Feminism something something... Anyway we need more of it

[thistlepong]

Having been unable to catch up with the Reborn thread sufficiently quickly to respond...

Mormont wrote:

On that basis, it should be pretty easy to say that if I harass a female colleague because she acts 'like a man', I've committed a discriminatory act.

If you do this exclusively to women, in my home state, then you have. You can be terminated and sued.

[Sci-2]

On the question of bias in gender/sex related research, don't we have methodology, statistical analysis and review to go over these things?

I mean we have studies that support various positions brought up in the media, and anyone who follows those developments closely can see criticisms, retractions, defenses, etc.

I get there are going to be studies taken up by various websites as definitive proof their position is right, but it I'd like to think the core of the scientific community has some agreement on differences between men and women and the implications of those differences.

[TerraPrime]

The theoretical discussion is fun, but might we not be losing sight of the fact that this is a specific case about women's ability to write good novels? Unless one contends that there are insufficient evidence to show that women can be excellent authors of fictions, then one cannot assume that the sex of the author should make any determinative contribution to the prediction of the quality of fiction produced, no?

In other words, given the number, cross-culturally, of excellent female authors of fictions, why is it "more ridiculous" to start with the presumption that an author being female will make the fiction she produces inferior?

[Shryke]

I don't know about quality, but quantity I'd expect there to be overall differences in the number of male and female authors.

I think it's uncontested to assume that specific genres of books exhibit highly skewed gender demographics in their respective authors. Like, Romance is written mostly by women and, I don't know, Sci-fi is written mostly by Men or something. And there's various reasons for this that aren't relevant to the point here.

Now I'd imagine overall we'd expect an equal number of women and men to be trying to write, in whatever respective genre, but the relative success and profitability of those genres (and even of specific types of books and such within those genres) should skew the number of books in each genre quite a bit, which will in turn skew the overall number of authors in turn.

Basically, if we imagine that only Romance and Sci-Fi books are written, and Romance is way more popular, then we'd expect more female authors then male, even though there might be an actual number of quality authors of either sex and an equal number of people trying to write. There just wouldn't be the market for the number of potential Sci-fi writers.

Now, interestingly, this whole framework suggests some interesting behaviour once we consider why women write more of X books and men more of Y books. My first instinct would be to suggest that the difference is based on what they read (or read), which itself ties into cultural factors and such. Women write alot of romance because that's what they like to read and they like to read it based on some combination of cultural influence. And (perhaps) some sort of connection with the author based on similarities.

But if that's true then the makeup of writers should reflect the makeup of readers, which should in turn through economic pressure reflect the makeup of professional writers.

So an overall skew in writers might suggest a difference in which sex reads more and/or which sex tends to read outside their genres more.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

As with movies, I think that gets confounded by the fact that men and boys tend not to be asked to identify with protagonists that aren't like them, while everyone else is expected to be more flexible.

However, since :wideeyed: biotruths :wideeyed: tell us that the diminutive ladybrain is better at words (verbal ability) and irrational empathy (emotions and the expression thereof), surely this means that women should be better at literary fiction? And the underrepresentation, if any, means that women are discriminated against? Or maybe it's just that "biotruths" are generally a misapplication of conjecture and statistics, I guess.

[Lyanna Stark]

To answer kolantero in the last thread:

You know, if I actually wanted to say "whine about" I would write that instead of "complain about". Maybe you are used to talk in implications (some would even say it's a woman's trait but hey that'be sexist) but if I wanted to imply that feminists are whiners (which they are actually) I would just say so, like I did more than once in this forum.

So now feminist are whiners as well as complainers? And "some would say" that being a whiner and a complainer is a female trait. Why the "some might say"? If that is what you think, why not come out and say it - otherwise, why put it in there at all? It serves no purpose.

However, it would be interesting to see you actually come out with some sort of explanation for "feminists are whiners" since being a whiner implies that the points made by feminists are not worth the merit of any attention, that it's somehow related to being in a bad mood, etc.

I mean, a lot of posters in this thread self identify as feminists. Is it then your position that these posters (including myself) whine? That when it comes to feminism, it's constant complaining and whining that is the norm?

If not, then why are you writing what you do?

And this is supposed to prove what since I already admitted that i have no idea what is going on with authors and gender and that whatever I said were nothing more than guesses? Furthermore, how does gender-neutral proves anything? It doesn't necessarily means than male>female names, it just means that (maybe) gender-neutral > female names (IF we take for granted that it was done to help the sales.)

Not to mention that it might not even have much to do with sales, since Rowling wrote recently a mystery book under a male pseudoname, even though with here own (famous) name she could have sold much more (it was leaked).

This is not about the newly leaked book, this is about her old novels. The Wiki confirms what can also be found elsewhere:

Although she writes under the pen name "J. K. Rowling", pronounced like rolling,her name when her first Harry Potter book was published was simply "Joanne Rowling". Anticipating that the target audience of young boys might not want to read a book written by a woman, her publishers demanded that she use two initials, rather than her full name.

Using "JK" instead of "Joanne" means people cannot guess her gender and JK can be the initials of either a man or a woman, but it does not come across as inherently female, hence why it was chosen.

It ties into the discussion above that men and boys are rarely asked to identify with a protagonist that is different from them.

[Theda Baratheon]

It seems almost too much of a stereotype, it's like this comic was written for you Kolantero:

http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=341

[karaddin]

On the subject of gender participation in different fields of genre fiction, I saw this Tor blog post last week (and even commented on it myself!) which includes a breakdown of the submissions they get for each genre. Horror is the one with the largest gaygap with 83% male, 17% female submissions. Sci-Fi is the second worst at 78% male, 22% female. I think SF particularly you can see how the issue can be very complicated by discrimination at multiple stages along with the biases that come before that point that may lead to women not attempting SF in the first place.

Edited to correct: Horror has a gap, not a gay. No Freudian slip here, no siree.

[Sci-2]

@Karaddin: The link you posted suggests the question of why there's a huge gap in SF publishing may not be due to sexism. At least that's what I got out of this:

While I understand why people get so impassioned about wanting more female writers in genre, especially when it comes to science fiction, the picture just isn’t as clear cut as it seems. Accusing the publishers of being sexist, or lax in their attitude towards women writers is an easy out but it’s just not the case.

=-=-=

Thankfully, Nada escaped her forced marriage. In a message sent to NOW, Nada addressed every mother and father seeking to marry off their daughters: "I am a child and I want to realize my dreams. My aunt was forced to get married so she burned herself to death, and I saw pictures of her with burns. Let me realize my dream. I want to go to school, become a star, and help other children. I am not thinking about marriage, I don’t want to now. I want to say to fathers and mother, 'let us realize our dreams, do not kill them.'"

[karaddin]

@Karaddin: The link you posted suggests the question of why there's a huge gap in SF publishing may not be due to sexism. At least that's what I got out of this:

It suggests it may not be due to sexism in publishing, not that it's not due to sexism anywhere in the chain. If you only read the article and not at least the early comments you are missing half the discussion, the author of the post is fairly active in replying. Just because there isn't sexism in the publishing doesn't mean there isn't sexism in the purchasing of the books, creating a feedback mechanism encourage female authors to stay out of SF. It doesn't mean there isn't pressure that it's not a feminine area of interest preventing women from being interested in writing it in the first place. Something that I mused on (and was in my comment) is that there is a huge gender gap in science itself, and it would hardly be surprising to see this feed into SF writing in some fashion.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

There are rebuttals to the assumptions in the Tor piece, too. I'll add a link when I'm not on my phone, but ladybusiness on Dreamwidth had one, and I'm sure I saw more talk about it on Twitter.

Basically, the publishers throwing their hands up and stopping at the submission numbers without addressing the process to get that far are ignoring some areas where they could have control & more influence on numbers.

ETA: I think Renay might have had it on her own site rather than ladybusiness. Strange Horizons responded too, as well as others. I did a quick search for 'renay sexism in publishing' and links came up. I imagine you can just look for 'Tor sexism in publishing' and find more discussion on both sides.

ETA2: This post seems to have a lot of good link roundup: http://tansyrr.com/tansywp/friday-links-is-saving-mr-banks/

Julie Andrews has a response on why people might not be submitting to Tor UK, and not from the perspective you might think: http://julieandrews.livejournal.com/131364.html

For those podcast-oriented: http://aqueductpress.blogspot.ie/2013/07/do-book-publishers-slush-piles-have.html (This is another discussion that brings up the point that the slush pile is not the only source of published books, so relying on slush numbers is... iffy.)

And so on and so forth.

So yes, women do tend to submit less. Why? What about the non-slush publishing? In some fields, women submit less but are published more often.

And have you all seen Coverflip?

[Kolantero]

So now feminist are whiners as well as complainers?

Where have I said that feminists are complainers? I said "[something] feminists complain about" and the verb definitely does not have the same "aura" of meaning (semantic prosody/preference) as the noun. Since when has the verb complain (followed by "about") stopped being used for legitimate grievances in English language? You know, I thought that your tendency for twisting facts, generalizing and exaggerating was accidental but maybe its not.

And "some would say" that being a whiner and a complainer is a female trait. Why the "some might say"? If that is what you think, why not come out and say it - otherwise, why put it in there at all? It serves no purpose.

Hey, I thought I'd give you a legitimate reason to protest about so you wouldn't have to twist my words to find one. I was basically doing you a favor.

However, it would be interesting to see you actually come out with some sort of explanation for "feminists are whiners" since being a whiner implies that the points made by feminists are not worth the merit of any attention, that it's somehow related to being in a bad mood, etc.

Yes a lot of what feminists complain about aren't complaints (i.e. legitimate) but rather whines (i.e. bullshit) and they are not worth the merit of any attention. I must have said that at least 10 times in these forums so I don't know why you are asking something you already know the answer. That being said, ofcourse there are valid complaints coming from feminists, even though sometimes they will get distorted/exaggerated/generalized through feminism and end up a joke.

By what logic would a group which whines about imaginary grievances would not also complain about real and legitimate grievances? That would make sense only if women had absolutely nothing to legitimately complain about, which is a ridiculous notion.

I mean, a lot of posters in this thread self identify as feminists. Is it then your position that these posters (including myself) whine? That when it comes to feminism, it's constant complaining and whining that is the norm?

I'm not gonna comment on what other posters are saying, if they want my opinion about them (can't see why they'd care but hey) they can ask me for it.

[Salome the Persian Witch]

Bwahahahahahahahah!!!! So, Kolantero, feminists have imaginary grievances, so you very gallantly provide a legitimate one for us by being insulting and passive aggressive, adding nothing concrete to your hyperbolic over-reaching accusations, and then turn yourself into the victim! :thumbsup:

Kudos to you, my friend. It's Miller Time. :cheers:

[Kolantero]

Bwahahahahahahahah!!!! So, Kolantero, feminists have imaginary grievances, so you very gallantly provide a legitimate one for us

Glad to be of service

[sologdin]

Yes a lot of what feminists complain about aren't complaints (i.e. legitimate) but rather whines (i.e. bullshit) and they are not worth the merit of any attention. I must have said that at least 10 times in these forums so I don't know why you are asking something you already know the answer. That being said, ofcourse there are valid complaints coming from feminists, even though sometimes they will get distorted/exaggerated/generalized through feminism and end up a joke.

you might distinguish and specify those grievances that you regard as legitimate from those that you find to be whining. otherwise you might forgive your kindly readers if they believe you are wholly anti-feminist.

[thistlepong]

@Karaddin: The link you posted suggests the question of why there's a huge gap in SF publishing may not be due to sexism.

It suggests it may not be due to sexism in publishing, not that it's not due to sexism anywhere in the chain.

I find it grimly amusing that Tor would suggest it isn't, y'know, their fault less than a month after one of their most senior editors was outed as a serial harasser on a dozen different sci-fi blogs. I suppose that's more savvy than artlessly closing ranks around one of their bloggers and con organizers over the same thing. Sure, it's only a couple of public examples, but when folks suggest a systemic bias and then you see those examples on both ends of the chain, it tends to lend some weight to the suggestion. Thanks for the link, karaddin.

[Elder Sister]

<snip>

If you were to ask certain female writers, they would tell you that there is a definite gender bias in the world of publishing.

I have wondered how JK Rowling's book The Casual Vacancy would have been received had it been written under a pseudonym like The Cuckoo's Calling was. The first was castigated by critics, (and I read it and really liked it.) and the second was universally praised.

[Kolantero]

you might distinguish and specify those grievances that you regard as legitimate from those that you find to be whining. otherwise you might forgive your kindly readers if they believe you are wholly anti-feminist.

I usually do in my posts and even if i don't anyone can either ask for clarification or assume that I consider them legitimate until proven otherwise. It's not like I can list every single grievance uttered by every feminist ever in my signature along with whether I consider it legit or not.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte]

If you were to ask certain female writers, they would tell you that there is a definite gender bias in the world of publishing.

I have wondered how JK Rowling's book The Casual Vacancy would have been received had it been written under a pseudonym like The

Cuckoo's Calling was. The first was castigated by critics, (and I read it and really liked it.) and the second was universally praised.

Ya people in my country started howling that it was offensive to sikhs.

Arrey im a sikh and find nothing wrong with the book in its depictions!!!

Those dicks probably never bothered reading it and acted on it cause they heard it had sikhs and cause its written by big name author.

I hate these type of people. Fucking jealous cause someone else made it and they didnt.

[sologdin]

I usually do in my posts and even if i don't anyone can either ask for clarification or assume that I consider them legitimate until proven otherwise. It's not like I can list every single grievance uttered by every feminist ever in my signature along with whether I consider it legit or not.

it's not really obvious. as for an assumption of legitimacy: uh, no. i read "anti-feminist" and assume an intention to undo all egalitarian progress regarding sex and gender. that means reducing women to the status of chattels. you can have whatever secret gender politics you want in your brains, but all we see is the overt manifestations, which are not consistent with even 19th century concepts of women's liberation.