{"id":4640,"date":"2013-06-04T16:33:33","date_gmt":"2013-06-04T21:33:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/?p=4640"},"modified":"2013-06-04T16:33:33","modified_gmt":"2013-06-04T21:33:33","slug":"oh-sfwa-no","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/2013\/06\/04\/oh-sfwa-no\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh SFWA, No"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nKameron Hurley is not amused<\/a> by the ongoing sexism problems in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America or the idea that criticism of this is censorship:\n<\/p>\n

\nSo. I get it. The world used to agree with you. You used to be able to say things like, \u201cI really like those lady writers in this industry, especially in swimsuits!\u201d and your fellow writers, editors, agents, and other assorted colleagues would all wink and grin and agree with you, and Asimov would go around pinching women\u2019s asses, and it was so cool!\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nThe problems arose with the SFWA’s quarterly magazine, in the regular column written by Barry Malzberg and Mike Resnick. E. Catherine Tobler has a good summing up in her open lettre to the SFWA<\/a>:\n<\/p>\n

\nIt began with issue #200 of the Bulletin\u2014all right, #199 if we want to get technical. It began with the Resnick and Malzberg Dialogues, a long-time feature of the publication. It began when two men sat down to have a dialogue about editors and writers of the female gender.
\n[…]
\nI found a dialogue that seemed more focused on how these \u201clady editors\u201d and \u201clady writers\u201d looked in bathing suits, and that they were \u201cbeauty pageant beautiful\u201d or a \u201cknock out.\u201d I am certain no condescension was intended with the use of \u201clady,\u201d but as the dialogues went on, I felt the word carried a certain tone\u2014perhaps that was a fiction of my own making. As I listened to these two men talk about lady editors and writers they had known, I grew uneasy. Something wasn\u2019t right.
\n[…]
\nThe editorial staff (headed by a woman) vowed to improve, to seek more membership input. Issue #201 was little better\u2014it included an article, written by another man, that told women to emulate Barbie, to \u201cmaintain our quiet dignity as a woman should.\u201d
\n[…]
\nIssue #202 brought with it a \u201crebuttal\u201d from Malzberg and Resnick, in which they used the words \u201ccensorship,\u201d and \u201csuppression,\u201d and \u201cban.\u201d In which they said those who complained about their article were anonymous to them, that the SFWA forum had become \u201cthe arena for difference.\u201d Was it members who objected to \u201capparent sexism,\u201d or was it a larger, darker, more hostile and threatening thing that wanted to suppress their dialogues?
\n[…]
\nIn all the complaints that were voiced, there was never a call for censorship. There was never a call for suppression. There was a call for respect.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nAs the controversy grew, the SFWA has announced a task force to look at these problems<\/a>:\n<\/p>\n

\nIn response to this and previous feedback from members about recent issues of the Bulletin, I have authorized the formation of a task force to look at the Bulletin and to determine how the publication needs to proceed from this point in order to be a valuable and useful part of the SFWA member experience.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nFurthermore, the SFWA’s outgoing president, John Scalzi (of this parish) has unreservedly apologised for these problems in an open lettre to the membership<\/a>:\n<\/p>\n

\nThat begins with recognizing the problem. And here is the problem: SFWA, through the last few issues of the Bulletin, has offended many of our own members.<\/p>\n

As president of the organization, I apologize to those members.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nIf you want to read more, much more about all this Jim Hines has a link roundup<\/a>. For those curious about the article that kicked all this off, Radish Reviews has excerpts and scans of it<\/a> (scroll down).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kameron Hurley is not amused by the ongoing sexism problems in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America or the idea that criticism of this is censorship: So. I get it. The world used to agree with you. You used to be able to say things like, \u201cI really like those lady writers in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,305,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism","category-geekdom","category-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4640"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4641,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4640\/revisions\/4641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cloggie.org\/wissewords2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}