Mandy, who is incensed that anyone would think that she wants them to think about her boobs.
Let me stipulate that nothing a woman may do, say or wear excuses rudeness, crudeness, disrespectful comments, sexual harassment, sexual assault or abuse, including, of course, rape. This is unequivocal.
Now let me say that the vociferous complaints by Mandy Caruso on her blog regarding the comments she received at Comic Con as a direct result of her dressing like the Marvel Comics super-heroine Black Cat smack of hypocrisy and a “gotcha!” mentality that is strikingly unfair.
Mandy costumed herself as Black Cat at the famous convention for comic book fans, gamers and fantasy buffs, and she has the physical assets to do it. As you can see in the illustration linked above, TBC is a spectacularly endowed, athletic woman who appears in a black mask and skin-tight, curve-hugging leather suit. She makes D.C.’s Catwoman look like a boy. Characters like Black Cat are drawn specifically to appeal to the sexual fantasies of comic book fans, who are overwhelmingly teenage boys or single men with the sensibilities of teenage boys. The most extreme of these attend events like Comic Con.
Mandy out of costume, doing nothing to stir nerd fantasies
You understand the set-up, right? A beautiful, sexy, voluptuous young woman dresses in a mask and leather suit, showing a degree of cleavage that would not be appropriate in the workplace unless it was the Pussycat Lounge, and intentionally turns herself into a living, breathing fantasy sex object for an audience primarily made up of socially inept, hormonally unfulfilled young men. And after the completely predictable boundary-breaching occurs, she writes this indignant manifesto:
“It’s because many people at these cons expect women cosplaying as vixens (or even just wearing particularly flattering costumes) to be open/ welcoming to crude male commentary and lecherous ogling, like our presence comes with subtitles that say “I represent your fantasy thus you may treat me like a fantasy and not a human in a costume.” And maybe that will always be how the majority of people see us. But that does not mean we have to put up with shit that crosses the line, it does not mean we owe them a fantasy, it does not mean we dress up to have guys drooling over us and letting us know that we turn them on. It is not all about your dicks, gentlemen. So I encourage cosplaying women everywhere to be blunt and vocal with their rights, their personal boundaries, and their comfort level at conventions.”
Here’s the difficulty with that position, Mandy: your presence does come with subtitles that say “I represent your fantasy thus you may treat me like a fantasy and not a human in a costume.” What you are now saying is, in essence, “I’m shocked—shocked!—that when a woman appears at primarily male gathering dressed as an intentional male masturbatory graphic fantasy figure, she is viewed as what she is not only portraying, but bringing to life, and some individuals go further, and actually treat her accordingly.” Spare us your indignation. Do you expect anyone to believe that you appear as a credible avatar of Black Cat so that so people won’t ogle you? The character you are playing is dressed like that in her natural surroundings—comic books—so young men will ogle her, you know, and think exactly the same thoughts that some of them spoke to you. She’s not dressed like that because a skin-tight, cleavage-flashing suit is really an asset in hand-t0-hand combat. You can’t plausibly protest, “Please! I’m a professional!” You are role-playing, by your own description, a vixen, which in popular parlance means a flirtatious and sexy young woman. And if the men you encounter role-play back, clumsily to be sure. your response is to transform from Black Cat into Gloria Steinem? The least you could be is kind.
Caruso isn’t a victim, she’s a provocateur. She is the interloper at a Weight Watchers convention who carries around an open bag of fried chicken and is outraged when a starving attendee tries to snag a drumstick. I’m sure the remarks about her body were boorish and inappropriate, and she either knew she was going to attract them, or should have known. If she is determined to dress like various Marvel anatomical marvels in a den of comic book geeks, she should be willing to cut the poor boys some slack when their jaws hit the floor. Not doing so is hypocrisy—“Look at me! Look at me ! Hey, buddy, what do you think you’re looking at?” as well as cruel. It also borders on entrapment. My guess is that the Comic Con attendees who offended her would never make such comments to a real woman in the real world, but mistakenly assumed that someone who dives into a fish tank dressed as bait is going to be accommodating to nibbles.
The lesson here is that if you know that your fantasy consists of dressing like someone else’s fantasy, you better carry a sign with a disclaimer on it to eliminate any miscommunication. Otherwise, your costume is a lie, and you share culpability for the inappropriate conduct that results.
________________________________
Pointer: Fark
Facts: Daily Mail
Source and Graphic: The Grind Haus
Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at jamproethics@verizon.net.
Ethics Alarms 
You saw this on Fark, didn’t you? I thought of you when I read it earlier this evening. I almost posted something on Facebook but didn’t feel like defending against charges of misogyny all night.
I did, and you just reminded me to give Fark credit. Thanks. Yes, its a tricky one to write about, and I’m poised to receive what you feared.
I don’t think any man should be called a misogynist for bringing attention to this woman’s plight. If anything, the man should get a cut on the products she is selling on her blog. In a sense, Hanlon’s Razor should not be used to explain this particular woman’s rant of indignation…but it could be used to explain why other woman buy her products in the belief that her rant is genuine. Sometimes marketing takes on the tone of straight propoganda and rule number one in propoganda is to define the enemy. And look at all those evil men out there!
So you dress in a skin tight body suit and strut around a room filled with sexually repressed losers. Then you are shocked when they misbehave? If I ran around Compton waving $100 bills over my head, I don’t ‘deserve’ to be robbed, but I’m betting I will be. You don’t ‘deserve’ to be harassed, but you ARE as dumb as a fucking post for being surprised about it. And aside from what I suspect must be your constant struggle to remember to breathe in and out, I don’t feel sorry for you. At all.
I agree with your analysis.
Also: fair warning. I am going to steal “dives into a fish tank dressed as bait.” Not sure when, but it’ll happen.
Next year she should wear a burka.
Black Cat’s costume has a fair amount of cleavage (conservative compared to many other female comic characters but a good amount as far as what I’ve ever shown). I guess I was not surprised to have a couple men ask to pose with me and then do some doofy “WHOA LOOK AT THOSE KNOCKERS” poses. I just make a really ugly face when I see they’re doing it. One guy with the social graces of a lemur said to me “I was this close to wearing that same outfit. My breasts are large and supple and I think it would have been nice.” Nope. Stop talking.
But aside from guys being doofy and awkward (but clearly not foul-intentioned), I did have my first truly skeezy experience at Comic Con today…
She seems to be clearly adopting just the attitude that you are advocating here. She realizes that the costume will attract some attention, knows that most of it is harmless or at least not meant to be harmful, goes along with her life, and generally seems ok with how everything was going.
It isn’t until the later interview, where the host invites everyone in the crowd to speculate on her cup size that she draws the line. And that is certainly her right. I don’t think that just because a guy dresses up in a Superman or Spiderman costume people should have the right to openly speculate on the size of his penis. That crosses over the line into outright rudeness, and over the line over what anyone should be expecting, even if they are dressed up in a costume. Good for her for drawing her own boundaries, and clearly letting other people know when her boundaries have been crossed.
She has that right. She has a right to be a jerk, as we all, do. She exercised that right. It’s still not admirable conduct.
Last I looked, Supie’s and Spidey’s costumes didn’t include a realist codpiece. Would it be unexpected or over the line if an skeezy interviewer asked the crowd to speculate on “Superman’s” biceps circumference? If a straight, male, graphic novel convention-goer went to a gay party dressed as a credible Superman, could he fairly complain if he were hit on? Claim molestation? Write an angry blog-post about it?
You’re going out of your way to justify her unreasonable and unfair behavior.
Spiderman’s costume is very form fitting. Superman’s costume draws a lot of attention to his genital area. If the interviewer had talked about her biceps, I’m pretty sure she would not have had a problem wih it. But openly speculatiing on her sexualized parts, and asking the audience to participate is beyond the pale. Her being uncomfortable with that does not make her a jerk. That question, especially in public, is pretty much never ok, and she did a valuable service in letting not just the interviewer but the audience as well know that.
You are actually going out of your way to justify unreasonable behavior. Just because a woman dresses up in a costume doesn’t mean that she is now open for any guy to say whatever or do whatever to her, even if the costume is sexualized in some way. The appearance of boobs does not magically erase expectations of civility. She was a good sport until they crossed her boundaries, at which point she disengaged. Should she cheerfully started shouting out her boob size and spanking the interviewer? Would you expect the guy(s) dressed up as Superman to shout out their penis size and spank their intervewer on demand? The tolerance line must be drawn somewhere at some point, and I think she picked a good place to do it. You obviously disagree, and think she should have put up with even more.
You state:
“Let me stipulate that nothing a woman may do, say or wear excuses rudeness, crudeness, disrespectful comments, sexual harassment, sexual assault or abuse, including, of course, rape. This is unequivocal.
”
Either that is true and it was out of line to comment in her cup size or its not true.
Which is it?
As I thought I made clear—the nerds comments were out of line. But she is estopped from complaining about it. Just because you facillitate or otherwise encourage bad conduct, that doesn’t make it right. But it does make it obnoxious for the person who lit the fuse to complain about the “KA-BOOM”!
“…the nerds comments were out of line. But she is estoppel from complaining about it.” You’ve contradicted yourself there.
Estoppel means, in this context, that her conduct disqualifies her from the complaint she made in her blog post. I wasn’t clear, and as stated, you are right. She has a right to complain to those who insult her, of course. Good point.
She can tell them it’s wrong, but she can’t tell anyone else that this wrong thing occurred? I don’t get it.
Jack, there is so much wrong with your post that I don’t know where to begin.
First of all, your post is simply and obviously dishonest about what she wrote. Your argument makes it sounds like she objects to socially awkward guys staring or doing double-takes, when it’s plain that she’s very understanding of that sort of thing. She objects to being set up for being deliberately mocked and sexually harassed by a crowd.
Your argument is especially unreasonable in the context of comic-con, where there’s nothing at all unusual about some people wearing revealing costumes (men too, by the way). It’s not like wearing a costume to an everyday event; although most people don’t dress up, enough do so that costumes are pretty ordinary. So the “no one wearing a costume can expect to be treated with common courtesy” excuse – which I’d be dubious about in any case — certainly doesn’t wash at Comic-Con. Someone who can’t bring themselves to treat people in costume with courtesy has no business attending Comic-Con.
But Comic-Con or not, the videographer’s behavior (if she described it accurately) was simply unacceptable. That many people won’t enjoy being put at the center of a crowd and made fun of isn’t a subtle and difficult to understand point; it’s obvious. If someone wants to make such a video, then they should start by pulling the person aside and say “my videos involve some raunchy humor and we’ll be making fun of the sexiness of your costume. Is that something you’re okay with?” That ambushing a stranger with public humiliation is not okay is something that everyone should be expected to understand.
Second of all, your cliched stereotypes about Comic-Con attendees are a bit off-putting. I imagine it’s a bit as if you heard someone confidently state that the typical lawyer is an entitled loudmouth bully with slicked back hair – that sort of stereotype isn’t harmful in any large way (it’s not like either comic book fans or lawyers are oppressed minorities), and that sort of petty slight isn’t worth getting mad at, but it does make it seem as if the speaker traffics more in stereotypes than in actual knowledge.
I attended Comic-Con last year ( I was nominated for an industry award, he tosses in casually and modestly, ho-hum :-p ). I couldn’t say what percentage of the crowd was female, but there were thousands of women there. I spoke to hundreds of attendees and fans, and nearly everyone I met seemed socially, well, normal.
I have no desire to denigrate the attendees of Comic Con or any other specialty gathering. I know lots of people that go to Comic Con. Some of them would not be my pick to thrust my bust at if I were a girl. Still, I take the note—this is valid viewpoint, but I don’t see it this way.
First of all, I’m not excusing the treatment she received. Nor can I speculate with certainty on why a woman would choose to dress like Black Cat, by my experience tells me that this is, at very least, fueled by some degree of sexual exhibitionism. Second, I am basing my critique on exactly what she wrote, which I quoted. I don’t see how that can be misleading….that’s her attitude, as a matter of record.
Third, I’d KILL for slicked down hair.
Fourth, stereotypes exist for a reason. How many at Comics Con fit the stereotype about comic book fanatics? 20%? 30%? That’s still a lot of people, even though its a minority.
I don’t see anything wrong with Mandy telling the boorish videographer to get lost; she should set her ground rules. But her statement on her blog goes what too far. She’s sending clear messages intentionally, and complaining when she gets a wholly predictable answer.
I was very interested in hearing from you and Jeff on this, as my resident artists. Thanks.
Sure you are. In the first paragraph of your post you claim that you’re unequivocal about not excusing sexual harassment, but you spend the entire rest of the post equivocating and making excuses. For example: “And if the men you encounter role-play back, clumsily to be sure….”
They weren’t being clumsy role-players; they were being mean and trying to humiliate. And you’re making excuses for them.
Why does she owe men who are acting towards her with extraordinary rudeness, kindness? Wearing a low-cut shirt isn’t a contract to accept abusive behavior.
And of course, saying she “share[s] culpability for the inappropriate conduct that results” is clearly making excuses for the bullies. She’s not culpable for other people’s unreasonable behavior, and the behavior she described was totally unreasonable.
Jack, I’m a heterosexual guy. If I was chatting with Mandy in her Black Cat outfit, I’d notice that she’s attractive and wearing a sexy outfit, because I’m human. But I would never in a million years treat her to the public humiliation she describes in her post, and I bet a hundred bucks that you’d never do such a thing, either. Nothing about being a heterosexual guy compels men to act in the way Mandy describes. That comes from being an ***hole, not from being male.
More victim-blaming, but also, you’re just wrong. Some guys being clumsy and visibly gawking is common and to be expected; subjecting cosplayers to public humiliation in the way Mandy described is not common behavior. Lots of cosplayers go to con after con without experience such a thing. Why should Mandy have “known” she was going to “attract” what is in reality unusual behavior?
There are two obvious ways you can be misleading. First of all, you can simply misrepresent what she wrote. For example:
This tells any reasonable reader that in Mandy’s post, she got mad because “their jaws hit the floor.” But in actuality, she made a big distinction between “guys being doofy and awkward (but clearly not foul-intentioned)” and a “truly skeezy experience,” and it’s dishonest that your post is written as if she never wrote that at all. It’s clear that Mandy does “cut the poor boys some slack,” and dishonest for you to indicate that she doesn’t.
Which brings us to the second way you’re being misleading: Selective quoting. There’s a lot in her post that contradicts the spin you put on it, and you chose not to quote any of those bits.
Mandy isn’t a lawyer; she doesn’t write every phrase as if it might be taken out of context by an unfriendly prosecutor, and it’s unfair to read her that way. Taken as a whole, she’s clearly dividing the fans who visibly respond to the sex appeal of her cosplay into two categories: Those who are “doofy and awkward” but harmless and not the targets of her post, and the guys on a single occasion who exposed her to public humiliation, whom the part of the post you quoted is addressed to.
You’ve made up a fictional Mandy – one that gets angry just because some jaws “hit the floor” at her costume, and is unreasonably mad at nothing more than innocuous gawking or social awkwardness. That Mandy doesn’t seem to exist in real life, judging from her post. Your account of what she wrote is not fair or reasonable, and your criticism is nothing more than a strawman.
LOL!
At Comic-Con? I’d guess about 1%. (It would be a lot lower than 20% at most cons, but at Comic-Con, most of the people there aren’t even comic book readers. Despite the name of the con.)
Obviously, I have no way of measuring for sure. But the overwhelming majority of comic book fans I’ve met are regular people. They brush their teeth and hair, have girlfriends, boyfriends, or spouses, and can make conversation about politics or food or whatever. The “Simpsons Comic Book Guy” stereotype exists, and stands out in people’s memories because he conforms to people’s expectations, but he’s nowhere NEAR 20%.
1. Explaining why something predictable happens and excusing it are not the same thing.
2. I linked to the whole piece, which is to say, I invite and encourage everyone to read to read it. I quote what I think is most important, but a reader is encouraged to make other judgments. You can disagree with my take regarding emphasis, but you can hardly say I’m hiding the ball.
3. The problem is that nobody knows where she will choose to draw the line, which is where being kind comes in.
4. She was pushing her brand and using her body as a publicity magnet, and got ticked off when the emphasis shifted to something else. Again, the indignation is annoying.
5. One can blame the victim without excusing the victimizer. There’s nothing wrong with doing so. Strict liability—there’s no excuse for rudeness and harassment—doesn’t mean that all blame is eliminated elsewhere. I should write about this, actually. It’s an important issue.
6. 1% surprises me, but you have direct observation of the phenomenon, so I’ll accept that as a fair estimate. That might have changed my perspective, I think. One cannot calibrate appropriate conduct to every possible minority reaction.
7. Jeff, our other cartoonist here and Comic Con attendee, is less sympathetic.
1. This wasn’t predictable. This sort of harassment and attempted public humiliation is not the typical experience of cosplayers.
2. You might as well say Obama’s website doesn’t lie about Romney’s support of the Arizona immigration law since, hey, Obama’s website includes links, and people could just follow the links to the actual news stories;.
A lie doesn’t magically become the truth because you’ve included a link (especially since probably the majority of readers never follow the link).
Your arguments are all premised on your claim that Mandy objects and gets mad at socially awkward boys dropping their jaws at her outfit. That’s not true.
3. Wow, what a meaningless attack. She doesn’t state where she “draws the line”? What, do regular people have to have explicit written-out statements of where precisely their threshold for abuse is before they’re allowed to object to being bullied without you admonishing them?
Apparently, she draws the line at someone shoving his butt in her face, demanding to be spanked, and calling on the crowd to comment on her breasts. And you responded by scolding her for not being kind to the people who treated her that way. That’s unjustifiable.
4. This seems to be assuming the worse of her for no particular reason. (I really don’t understand why you’re acting like you have a grudge against Mandy.) She was doing what thousands of other cosplayers do – dressing up and going to a con. Yes, she sells her handmade costume – as do many other cosplayers who have the skills.
But suppose you’re right, and she was purely dressing up for commercial motives, not because she enjoys it or is into the hobby. Why would that take away her right to be indigent at mistreatment?
For that matter, I go to cons to sell my brand and my books. And yet, if someone treated me like Mandy got treated, I’d be indigent. Would I be wrong?
5. As a general rule, yes, I agree. (If I said otherwise in prior comments, please consider those comments withdrawn.) But the specific way you make excuses for male ****oles in this post DOES inappropriately excuse them.
First, your post excused what the guys did by softballing what they did (“And if the men you encounter role-play back, clumsily to be sure….”). If Linus attacks Schroeder with a baseball bat, and you later softball that as “Schroeder and Linus got into a pillow fight,” that’s excusing what Linus did.
And taking a “men can’t help acting like boors if a woman wears a low-cut shirt” position, which some of your post does, is making excuses for the men. It’s saying that they couldn’t reasonably be expected to act any differently, when of course they could.
6. Actually, it turns out I don’t have direct observation – I was assuming that Mandy’s story was at San Diego Comic-Con, which is the largest comic con in the country. But since my last post I realized that her story takes place at NYC Comic-Con, which is the second-largest. I’ve never been to NYCCC, but I’ve been told it’s a lot like SDCC. Sorry for my mistake.
From having attended lots and lots of different comic book cons over the years, I’m convinced you’re wrong. But I can’t say I’ve ever attended this specific con.
Ugh… I really don’t know about this one. I’ve attended a few conventions (mostly PAX East and one Anime Boston). I actually think the cosplayers are my favorite part (NOT just because the women are dressed this way or that, but because I love seeing a cosplay of something I didn’t expect, like the girl who was dressed as Iria; that was awesome and not provocative).
This also gets into that dreadful territory of the scariest F word of all: feminism. I keep watching ridiculous dust-ups in the atheist community over feminist crap. I don’t even want to stick my head into it because I’m not sure I’d be able to get it back.
It’s partially the behavior of men at conventions that starts these arguments in the first place. Rebecca Watson has started something called “ElevatorGate” because of something that happened to her in an elevator at a convention. I don’t actually recommend you educate yourself on these schmos, because a response like that will get you labeled some sort of apologist and the whole nine yards.
At least for me, I REALLY like Black Cat. But I don’t like a woman dressed as Black Cat because of her beauty or her cleavage (or at least, I don’t think it’s PRIMARILY that). I like it because it’s an accurate real-life representation of a piece of art. I took a picture of a guy dressed as Princess Peach once. He had a great costume! And I know that I wouldn’t hit on someone in a costume or comment how sexy they look (I might say they look great, but not sexy, even if they were). But on the other hand, I’m not very likely to hit on anyone that I met in a con.
So… I guess she can get mad if she wants. I understand, I guess, but the first thing I thought was this:
I find it interesting ms. Caruso did not mention any of the very polite and nice men at the convention either. I also can’t help but wonder if this wasnt an attempt of a “fashion” designer to get some notoriety. Because it seems weird something as mundane as this was picked up. Seems it was solicited. I know plenty of women who do this kind of thing regularly and have more positive than negative to say about attendees. I also like the fact she said men had “look at those knockers looks on their faces” if they just started and didn’t say it, that’s their right as it is hers to wear it.
Yes, I suspect this is a publicity stunt. She notes that she will have many more photos of her costume coming, for example. You have to admit, if that was the goal, she calculated well.
Because she probably doesn’t remember, or care about any of them. She just gets off on giving geeks boners, and the frustration of knowing they can never have her.
That’s the sole reason women like her, even go to conventions. If you asked her anything past BC’s real name, she’d most likely draw a blank.
I find her, and her motivations, more disgusting socially, than any of the admittedly disgusting things that were said to her.
She’s just another model, finger banging the ‘geek chic’ fad, before it goes out of style.
Those grapes are very sour, aren’t they?
A white knight appears!
That’s at least 2 cases of sexists commenting at EthicsAlarms trying to discredit criticisms of their sexism by crying “white knight.”
Calling a spade a spade buddy.
People whose arguments consist of “your just jealous” are generally white knights.
I’m sorry, I sometimes forgot that women are not to be scrutinized. Otherwise you become an instant “sexist”. You see sexism, would be if I thought all women had no right to cosplay. Or if all women who are attractive are phonies. But I don’t.
Plenty of beautiful women have been cosplaying. They’ve been doing so for over a decade. You can tell Coruso is just a model looking for exposure, She’s a snowflake. A mildly racist, petty, narcissistic one.
All of her blog posts about geek stuff, was just her parroting her boyfriend’s posts. She’s intelligent, and well spoken so she gets away with being a hypocrite.
but people like you, take a situation at face value and take the easiest way to championing a cause. You just immediately cry sexist and call it a day, and you feel good about yourself. and you look good to others.
People whose arguments consist of “your just jealous” are generally white knights.
Barry has many other arguments in this thread. Your ridiculous sexist comment didn’t deserve more.
I’m sorry, I sometimes forgot that women are not to be scrutinized. Otherwise you become an instant “sexist”.
Strawman.
You see sexism, would be if I thought all women had no right to cosplay. Or if all women who are attractive are phonies. But I don’t.
That you can name other examples of sexism doesn’t make this not sexism. Also, you do assume she’s a phony: “Because she probably doesn’t remember, or care about any of them. She just gets off on giving geeks boners, and the frustration of knowing they can never have her. ” then “That’s the sole reason women like her, even go to conventions. If you asked her anything past BC’s real name, she’d most likely draw a blank.”
Plenty of beautiful women have been cosplaying. They’ve been doing so for over a decade. You can tell Coruso is just a model looking for exposure, She’s a snowflake. A mildly racist, petty, narcissistic one.
You repeated inconsistent and irrelevant statements.
All of her blog posts about geek stuff, was just her parroting her boyfriend’s posts. She’s intelligent, and well spoken so she gets away with being a hypocrite.
I haven’t read all of her blog posts, but based on your comments so far, I can’t believe a word you say about them.
but people like you, take a situation at face value and take the easiest way to championing a cause. You just immediately cry sexist and call it a day, and you feel good about yourself. and you look good to others.
Really? I think I call sexist when something is sexist. Your assumptions and statements were clearly sexist. Your follow ups have been rationalizations, denials, and unsupported suppositions on your critics motivations.
1. Cop out response.
2. and yet that is the crux of your argument. I scrutinized a woman, you call me sexist.
3. that you define sexism as calling women phonies, doesn’t make it so either.
4. My comments are not inconsistent, your reading comprehension sucks, or you’re willingly obtuse, to continue your crusade, which is proving my white knight accusation.
5. Believe whatever the Hell you want.
6. No they aren’t sexist. You don’t know what real sexism is. you’re just an stranger online white knighting a model when someone called her motivations into play. and I’m done going in circles with you.
EDIT: 3. That you define sexism, as calling CERTAIN women phonies,
I assume some men pretend to like sports to fit in with other men, is that sexist? I know some kids pretend to like certain music to fit in. Is that ageist? I assume some men pretend to like ______ to get laid. Is that sexist?
Please.
http://www.darkredpress.com/2012/10/mandy-caruso-is-completely-full-of-shit/
The problem was your misogynistic reasons for assuming this woman was a phony.
1. Uh what? Barry’s more substantive commentary is a direct contradiction of your claim.
2. Not at all. It’s not that you scrutinized a woman; it’s the “logic” that you used. It’s the statements that you made. I was clear on that.
3. I never said such. You’re removing context to misrepresent me
3b. Despite your previous protestation, you did assume she was a phony. Are you going to own up to that?
4. Dropping it here. There’s more detail elsewhere
5. That’s not exactly the mark of someone who cares about ethics.
6. You, again, are simply assuming motivations on my part. That’s bullshit. Anyone who calls you out is a white knight. It’s an attempt to avoid criticism.
She’s hot and female, therefore, she’s a tease, not a comic book geek. Sexist much?
Coruso is a hypocrite. One of those women who uses customizing, as an excuse to dress like a whore. She CHOOSES to dress in a male sexual fantasy, then complains when people treat her as such.
She patronizingly racist, saying things like “My beloved South Korean sisters, you are so beautiful, stop trying to emulate white women, be yourselves, stop wearing colored contacts” (While wearing contacts).
She’s narcissistic and vain, badmouthing women who are more attractive than she. and is patronizing and backhanded to fat people.
Where were all of these sexy model types ten years ago? Oh yeah that’s right, shunning the geek community.Now every hot girl who can sew has “always been into it”.
and no, not every hot girl who cosplays is some fair weather fan. Tons of beautiful girls have always been into cosplay. Most of which choose costumes of characters they actually like. Not just the ones that they think are the hottest and give them to opportunity to be “naughty for the weekend.
The girl who dresses like a Ghostbuster? A cosplayer.
The girl who dresses like a “sexy ghostbuster”? Tease.
Coruso is a hypocrite. One of those women who uses customizing, as an excuse to dress like a whore. She CHOOSES to dress in a male sexual fantasy, then complains when people treat her as such.
Sounds like you’re a fan of sharia law.
She patronizingly racist, saying things like “My beloved South Korean sisters, you are so beautiful, stop trying to emulate white women, be yourselves, stop wearing colored contacts” (While wearing contacts).
She’s narcissistic and vain, badmouthing women who are more attractive than she. and is patronizing and backhanded to fat people.
What does that have to do with anything?
Where were all of these sexy model types ten years ago? Oh yeah that’s right, shunning the geek community.Now every hot girl who can sew has “always been into it”.
As this bad behavior becomes less tolerated, more women join the movement. I don’t see anything nefarious there.
Tons of beautiful girls have always been into cosplay.
Really? You just said they were shunning the geek community.
Most of which choose costumes of characters they actually like. Not just the ones that they think are the hottest and give them to opportunity to be “naughty for the weekend.
And you assume she doesn’t like black cat because black cat is hot?
The girl who dresses like a Ghostbuster? A cosplayer.
The girl who dresses like a “sexy ghostbuster”? Tease.
She didn’t dress as a sexy ghostbuster. She dressed as a female character that is sexy.
What I see here is a mess of contradictions, slut shaming, and victim blaming.
1. Sharia law: Stupid strawman. No you’re totally right, people choose sexual fantasy costumes to yell at people and feel vindicated when someone stares. I know when I want to feel sexy, a comic book convention is the first place I go.
2. Her character is a major factor in her hypocrisy. She’s more superficial than anyone criticising her.
3. It’s called a fad. You see, REAL FANS do what they enjoy regardless.. The real cosplayers and geek girls were into this stuff already. Curosu sees a niche, and a fad, to advance her modelling career.
4. NO. I said women like Caruso were.
5. Yeah I am. I’m assuming she she likes Black Cat’s costume.
6. I never said she did, that was just an example. and yes, she choose the most played out, go to “sexy costume”. One that was created by horny male nerds to give fifteen year old boys boners.
What I see here, is a person who will defend a woman, for the sheer fact that she is a woman. and do so with poor logic, and a few strawman arguments.
Your argument is, all hot cosplayers are legit, and no one can possibly be doing so for lousy reasons. Naive much? Like cosplay is exempt from having fair weather fans, and people pretend to be into it for the sake of others.
Yeah you keep championing Mandy “You fat girls can be sexy too!” Caruso.
1. It wasn’t a strawman. I was pointing out that you were blaming bad male behavior on women’s attractiveness to males. That’s the reasoning behind Burkahs and required male escorts.
2. Being superficial doesn’t mean she can’t criticize people who treat her poorly.
3. If you’re unwilling to deal with sexism, then you’re not a real fan? I guess blacks that were “real businessmen” had businesses despite the KKK. Ugh.
4. “Where were all of these sexy model types ten years ago?” and “Tons of beautiful girls have always been into cosplay.” What’s the difference between “model type” and “beautiful girl”?
5. Thanks for admitting your sexism. You assume she’s not a fan because she’s a hot girl and this is a hot costume. That’s textbook.
6. If you weren’t using the ghostbusters example to show the difference between what she did and what a nontease would do, then it was a non sequitur. It didn’t apply. I pointed out that it didn’t apply.
What I see here, is a person who will defend a woman, for the sheer fact that she is a woman. and do so with poor logic, and a few strawman arguments.
Really? I haven’t made a single strawman argument. I also haven’t defended her because she’s a woman. You have not even tried to present evidence for that attack.
Your argument is, all hot cosplayers are legit, and no one can possibly be doing so for lousy reasons. Naive much? Like cosplay is exempt from having fair weather fans, and people pretend to be into it for the sake of others.
I have never made that argument. What I have been saying is that your assumptions that (1) your negative assumptions about her are unwarranted and (2) even if she was a fairweather fan who picked the costume because she looks hot in it, that does not excuse the bad male behavior or suggest she can’t complain about it. Your comments about both are sexist. It’s sexist to think that a women wearing a hot costume must not be a real geek. It’s sexist to think that women wearing attractive clothing should put up with incredibly inappropriate behavior.
Behavior? Yeah I agree. Men have self control. There is no excuse for treating the people around you like crap, but that was never my argument.
My argument is, you can hardly be self righteous, when you choose to lower yourself by dressing in clothes spawned by sexism.
Before I go. I’ll leave you with this one thing.
If you choose to dress in a costume designed around sexist ideals, you have no right to complain about sexism. All you did, was perpetuate another type of sexism, and show appreciation and acceptance of such.
So yeah, the whole sexism argument falls flat, when you’ve chosen to emulate sexism for attention, in a place packed to the brim with sexually frustrated boys and men. That is pretty god damn deplorable to me.
Boy, where were you when I was getting my brains beat in over this post? Could have used the support!
Did you read his early comments? “Because she probably doesn’t remember, or care about any of them. She just gets off on giving geeks boners, and the frustration of knowing they can never have her.
That’s the sole reason women like her, even go to conventions. If you asked her anything past BC’s real name, she’d most likely draw a blank.”
When your position lines up nicely with misogynists, that’s time to call for some self reflection.
Didn’t read that one, indeed.
Yes, that is indeed just cause for reflection…
Sorry, didn’t know this existed until recently. Honestly it doesn’t matter what your reasoning is, or how likely your assertions are. There is a movement is disingenuous white knighting sweeping across the internet.
The knee jerk reaction, is to call anyone who scrutinizes a woman a sexist. If you call the motives of a woman into play, you’re a sexist. If you look at a person like Caruso, and see an attractive woman, calling everyone else a pervert, when she dresses like sexist comic book character made by sexist perverts, and call her for what she is, you’re a sexist. She oozes the poser geek girl vibe.
Women are off limits.
Nevermind that this is a woman, who dresses in the sexiest outfit she can find, and parades around at a convention primarily of awkward men. She does it for the attention, and the disturbing thrill she gets out of knowing she turned on a bunch of guys she’d never give the time of day to.
If a comic book convention is a place you absolutely need to feel sexy at, you have problems.
She wants attention. Just not the attention of the guys at the conventions she attended.
You can’t dress like an adolescent male fantasy and then pretend you did it for yourself.
Oh and tgt has proven they have no idea what sexism really is, and is just another sanctimonious windbag championing a person they know nothing about simply because the person is a woman.
That comment is based on the posts she’s made about others. She’s patronizing to other races, she looks down on fat people, and insults girls who have had plastic surgery, when she herself shoops every image of herself. Chances are, the guys she meets at conventions are forgotten easily.
Make no mistake if Caruso was a man tgt wouldn’t be here. The only thing keeping him/her here is the opportunity to wage a battle against someone criticising a person they barely know.
I actually hate the term white knight. But tgt is so totally a white knight.
There is a movement is disingenuous white knighting sweeping across the internet.
The knee jerk reaction, is to call anyone who scrutinizes a woman a sexist. If you call the motives of a woman into play, you’re a sexist.
Citation needed. Based on your comments in this post, I suspect that you say sexist things, get called out, and then cry about not being able to criticize women.
Oh and tgt has proven they have no idea what sexism really is, and is just another sanctimonious windbag championing a person they know nothing about simply because the person is a woman.
That comment is based on the posts she’s made about others. She’s patronizing to other races, she looks down on fat people, and insults girls who have had plastic surgery, when she herself shoops every image of herself. Chances are, the guys she meets at conventions are forgotten easily.
Classic attempt to turn the victim into a villain. None of those things excuse your sexist comments.
Make no mistake if Caruso was a man tgt wouldn’t be here. The only thing keeping him/her here is the opportunity to wage a battle against someone criticising a person they barely know.
I actually hate the term white knight. But tgt is so totally a white knight.
*chortle*
Do I even need to respond to this?
Your argument makes no sense. Mini-skirts were spawned by sexism. Pretty much all female dress clothes have a partial root in sexism. Heck, makeup was spawned by sexism.
As I said previously, your argument boils down to “Women need to make sure they aren’t attractive to men. If they don’t, then they deserve whatever they get.”
Despite the fact that the miniskirt was invented by a woman,
A slightly shorter skirt, is a hell of a lot different than a cleavage pushing skin tight costume worn by a fictional character, out of literally billions of possible costumes.
No, my argument boils down to, if you choose to dress like a fictional character designed to give people boners, and toss yourself in a room full of awkward guys, you have no right to be high and mighty.
If you can’t get that by now, there is no point in trying to make you.
Your argument was “If you choose to dress in a costume designed around sexist ideals, you have no right to complain about sexism.”
I pointed out that applies to a whole host of regular clothes and even makeup. That any specific piece of clothing was designed by a woman is irrelevant.
You’ve now attempted to move the goalposts to dressing up like fictional characters that were created with sex appeal. That’s a fallacy in it’s own right. I also don’t see how it matters that the clothing is based on a particular sexy fictional character instead of simply designed to be sexy based on abstract idea of sexiness?
Your argument still boils down to: women are to blame for bad male behavior.
God look at you. I just read all of your previous posts. You have a problem. You’re on this page like stink on a monkey. It’s like you can’t help it. You’re on some moronic crusade, in which you attempt to force anyone who says anything bad about a woman, to admit to sexism. Screw you! Screw you for diminishing the very REAL examples of horrible sexism that occur every day.
What do you do to combat sexism? What have you done for women’s lib, or feminism? What makes you so god damn holier than thou? You’re so concerned here about one cosplayer, you’re a real hero. Legalized child prostitution? Darfur? Battered women? Sexual harassment at work? Battered housewives? Republican men thinking they can control a woman’s uterus?. Meh, fuck it, this cosplayer wrote a blog about a bunch of dicks who joked about her tits.
You’re a god damn fool, and a troll. I thought for a while, that you had some kind of point to make, but you really don’t. You’re arguing to argue. You’re here to make yourself feel good, and feel superior to someone else. and when your “smarter in my head” arguments fail, you resort to cheap taunts.
You’re ignorant. Your logic and reading comprehension are terrible, and you’re too up your own self righteous ass to even consider the possibility that you may be wrong. you ignore any counter point in favor of a fallacy involving an unrelated analogy.
Was what I said sexist? Maybe. But I’m also probably right. and frankly you couldn’t give a damn less if I were. Your fight is a superficial one, Yours a personal fight over the word “sexist”. That’s all you care about. Getting your label to stick.
And not only that, but this is so important to you. Your ego is so great, that a year after this was posted, you still come back with the same indignation at the first sign of an opportunity to make a pompous ass of yourself. Not only that but minutes after a post goes up.
You’re an armchair net crusader, pretending to have a cause, when the only cause you have is fluffing yourself online..
You don’t know a damn thing about real sexism.
I’m done with you. Enjoy….whatever it is, you think you have here.
I’m sorry. that “stink on a monkey” jab was speciesist. Sorry monkeys!
TGT, I’m impressed you had the stamina to see that through to the end.
Are you passive aggressively attacking me, or directly attacking her?
Barry,
I almost find it fun.
FS,
Generic attacks; no specifics? Attacks on my character? I’ve become inured to that over the years. If you had an actual argument, you wouldn’t resort to such.
Passive aggressive it is.
Tell me again about how miniskirts were invented from sexism tgt. Tell me all about how anyone is supposed to take your arguments seriously, when you blatantly pull stuff from your ass, just to make an argument.
You’re snide, you’re smug, but repeating your ignorance over and over doesn’t make you right. 😉
Tell me again about how miniskirts were invented from sexism tgt.
My comment was “spawned by sexism” and “have a partial root in sexism”. I was tying back to your statement: “If you choose to dress in a costume designed around sexist ideals, you have no right to complain about sexism.”
I might have been a little loose in my language. I probably should have paralleled your language more. That said, the miniskirt was designed to be sexual… to show off women. I’m not sure how that doesn’t qualify as a costume designed around sexist ideals.
Tell me all about how anyone is supposed to take your arguments seriously, when you blatantly pull stuff from your ass, just to make an argument.
As anyone who’s been around Ethics Alarms for a while knows, my ass has lots of facts in it.
You’re snide, you’re smug, but repeating your ignorance over and over doesn’t make you right. 😉
Can you point to an ignorant statement I made, please?
I think you’re misrepresenting the incidents that spurred Mandy’s blog post. You seem to imply that she had some sort of unreasonable objection to simply being looked at, which is not the case. If you read her post, she told off a troll with a microphone when he stuck his ass in her face, demanded she spank him, and asked her cup size. It’s absolutely reasonable and ethical that she’d voice her objection.
As I wrote, I’m objecting to her stated position, not her specific complaint. Yes, the line was crossed in a major way by the troll, and she was right to tell him off.
Her stated position is that she doesn’t get mad at guys being clumsy and goofy in response to her outfit, but she does get angry at being sexually harassed.
The position you attribute to her – that she isn’t “willing to cut the poor boys some slack when their jaws hit the floor” – is not her stated position.
I haven’t been to a Con in many years. Obviously, things have picked up in the realm of freakiness and sheer sexuality. Of course, where HASN’T it, for that matter. That this woman is either utterly clueless or (more likely) a shameless self-promoter is only too obvious. Let her bask in her manufactured publicity while she can. Good God. Remember when Wonder Woman was the cat’s meow?!
Oh, give me a break. Most cosplayers don’t wear especially revealing outfits, but some cosplayers find it fun to dress up as sexy characters. That was true in the 1970s and 1980s, and it’s true today – the main difference is that thirty and forty years ago we didn’t have the internet, so the photos didn’t get circulated nearly as efficiently.
All you did was pretty well say what I did, Amp. I never said that the Cons were now crawling with hookers in costume, only that the sexuality aspect had picked up. You mentioned one reason why. It wasn’t that long ago that a woman dressed up as Red Sonya (a Conanesque comic character) in a chain mail bikini and showed up at a Con… only to be tossed out.
Steven, I don’t see any sign that “the sexuality aspect ha[s] picked up” at all.
Some cons do occasionally throw out cosplayers for being too, er, revealing, but I don’t think that was ever common. In the 1970s, there were certainly fans who went to cons all the time cosplaying Red Sonja (and didn’t get kicked out for it). The one who is best-remembered is Wendy Pini, because she went on to create the comic book Elfquest.
Naturally, I’m going mainly from Jack’s commentary, Amp, along with coverage from a few large Cons in California that I read recently. The latter seemed to back up contentions that these gatherings have become rawer over time. As I mentioned, it’s been quite a while since I attended one personally. (I enjoyed them, BTW, being an old time SF buff.) It only stands to reason that they have, as the culture that feeds them has become progressively rawer as well. But I lack your perspective as to the overall state of the science fiction conventions of today. Certainly, I hope that the inevitable “Mandy’s” of the Cons are not typical! The name of
Wendy Piri rings a bell. I recall seeing a picture of a VERY statuesque woman being escorted out of a Con a number of years ago. Apparently, she had something of a following even then. Could have been her.
Late to the party, but this is related to a situation I experience daily.
I exercise at Gold’s Gym. I did not choose to join there; my little neighborhood gym closed and our memberships were transferred, though I did have to agree to and sign new paperwork. As part of my exercise routine, I lift free weights. I lift in what I call Manland – the Gold’s free weights room – daily, typically the only woman in a group of up to 20 men. For ease of movement, I wear tight-fitting clothes. And I get ogled. The men don’t even try to hide it. Sometimes they stop lifting or talking to turn and watch me. Whenever my (male) workout partner isn’t there, I make new friends as men come chat with me.
At first, I was completely intimidated and refused to work out without my partner. Now, months later, I expect it and manage the guys’ behavior up-front. I meet their eyes, I speak to them, I make sure they know I am confident and assertive. However, I don’t enjoy it.
Yes, their behavior is rude, and it’s my gym, where I pay fees, and I should be made to feel equally welcome and not have to tolerate it. But it’s my own fault, too, isn’t it, for deliberately entering a place clearly designed for men? It’s all black and chrome with sharp corners and clanging plates, not seafoam green with pads and quiet foam weights. I knew what I was doing when I signed the paperwork, and I voluntarily pull on spandex and walk in there. So I’m asking for it, to a certain extent, am I not?
Therefore, I don’t complain or get angry, and I certainly don’t post blog pieces blasting the ogling inhabitants of Manland.
For the record, I am nowhere near as attractive as Mandy Caruso. 🙂 And I am much older. I guess it’s location, location, location, and absence of competition.
I guess I’d say that the situation would be more similar if you dressed like Black Cat to work out. A weight room is a place where everyone, or almost everyone, is dressed in more or less revealing clothes—it’s utilitarian. Some of it is to show off, but mostly it’s to be comfortable, and not to get clothes snagged in the Universal machine. If you were dressing to show of that weight-toned bod, and then objected online to the inevitable harassment, I’d say that’s pretty close to Mandy. But in your case, what’s your alternative> Lift weights in a Muu Muu?
This also sounds unusual to me, or you REALLY look good (I always thought you looked good). When I belonged to an iron gym, the ethics of the place specifically discouraged overt staring, and it was thoroughly co-ed. That, and the fact that the women in that place tended to have 17 inch guns and would rip your face off.
No, Jack, the situation would be more similar if Lianne dressed in tight spandex, worked out in the company of males, and generally tolerated their indiscreet ogling (all of which already applies), and then some of the male patrons of her gym decided to start harassing her outright and loudly discussing her sexual parts, prompting Lianne to later complain about their behavior and then be criticized for it on an ethics blog.
You are incontrovertibly wrong on this one, Jack. Your overall point of view seems to be that women should be expected to moderate their behavior equally in any circumstance, whereas men are held to different standards depending on their surroundings. Surely that wasn’t your intention, but look back over your remarks, Jack. That’s the point you’re making, even if unconsciously. Ms. Caruso decided to wear a revealing costume to a place where costumes are commonplace, so she was asking for harassment. The men at that same event chose to go to a place where there was a chance of seeing women in revealing costumes, but they then couldn’t help but ogle and harass those women.
How about this as an alternative to telling Ms. Caruso that she either can’t dress up or can’t complain? How about telling all of the men in attendance that they can either control themselves, stay home, or be reprimanded?
A weight room is a place where everyone, or almost everyone, is dressed in more or less revealing clothes—it’s utilitarian. Some of it is to show off, but mostly it’s to be comfortable
Well put. You know, to my knowledge, that also applies to comic and science fiction conventions. It’s a place where people can both show off and be comfortable living out their fantasies in an accepting and like-minded environment. Presumably Ms. Caruso went to Comic Con dressed as The Black Cat because she’s used to it being a place where she can dress as her favorite characters and be treated by her fellows as a human being in a cool costume, rather than as an object. And what’s your response to that expectation? “If you didn’t want to be harassed, you should have had different fantasies”?
Your mistake is that you’re trying to shoehorn the standards of mainstream society into an environment that functions as a constructed escape from mainstream society. If Ms. Caruso had dressed as The Black Cat in order to go to her local 7-11, then you might have an argument. But it was Comic Con, where the standards of dress are decidedly different and there is presumably a different social contract governing how to respond to that. Standards of behavior don’t exist in a vacuum. They have to respond to their environment. As an ethicist, you should consider how men should be expected to act when something jars their most base impulses, as compared with how they’d act, say, in the company of overweight, elderly nuns. Over the course of several topics, you’ve given mixed messages about objectification of women, sometimes suggesting that some measure of it is not only acceptable, but also unavoidable. I certainly think, however, that the more a person has his self-restraint challenged, the more he should act to deliberately compensate. If the latter is the standards, then it’s an ethical principle, and absolutely everyone has a right to complain when she sees that violated.
To use a slightly hyperbolic analogy, what would you say if a white man took a trip to some remote, tribal island where women wear no clothes at all, and he proceeded to rape one of the locals? Would you say, “Well, he was clearly wrong to do it, but she was asking for it by not wearing any clothes, so she has no right to complain”? That really is the attitude that you’re implying, here – that social standards can’t change without all parties involved consequently accepting that individual behavior is permitted to get proportionately worse.
When I belonged to an iron gym, the ethics of the place specifically discouraged overt staring, and it was thoroughly co-ed.
Thanks for that comment and the phrase “the ethics of the place,” because it encapsulates my argument nicely. If you recognized that there was a place-specific ethics for your gym, why do you seem to have such a hard time recognizing that there’s a place-specific ethics for comic conventions? If women had the right to expect their male counterparts to moderate behavior in the environment of your gym, why on Earth are you boiling down the other case to “boys will be boys, and she should know that”?
I don’t recall that I made any judgment about how the men acted at all, other than saying that if it was harassment, then it was inexcusable. I was writing about Mandy, Mandy alone, and her indignant rant in outrage upon being treated like a piece of meat by pigs when she dressed like a sexual fantasy figure (a.k.a. “a piece of meat”) know that she was going to encounter a critical mass of people with poor impulse controls (a.k.a. pigs, given the surroundings, that would behave exactly as they behaved. Meanwhile…
1. “Presumably Ms. Caruso went to Comic Con dressed as The Black Cat because she’s used to it being a place where she can dress as her favorite characters and be treated by her fellows as a human being in a cool costume, rather than as an object.” You do not dress like a blatant sex object to be treated like a non-sex object. Are you serious?
2. “If Ms. Caruso had dressed as The Black Cat in order to go to her local 7-11, then you might have an argument.” I see no difference at all. Are you really arguing that the fantasy-besotted male attendees of Comic Con are LESS likely to behave inappropriately than the average shopper?
3. That standards of dress are different does not suspend the hormonal messages that certain forms of dress convey, and Mandy was, in fact, counting on that.
4. Your analogy makes no sense at all. First of all, this isn’t rape, which is a criminal act. Second, I have not, anywhere, said that the men were not responsible for their misconduct. Third, there is no way you can argue that a voluptuous woman dressing as the Black Cat by choice is anything like women being naked in an environment where that was the custom. And a man deliberately going there—accidentally? Intentionally because of the nudity? Your parties are mixed up, intent is confused—the analogy is hopeless.
Here’s the analogy I compare it to, a story I’ve written about here before. I had a young intern from the midwest, who arrived on her first day at work in tears, saying that people in DC were so rude. She said drivers were honking at her on the street, and construction workers said horrible, sexually charged things to her as she passed by. The young woman had long flaming red hair, was drop-dead beautiful, wearing 4 inch heels and a tight, green knit dress that stopped well above the knee, and she was built like, oh, Scarlet Johannson. She would have stopped traffic in overalls, but in that getup, wow. “Uh,” I said, “They shouldn’t have acted like that, but look—you are very attractive, and that outfit just isn’t appropriate for you to wear to work or on a city street. And you will get some jerks who react badly if you do.”
Ok. Then what if she does the same thing the next day? (She didn’t.) Is she right to author a blistering blog post about how disgusting the men are and how humiliated she was?
“Thanks for that comment and the phrase “the ethics of the place,” because it encapsulates my argument nicely. If you recognized that there was a place-specific ethics for your gym, why do you seem to have such a hard time recognizing that there’s a place-specific ethics for comic conventions?”
Because obviously, Mandy wasn’t within the usual range of expected appearances. Why was she being interviewed? She stood out. She intended to stand out. Hollywood-level beauty is very, very rare, you know. I’m in show business, and I’ve seen truly breath-taking women only a few times. Mandy is unusual, knows it, and knows how she can affect people, especially men. And she knows the form that affect might take.
Brace yourself; this is 1700 words long.
1. You do not dress like a blatant sex object to be treated like a non-sex object. Are you serious?
Are you serious? She didn’t dress as a character from her favorite pornography; she dressed as a comic book superhero. Characterizing that as a blatant sex object is your judgment. It doesn’t have to be hers, nor that of the majority of people in attendance. I’m no comic book expert, but I’m fairly certain that the character has other features, including personality and biography, which preclude her from being reduced to just “sex object.” Some people consider Ellen Ripley a sex object. I hardly think that by dressing like her at Comic Con, a woman invites sexual harassment. Mary Ann Summers is almost certainly a “blatant sex object,” but the same argument applies. If a woman goes to a Gilligan’s Island convention dressed in short shorts and pigtails and a man asks her to spank him, and generally tries to publicly humiliate her, I don’t think she’s barred from complaining about it.
2. Are you really arguing that the fantasy-besotted male attendees of Comic Con are LESS likely to behave inappropriately than the average shopper?
Yes. Being “fantasy-besotted” in the context we’re discussing also means they know what to expect. No one’s being caught off guard by the visibility of a little extra skin, so they should be adequately prepared to exhibit a little more self control. And indeed, the testimony offered by Barry above, by Ms. Caruso in her post, and by people I’ve known who have attended similar events all suggest that attendees do just that, and that even if they aren’t downright respectful, they don’t openly harass. The fact that you’ve judged male “nerds” as incapable of self-control is apparently foundational to your argument, but it’s also something that you invented as a matter of intuition.
3. That standards of dress are different does not suspend the hormonal messages that certain forms of dress convey, and Mandy was, in fact, counting on that.
This is an appalling trend in your posts, Jack. Whatever ethical and legal expertise you have, it doesn’t make you a psychic. You don’t get to pronounce upon what somebody else’s intentions or private thoughts were unless you have damn good evidence. I know it helps to justify your intuitions if you imagine you have a complete picture of the inner lives of the people you criticize, but that isn’t rational. Since your claim about what she was “counting on” is unprovable, except by Ms. Caruso herself, maybe you should leave it out of your ethical analysis.
Not that it matters, because even if she was counting on men being aroused at the sight of her, that doesn’t mean that she was counting on being accosted by someone demanding that she spank him and talk openly to him about her breasts. Can you honestly not see the difference between expecting attention and expecting degradation? No matter how many times it’s brought up, you persist in avoiding that issue – that this woman wasn’t crying foul because men were looking at her like a piece of meat, but because they were actually treating her like one.
4. Your analogy makes no sense at all. First of all, this isn’t rape, which is a criminal act.
I never said that the case at hand was rape. That’s why it’s an analogy. That’s also why it’s hyperbole, which I acknowledged at the outset. But it makes perfect sense in that context.
I’m not a lawyer, but then I was under the impression that this was an ethics blog, not a legal one. Still, I thought that harassment was a criminal act under some circumstances. In any event, I’m sure this case wouldn’t present those circumstances, but I don’t really care, because I’m comparing the situations on point of ethics alone. I don’t happen to think that inexcusable acts have to also be illegal for all people to retain a natural right to complain about those acts.
Second, I have not, anywhere, said that the men were not responsible for their misconduct.
I didn’t suggest that that was something you had said. I suggested your response as: “he was clearly wrong to do it, but she was asking for it by not wearing any clothes, so she has no right to complain.” And I stand by that. Just as holding the perpetrator of an unethical act responsible doesn’t excuse others from culpability, neither does blaming the right party excuse one’s decision to simultaneously blame the victim.
Third, there is no way you can argue that a voluptuous woman dressing as the Black Cat by choice is anything like women being naked in an environment where that was the custom.
Sure I can. Dressing as fictional characters is custom as Comic Con. The naked woman in a tribal society is naked by choice; it just so happens that another choice would be bizarre in that context. The difference with Comic Con is that dressing provocatively or modestly are both equally acceptable and familiar options. Again, you’re leveraging mainstream standards into a specific social context by privileging the choice of modesty over the choice of cosplay. The environment demands recognition of both of these things as customary, and thus as requiring respectful treatment. It’s never been unreasonable to expect that of the other attendees. Why was it unreasonable to expect it of the men who harassed her?
And a man deliberately going there—accidentally? Intentionally because of the nudity? Your parties are mixed up, intent is confused—the analogy is hopeless.
Yeah, I don’t really see where you’re coming from. If I left open questions in the story, it’s because I don’t have all the relevant details from what I’m comparing it to. I don’t know what the intent was on the part of the interviewers who treated Ms. Caruso as they did. Maybe they were Comic Con regulars, or maybe they saw a half-naked tribe of women and followed it onto its home turf. These things would clarify why they should be criticized for their actions, but they wouldn’t change the fact that they should be. Is it that important why the white rapist ended up on the tribal island, once he’s committed rape? It hardly makes the analogy fall apart. But I never denied the hyperbole.
Your analogy about your former intern is the hopeless one, and I can’t believe that you can’t see that. She wore provocative clothing in an unfamiliar environment and was upset by behavior that was unusual in her experience, but normal in the social context that she found herself in. That’s essentially the opposite of the situation faced by Mandy Caruso, who had (I presume based on her familiar phrasing) been to Comic Con in cosplay outfits in previous years and reported this incident as being her “first truly skeezy experience.”
In the situation that you described, fine, maybe the woman has to bend to the unfair demands of the male-dominated environment around her. But that’s not the case at Comic Con. Going there in a form-fitting cat suit should be like going back to the Midwest for the woman in your story, because it’s an environment where people see such things year after year and ought to know better than to take it as a rare invitation to wolf whistles and horribly crass candor.
Ok. Then what if she does the same thing the next day? (She didn’t.) Is she right to author a blistering blog post about how disgusting the men are and how humiliated she was?
Again, this is not at all the situation at hand. The relevant hypothetical would be, what if your intern wore a miniskirt and high heels to work every day without incident, and then one day a group of men with a video camera asked to interview her about, say, fashion, and the interviewer proceeded to ask her about her cup size and present his rear end to her? Is she then wrong to go home that evening and write a blistering blog post about how humiliated she was? Was she asking for it because, even though she was used to generally being treated with respect, she had, after all, made the choice to dress in a way that male hormones respond to?
Because obviously, Mandy wasn’t within the usual range of expected appearances.
Yes, she was. Here is just one random photo gallery of cosplayers from New York Comic Con:
http://collider.com/cosplay-new-york-comic-con-images/203247/
If you scroll a while you’ll see on the women a number of bare midriffs, some stockings without skirts, and a multitude of skin-tight costumes. Some of them intentionally amp up the sexuality, but by and large the word of the day seems to be “accuracy,” and from what I can see of Ms. Caruso’s costume, it was appropriate to the character that she was trying to depict.
Why was she being interviewed? She stood out. She intended to stand out.
You’re blatantly begging the question. You’re saying that they interviewed her because she “wasn’t within the usual range of expected appearances,” and your evidence for this is that they interviewed her. Which is also your evidence that she wanted to be interviewed for that very reason, so you’re begging the question twice in one breath.
Obviously these particular interviewers focused on her because they found her sexually desirable. That doesn’t mean that nobody could have possibly interviewed her for another reason, such as because her costume was good, or because they happened to be fans of that particular D.C. comic book. Considering that she says she identified herself to the interviewers as “Mandy, aka Felicia Hardy, aka Black Cat,” it seems pretty clear that she wanted attention for being a character and a designer, not for being a sexpot. Everybody who dresses up, be it in costume or formal wear, intends to stand out. That doesn’t mean the woman who attends the ball in the prettiest gown is inviting the greatest amount of sexual degradation.
Hollywood-level beauty is very, very rare, you know. I’m in show business, and I’ve seen truly breath-taking women only a few times. Mandy is unusual, knows it, and knows how she can affect people, especially men. And she knows the form that affect might take.
So in other words, unlike the other women in that photo gallery, who are also dressing in tight clothing in the same social circumstances, Ms. Caruso doesn’t get to complain because she’s doing it while being exceptionally beautiful and well-endowed. I’m sure she’ll be happy to know that.
Yup, you’re right. Too long to respond to in the detail that it deserves. But we disagree on some kep points, and on others you’re fudging. For example:
* The analogy with the intern story was if she wore the same outfit a second time, when she WAS familiar with the environment.
* I still don’t understand the points of reference in your analogy. It isn’t the legality, for example, that makes rape a bad comp—it’s materially different, which is why its a serious crime.
* The fact that I can’t read minds doesn’t bar me from making a reasonable assumption from the fact that the woman is a designer, and her appearances at Comic Con are to promote her business. Want to bet whether her costs are deducted a s business expenses, Ed? Often I have to make educated guesses about the motivations of someone.
* You seem to be under the misapprehension that all rules of human nature and civilization are suspended at Comic Con. A sexy outfit is a sexy outfit. A sexy outfit on a very attractive woman is sending the same message at the convention as it sends anywhere else.
* Comic book super-characters are drawn to be sexually provocative. They are as much sex objects as Barbie and Jessica Rabbit. Someone who dresses like one cannot claim otherwise. Especially someone who look like Mandy.
*Did she expect to be harrassed? (I’d call it harrassment.) Who knows? Did she have to know it was a real possibility, dressing like that? Absolutely.
* Is your objection to “blaming the victim” a rule of etiquette, or do you really believe that victims shouldn’t be blamed? If a small man walks alone late at night through Central Park carrying bags of money with dollar signs on them, and gets robbed, it it fair for him to write a letter to the Times, damning the City for being unsafe for people carrying obvious riches alone at night? Would you be similarly outraged if I wrote—and I would–that he is the last person that I want to hear making that argument?
But Mandy WAS familiar with the environment – she’s clearly been to cons a bunch of times in the past — and so knew that the harassment she objected to was NOT the typical treatment she gets. Your analogy is entirely counter to the facts of Mandy’s story.
* * *
Here’s the main reason I find your approach to this so unethical (apart from your dishonesty about what Mandy said) – if everyone took the attitude you do, the effect would be to protect and encourage sexual harassers at cons.
We can take two attitudes to stories like Mandy’s.
1) We could say – as you do – that she should have known better, than to be in an attractive woman dressed like that in “an audience primarily made up of socially inept, hormonally unfulfilled young men.” If a woman like that complains about being subjected to sexual harassment, the proper response, according to you, is to criticize the woman and suggest that she had no right to complain or be indigent.
If your attitude becomes widespread, what will the result be? Young women like Mandy (or other women watching Mandy’s example) will learn that if they’re harassed, they’d better shut up about it, because if they complain then people like you will leap forward to judge and criticize them. Their choices are either to live with being harassed, or to not dare to dress in any way that makes them stand out as a potential target.
And of course, the more women feel that they can’t complain about being harassed, the more empowered harassers will feel to pick on women.
2) Or we could say that there’s nothing about wearing cosplay to a convention that makes one a legitimate target of sexual harassment. We could assure women (and men) that if they’re harassed, they should report it early and often, and we won’t sneer at them or suggest they were asking to be harassed or share responsibility for other people’s choices to treat them badly. We could say that when harassers bother women (or men) at cons, the proper response is to condemn the harassers, sneer at them, write posts about what jerks they are, and generally do all we can to make such behavior unwelcome.
If more people react like that, then people who are harassed at cons are more likely to feel empowered to talk back. And people who are harassers are less likely to feel empowered, and less likely to feel that it’s safe to commit sexual harassment.
I think that your behavior – together with the too-many-others who respond similarly to how you have — is contributing to making the world uglier, to making those who are harassed feel more judged and sneered at, and to making it safer for sexual harassers to operate. For that reason, I urge you (and others) to change your attitude.
The analogy with the intern story was if she wore the same outfit a second time, when she WAS familiar with the environment.
It was obvious that in your analogy, she wasn’t familiar with the environment the first time. Otherwise why would you have had to explain to her that she can’t dress in D.C. the way she did in the Midwest? That’s a substantial difference from the matter at hand. Caruso wasn’t faced with something that had happened a second time under similar circumstances. She was faced with something that was unprecedented in her experience.
The fact that I can’t read minds doesn’t bar me from making a reasonable assumption from the fact that the woman is a designer, and her appearances at Comic Con are to promote her business.
True. At the same time, making reasonable assumptions doesn’t excuse you ignoring the woman’s personal testimony. Promoting her business is not the same as promoting herself as a sex object. Are you suggesting that so long as she designs revealing costumes, she can’t reasonably expect to promote that business without being aggressively harassed? If she doesn’t want to spank passersby and broadcast her measurements, she can just pick a different livelihood, right?
Want to bet whether her costs are deducted a s business expenses, Ed?
How on Earth is that relevant?
You seem to be under the misapprehension that all rules of human nature and civilization are suspended at Comic Con. A sexy outfit is a sexy outfit. A sexy outfit on a very attractive woman is sending the same message at the convention as it sends anywhere else.
No, Jack, YOU seem to be under the misapprehension that all rules of civilization are suspended at Comic Con. I’m operating under the assumption that societies, even temporary societies, set their own rules of behavior, and that sometimes when sexuality is more prominently on display, rules of self-restraint need to be enhanced. From what I understand, in a strip club it’s customary for women to take off their clothing, but outside of the rules of the place for men to grope them. It would seem ridiculous to me if someone were to claim that a woman in that setting isn’t allowed to be upset if a man can’t keep his hands to himself. He should know going into it that he has to put forth greater efforts of self-restraint, and it’s reasonable of her to expect that.
Let’s take a broader example as a pertinent analogy. If the world works the way you’re suggesting it does – that self-control has to be expected to diminish as standards loosen – then presumably we would have seen a dramatic increase in outright sexual harassment of women since the 1960s, as things like miniskirts began to come into style.
In fact, the opposite has been the case. Chauvinist attitudes have become less socially acceptable at the same time that standards of female dress loosened, presumably because that loosening of standards was accompanied by social pressures encouraging women to speak out against harassment, and discouraging men from engaging in it in the first place. I surmise that there was a cyclical relationship between the two trends, such that as women had freer choices of clothing, male harassment was suppressed, in turn making women more comfortable in making the choice to wear more revealing clothing.
As Barry very rightly pointed out (though more tactfully than I’m about to), your perspective on this threatens to move society back towards a time when men could slap their secretaries asses, secure in the knowledge that the women won’t say anything about it, or that if they do, the general response will be, “Well sure he did, toots; with those assets can you blame him?”
Comic book super-characters are drawn to be sexually provocative. They are as much sex objects as Barbie and Jessica Rabbit. Someone who dresses like one cannot claim otherwise. Especially someone who look like Mandy.
Nobody did claim otherwise! Are you kidding me? The fact that they are drawn to be sexually provocative doesn’t mean that there can be no other legitimate reasons for dressing as them. And if the problem is the way female superheroes are traditionally depicted, take that up with the male artists in the comic book industry. If Mandy doesn’t want to be demeaned, who the hell would you suggest she dress up as? A Power Puff Girl? The Pink Ranger?
How many different ways does this have to be repeated to you for you to acknowledge it? Here it is with the subject first: Mandy did not object to being looked at as an object of sexual desire. Now object first: Being looked at as an object of sexual desire was not what Mandy objected to. Here it is in Yoda-grammar: Object to being looked at as an object of sexual desire, Mandy did not. Here it is as a rhetorical question: Did Mandy object to being looked at as an object of sexual desire? No!
Get that through your head, Jack. The woman was leered at by other various men at the convention, and she didn’t speak out against that because while not ideal to her, it was within the confines of acceptable behavior. What she objected to was being asked for an interview, ostensibly about the convention, and having a man thrust his posterior towards her, demand more than once that she slap it, then badger her to publicly announce the size of her breasts.
The issue here isn’t that she expected nobody would think of her costume as hot. It’s that she expected everybody, especially professional interviewers, to avoid acting in a disgusting manner towards her in circumstances where wearing such a costume was recognized practice. And she was absolutely right to expect that.
Did she expect to be harrassed? (I’d call it harrassment.) Who knows? Did she have to know it was a real possibility, dressing like that? Absolutely.
A woman knows it’s a real possibility that she’ll be harassed if she simply goes out for a jog. Does that mean that she has no right to complain about piggish behavior when she encounters it? What if she wears a short skirt or a low cut dress? Exactly how modest does a woman’s attire have to be in order for her to secure her rights to rebuke a man when he walks up to her and says, “Oh yeah, spank me, baby; I’ve been bad! And how big are those big titties of yours?”
Please, Jack, I’m sure the women of America would be eager to have your ethical pronouncement on this.
Marvel.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist. Really good post, though. 🙂
Ah, of course. I’m no comic book afficionado, but I’ve had good friends who were, so I should have known better. Sorry ’bout that. And thanks.
Once again, a rude wag who thinks a screen name of “Anon” and an email address at “shittyideas.com will get a comment through here weighed in without the courtesy of following (or reading?) the comment guidelines. No great loss, as the high point of his considered critique was, and I quote,
” I hope YOU are sexually assaulted so we can all say, you asked for it. If you would stop wearing your bow tie and button up shirt, maybe the guy wouldn’t have wanted to fuck you in the ass…”
This blog really is moderated, and I don’t ask much. Just a name (for me, hopeful for everyone else), and valid way to reach you off-site. The requirement seems to separate the real jerks from those seriously interested in enlightening the rest of us. It worked in this case, anyway.
You DO attract some posters, don’t you, Jack? I’m glad to know I’m not the worst of them!
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Wow. There is so much wrong with your discussion here that I don’t actually know where to start. Let’s start with: A woman is never, ever “estopped” from complaining about inappropriate attention from males. And the attention Mandy Caruso received WAS inappropriate.
Let’s then continue on with: the entirety of your argument is premised on your viewpoint, which is that a woman doesn’t have just as much right as a man to go to and enjoy a comic con dressed as a favorite character and not be harassed for it. And/or that the only reason a woman would dress as a character who happens to wear some sort of revealing outfit is to tease men or flaunt her body at them.
Given that those views/assumptions are just plain wrong, the rest of your argument is invalid. I suggest you re-think it after realigning your parameters to “woman have equal rights to attend and enjoy things they like without being harassed for it, and to dress as favorite characters without being harassed for it” and go from there.
Also, to turn the tables: as a woman, I’ve seen attractive guys in revealing costumes at a con (e.g. a shirtless costume or tight clothes on an attractive physique, or what-have-you). I’ve complimented many costumes, but have never once made an inappropriate comment to someone. It’s completely possible to treat people with manners and respect no matter what they are wearing.
FYI, I found this piece because I was searching for something related to the piece I just wrote on a more recent instance of convention harassment, which linked back to this instance of harassment. And although I’m not doing this to promote my own piece (merely because I’ve already written on the subject at length in my column), I suggest giving the piece a read if you’d like another perspective: http://www.comicmix.com/columns/2013/04/23/emily-s-whitten-this-makes-me-so-mad/
I’d also suggest this piece that I wrote regarding exactly what might be going through a woman’s mind when she cosplays. It’s not what you think.
http://www.comicmix.com/columns/2012/06/26/emily-s-whitten-women-costuming/
I hope that looking at this from another angle gives you some insight into this issue.
Baloney. If a woman intentionally dresses so as to send the message “look at my body in a sexual way,’ she cannot complain—she IS estopped—-from complaining that men looked at her body in a sexual way. That doesn’t mean that the guys are excused from being jerks…just that she knew they would be jerks if she dressed like that, and did so anyway, and wants us to believed she was shocked, hurt and surprised.
“Let me stipulate that nothing a woman may do, say or wear excuses rudeness, crudeness, disrespectful comments, sexual harassment, sexual assault or abuse, including, of course, rape. This is unequivocal.” That was how the post began, and I stand by it. But “The Black Cat” dressed like a porn star among a hoard of nerds and wants us to feel sorry for her. It makes as much sense as dressing like pork chop and jumping into a kennel. I’m not excusing the men. I’m saying she is a jerk as well. And she is.
Emily, thanks for your comments, and for your links.
Jack:
Nothing in her post can be reasonably interpreted as saying that she objects to men (or women) looking at her and finding her hot. You’re making that up out of whole cloth. This has been pointed out to you a half-dozen times in this thread.
What she was objecting to was someone attempting to humiliate her in public and actively treat her badly. That you’ve repeatedly misrepresented this shows that you’re aware of how weak your argument is; people with strong arguments don’t need to dissemble the way you have in this thread.
She didn’t know that. Unlike you, Mandy is basing her expectations on actual experience, not stereotypes. She knows from direct knowledge, and from talking to other cosplayers, that being treated the way she was treated is in fact unusual. It happens sometimes (out of dozens and dozens of cons, some of which will have hundreds or thousands of cosplayers attending), but it’s not an everyday or expected occurrence.
Looking at one of the links Emily provided, we can see that a group of cosplayers dressed as Laura Croft got the same treatment from a videographer. Notice that 1) The costumes they were wearing were all quite tame compared to the Black Cat; this really isn’t about how much skin they’re showing. 2) The con organizers didn’t think it was common or acceptable behavior, and that person isn’t welcome at their con anymore. 3) The cosplayers involved clearly didn’t think from their experiences that this sort of harassment is expected or common.
Wow, Jack. Why not just say “she deserved what she got and she shouldn’t complain because she was dressed like a slut?”
She wasn’t dressed as a porn star; she was dressed as Spiderman’s sometimes-girlfriend. Maybe you can’t be expected to tell the difference, but the videographer who harassed her certainly knew the difference.
That you can’t tell the difference shows that you don’t know much about comic-con culture. That’s fine; no one knows everything. The problem is, you’re insisting your stereotypes and ignorance are better than the opinion of people who aren’t ignorant.
As for your stereotypes about nerds, I’ve already pointed out that I’m not like that and neither are my friends or my readers. Since you think your stereotypes are more reliable than my reality, there’s no arguing with you on that point.
I view this is willfully disregarding what really occurred. The woman, based on her photos, is an exhibitionist. Fine, “nerds” is cheap and provocative, so you tell me what is the proper descriptive term for those who have an unusual obsession with fantasy objects of a sexual nature. Fetishists perhaps? Feeding the known fetishes of attendees at an event that caters to these fetishes and being shocked at the predictable results is not fairly described as dressing like a pork chop? White is black, day is night, and the truth hurts. I have seen this woman’s photos—she sexualizes herself, and obviously enjoys doing it. Not only that, but the bodies and costumes of super-heroines have always been designed to stimulate the sexual fantasies of the prime comic book audience, which is young males. It is dishonest to dress as one of these fantasy objects and say, “Hey, I was just playing a character! I don’t mean to arouse the feelings that the character was designed to arouse! How dare you!”
I salute you for defending a core constituency, Barry, but I think it is logical pretzel-making, and you are blaming me for stating the obvious.
Conference going males are not rottweilers. They’re humans who we expect to react appropriately and who DO react appropriately most of the time. Your comparison is ridiculous, and your attempt to beg the question with your descriptions of the attendees is horrible. The behavior here was OUTSIDE THE NORM.
It is dishonest to dress as one of these fantasy objects and say, “Hey, I was just playing a character! I don’t mean to arouse the feelings that the character was designed to arouse! How dare you!”
And again, you completely misrepresent the situation. She’s perfectly fine with arousing the feelings in guys around her. She’s not fine with being harassed and abused.
I don’t expect her to be “fine” with it, and I don’t expect her not to tell the guys acting like jerks to shut up and get lost. I also don’t expect her to act as if she wasn’t setting herself up for this with full knowledge that in that environment, inappropriate responses were a near sure thing, and she was courting them, whether she intended to or not. With this particular Black Cat, based on her web presence, I have doubts.
Look—if I take buckets of cash through Central Park at midnight,
1) I should be able to do so without being robbed
2) I should be ticked off at anyone who robs me, and
3) I have a right to complain about it after I’m robbed, and
4) there are no excuses for anyone who does rob me.
But that doesn’t change the fact that I knew, or should know, my conduct was, in that place, at that time, high risk for exactly what happened to me, and to write a blog post about how outrageous it is that a person carrying money in a bucket through Central park at midnight can’t do so without being robbed, and how this is an affront to my manhood and my citizenship, and damn it, I’m shocked and furious, is a bit much.
My position on men harassing women in general are clearly laid out here , here, and here. And I will be profoundly saddened if the Emily who resuscitated this thread is the same one whose blog post I endorsed earlier (I’m almost afraid to check—naturally, she didn’t read that post), but I see a distinction that she does not, or isn’t willing to see. Men are pigs, or too many of them at least, but taunting the pigs is as wrong as it is reckless.
*sigh*. The behavior by the guys at this con was OUTSIDE THE NORM. It seems odd to have to keep repeating that.
Are you seriously chiding me over a reply in April on a post from last October? Those brain cells died long ago. I may have to have a statute of limitations on sighs…
Oops.
I had intentionally gotten out of this thread due to the amount of anger I was feeling over it. I stopped reading replies. That left some of the notifications unread in the bowels of my email account. One of Fiach’s comments got placed in the comment notification thread of your old comment. I didn’t even notice the date. it was just an unread comment right before one of Fiach’s. I thought you’d taken up the fight again. My bad.
Let’s pretend I said “I’m 3 months late on this, but, for posterity, I just want to point out that your central park example was refuted 6 months before your comment.”
OK. I’ll take it.
Mandy ended up stirring up a good discussion, thanks to you and Barry. Never would have guessed.
Thanks for reading, Barry, and you have made excellent points here, all of which I agree with.
A major point you make that I strongly endorse is that this behavior is NOT the norm (although it’s far more prevalent than I would like). It’s clear from my own experience and that of other cosplayers that many people understand the right way to treat others, no matter what they are wearing, and that there are some who don’t, and who instead treat women in ways that make them feel uncomfortable, threatened, embarrassed, etc. Those people most certainly need to understand that they are not acting appropriately.
“But “The Black Cat” dressed like a porn star among a hoard of nerds and wants us to feel sorry for her.”
Do you even realize that you’re doing a disservice to all of the males who attend comic cons by saying this? You are essentially denigrating all of the men by a) saying that they are by default people who can’t control their actions around women or function in civilized society due to being “nerds” (and you’re also saying that excuses them from behaving with manners and respect, which is complete bull); and b) implying that because they are “nerds” they are, what, so unattractive that they’ve never encountered enough attractive women to know how to behave about them or be able to control themselves? Otherwise, I don’t know what bringing their nerdiness into things has to do with it, so I’m assuming that’s your stance. And I mean, really. I’m now offended for all of my male nerd and geek friends as well as for all women. Well done, you.
I will say this, and you can’t argue with it, because it is about me. You can’t say it’s not true, because you are not ME:
I am a woman, and I do NOT intend to go through life knowing men will act like jerks because of whatever I might be wearing, nor should I, nor is it my lot in life to do so. I have more important things to be thinking about than random people’s reactions to my attire, and more individual reasons for dressing in whatever I may wear. I do expect, AND HAVE THE RIGHT TO EXPECT, that people I meet will act like reasonable and respectful human beings and treat me like a person first, and mostly THEY DO. You know what? Sometimes they don’t. But when that happens, it is FULLY MY RIGHT to call them on it. And be correct, no matter what I am wearing. Because when people don’t treat other people well, they are WRONG. It’s really that simple.
You argue that men might look at me and think about sex. I state that whatever they may be thinking about, they have no right to SAY that to me, or to TOUCH me, without knowing me and without invitation or permission. We are not talking about whether someone is allowed to think about things. We are talking about what is appropriate to say and do: how you actually treat other people. As John Stuart Mill said, “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” Or, more succinctly: “Your liberty to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.” Men who treat women the way the women in the examples here and in my column were treated are doing them harm, and they don’t have that right.
As a follow-up to that, I have had people say inappropriate sexual things to me many times throughout the course of my adult life – when I am in casual street clothes, when I am in conservative business clothes, when I am in costume, whatever. Do you know what that says about this situation? That it is unequivocally not me, OR WHAT I AM WEARING, that is the problem. It is the men who do not understand what’s appropriate. Are you going to argue that I am always “asking for it,” by walking down the street? By taking the Metro? Because that is the logical extrapolation of your views.
When I am walking down a street and men catcall at me (one time, I had this happen when I was wearing pants, snow boots, a down coat, and a hat, and I have no idea how they could even tell I was a female!) THIS IS NOT MY FAULT. I am not “asking for it.” I do, however, then feel uncomfortable, unsafe, and threatened. And no ridiculous justification you can try to make will change that.
Now, I realize you might say, “but I’m ONLY talking about sexy con costumes.” Well fine. What does it say that I can walk around in a comic book character costume (which, by definition, is usually going to have SOME revealing aspect, because that is how the characters continue to be designed, and is another issue I’ve discussed elsewhere) all day at a crowded con, talk to many, many people, and be inappropriately touched or talked to by, say, three of them. Does it mean that those three were behaving correctly? No. It means everyone else knows how to behave, and those dudes didn’t. Again: simple.
I can tell you’ve got your heart set on being right about your views, and, well, as much as you may lose out on interactions with cool people because of your attitude, that’s your choice, so I’m not going to respond further, because I’ve more than made my points. But I will end with this:
If a woman is treated inappropriately, made to feel uncomfortable, made to feel unsafe, made to feel like less than a person, or any of the other things that might apply in this situation: she has a right to complain, absolutely. And thank EVERYTHING, you and your narrow-minded view of how women can express themselves can never stop that.
Since I said quite clearly and upfront that the harassers and jerks were not acting correctly, much of this is arguing against what I didn’t say, didn’t write, or believe. Nor did I say that she doesn’t have a right to complain. She has a right to complain, just as I have a right to state that it is faintly absurd to court inappropriate conduct in a setting where it will predictably occur and then hurl indignation to the world. If one walks into the streets of Calcutta eating a giant sandwich, none of the starving have a right to take it from you or hurl abuse your way, but for the love of God, didn’t you know that would happen? Do you really think it is appropriate to take to your blog and write about how awful those starving people were to you?
And this “I can tell you’ve got your heart set on being right about your views, and, well, as much as you may lose out on interactions with cool people because of your attitude” marks YOU as a jerk. I have no dog in this hunt—I have never harassed a woman in my life, and counsel businesses on sensible sexual harassment policies. My heart isn’t dedicated to this or any other position, and I am as neutral a party on this issue as could possibly exist. And the suggestion that I should have a different opinion because it’s “cool” is so fatuous that it has me in shock.
Since I said quite clearly and upfront that the harassers and jerks were not acting correctly, much of this is arguing against what I didn’t say, didn’t write, or believe.
You said this, and then completely removed all foundation for this in your subsequent statements. You might as well have said “There’s no excuse for commingling government with religion” and then gone on to say that when an atheist says he’s an atheist, he has no right to complain when the government treats him differently.
Nor did I say that she doesn’t have a right to complain. She has a right to complain
“But she is estopped from complaining about it.” which you cleared up with: “Estoppel means, in this context, that her conduct disqualifies her from the complaint she made in her blog post.”
You can’t have it both ways here.
I have a right to state that it is faintly absurd to court inappropriate conduct in a setting where it will predictably occur and then hurl indignation to the world.
Of course you have this right. And, still, you’re describing a fictitious scenario.
If one walks into the streets of Calcutta eating a giant sandwich, none of the starving have a right to take it from you or hurl abuse your way, but for the love of God, didn’t you know that would happen?
You just said that liking comics is like being sex starved beyond the realm of human decency. You’re not helping your case Jack. Even if a significant number of the attendees actually were like that (and again, you’ve been corrected repeatedly this is false) calling out the behavior would still be appropriate. There’s really no comparison between a starving person living in poverty in slums and someone who thinks women are just sex objects.
Even making that comparison undercuts your statement that what the guys did was wrong and inexcusable.
I am as neutral a party on this issue as could possibly exist.
She didn’t say you were biased, just that you were set in your belief. Due to your continued misrepresentation of comic conference attendees, Mandy’s situation, and Mandy’s complaint about the situation, that seems like an accurate conclusion to make. You’re complaining about Mandy for things she didn’t say about an incident in a larger situation that doesn’t exist. In your fictional world, you’re not too far off, but your continued argument that your fictional world is what occurred does suggest that you’re “set on being right about your views”.
One thing I’ve learned speaking to cosplayers, being one, and being around that lifestyle and hobby. Is that female “sexy” cosplayers (the ones that only where sexy costumes, or sexy versions of costumes) want men to think all the things they think, but they just don’t want to hear it. they want it hidden, but love knowing that every guy there wants a piece.
It’s dressing like the pretend naughty girl that they do every Halloween, only they get to do it year round.
They like the idea of turning on scores of guys, not able to touch them.
However, they hate to be reminded of why they are dressed like that. If someone vocalizes what the cosplayer is doing, the cosplayer gets offended. At first I hated that “interview” she blogged about. I thought, god what scumbags. Then I thought about it more, and I laughed.
Why? Because all those guys did, was vocalize her motivations in the most over the top, disgusting way possible. Suddenly she was reminded that she made herself an object, and all that “empowering delusion” dropped for a moment. She went through a ton of work (if she didn’t just buy the costume) to put her cans on display, and when those stupid men began putting them on display, she couldn’t take it.
Caruso framed her tits, because she wanted them to be seen. She wanted to titillate with them. “maybe she likes the character?”
1. I find it hard to believe BC is the ONLY character she likes enough to dress up.
2. Anyone can just say they like a character,
3. So what? I like a ton of characters. I don’t dress up as the ones that will garner me negative attention.
4. It’s highly convenient that her favorite character is the one that affords her a huge tit window and tight ass costume.
5. It’s mind blowing how women can look at a costume made by sexist men to sell comics to horny boys, and think “I’d love to dress like that and then hang out with those boys.”
I remember arguing with one girl who thought it was totally cool to show up in a single ribbon covering her goodies, all because a cartoon character did, and she “really liked the character,” After a back and forth, she finally admitted she choose the character because she lost weight and wanted to show off her body.
It comes down to vanity.
Another reason I hate so called “sexy cosplayers. Is that they have an out. When a sexy girl dresses in a sexy costume. There is no real stigma involved. Because as Sally from Third Rock from the Sun once said “Attractive women are accepted in more places than American Express”.
When a less attractive girl dresses up, or a guy, they are “losers, nerds, etc”.
But doing the sexy thing, allows the cosplayer to avoid scrutiny, and end up on website galleries, and garnering modelling gigs, and more disgustingly get paid.
But far worse, are all the great cosplay that goes unnoticed, in favor of expose’s on Jessica Nigri. Why? Because Nigri’s cosplay focuses on her amazing body, and little else.
These are women who would all but shun the geeky kids. These geeks would gather at cons where they can be themselves and not be judged. Now the models have invaded, and cosplay is now about how hot they are.
Now all those kids get to feel self conscious in the one place they never had to worry about that. Because of people like Caruso making cosplay about beauty.
Here’s a great write up:
“Now all this could be ignored if I could just write it off on the same ticket that we give male cosplayers and sci-fi fans an active out with, namely that it’s excusable because you’re a nerd, socially retarded and don’t know any better because you spent all your life watching Star Trek, but that’s not the case. They’re not real nerds either.
A few weeks back I was at the club and some girl is going off on what a nerd she is. What were her credentials? Playing Call of Duty and Portal nonstop. That was it. I had to point out that being a GAMER is not the same as being a nerd but she just kinda looked at me as though I told her gravity was a liquid and it tasted like gummy bears. Great dumbass, you think playing video games makes you an intellectual elite with a taste for high quality fantasy? It doesn’t.
Am I bitter? Absolutely, 100%. Why? Because as someone who grew up being ostracized for being a dork ass outsider, someone who was routinely ridiculed by girls for not liking sports and trendy music I can I.D. shallow bitches from a mile away and it pisses me the hell off to see girls who most assuredly would have been treating nerd boys like lepers in middle school now capitalizing on their attention later in life because being a nerd is cool.”
http://zacharybyronhelm.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/why-cosplay-girls-make-me-stabby/
Playing Call of Duty and Portal nonstop. That was it. I had to point out that being a GAMER is not the same as being a nerd but she just kinda looked at me as though I told her gravity was a liquid and it tasted like gummy bears.
That’s probably because that’s what that guy did. Gamer clearly falls under the nerd banner these days.
Great dumbass, you think playing video games makes you an intellectual elite with a taste for high quality fantasy? It doesn’t.
Methinks this guy is a bit overprotective of his terms. Nerd doesn’t mean intellectual elite to most people, nor does it mean a taste for high quality fantasy.
Am I bitter? Absolutely, 100%. Why? Because as someone who grew up being ostracized for being a dork ass outsider, someone who was routinely ridiculed by girls for not liking sports and trendy music I can I.D. shallow bitches from a mile away and it pisses me the hell off to see girls who most assuredly would have been treating nerd boys like lepers in middle school now capitalizing on their attention later in life because being a nerd is cool.
How can he ID shallow bitches from being socially ostracized. I don’t get it. Why is he calling them bitches? Probably because he’s a bitter misogynist.
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The overall impression I get from your comment is that you’re upset that attractive women have some advantages over you. You don’t think that’s fair. I can see you you got to misogyny a bit better now. Doesn’t change what it is.
Listen, FiachSidhe.
You cannot out-nerd-credential me. I’m a professional comic book artist, for god’s sake – it doesn’t get nerdier than that. Plus I’m hardly one of the beautiful people – all ll I need to cosplay “Comic Book Guy” from the Simpsons is a tight tee-shirt. I’ve been in con culture since I was old enough to take a train to New York. I started attending Comic-Con so long ago, it was still about comics.
So let me just say: No one has appointed you the gatekeeper of nerdom.
Dear God, man, please stop acting like you own nerd culture. You don’t. There are zillions of nerds, both male and female, who actually like women. There are zillions of nerds, both male and female, who want nerd culture to be welcoming and sunshiney, not a cramped exclusive club for a handful of people who imagine that they’re intellectual giants because they know who Stanisław Lem was.
Have you been to Comic-Con in the last decade? Yeah, a lot of people there who don’t know a thing about comics – and I don’t mean the cosplayers, I mean the cast of the Big Bang Theory. But there are also tens of thousands of genuine geeks there who are there to share their genuine delight with whatever nerdy thing floats their boat – comics, writers, artists, spec fic fans, gamers, cosplayers, filkers, tabletop gamers, whatever. And plenty of them are shy and awkward and, by the way, the overwhelming majority of the cosplayers look nothing like professional models.
Nerd culture is still there. It’s happy to embrace you and everyone else who wants to embrace it back. But if you want it to be your exclusive little club, then it’s not gonna work for you.
P.S. Yes, I know the BBT cast didn’t attend this year. But I still thought it was a decent line.
I mean, unless you’re secretly Tony Harris. In that case, I will admit that your nerd credentials outstrip my own. And maybe ask for your autograph.
Oh and girls like Nigri, actually have the audacity to open p.o. boxes to receive “gifts” from their desperate admirers. It’s disgusting, and shameless. So please tgt tell me who the victims are again?
The awesome girl-geek band “The Doubleclicks” just released their new song and video, “Nothing To Prove,” about the “you probably don’t even read the comics, do you?” attitude that is all too common.
The video features dozens of female geeks with handwritten messages, as well as a few famous geeks (both male and female).
Maybe I should have just responded to Fiach by referencing the gamer journalist who suggested Felicia Day was just a booth babe and the subsequent smackdown that occurred.
That’s an excellent example – even a woman whose commitment to nerd culture is obviously enormous gets questioned in exactly the same way Fiach questions Mandy. Apparently, some guys just can’t comprehend that a woman can be pretty AND be nerdy.
She’s hot. Who cares what she says? I’d do her again.
Thanks for sharing that insight, Matt…
Nothing woman does can ever make her worthy of direspectful comments? That’s sexism right there idiot. Mandy deserves what she gets. She chooses to play the part. Many women do and if we do we deserve exactly what we asked for.