Conferences, Conventions, Covid, and Persistent Sexism
Most of the coordinators of today’s big conferences and conventions in the writing world are run by volunteers, most of whom are women.
Six Reasons For Change
For years, we’ve asked volunteer coordinators to run the writing world’s big events while juggling family, career, and their own self-care.
It’s important work. It costs huge amounts of money. Publishers, editors, writers, bloggers, hotels, airlines, and fans all benefit. In fact, these stakeholders budget and plan their calendars around these events. Yet none of the work is paid.
It’s an old-school, pre-feminism example of women doing hard work for nothing. It’s professional-level work that is undervalued because it is “women’s work.” Well, women and gay men. Most con planners are women and gay men, even at conferences and conventions where panels featuring white cis-gendered hetero male writers are given top billing, and those featuring women, LBGTQ+ folks, and people of color get sidelined.
We’ve long asked for too big a sacrifice from volunteers. Since Covid, the pressure we put them under has reached a boiling point. No one in their right mind will volunteer to run a conference or convention in the future. And we shouldn’t ask them to. If we continue to want to meet friends, network, and promote our work, we are going to have to hire professionals to run the big events. Which is as it should be.
The need for change
Attendees need to be able to suggest con planners address needed changes—important things like safety and language and accessibility and fairness and pink-ghetto panels and sexist panel titles. About panels featuring LBGTQ+, authors of color, and women that are relegated to bad times or locations or are always opposite the blockbuster humorous panels.
I’m not saying all cons still do all these things. In fact, cons keep getting better and better, thanks to volunteers with broad vision and mad skills. But it is easy for con planners to get slammed and do things the same way we’ve done in the past. We’ve ALL done that.
But why do we have veggie options at banquets now? Because someone complained. Why are more cons wheel-chair accessible? Because someone complained. Why do we have pens to put pronouns on name tags? Because someone stepped up and said it made them feel welcome. Why are folks required to apologize publically for being jerks? Because they made mistakes and someone spoke up.
Why do we still have creepers and predators at cons? Because we haven’t complained enough. Why is one guy in particular who says stuff about women and minorities that NO ONE wants to hear still given a microphone? Why is he not the only one? Because we haven’t complained enough.
2. The need for feedback
We need to be able to say “this could be better” when we see it. When we think of it. Even if it is a really bad time for beleaguered planners to hear it.
As it is now, we feel bad saying anything that might indicate we expect perfection, or are dumping on volunteers who work harder than anyone else we know. When we do say “this could be better” as nicely and as kindly as we know how, we’re told we’re being ungrateful, mean, nasty, rude, bitchy, or worse. We’re told to be kind to the volunteers.
And that’s wrong. All kinds of wrong.
3. Old-School Oppression
Con planners don’t need us to “be kind.” THEY NEED TO BE PAID A FAIR WAGE for the difficult, specialized, and skilled work they do.
The fact that we don’t expect highly skilled administrators who manage very large sums of money and go through hell in normal years (let alone Covid years) to be paid is wrong. The fact that we expect it to be done in their “spare time” is wrong.
No one has that kind of spare time. It costs planners time they’ve committed to career, family, and their own self-care.
If a crisis occurs at home or these volunteers become overburdened, it’s nearly impossible to step down. The pressure is intense. But staying in volunteer jobs we can no longer do well because we’ve broken our leg, received a cancer diagnosis, or lost a loved one is killing us. Literally. And it needs to stop. Now.
4. Event Planning Requires Professional Skills
We need to hire paid professional con organizers. Experts who, through experience, have learned ways to do things quickly and efficiently. We those who, with clout from scheduling multiple cons, can demand an end to the unfair and burdensome contracts that have hog-tied committees during Covid. We need professional-level connections to assure hotel con workers are well treated and fairly paid.
We are not con planners. We are professional writers and editors and publishers and bloggers and marketing professionals. We need to do those things well, not learn, on the job, to run a con, juggling hundreds of volunteers, dozens of vendors, thousands of attendees, and millions of pricey details. We cannot do all things well. And we shouldn’t try to.
5. Cost of change and the cost of avoiding change
Will con attendance cost us more money if we hire professionals? Maybe. But could experienced professionals keep costs low? Probably. Make improvements more rapidly? Likely.
Through experience, I’ve learned that cost is always thrown up as a barrier to doing the right thing. But, in fact, doing the right thing is usually far less costly than anyone imagined.
And can we keep going as we are? I don’t think so. We’re asking for too much.
In any case, it’s time to find out. If that means that it’s time to question whether we have the money to keep cons looking the way they always have, maybe it’s time to do that, too.
6. End Sexist Oppression
Asking women to do for free what other people are paid to do is wrong. Fighting to right those wrongs represents the foundation of the women’s movement. It’s old school, but must be done.
Calling professional women bitchy for suggesting change is wrong. We are better than this, and our conferences and conventions need to be too.