Science fiction authors attack sexism amid row over SFWA magazine. SF writers' association draws stinging criticism with chainmail bikini cover and articles praising Barbie and 'lady editors'
"A growing chorus of science fiction authors have been speaking out about sexism in the genre after much-criticised recent editions of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's (SFWA) magazine, Bulletin, which featured a woman in a chainmail bikini on the cover and the claim that Barbie is a role model."
https://www.theguardian.com/...
"Is the future female? Fixing sci-fi’s women problem"
Science fiction is famously male-dominated, both in its writers and its readers. It’s also famously rubbish at offering nuanced female characters; any doubters would do well to read Liz Lutgendorff’s blistering take-down of the misogyny permeating NPR’s 100 best sci-fi and fantasy books list. That landscape is changing: more women (and, notably, women of colour) are winning prestigious awards such as the Arthur C Clarke and its US counterpart the Hugos, and there are projects such as the recent all-female edition of iconic comic 2000AD. But, there’s still a long way to go.
https://www.theguardian.com/...
"Friday essay: science fiction’s women problem:
A male dominated genre"
In recent years, the bestselling female-authored Divergent and Hunger Games series have been made into multi-million dollar movie adaptations. But women’s contribution to science fiction has historically gone unnoticed – as a look at any compilation list of the “best” science fiction books will attest.
MIT Technology Review’s Top Ten Hard Science Fiction Books of All Time includes one woman.
Forbidden Planet’s list of 50 Science Fiction Books You Must Read includes three women, with Ursula K Le Guin appearing twice (making it 92% male).
The Best Science Fiction Books website has four women in their list of 25 (84% male). And Goodreads’ Best Science Fiction list has ten women in the top 100 (making it 88% male), with Le Guin books chosen three times. (The books of Le Guin’s that appear in these lists – The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), The Dispossessed (1974), and The Lathe of Heaven (1971) – all have something very significant in common: male protagonists.)
This 2013 edition of the Bulletin of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association of America provoked an outcry from its female members. Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association of America
Seventy five per cent of science fiction writers are men. Consequently, there are not a great number of realistic or relatable female characters.
https://theconversation.com/...
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commons.m.wikimedia.org/...
Some famous Writers and misogynistic problems:
Robert Heinlein
"Why should it be a surprise that such bumbling misogyny is hidden in plain sight in one of the most popular science fiction books of the 20th century?"
The misogyny of ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ takes on new shame
A beloved sci-fi vision of the future has no empathy for women.
"NINE TIMES OUT OF TEN, IF A GIRL GETS RAPED, IT’S PARTLY HER FAULT."
(Jill Boardman, a character in Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land.)
It’s jarring when a line comes along to knock you out of that stupor. It happened recently, while I was reading Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, the Jungle-Book-but-on-Mars classic originally published in 1961. The book tells the tale of Valentine Michael Smith—a human born on Mars and raised by Martians — brought back to live on a future Earth as a young man.
Jill, a nurse who initially assumes responsibility for Mike’s care, speaks the line: “Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it’s partly her fault.” By this point in the narrative, she has become Mike’s lover, and will soon become a partner in his cultish religion-cum-philosophy. The two are discussing, albeit vaguely, what will become a prominent part of the book: non-monogamy.
https://theoutline.com/...
"I read the 100 “best” fantasy and sci-fi novels -
and they were shockingly offensive"
Why are so many of NPR's list of best science fiction books so misogynistic, and why can't we move past our nostalgia for them?
Piers Anthony:
There were also books that were outright misogynistic, like a A Spell for Chameleon where characters openly talk about not trusting women: “'Women are the curse of mankind,' Crombie said vehemently. 'They trap men into marriage, the way this tangle tree traps prey, and they torment them the rest of their lives.'”
The main plot of A Spell for Chameleon is that the main character, stupidly named Bink, has no magical talent and unless he gets one, he will be kicked out of his magical kingdom. Along the way, he meets Chameleon, who has the unenviable magic of being smart but ugly in one phase of the moon and beautiful but stupid in another. This inevitably leads to Bink liking her:
"She was growing lovelier by the hour. Her personality was not changing much, except as her diminishing intelligence caused her to be less complex, less suspicious. He liked that personality - and now, he had to admit, he liked her beauty, too. She was of Xanth, she was magic, she did not try to manipulate him for her private purposes - she was his type of girl.”
https://www.newstatesman.com/...
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There’s no certain proof that Anthony’s ever done anything illegal in real life, but he’s certainly written about it. Outside his popular Xanth series, Anthony has written a lot of books that teach the same lesson: Having sex with female kids is okay as long as they consent.
*______WARNING______*
For example, his book Tatham Mound features a graphic sex scene with a 10-year-old girl. Anthony justified the whole affair by saying, “He had learned enough to know that age was not the criterion; the will of the maiden was.”
It’s like a little disclaimer that says, “It’s not weird that I’m about to describe sex with a girl ‘hardly 10 winters old’ because she’s willing. So don’t freak out, guys.”
He also wrote Firefly, which has a man go on trial for having sex with a five-year-old. The book features an impassioned speech from the defense lawyer.
He admits that his client had sex with a five-year-old but says that he’s “morally innocent” because “they were lovers, in the truest sense, age no barrier.” Then the lawyer declares, “The law may say he is guilty, but the law is sometimes an ass.” The fictional jury nods in agreement.
https://listverse.com/...
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©
*______WARNING______*
please be advised
The following content may upset sensitive readers.
* TRIGGER WARNING*
(FOR RAPE/PEDOPHILIA):
*
The worst thing Piers Anthony has ever written. In his novel FIREFLY:
Anthony wrote a detailed thrust-by-thrust (or, to be more precise, wriggle-by-wriggle) pedophilic sex scene, described by a five-year-old girl, who is depicted as quite literally asking for it. The five-year-old is being interviewed for the trial of the guy who was molesting her. She is eidetic and demonstrative, even to the point of having the (female) interviewer act out positions. At the end, the child realizes that her molester is In Major Trouble and starts crying, because she knows that telling the truth has gotten the guy sent up the river. She says she wishes she'd never done this, that she's sorry and such is the depth of her True Love that --
"So am I, dear," the interviewer murmured, wiping her eyes. "I wish I had never done this."
https://hradzka.dreamwidth.org/...
*______WARNING______*
©
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"I read the 100 “best” fantasy and sci-fi novels -
and they were shockingly offensive"
Why are so many of NPR's list of best science fiction books so misogynistic, and why can't we move past our nostalgia for them?
Anne McCaffrey:
Rape occurs in all three books, under the guise of marital right
The first one of these, Dragonflight, was a caricature of the medieval period with unrealistic levels oppression and lords being able to sexually exploit whatever lower class women they wanted.
The plot revolves around a blight from space (the threads) that will wipe out everything on that planet unless the mostly male heroes manage to defeat it (of course). For some reason, the best way to burn these threads is with dragons.
The main male and female characters hate each other, but their dragons love each other and so whenever their dragons mate, well, you get the picture. However, there’s a darker, more violating aspect to this: “He had been a considerate and gentle bedmate ever since, but, unless Ramoth and Mnementh [the dragons] were involved, he might as well call it rape.” Yet, this doesn’t seem to stop him.
For some reason, the book wants the reader to cheer on a rapist (and this isn’t the only book that asks you to do this). These sort of characters made me hate a book. I couldn’t like a character that raped someone. I couldn’t care less if the world was destroyed. How could anyone? Is this really the best the fantasy genre has to offer?
The absolute worst offender was Final Empire, which was like an unpleasant caricature of Dragonflight. The world was supposed to be gritty - but to an unrealistic and ultimately unbelievable extent. Normal people had no rights, women were killed by the nobles if they slept with them (to prevent half-breeds), ash literally rained from the sky and the nobility had super powers with the ultimate bad guy seemingly immortal.
Women having no agency is merely an additional layer of dirt to the already soiled world. And it’s all so casually mentioned: “'You know the law says that a lord can bed any skaa woman that he wishes?' Vin Nodded. 'He just has to kill her when she's done.'”
https://www.newstatesman.com/...
commons.m.wikimedia.org/...
Vox Day:
Theodore Robert Beale (born August 21, 1968), also known as Vox Day, is an American far-right activist,[2] writer, publisher, and video game designer. He has been described as a white supremacist,[3] a misogynist,[4] and part of the alt-right.[5][6][7]
Beale went into video game development, which led to him writing science fiction, and social commentary with a focus on issues of religion, race, and gender. He became active in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, from which he was expelled, and was a central figure in the "Rabid Puppies" controversy involving the Hugo Awards for science fiction.
Expulsion from the SFWA
African American writer N. K. Jemisin, during her delivery of the Guest of Honour speech at 2013 Continuum in Australia, stated that 10% of the SFWA membership voted for Beale in his bid for the SFWA presidential position and called him "a self-described misogynist, racist, anti-Semite, and a few other flavors of asshole".[33] Beale responded by calling Jemisin an "ignorant half-savage".[33] In the resulting interactions, Beale also called writer and editor Teresa Nielsen Hayden a "fat frog".[34]
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"The especially virulent Rabid Puppies,
led by unsavory bigot Vox Day, who is extremely paranoid about Aztecs, have made it their mission to boot SJWs (“social justice warriors”) out of science fiction and fantasy. Notable Rabid Puppies include, of course, Vox Day, whose noxious beliefs and writings could sustain whole religions of malevolent psychosis. "slate.com/...
"Author Defends Sci-Fi as A “Purely Male Domain” in Cringingly Sexist Review of All-Women Anthology"
* 'I applaud the ladies for giving it a try, but I would suggest they forget going any further.' *
The male author ended the “review” with his name and a mention of one of his own books, and later republished the review on his blog and linked to it on Twitter.
Although you can find the author’s name on Amazon, I’m not publishing it here both because I don’t want to promote his books, and because I think it’s less important to demonize one patronizing, out-of-touch fuddy-duddy than it is to look at the sci-fi and literary culture that allows literary chauvinism like his to continue to thrive.
If you kept up at all with the recent Hugo Awards scandal, this likely won’t be the first time in recent months that you’ve seen a man bemoan the inherent ability of female genre writers.
https://www.themarysue.com/…
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Ursula K. Le Guin once recounted in an essay for The New Yorker an anecdote about submitting a short story to Playboy in the late sixties. Her agent, Virginia Kidd, had sent the story, “Nine Lives,” a work of science fiction in which most of the characters were men, to the magazine’s fiction editor. “When it was accepted,” Le Guin wrote of her agent, “she revealed the horrid truth.” The horrid truth, of course, was that the two initials at the front of her pen name, U. K. Le Guin, stood for Ursula Kroeber. The story’s author was a woman.
_Playboy’_s editors responded that they would still like to publish the story, but asked if they could print only Le Guin’s initials, lest their readers be frightened by a female byline www.vogue.com/...
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commons.m.wikimedia.org/...
"The Leaky Pipeline: Where are the Women in Science Fiction?"
Another classic argument is market-driven. Fewer female SF authors are published because women don’t buy SF. It could be just as valid to argue that women don’t buy SF because there are few women authors. However, the argument as a whole fails when taking the following into consideration. According the AWP, Publishers Weekly and Amazon, the single largest purchaser of books are females between the age of 35 and 55. Wouldn’t it make sense to go after that market?
The AWP found that more women enter writing programs and graduate than do men but that they disappear anywhere from 3-5 years post graduation. Where do they go? The National Science Foundation (NSF) asked the same question in a study begun over a decade ago. They found that equal numbers of women and men graduate in the Geosciences as undergraduates, but by the tenured professor level, there are eleven men to every one woman. In the 1970s, the number peaked at ten to one, obviating the argument that women haven’t had time to move up the ranks. Ultimately, the NSF found that it wasn’t so much overt sexual discrimination, but rather minute leaks along the entire length of the career pipeline.
This pipeline metaphor reflects the female experience in SF as well. The first leak originates in Hollywood. SF has allowed itself to be defined by visual media. Previously, SF attracted all types of readers and writers because of its promise to examine all facets of what it means to be human. However, the blockbuster mentality/economic model has effectively neutered the types of stories SF publishers accept. The topic must appeal to everyone and offend no one.
Subsequently, publishers discourage stories that target women because they won’t appeal to the entire audience. Taking this argument ad absurdum, middle grade boys don’t read; and therefore, Rowling’s Harry Potter books should not be published because there’ll be no market.
https://www.adastrasf.com/...
"Bizarre Sexism From GamerGate and Co. at the Hugo Awards"
This isn’t the first time the Hugo Awards voting has had their system gamed, but it’s more a representation of a shameful arm of fandom that’s been gaining far too much steam in recent months. Keeping in mind that Rabid Puppies and GamerGate leader Vox Day is of the mind that women shouldn’t vote, it’s clear we have ourselves a full-blown agenda that would welcome a return to caveman-levels of women’s rights.
https://www.cheatsheet.com/...
More: Frank Herbert
commons.m.wikimedia.org/...
"Sexism in Dune"
The Bene Gesserit, though powerful, seem to aspire to be influential wives. They work behind curtains and influence from out of sight, as has stereotypically been the place for women. They do not hold station, titles, or land. They work through men, and, without men, seem to hibernate. Irulan is a Bene Gesserit, but her influence and duties are not remarked upon; she is remarkable only for her union with Paul. She has been bred only for this moment. The ambition of the Bene Gesserit, of women as a whole, is to make the most of servitude, of a second class citizenship. Unfortunately, nowhere in the text does it indicate that the author is aware of his sexist system or that he disapproves of the power balance he has created
Men may govern as they see fit, but the most powerful women—the Bene Gesserit and the Reverend Mothers—are tied and have been forever tied down by duty to one goal, of breeding the Kwisatz Haderach. And of course, the breeding program is the women’s role, just as it is fitting that the women need a man in order to look into that “dark place
http://dh.canterbury.ac.nz/...
"A Dune review"
Here we see the apparent two ways that the novel can characterize women: they are either concubines or wives. Everything is centered around the patriarchal system and the relation of woman to a man. We are supposed to be happy for Chani and Jessica that they are the real wives, and that the princess will live a sad life because she gets no love from her husband. This is, it seems, how all women would wish to be remembered: their ultimate goal is to have a legacy as the wife of a great man
https://whilereadingandwalking.com/…
Tiptree
Feminist writer James Tiptree, has been canceled:
Tiptree Name Will Be Removed from Award | File 770
"A great female writer has been canceled because of her last tragic days."
Since 1991, the James Tiptree Junior Award has been given annually to a work of “science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores our understanding of gender.” The award was founded by two women science fiction writers, Pat Murphy and Karen Jay Fowler. From next year, it will be called the Otherwise Award.
James Tiptree, Jr. was the pseudonym of Alice Sheldon. Born Alice Bradley in 1915, she travelled the world with her parents as a young child. In 1940, after a brief unhappy marriage, she joined the women’s Army Auxiliary Corps and worked in intelligence. She married Huntington “Ting” Sheldon in 1945, and in 1952 they both joined the CIA. She later earned her doctorate and took up writing. She wrote short stories and novels, but it is the former that stand out as truly remarkable. With prose as subtle and precise as the most refined literary fiction, she penned imaginative tales like “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?quillette.com/…
She recorded in her diary in 1979 that she and her husband had agreed to a suicide pact if their health worsened. In 1987, she shot her husband, called her lawyer and told him that they had agreed to suicide, and then shot herself.
The award is being renamed because of this suicide. Although the prize was founded to recognize fiction “exploring gender,” the current board of the award see their expanded mission to be to “make the world listen to voices that they would rather ignore.” The issue is that some of these voices have decided that Sheldon killed her husband because she was ableist (that is, bigoted toward the disabled). Sheldon’s biographer, Julie Phillips, has tweeted in response: “The question has come up whether Alice Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr) and her husband Ting died by suicide or murder-suicide. I regret not saying clearly in the bio that those closest to the Sheldons all told me that they had a pact and that Ting’s health was failing.” Phillips has also changed her Twitter profile to include the sentence, “Biographer of Ursula K. Le Guin and of James Tiptree, Jr., who was not a murderer.”quillette.com/...
L.A. Times 8/19: Octavia E. Butler
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens has created a one-year research grant to study science-fiction pioneer Octavia E. Butler working with its archives of her work, including 386 boxes of drafts, notes, essays, letters and more... Butler, who died in 2006 at 58, is remembered as the first science fiction author to be awarded a MacArthur “genius” grant as well as the first Black woman to gain acclaim within the genre, winning multiple Nebula and Hugo awards over the course of her career. She published 12 novels and a collection of short stories before her death.TV adaptations of her novels “Wild Seed,” from her “Patternist” series, and “Dawn,” the first in her “Xenogenesis” series, have recently been announced. ... the one-year research fellowship is open to applicants “working from a variety of disciplinary perspectives on the ideas and issues explored by Butler in her published works,” according to the Huntingtonwebsite
Eligibility: Applicants must have completed all requirements for the Ph.D. by no later than Nov. 16, 2020.
Tenure of fellowship: Between nine and twelve months.
Value of award: $50,000.
The Huntington is the repository of the literary archive of Octavia E. Butler (1947–2006), the first science fiction writer to receive a prestigious MacArthur "genius" Fellowship and the first African American woman to win widespread recognition writing in that genre. Applicants may be working from a variety of disciplinary perspectives on the ideas and issues explored by Butler in her published works, ranging from speculative fiction through Afrofuturism to environmental studies and biotechnology, but preference may be given to candidates who intend to make extensive use of the Butler archive during their residency.
From Feb 28, 2006, following her death from a fall outside her Seattle home (reported at the time as possibly caused by dizziness due to effects of bloodpressure medication):
Octavia E. Butler’s first creation in the world of science fiction was herself.
Before anybody told her that black girls do not grow up to write about futuristic worlds, Butler, the daughter of a shoeshine man and a maid, was already fashioning a place for herself in a white-dominated universe.
By remaining dedicated to her craft, sweeping floors and working as a telemarketer to pay the bills; by suffering the indignities that come with being among the first; and eventually winning a MacArthur Foundation grant, Butler carved a place for herself -- and helped write a new world into existence.
Some women in science fiction:
James Tiptree Jr. - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/....
Alice Bradley Sheldon (August 24, 1915 – May 19, 1987) was an American science fiction author better known as James Tiptree Jr., a pen name she used from 1967 to her death. It was not publicly known until 1977 that James Tiptree Jr. was a woman
"N. K. Jemisin, the most exciting SFF writer working today.
Ursula K. Le Guin--except for Tombs of Atuan, her original Earthsea trilogy is pretty male-centric, but Tehanu is actively feminist.
Sherwood Smith--Extremely prolific. Inda series has male protagonist, but lots of well-realized female characters and non-straightness. I haven't had a chance to dig into her catalog, but she's a veteran pro with a bunch of series.
Kate Elliot Another experienced pro, recently turned her pen to YA but with decades of experience on "adult" fantasy series.
Nnedi Okorafor Does a wide variety of tones, united mostly by being brilliantly written. Who Fears Death addresses tough topics like female genital mutilation and rape as a weapon of war, but definitely from a woman's perspective.
Janny Wurts /r/fantasy all-star with decades-deep history of great, dense, well-written fantasy.
Naomi Novik--there are some feminist-oriented discussions to be had about the relationship in Uprooted, but no question it centers a woman protagonist.
Ellen Kushner--lots of gay males in her work, but plenty of women too.
Angela Carter--weird and "literary" with warnings about intense dark sexuality, but an unquestionably female perspective.
Jacqueline Carey-- her Kushiel's series are fun swashbucklers with a woman protagonist. Note they have a lot of sexuality, including consensual sex and non-consensual slavery in bad places.
Marie Lu Who says anti-heroes/villain protagonists have to be men? Her Young Elites trilogy is a very fun take on the villain protagonist with a furious girl at the core.
Andre Norton
Andre Alice Norton was an American writer of science fiction and fantasy, who also wrote works of historical fiction and contemporary fiction. She wrote primarily under the pen name Andre Norton
Lois McMaster Bujold She writes a lot about men,
but the female perspective is never far from the surface--manifesting in little jokes and quirks. She was playing with trans and LGB issues decades before it was the norm--she had a bisexual romantic lead (in the late '80s) . That's in her SF, but her fantasy is also rich in women and LGB characters." www.themarysue.com/…
LINKS- (thanks to: Mettle Fatigue)
https://www.niwrc.org communities. The National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center is one organization advocating for Native women’s health and safety.equalityarchive.com/...
https://www.femspec.org/ "An interdisciplinary feminist journal dedicated to science fiction, fantasy, magical realism, surrealism, myth, folklore, and other supernatural genres."
http://www.feministsf.org/ "Feminist science fiction
one.... "
https://ffprwa.com/ "Fantasy, Futurist & Paranormal Romance Writers Chapter of the Romance Writers of America"
ALSO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_speculative_fiction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Women_science_fiction_and_fantasy_writers
https://www.iwwg.org/ International Women Writers' Guild
Theme section of the 3rd Edition of the SF Encyclopedia (July 2020)
AND from the wik article on the organization Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America "In 2013, the SFWA Bulletin
Google
