The Hugo Awards Kerfuffle...

[Nerds_feather]

Just want to add some insight to the use of statistics here--I'm a social scientist by profession and use (statistical) survey data on a regular basis.

To begin, the way statistics are reported on is often misleading. For example, this piece tells us that 32% of male readers and 20% of female readers in the U.S. read science fiction (presumably they are folding fantasy into this category as well, though it isn't certain). So one might conclude that SF "tilts male." And it does, but not to the degree these figures imply.

In order to see how SF "tilts" in the U.S., you would also have to factor in the percentage of men and women who read fiction (the article says 84% of female survey respondents vs. 73% of male survey respondents) and also the slightly larger overall population of women (51% vs. 49%).

.32 x .74 = .24, or 24% of male survey respondents read science fiction
.20 x .84 = .17, or 17% of female survey respondents read science fiction

Weigh that by population, and it inches closer:

.24 x .49 = .12, or 12% of the adult population at large are hypothesized to be male science fiction readers
.17 x .51 = .09, or 9% of the adult population at large are hypothesized to be female science fiction readers

That roughly corresponds to:

57% of U.S. adult SF readers are hypothesized to be male.
43% of U.S. adult SF readers are hypothesized to be female.

Now keep in mind that all surveys, when sufficiently random, have margins of error in the 3-6% range. So right there the figures may be closer than the survey suggests. And I don't have any clear evidence that the survey was conducted professionally, with sufficient randomness (though it is from Harris, which is generally seen as a "B+" grade public opinion polling outlet). So let's be careful with these figures, and use them as a baseline only. At best, they lend empirical support to the notion of a 57/43 breakdown; they do not prove it to be fact.

A second survey I found, of young readers in the UK, comes from the National Literacy Trust, which I understand is very reliable. It's from 2005, but that's fine for our purposes.

The survey did find that "boys were significantly more likely than girls to read science fiction (χ2 = 9.577, df = 1, p = .002)." But that's when controlling for other variables, such as differences in population (51% vs. 49%) and percentages of fiction readers. So let's calculate:

On p. 35 we see that 36.9% of male survey respondents "prefer" SF/F; 27.5% of female survey respondents "prefer" SF/F. But we also see that 6.0% of male and 4.4 % of female survey respondents don't read fiction. Take that and also weigh by population proportion, and:

.37 x .94 x .49 = .17, or 17% of the U.K. young adult population at large are hypothesized to be male SF/F readers
.28 x .96 x .51 = .14, or 14% of the U.K. young adult population at large are hypothesized to be female SF/F readers

That roughly corresponds to:

55% of U.K. young adult SF/F readers are hypothesized to be male.
45% of U.K. young adult SF/F readers are hypothesized to be female.

Though there is, again a 3-6% margin of error, judging from how similar these figures are to the Harris ones, it does seem likely that the genre's readership tilts male--but not overwhelmingly so. Female readers clearly represent a very large proportion of the overall readership. In other words, this is not a romance-level gender imbalance we are talking about here. Moreover, I would hypothesize that the percentages would converge since 2005 among YA readers, given the popularity of series like Hunger Games, Divergent, etc. among female readers.

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

Here's a thought - if the Hugos really wanted to express diversity, why not have a new category for "best translated work"? The Oscars have a best foreign language film category...

It is a bit harder for literature to have such an award since the writing itself is half the deal and the translation quality tends to impact it for better or for worse.

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

Acknowledging social fact is not prejudice. Using that evidence to prevent an individual from participating in something is VERY prejudiced. I don't get why the rest of the world seems to think it's the other way around and somehow acknowledging that maybe there are things about a given genre that appeal more to one gender than the other is grossly sexist. It's like a basic understanding of sociology and statistics is lacking the world over.

It's not prejudiced to acknowledge social fact, the trouble comes in when people ignore the predicates and extrapolate from those facts. Thing are further complicated when people take their ideas or theories and present them as fact. For example, the tendency to see conspiracies in everything. Thinking there is a conspiracy doesn't make it a real fact. Thinking one's group is marginalized doesn't make it a true fact.

For example, in the US it's true that a higher percent of police interactions happen with black men. Stating that isn't necessarily racist. Extrapolating from that fact that black men are all criminals is racist. Or that black men are more likely to commit crimes is racist. Further, ignoring the historical forces at play in the form of slavery and its very real and continuing impact on the black community to this day is racist. Ignoring the continuing racism faced by all people of color in the US is racist. Ignoring the fact that there's a lot of racists on the various police forces is ignoring racism. Ignoring the continuing sexism and blatant misogyny women face is explicitly sexist.

It's not prejudice to acknowledge that certain aspects of SF appeal to boys and men, but it is prejudice to take that and conclude that SF is somehow only for boys and men, or that boys and men should be catered to at the expense of others. That's basically the definition of privilege.

I don't get why I'm sexist for daring to suggest that any gender imbalance might have something to do with more men enjoying, supporting, reading, and voting for the genre and is not necessarily due to some huge conspiracy of men trying to ensure no woman ever reads SFF, let alone dares to write it.

It's sexist to exclude women because they're women. It's sexist to assume that women don't or can't like what you like. It's sexist to assume that women can't or shouldn't write SFF.

And again, why is it always a conspiracy theory? The idea that you could be wrong and that a larger group than yours simply disagrees really hasn't even occurred to you has it? It's simply not possible that most SFF fans simple disagree, it has to be some nefarious cabal keeping you down.

I don't get why I'm racist for thinking that maybe the lack of SFF from African authors has something to do with the lack of a legit space program on the continent and a population that needs to solve the problems of famine before speculating on conquering the stars, not necessarily because white guys don't want anyone with brown skin at their awards.

:facepalm:

It's racist because THE WHOLE OF AFRICA IS NOT HOMOGENOUS. IT'S NOT ALL ONE VAST STARVING THATCHED VILLAGE. IT'S GLARINGLY RACIST TO ASSUME THAT IT IS. Further, it's racist because you're excluding the many millions of people with "brown skin" who are not from Africa.

This is why I don't think this is a big deal. The existence of the SP movement proves there is NOT some big conspiracy to exclude women from the genre, that the genre is doing just fine with respect to embracing diverse authors and subjects, so much so that a few nuts went to crazy measures to change that. If they weren't already losing, they wouldn't have had to do that. SFF has left them behind and all this hoopla is unfounded because the SP's represent the last desperate gasp of a dying viewpoint.

Though I basically agree with the conclusion, I would say SFF needs to do a lot better at including women and non-white fans and authors.

 

[soulsinging]

Just want to add some insight to the use of statistics here--I'm a social scientist by profession and use (statistical) survey data on a regular basis.

A second survey I found, of young readers in the UK, comes from the National Literacy Trust, which I understand is very reliable. It's from 2005, but that's fine for our purposes.

The survey did find that "boys were significantly more likely than girls to read science fiction (χ2 = 9.577, df = 1, p = .002)." But that's when controlling for other variables, such as differences in population (51% vs. 49%) and percentages of fiction readers. So let's calculate:

On p. 35 we see that 36.9% of male survey respondents "prefer" SF/F; 27.5% of female survey respondents "prefer" SF/F. But we also see that 6.0% of male and 4.4 % of female survey respondents don't read fiction. Take that and also weigh by population proportion, and

Is this survey JUST of SF, or is it including SFF? Because that seems like it could impact the results, given that surveys that separate SF and Fantasy historically come out differently than if you lump them all into one speculative fiction category. Not that it makes a huge difference, I'm just curious. This looks almost exactly as I expected, a tilt towards guys, but hardly a hegemony.

In any case, thanks for attempting to explain the numbers. I'm no expert in the field, but I have done a lot of market research work where I was looking at data like this for trends, so it's not alien to me. It's sometimes appalling the way they are misused. And a lot of nuance is lost, such as the SF v SFF thing mentioned above, or the way the question itself can lead to very different answers (eg. do you read vs. do you prefer).

The bottom line is I see no evidence of some vast, male-dominated conspiracy to keep women out of the genre. I see a genre that's pretty inclusive and becoming more so, and any slight imbalance in the numbers (of awards or sales or marketing or whatever) is likely due to a similarly SLIGHT difference in tastes. The fact that the SP's completely overreacted to the former and attempt to use the latter to rationalize their views does NOT give them legitimacy, NOR does it pose a real threat to diversity that they managed to exploit a voting loophole to rig the awards in their favor one time. They overreached and the backlash is likely to pretty much kill the entire movement, so the kerfuffle is to me just another small speed bump on the way to a much more inclusive genre.

 

[soulsinging]

It's not prejudiced to acknowledge social fact, the trouble comes in when people ignore the predicates and extrapolate from those facts. Thing are further complicated when people take their ideas or theories and present them as fact. For example, the tendency to see conspiracies in everything. Thinking there is a conspiracy doesn't make it a real fact. Thinking one's group is marginalized doesn't make it a true fact.

For example, in the US it's true that a higher percent of police interactions happen with black men. Stating that isn't necessarily racist. Extrapolating from that fact that black men are all criminals is racist. Or that black men are more likely to commit crimes is racist. Further, ignoring the historical forces at play in the form of slavery and it's very real and continuing impact on the black community to this day is racist. Ignoring the continuing racism faced by all people of color in the US is racist. Ignoring the continuing sexism and blatant misogyny women face is explicitly sexist.

It's not prejudice to acknowledge that certain aspects of SF appeal to boys and men, but it is prejudice to take that and conclude that SF is somehow only for boys and men, or that boys and men should be catered to at the expense of others. That's basically the definition of privilege.

It's sexist to exclude women because they're women. It's sexist to assume that women don't like what you like. It's sexist to assume that women can't write SFF.

And again, why is it always a conspiracy theory? The idea that you could be wrong and that a larger group than yours simply disagrees really hasn't even occurred to you has it? It's simply not possible that most SFF fans simple disagree, it has to be some nefarious cabal keeping you down.

I'm arguing AGAINST a conspiracy and I've repeatedly said that the SP's are NUTS to think SF is only for boys and men. I got the impression you thought there was a conspiracy to exclude women and minorities from the Hugo's, which I think is also an unlikely conspiracy. If I was mistaken on that point, then I apologize. Your first two paragraphs are making the exact same point that I did... just because black men have more police interactions doesn't make them all criminals, and just because more SF authors that win awards/get published are men doesn't mean they're all conspiring to make it that way.

Honestly, we seem to agree on basically everything other than your last sentence. You think SFF needs to do "a lot better" at being inclusive, whereas I tend to think it's already doing a pretty good job. If it wasn't, the SP's wouldn't feel so threatened and need to resort to antics like this to keep themselves relevant.

 

[Nerds_feather]

Is this survey JUST of SF, or is it including SFF? Because that seems like it could impact the results, given that surveys that separate SF and Fantasy historically come out differently than if you lump them all into one speculative fiction category. Not that it makes a huge difference, I'm just curious. This looks almost exactly as I expected, a tilt towards guys, but hardly a hegemony.

In any case, thanks for attempting to explain the numbers. I'm no expert in the field, but I have done a lot of market research work where I was looking at data like this for trends, so it's not alien to me. It's sometimes appalling the way they are misused. And a lot of nuance is lost, such as the SF v SFF thing mentioned above, or the way the question itself can lead to very different answers (eg. do you read vs. do you prefer).

The Harris Poll says "science fiction"; the National Literacy Trust poll says "science fiction and fantasy." It's not at all clear how they define the genres in either case, which could be consequential--I suspect the ratios of fantasy readers are moderately closer to even than the ratios of science fiction readers, strictly defined.

I also suspect that the ratios of specifically young adult SF/F is now even or tilts female (in 2015). Just look at this bestsellers' list from 2012: #s 2, 4, 8 and 9 are SF/F books featuring female protagonists and whose marketing tilts "female." There are no SF/F books featuring male protagonists and/or whose marketing tilts male on the list. So in the years since the NLT study was conducted, I would guess there's been convergence.

The other part of the equation that we aren't discussion in full is marketing and its effects. I think one of the reasons romance is so female is that the covers, blurbs, parts of the bookstore it's found in, etc. can "repel" many male readers. I think, in the abstract, we'd all like to think we don't judge books by their cover, but in truth we often do, and boys/men in the 12-20 or so age range can be particularly sensitive to being seen as "liking 'girly' stuff." (Presumably this effect will dissipate somewhat with growth in ebook usage, but someone will have to study that in depth to be sure.) And marketing conditions us to think of specific books as "for us" or "not for us" before we've even opened the first page. That gendered covers thing I posted a few pages back makes that quite clear.

The bottom line is I see no evidence of some vast, male-dominated conspiracy to keep women out of the genre. I see a genre that's pretty inclusive and becoming more so, and any slight imbalance in the numbers (of awards or sales or marketing or whatever) is likely due to a similarly SLIGHT difference in tastes. The fact that the SP's completely overreacted to the former and attempt to use the latter to rationalize their views does NOT give them legitimacy, NOR does it pose a real threat to diversity that they managed to exploit a voting loophole to rig the awards in their favor one time. They overreached and the backlash is likely to pretty much kill the entire movement, so the kerfuffle is to me just another small speed bump on the way to a much more inclusive genre.

I don't see that conspiracy either. Actually I see a lot of movement toward inclusiveness. However, I also see some institutional barriers that are stubborn--things that are in the deep structure of production and consumption, and which can reproduce themselves without anyone necessarily agreeing with their effects or deliberately taking part in keeping them going.

What I also see is some resistance from a small but organized minority to the trend toward more inclusiveness. As you say, in the long run it's probably just a small speed bump, just as the spate of U.S. state anti-gay marriage laws in 2008 were ultimately powerless against long-term trends toward acceptance of gay rights.

EDIT: just want to add acknowledgement that I've played fast and loose with US/UK distinctions, on the assumption that the percentages are roughly equivalent. If this were a professional conversation, that would be a big no-no, but I think it's fine for our purposes.

 

[soulsinging]

I also suspect that the ratios of specifically young adult SF/F is now even or tilts female (in 2015). Just look at this bestsellers' list from 2012: #s 2, 4, 8 and 9 are SF/F books featuring female protagonists and whose marketing tilts "female." There are no SF/F books featuring male protagonists and/or whose marketing tilts male on the list. So in the years since the NLT study was conducted, I would guess there's been convergence.

The other part of the equation that we aren't discussion in full is marketing and its effects. I think one of the reasons romance is so female is that the covers, blurbs, parts of the bookstore it's found in, etc. can "repel" many male readers. I think, in the abstract, we'd all like to think we don't judge books by their cover, but in truth we often do, and boys/men in the 12-20 or so age range can be particularly sensitive to being seen as "liking 'girly' stuff." (Presumably this effect will dissipate somewhat with growth in ebook usage, but someone will have to study that in depth to be sure.) And marketing conditions us to think of specific books as "for us" or "not for us" before we've even opened the first page. That gendered covers thing I posted a few pages back makes that quite clear.

That cover thing was pretty interesting, I'd seen it before. Like you say, we all want to think we're immune, but they wouldn't spend so much on it if it wasn't effective on some level. It doesn't alarm me much in the SFF world though, because as the one survey pointed out, SFF readers are already generally smarter than the population at large It's REALLY disturbing when you think about kids' marketing though. The whole pink-and-blue "aisles" for kids thing is one thing that I think is truly disturbing and entrenched WAY more insidiously in our culture.

 

[MWagner]

I see nothing wrong with sociological studies that say "hey guys seem to prefer stories where stuff blows up and girls seem to prefer other stories." I see something very wrong with a teacher telling you your tastes were execrable because you were reading SFF, and doubly so if they only said it because you are a girl. Acknowledging social fact is not prejudice. Using that evidence to prevent an individual from participating in something is VERY prejudiced. I don't get why the rest of the world seems to think it's the other way around and somehow acknowledging that maybe there are things about a given genre that appeal more to one gender than the other is grossly sexist. It's like a basic understanding of sociology and statistics is lacking the world over. The fact that the world's richest 1% are heavily male and white hasn't made ME any richer!

Exactly. Data showing that preferences and behaviours differ by gender is a real thing. It's not sexist - it simply captures behaviour on an aggregate scale. Women are twice as likely as men to read fiction. Book clubs are made up of 90 per cent women. Yet clearly, many men love reading fiction. The fact our behaviour is relatively unusual for our gender is not an attack on those of us who are avid readers. And we shouldn't be suspicious of the notion that subject matters or genres may be more appealing to one gender or another. I have a daughter and a son, and even accounting for socialization, it seems clear to me that boys and girls tend to have different interests and temperaments in the aggregate. That doesn't mean I'm going to steer my children into traditional gender roles, or be anything but supportive if they defy the norms. But that doesn't mean those norms don't exist. And it doesn't take take patriarchy, oppression, or even benign indifference to foster those norms. We aren't blank slates.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Even after over 35 years marriage, my wife is still mystified that I read and enjoy most of "her" books. She will read Fantasy (and slightly Gothic but not actual Horror) and to a lesser extent SF, but "can't stand books with spaceships".

Is it "Sleepless in Seattle" the group discuss Guy and Chick films? Then later the woman and her friend watch a romantic movie?

Very telling stereotypes.

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

We are all different people and while some of us have interests that are narrow, some of us are very eclectic. My mother for instance will practically only read historical novels with or without the romantic aspect and only occasionally dabble in other areas, my father will only read political novels. On the other hand, I'll read urban fantasy one week (The War of the Flowers last week for example), and romantic fiction another week (Sense and Sensibility this week for example) all the while rereading something else (A Song of Ice and Fire) because I tend to be lead by my mood when I pick what to read. Point is, some of us will fall under the norm, some of us will defy it. Neither of the two is inherently bad and shouldn't be treated as such by anyone. Rather than norm, it would be best to use the word average because of the connotations the word norm causes. It reminds me of a case I read about where a statistician stated that normal children start walking/talking (not sure which anymore) at 9 months old and then parents went into a frenzy because they were scared their kids aren't normal when all he meant to say was that it is average for kids. Once the word was amended to average, suddenly nobody had issues with it. The power of words is amazing. XD

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

Exactly. Data showing that preferences and behaviours differ by gender is a real thing.

Acknowledging that they exist isn't sexist, trying to pretend they don't exist, or worse, actively enforce them or exclude others based on those data is. Take Nerds much better statistical analysis as an example. Yes, men prefer SF, but there are far more women readers generally, therefore there's roughly parity between the genders in fandom. Then consider that 75% of Hugo for Best Novel have been awarded to men and you might get an idea why people (women and PoC) feel excluded.

But that doesn't mean those norms don't exist. And it doesn't take patriarchy, oppression, or even benign indifference to foster those norms.

No, it takes culture to foster those norms. Our culture just happens to be a patriarchy, filled with indifference and oppression.

We aren't blank slates.

We are born culturally blank slates. The process we go through as we grow and learn our given accidental culture is called enculturation. This is why you get wildly different types of people from wildly different cultures. Because we are born blank slates. Tabula rasa and all that.

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

Acknowledging that they exist isn't sexist, trying to pretend they don't exist, or worse, actively enforce them or exclude others based on those data is. Take Nerds much better statistical analysis as an example. Yes, men prefer SF, but there are far more women readers generally, therefore there's roughly parity between the genders in fandom. Then consider that 75% of Hugo for Best Novel have been awarded to men and you might get an idea why people (women and PoC) feel excluded.

Not going to argue with your arguments here, but just want to ask something regarding the statistic you are using. If 75% of Hugo for Best Novel had been awarded to men, can you give me a percentage of female authors in the whole body of the authors of science fiction eligible for Hugo award? Unless you can, the percentage you have of 75% doesn't hold much weight. It might as well be that the 75% of all such science fiction authors are males and then that percentage is entirely justified. The percentage of men winning the award shouldn't strictly be 50%. It should be in congruence to percentage of males as writers. (Speaking strictly from standpoint of someone dealing with statistics on daily basis here)

Because if men are more interested as readers of SF, then it might be that they are more interested as writers. You should also take into account that over the years, the ratio of genders in the readership and among authors was changing and evolving with likely an even greater percentage of males in the readership and as writers through past decades compared to today which should also be taken into account when the statistics is read about it and percentages used.

I do not mean to argue for either side here and I'm seeking to understand your argument, but if you are just basing it on one number without context, your number is entirely dry and useless.

 

[David Selig]

I am hoping to find at least one short fiction nominee which doesn't feel like I've read it virtually the same story 30 times before. So far no luck. I tried another one of them today - The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale by Rajnar Vajra. Mildly entertaining stuff, but there wasn't even an attempt of anything new.

Spoiler alert (though I am sure all of you would be able to guess all this anyway, the story is extremely predictable)


Space expedition tried to contact another sentient species. The brave space cadets saved the day in an improbable way by being being reasonable smart after everyone around them was a moron. This was a really blatant case of an Idiot Plot. One of our brave space cadets solved the mystery which a whole expedition had been unable to solve for 30 years literally in 4 days. And, no, the solution of the mystery isn't something any science expedition is likely to miss for 30 years even if the members are the biggest failures at their universities.

 

[MWagner]

We are born culturally blank slates. The process we go through as we grow and learn our given accidental culture is called enculturation. This is why you get wildly different types of people from wildly different cultures. Because we are born blank slates. Tabula rasa and all that.

I disagree, and so does science. Both nature and nurture influence our characteristics and behaviour. That's why siblings are often very different from one another. I have twins, raised in as near to identical environments as is humanly possible, who even by 18 months were demonstrating dramatically different temperaments. By the age of five they were as different from one another as any two kids in their entire school.

But this is obviously a big subject which we shouldn't pursue in this thread. Maybe there are are there other places in this forum where this kind of discussion is appropriate?

 

[Nerds_feather]

I disagree, and so does science. Both nature and nurture influence our characteristics and behaviour. That's why siblings are often very different from one another. I have twins, raised in as near to identical environments as is humanly possible, who even by 18 months were demonstrating dramatically different temperaments. By the age of five they were as different from one another as any two kids in their entire school.

But this is obviously a big subject which we shouldn't pursue in this thread. Maybe there are are there other places in this forum where this kind of discussion is appropriate?

Broadly agree. Yes, there are bioscience folks who say everything is biologically determined and social science people who say everything is learned through socialization, but the problem is that "nature" and "nurture" are not easily disentangled from one another, and it's very easy to cast doubt on proposed mechanisms as spurious (i.e. capturing an effect not tested for). Thus most theorists who look at both the sociological and biogenetic sides of things tend to theorize that human beings are products of both There is probably some form of genetic "base" that determines broad areas of potential outcomes, but these are then "unlocked" through experience and socialization.

And I think this makes the most intuitive sense: some kids are born with a visual sense that could allow them to become artists, others are naturally gifted in math. However, what they are exposed to--especially at a young age--typically plays a powerful role in developing or stifling innate skills. \

But in other ways we are born much more blank than we may assume. Soulslinging mentioned the pink/blue thing among kids--they pick this up from parents, or in cases where the parents try not to go that route, from other kids in school. Once it's learned, it can be insidious, but they have no clue or care until someone tells them "pink is for girls and blue is for boys." A lot of what we think of as "essential elements of gender" are learned things, and not innate--it's just that they are so ingrained into the social fabric that, even if you wanted your kids to avoid them, it would be damned, damned hard to ensure. Certain things are biological--especially at an older age when hormones are involved. But a ton is learned.

 

[Nerds_feather]

I am hoping to find at least one short fiction nominee which doesn't feel like I've read it virtually the same story 30 times before. So far no luck. I tried another one of them today - The Triple Sun: A Golden Age Tale by Rajnar Vajra. Mildly entertaining stuff, but there wasn't even an attempt of anything new.

THIS. One thing I love about short fiction is how it can potentially push the boundaries of the genre. And nothing I've read so far on this year's shortlist compares to my favorite stories of 2014:

"Four Days of Christmas" by Tim Maughan (Terraform)
"We are the Cloud" by Sam J. Miller (Lightspeed)
"Heaven Thunders the Truth" by K. J. Parker (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)

 

[Nerds_feather]

Not going to argue with your arguments here, but just want to ask something regarding the statistic you are using. If 75% of Hugo for Best Novel had been awarded to men, can you give me a percentage of female authors in the whole body of the authors of science fiction eligible for Hugo award? Unless you can, the percentage you have of 75% doesn't hold much weight. It might as well be that the 75% of all such science fiction authors are males and then that percentage is entirely justified. The percentage of men winning the award shouldn't strictly be 50%. It should be in congruence to percentage of males as writers. (Speaking strictly from standpoint of someone dealing with statistics on daily basis here)

Because if men are more interested as readers of SF, then it might be that they are more interested as writers. You should also take into account that over the years, the ratio of genders in the readership and among authors was changing and evolving with likely an even greater percentage of males in the readership and as writers through past decades compared to today which should also be taken into account when the statistics is read about it and percentages used.

I do not mean to argue for either side here and I'm seeking to understand your argument, but if you are just basing it on one number without context, your number is entirely dry and useless.

I was not able to get statistics on books published, but Steven Gould (president of the Science Fiction Writers of America) just informed me on twitter that SFWA membership is currently:

47% male
46% female
7% unspecified

(Unspecified presumable includes both people who don't state their gender and those who identify outside the male/female binary.)

I would consider this a suitable, if imperfect, proxy for the number of authors working in the field of SF/F.

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

I was not able to get statistics on books published, but Steven Gould (president of the Science Fiction Writers of America) just informed me on twitter that SFWA membership is currently:

47% male
46% female
7% unspecified

(Unspecified presumable includes both people who don't state their gender and those who identify outside the male/female binary.)

I would consider this a suitable, if imperfect, proxy for the number of authors working in the field of SF/F.

But, is that number the same throughout the years in which Hugo awards were given? Because it is not like the awards were given out by the current membership 10, 20 years ago. Things changed. Like I already noted, the percentages in the past weren't the same and shouldn't be dismissed. We are now at a place where female and male participation equated (by your numbers though numbers I really want to know are percentages of male and female writers who are eligible for the award - which isn't all authors nor does it have to mean that the ratio among authors is the same. Such conjectures are too hasty), but the award participation shouldn't equate for a few more years simply because awards had been given through a time where men had a potentially greater participation and we are looking at all those numbers.

We shouldn't be forcing it to happen. It is reasonable to expect it will happen naturally the over course of a few years, but it is not reasonable that we should make it happen very soon. If it happened fast, it would imply we forced it to happen. We should really look at percentages of times when the genders participation equated evened out and see if the awards started evening out in that period. I'm strictly speaking as a mathematician here, someone studying statistics on a daily basis.

If we were to expect that because we have roughly the same number of males and females right now or very soon we should also have the same ratio among award winners, it would actually prove SP and their initiative right. It would mean that the awards are being rigged to increase the percentage of women artificially. Process like that should take time because right now, the ratio should be about 50:50 which won't translate to a 50:50 ratio of all award winners right away. If it happened too fast, it would imply that the current ratio is much greater than 50:50 in favour of women which doesn't seem right to me.

I am not sure if I'm explaining it correctly so please ask if something isn't clear. It is all clear inside my head, but I deal with such statistics on daily basis and doesn't mean it would be clear to anyone outside of my head. xD

 

[Nerds_feather]

But, is that number the same throughout the years in which Hugo awards were given?

Current membership. Was 36% in 1999 and 10-15% in 1948. That's all I've got at present.

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

Current membership. Was 36% in 1999 and 10-15% in 1948. That's all I've got at present.

Well, that doesn't say much about the nature of the membership, but I dare say it stand to reason we should expect a gradual evening out in years to come from that. Could you point me out to some place where I could look at the numbers? So far, my abuse of Google machine hadn't given me results I desired.

This is really the reason I'm unhappy with this SP initiative. I feel like things were done too hastily without proper investigation and statistics that would warrant such action.

I should clarify here that the reason I take issue with the 75% number is because it is used as a reason why we should understand why groups are unhappy with current award ratio while I don't think it should be reason enough on it's own.