{"id":714,"date":"2015-10-13T21:12:34","date_gmt":"2015-10-14T04:12:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/?p=714"},"modified":"2015-10-18T10:10:43","modified_gmt":"2015-10-18T17:10:43","slug":"geek-girl-con-recon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/geek-girl-con-recon\/","title":{"rendered":"Geek Girl Con Recon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I spent last weekend at <a href=\"http:\/\/geekgirlcon.com\/\">Geek Girl Con<\/a>. For those of you unfamiliar with it, here is the description from their website:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>GeekGirlCon celebrates and honors the legacy of women contributing to science and technology; comics, arts, and literature; and game play and game design by connecting geeky women world-wide and creating community to foster continued growth of women in geek culture through events.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I wanted to write up a summary of my weekend, for a variety of reasons, but mostly because several of my friends asked me to since they weren&#8217;t able to join me.<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\"  href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jillbertini\/21893371819\/in\/dateposted-public\/\" title=\"Splendid\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/farm6.staticflickr.com\/5673\/21893371819_11a24f6edf.jpg\" width=\"374\" height=\"500\" alt=\"Splendid\"><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><H1>Panel Discussion on Gender v. Sex<\/h1>\n<p>Saturday morning I was on a panel with four other awesome humans. It was described as <i>a discussion about the distinction between sex and gender, positive and negative examples of trans and non-binary characters, and where we can go from here<\/i>. My fellow panelists were <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ravenoak.net\/\">Raven Oak<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.janinesouthard.com\/\">Janine Southard<\/a>, Winter Ellis Downs, and Fran Stewart. Four of us had gotten together a few weeks earlier to chat about what we might discuss. We talked for three hours, so you can imagine how quickly 50 minutes went by. <\/p>\n<p>We were asked what first changed our concept of gender. For Fran, it was <i>Warriors of the Wind<\/i>, which was an edited version of <i>Nausica\u00e4 of the Valley of the Wind<\/i>. For Winter, it was music. Annie Lennox, David Bowie, and then Britpop bands like Suede. For me, Ursula LeGuin&#8217;s <i>Left Hand of Darkness<\/i>. Raven grew up with limited exposure, and it wasn&#8217;t until she had a friend with gay parents who introduced her to the world of science fiction and fantasy that her ideas began to change. Janine spoke of growing up as a theater kid, where the rules of engagement were based on different rules, so she didn&#8217;t realize that there were more rigid ideas of gender.<\/p>\n<p>Fran pointed out that cyberpunk was about being dizzied by technology. She wants some genderpunk stories, where we can be dizzied by gender. I would love that, too! She also talked about the show <i>Steven Universe<\/i>, which is delightful, and if you haven&#8217;t watched it yet, give it a try. Fran pointed out that while the characters have apparent genders, they don&#8217;t end up being restricted by them, nor do they seem to matter to anything. The main character is a chubby little boy who values harmony. He&#8217;s half gem, his powers are pink and decorated with flowers. Connie is a human girl. She&#8217;s learning to sword fight, and she&#8217;s quicker to take action. Steven is more often in a support role. The gems themselves are ostensibly female, and they have romantic relationships with one another.<\/p>\n<p>Winter talked about Greg Egan&#8217;s book <i>Distress<\/i>, which has seven genders. They found it problematic, in that each gender comes with its own roles and expectations.<\/p>\n<p>The comic book <i>Loki: Agent of Asgard<\/i> does a good job of depicting gender variance in an individual, rather than attempting to deal with it on a societal level.<\/p>\n<p>Seanan McGuire&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/seananmcguire.com\/toby.php\">October Daye<\/a> series were mentioned as also doing a good job representing gender.<\/p>\n<p>We took questions from the audience, who also made several recommendations including the following webcomics:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/chaoslife.findchaos.com\/\">Chaos Life<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.blindsprings.com\/\">Blind Springs<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/neversatisfiedcomic.com\/index.php\">Never Satisfied<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sisterclaire.com\/\">Sister Claire<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.neo-kosmos.com\/\">Neo-Kosmos<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.robot-hugs.com\/\">Robot Hugs<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There was also mention of the tv shows on Netflix, <i>Orange is the New Black<\/i>, and <i>Sense8<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>While this didn&#8217;t get mentioned at the panel, the <a href=\"http:\/\/tiptree.org\/\">Tiptree Award<\/a> was specifically created to recognize work that &#8220;expands or explores our understanding of gender.&#8221; Go check it out for the list of winners, as well as the long list. I&#8217;m sure there&#8217;s enough to keep you busy for quite a while.<\/p>\n<p>So, that was the panel. Since this post is getting longish, I am going to break the rest into one or two more entries. Oooh, look at me, building suspense. You might almost suspect I was a writer!<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m listing the titles here as suggestions for further reading. I haven&#8217;t read or seen most of them, but I do encourage you to check them out. If you have recommendations for cool stuff and how it presents gender, please leave a comment!<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_pop\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/button100x23.png\" style=\"border:0px; width:100; height: 23; \" alt=\"Share Button\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Reddit\",\"Print\");var hupso_icon_type = \"labels\";var hupso_background=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url=\"\";var hupso_title=\"Geek%20Girl%20Con%20Recon\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I spent last weekend at Geek Girl Con. For those of you unfamiliar with it, here is the description from their website: GeekGirlCon celebrates and honors the legacy of women contributing to science and technology; comics, arts, and literature; and game play and game design by connecting geeky women world-wide and creating community to foster [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_pop\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/button100x23.png\" style=\"border:0px; width:100; height: 23; \" alt=\"Share Button\" \/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Reddit\",\"Print\");var hupso_icon_type = \"labels\";var hupso_background=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url=\"\";var hupso_title=\"Geek%20Girl%20Con%20Recon\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[157],"tags":[69],"class_list":["post-714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geekery","tag-feminism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":720,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714\/revisions\/720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}