Happy Goat Horror

Dark bleetings everyone! I thought I’d stray away from my usual list-type article today to do something a little bit different. I’ve been thinking on this topic for a while and think it’s worth a discussion. Before I proceed, I should emphasise that I’m coming from a place of only my own personal experience and I’m not trying to speak for anyone else. I’d also like to make clear that my account should not and does not discredit anyone else’s experience, should it differ from mine. And lastly, I’m going to be touching on some subject matter that might be a bit upsetting.

I’m talking about the men in the indie horror community today. Ladies, and all my LGBTQIA+ beauties, you’re a huge part of my life too, and I love you.

Before we get into what I feel it’s like to exist in such a male-dominated space, perhaps we should start with: is the horror community actually a male-dominated space? The short answer is – yes, it seems that way to me. As much as I’ll argue profusely that horror isn’t only for men and that there are plenty of women who love it and know just as much as the next dude (or more!), there is a clear imbalance.

I first realised this when I started attending conventions. At first, I ventured out to various horror cons (Walker Stalker, Horror Con UK, For the Love of Horror Con, etc), and there was a noticeable difference in the vast number of men compared to the much smaller number of women. I’ve only recently branched out into book/writing conventions, and though there does seem to be more women in attendance at these types of events than the general horror ones, I’d still guess the ratio is something like 75/25.

It’s not just in live spaces either. I launched Happy Goat Horror in August of 2022, and to date (it’s now July 2023), I have received over 100 review requests from male authors, and fewer than 20 from women. I’ve recently been involved in several anthology open sub calls and have seen a similar ratio in submissions. It’s pretty frustrating, actually, from this end of things because I’m trying my damnedest to promote everyone equally, but it’s not possible to even out the numbers if I’m not receiving the material.

Suffice to say, in my opinion, the horror world is absolutely a mostly cis-male space. So let’s get back to the original question: what’s my experience of navigating such a male-dominated arena?

Well… it’s different. Because – and it makes me both happy and sad to say this – I feel safe here. Let me explain.

The first time I remember being sexually harassed was when I was 11 and I was walking home from school (in my school uniform and was clearly very young). I walked past a building site with my cousin and we were whistled at and cat-called by a bunch of adult men. At the same age, a boy a bit older than me tried to grope me as I walked ahead of him up the stairs in school. I cried to a (male) teacher, who told me to “just not walk up the stairs in front of the boys then”. I don’t even want to talk about the language I was subjected to by my male peers through my teen years. My best friend and I used to go on an annual night out, just the two of us, and should we be approached by any guys, we’d politely tell them we had boyfriends and then move away from them. We were really careful with our drinks, and yet somehow, we got spiked once (we realised it very early and got ourselves safely home… and then proceeded to try to cook everything in the freezer, and one of us threw up in the sink. To this day, we don’t know which one of us did it).

As an adult, I worked in bars a lot. I was routinely flirted with, harassed, found and then bombarded with messages on social media, and on occasion groped. I hired an electrician once who worked at my house for two weeks and he knew I lived alone. A week after he’d finished the job, he turned up at 1am outside my house drunk, and proceeded to call and message me in excess of 30 times when I wouldn’t answer the door. He insisted that there was something between us and I should let him in so we could have a good time, despite him being married with kids and my constant request that he leave. I contacted a close male friend in a panic because I was freaking out that the guy wouldn’t just go away, and asked him if he thought I should call the police. He balked at this, told me I was overreacting, and said that I’d be a bitch to call the police because it would blow up the guy’s life, as he had a family. (No, I’m not friends with that guy anymore).

The point is, I’ve found the world annoying at best, and terrifying at worst, basically for my whole life, wherever there have been men. This isn’t because I’m some sort of model in the looks department (and even if I were, this shouldn’t give creeps license to harass me). I have an enormous moon-like head and the complexion of a corpse. It’s just because I’m female, and my life is all too similar to the lives of literally every other woman I’ve ever met. And of course, there are plenty of great guys who don’t do creepy things – I know loads of you, and I love you. I know that this isn’t all men. My brother is possibly the best human being to walk the planet, and I feel beyond lucky to have met my fiance. However, the unfortunate truth as I have experienced it, is that there are so many men who are a threat, that after decades of uncomfortable/scary incidents, my default setting is to be wary.

Except for when I’m amongst my fellow horror enthusiasts, especially the writers.

In a horror/writing convention setting where I’m surrounded by dudes, I can honestly say that I have never, not once, been made to feel uncomfortable by a man. Well, maybe that one time when someone who’ll remain nameless said they thought Alien: Covenant was good, but that’s a separate issue. I have never even so much as caught someone in this social setting looking at my boobs on the sly. I thought the first convention was a fluke, but almost a decade of cons later, I just breeze into them now without even thinking about it.

Am I telling you that I have never had an uncomfortable encounter with a man in the indie horror community? No. There was one that started off friendly enough with a text conversation, and then it escalated to intense video calls that became so frequent that my stomach would twist into knots every time my phone rang. But when I told a friend about this – a man also of this community – I wasn’t dismissed. He believed me, sympathised, and offered help.

This is a common thing, I’ve found. The men in the indie horror space, for the most part, are actually allies. Every now and then, a story surfaces about some arsehole from an indie press who’s harassing their female authors – and every time that’s happened, a large number of male authors are quick to listen to the women who were victimised and condemn the guy’s actions. Maybe I’m mistaken, but from what I’ve seen, this just doesn’t happen in any other space.

Now and then over the years, someone has expressed an interest in me. When turned down, the response has been something along the lines of “sorry if I made you uncomfortable, forget I said anything!” and then the next time I’ve seen them, they’ve been completely normal and – shock – still genuinely my friend. If you’re wondering where all the real nice guys are, it’s here. They might be sitting over here writing about people getting their heads lopped off, or crazed demons burning the world down, but don’t let that fool you into thinking they’re not absolute sweethearts.

My fiance has met my horror bestie (I don’t want to name him lest I embarrass him with praise – we’ll call him Pete), and whenever I’m getting ready to go to a convention, he asks if Pete’s going, because he said he knows Pete will keep me safe when I’m far away from home.

It’s not just the feeling of physical safety either. This is a large group of men in which I feel valued (both as a person and as a writer) and respected. I have never once had a man in the horror community ask me what my favourite film is and then when I say Aliens, either respond by quizzing me on tedious details in a bid to prove I don’t know what I’m talking about, or saying “wEll ACSHUALLY thAt’S scI-fI”.

I’ve spoken at length with my fiance about this, wondering why horror writers as a group are just different, and he offered this theory – perhaps writers (and horror fans) just have more empathy. They’re regularly in the heads of the characters they write, so maybe they just have more sympathy and understanding of the plights of others. I don’t know, but it seems like there might be some truth in that. Whatever the reason, I’m glad of it, and I’m grateful.

Is the horror community perfect? No, of course not. Are there still problems? Sure. But I honestly believe that it’s far more progressive, accepting, and respectful than any other space I exist in.

Horror is my safe place, and a huge part of that is down to the people in it.