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

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

Douglas Cohen explains some of the reasons behind the issue in the second comment on the announcement post: http://www.rofmag.com/2010/01/04/announcing-august-2011-women-of-fantasy-themed-issue/

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I agree entirely with your analysis of how it is a good thing at earlier stages of breaking down the barriers, and not so good a thing later on. Generalizing, this sort of thing is "good" or "bad" depending on the environment -- the group of people who are seeing it. (Presumably it's "neutral", or so close as makes no difference, in some cases, too, if only as part of a transition.)

The group of people reading a magazine, submitting to a magazine, editing the magazine, and hearing about what's happening at a magazine (especially if somebody on the Internet thinks it's noteworty) are all different. Therefore, the answer to whether an all- issue is a good thing may differ for each of those groups.

So in theory, something that was good for the group of people reading the magazine might look bad to the people writing for it, or to self-selected flash mobs off the Internet attracted by a claim that something bad was happening.

This is but one example of how group 3 there (the editors) have a hard job. I, like you, suspect they made the wrong choice this time, but it might actually be the right choice relative to their readership; I know almost nothing about their readership.

[cija.livejournal.com]

Two thoughts:

1. If an editor is going to commit himself to believing that doing this is a constructive way to address feminist and gender issues, he's got to come up for an explanation for why he's not going to be doing that for 50% of the issues from now on. I mean, once you allow that it is a good idea to do it once, what possible reason could there be for not doing it every other issue, forever? Boy-girl-boy-girl?

Because there are non-sexist justifications for never doing special Lady Issues, and there are non-sexist justifications for doing them half the time or, indeed, all the time, but I can't think of any non-sexist justifications for doing one, once.

2. "feminine speculative literature" lol forever.

[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.

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[callunav.livejournal.com]

I think I agree with everything you're saying, here.

My only side comment is that I like anthologies of women's work, and particularly feminist work, because that way I'm more likely (albeit not by any means guaranteed, heaven knows) to get a concentration of stuff I like in one place. Despite the percentages in publishing, about 90% of the sffh I read is written by women. When I'm looking for new authors, I am much more likely to randomly pull something off the shelf if it has a woman's name on the spine. I do read and like fiction by men, quite often - but I read and like a lot more fiction by women.

This really applies more to major collections than to having a Very Special Issue, though. I don't keep up with any magazines at the moment (though I probably want to change that). Certainly, I think all the implications you bring out are present and significant.

(And I keep on pointing out to people that women are not a minority population. Weirdly, I happen to think that's important.)