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SFWA Explodes IV: The Revenge of SFWA

Got up this morning to see there’s yet another SFWA explosion. How many are we up to now, then?

There’s a petition going around, it seems. A petition protesting that the SFWA Bulletin is instituting procedures to try to avoid things like what happened this past summer, during the LAST round of SFWA explosions. Apparently, some people out there are still upset that people might, just might, be justifiably cranky about sexism in the genre.

I first spotted the news when James Nicoll posted about a Twitter thread on it, here. Then I went out to run some morning errands, and when I came back, Dara reported that the petition alluded to in that post had in fact surfaced. James talks about it here, linking in turn to Radish Reviews’ in-depth post.

Radish Reviews has reported that there are in fact two versions of this thing floating around, and addresses both of them here. I read them. And I knew I was in for some hurting the instant I saw the phrase “politically correct” bandied about right out of the gate. In the petition TITLE, even, as well the first paragraph.

Oh, and it gets more fun from there. I particularly like how scare quotes are thrown around “sexism” and “offensive”. And by like, I actually mean, if I facepalm any harder I’ll give myself a concussion.

I’d rant further on this if I could think of anything to say that I haven’t posted about a dozen times already–about how, if the first words out of your mouth are to cry “political correctness!”, that chances are very, very high that you are in fact part of the problem. But then, people who are inclined to cry “political correctness!” aren’t going to put much credence in what I have to say anyway.

So I’m going to simply stick with noting that yeah, I’m still feeling pretty much at peace with my having decided that I’d just as soon stay out of any organization that continues to be this toxic.

Further commentary on the matter:

February 10, 2014 by
Publishing

This just in: SFWA boots unspecified member

Just saw this over on James Nicoll’s LJ. He links off to this official notice from SFWA in which they say that an unspecified member has been expelled from the organization.

The now-former member in question being, of course, Vox Day. He has a post up about it on his own site (to which James also links), but I ain’t linking to that guy. Click over to James on LJ or James on Dreamwidth if you’d like to actually see what Mr. Day had to say about it.

(I did actually read his post, which was surprisingly bile-free. But I didn’t look at the comments, because I like not running up my blood pressure.)

And I daresay this would also explain this post of Mr. Scalzi’s.

As I’ve said before, I am not actually a member of SFWA so I have no actual horse in this race. But I do feel like they did the right thing, on the general principle of making the organization more welcoming to people who aren’t raging egregious asshats.

ETA: Also! My belovedest of Daras has an excellent musical contribution of her own to contribute to this topic.

August 14, 2013 by
Publishing

When not to engage with art

Followup post on yesterday’s reporting on the latest bloviating from Orson Scott Card, prompted in no small part by this post of Chuck Wendig’s in which he explains why he’s personally boycotting Ender’s Game.

I wanted to expand a bit upon a notion I’ve seen debated a lot in the SF/F realm the last few years: i.e., whether you can engage with art created by someone whose politics you don’t agree with, and in Card’s case, whose politics you find actively repellent. More than once, I’ve seen people assert that you should not conflate the art with the artist, and that if you refuse to read things by people who are assholes, you risk missing out on good stories. I’ve also seen it argued that if you refuse to read things by people who disagree with you, you’re not keeping a suitably open mind.

But here’s the thing.

The vast majority of the time, when I see people making this argument, they’re people who’re arguing from a position of privilege–people who are, in fact, not in the direct line of fire of the repellent politics in question. It’s very easy to say “but Orson Scott Card is an awesome writer and Ender’s Game is a classic, how can you possibly skip it?!” when you’re a straight white Christian.

If you’re queer, on the other hand, you’re one of the people he wants to make illegal–a goal he’s been actively working towards, given that he’s a board member of an organization who has that as a stated goal. He’s cheerleaded efforts in Uganda to issue the death sentence to homosexuals. He is actively working, with his money, time, and reputation, to push people like me and my wife into the dirt.

So it’s a safe bet that some portion of the money he makes from his art is in fact going to go towards the goal of making people like me illegal, if not dead.

So, no. I’m never going to read a word of his. If a project has his name on it, I’m not touching it. I don’t give a rat’s ass, rat’s feet, or any other part of the rat how good a writer he is. I don’t care about whatever significance may lie in the stories he creates. I don’t care who else is involved in the Ender’s Game movie. I’m pretty damn sure they’ll all survive without getting any of my money.

Me, I’d just as soon give my financial support to people who don’t want to see me illegal or dead. And with over 1,100 things on my To Read list by people who aren’t flaming bigoted assholes, I’m pretty damned sure I won’t miss Card’s work one single bit.

July 10, 2013 by
Publishing

Yet more SFWA fail, and I am out of words

So, um, yeah, this has shown up on tumblr, and lo, the Internets, they are asploding all over again. Basically, someone’s seen fit to grab screencaps of posts on the recent SFWA controveries–specifically re: Day/Beale’s rephrensible behavior towards N.K. Jemisin, as well as Jemisin’s GoH speech.

Dara’s breaking out the popcorn over here, with an example of one of these screencaps she’s finding particularly telling. Me, I’m not even sure where to begin on the metric boatloads of FAIL all over those screencaps, and make no mistake, there’s a LOT of fail being quoted there. Nor am I surprised that whoever put up the tumblr is choosing to be anonymous, while–inevitably!–getting snarked on anonymously for doing so.

Folks, I’m really past the point of anger on this or even indignation. I’m just standing back agape at the number of clowns that keep coming out of this clown car made of FAIL.

***

And meanwhile, re: the last post I did about ongoing sexism in SF/F, there’s a followup to that, too!

Foz Meadows has reported that Jo Fletcher books has removed Rod Rees’ post from their site, as well as a followup post they did to try to explain why it went up in the first place. She has commentary on why burying the evidence, especially when that particular furor went up at the same time a bunch of posts about harassment at conventions did, was an especially bad idea.

***

And it’s only Monday, people. This is shaping up to be a long week. Somehow I’m not surprised, either, that Scalzi’s now backing off from this as fast as he possibly can.

July 1, 2013 by
Publishing

This week in SF/F: sexual harassment and ongoing sexism

Surfacing from my day job being exhausting this week to find that while I’ve been distracted, the SF/F genre is continuing to be exhausting as well.

Some of today’s high level of activity is extremely necessary and valuable conversation about what to do if you’re the target of sexual harassment at conventions. I’ve seen a guest post from Elise Matthesen go up on John Scalzi’s site here and on Seanan McGuire’s LJ here. Cherie Priest has chimed in here.

And I’m seeing a lot of activity over Twitter, including naming of the individual that Matthesen reported. I applaud her for her speaking up, and all those who are speaking up in support of her as well. Because yeah, reporting this kind of thing takes a lot of bravery. I’ve been there and I’ve done that. It’s exhausting and it can have ramifications that impact you for the rest of your life.

Hand in hand with this I’m also seeing a lot of furor over a particular author’s being up in arms as to why women are criticizing him for having his female characters admiring their own breasts in a mirror. Foz Meadows pretty much says everything I can think of to say on the matter, right over here. Tricia Sullivan speaks up over here. And James Nicoll and his regular readers have all sorts of pithy commentary over here.

Here’s what I can think to add.

During my days on the various MUSHes I played, nineteen times out of twenty, you could tell when a female character was being played by a male player–because she’d be the character spending most of her @desc on the size of her breasts and her other sexual attributes. These were classic examples of the male gaze being applied to the character, presumably without the player even thinking about whether other people interacting with that character might in fact not be heterosexual males.

For the record: speaking as a female reader here, yo, male writers of the world? If I see you arguing with your female readers about how you know more about what women would plausibly do than they do, you’re going to guarantee I’ll never read a word you write in your life.

And speaking particularly as a breast cancer survivor, I’m here to tell you: you know what I’m really, really not interested in? Multiple paragraphs of a female character ogling her own breasts. You want to know what thought processes I usually have about mine, these days? Let me give you a sampling.

“What bra can I wear to hide my scars?”

“How much acetaminophen do I have to have today to make the muscles all around my rib cage stop bitching at me?”

“Is this going to be a day where I can lean over to the right without pain?”

“Can I even begin to think about wearing a swimsuit this summer?”

Somehow, I ain’t holding my breath that this is going to show up in a commercially published SF/F novel any time soon.

June 28, 2013 by
Publishing

Representation matters

A lot of QUILTBAG SF/F fans in my general age bracket will most likely point at Mercedes Lackey and her Vanyel trilogy as the first piece of fiction they ever saw that not only had queer characters in it, but had a male couple front and center as the primary characters. Me, I’ve written before about how Elfquest was a lot more of a turning point for me. But I can also add that Tanya Huff’s work was seminal as well, because she was the first author I can actively remember reading who not only included non-standard sexualities in her cast, but did it in such a way as to have it not be a big deal at all. They were just there, just like the straight people, participating in and contributing to the plot. Their sexuality was not a source of angst or an Issue of the Week. And I loved that.

It was, in fact, a lot like what I was beginning to learn that real people were like: i.e., that they included gay people, and lesbian people, and in general people whose sexualities didn’t necessarily match up with mine. Yet they were all people, just trying to live their lives in peace, just like me.

I mention this because of seeing Seanan McGuire put up a couple of posts addressing questions of sexuality of characters. She answers the question of why exactly is Dr. Kellis in the Newsflesh books gay (answer: he’s gay because he’s gay), and then puts forth a great answer to someone who saw fit to criticize her anonymously for having a pretty notable number of non-standard sexualities in her work (read, as near as I can tell: any at all).

I applaud Seanan wildly for both of these posts, because she is absolutely right: representation matters. And QUILTBAG characters should not have to have their sexualities (or lack thereof! Because some people have no sexuality at all!) justified by “a bearing on the story” or an Issue of the Week plot or whatever.

For the record: I write queer people right alongside my straight people. You’re going to especially find them in Faerie Blood and the forthcoming rest of the Free Court of Seattle trilogy. Because hi yeah, I’m queer, and I know a lot of other people who are queer, and spoiler alert: we like to see ourselves in SF/F novels too. Just like you. If this bothers you, then I suggest you look elsewhere for your reading.

But if instead it’s something that’d make you happy, hey, I hope you’ll consider reading me.

And you should definitely consider reading Seanan if you’re not already. Because she’s made of 100 percent pure organic awesome.

June 24, 2013 by