quarantining the girl cooties

[truepenny]

yuki_onna has a good, chewy post about Realms of Fantasy's plan for an All Women-Authors Issue. What she says about it, of course, goes for any minority group: women*, African-Americans, GLBT writers, writers with disabilities, etc. etc. etc. I think there's a point in the process of opening a genre where the Very Special Episode Issue is a good thing, when what you're saying with it is, HEY! There are enough [women/African-Americans/GLBT writers/writers with disabilities/etc.] doing excellent work in our field to fill A WHOLE ISSUE! Maybe we should all be PAYING ATTENTION!

But, returning to the specific circumstances, that's really not where women SF writers are anymore, and hasn't been for, jeez, thirty years. Because, seriously, a whole issue of Realms of Fantasy (or any other magazine) is, what? Six stories? Seven stories? Ten if they're small? I guarantee you there are more than ten women writers doing excellent work in sffh. As Cat says, a Very Special Issue is tokenism. (It also suggests, subliminally, that women writers are fragile flowers and can't compete with men head-to-head, that our stories wouldn't be good enough to fill a whole issue without this special enclave, like we're a rare species of owl or something.) It neither causes nor promises fundamental change in the way a magazine is run or the way an editor makes decisions.

I should say here that I don't know what the motivations are at RoF. For all I know, this is a sincere attempt to cut through the male-dominated bullshit and champion the cause of feminism and women writers. And it's a very attention-getting way of doing it. I'm just not sure it's the best way.

[ETA: as jimhines kindly points out, Douglas Cohen explains some of the editorial thinking in the second comment to the announcement.]

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*Not, of course, that women are a numerical minority. Tra la.

Comments

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

"...submissions dealing with gender, sexism, and other areas important to feminine speculative literature are particularly welcome."

Back in the Plasticine, Will and I co-edited a black and white comics magazine with a male cartoonist friend of ours. One contributor, Minneapolis writer/artist Lisa Blackshear, consistently sent us funny, thought-provoking comics about sexual politics, ideas of beauty, shoes--whatever she felt like, really.

Then she sent us a funny, thought-provoking comic about a woman buying bananas at the supermarket. The bananas were hanging from one of those upright display poles...the base of which was skewering a South American guy, a farm worker. The woman is shocked by the display, but she sidles guiltily up, grabs a bunch of bananas, and goes through the checkout with a sigh of relief. I thought it was the best depiction of liberal guilt I'd seen in a long time.

But our co-editor's response to the cartoon was, "Why can't she stick to women's issues?"

"Other areas important to feminine [sic] speculative literature" are ALL areas. Women, being human, are concerned with the fate of their species and their universe, just as men, being human, are concerned with the wellbeing of, and justice for, all sexes.

[cija.livejournal.com]

He edited "feminine" to read "feminist," without saying anything about it, so that people who didn't see the original text will think the person who left a snide comment about it was deranged or something.

I edit public posts all the time without making a record of every typo I fix, but I really think that when you remove something people are already discussing, you might make some mention of it. I am assuming it was just a typo, and that he does not somehow think that 'feminine' and 'feminist' are more or less different words for the same thing.

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

I assume likewise. But my main irritation is the apparent belief that gender and sexism are women's issues, and that there are other issues like them. Well, I'll admit that menstruation and menopause are probably of more interest to born-women than to men. But that the theme of Women in Fantasy should naturally focus the issue on a limited set of concerns sounds to me a little too much like suggesting women should stick to cookin' and cleanin' and sewin' and raisin' the young'uns.

[cija.livejournal.com]

This is true, but I also feel that intentionally doing a feminist theme is a lot more palatable than doing a women writers issue and taking it for granted that ladies will naturally want to write on lady subjects. I can see how it might look like a distinction without a difference, though. Continuing to call it 'Women in Fantasy' is not doing themselves any favors, either.

Of course I would feel still less hostile if they would follow it up with a women-only issue of werewolf stories (say) just to make it clear that they do not consider feminism to be YOUR PROBLEM, GIRLS. Like the housework, as you say.

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

Good point--fixing that typo did give the theme a bit more focus, which helps.

In the '80s, it seemed as if every SF and comics convention I went to had what we began to call The Obligatory Women In Panel. The panel wasn't about how the creation of female protagonists altered the direction of sword-and-sorcery fantasy, or interesting views of the roles of women in post-apocalyptic SF. It was about Women in Science Fiction (or Fantasy, or Comics)...which the panelists were left to try to turn into an actual panel topic, since we were never even sure whether we were supposed to be talking about female characters or female authors or female fans, for cryinoutloud.

The Obligatory Women In Panel eventually grew up and turned into lots of actual panel topics at conventions about interesting gender stuff, with enough specificity that the panelists had a decent starting point for the discussion. But when I read that RoF was announcing a Women in Fantasy issue... Well, just for a second, there, I had a heck of a nasty flashback moment. *g*

(And having now performed my role as a Graying Ol' Lady of SF for the week, I'll quit thumping my cane on the floor and go take my teeth out.)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I've been on that panel.

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

He did leave a comment on the post at the Realms board.

"Yes, the edit was mine. I clearly meant to write “feminist” and wrote “feminine.” That’s what I get for writing this before the drinking of the morning coffee. Once the mistake was pointed out to me, I changed it at once."

http://www.rofmag.com/2010/01/04/announcing-august-2011-women-of-fantasy-themed-issue/#comment-97

[polenth.livejournal.com]

I didn't intend it to be snide. I just wasn't sure what he meant (and hadn't realised it was a typo).

Thank you for pointing out the change in the main thread. I wondered if I'd misread it till I saw the later comments about the change.