SF/F’s “Colorblindness” and “Genderblindness” in a Single Photo

[jimhines]

From time to time, I get a sudden flurry of comments or emails or Tweets (or all of the above) that let me know someone has stumbled onto an old blog post or comment I made, and has decided to tell their friends how Wrong I am about … well, whatever they think I was talking about.

In this case, it’s a comment I made on Twitter two weeks ago, after

Comments

[dancinghorse]

As for #2.

Agent to me, ca. 2001: "You are a girl. You have to write girl protagonists. And readers want romance in their girl books."

Agent to me, ca. 2011: "This is the kind of grand old space opera I could have sold in a flash twenty years ago. Now? Well, if you were a twentysomething guy..."

Me to world, ca. 2013: "Oh hai, see me Kickstart that space opera, phtthhhhhlllllltttt!"

[blairmacg]

*applause*

[maladaptive]

Wait wait, what? Agent only wants men writing space opera now? I thought space opera was a hard sell in general for fickle market reasons, but, what, it's just got too many girl cooties?

No wonder I always found it so tasty, what with my own girl cooties.

I really want to see more space opera....

[sylviamcivers]

Have you read Lois Bujold's 'Miles Naismith Vorkosigan' books?
Space opera WITH girls! Who have wide and varied career choices!

[beccastareyes]

My first thought was 'Wasn't there at least one Worldcon in Japan'?

Which doesn't mitigate that having one Japanese person wouldn't make the photo that much better. Given how many Worldcons are located in the USA, even adding a couple of folks from East Asia wouldn't make the photo magically represent the USA racial demographics*.

While there probably is also an age effect -- even for next year's Worldcon, the chair has probably been in fandom some time and worked cons before, and many of these people ran Worldcons years ago -- that's not the full story. A photo of 'first-time teen/twenty-something Worldcon attendees' might be more diverse, but probably not as diverse as it could be.

* Used because I know them better than, say, the British/Canadian/Australian/etc. demographics as well as that it's easier to attend 'local' cons.

[jimhines]

There was. The con chair was Hiroaki Inoue, who's in the back row.

And yes, we're definitely looking at a historical snapshot over time. I do think we've made some progress in recent years. For example, we've had a greater proportion of female con chairs in the past decade.

But we still need to recognize the history, and to acknowledge there's more work to be done.

[beccastareyes]

It's something I've read a lot more on the science side of things (thanks to my choice of careers). There the cohort studies have been done to answer 'well, of course looking at professors skew white and male': yes, you expect some skew due to older professors, but, say, comparing the people who graduate in 1995-2005 with physics degrees with new faculty hires this year shows the latter group looking more male than the former.

[nojay]

There have been proportionally a lot more women chairs of Worldcons in the past few decades; the picture is somewhat misleading in that regard. There are also one or two past women chairs like Deb Geisler (Noreascon 4) who aren't in the picture at all.

According to the SMOFinfo list the first-ever woman chair was Noreen Falasca in 1955 along with her husband, Nick. First standalone woman chair was Anna Moffat in 1958 (Solacon/Westercon).

One good thing about that picture is the number of non-American convention chairs represented -- there was definitely a belief in fannish circles outside the US that the WORLD SF convention was mostly an American thing and that has changed over the recent past. {Insert plug for Helsinki in 2015 and Nippon 2017 here}

[loree]

I'm programming director for a large regional SF/F convention, and while we're doing okay in the gender balance department (women execs ounumber men nearly 2-1), do you know my secret for getting more PoC to participate? I INVITE THEM. It's not that hard, really. Notice there's a problem, ask people nicely, treat them respectfully, and actively seek recommendations if you don't personally know many nerds of color.

[starcat_jewel]

actively seek recommendations if you don't personally know many nerds of color

THIS. How hard is it to inquire around a bit? Or to advertise in publications that fans of color are likely to read, or at venues where they show up (such as comic-cons and anime-cons)?

BTW, this is the actual legal definition of "affirmative action". It doesn't mean hiring quotas; it means taking specific and pro-active steps to increase the number of minorities in the applicant pool.

My partner was at San Japan last weekend. It was in San Antonio, in the exact same facility where the Worldcon is being held this coming weekend. Did Worldcon have a table selling memberships? No. Did they even have anyone there distributing flyers? No. My partner made a point of asking his customers if they were planning to attend Worldcon. Almost without exception, they said, "Worldcon? What's that?" ADVERTISING FAIL.

[missingvolume]

And that reminds me of when I found about the Orlando Worldcon. Years after it happened. I never saw any advertising for it in the local bookstores or on the college campus at the time.

[akiko]

Oh like the Raleigh NASFiC?

[starcat_jewel]

That picture reminds me of the one I wrote about in this entry. Sometimes it seems that not much has changed in 15 years; of course, some of that feeling is itself an illusion.

[deborahblakehps]

I love the witch hat on the woman up front. Hey--witches are underrepresented too!