Feminism

Women to Read Wednesday 04: 100 great sf stories by women

Feminism, geekdom, science fiction
Published on 2 Comments on Women to Read Wednesday 04: 100 great sf stories by women

Irritated by an old science fiction anthology, where out of the hundred stories only five were by women, Ian Sales put together the list below of a hundred great science fiction stories by women. A list like that is always a good way of hearing about writers you haven’t encountered before, so I want to keep this simple. Bold if I’ve never heard of somebody before, italics if I’ve read something of them.

  1. ‘The Fate of the Poseidonia’, Clare Winger Harris (1927, short story)
  2. ‘The Conquest of Gola,’ Leslie F Stone (1931, short story)
  3. ‘Water Pirate’, Leigh Brackett (1941, short story)
  4. ‘Space Episode’, Leslie Perri (1941, short story)
  5. ‘No Woman Born’, Cl Moore (1944, novelette)
  6. ‘That Only a Mother’, Judith Merril (1948, short story)
  7. ‘Contagion’, Katherine Maclean (1950, novelette)
  8. ‘Brightness Falls from the Air’, Margaret St Clair [as Idris Seabright] (1951, short story)
  9. ‘All Cats are Gray’, Andre Norton (1953, short story)
  10. ‘The Last Day’, Helen Clarkson (1958, short story)
  11. ‘Captivity’, Zenna Henderson (1958, novella)
  12. ‘The New You’, Kit Reed (1962, short story)
  13. ‘The Putnam Tradition’, Sonya Dorman (1963, short story)
  14. ‘Lord Moon’, MJ Engh [as Jane Beauclerk] (1965, short story)
  15. ‘Weyr Search’, Anne McCaffrey (1967, novella)
  16. ‘The Heat Death of the Universe’, Pamela Zoline (1967, short story)
  17. ‘The Steiger Effect’, Betsy Curtis (1968, short story)
  18. ‘The Power of Time’, Josephine Saxton (1971, novelette)
  19. ‘And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side’, James Tiptree Jr (1972, short story)
  20. ‘When It Changed’, Joanna Russ (1972, short story)
  21. ‘Sheltering Dream’, Doris Piserchia (1972, short story)
  22. ‘Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand’, Vonda N McIntyre (1973, novelette)
  23. ‘Clone Sister’, Pamela Sargent (1973, novelette)
  24. ‘The Violet’s Embryo’, Angélica Gorodischer (1973, novelette)
  25. ‘Stone Circle’, Lisa Tuttle (1976, short story)
  26. ‘Eyes of Amber’, Joan D Vinge (1977, novelette)
  27. ‘Cassandra, CJ Cherryh (1978, short story)
  28. ‘The View from Endless Scarp’, Marta Randall (1978, short story)
  29. ‘Scorched Supper on New Niger’, Suzy Mckee Charnas (1980, novelette)
  30. ‘Abominable’, Carol Emshwiller (1980, short story)
  31. ‘Sea Changeling’, Mildred Downey Broxon (1981, novelette)
  32. ‘In the Western Tradition’, Phyllis Eisenstein (1981, novella)
  33. ‘Her Furry Face’, Leigh Kennedy (1983, short story)
  34. ‘Bloodchild’ Octavia E Butler (1984, novelette)
  35. ‘Symphony for a Lost Traveller’, Lee Killough (1984, short story)
  36. ‘All My Darling Daughters’, Connie Willis (1985, novelette)
  37. ‘Webrider’, Jayge Carr (1985, short story)
  38. ‘Out of All Them Bright Stars’, Nancy Kress (1985, short story)
  39. ‘The View from Venus: A Case Study’, Karen Joy Fowler (1986, novelette)
  40. ‘Reichs-Peace’, Sheila Finch (1986, novelette)
  41. ‘Daily Voices’, Lisa Goldstein (1986, short story)
  42. ‘Rachel in Love’, Pat Murphy (1987, novelette)
  43. ‘Forever Yours, Anna’, Kate Wilhelm (1987, short story)
  44. ‘Stable Strategies for Middle Management’, Eileen Gunn (1988, short story)
  45. ‘War and Rumours of War’, Candas Jane Dorsey (1988, short story)
  46. ‘The Mountains of Mourning’, Lois Mcmaster Bujold (1989, novella)
  47. ‘Tiny Tango’, Judith Moffett (1989, novella)
  48. ‘Identifying the Object’, Gwyneth Jones (1990, novelette)
  49. ‘Loose Cannon’, Susan Shwartz (1990, novelette)
  50. ‘Dispatches from the Revolution’, Pat Cadigan (1991, novelette)
  51. ‘The Road to Jerusalem’, Mary Gentle (1991, short story)
  52. ‘The Missionary’s Child’, Maureen F McHugh (1992, novelette)
  53. ‘The Story So Far’, Martha Soukup (1993, short story)
  54. ‘The Good Pup’, Bridget McKenna (1993, short story)
  55. ‘California Dreamer’, Mary Rosenblum (1994, short story)
  56. ‘Last Summer at Mars Hill’, Elizabeth Hand (1994, novella)
  57. ‘Coming of Age in Karhide’, Ursula K Le Guin (1995, novelette)
  58. ‘De Secretis Mulierum’, L Timmel Duchamp (1995, novella)
  59. ‘Merlusine’, Lucy Sussex (1997, novelette)
  60. ‘Noble Mold’, Kage Baker (1997, short story)
  61. ‘All the Birds of Hell’, Tanith Lee (1998, novelette)
  62. ‘Rain Season’, Leanne Frahm (1998, short story)
  63. ‘Echea’, Kristine Kathryn Rusch (1998, novelette)
  64. ‘Patient Zero’, Tananarive Due (2000, short story)
  65. ‘Knapsack Poems’, Eleanor Arnason (2002, short story)
  66. ‘State of Oblivion’, Kaaron Warren (2003, short story)
  67. ‘Inside Out’, Michaela Roessner (2004, short story)
  68. ‘Griots of the Galaxy’, Andrea Hairston (2004, novelette)
  69. ‘Riding the White Bull’, Caitlín R Kiernan( 2004, novelette)
  70. ‘The Avatar of Background Noise’, Toiya Kristen Finley (2006, short story)
  71. ‘Captive Girl’, Jennifer Pelland (2006, short story)
  72. ‘The Bride Price’, Cat Sparks (2007, short story)
  73. ‘Tideline’, Elizabeth Bear (2007, short story)
  74. ‘Arkfall’, Carolyn Ives Gilman (2008, novella)
  75. ‘Legolas does the Dishes’, Justina Robson (2008, short story)
  76. ‘The Ecologist and the Avon Lady’, Tricia Sullivan (2008, novelette)
  77. ‘Infinities’, Vandana Singh (2008, novelette)
  78. ‘Chica, Let Me Tell You a Story’, Alex Dally Macfarlane (2008, short story)
  79. ‘Spider the Artist’, Nnedi Okrafor (2008, short story)
  80. ‘Cold Words’, Juliette Wade (2009, novelette)
  81. ‘Eros, Philia, Agape’, Rachel Swirsky (2009, novelette)
  82. ‘Non-Zero Probabilities’, NK Jemisin (2009, short story)
  83. ‘Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast’, Eugie Foster (2009, hort story)
  84. ‘It Takes Two’, Nicola Griffith (2009, novelette)
  85. ‘Blood, Blood’, Abbey Mei Otis (2010, short story)
  86. ‘The Other Graces’, Alice Sola Kim (2010, short story)
  87. ‘Agents of Repair’, Rosie Oliver (2010, short story)
  88. ‘Amaryllis’, Carrie Vaughn (2010, short story)
  89. ‘I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno’, Vylar Kaftan (2010, short story)
  90. ‘Flying in the Face of God’, Nina Allan (2010, short story)
  91. ‘Six Months, Three Days’, Charlie Jane Anders (2011, short story)
  92. ‘Nahiku West’, Linda Nagata (2011, novelette)
  93. ‘The Cartographer Bees and the Anarchist Wasps’, E Lily Yu (2011, short story)
  94. ‘Silently and Very Fast’, Catherynne M Valente (2011, novella)
  95. ‘Jagannath’, Karin Tidbeck (2011, short story)
  96. ‘A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel’, Yoon Ha Lee (2011, short story)
  97. ‘Immersion’, Aliette de Bodard (2012, short story)
  98. ‘The Lady Astronaut of Mars’, Mary Robinette Kowal (2012, novelette)
  99. ‘The Green’, Lauren Beukes (2012, short story)
  100. ‘Significant Dust’, Margo Lanagan (2012, novelette)

“I’m an endangered species. I shouldn’t be anymore.”

Feminism, LGBT
Published on Leave a comment on “I’m an endangered species. I shouldn’t be anymore.”

Samantha Allen, in one of the better posts I’ve seen on the subject, talks about the contineous harassement of trans* people by a certain kind of radfem:

In some bizarre alternate reality, however, I’m seen as a villain who invades “real” women’s spaces and perpetuates harmful gender stereotypes. A small but vocal band of activists known as “Radfems” see transgender women like myself as a blight on the feminist movement, but — because their views are not representative of the feminist movement as a whole — many trans*-inclusive feminists refer to them as TERFs, or Trans*-Exclusionary Radical Feminists.

“Reporting Harassment at a Convention: A First-Person How To”

Feminism, geekdom, science fiction
Published on Leave a comment on “Reporting Harassment at a Convention: A First-Person How To”

Well known science fiction fan Elise Matthesen was sexually harassed at Wiscon and decided to formally complain to both the convention and the harasser’s employer.

Although their behavior was professional and respectful, I was stunned when I found out that mine was the first formal report filed there as well. From various discussions in person and online, I knew for certain that I was not the only one to have reported inappropriate behavior by this person to his employer. It turned out that the previous reports had been made confidentially and not through HR and Legal. Therefore my report was the first one, because it was the first one that had ever been formally recorded.

Matthesen was surprised to learn both that the person in question was long known to be a serial harasser and nobody had made a formal complaint about him yet, which is why she wrote about this and got it posted not just on John Scalzi’s blog, but also at the blogs of Mary Robinette Kowal, Seanan McGuire, Brandon Sanderson, Chuck Wendig and Jim Hines, who also reveals the name of the accused and confirms that this person had been reported before.

As to why this person hasn’t been named before or been formally complained about, Mary Robinette Kowal has some thoughs about her own culpability in this.

It is of course not uncommon that a serial harasser has long been known and warned about by their victims, but never taken direct action against, so not uncommon that the sex, feminism and BDSM blog The Pervocracy called this situation “the missing stair”:

Have you ever been in a house that had something just egregiously wrong with it? Something massively unsafe and uncomfortable and against code, but everyone in the house had been there a long time and was used to it? “Oh yeah, I almost forgot to tell you, there’s a missing step on the unlit staircase with no railings. But it’s okay because we all just remember to jump over it.”

Some people are like that missing stair.

When I posted about a rapist in a community I belonged to, although I gave almost no details about the guy except “he’s a rapist,” I immediately got several emails from other members of that community saying “oh, you must mean X.” Everyone knew who he was! Tons of people, including several in the leadership, instantly knew who I meant. The reaction wasn’t “there’s a rapist among us!?!” but “oh hey, I bet you’re talking about our local rapist.” Several of them expressed regret that I hadn’t been warned about him beforehand, because they tried to discreetly tell new people about this guy. Others talked about how they tried to make sure there was someone keeping an eye on him at parties, because he was fine so long as someone remembered to assign him a Rape Babysitter.

All of which led Dustin Kurtz to wonder whether Sf fandom’s inclusiveness makes this problem worse and concludes that it should not:

The SFF community, of which conventions are a vital distillation, was, historically, populated by outsiders. The entire idea of genre is of course predicated on a readership that consciously sets itself apart, and no genre made that as much a point of pride as skiffy readers. That has the glorious result that outsiderdom predicated on other criteria—transgendered fans, for instance—is welcome within the community, even when that might be less true in society generally. But some, particularly men of an older generation, seem to mistake a spirit of permissiveness for individual permission.

Whatever the reasons, harassment is rife at these things. But maybe now, in the twenty-first century—the goddamned future—after a year of truly infuriating misogyny from some of the old guard in the genre, maybe now things will finally reach the point where even the most loutish of fans realize that an inclusive community need not include them, that a safe space for geeks doesn’t mean they themselves are safe from repercussions, and that, oh yeah, we all know their boss’ phone number.

As one of the people in science fiction with a big megaphone, John Scalzi took the first step to stop tolerance of harassment, by insisting any con he is a guest of has a proper harassment policy.

Fandom really should clean our act up

Feminism, geekdom, science fiction
Published on Leave a comment on Fandom really should clean our act up

So sick and tired of this shit happening in my fandom:

3. Moments later, another guy, a fellow writer, hugs me tenderly from behind, though I do not know him. When I turn, startled, to protest, he says “You have the greatest smile. It just makes me want to hug you.” I’m doomed to avoiding him for the rest of the con, because he’s always wherever I am, charging at me with open arms, hugging me in elevators and moving at me to hug basically just wherever I go. It’s gross. He becomes known to my swiftly formed girl posse as The Hugger in the Hat. And when I say hugger, I mean full body contact with erect bits against my thigh. I don’t report him. I’m new to the scene. I feel awkward. I’m used to being harassed in the world. This is bad, but it’s not insane in terms of how much wrong attention I get from creeps in cities. So, I don’t report.

4. What Cherie Priest says in her post on this is true. We form protective posses. Descriptions of creepers are traded like cards. Women say things such as “Do you need back up when you walk through that room?” “What color is his shirt?” “Oh, I saw The Hugger In The Hat in there – I’m getting between you and him.”

5. Conversely, when I complained about The Hugger anecdotally to men, most of them said he was just clueless and didn’t mean to creep me out, and that if I was clear that I didn’t want to be hugged, I wouldn’t be, because The Hugger was a nice guy. Don’t get me wrong. Most men are great. But I think most guys have also not been witness to a lot of this. Creepers wait til you’re with your girls, or alone. Because Creepers calculate.

Both the actual harassement Maria Dahvana Headley experienced and the dismissal/justification of it should not happen. It’s 2013, not 1973 and even in fandom, even when you are a famous science fiction writer, this sort of behaviour is beyond the pale and we should not put up with it any longer. Nobody should have to worry about how and whether to file a formal harassement report against an editor when going to a con.

For those of us who aren’t douchenozzles, nor likely to be the victim of harassement, what we should do is watch out for it and be supportive, not dismissive, of those who do suffer from it. This can be hard, but that’s no excuse not to.

The trouble with Penny Arcade

Feminism, geekdom, LGBT
Published on 1 Comment on The trouble with Penny Arcade

It sadly does not come as a surprise that one of the Penny Arcade boys made some ignorant, transphobic remarks. This is not the first time either of them was caught saying something dumb and hurtfull, nor the first time that they dug in first rather than apologise and acknowledging that they’d done wrong. It’s not so much that they deliberately set out to provoke or hurt people but rather that they’re somewhat more ignorant about certain hot button topics than they themselves realise, nor all that used to being contradicted. So instead of backing down, they double down on the offensiveness instead.

Why this is may be explained by their own history. Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik were your typical gaming nerds that through a combination of luck and hard work managed to make what was just another gaming webcomic into a multimillion dollar business, themselves into nerd kings. They’re in a position where they rarely have to listen to anybody else, with an audience that actively sucks up to them and they have that typical nerd mentality of thinking they know everything about anything. It’s not full on Dunning Kruger, but it does mean they have trouble recognising their own ignorance at times. Which is deadly when it comes to these kind of indentity issues. What’s troubling is that they also seem unwilling to address their ignorance, preferring to just not talk about these things instead.

In conclusion, Penny Arcade is a land of contrasts, not willfully evil but perhaps willfully stupid.