Gwendoline Christie of Star Wars, Game of Thrones, and The Hunger Games, greets fans at the 2015 Calgary Expo.
With photography and additional reporting by Corey Hales and Brett Rieger.
The Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo (CCEE) wrapped up their 10th annual show on April 19th. In many ways, the event was a resounding success – the event had 102,000 attendees in its 3.5 days (breaking the previous attendance record by 5,000), over 300 hours of programming, and such high-profile guests as Neil Patrick Harris and Gwendoline Christie. However, two weeks later, some female attendees are are still being victimized by online harassment in response to their thoughts on the event; most notably, Calgary Expo guest Anne Wheaton.
Audience members at the men of cosplay panel.
To clarify, Calgary Expo has nothing to do with this sort of behaviour – in fact, they’re trying to combat it (I’ll get to that part later). Wheaton, after attending the Calgary Expo, noted on her blog that there had been some “hurtful and harmful” people in attendance at the event, but that their presence had been handled admirably by organizers. Her blog post has attracted some hate from these people, and, as of last night, she is still being harassed and threatened on her social media accounts (I spotted some hateful comments that were posted to her Instagram as I wrote this story) in response to her blog post.
The “hurtful and harmful” people that Wheaton mentions were members of a group called Honey Badger Radio, a GamerGate-affiliate, who applied to the Expo under the name “Honey Badger Brigade”. Their radio show is broadcast by A Voice For Men, a men’s rights organization that is classed by some legal organizations as a “hate group”. The group’s leader, Paul Elam, is a rape apologist who is accused by an ex-partner of being a rapist himself. While that accusation has not yet been seen in court, it is a matter of fact that Elam has lead many members of his online brigades to attack women online under the banner of men’s rights issues. One of his main causes is that of father’s rights and childcare; a Buzzfeed exposé earlier this year noted that Elam had abandoned his own daughter.
Panelists discuss “Empowering Women in Fandom”. From L to R: Raine Giorgio, Andrea Dumma, Monica Willard, Deborah Hick.
Honey Badger Radio applied to the Expo under false pretences, violating the CCEE’s rules, and was evicted on the second day of the event. Before they were evicted, a member of the group interrupted a panel on Women in Comics with the intent of derailing the conversation away from women’s issues.
Wheaton writes on her blog that she finds their sort of behaviour unacceptable. “I took a stand against being harassed for myself and for other women online and BOY, did they come out in droves to contribute to the very problem I was pointing out.”
After removing the group on April 17th, the Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo released the following statement:
“The Calgary Expo is a positive and safe event for everyone. We have reason to believe that the Exhibitor in question does not fall in line with this mandate… so we have politely requested that they not participate in our show or future shows.We continue to build a positive and fun event for everyone. We have evidence that the group in question was actively disregarding our mandate. We support free speech – and continue to promote equality across the board. Their removal from the show had zero to do with gender, and everything to do with our show policies, which apply to all exhibitors and attendees. We are very proud of our initiative for #ExpoEquality and we wish everyone a happy, safe, and fun Expo.”
Calgary Expo’s director of Media Relations, Alex Kingcott, added in an email that “It’s safe to say we’ll do everything we can each year to ensure that the show promotes the #ExpoEquality initiatives.”
Expo attendees flock to a lit Bat-Signal, in the Agrium’s arcade.
Calgary Expo is not the only comic convention struggling with the issue of harassment. Journalist Janelle Asselin surveyed a portion of those in the comics’ community last year on their experiences with sexual harassment at conventions. Out of all respondents, 25 per cent stated that they had been harassed at a con. Of those, 8 per cent reported that they had been groped, assaulted, or raped at a convention. For perspective, if these numbers had happened at Calgary Expo, this would mean 8,000 attendees would have suffered from physical, sexual harassment or assault over the course of the weekend.
However, as noted above, Calgary Expo has been doing their best to ensure that their event is safe and equal for all attendees.
Last year, the Expo launched their “Cosplay is not Consent” campaign. The slogan was plastered all over the event, visible on posters in all buildings on the Stampede Grounds. The slogan was accompanied by a note on Emily Expo’s (CCEE’s mascot) Facebook page explaining how to avoid sexual harassment, without victim blaming. They made a point to note that the Expo community exists online all year, and that these values must be upheld year-round. Calgary Communities Against Sexual Assault (CCASA) was onsite at a table in the BMO Centre all weekend, with information on sexual harassment as well as support and counselling services.
Novelist Adam Dreece debunks the assumptions writers often make when building female characters.
This year’s Expo was filled with panels celebrating and discussing diversity and inclusivity in the entertainment industry. Panels included multiple discussions of women and feminism in comics; men of cosplay; diversity and body positivity in cosplay; a chat on GamerGate; a lesson on writing strong female characters; a discussion on empowering women in fandom; and a talk on social responsibility and feminism in pop media. There was also a gathering on Friday night that invited all women attendees and those who identify as female to mix and mingle, hosted by a local Geek Girl meetup group. One panel I particularly enjoyed was Adam Dreece’s “Things to think about when writing strong women”, in which Dreece discussed writing female, LGBT, and disabled characters, by pulling on his own experiences with the strong women in his life. The Expo struck a great balance between being a fun event to celebrate pop culture, while also allowing ample opportunities for critical thought.
Edmonton’s Sarah Beck, one of the editors of Women in Game Studies, spoke at the Women in Video Gaming panel on the problems inherent to some geeky industries and communities. “There is a continuous and ongoing harassment of women in this community … it’s crappy that we are afraid to talk about it.” Beck noted that she had previously spoken at a panel with Anita Sarkeesian, one of the women that has been most heavily targeted by GamerGate groups such as Honey Badger Radio, and that they had received a bomb threat at that panel. “I’m a feminist,” Beck added. “Women should be treated as human beings.”
Sunday Cosplay as Disney Princess Batman, showing that cosplay can and should be fun for all participants.
Throughout the weekend, I spoke to cosplayers of all ages and genders about their experiences at this year’s event, compared to past years at Calgary Expo or other conventions. Resoundingly, they told me that they felt safer this year than at any other comic event, and that they strongly appreciated the work Calgary Expo is doing to make the event safe for them. “Oh yeah, Calgary Expo’s great,” said cosplayer Dorothy Thicket. “I have had some bad experiences with some really rude people, but I have noticed that over the past few years [the convention] has been getting into “Cosplay is not Consent” and body positivity campaigns regarding cosplay. … People now know if they do something like that, everyone will judge them for it. Now that they’ve posted [these signs] everywhere, people will speak up a lot more and they know that it’s not okay”.
While some of those I spoke to experienced instances of harassment, most said that they had sensed a different, more welcoming environment since the Cosplay is not Consent initiative had launched. For my own experience as a female reporter who was alone for much of the event, I was not harassed once at the Expo, but received a catcall minutes after leaving the event on Saturday evening as I walked down a nearby street.
Of course, harassment against women isn’t just a problem for the geek community – the recent trend of #saferedmile on Twitter in response to harassment on 17th Avenue during the Flames playoffs shows that mobilization to create safe spaces is desperately needed in Calgary. Hopefully, Expo’s initiatives set a precedent that will carry over to the less geeky parts of our city.