The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America has responded to the recent controversy around gender-based evaluation (or devaluation) of writers: they'll form a task force to look into it.
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Help keep the words flowing.
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Help keep the words flowing.
Your opinions, Tony?
ReplyDeleteTrying to change a culture by issuing an apology and forming a task force is like trying to transplant an old-growth forest with a set of soup spoons. All the good will in the world won't turn those spoons into a backhoe.
DeleteWould you consider blogging about it?
DeleteNo. What would be gained by my chiming in on this? I'm not a member of SFWA, I don't qualify to be a member of SFWA, nor do I expect to qualify any time soon. Speaking as an outsider, I'm neither strident enough nor well known enough for my opinion to carry any weight.
DeleteThe guys who started this furor are both in their 70s. It's easy to dismiss them as holdovers from another time, but they didn't pick the chainmail bikini model on the cover of that issue. That was a product of the larger culture within SFWA. Cut down a couple of old trees if you like; the forest still grows as it always has.
the apology did say that it should NOT have flown, and the person apologized for not doing a better job of it, and insinuated that they did not like that content, and wouldn't have allowed it past. So thats something, its an admission of wrongdoing.
DeleteThe "Golden Age" was golden for straight white men. Those who decry the perception of spec fic as a male-dominated field (with a few notable exceptions, because they are few) need to take a good long look at this situation.
ReplyDeleteI'll have plenty more to say about it in my Wed. column. I've never let "nobody's listening to me anyway" stop me before. :-P
Rage on!
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