies immediately after my part in it, while it was still in progress ... and having left the hall entirely ... yet having been around later that night for Kieth Kato's traditional chili party ... and having taken off next morning for return home ... and not having the internet facility to open "journalfen" (or whatever it is), I was unaware of any problem proceeding from my intendedly-childlike grabbing of Connie Willis's left breast, as she was exhorting me to behave.
Nonetheless, despite my only becoming aware of this brouhaha right this moment (12 noon LA time, Tuesday the 29th), three days after the digital spasm that seems to be in uproar ...YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!!!
IT IS UNCONSCIONABLE FOR A MAN TO GRAB A WOMAN'S BREAST WITHOUT HER EXPLICIT PERMISSION. To do otherwise is to go 'way over the line in terms of invasion of someone's personal space. It is crude behavior at best, and actionable behavior at worst. When George W. Bush massaged the back of the neck of that female foreign dignitary, we were all justly appalled. For me to grab Connie's breast is in excusable, indefensible, gauche, and properly offensive to any observers or those who heard of it later.
I agree wholeheartedly.
I've called Connie. Haven't heard back from her yet. Maybe I never will.
So. What now, folks? It's not as if I haven't been a politically incorrect creature in the past. But apparently, Lynne, my 72 years of indefensible, gauche (yet for the most part classy), horrifying, jaw-dropping, sophomoric, sometimes imbecile behavior hasn't--till now--reached your level of outrage.
I'm glad, at last, to have transcended your expectations. I stand naked and defenseless before your absolutely correct chiding.
With genuine thanks for the post, and celestial affection, I remain, puckishly,
Yr. pal, Harlan
P.S. You have my permission to repost this reply anywhere you choose, on journalfen, at SFWA, on every blog in the universe, and even as graffiti on the Great Wall of China.
Followed up by...
HARLAN ELLISON
- Tuesday, August 29 2006 12:26:56
CONNIE WILLIS'S LEFT BREAST, REDUX
Did I fail to mention, I am 100% guilty as charged, and NO ONE should attempt to cobble up mitigating excuses for my behavior? As with everything else I REALLY DO (as opposed to the bullshit that is gossiped third-hand by dolts), I am responsible for my actions 100% and am prepared to shoulder all consequences, instead of shunting them off to Vice-President ScaryGuy.
Adultly said, Yr. pal, Harlan
HARLAN ELLISON
- Tuesday, August 29 2006 12:28:31
REDUX, REDUX'D
This may be what killed vaudeville.
he
HARLAN ELLISON
- Tuesday, August 29 2006 12:31:1
REDUX TERTIUS
How's chances of me playing either the "I'm an old man and my brain is leaking out of my ass" card ... or ... even better ...
"I'm an old Jew and this is just another example of anti-Semitism because all you goyim are pissed that Jews really DO control the whole world."
I can go either way.
Yr. pal, Harlan
HARLAN ELLISON
- Tuesday, August 29 2006 12:43:2
ONCE MORE INTO THE BREACH
On a more serious note: if, in fact, Connie (or Courtney, or Cordelia) were/are/might in any way be offended by this latest demonstration of give'n'take jackanapery between Connie and Harlan (now in its longest-run on Broadway), you may all rest assured I will apologize vehemently, will crawl to Colorado through broken glass and steaming embers, and beg her (their) forgiveness. I need no one to prompt me.
Harlan Ellison, a friend of Connie Willis
Full original text and beyond here
Discussion at Patrick Nielsen Hayden's place, Jim C. Hines's place, Elizabeth Bear's place, Catherine Morrison's place (and part two), Lis Riba's place, Edward Champion for starters. And of all places, Fandom Wank.
I do not have half the blood in my eye that I did when I posted initially, at which point I was sort of pacing my kitchen with clenched fists, trying to do my lunch dishes by afraid I might throw them instead. So, mad enough to forgo the rule I usually have about the internet and being really mad about something. I'm wasn't sure if it was a good idea even an hour afterward, but that's about methods of presentation -- asking myself if snarky, not-funny-humor-angry was the best way to make the point that I still feel needs making.
Here's why I was that angry:
I was raised to believe that I could be anything I wanted: a fireman, a scientist, a lawyer, a construction worker, whichever: anything within my ability and range of interest. Being a woman and being part of a (granted, not visible) minority should not be a barrier to what I wanted to do with my time. What would be noted and respected -- or not -- was my intellect, ability, and accomplishments: how valid or invalid the words coming out of my mouth would be.
What![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pnh characterized as the message of such a gesture:
--still stands.
I can't remember the first time I got that message smacked into my face in full -- it was at a job, though. I can remember the first time it happened in a convention setting. I was sitting with a group of (male) friends in a room party at a local convention, and a guy came along with a cooler of beer. He talked with us for a bit, and then asked who wanted a beer. We were all legal to drink at that point. A few of us said yes. He gave them to my male friends, and then said to me: "the top of that cooler comes off when your top comes off."
Y'see, to anonymous guy with the cooler I could win the Hugo, the Nobel Prize, cure cancer, end war, and at the end of the day I'd still be a pair of tits. That's his sole interest in me as a human being: the two mammary bits on my chest. That's all I am.
Cue the uncomfortable laughter from my friends. None of them say hey, this isn't appropriate. I took it to security and made a complaint, with my male friends trailing along behind me, and one of them asked uncomfortably why I was making such a big deal of it.
These two attitudes -- that you can harass a woman verbally or physically in this community, and that when it happens it isn't in fact illegal, unwelcome, and wrong enough to merit even the official channels but should be forgiven by the woman -- are what I have a problem with. Harlan Ellison acting those two attitudes on two colleagues -- one a multiple Hugo winner and one much younger with her first book, a bestselling memoir, out this year -- is like this example grown large of what we let people get away with all the time in the welcoming, equal, inclusive SF community.
This incident, its participants and venue, spike the comfortable idea that you can get respected enough to not have to deal with this shit, to somehow remove yourself from the category that the rest of the women at conventions are in. It's the same idea that says you can not wear a revealing costume and not get bothered, or you can be a panelist and not get bothered, or you can sell a book and not get bothered. That you have any personal control over how you and your body will be treated in the place you go for your fun and professional activity, that there are any limits.
And you know what? This is our house too. This is our workplace.
So we have an apology, one that in the linked discussions has been read as variously sincere, unconcerned, flippant, offensive, and a host of other reactions, but I hope this explains why there is the distinct taste of dissatisfaction stuck to the roof of my mouth.
The apology is tendered, but the message remains.
Down in the comments of the angry post,cheshyre raises taking something positive from this, using it to make some positive change. I would damn well like to make some positive change here. This is past due.
But I really cannot say how. Public condemnation is useful, but only so useful as each person's capacity to realize that this applies to them and their potential or past actions, to their conscious and subconsious attitudes. We're up against the same problem if we want to make changes -- that the source of any inequality is in the held (unexamined or examined) attitudes of the people who perpetrate the inequality. I get the feeling this is the Big Question (tm) of any issue of rights: how to change the mind of someone who already looks at you as less than them.
So.
No fun tickybox polls on this post, folks, but I'd like to hear your ideas on how we get across that this kind of behaviour is no longer tolerated in our house, starting now.
ETA: Jim C. Hines already has a suggestion.
Would you believe that, having left the Hugo ceremonies immediately after my part in it, while it was still in progress ... and having left the hall entirely ... yet having been around later that night for Kieth Kato's traditional chili party ... and having taken off next morning for return home ... and not having the internet facility to open "journalfen" (or whatever it is), I was unaware of any problem proceeding from my intendedly-childlike grabbing of Connie Willis's left breast, as she was exhorting me to behave.
Nonetheless, despite my only becoming aware of this brouhaha right this moment (12 noon LA time, Tuesday the 29th), three days after the digital spasm that seems to be in uproar ...YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!!!
IT IS UNCONSCIONABLE FOR A MAN TO GRAB A WOMAN'S BREAST WITHOUT HER EXPLICIT PERMISSION. To do otherwise is to go 'way over the line in terms of invasion of someone's personal space. It is crude behavior at best, and actionable behavior at worst. When George W. Bush massaged the back of the neck of that female foreign dignitary, we were all justly appalled. For me to grab Connie's breast is in excusable, indefensible, gauche, and properly offensive to any observers or those who heard of it later.
I agree wholeheartedly.
I've called Connie. Haven't heard back from her yet. Maybe I never will.
So. What now, folks? It's not as if I haven't been a politically incorrect creature in the past. But apparently, Lynne, my 72 years of indefensible, gauche (yet for the most part classy), horrifying, jaw-dropping, sophomoric, sometimes imbecile behavior hasn't--till now--reached your level of outrage.
I'm glad, at last, to have transcended your expectations. I stand naked and defenseless before your absolutely correct chiding.
With genuine thanks for the post, and celestial affection, I remain, puckishly,
Yr. pal, Harlan
P.S. You have my permission to repost this reply anywhere you choose, on journalfen, at SFWA, on every blog in the universe, and even as graffiti on the Great Wall of China.
Followed up by...
HARLAN ELLISON
- Tuesday, August 29 2006 12:26:56
CONNIE WILLIS'S LEFT BREAST, REDUX
Did I fail to mention, I am 100% guilty as charged, and NO ONE should attempt to cobble up mitigating excuses for my behavior? As with everything else I REALLY DO (as opposed to the bullshit that is gossiped third-hand by dolts), I am responsible for my actions 100% and am prepared to shoulder all consequences, instead of shunting them off to Vice-President ScaryGuy.
Adultly said, Yr. pal, Harlan
HARLAN ELLISON
- Tuesday, August 29 2006 12:28:31
REDUX, REDUX'D
This may be what killed vaudeville.
he
HARLAN ELLISON
- Tuesday, August 29 2006 12:31:1
REDUX TERTIUS
How's chances of me playing either the "I'm an old man and my brain is leaking out of my ass" card ... or ... even better ...
"I'm an old Jew and this is just another example of anti-Semitism because all you goyim are pissed that Jews really DO control the whole world."
I can go either way.
Yr. pal, Harlan
HARLAN ELLISON
- Tuesday, August 29 2006 12:43:2
ONCE MORE INTO THE BREACH
On a more serious note: if, in fact, Connie (or Courtney, or Cordelia) were/are/might in any way be offended by this latest demonstration of give'n'take jackanapery between Connie and Harlan (now in its longest-run on Broadway), you may all rest assured I will apologize vehemently, will crawl to Colorado through broken glass and steaming embers, and beg her (their) forgiveness. I need no one to prompt me.
Harlan Ellison, a friend of Connie Willis
Full original text and beyond here
Discussion at Patrick Nielsen Hayden's place, Jim C. Hines's place, Elizabeth Bear's place, Catherine Morrison's place (and part two), Lis Riba's place, Edward Champion for starters. And of all places, Fandom Wank.
I do not have half the blood in my eye that I did when I posted initially, at which point I was sort of pacing my kitchen with clenched fists, trying to do my lunch dishes by afraid I might throw them instead. So, mad enough to forgo the rule I usually have about the internet and being really mad about something. I'm wasn't sure if it was a good idea even an hour afterward, but that's about methods of presentation -- asking myself if snarky, not-funny-humor-angry was the best way to make the point that I still feel needs making.
Here's why I was that angry:
I was raised to believe that I could be anything I wanted: a fireman, a scientist, a lawyer, a construction worker, whichever: anything within my ability and range of interest. Being a woman and being part of a (granted, not visible) minority should not be a barrier to what I wanted to do with my time. What would be noted and respected -- or not -- was my intellect, ability, and accomplishments: how valid or invalid the words coming out of my mouth would be.
What
pnh characterized as the message of such a gesture:"Remember, you may think you have standing, status, and normal, everyday adult dignity, but we can take it back at any time. If you are female, you'll never be safe. You can be the political leader of the most powerful country in Europe. You can be the most honored female writer in modern science fiction. We can still demean you, if we feel like it, and at random intervals, just to keep you in line, we will."
--still stands.
I can't remember the first time I got that message smacked into my face in full -- it was at a job, though. I can remember the first time it happened in a convention setting. I was sitting with a group of (male) friends in a room party at a local convention, and a guy came along with a cooler of beer. He talked with us for a bit, and then asked who wanted a beer. We were all legal to drink at that point. A few of us said yes. He gave them to my male friends, and then said to me: "the top of that cooler comes off when your top comes off."
Y'see, to anonymous guy with the cooler I could win the Hugo, the Nobel Prize, cure cancer, end war, and at the end of the day I'd still be a pair of tits. That's his sole interest in me as a human being: the two mammary bits on my chest. That's all I am.
Cue the uncomfortable laughter from my friends. None of them say hey, this isn't appropriate. I took it to security and made a complaint, with my male friends trailing along behind me, and one of them asked uncomfortably why I was making such a big deal of it.
These two attitudes -- that you can harass a woman verbally or physically in this community, and that when it happens it isn't in fact illegal, unwelcome, and wrong enough to merit even the official channels but should be forgiven by the woman -- are what I have a problem with. Harlan Ellison acting those two attitudes on two colleagues -- one a multiple Hugo winner and one much younger with her first book, a bestselling memoir, out this year -- is like this example grown large of what we let people get away with all the time in the welcoming, equal, inclusive SF community.
This incident, its participants and venue, spike the comfortable idea that you can get respected enough to not have to deal with this shit, to somehow remove yourself from the category that the rest of the women at conventions are in. It's the same idea that says you can not wear a revealing costume and not get bothered, or you can be a panelist and not get bothered, or you can sell a book and not get bothered. That you have any personal control over how you and your body will be treated in the place you go for your fun and professional activity, that there are any limits.
And you know what? This is our house too. This is our workplace.
So we have an apology, one that in the linked discussions has been read as variously sincere, unconcerned, flippant, offensive, and a host of other reactions, but I hope this explains why there is the distinct taste of dissatisfaction stuck to the roof of my mouth.
The apology is tendered, but the message remains.
Down in the comments of the angry post,
cheshyre raises taking something positive from this, using it to make some positive change. I would damn well like to make some positive change here. This is past due.But I really cannot say how. Public condemnation is useful, but only so useful as each person's capacity to realize that this applies to them and their potential or past actions, to their conscious and subconsious attitudes. We're up against the same problem if we want to make changes -- that the source of any inequality is in the held (unexamined or examined) attitudes of the people who perpetrate the inequality. I get the feeling this is the Big Question (tm) of any issue of rights: how to change the mind of someone who already looks at you as less than them.
So.
No fun tickybox polls on this post, folks, but I'd like to hear your ideas on how we get across that this kind of behaviour is no longer tolerated in our house, starting now.
ETA: Jim C. Hines already has a suggestion.
outside looking in
Date: 2006-09-01 04:06 pm (UTC)Everything that's been said here and a seemingly a million other places is hearsay unless it was said by Connie or Harlan.
You're all getting offended for someone who is more than capable of defending herself should the need arise and who may have not been offended at all since Harlan is an old, old friend and apparently this sort of thing has been going on between the two of them for quite some time.
I will say that I personally have been groped, spanked and stroked by friends of both sexes in jest and never found myself offended or defended; I didn't need the latter because the former never occured and was never intended and that's enough for me even if it did occasionally go too far.
I'm going to wait until Connie weighs in on the subject before I, who wasn't there and didn't participate, decide what really happened and how I feel about it.
Kell
Re: outside looking in
Date: 2006-09-02 07:29 pm (UTC)I think the video is pretty conclusive stuff.
I'd like to ask you to reread the above post and the comments to it: I don't believe at all that we're getting offended on the behalf of Connie Willis. I'm actually pretty offended on my own behalf, because the community that I'm part of chooses to condone, look the other way on, and apologize for this kind of behaviour every day. People weren't shocked that it happened, they were shocked that it happened to Connie Willis in the most public space at Worldcon. That's the attitude that needs changing in fandom and prodom.
I'm glad that your comfort with other people and your physical space is so...well, comfortable. It's a tough thing to achieve for a lot of people, especially people who are not as happy with their bodies, shy, or just introverted/have a strong sense of what is their personal space allotment. I'm sure you understand, however, that your sense of personal space is not mine is not the next person's, and the next person has to have a place where they're comfortable to hang out and work too. We can't just leave it at you and me.
I respect that you're waiting to hear what all parties have to say about it, but I'll ask you to please likewise respect that for many people this has highlighted a recognized issue in the community, and we don't require the participants in what can be termed the straw that broke the camel's back to weigh in on an issue they're only tangentially involved in.
Thanks for your thoughts and opinion!
Re: outside looking in
Date: 2006-09-03 02:40 am (UTC)Given. It's not like you should have to wait on a specific incident to motivate people. If it's a problem, it's a problem and you shouldn't have to put up with it.
I have a small problem people characterizing this specific incident as the straw that broke the camel's back without knowing what actually went on. If it's part of the regular give and take of their relationship I don't think it's a part of this discussion.
I do have a slightly bigger problem in that I don't want to have the boundries of my relationships at these sorts of events defined by the minority offenders or just as bad, the random bodies nearby. I'm all for suggestion of providing education services and training people how to deal with those people who can't judge when they're crossing the line. If it comes to wearing colour coded t-shirts or some other identifying code as some have suggested my days at these events are over.