Sexism, the current SFWA kerfuffle, and "lady authors."

You fight like a girl, McG -- and that is a good thing.

Surely only the gentlemen writers with the, you know, funny-shaped balls would object to the Spandexifying! An attractive gentleman writer surely has nothing to fear from fielding hundreds of comments a day about the shape and hang of his package.

/me turns the sarcasm back down

Thank you!

While on the one hand, I can kind of understand the impulse to say complimentary things about people who are of the gender one is attracted to (given my orientation, I find the silly voice in my head saying similar things about guys), on the other hand that's the stupid teenager voice talking, and I try very hard not to pay attention to the stupid teenager voice, or let it come out of my mouth/fingers.

Maybe when I write reviews of books I liked, I should start pointing out the "gentlemanly authors" who "turn a fine leg" and are "roguishly handsome"? See how long it is before people start accusing me (correctly) of sexism? *chuckle* No, two wrongs and all that.

Yet another reason why you are one of the most dynamic and talented writers I know. Hugs and All The Damn Support.

I, and roughly fifty percent of the world's population...

I wish I could produce statistics that showed the percentage was higher.

Aren't we 52% now? I could have sworn I read that somewhere.

Yes, I made a comment earlier this year, I think it was in relation to something about female directors in Hollywood, that referring to someone like that as "gorgeous" was kind of condescending and irrelevant.

TESTIFY, SISTER.

I quoted you in my "All of a Piece" post today, on why I want to run away and join a lesbian separatist commune and why I'm going nowhere.

Thank you for stating it so succinctly.

Very well said!

(I've read and enjoyed a fair amount of Resnick's stuff. I feel retroactively dirty)

Thank you for this post. This needs to be said and it needs to be said a lot, by as many visible authors as can say it.

I find that the older I get, the less tolerance I have for the default (straight white) male gaze in fiction. I don't have anything against men, but I want to read about more than just men. I want to read about women. I want to read about gay people. I want to read about people from various ethnic backgrounds.

As a woman, I especially want more female characters that I can look up to.

I find that as I see posts like this from various authors around the web, generally the authors speaking out about misogyny and intolerance are the ones who at least get consideration for my to-read/to-buy list. Personally, I want to support those who are trying to change the industry from within and I find that I usually enjoy the heck out of their stories.

In fact, I found you and your lovely writing via a link from Kate Elliot's blog to your post on why you won't be writing rapes for any of your characters. As a survivor myself, I try to avoid triggery things in fiction and that post let me know that I was 'safe' reading your writing. And I'm so glad it did, because now I'm totally hooked.

Anyway, this long and rambly comment is here to say that there might be backlash for speaking up. There might be that old boys' club. But there are also those of us out there who are hungry for something outside of that and posts like these let us know that we're safe reading your work. And that's a wonderful thing.

I think the whole thing went downhill the second Reznick and Malzberg thought they'd use the Bulletin as an opportunity to attack their critics. Attack, not disagree or address. Attack. And, of course, since the focus of those critiques had to do with things they said or did in previous issues, they spent most of the article completely missing the point.

I'd like to say there's a silver-lining here -- oh, yay, look, we're talking about sexism and maybe getting something done -- but I feel like we shouldn't be here in the first place. Preaching to the choir. It's a bleh moment...

In any case, thanks for your comments, Seanan. I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiments.

While I assiduously agree with every point you made, you might want to find a different comparator than ""Bob knew how to tell a good story, and he did it while packing an impressively sinuous trouser snake."

For guys (and, as one who has known a very many in my life, I'm speaking about almost every one I've ever known, including me, and guys in a general sense), the appreciation of the size of their junk has the capability to eclipse practically all their other accomplishments and rarely would they see it as an insult, even while they might intellectually know it shouldn't necessarily be their defining characteristic. I've always assumed that's one of the reasons that many men, even when it's explained to them, just don't understand why assigning a qualifier to a woman - such as gorgeous, or even "lady" in the context of the Malzburg piece - can be seen as an insult, or at the very least, not a compliment.

tl;dr - saying a guy has a nice penis would practically never be taken as an insult, IMHO.

"Sinuous" does not necessarily mean "large." (Also, it heavily implies "limp.") While an impressive degree of sinuousity would suggest a certain minimum length in relation to diameter, it could simply indicate an atypically skinny member.

I've been in a couple of situations where someone who is used to being in the majority unexpectedly finds themselves in a very small minority...

At work my cube section currently has 3 women and 1 man, and the lone man sometimes seems a bit startled when the conversation turns to stereotypical "girly" topics.

One of the things that Resnick and Malzberg, as the authors of the piece in question, objected to was that people were unhappy that they were defining their peers as "lady authors/editors" and "gorgeous." These are, after all, factual definitions! A female peer is a lady peer. A beautiful woman is a beautiful woman. Don't women like being told that they're beautiful? Aren't we supposed to be precise when we talk about people? And to this I say sure, except that your precision is unequal and belittling.
This, this, this.

And I've heard that argument lots. The thing that seems to be hard for asshats like these to understand is that complimenting a woman on her looks is reducing her to her looks. It's not even a compliment. Telling someone their features are pleasing to behold doesn't actually give them credit for anything they've done. It's a genetic accident you're complimenting. Not the individual. Which is the point.

Adding the "female" qualifier is just...ugh... Well, what you said.

First, I'd like to note that I'm the father figure to 3 girls. My mother adopted my bi-racial nieces after my sister lost custody, but I did most of the actual raising. I am very protective of them, and they are my main reason for me to get up in the morning. Once, when the oldest was in the 4th grade, I had to stop myself from going down to the school and punching a 9 year old boy who called her the N word. It is my overriding goal in life to raise them to be smart, tough, honorable people. While I despair sometimes when I see or hear them acting too much like the grouchy, smart-ass that I am, over all I think I'm doing a pretty good job.

Now that I have that out of the way, I'm going to stick my neck out here and say firstly that men have to put up with their version of this every day. They are judged, mocked, belittled, and rejected every day in just about any medium you can think of, How many tv shows depict normal men? Not sexy, dangerous, super cops or bumbling, stupid, slobs, but normal, decent, masculine men? For every normal, intelligent man character I can name you a hundred Al Bundy's or Peter Griffin's. How about commercials? Every, and I mean every, male is a fool that must be corrected by his wiser wife.

What about depictions of men of the covers of books that mainly target a female audience? Don't they tend to show men in ways that are idealized by that audience? The only dudes I know with 6pacs tend to be gym rat D bags.

And I don't care. I'm a big boy. Or maybe I'm a dinosaur (lady bad, dinosaur good?). I was raised to not sweat the small stuff, because God knows you're going to be peppered with it all day, every day. Or maybe my inner child has grown a callus.

I wouldn't talk about a female author or editor as 'Lady'. I know they wouldn't like it, and I don't like to give unwitting offense. Giving purposeful offense is another matter. I can make a grown man cry when they deserve it and have no qualms about doing so. If I'd been in charge of all this I might have handled it differently however. These are older men from an older culture. I seriously doubt they meant to be rude. Couldn't they have been taken aside and told privately that some people felt hurt by their speech? In business they teach you to praise in public, but punish in private. Sure, you pay dues to be a part of the thing, you should have a say in how it's run and who get's to be a part of it, but couldn't it have been handled a little more discreetly?

Just from a quick reading of the posts over there it feels like a parody of a diversity and anti-sexual harassment seminar from Portlandia has erupted into real life. Instead of telling the two older guys "Hey man, you don't refer to women as Lady anymore, not like that. It's kinda like calling an African-American colored", instead there seems to be howling, cries for blood, and worse of all, the forming of committees. Are people really like this? What used to an annoyance and poor taste is now deemed inexcusable evil. Seems like now every slight is a reason for the convening of the Peoples Panel for the Prevention of Outrage and a public hanging.

But Maybe I'm a dinosaur. Maybe I'm just used to hanging out with a rougher crowd whose feelings aren't so easily bruised. Maybe all those years of working for former mobsters and Hell's Angels really have done something terrible to me. Maybe the culture of public, political protest has permeated all the way down to the individual level without me noticing. Maybe I'm now a foreigner here, the boarders having moved past me unnoticed in the night. Maybe this is all just so much BS, the problem of middle class, American white women. Who knows? I'm too tired to think about it any more.

I want my nieces to grow up smart and honorable. But I also want them to grow up tough. I want them to feel like they don't have to take crap from anyone, but I don't want them to sweat the small stuff either. And I hope I didn't offend anyone here. God, it's incredibly tedious that I can't be certain any longer whether i have or not. It feels like I'm trying to re-learn a language I thought I knew, but the rules of grammar change every week.

.

I think you're missing the point a bit. They, as far as I've been able to tell, WERE called on it more privately, and chose to then print something about how they were being censored.

And, well, the authors who made the statements may be old enough that some old-fashioned attitudes can be expected, but surely there was SOMEONE between them and the thing actually being printed who was young enough to have been expected to have more modern sensibilities.

Have you seen this? This is all the things that win. Also, ridiculously illustrates the silly and belittling aspects of gendered discussion. http://rachelswirsky.com/2013/06/a-brief-survey-of-the-accomplishments-of-chappie-writers-and-editors/

Another thing that is ridiculous about all of this (apart from everything that you've said)... from my point of view as a READER, the author's appearance and (for the most part) gender are *so* irrelevant. Because I'm engaging with the creative output, the content of the author's *mind.* What's important is how the author writes, not how ze looks or how ze dresses or whatever. Sometimes even I come across an author who chooses to publish under some form of name which is non-gender-marked - for instance, by their initials - and manage NOT to have an author picture on the back flap - and it troubles me not at all that I don't know zir gender. I do not care.

Moreover, comments about attractiveness are *so* subjective, because, after all, different people find different things attractive.

To sum it all up with an example: Look, sure, I happen to think Neil Gaiman is kinda cute. But that doesn't mean it's objectively true to the whole world - and that's not why I read his books, anyway.

Great post, Seanan - keep fighting the good fight. (And writing awesome fiction too.) :)

I was waiting for you to write about this mess. You are right in the middle of it, with a bunch of friends, writing the Good Stuff.
And as a dinosaur who remembers when women used their initials so that they would get treated fairly in the SF Community (even Jo Rowling used JK and she doesn't even have a middle name), I just wish I could do more to help the women I admire so that they would feel more welcome.
I guess I'll just keep buying your books, and telling you I like what you are writing, and going to panels you are on.
Oh, and if I run into a Male Writer or panelist, giving a female panelist a bad time, I WILL speak up and ask if we can hear from the Other Panelists who are being ignored, and forced out of the conversation.
Women have Great Ideas too.
PS It was my Mother who introduced me to Science Fiction, my dad actually didn't read the stuff. Who says this has to be a male dominated genre?

Well said. Thank you for putting it so clearly. :)

I woke up thinking about this, and finally found the thought that's been eluding me.

If we judged men by their package. If we referred to male authors as "gentlemen authors," and commented first on their looks rather than their work. If we took all of Dorothy Sayers' recommendations.

It still wouldn't matter because we're still living in a goddamn patriarchy. Which is why, as a white straight male, I'm a feminist. Because the power differential requires it. And why I get pissed off at the snotty, "I'm not a feminist, I'm an egalitarian," which is fine in principle, but denies the reality of the power differential again.

People seem to have a lot of problems understanding this.

sigh

I was at a brainstorming session for con staff last night, and of course this topic came up. The con chair had been at the infamous Hugo Awards where Harlan Ellison groped Connie Willis on stage. I had a very negative experience at my first con when a drunken Steven Brust had trouble taking "NO" for an answer (I was 16). We accepted a lot of crap back then because it seemed to be part of the price we had to pay to hang out in this otherwise generally awesome community. But now we have the internet, and younger women coming into fandom, and they are saying "This is bullshit" and they are right! I have gotten so much out of fandom over the years, and I refuse to let some narrow-minded self-proclaimed gatekeepers keep peeing in my pool.

It's particularly galling when I see this crap from a group that claims to represent the professional side of the genre. We're supposed to be the dreamers, the ones who imagine how things can be better and what is possible. Inside I'm still that little girl with the telescope dreaming about the stars, so when I look down again and realize that I'm still standing knee-deep in some rather stinky mud, it feels like a betrayal. Or as UrsulaV put it "I finally got into the cool club and it's a bunch of old men yelling at clouds".

I appreciate your ability to articulate in a straighforward no nonsense way why this is bad and why we need to do something about it.

It is an unfortunate truth that not everyone dreams pretty dreams. That being said, I'm on the side of the little girl with the telescope. And the little boy. And the little person who doesn't know what gender is yet and may never figure it out.

All of them deserve a future without this crap, without their elders poisoning the atmosphere they grow up in. Will it still happen? Yes, probably, but if they can see us, the next generation fighting back against discrimination and passive hatred, they will grow up stronger and happier, and someday that will be normal.

This whole thing with R & M brought to my mind the time my wife was on a panel with Jerry Pournelle. Hell will freeze over before she goes thru that again.

Thank you for once again being so polite, articulate, and wise. I view your online presence as ranking right along Gaiman, and I look forward to all of the wonderful things you will write over time .