History of Feminism

ismnotwasm

(41,986 posts) Mon Jun 17, 2013, 04:00 AM Jun 2013

Sexism and gender issues in SF/fantasy/horror, and what I plan to do about it.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, the world of science fiction/fantasy writing was rocked this week by a scandal involving high-ranked members of the SFWA (Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) behaving badly–very badly–not just in SFWA’s publications, but on their Twitter account. This scandal has been building for some time. As the British newspaper the Guardian reports:

A growing chorus of science fiction authors have been speaking out about sexism in the genre after much-criticised recent editions of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America’s (SFWA) magazine, Bulletin, which featured a woman in a chainmail bikini on the cover and the claim that Barbie is a role model because she “maintained her quiet dignity the way a woman should“….

The columnists, Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg, responded to claims that their descriptions were sexist in another bulletin, where they wrote that “all we did was appear in a magazine with a warrior woman on the cover, and mention that a woman who edited a science fiction magazine 65 years ago was beautiful. If they get away with censoring that, can you imagine what comes next? I’m pretty sure Joe Stalin could imagine it … Even Chairman Mao could imagine it.”

That’s not all. In a related issue, Theodore Beale, a well-known SF writer, let loose with a disgusting racist screed which was posted to the SFWA’s Twitter feed. In this sickening rant, Mr. Beale likened black women to “half-savages” and made various other awful statements. I believe this is directly related to the sexism issue, as Mr. Beale’s rant (his name, ironically, evokes the “mad prophet of the airwaves” Howard Beale from the famous 1976 movie Network) exposes an undercurrent of very old guard, unreconstructed social conservatism in the science fiction community which is tone-deaf to the changes that have occurred in society since the 1960s. They’re two sides of the same coin.

I am not a member of the SFWA. Having written science fiction, I was thinking of joining, though my major recent publication credit is in horror, and I’m not sure what the SFWA rules are on horror authors. As of now that issue is totally moot. I have no interest in joining this organization, which brings dishonor to the vibrant field of science fiction and fantasy.

http://seanmunger.com/2013/06/15/sexism-and-gender-issues-in-sffantasyhorror-and-what-i-plan-to-do-about-it/

6 replies

= new reply since forum marked as read

Highlight:

Sexism and gender issues in SF/fantasy/horror, and what I plan to do about it. (Original Post) ismnotwasm Jun 2013 OP

Beal is an Evangelical, his writing is religious, he's Southern Baptist Bluenorthwest Jun 2013 #1

I hadn't heard of him either ismnotwasm Jun 2013 #3

This message was self-deleted by its author redqueen Jun 2013 #4

Excellent. :) redqueen Jun 2013 #2

I know right? ismnotwasm Jun 2013 #5

Imagine that. redqueen Jun 2013 #6

Bluenorthwest

(45,319 posts)

1. Beal is an Evangelical, his writing is religious, he's Southern Baptist

Reply to ismnotwasm (Original post)

Mon Jun 17, 2013, 08:55 AM

Jun 2013

I heard of him because his Daddy was Pat Robertson's campaign manager before going to prison for tax evasion and threatening a judge. This is the first I have heard of him as a SiFi Writer outside of fundie and tax crank circles, he's very anti feminist and hates gay people.

ismnotwasm

(41,986 posts)

3. I hadn't heard of him either

Reply to Bluenorthwest (Reply #1)

Mon Jun 17, 2013, 12:31 PM

Jun 2013

From the article

That’s not all. In a related issue, Theodore Beale, a well-known SF writer, let loose with a disgusting racist screed which was posted to the SFWA’s Twitter feed. In this sickening rant, Mr. Beale likened black women to “half-savages” and made various other awful statements. I believe this is directly related to the sexism issue, as Mr. Beale’s rant (his name, ironically, evokes the “mad prophet of the airwaves” Howard Beale from the famous 1976 movie Network) exposes an undercurrent of very old guard, unreconstructed social conservatism in the science fiction community which is tone-deaf to the changes that have occurred in society since the 1960s. They’re two sides of the same coin.

According to wiki, he's a member of SWFA, and writes some fantasy. I think a bit of of letter writing is in order. Why give this POS a venue to spew garbage?

In 1993, together with Andrew Lunstad, he founded a video game company named Fenris Wolf. They developed the game Rebel Moon in 1995, and its sequel Rebel Moon Rising in 1997.[4] Fenris Wolf was developing two games, Rebel Moon Revolution and Traveler for the Sega Dreamcast, when it closed in 1999 after a legal dispute with its retail publisher GT Interactive.[5] In 1999, under the name Eternal Warriors, Beale and Lunstad released The War in Heaven, a biblical video game published by Valusoft and distributed by GT Interactive.[6]
In 2000, Beale published The War in Heaven, the first in a series of fantasy novels with a religious theme, entitled The Eternal Warriors which are "about good versus evil among angels, fallen and otherwise".[7] The third in the series was published in 2006.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Beale

Ugh. "Religious themed" always reminds me of those horrid "left behind" books. I don't mind a little faith based thought, but I depose hateful bigotry based on it.

Response to Bluenorthwest (Reply #1)

redqueen This message was self-deleted by its author.

redqueen

(115,103 posts)

2. Excellent. :)

Reply to ismnotwasm (Original post)

Mon Jun 17, 2013, 10:27 AM

Jun 2013

These two paragraphs really stood out for me.

Yet, on the other hand, I have seen the other side of women in SF too–the sexist vision. You know what I’m talking about. Yeoman Janice Rand sashaying around the starship Enterprise in a low-cut uniform with a miniskirt and go-go boots. Princess Leia as Jabba the Hutt’s slave girl, lounging around in a cast-iron bikini in Return of the Jedi. Green Orion slave women. Dejah Thoris in Edgar Rice Burroughs’s John Carter books, which I loved as a kid. I admit I responded to these images of women. When I was 12 years old, Princess Leia in her cast-iron bikini was the epitome of hotness. As a boy growing up in America in the 80s–a time when, in fact, women’s rights was taking a step backward–you could not avoid these depictions. They were normal and acceptable. I didn’t give them a second thought–until recently.

So, in short, I’ve been paying a lot more attention to gender issues than I previously did. As a white male in modern America it’s easy, even comfortable, to blind yourself to these issues. They are inconvenient truths. Women make less money than men do in almost every profession across the board. Despite being a numerical majority of the population women are vastly outnumbered in government, in the armed services, in corporate management, and even in education. Issues involving rape and the sexual inequalities of women in most societies around the world have gotten a lot of press lately, and they have shown us how far we still have to go to ameliorate these terrible inequalities. As a man, especially a white man, it’s easy to internalize the justifications for why these things are the way they are. I wonder if this is what certain members of the SFWA have done, perhaps without knowing that they’re doing it.

Really good to see testimonials from people writing about these light bulb moments.

Well, not moments, always... it was a gradual realization in this case. For me it was a moment.

ismnotwasm

(41,986 posts)

5. I know right?

Reply to redqueen (Reply #2)

Mon Jun 17, 2013, 01:03 PM

Jun 2013

I love Sci- Fi, and and there are good writers out there that just have a female protagonist, without the need for 'strong female character ' hoopla, although these are certainly not free of patriarchy. I stopped reading certain authers, put up with some, but I'm pleasantly surprised more often that you'd think

David Weber, who writes military sci-Fi--has his long- running "Honor Harrington series. (I
I like some military sci-Fi, but get bored with over lengthy battle scenes)
Anyway Weber has this to say;

David Weber didn't set out to create a female protagonist; "it was the way the character came to me," Weber explains. "I didn't set out to do it because I thought that it was especially politically sensitive on my part or because I thought it was likely to strike a chord with female readership or be a financial success. It was just the way that the character first presented herself." Weber doesn't find writing a female character particularly challenging, because, he says, "I'm writing about a human being who happens to be female." When he first started writing, he had developed her entire back story before he started the first book. However, since he knew from the beginning that these books would become a series, he deliberately set Honor up as a character who changes and grows. One example Weber offers is that in The Short Victorious War, Honor off-handedly refers to her genetically enhanced metabolism, which isn't fully explored until In Enemy Hands: "It was one of those little things that I knew about or that I was holding in reserve," Weber says.

The first name of his character - Honor - had come to Weber long before the last name did. Weber knew that if the Honor novels worked, she was inevitably going to be compared to C.S.Forester's Horatio Hornblower, therefore he chose Harrington's name so that she had the same initials. He says, "There are certainly, clearly, similarities between the two. There are also huge differences. And Honor has never been as neurotic as Hornblower was. Hornblower always carried a massive sense of inferiority around with him. Honor never did." Weber also feels that in the later books in the series, Honor has more in common with Admiral Horatio Nelson than Hornblower. Weber revealed in the foreword to Storm from the Shadows that it had originally been his intent to kill Honor off in the Battle of Manticore, thus further mimicking Nelson's life (he died in his greatest battle, Trafalgar) and have the emerging Mesa problem be dealt with by the next generation, specifically, Honor's children. When writing At All Costs, he decided instead to keep her alive, and move the Mesan-related events up, to be Honor's problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_Harrington

redqueen

(115,103 posts)

6. Imagine that.

Reply to ismnotwasm (Reply #5)

Mon Jun 17, 2013, 01:54 PM

Jun 2013

He didn't set out to write her differently, he just wrote her as a person.

This shouldn't be so refreshing but it is.

Reply to this discussion