(And yes, because I know it will be said, I know better than to go ego-surfing and link-chasing during the immediate aftermath of the ballot's release. This isn't my first rodeo. The trouble is, there's no way to make everyone else know this. I get emailed things, I get linked to things by people I trust, and while I try to be a sunshiny murder princess, I don't actually live inside a bubble of good feelings and kittens with machetes. I'm sure I could find way worse than what I encountered organically. I'm not going looking.)
Some people didn't like my nominated works; that's normal, that's okay, that's the way this is supposed to go. I assure you, the Hugo ballot is not 100% the ballot I would have designed, for me, to suit my idea of the best the genre has to offer. I think the only category that would escape my meddling completely unchanged is the Campbell, and that's just because I don't have any strong idea of who else was eligible this year. If you like 100% of this year's Hugo ballot, congratulations: you have won the genre lottery, and I do not envy you the stress of trying to decide how to vote. (And no, I'm not going to post my "in an ideal world" Hugo ballot. I have no interest in slighting the very worthy nominees who would not have been on there if some weird-ass rule had caused me to be solely responsible for selecting this year's candidates.) If you don't like what I write, that's totally cool. Vote for what you do like.
But the thing I encountered, in several places, that puzzled the living shit out of me? Was criticism of my excessive self-promotion.
Um.
Sunil helpfully went back over my blog for this past awards season, and found two posts: one summarizing my eligible works from 2012, and one saying "these are things which I have nothing to do with, but would love to see make the ballot." (Two of those things made the ballot, two of them did not.) I can't search my Twitter stream as easily, but I know I reminded people a couple of times that nominations were closing, usually by retweeting reminders made by other people. I never said "me me me nominate me me me." I did say that I really wanted to win a Hugo for fiction. I said it once. I said it with a clarifying note that I felt it was dishonest not to state my biases in that context. And that was it for my 2013 Hugo self-promotion.
I bring this up because I've seen more self-promotion—a lot more—from quite a few other authors, some of whom are on the ballot, most of whom are male. And that's fine! Self-promotion is not a sin! It's sort of our job. Word-of-mouth is awesome, and it sells books and builds fans, but that word-of-mouth begins with someone standing up and saying "I did something cool, please look at it." You should self-promote to exactly the level with which you, personally, are comfortable. If other people don't like it, they can stop following you into whatever venue you're promoting yourself in. I am not personally comfortable with excessive self-promotion, even as I find myself grateful when other people do it, because it keeps me up to date on their accomplishments. The human mind is a funny thing, and it doesn't have to make sense all the time.
But here's the thing: I have not seen charges of "excessive self-promotion" lain against any of my male counterparts. Not the ones in my weight class, not the ones above me, not the ones below me. Not the ones who self-promote ten times as much as I do. I have, however, seen the "excessive self-promotion" accusation lain against other women who make it onto award ballots. And that troubles me, because it demonstrates a gender bias that has been found in a great number of social settings and contexts.
Language Myth #6: Do Women Talk Too Much?
Click the link. Read it. And see why I get so upset when I don't self-promote much (and feel terrible about self-promoting at all, even though I recognize that it's a part of my job), yet get tarred for doing it "excessively." (And no, this is not a case of "protesting too much" or "where there's smoke, there's fire." This is a case of "I become distressed and depressed when accused of things I didn't do, especially when they're connected in any way to things which are innately difficult for me.)
These two quotes especially resonated with me:
"Teachers are often unaware of the gender distribution of talk in their classrooms. They usually consider that they give equal amounts of attention to girls and boys, and it is only when they make a tape recording that they realize that boys are dominating the interactions. Dale Spender, an Australian feminist who has been a strong advocate of female rights in this area, noted that teachers who tried to restore the balance by deliberately ‘favouring’ the girls were astounded to find that despite their efforts they continued to devote more time to the boys in their classrooms. Another study reported that a male science teacher who managed to create an atmosphere in which girls and boys contributed more equally to discussion felt that he was devoting 90 per cent of his attention to the girls. And so did his male pupils. They complained vociferously that the girls were getting too much talking time."
And...
"The talkativeness of women has been gauged in comparison not with men but with silence. Women have not been judged on the grounds of whether they talk more than men, but of whether they talk more than silent women."
I am not a silent woman. But I am not louder than the men who are in my peer group. We're all talking at about the same volume, some a little louder, some a little softer. And it would be nice if my gender would stop being the one factor that determined the worth, and appropriateness, of everything I did.
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April 12 2013, 15:46:34 UTC 4 years ago
On a slightly different note, do you have a link to your "fake geek girls" guest post? I'd love to read that.
April 12 2013, 15:50:21 UTC 4 years ago
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April 12 2013, 16:19:38 UTC 4 years ago
100% agreement from this quarter.
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April 12 2013, 16:04:14 UTC 4 years ago
Of course, the amazing thing is that you barely told anyone to nominate you and everyone still did because you're awesome.
I only saw two male authors being called out for self-promotion: Larry Correia, who was described as "embarrassing," and John Scalzi, who was...just sort of mentioned as someone who does do a lot of self-promotion but not, you know, excessively. Maybe if Scalzi had been nominated five times, there would be more vitriol abou—oh, who am I kidding, they would be congratulating him for a job well done.
April 12 2013, 16:20:08 UTC 4 years ago
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April 12 2013, 16:21:39 UTC 4 years ago
I promise to keep on keeping on if you promise to do the same.
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April 12 2013, 16:21:03 UTC 4 years ago
Gender bias is a problem in many places. I work with mostly women and you'd think that would help. It doesn't.
April 12 2013, 17:14:43 UTC 4 years ago
So someone like Seanan or Elizabeth Bear who writes a lot of fiction of all lengths can say 'this is what goes where', that's helpful to me.
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April 12 2013, 16:26:16 UTC 4 years ago
Also: 1) your self-promotion is entertaining and awesome, which is what self-promotion ought to be. 2) If not for your self-promotion, I wouldn't have found out about the Hugo Awards (and their awesome voter's packet of nominees) at all, so I am especially grateful that you DO make those posts.
April 13 2013, 01:52:42 UTC 4 years ago
April 12 2013, 16:37:00 UTC 4 years ago
The more I think about this the more I go. "ooh... never thought o' that."
This is really disturbing to my worldview and you're right.
April 13 2013, 01:53:00 UTC 4 years ago
Let's set everything on fire.
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April 13 2013, 01:53:26 UTC 4 years ago
Tweeting this ...
April 12 2013, 17:04:26 UTC 4 years ago
Sorry buddy: real blogging ain't self-promotion if you mean the term like it's a bad thing. And Seanan's is a real blog, not a long series of advertisements.
Ahem. I was just going to let you know I'd be tweeting, but I kept on getting angrier ...
April 13 2013, 01:53:52 UTC 4 years ago
April 12 2013, 17:05:57 UTC 4 years ago
Also congratulations on all the Hugo nominations despite whiners on the Internet you earned every one of them.
April 13 2013, 01:54:05 UTC 4 years ago
April 12 2013, 17:09:43 UTC 4 years ago
At any rate, I'm glad you posted this. We don't all like the same authors, but people who don't like authors who are women get gendered in their critiques, which is why this shit keeps happening.
Congrats on your nominations. I hope you win all of them. Twice. At the same time. While dancing backwards and in high heels.
April 12 2013, 18:21:18 UTC 4 years ago
Did you mean this one? My So-Called Post-Feminist Life in Arts and Letters
You gave enough info to Google it; it's both enlightening and depressing. Thanks for mentioning it.
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April 12 2013, 17:12:28 UTC 4 years ago
As you say, self-promotion is part of your job. And it is a hard part. You have to somehow praise your work without sounding arrogantly boastful. If you overcompensate, you will sound insincerely self-effacing. You have to carefully judge how much time to spend on self-promotion, because it takes time from your fiction writing. I'm amazed that you can pull it off so well.
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April 12 2013, 17:37:22 UTC 4 years ago
Which is a long way round to say that you are talented and you don't deserve the venom and it's theculture that's at fault, not you.
love
Kari
April 13 2013, 02:09:41 UTC 4 years ago
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April 12 2013, 17:40:24 UTC 4 years ago
And I was puzzled by the excessive self-promotion charge when I first heard it. As you say, you've been really quite restrained in your self-promotion. Honestly, I suspect that your encouraging people to buy a supporting membership to Worldcon if they want a say in the awards has had more impact than direct self-promotion. Not that you've been anything but restrained there - I really only can be certain that you've pointed it out at least once in the last two years because that's why Sarah and I have kept up supporting memberships since attending Reno Worldcon. At this point, I really should add that line to our next household budget revision.
April 13 2013, 02:10:49 UTC 4 years ago
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April 12 2013, 18:00:06 UTC 4 years ago
I suspect it's a gender thing, however, for the people who don't know you first as a filker. Because I know academia is the same way - guys are just networking and women are pushy or whatever. Sigh. It's so frustrating.
April 12 2013, 20:10:18 UTC 4 years ago
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April 12 2013, 18:05:18 UTC 4 years ago
No, you don't self-promote too much. You didn't do anything wrong. Except be a talented woman, but really, there's nothing wrong with that. No matter what the Neanderthals think.
April 13 2013, 00:28:08 UTC 4 years ago
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