Perceptions of equity in sff

[Jo Zebedee]

Women dominate urban fantasy pretty heavily too apparently. Now, I'm never too sure about the sub-genres, but is urban fantasy mostly YA?

Sorry, Nick, just saw this now. It's not all YA but there is a strong YA interest in Urban fantasy. But if you take the likes of the Dresden files, the Peter Grant series and a lot of Neil Gaiman's work they are adult urban fantasy. Hmm. And all written by men.

Anyone know of any women urban fantasy writers who aren't YA?

 

[Dan Jones]

Atwood?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Atwood?

Is she urban fantasy? I think she normally gets listed under sf?

 

[Dan Jones]

I'd say she crosses over. Hag-Seed isn't SF, and has fantastical elements and is set in a city... sounds like enough ingredients to be filed under urban fantasy, but I'm not one for labels and overcategorisation, overly, so I could be wrong.

 

[Toby Frost]

Anyone know of any women urban fantasy writers who aren't YA?

I thought the more explicit end of the genre - sex with vampires and werewolves, etc - was largely written by women: Anita Blake, Charlaine Harris and so on. Or does it cease to be urban fantasy once it's explicit?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I thought the more explicit end of the genre - sex with vampires and werewolves, etc - was largely written by women: Anita Blake, Charlaine Harris and so on. Or does it cease to be urban fantasy once it's explicit?

I think that moves towards paranormal romance? Honestly. We need a road map of genres.

 

[Brian G Turner]

We need a road map of genres.

I'm going to write for the Brian genre, and let everyone else worry about the spec fic subcategories.

 

[Toby Frost]

I'd always thought that paranormal romance was a subgenre of urban fantasy, but perhaps because I've always defined urban fantasy as "Buffy stuff" and "weird" that was largely in the real world. But I think Brian has the right idea!

 

[MWagner]

I find it fascinating that even though 80 per cent of novels are sold to women, and women dominate almost all genres of fiction, including the most popular ones (Romance and YA), it's only in the handful of genres that are still mostly read and written by men that we see controversy around gender representation. Perhaps it will all die down when we reach the state that trends are all pointing to of a < 10 per cent male fiction market.

 

[Toby Frost]

I simply think there are too many issues and aspects of this to decide whether SFF is "equitable, "anti-women" or some vague phrase like that. When you talk about "SFF", which is huge even before you factor in comics, TV shows, etc, are you talking about:

* Numbers/power of women working in publishers/reviewers of SFF
* Numbers/power of women writing SFF
* Numbers of women reading SFF and its wider image among women
* Numbers/role of women characters in SFF

And that's not even starting to go into the different subgenres, which are little worlds to themselves (Romance and SF writers have their own jargon for what is in books that makes it hard to understand even for another writer).

As with many highly emotive subjects, I suspect that this is much more complex than the standard good/bad approach suggests. I am not even sure that some of the above issues are especially closely related, let alone part of the same question.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I find it fascinating that even though 80 per cent of novels are sold to women, and women dominate almost all genres of fiction, including the most popular ones (Romance and YA), it's only in the handful of genres that are still mostly read and written by men that we see controversy around gender representation. Perhaps it will all die down when we reach the state that trends are all pointing to of a < 10 per cent male fiction market.

But we don't know that it is still mostly read by men - that's the whole point. In romance most readers ARE women, and the stats are there to prove it. If you delve into Juliet's blogs above, you'll see that she evidences (several times) that this isn't the proven fact in sff. In fact, there are studies (cited earlier in this thread) that take the readership to 50/50. So, your argument is invalid - because we're not talking about a male dominated genre (or if are, it's nowhere near the imbalance of romance). No matter how much people might want to cling to that argument.

 

[Abernovo]

Anyone know of any women urban fantasy writers who aren't YA?

Richelle Mead writes UF. She also writes YA, but her Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance are very much separate.

Kat Richardson also writes UF - the Greywalker series.

 

[RX-79G]

But we don't know that it is still mostly read by men - that's the whole point. In romance most readers ARE women, and the stats are there to prove it. If you delve into Juliet's blogs above, you'll see that she evidences (several times) that this isn't the proven fact in sff. In fact, there are studies (cited earlier in this thread) that take the readership to 50/50. So, your argument is invalid - because we're not talking about a male dominated genre (or if are, it's nowhere near the imbalance of romance). No matter how much people might want to cling to that argument.

If it turns out that women dominate both the SF readership AND the publishing industry, who is at fault for the inequity? And if the inequity can be assigned, is the bias against the gender of the author, or the material, or something else?

The comments in the SF Signal article referenced in Juliet McKenna's blog post are interesting because they suggest that not only is there a bias against women writers, but also against published male authors of color who or who are gay. What is the process which causes a reader to discern the sexuality of an author when they are looking at the book jacket?

 

[Parson]

The comments in the SF Signal article referenced in Juliet McKenna's blog post are interesting because they suggest that not only is there a bias against women writers, but also against published male authors of color who or who are gay. What is the process which causes a reader to discern the sexuality of an author when they are looking at the book jacket?

Sales is not what the blog post was about. It was about recognition from the industry and among these people race, sexual orientation, etc. would be known.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Sales is not what the blog post was about. It was about recognition from the industry and among these people race, sexual orientation, etc. would be known.

It's a small industry. Many big name authors are either my friend on facebook, or in shared groups, or known through the convention scene etc - and that's the same for anyone who dots around Social media these days. I might not know from a book cover that Robin Hobb is a woman, but give me a day or two on facebook and I'll know. Pat Cadigan - anyone into sff on SM who doesn't meet up with her, or someone who knows, her is in a minority. Etc etc.

And if this article (the article Juliet references) is from sfsignal, they know everyone. (And, actually, they're normally very good at promoting all authors and a sadly missed asset from the sfblogosphere).

And yet, still, it is okay to bypass any author who isn't male and white. In a genre that celebrates the impossible, the fantastical and worlds were anything can be possible.

 

[RX-79G]

Sales is not what the blog post was about. It was about recognition from the industry and among these people race, sexual orientation, etc. would be known.

I'm not sure if you can separate sales/readership from recognition. Are you suggesting that people like the author of the SF Signal article are reading and enjoying a lot of women authors, and then pointedly and consciously ignores them when writing an article?

 

[Hex]

I know my friend who writes YA is having a terrible time selling a science fiction YA that has only male main characters. Apparently it's unsaleable unless it's got "feisty" female mcs in it, because more girls read YA. That seems to me like a pretty short-sighted (and self-reinforcing) attitude, but it's definitely one he's encountered from the publishing industry.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I write in the book genre.

 

[Abernovo]

Anyone know of any women urban fantasy writers who aren't YA?

Sat down and, post-post-work-caffeine, I remembered Tanya Huff. Kind of embarrassed to forget a writer of her calibre, even for a short while (it was, as mentioned, before I had a cuppa).

Terri Windling is widely credited with being one of the pioneers of UF, and is credited by Charles de Lint as being an influence. But many UF lists link UF and YA which, as Hex suggests on a slightly different point, is pretty short-sighted.

 

[The Big Peat]

I know my friend who writes YA is having a terrible time selling a science fiction YA that has only male main characters. Apparently it's unsaleable unless it's got "feisty" female mcs in it, because more girls read YA. That seems to me like a pretty short-sighted (and self-reinforcing) attitude, but it's definitely one he's encountered from the publishing industry.

This I think gets to the meat of the matter.

In SFF publishing - or so I have been assured by a great many stories by those who should know - heavy preference is given to authors who fulfil agents and publishers' perceptions of what the fans want.

And agents and publishers have heavily gendered perceptions of what the fans want, down to the obvious gender of the name on the cover. If there is a lack of equity in treatment - which I believe there is - it probably logically starts there. The book market we receive is manipulated to accept their perceptions about what we want and their perceptions are we want X and Y in terms of gender.