That's a pity about the panel. I think it is a good sign that the organisers of Sci-Fi conventions increasingly consider it important to address gender issues through their panels, but I've seen a similar example of it not working out very well in practice myself. A couple of years ago I went to a convention which featured a panel on the subject of "Why aren't more women into Sci-Fi?", where it felt to me that the predominant belief in the room was that women are just silly for not realising how great Sci-Fi is and how much it has to offer them. No-one seemed prepared to voice what I felt was the real problem - viz. that Sci-Fi has a 100-year history of being written and produced in a way that is largely alienating to a female audience, so it's no surprise that most women feel disinclined to try leaping over that massive hurdle in an attempt to discover the stuff that isn't. Thankfully, no-one went anywhere near the subject of rape, but I can really see how that could go horribly wrong in such a situation.
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That's a pity about the panel. I think it is a good sign that the organisers of Sci-Fi conventions increasingly consider it important to address gender issues through their panels, but I've seen a similar example of it not working out very well in practice myself. A couple of years ago I went to a convention which featured a panel on the subject of "Why aren't more women into Sci-Fi?", where it felt to me that the predominant belief in the room was that women are just silly for not realising how great Sci-Fi is and how much it has to offer them. No-one seemed prepared to voice what I felt was the real problem - viz. that Sci-Fi has a 100-year history of being written and produced in a way that is largely alienating to a female audience, so it's no surprise that most women feel disinclined to try leaping over that massive hurdle in an attempt to discover the stuff that isn't. Thankfully, no-one went anywhere near the subject of rape, but I can really see how that could go horribly wrong in such a situation.