How to Change an Industry

[zhai]

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

Comments

[lumi21]

I like when you link Escapist articles, because aside from ZP, I don't really catch anything from that site, and I really should

[brennye]

Besides, night elves are so whiny =P

:) Every time I get some idiot yelling about me being a guy playing my main 'toon (female NE hunter), I tell him that I'm none of the above, at least until the next surgery. That usually shuts them up.

And I agree 100% about an HH game. IMHO, there aren't any space battle games that I want to play, but that would be the one. IF they handle the spacial relations as well as Weber did. But that wouldn't make for a great game, huh?

[zhai]

Yeah. You would not be the first person to tell me they wanted me to link more often when an Escapist article goes up. I will try to get better about it. I do know after "Cyberpunked" went up a few people went back and read my Inside Job posts, which was cool. "Holding Out for a Heroine" is one of my pet favorites, though -- I recently changed my LJ user info to link to a few articles, and that one is there. :)

I agree re Ivy, even though Xianghua was always my favorite because I am a sucker for t'ai chi sword. anguirel had an obsession with being able to reliably pull off Summon Suffering back in the days of SC2. Some of the argument for SC did surface in the comments -- in that Voldo, for instance, is probably equally as physically impossible (as is the Soul Blade, for that matter) as Taki's SC3 boobs, but I think the point remains... in male characters the exaggeration is on attributes that emphasize their strength; in females the exaggeration is on sexualized elements that would impair their physical performance, and that is indicative

[lumi21]

Re horde druid -- why a female tauren, though?

Roleplaying, I suppose. I had a character in mind that I wanted to play, and I felt it was more conducive to the personality to make her female. My first rogue was a human female, too.

My second druid was guy, but there wasn't much roleplaying involved there. I just wanted to be huge =)

Which brings me to another potential line of reasoning. The male tauren is the largest model in the game, and that bothers some people. On the other hand, some people get a kick out of being able to hide a gnome completely inside your model when riding a kodo.

Some of the argument for SC did surface in the comments -- in that Voldo, for instance, is probably equally as physically impossible (as is the Soul Blade, for that matter) as Taki's SC3 boobs, but I think the point remains... in male characters the exaggeration is on attributes that emphasize their strength; in females the exaggeration is on sexualized elements that would impair their physical performance, and that is indicative of a

[justinhowe]

You looking to have this pimped?

[zhai]

Sure, always, if you feel so inclined. What's the worst that could happen??!

[brennye]

This whole issue is making me think about changing my pseudonym to something a little more androgynous. Not to avoid it, but to prove that gender has nothing to do with good writing. *takes her ego moment*

But that's the only action I feel like I would want/need/have to take. Like you, I don't feel disenfranchised enough to do more. My writing influences are pretty stacked on both sides of the gender fence, so I feel pretty comfortable there.

So what are you writing these days, hmm?

[elenuial]

Similar reasons are why I tend to use initials for my first and middle names.

[zhai]

Authors have certainly historically used abbreviated names to mask their gender, but I think it makes more of a statement if you don't do that. I'm sure there are a ton of marketing elements involved, and I can understand since you identify so much as gender-neutral wanting to have a more neutral name... but I can't see modifying my name for print. Then again, mine is already apparently confusingly neutral.

It's been pretty scattershot over the last couple of weeks. Two poems almost complete, blocked out a new short story (possibly two), need to get revisions on another, and then just doing a lot of long-term planning for the OFAS books, making sure I know where the heck I'm going. I started using yWriter for OFAS, which is quite interesting. The short story I want to work on takes place in slightly fast forwarded OFAS universe, too.

[devilwrites]

Great post, and I would say it applies to other movements within the genre as well. As much as I support the awareness of women writers in speculative fiction, I get just as pissed at the supporters as I do the people who are biased (intentionally or not). So many times I run across people who say if it's not done THEIR way, then it's not the right way at all and therefore doesn't count.

Oh, the things that piss me off. It's enough to make a person swear off a cause they believe in, which is a shame. That idea I had about a site/blog that promoted women's spec fic? Still kicking around in my head, but I've got a far better idea of how to tackle it now, especially after watching (and participating in some) blogs/forums that just don't seem to go anywhere.

Thanks for this post. :)

[zhai]

Glad you liked

Re: Mentoring

[elenuial]

Reviews in SF? Zounds!

I've been beating my head recently over the lack of any genuine criticism in SF. Whenever I see it pop up, it tends to get beaten up pretty fast. I've been wanting to get involved in that area, but it takes time away from my own writing, and very few people seem to be interested in it.

Re: Mentoring

[zhai]

It is a sticky wicket. I find that the reviews on Strange Horizons, though occasionally a bit too hyperbolic, are quite good. If you want to write reviews you might consider starting up with them -- they have a great appreciation for meticulousness and a scholarly angle on the material.

An Odyssey colleague of mine whom I respect greatly and generally get along with very well believes that online reviews are the single worst thing to ever happen to spec fic. So there's the flip side. It's the nature of the internet in general; the greater facility of those who may or may not have great critical readership in the field to distribute their ideas. Which points to a lot of the 'beating up' you mention.

[elenuial]

"Sword and Sorceress," is a long-running female-based anthology series. They're on 24 these days, I think.

The publisher who has taken it over (Norilana Books) has put out a number of female oriented anthologies. So some of what you call for is starting to come into existence. Still, I think a female-oriented magazine would be great.

[zhai]

Oh, I am very familiar with S&S, and I was very pleased to see Norilana pick them up. I used to collect the S&S volumes, and I still have the earliest ones (including S&S2, the first appearance of Tarma & Kethry, Mercedes Lackey's semi-famous woman's-empowerment characters) -- Marion Zimmer Bradley sent me my first ever rejection letter, and I followed her writing advice like gospel in my early years.

MZBFM is probably, now that you mention it, the closest thing there's been to the kind of magazine I'm talking about, and it seems entirely possible and plausible that its absence in the market is what drives a lot of the readership discontent. Authors like Lackey and Bradley and McCaffrey established a thorough readerbase of motivated, strong, passionate female readers who now largely lack those three lynchpins of that kind of fiction. Lackey still writes, but has moved into romance in a big way, McCaffrey is no longer writing (I think, anyway) and Bradley is gone. This is pure conjecture, of course, and the market has also shifted and

[elenuial]

I think a large part of that is that the chunk of your generation of readers who turned into this generation's writers are now writing for the next generation, and what they're putting out (and what is overwhelmingly popular) is that hair's-breadth difference from paranormal romance: urban fantasy.

So the people who would fulfill that niche are instead fulfilling a larger, more lucrative niche for the time being.

I would bet that may be related to why Misty's shifted to romance of late (in a correlation, rather than a cause-and-effect relationship).

My first real writing mentor in SF was Elizabeth Massie (even though she only gave me the time of one day). When I get my first novel out, I'll likely dedicate it to her, because what she gave me was the determination to actually make it writing.