I was in college, and hanging around Theta Chi fraternity was my major pass time. I had this belief these boys my own age were somehow older, wiser, more sophisticated than me, and I wanted to be like them. [Ah, past me, have more self-esteem!]
It was a boy named Geoff, who was my main source for comic books to read on his floor when he was done with them, who first mentioned MarCon. “Yes, it’s a science fiction convention, here in Ohio. Do you want to go?”
Did I!! It had been my dream to be a science fiction author since I was ten. Of course I wanted to go to a science fiction convention!
“You’ll be very popular. There won’t be any other girls there, I mean, other than booth babes.”
“What’s a booth babe?”
“Hot chicks that vendors hire to hang around their booth so guys will want to buy things.”
“Can I be a booth babe?! That could pay for my convention!”
Geoff gave me a sour look. “YOU could never be a booth babe. Booth babes know nothing about science fiction.”
I somehow doubted that, but still, I was buoyed by this idea that I, mousy unattractive teenage girl, [NB: actually quite attractive] would stand out, maybe even Be Attractive, by lack of competition, in a science fiction convention.
I immediately had dreams of editors buying me drinks and then remembering my cute smile when they saw my name in the slush pile.
All I had to do was avoid being seen near the booth babes.
We all loaded up in someone’s car and drove to Columbus. I don’t remember what I wore, but it was probably jeans and a CWRU sweatshirt. (It didn’t occur to me to dress for sexiness. I would be attractive by default, remember!)
I’ll never forget walking into the convention center, and the first thing I saw … a table for registration, entirely manned by women.
“You lied to me. There’s girls all around!”
“Huh? Where?”
I gestured at the registration table, and registered (ha pun) the confusion on my male companions’ faces. They simple did not see the women working the registration table.
This was my first exposure to the phenomenon known as Middle Aged Woman Invisibility. It’s… um… greaaat.
I scanned the vendor hall carefully and there was not ONE booth babe. Attractive women could be found here and there — shopping, not vending. And when I inquired at various booths about the potential for being a booth babe in the future, I learned that no, it really wasn’t a thing. Now please go away, no not even if you are willing to be here without pay. Really, scram, you weird, desperate child.
I wandered around. I didn’t attend any panels. I didn’t even really know where to look for panels to attend. I checked out the art show, the costume show, the filk concerts. I felt invisible, uninteresting, unimportant. There were SO MANY people around, what was one more nerd?
Oh god, I’d spent more than my monthly budget just to be here, and I was not doing anything to advance my Career In Fandom!
My friends urged me to shake off the blues and get to know people. “Just talk to someone! We’re all here because we’re fans! These are your people!”
Now, I had seen that there were at least 50% women at the convention, but conversation groups seemed to be gender-segregated. The idea of talking to other girls terrified me. So I approached a group of men who were chatting in the middle of the main thoroughfare and said, “Um, hi! I’m a science fiction fan, too.”
They stared at me like I had asked for spare change, or perhaps for them to accept Jesus as their personal savior. And then one of them said, “No, you’re not.”
I had not expected this. No one warned me about “gatekeeping.” I’d been a lonely solitary science fiction nerd all my life. “Um … yeah. I love science fiction. Since forever.”
“If you’re a real fan, who have you read?”
Panic attack. I was (and am) terrible at remembering names. “Well, uh, I really like Asimov. I’ve read all his stuff, that I could get. Oh, and Heinlein.”
The man scoffed. “Of course you’d say that.”
What was wrong with Asimov and Heinlein? Were they too old? Out-of-date? Too famous, something anyone non-initiated would say? “Um… I also like Andre Norton, and um, James Blish.”
“Have you ever read Neuromancer?”
“Uh, no.”
He proceded to name a half-dozen books I hadn’t read, and the group of men laughed at my expense and moved on.
I was devastated. How had I read every science fiction book I could get my hands on for years and still ended up so woefully under-read in the genre? I tried to remember the titles he’d grilled me on. (And in fact got Neuromancer out of the library the very next day.)
The next time I went to a science fiction convention, armed with a knowledge of cyberpunk, however, I was met with new titles I ought to have read instead. It took me a while to learn that this “Well have you read this?” exercise has nothing to do with establishing legitimacy, it’s a trick. They can keep adding titles until they hit the one you haven’t read, and then THAT is the one true fan’s required reading.
I digress.
A lot.
Today I’m about to return to Marcon for the first time in a long time, as a panelist. I hope I’ll notice the shy college kid on the fringes of the conversations and invite them in. I hope those guys who shut me down line up for my autograph without realizing who I was.
I hope to be a part of creating a fan culture that is so much more inclusive than the one I first was exposed to. In some ways, we’re light-years beyond that. Fandom no longer pretends women aren’t here. No one has mentioned “booth babes” in my vicinity in over a decade. WorldCon has regular knitting circles and there’s no longer just one panel on diversity. But we can always be even better.
Isn’t that what science fiction is about?
