WisCon Day 1b: Class, Fat Sex and Dishes

[bcholmes]

(Ooops. Just back from lunch, now).

Friday evening. After dinner. There was a panel I wanted to see -- a class 101 panel:

Class Basics

Of all the "isms" and oppressions in the United States, class is one of the least explored and least understood, and yet having an understanding of how class issues affect people here and around the world is vital. As with race, ability, and other issues, it is not the job of people who grew up dealing with class barriers to educate the rest of us, but sometimes we find folks who are generous enough to give their time to teaching. If you feel like you don't know enough about class, classism, and how class background and class privilege inform the world around you, come join us. Serious information, given with patience and humor.

The panel had some really great panelists: wrdnrd, Nisi Shawl, wild_irises, and Jennifer K. Stevenson.

I really liked the way wild_irises framed the conversation. She suggested that whereas race was the elephant in the room that we're not talking about, class is the issue that we don't even know enough to know that we're not talking about it.

There were some really great points of conversation that came up. In particular, I liked one audience member who talked about how different people seemed to be using "class" as a label to mean different things: how much money one has, what your parents did for a living, level of education, a set of cultural behaviours associated with family-of-origin, accent/dress, etc. And, importantly, that these differing definitions sometimes lead to people talking past one another in the conversation.

I was very sympathetic to this argument, but I think it's worth noting that lacking a vocabulary about class is not really a random happenstance. I do think that the fact that dialogue about class often comes hand-in-hand with labour awareness and/or socialism and that the U.S. has been waging a propaganda campaign against socialism for a century is something that should be put on the table.

sparkymonster made an excellent point about how we embody class -- there are markers or signifiers of class such as dress or way of speaking. It was an excellent point, delivered in Sparky's excellent way.

But I must confess that I mostly feel that the panel didn't satisfy my conversational craving. I wanted something crunchier. The discussion didn't veer off into the realm of fail, but it didn't really provide a list of definition or a framework or anything. In talking about this with wild_irises, later, she said that she didn't want a list-making panel, knowing that geeky people will spend the entire time debating the boundaries of the list. I hafta conclude that I think that she's right. I think that the panel was what was necessary in a Class Basics panel, and maybe I need to conclude that I'm not in the target audience for that panel; I hadn't been inclined to think that way before the panel, but maybe it's true.

I did get a good book recommendation: A Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby Payne. Well, actually, there was a second recommendation: Thinking Class by Joanna Kadi, but wild_irises had previously suggested it to me. I also really liked a line that one panelist (I think it was wild_irises) made. Quoting Shaw: "You're not working class; you're unsuccessful middle class."

After that panel, I followed sparkymonster to the Fat Sex panel. Because, hey, it's hard to not follow sparkymonster around.

Fat Sex -- There's More To It Than YS PLS

Only "freaky" (read: fetishists) people want to have sex with fat chicks, right? Wrong. So why are fat women so limited in their presentation? Hypersexualized or desexualized, fat women (and, very often, fat nonwomen) are given only two roles. This panel will break out of those boxes and discuss the range of sexuality and sexual presentation that we SHOULD be seeing in portrayals of fat people.

It was a fun panel, clearly interested in talking about the topic at hand while being a rollicking good time. I don't have very many notes, but I wrote two quotations:

"There are a lot of Klingons in Iowa."

In another part of the panel, Heather was talking about questioning which behaviours cross the slut line. Is it always obvious where the slut line is? And someone asked, "Is it a line you can stand in?" (There was some conversation of using the word, slut, in a pejorative sense, but the joke, here, was funny to me.)

After that panel, I was pretty beat, so I went to my room so lie down for a bit. But earlier in the day I'd volunteered to help out in the con suite at the very end of the day. So from about midnight onward, I made hot dogs and cut up pizzas and finished my volunteer shift washing a metric buttload of dishes at three in the morning. By the time I got to bed, I was beat.

Comments

[wordweaverlynn]

Those are both panels I would have loved to be on.

[jiawen]

Thank you for the write-ups! Both panels sound good.

And: it would've been nice to wash dishes with you again. :)

[wild_irises]

The Shaw quote wasn't me.

And thanks for the panel write-up. I agree, it could have been crunchier, but I'm pleased with what it was.

[wrdnrd]

it could have been crunchier, but I'm pleased with what it was.

I definitely agree. It was very rewarding to see portions of the audience light up as they worked thru' their thought processes about class. My recollection is that at least 2 people stood up and prefaced their comments with, "I've never thought about my background from this perspective before now...." After the Class 201 panel there was much conversation about the many various directions class discussions could go; i'm *really* looking forward to seeing what's proposed for next year's programming.

[wild_irises]

oliviacirce was saying after the Fanfic and Slash 201 panel that 201 panels may not be the best thing. She's advocating for specific substantive topics rather than the 201 umbrella, and I think I agree. I could tease about five of them out of the Class 201 panel ...

[wrdnrd]

I think that the panel was what was necessary in a Class Basics panel, and maybe I need to conclude that I'm not in the target audience for that panel; I hadn't been inclined to think that way before the panel, but maybe it's true.

I was, actually, (pleasantly!) surprised to see you in the audience for the Class Basics panel, because from reading your journal over the past year it seems to me that your thinking on class is well beyond the basics level.