Sylvia has stories in Wicked Witches and Wicked Haunted, please visit her links and the bottom of the blog and visit her sites.
WIHM 2018
This year’s WIHM blog may be a bit of a downer. Or a PSA. Or
both.
When I look back on what happened to women in horror in 2017,
there’s a mixed bag of good and bag. 2017 was a great year for me. I released a
novel, was in three anthologies, and sold a short story for 2018 publication.
The coming year may suck, for all I know. This business is a roller coaster. It
always has been, and it always will be.
Women put out some killer work this year. But, to be honest,
that happens every year.
On the social end of the spectrum, there was a lot of talk
about misogyny, harassment, and assault. While in Hollywood, some casting couches
went up in flames, in the writing world, we heard some pretty fucked up stories
about stuff happening at cons and events.
I’ve heard way too many of these types of stories, recently
and not recently, from both in our little corner of the world and outside it.
So here’s my message to the other WIHM this year:
Be careful.
Predators are lurking in every industry and every walk of
life. Doesn’t matter whether you are an accountant, a writer, or an aspiring
actress. Slimeballs are everywhere. They can seem to be nice guys. They can seem
normal. They can even be altruistic. They don’t walk around wearing abuser
logos. They’re our neighbors, teachers, uncles, and coworkers. And, unfortunately,
as we saw in the news this year, they sometimes make it into positions of
power. Larry Nassar. Bill Cosby. Weinstein. Spacey. James Franco. Countless
coaches, priests, uncles, directors, teachers, agents ... you name it. UN
Peacekeepers, for fuck’s sake. The arts, however, may be particularly risky,
because we work in industries where word of mouth and connections are so
crucial to people who are struggling to make their way up the ladder. When the
people have the ability to elevate others, they have leverage. And because
leverage in the arts is not something you can easily legislate against or even
define, it becomes something we have to somehow navigate around.
If you really want to read something scary, delve into some true
stories of encounters with creeps. Many of these stories would fit perfectly
into horror novels. Jack Ketchum’s Girl
Next Door is another example of this. I didn’t make it through either the
book or movie on my first attempts. The night he died, I gave it another shot.
This time –perhaps because I was prepared—I made it through, and was struck by both
his talent and also by how he framed power as a catalyst for horrific abuse. It
took serious chops to tell a story that brutal without sinking into torture
porn. But Girl Next Door wasn’t just disturbing
because of the story it told. The truly horrific thing about it was the fact
that it was based on truth.
Reality is often much more terrifying than fiction.
This may be our blind spot.
We painstakingly consider every tiny detail of the fictional
monsters we create. And yet sometimes we are oblivious to those same
characteristics when they are present in our communities. We are so busy
creating imaginary monsters that we don’t always see the real ones in our
midst.
In reality, pepper spray and self-defense classes are a lot
more useful than an ancient cursed sword.
In reality, the serial killer is always the nice guy that no
one suspects.
In reality, we sometimes put monsters on pedestals. Who
among us didn’t adore Bill Cosby as a kid?
So here comes the PSA part of this post:
Stay vigilant. Always follow basic precautions, whether you
are at a con, reading, bar, mall, store, or party. Never accept an opened drink
or leave your drink unattended. Don’t drink more than you can handle. Stay near
trusted friends. Don’t walk alone at night. Take self-defense classes. (Bonus:
this will also likely come in handy for your writing some day.) Carry pepper
spray. Or a knife. Or a flamethrower. If you wear skimpy clothes, be extra
vigilant. Not because you are asking for attention, but because there are men
out there who see it that way, and a dark parking lot is not the place to debate
that. Get a dog. Lock your doors. Avoid sticky situations and nope the hell out
of anything that seems even slightly off. Watch out for each other. Don’t end
up in a situation where you are alone with strange men. And when you go to or
leave an event, con, retreat, bar, concert, store, or restaurant, watch out for
creepers sitting two tables over, as well as ones in the parking lot.
That little warning bell that sometimes dings in our heads when
something seems a little off? Ignore it at your own peril.
This doesn’t just apply to meat-space interactions: you also
have to watch out for publishers and agents who will prey on you in other ways,
through terrible contracts and shady business practices. It’s always great to
get that shiny acceptance. But don’t let your joy blind you into signing a bad
contract.
We are often told to make our villains likeable, to make
them human. As writers, we hear time and again that even the most despicable antagonists
should have good qualities. Shades of grey. As writers and artists, it’s our
job to tell the story of our society, even if those stories are draped in
fictional lands and haunted by ghosts and demons. We have this amazing/crazy
ability to create—and kill—fictionalized versions of our monsters and demons. I
hope that this year the women in horror create some truly horrific beasts, both
human and inhuman. But as we are doing that, let’s not forget to watch for the
real ones.
Ladies: have fun, stay vigilant, and keep kicking ass.
Morgan Sylvia
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