Women in Horror Month
I have been participating in, and interested in, Women in
Horror Month since I learned of its existence, in 2014.
My first experience in WIHM was interesting. During a thread
that I was following, there was a guy named Scott Lefavre, who saw an image
that was for Women in Horror Month with red lips and the logo, and a tongue. He
claimed it was the official picture for the month (it wasn’t) and that it was
sexual in nature. So I hopped in, thinking that he meant well as he dug deeper
into the hole he was making, and tried to help him explain what he meant. Turns
out he meant that women’s mouths were better suited to sex stuff and that the
red lips were suggestive of that and it was just a crash and burn that blew up
in my face. When I realized what he was REALLY saying, to me at that point,
about red lips and vagina dentata and more weirdness, the whole thing blew up
and FaceBook was flooded with profile pictures of lips in bright red lipstick.
Mine was my husband wearing it in support. So, that was year one for me, in a
nutshell.
Year two for me for Women in Horror Month began in a group
for New England Horror Writers. Rod Labbe asked if there were any horror
writers in Maine. Someone mentioned the trio of us that make my Writer’s group.
He dismissed us as not real writers. I ignored it. Then he posted, publicly, on
Facebook a continuation of that initial conversation. The thing was, that the
beginning in the private group, was unknown to most that saw it. I copied his
post, or maybe screen shotted it, and posted it to my own page and said ‘If you
want to be friends with him, whatever, but this is what he is posting about my
friends and I and I have blocked him.” So that was another big boom. And,
again, the majority of the damning (for the other person) conversation was
between myself and them. At one point, he classified women horror writers as
hags. He condemned library readings and tables for book sales on lawns. Those
were things that our group had advertised as they happened, and to my knowledge
we were the only ones that mentioned tables on the lawn, because there is a big
festival in our town and one of the members lives right on the street where
most of the events take place. I think it was in the part I posted on Fb. Soon,
once again because I have amazing people in my life, pictures of Hags in all
forms were profile pictures. The posts about hags were everywhere and Haggate
was a thing. I coined the phrase Resting Hag Face (which I am so proud of.) and
made it a hashtag.
I was primed and
ready for Year Three to involve some stupid person and a bunch of drama, but it
passed quietly and peacefully.
I ADORE our community, and how they stand up for what is
right, and when one or several of us are attacked, they DO NOT stand by and
watch. Horror writers are some of the nicest people I have ever met.
Having said that, I am interested to see what this year
brings. I will not be bringing national politics into this, except to say that
the political climate is restless and in some ways aggressive and I think that
there is an attitude that anything can be said, no matter how hateful, and that
the attitude by many is that it is encouraged. So, given all that, and several governmental
policy changes, this current time is, in and of itself, horrific for women (and
for SO many others for SO many reasons. I am not discounting you, nor
forgetting you) But I have seen my Horror friends do what they do best. Rally
for what is right. And should there be some sort of ridiculousness within the
confines of Women In Horror Month, I know that we will unite once again. And,
hey. Maybe we’ll get some new hashtags and some new profile pictures for the
month, too.
April Hawks lives in Maine with her four boys and her
husband, all avid supporters of her writing (even though the younger three
aren’t yet allowed to read most of it) Her blog can be found at www.aprilhawks.com and her email is april.hawks@yahoo.com She has been
published by Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing, Great Old Ones Publishing,
has appeared on The Taco Society Presents, and is co founder of Tuesday Mayhem
Society, a writing group that usually, now, meets on any day but Tuesday. She has permanent Resting
Hag Face.
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