Paul Cornell is looking for gender parity at Con panels...

[icon_uk]

From Paul Cornell's website



"Okay, so this was something I came up with yesterday, and it's mad, and is, frankly, a rod for my own back, but what the hell, it's going to make this coming year a lot more interesting.

I think there should be gender parity on every panel at every convention. I'm after 50/50, all the time. I want that in place as an expectation, as a rule. Now, to make that happen, what really should be done is a ground-up examination of society, huge changes at the heart of things which would automatically lead to women being equally represented everywhere, not just on convention panels. Well, we've all wanted that and worked for that for decades, especially those of us in fandom, and it just hasn't happened. So, this year, I've decided that I'm going to approach this problem via the only moral unit I'm in charge of: me. I'm going to approach this problem from the other end. And this approach is going to be very much that of a blunt instrument.

If I'm on, at any convention this year, a panel that doesn't have a 50/50 gender split (I'll settle for two out of five), I'll hop off that panel, and find a woman to take my place. "

There's more text at the website, but I'm impressed by his initiative.

So, thoughts people? :)


For legality, the cover to Demon Knights 7 by Mike Choi, which includes a rather impressive outfit for the Questing Queen, a little action-figure-y perhaps, but given my Saint Seiya tastes, that's not really a problem for me! :)

Comments

[donnblake]

You're raising a lot of points I hadn't considered, and I'll concede that Cornell's suggested rule is worth trying. Let me ask a question though- if we hypothesize a world where gender inequality doesn't play a role in the comic book industry (note: I am NOT, repeat NOT claiming that that world currently exists) would the rule still be worthwhile?

[valtyr]

No, I don't think the rule would be worthwhile in that case. In a world with true gender equality, panels would sometimes be all or majority male, but they would also sometimes be all or majority female. In a truly gender equality world, there would be significantly less - perhaps nothing - for which a female perspective would be more useful than a male perspective, and vice versa.