How to Change an Industry
It seems that the feminism issue rears its head on the speculative fiction blogosphere about once every six months, maybe more frequently if you follow specific blogs in question. I'd been meaning, with certain trepidation, to throw my hat in, and now seems an opportune time as I have found myself unwittingly participating in one editor's salvo in response to the issues -- with a poem that is very firmly a women's-issues poem.
I do support positive initiatives to broaden any industry (I'm using one of "Broad Universe's" flyers as a bookmark in Old Man's War at the moment, actually), but the problem with much of the discussion on the internet -- which, like all internet discussions, should be taken with a liberal dose of salt -- is that it seems to remain so resoundingly negative and resentment-generating.
I have a certain experience releasing pain-filled screeds onto the internet. That's probably why I get so bothered by these discussions. Since 2004 I have been working hard in the games industry to raise awareness and facilitate advancement away from problems that I highlighted, and a certain amount of it is out of a sense of penance for releasing something so full of negative energy into the world. But I certainly understand the value and the periodic need for such things. I just also understand that at a certain point you have to start talking about and then enacting solutions, or you start to harm yourself and your cause.
You also have to be reasonably self-aware, and aware of your position in the grand scope of the universe. I find that herbal tea often helps with this. But to further define my place in these things, I spend a lot of my time in the video game world and talking to people in related media, and boy howdy, does the spec-fic scene ever not have as much to worry about as video games or comics when it comes to the feminist cause. So this is another angle on my perspective and my rating on what deserves screaming into the ether and what is making sufficient progress on its own.
Lately, an angry black woman says that you shouldn't get a cookie for doing the right thing (though in fairness to her she does cite John Klima's Electric Velocipede 14 as undeserving of backlash) -- and I think this is recent evidence of what troubles me in the generally numbers-based quantification of the alleged bias in genre fiction toward publishing male authors. I think that if your primary goal is a sense of self-righteousness and reassurance of being in the Right on a particular subject, yeah, maybe you don't give cookies for good behavior. But if your intent is to elicit change, cookies are exactly what you need to give, and then on top of that you need to open your own damn cookie-generating bakery.
I'm on a women's-issues-based mailing list for the International Game Developers Association, and these issues find their reflections in every area in which women are in the minority and are attempting to claim their stake. I've written my share of public contributions and commentaries on the state of the industry in these subjects; I like to think I know what I'm talking about and have proved that I am sufficiently vested in the issues. And, as they do in spec fic (and anything having to do with fanfiction), these subjects attract a lot of attention and comment from a very specific subset of readers -- and also scare off a lot of the majority, who feel that they can't comment for fear of being attacked or denigrated. And that's unfortunate, and mildly hypocritical. I don't personally like the fact that John Klima and folk like him have to be delicate about explaining decisions they've made for their own magazines.
What we did find in video games, with the caveat that I certainly don't speak for all or even most women in the field, is that the most effective way to actually enact change in the industry was just to make the video games we wanted to see. Lamenting about their lack, which I have done my share of, has a certain purpose, but the more you repeat yourself the more you weaken your argument. Action must follow thought or the thought is impotent. In games this meant a couple of things: a) mentoring promising female developers and creating a safe haven for them to enter the industry, which there certainly has not always been; b) advocating for the awareness of games that did feature rounded, dynamic, enjoyable female characters; c) leaping outside of the existing boundaries of the field to create new audiences.
That third issue is why I still say that the militant sci-fi feminist contingent (and believe me that I am all about the 'militant' in issues for which I have passion -- I'm just for effective militancy) needs to create their own female-themed magazine. It would be nice if they did not engage in quota-meeting -- quotas are sometimes effective in extreme circumstances where brute force methods are necessary to leaven a field in a state of grave imbalance, but I don't think that's the case in speculative fiction (or video games, for that matter). There actually was an attempt at a feminist science fiction online magazine focusing on heroic female characters -- it was short-lived, and I wish I could remember its name, but I seem to have lost track of it since it went under. But I think it was very much on the right track. I understand why it hasn't been done -- for one thing, starting a self-sustaining magazine of any kind is wickedly difficult -- but I think for these issues to achieve relevance there needs to be an element of market proof of concept. And I think it could be successful.
Positive action is the key. And there certainly is a good deal of positive action from quiet individuals around the community -- but there is also this loud contingent of seemingly impotent anger. I think that the error is in a mistake in focus. It is possible, though difficult, to change someone else's views by screaming at them incessantly, or by quoting statistics at them. But it is generally easier, less enemy-generating, and better for one's blood pressure to expand the market rather than trying to brute-force alter the market. The problem here is not one of willful bias on the part of totalitarian editors; it is a simple vacuum in the marketplace, a niche that is not yet adequately filled. It is a potential, not an injustice; a prosperity engine waiting to be harnessed.
I'm not telling anyone not to be angry. People are free to feel as they choose to feel. But if change is the true desire, there are faster and happier ways to it. Me, I don't feel sufficiently disenfranchised in this particular corner to take action on it. I don't have trouble selling stories, at least no more than the average writing acolyte does, and I have more than my fair share of pet injustices to right in the world. And, uh, I like a lot of guy-oriented fiction, and I don't have a problem seeing a lot of male authors on magazine covers. But would I be on board and prioritize sending submissions to a magazine that promised (and delivered) women-oriented fantasy and science fiction? You bet. And I bet I wouldn't be alone.
I do support positive initiatives to broaden any industry (I'm using one of "Broad Universe's" flyers as a bookmark in Old Man's War at the moment, actually), but the problem with much of the discussion on the internet -- which, like all internet discussions, should be taken with a liberal dose of salt -- is that it seems to remain so resoundingly negative and resentment-generating.
I have a certain experience releasing pain-filled screeds onto the internet. That's probably why I get so bothered by these discussions. Since 2004 I have been working hard in the games industry to raise awareness and facilitate advancement away from problems that I highlighted, and a certain amount of it is out of a sense of penance for releasing something so full of negative energy into the world. But I certainly understand the value and the periodic need for such things. I just also understand that at a certain point you have to start talking about and then enacting solutions, or you start to harm yourself and your cause.
You also have to be reasonably self-aware, and aware of your position in the grand scope of the universe. I find that herbal tea often helps with this. But to further define my place in these things, I spend a lot of my time in the video game world and talking to people in related media, and boy howdy, does the spec-fic scene ever not have as much to worry about as video games or comics when it comes to the feminist cause. So this is another angle on my perspective and my rating on what deserves screaming into the ether and what is making sufficient progress on its own.
Lately, an angry black woman says that you shouldn't get a cookie for doing the right thing (though in fairness to her she does cite John Klima's Electric Velocipede 14 as undeserving of backlash) -- and I think this is recent evidence of what troubles me in the generally numbers-based quantification of the alleged bias in genre fiction toward publishing male authors. I think that if your primary goal is a sense of self-righteousness and reassurance of being in the Right on a particular subject, yeah, maybe you don't give cookies for good behavior. But if your intent is to elicit change, cookies are exactly what you need to give, and then on top of that you need to open your own damn cookie-generating bakery.
I'm on a women's-issues-based mailing list for the International Game Developers Association, and these issues find their reflections in every area in which women are in the minority and are attempting to claim their stake. I've written my share of public contributions and commentaries on the state of the industry in these subjects; I like to think I know what I'm talking about and have proved that I am sufficiently vested in the issues. And, as they do in spec fic (and anything having to do with fanfiction), these subjects attract a lot of attention and comment from a very specific subset of readers -- and also scare off a lot of the majority, who feel that they can't comment for fear of being attacked or denigrated. And that's unfortunate, and mildly hypocritical. I don't personally like the fact that John Klima and folk like him have to be delicate about explaining decisions they've made for their own magazines.
What we did find in video games, with the caveat that I certainly don't speak for all or even most women in the field, is that the most effective way to actually enact change in the industry was just to make the video games we wanted to see. Lamenting about their lack, which I have done my share of, has a certain purpose, but the more you repeat yourself the more you weaken your argument. Action must follow thought or the thought is impotent. In games this meant a couple of things: a) mentoring promising female developers and creating a safe haven for them to enter the industry, which there certainly has not always been; b) advocating for the awareness of games that did feature rounded, dynamic, enjoyable female characters; c) leaping outside of the existing boundaries of the field to create new audiences.
That third issue is why I still say that the militant sci-fi feminist contingent (and believe me that I am all about the 'militant' in issues for which I have passion -- I'm just for effective militancy) needs to create their own female-themed magazine. It would be nice if they did not engage in quota-meeting -- quotas are sometimes effective in extreme circumstances where brute force methods are necessary to leaven a field in a state of grave imbalance, but I don't think that's the case in speculative fiction (or video games, for that matter). There actually was an attempt at a feminist science fiction online magazine focusing on heroic female characters -- it was short-lived, and I wish I could remember its name, but I seem to have lost track of it since it went under. But I think it was very much on the right track. I understand why it hasn't been done -- for one thing, starting a self-sustaining magazine of any kind is wickedly difficult -- but I think for these issues to achieve relevance there needs to be an element of market proof of concept. And I think it could be successful.
Positive action is the key. And there certainly is a good deal of positive action from quiet individuals around the community -- but there is also this loud contingent of seemingly impotent anger. I think that the error is in a mistake in focus. It is possible, though difficult, to change someone else's views by screaming at them incessantly, or by quoting statistics at them. But it is generally easier, less enemy-generating, and better for one's blood pressure to expand the market rather than trying to brute-force alter the market. The problem here is not one of willful bias on the part of totalitarian editors; it is a simple vacuum in the marketplace, a niche that is not yet adequately filled. It is a potential, not an injustice; a prosperity engine waiting to be harnessed.
I'm not telling anyone not to be angry. People are free to feel as they choose to feel. But if change is the true desire, there are faster and happier ways to it. Me, I don't feel sufficiently disenfranchised in this particular corner to take action on it. I don't have trouble selling stories, at least no more than the average writing acolyte does, and I have more than my fair share of pet injustices to right in the world. And, uh, I like a lot of guy-oriented fiction, and I don't have a problem seeing a lot of male authors on magazine covers. But would I be on board and prioritize sending submissions to a magazine that promised (and delivered) women-oriented fantasy and science fiction? You bet. And I bet I wouldn't be alone.