Perceptions of equity in sff

[Jo Zebedee]

Apologies, crashed and burned. Some of the links you wanted are in this, blog, J-sun:

Women: Missing Voices In Science Fiction

Edit - on JK Rowling, she chose a male pseudonym for the Cormoran Strike novels much more recently than dropping the Joanne on her fantasy. I wonder why she still didn't choose Roberta Galbraith rather than Robert.

 

[thaddeus6th]

I said I didn't know, which (at the time of writing) is the only one, of six, votes not to be cast for No.

We need to know the proportions of each demographic attempting to write SFF and, within that, the quality. It might be that women from the Far East and men from Yorkshire are the best fantasy writers by a mile, and might disproportionately have more success. And it's worth noting other genres (most obviously romantic fiction) are female-dominated, but this tend not to be a cause for criticism, which I agree with (excepting that it's baffling for people to condemn SFF for something very similar).

A great advantage of writing/reading is not knowing, and therefore naturally being colourblind. I didn't know whether Robin Hobb was a chap or a lady until after I'd read the first Farseer trilogy.

As your recent blog made (sadly) clear, it's hard making any money as a writer. So when I see special deals or submission calls for people who have just about every demographic I don't, it doesn't feel like correcting bias to me. It feels like adding an extra hurdle (or, more accurately, removing an extra opportunity) simply because I'm white and male.

[Wrote all the above before checking what anyone else said].

"as a white male, i can't comment too much more on diversity and representation other than to say that if i read more widely, hopefully i will be able to write more widely. why would anybody want to write themselves into a rut?"

The first four words depress me. White men have valid opinions too. Your view isn't worth any less because of the contents of your trousers or the colour of your skin.

On pen names: I do think that's a fair point. I use one, but it's not gender-related or intended to obscure that in any way. But, again, the same thing happens in romantic fiction the other way.

A short but related blog I saw on Twitter is here: The “White People” In Books Debate Quite a few comments below the line.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Three quick points - without quoting as I'm on mobile.

Romance does get slated for its inequality and for the fact male writers of romance take female pen names. But! Unlike sff it does have a large skew in terms of readership towards one gender. And I think that's the salient point I was making in my blog I linked to - this is not railing against a male dominated genre supporting mostly male writers. That is a different argument altogether. This is about a genre with equality in terms of readership numbers (the one I linked to is the most cited piece about it, but the parity or near parity of genre readership is supported by most studies into it) but not in terms of who is being read. That's a very different picture than for romance.

As to whether I support anthologies or publishers actively ruling out submissions from anyone - no, of course not. Nor am I in favour of all women shortlists etc. But, last year, Angry Robot made a statement that they actively welcomed submissions from those underrepresented and that was taken to mean they didn't want submissions from the better represented demographs - which wasn't at all what was said (and as a publisher they have a lot of straight white male authors - as well as plenty who aren't.)*

And as to whether blokes should comment here - of course they should. That's the whole point. It's a shared genre. All of us should have our voice.


*In delightful Nothern Ireland we have a lot of jobs that will actively seek applications from one or other community (anything security related tends to be underrepresentive of RC, for instance). That does not disbar me from applying and it will not disbar me from being interviewed if I meet the shortlist, nor does it allow the employer to employ a lesser qualified, less able person than me, even if they're the sought-for demograph. A publisher requesting submissions from a wider base will, of course, increase the competition and indeed reduce the number of writers from the established demograph reaching the final cut - but it will not stop you competing and being judged fairly against others.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Women: Missing voices in science fiction

Mark Niemann-Ross openly states that the SFWA poll he ran is too simple and general to be reliable. The public polled almost certainly would have a looser definition of science fiction than publishers do, especially with regards to the boundaries between YA and adult SF.

I'd bounce you back to the link I gave you previously, where a publisher suggests adult SF readership is more likely 80:20.

 

[Toby Frost]

I think the polling question is too vague for me to answer. I suspect there are several separate issues here that won't be covered by a blanket discussion of sexism. There are at least four questions worth asking if you are going to wade into this:

1) What people are writing and trying to get published
2) What is being published
3) What consumers of varying types want to read
4) Whether the results to 1-3 are what you would prefer them to be and, if not, whether it is appropriate to try to push them in that direction.

Some of these are about personal taste (I don't want to read romance because it leaves me cold, and I have nothing against anyone who doesn't want to read about robots instead) and others are about the industry, which is about making money and is a different kettle of fish to actual bias or bigotry. It is interesting that the question of sexism in SFF keeps coming up in an industry that is predominantly female in staffing terms.

What I would say about (3) is that I don't believe in a false consciousness here: with the exception of hyped books and books that people think they ought to read (the Booker shortlist, say), adults buy fiction books that they are interested in reading. The question, I suspect, is how much they would object if Mark Lawrence was Mary Lawrence. I don't know the answer to that and I suspect that it varies immensely between subgenre and regional groups.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Some of these are about personal taste (I don't want to read romance because it leaves me cold, and I have nothing against anyone who doesn't want to read about robots instead) and others are about the industry, which is about making money and is a different kettle of fish to actual bias or bigotry. It is interesting that the question of sexism in SFF keeps coming up in an industry that is predominantly female in staffing terms.

I found this interesting and concerning. Is there a hint that we expect romance to be inherent in female sff author's books? I ask because a recent reviewer of Inish Carraig had been concerned about picking it up due to a concern that it might contain romance (which it doesn't.) Even in Abendau - where the central relationship portrayed over 250,000 words is that of a man and wife - has one sex scene in it, which fades to black, and about four romance scenes in it (which are usually against a backdrop of political or military shenanigans. But I bet there are still a few people out there who suspect it's heavy on the ol' kissing.)

@Brian G Turner - the 80/20 isn't borne out any more than the SFWA is.

Going back to the 1970s we can see that there was a clear bias:

Albert I. Berger Science-Fiction Fans in Socio-Economic Perspective: Factors in the Social Consciousness of a Genre

But that bias is less clear now (possibly due to the decline of male readership in general) - and, remember, the above stats were taken from convention attendees which tend to be skewed towards males (for various reasons including when conventions tend to be held - over holiday weekends when there is no childcare - and a culture that women perceived as allowing harrassment - now taken seriously, thankfully).

But here we see that 31% of men claim to read science fiction against 28% of women, again statistically evened out by the greater number of female readers which supports the SFWA findings.

Chapter 7: Science and Technology: Public Attitudes and Public Understanding: Science Fiction and Pseudoscience


I also found this article of interest:

Friday essay: science fiction's women problem

Which states that if there is a readership divide (and I think it's incredibly hard to know for sure, most studies are far from clear and often don't provide the breakdown of m/f and genre specificity that we need) it may be that books that have strong female characters to identify with and bring women readers into the genre are few and far between. If that's the case (and I struggle to think of many I read as a teen and know when I first came up with Abendau I didn't even conceive of the possibility of a female lead character - it simply didn't occur to me that I could be done) then is there a self-perpetuating circle of exclusion?

 

[Stephen Palmer]

"No."

 

[chopper]

"as a white male, i can't comment too much more on diversity and representation other than to say that if i read more widely, hopefully i will be able to write more widely. why would anybody want to write themselves into a rut?"

The first four words depress me. White men have valid opinions too. Your view isn't worth any less because of the contents of your trousers or the colour of your skin.

True, white men have valid opinions. But we're hardly lesser-heard voices to begin with.

 

[Dan Jones]

it can be fair. my publishers are female. a lot of the authors i admire are female.

Figures show that the publishing industry was one of the few anomalies with respect to sex, inasmuch as it is much more heavily populated by females (the article focuses on US publishers, but there may be some correlation in the UK - as for other countries, I don't know). My publishers are also women, and very impressive too. They have outside business interests, are active feminists, and are thoroughly lovely and cool to deal with. And, like all but the most niche of publishers, their agenda is to spot, develop and publish books that a) they love and b) they think will sell. A quick look through their author lists confirms that majority of their writers are men (though as mentioned above race is impossible to tell without checking bios and stuff, and honestly I'm not inclined to do so, because it's a bit weird and Krystalnacht to start checking up on people's race). So even those who are ardent in their advocacy of equitable industry and opportunity must compromise with pragmatism.

I have to honestly think SFF is, on the whole, equitable with respect to theme, and opportunity. Look at the panels at WorldCon. Some of the greatest SFF writers of all are female, and emerging numbers of writers are people of colour (including our own Ralph Kern). For me, the answer is not to divide or implement quotas (which, as I've shown, wouldn't fly in a business environment anyway), but to encourage everyone from a young age to pick up a book and read, and pick up a pen and write.

However (caveat alert!), SFF is a funny genre, because its vast footprint easily spans the spectrum from trashy to highbrow / literary in a way other genres do not. Twilight to Fahrenheit 451. Warhammer 40K (*ducks*) to Ursula K Le Guin, and all the other points in between. So it's almost impossible to pin down for the purposes of defining its equitability; is trashy space opera more a level playing field than, medieval fantasy? Is literary SF as equal as Hard SF, or high fantasy? Who can really say?

 

[Toby Frost]

I don't want to read romance because it leaves me cold

In saying that, I meant romance as a genre, rather than romance in SFF. I would not expect an SF novel by a woman to be heavy on romance. Given the way publishing skewed in the late 80s and early 90s, I would probably have expected it back then to include more unicorns and less disembowelment - if anything, to be more New Age - but that’s probably an aspect of that particular time. These days, it could be pretty much anything. If you really pushed me on it, I’d look at the cover. If it was a woman and urban fantasy, I probably would assume that there would be more sex/romance than an urban fantasy by a man. But then I’m not much into urban fantasy as it is. If it was YA – well, I probably wouldn’t be reading it anyhow. I don’t think it’s anything much to worry about re your own work.

 

[Dan Jones]

more unicorns and less disembowelment

Boo!

 

[Toby Frost]

but to encourage everyone from a young age to pick up a book and read, and pick up a pen and write.

That would be a very good thing. Perhaps that's the best way of answering the question of "What do you want to read about?" My 12-year-old self would not have much cared about the number of women in a novel, but would have been appalled at a rollicking space adventure being ruined by romantic nonsense.

Warhammer 40K (*ducks*) to Ursula K Le Guin

I would give serious money to read a LeGuin 40K novel, where all the Space Marines changed sex halfway through.

 

[chopper]

You should totally pitch that to Black Library. It'd be a game-changer.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

"The Left Hand Of The Battleaxe."

 

[J-Sun]

Apologies, crashed and burned. Some of the links you wanted are in this, blog, J-sun:

Women: Missing Voices In Science Fiction

Thanks for that. I read your blog, its two links, and thaddeus6th's link (but not the comments). While substantiation is good, this is getting too linky for me. I'm afraid I agree with Brian regarding the not-completely-convincing nature of the guy's numbers. I'm not saying the numbers are necessarily wrong but just not convincingly demonstrated.

As far as the reviewer article, that's extremely irritating, really. I fail to see anything scandalous and unacceptable about a supposed 55% male/female publication ratio and a 60-66% review ratio. Is 55% imbalanced? Barely. Is 60-66% imbalanced relative to that? Barely more than barely. Ho hum. Yet the same guy goes on to cite, e.g., Lightspeed's essentially reverse-discrimination numbers approvingly - much more out of whack but the "right" way. It even says the number of books published by POC is scandalously low but there are still 200 books a year and says that's "enough to fully occupy all but one of the magazines we surveyed for a whole year." Now, I know it can't possibly be suggesting it but there's the implication that maybe that is how they should be occupied.

Anyway - just wanted to say that, while I didn't agree with the links, I appreciate your providing them.

As far as your own blog post, it sounded reasonable to me but I was confused by one part. You said, "I'm not out to ask for equal representation of women in science fiction" but then say, "Unpalatable as it may seem, 50% of our readers are being represented by a tiny percentage of our writers" which seems contradictory. Also, maybe you didn't mean it specifically any more than I meant it specifically in quoting the NYTimes but I'd take issue with the idea that readers are "represented" by authors in several ways. First, it reduces both readers and writers to whatever criteria is being represented. Again, taking gender, describing a person as "a great woman writer" isn't far removed from "a great writer for a woman" (in both senses of "for"). I wouldn't think actual feminists who wrote would ever like to be called "feminist" writers as it reduces them to the thing they are arguing only partially defines them. It actually affirms "sexist" thinking for both men and woman (or for all three of men and women and whatever isn't either or is both or whatever). Second, even if people were to be "represented," men often write female characters and women often write male - which are they representing then? Third (related to the first two), why should men think they can only be "represented" by men and women by women? Surely all sorts of people can be inspired by all sorts of people and if they can't, isn't that possibly a problem in itself? Fourth, as I often get to in discussions like this and SF: Martians and robots are waaay overrepresented in SF. I don't know of any Martians or robots who read SF so why should they be represented at all? (I'm about to drift off even further as I'm reminded of a Leigh Brackett (that guy, Brackett!) story so I'll step away now.)

Anyway - sure, if everybody wants to get as many people as possible involved in SF (not excluding straight white guys) then I'm all for it. And if analyzing the possible existence and nature of any barriers, whether self-imposed or otherwise, helps achieve this, then I'm also all for it. But if we're taking a census and saying that all endeavors should reflect that general census in specific microcosms or that only like can attract or inspire or represent like then, nah, count me out.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I actually think the conservative nature of publishing is still being an overly conservative gatekeeper. And one I think will destroy them.

Only 6 years ago I put up a piece on a forum. My character, Socrates, a gay man. He found distressed, naked child. He wrapped his coat round the child, picked him up and took him home. I put it up on a fairly well known, at the time, writing site. Two editors, with impressive CVs contacted me to suggest the straight man he was with should pick up the child instead to make my piece more saleable.

Whilst I think readers are changing rapidly I think publishing is trying to but then gets scared. I intend to publish my fantasy with an incredibly femine name. My real one could be easily masculinised by using a pet name. I think most readers can handle it.

 

[Toby Frost]

Can I ask what you would consider "equitable" to mean? At what point, in your view, is there no longer a problem?

[PS The Left Hand of Orkness]

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Can I ask what you would consider "equitable" to mean? At what point, in your view, is there no longer a problem?

[PS The Left Hand of Orkness]

That's an interesting question. I said in my blog post - and meant it - that I didn't feel there needed to be 50-50 sf written by women (and my blog was about sf specifically). Fewer women write sf. We know that - from Brian's stats and from any publisher asked about sf submissions. So it's not that. I

think for me it would be feeling that, as woman in the genre, I had as many opportunities, to feel that being a woman no longer counted against me or that I am excluded from some of -again sf in particular - networking (and, if you watch a lot of sf networking it is the same authors promoting each other, calling out for each other and they are mostly men. Like by a huge majority). I don't want to have to go and find women to make a sf network of my own - I want to feel I'm part of the community, not a different part or one of the ladies, or whatever*. (And not see posts about Rae as a lamppost when no one made the same posts about Luke who was, frankly, just as animate. Or see casual sexism in comments about tv series and films.)

So I suppose equity for me is in terms of not feeling like my gender is a barrier to being read because women writing sf is seen as normal. I'd also like to see more female writers because I think - genuinely - there are some who are put off by the mountain ahead and only by creating acceptability and role models will we extend our community. So, for me, it's about equity of acceptance rather than any degree of publishing numbers or anything else.

* but I also think it's really important to say that I think things are shifting. We get more female voices on panels now at conventions. There are fewer women - I think, it's always hard to know - feeling the need to take a male pen name. I'd just like to see that continuing to grow.

 

[Abernovo]

@Jo Zebedee .... As usual I can speak only a reader. But I have zero known to me prejudice toward either male or female writers. Judging by my last year's books women wrote about 70-80% of them. I care nothing about what sex, race, or proclivity the author is, but I do care somewhat about who the main character (MC in these parts) is. However, in past 10 years of so, I have literally rejoiced to see a male lead because they so seldom show up in the books that I read.

@Teresa Edgerton is right about those authors, but as nearly as I can psych it out they all started writing decades ago when I expect what you are aiming at was more the truth than it is now. (There may be some truth in it, but my impression is that would only be among the "troglodytes.")

Once again, our friendly neighbourhood Parson proves himself to be much more enlightened than he would ever give himself credit for. Perhaps there is a niche market for inclusion of enlightened, moral, male MCs.

For myself, I have to say no.
Jo, you know a lot of my views and where I come at them from. I cannot give percentages, but I know there are a lot of people out there reading sff who do not fall into the 'industry standard' straight, white, cisgender male category. Now, there is a market for just that niche (I joke! I know it's more than a niche - more of an alcove...), but everybody wants to see themselves represented in fiction, to see someone like them written as valuable. They might be PoC, women, the QUILTBAG+ community, or someone from an ignored, poor rural hamlet, where the barter system still has it uses.

As much as there have been changes, I'd like to see more open acceptance (less responding to the puppy compound dregs, and more proactive inclusivity). That would, I believe, lead to less women feeling they had to take a masculine pen name; PoC writers not being relegated to the 'Diversity in SFF' panels because, "well, you'd know about this stuff", and rather included in panel X simply because they write that genre; and QUILTBAG+ writers not having to always deal with niche publishers, because mainstream publishing imprints run shy of 'issues'.

I have to say that many involved in the English language publishing industry do seem to come from very privileged backgrounds, and senior execs are often still rich white men, based in London and New York. I cannot remember which report I saw on this very subject, but it was an observation made by publishers themsselves, admitting that things were changing, but there was still much to be done.

At the end of the day, people are just people. I'd like to see their stories. And I do care about the MC's background, because I want stories from all over, showing me a side of life or an idea, I might never have imagined, but also showing those similarities where we connect.

 

[The Big Peat]

There are two types of equity here I think.

The first is women being as likely to write SFF as men.

The second is women being as likely to succeed at writing SFF as men.

I, personally, do not bother too much with the former. It feels too much out of our control. You can't and shouldn't force people to like things they don't like or vice versa and a huge amount of what people like is influenced by societal impulses on a gigantic scale. There are probably some things that could make the genre more open and approachable on a micro level (at least judging from Jo's and Teresa's posts in the Blogging thread) but that by and large only influences people who are already big fans. How many big fans - the type who want to write in it - can be attracted to the genre is a different question (and see the front of my paragraph for my thoughts there).

That said - I do like the idea of there being as many women writing SFF as men. Assuming the number of men trying to write SFF remained the same, that means more authors overall and more quality available. I like that.

The latter though does bother me a bit. It feels more actively unfair and I do think is somewhat in the control of the people involved in the genre. Again, you can't and shouldn't force people to like things they don't like, but I think more could be done to give people wider choice and I think people would generally react favourably. Measuring what equity should look like here is very difficult though, not least because the percentage of women being published in each sub-genre year by year is unknown.

I say sub-genre because DG Jones makes a good point that this is a very broad umbrella and things are different in different places. If you measure the genre as one, particularly if you include Paranormal Romance in the genre, you get a very different picture to just Sci-Fi or just Grimdark or just Fantasy of Manners etc.etc.

I think its fair to add that a problem with publishers being overly conservative about what will sell and looking for things that fit their moulds and for X to sell to Y is a bigger problem than just gender. Women may get the brunt of it but there's a lot of different places where someone can fall foul. Weird novels that straddle genres also get it in the neck too for instance. I say this not to try and derail the conversation from the issue of equity but to point out that uprooting the tree probably involves digging in other fields as well.