keeping us lively people in order
So there’s a laughable defense of poor little Eastercon in the Strange Horizons 2012 round-up, which I may or may not blog about. This isn’t about that, but it’s inspired by the negative side of my feelings for cons.
Last year I went to Bristolcon and had a great time: hanging out with friends, going to some interesting (although sometimes a bit frustrating) panels, having fun talking about toilets IN SPAAACE. It’s a small, local con and very well-organised and I plan to attend again this year.
But.
I was on a steampunk panel, where I was loud and vocal about things like the representation of women and lesbians, and the importance of stories that reconstruct history from non-dominant viewpoints, with some speaking about issues of colonialism/racism to the extent that my white self can – and afterwards Anne Lyle, a fellow panellist, described the panel as such: “The panel, on “The Evolution and Future of Steampunk” was lively, to say the least, but the very dapper Philip Reeve* did a splendid job of keeping us all in order.”
Because when someone’s being lively~ about under-represented voices, what we need is a man to keep her in order.
That has been making me a feel a bit sick whenever I’ve thought about it since the con.
And today I finally got weary of not mentioning it in public.
*For the record, I thought Philip was a good panel moderator. I did not feel “kept in order” by him at all; I felt like he let everyone on the panel say their piece.
Originally published at Alex Dally MacFarlane. You can comment here or there.
But totally agreed re Anne's phrasing: it's a cliche I hear a lot and I don't much like it. I think the moderator's role is to make sure people are actually talking to each other, not across each other, but not "keeping us all in order".
I always feel that one of the most important roles of a moderator is to make sure that everyone on the panel gets heard, rather than having the louder, more outspoken (and usually male) panelists dominate.