Sexism and Feminism in Geekery 7

There have been no major blow ups this week (at least when I wrote this post earlier this week).  Or I've just missed them.  Sometimes I do unglue myself from the computer and miss things that happen online.  So I'm going back a few weeks with some of my links but that's okay because I pretty much make up the rules for this column as I go.

A Publisher's Perspective - the Gender Divide in Sci-fi

In the last few years I have seen numerous articles deploring the lack of female SFF writers, in science fiction in particular. And usually, the blame always comes back to the publisher’s doorstep. Every time I’ve seen one of these articles I get a little hot under the collar because, guess what? I work in publishing. I work in genre. And here’s the kicker – I’m a woman. Yes, a female editor commissioning and actively looking for good genre – male AND female.

The article itself has submission statistics, something I geekily love, which I think it is interesting.  However some people have taken offense to what comes across as a defensive tone and had problems inability to recognize the impact of years of institutionalized sexism.  So women aren't submitting as much, could the years and years of sexism in the industry have discouraged women away from writing genre? Maybe there's more to the picture that writers just not submitting and the article doesn't address the why or really acknowledge that sexism is still is at play in the industry.

There are a lot of comments and feminist YA-author legend Tamora Pierce (SQEEEE) comments quite a few times.  Apparently I need to add a lot of authors to my to-to-read list based on her comments.

I did find an area of adult science fiction that I *did* enjoy: interestingly, it is written by women for the most part–Nancy Kress, Kathleen Goonan, Catherine Asaro, Nicola Griffith, Sarah Zettel, and Geoffrey Landis, and in short stories by Michael Burstein. I once saw a male sf writer tell Nancy Kress–to her face!–that her genetics and sociology based works weren’t “real” science. Catherine Asaro has gotten the same. Thank heavens, they keep writing. It’s people like this, the space opera folks, and the men who are loosening their hard science garters who are tempting me back to science fiction . . . a bit.

Read More Here

Feminist Taylor Swift

If you've been living under a rock you may have missed Feminist Taylor Swift on twitter. So for those rock dwellers or people like myself who occasionally leave the internet here you go.

Obligatory Shannon Hale Tweet

Guys I swear I'm not just including Shannon Hale every week on purpose.  I just favorite some of my favorite pertinent tweets every week and she's always there.  Her commentary of the lack of women in the movie industry is clever, poignant and funny.  Gold stars Shannon Hale, gold stars.