So I've read most of it now, though I can't seem to find the original text of the first bulletin, the one where he tells the story about the beautiful editor. I have read their second article, about anonymity and censorship though.
And the Ann Aguirre piece, which seems to me so much more important, is heartbreaking, mostly because I would hope that these cons are being put on and attended by enough folks who were raised to know better, and yet, they are still creating this hostile environment for Ann and writers like her.
Not being a member of SFWA, I've still not read the original piece, and I've not read the original blowback, but if it does come down to a story about the female editor from the fifties being beautiful and the use of lady as an adjective, combined with that cover, then I would have liked to see this handled differently.
The use of lady as an adjective makes me cringe, but so did my great uncle's use of colored to describe black people, even though he was decidedly not a racist, and I'm sure my use of black instead of African American will make others cringe, but it is what it is. I too am a product of my generation.
It seems what Resnick has taken the most umbrage to is that no one brought their concerns directly to them, which, hey, on the surface sounds like a legitimate kvetch. Who knows, doing so might have started an actual dialogue. For him to spin that complaint out into the straw man arguments concerning anonymity and censorship was ridiculous though.
I do think how that claim of censorship is handled going forward will be interesting. What is this board, which so many of the commentators think will "fix" the issue, going to do? My guess is implement some heavier-handed editing. My guess is you won't read about lady insert-occupation here anymore in the SFWA bulletin. But wouldn't that be censorship if Resnick is still writing it and its getting cut?
I think it'd be better to get a feminist SF writer or editor to write a regular article addressing the systemic issues that lead to the problems Ann Aguirre wrote about, to start discussing some of these problems using a layperson's language, without the academic jargon that assumes you've taken all the same classes or done the same research they have (or at least if you're going to use terms like cisgendered and ableist, explain them), and if Resnick and company continue to write sexist stuff (even if they don't at first realize it to be so, which is what I'm leaning toward in this case unless I can read the original text and find otherwise), then turn it into a learning moment for the whole community.
Anyway. I obviously got way to wrapped up in this, and like the others involved, I've probably gotten a bit more defensive than the episode deserved. I think it's because the first author's reaction jolted me back to some pretty ugly and unnecessarily sardonic diatribes in grad school, where, by the way, I discovered I too had bought into a lot of sexist conditioning.
