The Girl With The Dragon Comicon

Emerald City Comicon © 2014

Hi, folks! Well, you'll have to deal with real-world, grown-up problems pretty soon, what with the entertainment industry coming in. So here's a major first step for the whole of the community:

Abuse of women.

So many people in cosplay at comicons are women. So you can imagine what they've had to put up with from the boys. Fortunately, one of the best comicons for protecting women is Emerald City Comicon. Their "costuming is not consent" poster notices at last year's show were a great example for how to act like grown-ups between the genders.

An excellent article about how the problem is being addressed is at ComicBookResources.com

Of course, when a problem comes up, it happens to me, so I have to address it. So here goes. For the local boys, here are some rules of behavior. The reason for the title of this post is that, in this movie a woman takes brutal revenge for rape. As a child, she clears a brutal man out of her mother's life.

After the 1940's, when the boys of the northern hemisphere had one of their particularly brutal spaz attacks and all came home thinking women were whores, the abuse of women began to be addressed. Kurosawa's "Red Beard" showed what women had to face, and how men - well - in too many cases, simply ignored the problem until the situation was ghastly. "Thelma and Louise" had women cheering as two women demonstrated they'd had enough. "Titanic" showed girls they had a right to themselves and their own bodies. "Kill Bill" was just one of the genre of Japanese rape-revenge movies, that translated early on to the unexpectedly stylish "I Spit On Your Grave." 

So now, as 2014 comes to the Olympic Peninsula, the men are starting to be scared of what the women are asking for - full equality, and the right not to be abused (thank you, nice online proofreader!). Here are some basic rules, guys:

1. Don't start sexual hooting at women you don't know. It's abusive and threatening behavior. It makes the nice guy who pointed out a friend look like a fool. If that was your intent, you've got two victims. Proud of yourself?

2. Don't make threats against women, claiming they're being watched by the police, or you're looking for their address. This is stalking. This is a crime.

3. Once a woman backs you off, all further approaches become stalking.

4. Wife-beating humor is NOT funny. Nor is accusing a decent man of slapping women around. You might have hung out with the woman-haters back in high school, but you are not the majority of men.

5. If a boyman is behaving like this around women, you men, then don't sit there hanging your heads silently, or pretend to join in his fun. You're just showing alliance with and participating in criminal behavior. And you taking pictures of the woman who is dealing with the problem? Yeah, you too. It's not going to do you any good if that woman is all over the internet, already, but if you did it to her, you've probably done it to threaten other women and girls. 

6. If a woman accuses you of these behaviors, don't try them in private, or follow her out of the building to get in one last nasty remark, thinking she "won't be able to prove it." If you've done it to her, you've done it to other women - and back in high school, you terrorized girls. Do you really want to meet any of those people? Now? 

Back in the 1970's, when I was getting a ride back to the barracks from Madigan Headquarters, the Sergeant Major I should have been able to trust as a superior rank tried to put his hands on me. I told him I'd tell his wife. 

He smirked, "She won't believe a WAC." 
I replied, "If you try it with me, you've tried it before. What's a divorce do for your chances of promotion?" 

The woman can use the lack of witnesses too, you pathetic loser. The SMAJ drove me home politely. Hopefully, he thought before trying it again (though I have my doubts of anybody in the military - how's their record for raping their comrades, today?).

7. Women, if you're harassed, stalked, abused, or other wise cornered, chased, frightened, struck, whatever, you have resources. Clallam County Domestic Violence Page  You have the Sheriff's office, including the Anonymous Tips Line. 

8. You know where such people work. You don't have to accuse. You just have to ask. Who are they working for? Who are they associating with? Are they on community service? Why is no action being taken against this behavior? Who is funding any organization in which this behavior is being allowed? Hell, I suspect some of these dumb guys may be on community service, anyway. Oh, that's so smart. Then again, we're not talking about guys with the IQ of Bill Nye, here.

9. Start an anti-abuse group. It's needed up here. Badly. Invite all the good guys and bring lots of food and music. Set up a reporting system. Take pictures and spread the word. Make abusers as afraid of cameras as bad cops; good cops are wearing them voluntarily.

Any guy who starts trying to quote the few examples of women abusing men - that is a tiny, TINY minority - and men KILL women and children. All the time. Decide which side to be on, because women have had it with this kind of behavior. It's killed too many of us. And it can escalate. The abuser thinks he has the right to do it. And where has he gotten that idea? Your community had better be asking itself that question.

And now, since we started this article with geeks, just google "date-rape nail-polish." You'll find loads of controversy and "no ways!" but it proves that good guys have had it with the bad boys. 

Any of you abusing women - you know those religious sects in the middle east are losing their minds because women might - MIGHT - refuse to be abused any more. Do you really want to be in the same box with those guys? Really? So far, I've seen NO action by religious groups to stop this kind of behavior. In fact, they employ abusers here. What does that say?