Actually, I was a girl before you got here.

[seanan_mcguire]

One of the few black spots on an otherwise shining weekend involved...a shirt. A shirt, and an attitude that went with the shirt in question.

See, there was a lot of stupid pre-con surrounding the fact that OH NOES TEH TWILIGHT FANS ARE INVADING!!!! Never mind that Twilight, whether you like it or not, is speculative fiction, full of My Little Vampires, and has spawned a massively successful movie series. Never mind that this same complaint came up about the Harry Potter people, the urban fantasy people, and lots of other "not our kind" groups, before they became "our kind." TEH TWILIGHT FANS ARE INVADING!!!! IT IS TEH END OF DAYZ!!!! Worse yet, they're girls! Icky icky girls! The mainstream press—which still views the female geek as a charmingly endangered species, one which is potentially a myth—grabbed this and ran with it; if you go digging, you can find some...charming...articles about "the female invasion of Comic-Con" and "girls meeting geeks."

I first "invaded" Comic-Con thirteen years ago. Pretty sure I was a girl at the time. My boyfriend at the time definitely thought so, and as he had more opportunity to perform practical examinations than anybody from the mainstream press, I'm going to place bets that he was right. But anyway.

The Twilight girls, understandably, took offense, since they were being presented as fluff-brained bimbos who wouldn't know a comic book if it bit them on the booty. The general populace of Comic-Con wasn't offended, per se, although some offense started brewing when the Twilight fans started speaking up, since the cycle o' slag went media -> them -> us. But there was still the chance that everybody would be able to just get along. I know that I'm a lot more focused on getting where I'm going, at-con, than I am at playing Sharks vs. Jets in the middle of the Exhibit Hall.

But then came...the shirts.

Shirts on Twilight girls all over the convention. Shirts which read, in large, easy-to-read lettering, "Yes I am a real woman / Yes I am at Comic-Con / Yes I love Twilight." As a "real woman" who's been attending Comic-Con since before she could legally drink, these shirts awakened in my breast the deep and abiding desire to force-feed them to the people wearing them. I did not do so. Be proud of me. Be especially proud of me since large groups of the shirt-wearers—not all of them, by any means; I'm sure there were Twilight fans who were having a fantastic time without trying to piss in anybody's Cheerios—chose to stand around near the Exhibit Hall cafes and out by the Heroes carnival, making snotty comments about the costumes, figures, and overall appearance of the non-Twilight girls who went walking by.

Not cool.

I am a girl who likes the X-Men. I am a girl who likes horror movies. I am a girl whose favorite comics currently in print are Hack/Slash, The Boys, and Creepy. I am a girl who has spent a long damn time fighting for respect in her chosen geeky social circles, because we are still the minority in a lot of places, and it's difficult to convince your average horror geek that the female IQ is not calculated by taking the national average and subtracting her bra size. Twilight aside, there aren't enough of us to start playing this sort of game. Yes! You in the shirt, you're a real woman! And so am I! And so is every other girl at this convention! I did not give up my right to femininity just by deciding that I like to keep my My Little Ponies and my blood-drinking monsters separate, nor did you get a double-dose by combining the two. Women have been fighting for respect in comic and media fandom for a long time. Undermining that fight, even if you're doing it because you were provoked, just undermines us all.

No one has to like what I like. I try not to judge the likes and dislikes of others, and even when I can't avoid it, I try not to wander around in T-shirts that say things like "Every time editorial brings back Jean Grey, Magneto kills a kitten" or "Women Opposing More Bad Adapted Terror: JUST SAY NO TO STEPHEN KING MOVIES." All this could have been avoided if people hadn't been dicks to the Twilight fans in the first place...but I really do wish the Twilight fans hadn't felt compelled to be dicks to the rest of us in return.

Comments

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Well said, mademoiselle! Brava.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Danke.

[jacylrin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was a girl before they got here, too. Granted, I don't do the monster big cons, but I attend a number of cons every year. I started attending cons as a GAMER, no less. In 1995. And the DDDs on my chest? Make it pretty hard to miss that I'm a girl, thanks.

The making fun of the other females present bugs me greatly. I will go back to reading a novel lest I froth unattractively.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Reading is definitely more productive than frothing. I salute you.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

Given the vids that I saw of the rather ill-behaved TwiFans last year who blocked doorways, screamed every time anyone said anything, and asked the stars questions about their underwear, I reserve the right to mock them shamelessly. It's a "Stop being on my side - you're making my side look stupid" kind of feeling.

I'm a proud geekgirl and frankly I can't stand Twilight, OR most of the obsessed fans. I actually read the books because I hate people who criticize books without reading them, and I was mostly annoyed - I found the characters wooden, the "romance" unhealthy and stalker-ish, and the text overladen with similes and commas. But I suppose the author can go roll around in her piles of money when someone criticizes her prose.

But the media assumption that all female fans are crazed shrieking TwiHards - where can I start kicking?

[trialia]

This. So much this! That's exactly how I feel, and I really don't want to be associated in anyone's mind with a fandom who adore source material that sets such a horrible example to young girls of what a good relationship should be like.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Part of the trouble here is that many of these fans are entering fandom for the first time, and aren't getting the social conditioning for "polite" behavior quickly enough. It's not their fault that their fandom is new. Hopefully they'll figure out how to play nicely soon.

Also, not all fans of the series are like the people in the vids. Remember that many of them are young, and many of them are new to fandom, and play nicely. That's how we teach people to play nicely with us.

[mariadkins.livejournal.com]

Amen.

[beable]

Ok, I can see exactly why the people standing around making the snotty comments were total jerks, but I really don't see why the shirt was so threatening itself. If anything it sounds enabling on the part of Twilight fandom.

Now -I'm the first to admit that I don't actually get the appeal of Twilight, but I don't see what in Twilight fans saying "Oh hai, I'm a real woman, no really!" denied the geek cred of any other woman at the con.

If you are mostly insulted because the shirts perpetuated the mainstream media assumption that you were obviously only there (since you are a girl for REALS) because of the Twilight fandom - that's not the problem of the Twilight fans trying to be taken seriously or the shirts they chose to do it. I don't see anything in the mantra "I'm a real woman, I'm at comic-con, I love Twilight" that judges the likes and dislikes of others.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

It was the "yes" that did it for me. "I am a real woman" is an excellent sentiment to express, and I applaud you for being able to embrace it. "Yes, I am" implies that you're the only one who ought to be there, and I should be stunned and amazed by the glory of your presence.

There was very much an attitude of "we are the only real women here" that surrounded a lot of those little clots, and yeah, it bugged the holy crap out of me.

[ladyqkat.livejournal.com]

Brava! Great insight.

I have been reading SFF* since I learned to read, oh, somewhere around 1954. I first heard about cons around 1962. Due to massive shyness and other things, I did not attend my first con until 1982.

I was surprised, pleased, amazed and enthralled to find out that there were other persons of the female persuasion who shared my love and even obsession of SFF at cons. Had I known beforehand that there were other girls/women/females, who were not spouses of the writers I loved to read, that attended cons, I might have tried to make more of a effort to attend cons.

I am not a fan of Twilight. There are a number of SFF writers that produce works I do not like, do not want, to read. But that does not mean their works are any less SFF than those whose works I consume like candy (oh, yeah, I adore Toby Daye!). Anything which is considered Horror Fiction is 'meh!' as far as I am concerned. My SO, sordak could be considered an obsessed H. P. Lovecraft fan.

For a long time I preferred 'hard' SFF, with gadgets and geegaws and shiny pretties to drool over. And then I discovered the 'softer' SFF, mostly written by female writers like Leigh Brackett (wow, this writer is female? How cool is that?!), Andre Norton, C. L. Moore and others who used gender neutral names.

And then I discovered female writers who used (either real or pseudonym didn't matter) real female names. And then I started dreaming about being a writer of SFF.

I think that what I am trying to say here is that any reporter who was worth his/her salt (and there are damn few nowadays) would have checked the background of writers and fandom in the SFF field before promoting garbage like "Oh-my-ghod-females-only-started-being-interested-in-SFF-after-Twilight-was-published!"

After all, the mother of SFF is Mary Shelley!

*For me this means Science Fiction/Fantasy, for some it means Speculative Fiction Fandom. Doesn't matter what you call it, it is still geeky and fun.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I sort of want to slap the reporters who started this mess.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

I did not give up my right to femininity just by deciding that I like to keep my My Little Ponies and my blood-drinking monsters separate, nor did you get a double-dose by combining the two.

Is it wrong of me that I imagined a My Little Pony with fangs, draining another MLP dry? Or that the following image was several ponies attacking the Care Bears?

[silvertwi.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha. Hilarious image.

Also, kudos Seanan for the great description of Twilight. I hadn't thought about it that way before, but it's true (in the metaphorical? sense of coiurse).

[songwind.livejournal.com]

I must confess to a bit of confusion WRT Twilight at Comic-Con. WHY? What has Twilight got to do with Comics?

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

SDCC has become increasingly movie-oriented as time went by, and at this point, you get a lot of big summer blockbusters and speculative television shows giving exclusive looks at the convention. Heck, we had Big Bang Theory and Chuck this year.

Plus, there's a Twilight graphic novel in the works. So that's definitely comic-y.

[jongibbs.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. I hope you didn't let it spoil your conference.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Oh, not a bit.

[drakemonger.livejournal.com]

Okay, my original plan was to say something like "wait, you're a woman? Oh thank God, that explains all those thoughts I've been having." But I'm going to have to leave that for another day, because there are far more pressing matters.

The first is, *can you get me one of those shirts?* I'm male and somewhat overweight and wear an XXL. And right now I have quite a bit of facial hair. And I need one of those shirts. To wear. On my body. For great justice.

Second, the image of a bunch of SFF geeks, perhaps half dressed as Klingons and half dressed as Twilight fans, having a dance-off rumble in a big central location with the prologue music from West Side Story playing... someone has to make that happen. It's a moral imperative.

[silvertwi.livejournal.com]

Okay, lesson learned: don't read this post while eating or drinking.

Thanks for the laugh!

[mariadkins.livejournal.com]

I did not give up my right to femininity just by deciding that I like to keep my My Little Ponies and my blood-drinking monsters separate, nor did you get a double-dose by combining the two.

quote of the week - right there.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

I do like the tshirt that says "Buffy Killed Edward. The End"

[snowcoma.livejournal.com]

Considering that most of these people think it's acceptable, or even *gag* romantic to be stalked, manipulated, controlled, and even assaulted (and I can give references for each of those happening in the series, if anyone needs them), it's no wonder they don't know how to behave.

And oddly enough, my opinion that that's wrong has nothing to do with the presence of my vagina.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

Even if it was more like "a tiny minority" rather than "most," my sense of ewww would be sounding off.

[xjenavivex.livejournal.com]

Sing it sister.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Word.

[the-seamonkey.livejournal.com]

I never saw those shirts.

Another gal mentioned them.

My friend and I wore shirts that read 'Yes I am a real woman. Yes, I am at Comic Con. No, I do not like Twilight'. Is it possible that you saw those, didn't read them all the way and assumed they said 'love'? I'm curious.

or are you positive that they said that?

Ours were black and red, hers was black and on the front, mine was red and on the back.

[the-seamonkey.livejournal.com]

Not my flickr account, but here is a picture of one of the shirts. http://www.flickr.com/photos/danifesto/3761292134/

[cleothyla.livejournal.com]

As a woman who is a fan of many different SSF, I say these people who were doing most of the snarking, are part of the rabid fen problem. The rabin fen are so focused on one fan group that they must destroy the other fans' fun, by tearing into every aspect of the other's likings. And these people do not just attend Comic-con, they attend any fandom-related event. I am not defending them. They were rude and crude and their actions were uncalled for. And it sheds a bad light the people who do enjoy the books just for the story.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[tsukara.livejournal.com]

Word. As a girl who likes Doctor Who and DnD and Star Trek and other things of extreme nerdery, it's really sad to see girls who somehow think they're better than everyone else on the virtue of what they like to read/watch/buy/whatever. Every person who has liked something non-mainstream, non-"cool", unconventional, whichever, has had to face, at some point, the ridicule of someone who thought that made them a lesser person.

But you know what? I've been a geek for too long to do anything but shake my head, grit my teeth, and go to my next panel with my fellow geeks--male and female.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I really do think it was a reaction to being treated like crap. I just wish we'd stop treating each other like crap in the first place.

[mardelwanda.livejournal.com]

"I first "invaded" Comic-Con thirteen years ago. Pretty sure I was a girl at the time. My boyfriend at the time definitely thought so, and as he had more opportunity to perform practical examinations than anybody from the mainstream press, I'm going to place bets that he was right. But anyway."

This made be chuckle, out loud, at 2:35 in the morning. I enjoyed the rest of your post. I'll bet all the t-shirt wearing girls were pretty young, and most (not all) young girls react to everything as though they are the only affected (by whatever is affecting them). They are also dramatic. I know this objectively, even though as a young girl (way older now) I wasn't your "typical" girl who hung out in large dramatic groups.

I agree with you, dickly behaviour begets more prickly behaviour.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

What was weird is that most of them were my age or older. I think the really young ones, while dramatic, didn't want to piss off the Storm Troopers.