Perceptions of equity in sff

[RX-79G]

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.

As is a problem with so many of the statements made on this and related topics, what is your factual basis for this assertion that agents and publishers are the source of (presumably) inaccurate perceptions of market demand?


How are you factually aware that it isn't a supply side issue?
How are you factually aware that it isn't an accurate perception of market demand?


I'm not implying that the answer is any one of those three. I just don't understand where the underlying information is coming from to select one and reject the others. It suggests that the female dominated publishing industry is both biased against women AND incompetent - which are assertions that ought to require a great deal of scrutiny before acceptance as the basis for logical discussion.


The problem is that there is a perception bias that says that any answer which makes the oppressed party complicit in their oppression must be invalid. And when you are operating under that kind of bias, the likelihood of successfully analyzing any of the data downstream of that bias is impossible.

 

[Brian G Turner]

It suggests that the female dominated publishing industry is both biased against women AND incompetent

Remember that while the editors may be female, it's not them who ultimately get a say in what gets picked up - that's the marketing and/or accounts department.

Additionally, it's widely believed that a wider male readership will historically tend to resist picking up books with women's names on them. That was the whole reason why Joanne Rowling had to become JK Rowling on her covers. While this bias may not be so strong among hard core genre readers, it can be perceived to being a barrier to being read more widely.

Hence we end up in a vicious circle - male bias is presumed to exist, so some books are tailored to feed into it, but in doing so help maintain either that bias or the perception of bias.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

On a only slightly related but interesting note.

Amazon gave me £30 to spend on adverts. This appears no strings attached so I took it and am running a campaign for Inish Carraig.

For those who have not read it (apart from the fact you should buy 10, of course) Inish is a book with 2 male leads, a bleak apocalyptic scene and is a sf thriller full of coarse language. So, not a romance.

Of my clicks 90% were female. So I've now targeted them only and my click rate has gone up. Now it could be my tagline (the alien invasion is over. Humanity lost. Who would you fight to save?) or something else but 90% for a book not overtly female (but with a female author's name - out and proud!)

On the other note - we know there is a publishing bias to male sff writers from a range of sources (titles published, demographs, review stats, a few other goodies). What we don't know is why - is it the chicken or the egg? Is sff male dominated and if so is that because it's naturally more male or because it became so by excluding women?

Make no mistake - an agent's job is to sell books. If they think a male has more chance, that's who they'll sign. Ditto publishers. It's a business not an equitable endeavour.

So the question isn't are agents incompetent or anything else - it's about whether the market balance is actually right for the perceived readership. And whether that perceived readership is accurate. And whether that perceived readership is skewed by the market.

None of which is easily answered.

 

[RX-79G]

Remember that while the editors may be female, it's not them who ultimately get a say in what gets picked up - that's the marketing and/or accounts department.

And who are those people, what do they believe, and why do they believe that?

Additionally, it's widely believed that a wider male readership will historically tend to resist picking up books with women's names on them. That was the whole reason why Joanne Rowling had to become JK Rowling on her covers.

Widely believed by whom? Joanne Rowling wasn't a publisher - does her belief have a basis in reality? Did her publisher hold this belief, and does it have a basis in reality? Does this belief actually exist among the decision makers in publishing, or is this belief a reflection of the attitudes of those analyzing the behavior of publishers?

Hence we end up in a vicious circle - male bias is presumed to exist, so some books are tailored to feed into it, but in doing so help maintain either that bias or the perception of bias.

Again, how do you know that books in any important number are tailored this way, and why assume that this tailoring actually effects book sales either way? There has never been a double blind test that was run with a huge number of books published under male, female and androgynous names to actually test the idea that it matters.

That vicious circle might only exist in our minds, not in the actual and observable supply and demand of the fiction market. It may also be seen as a broken tautology that comes from the misunderstanding that every disparity must arise from inequity. And once you are caught in that trap it becomes impossible to understand much of anything.

Or process anything with reason, compassion or justice.

 

[Brian G Turner]

@RX-79G - I'm referring to the various articles I've read from within the industry, plus the various conversations I've had with authors, agents, and editors.

I can't give you a single source or article that is going to explain this all to you. I can only suggest that you bear it in mind in case you do read up on the subject.

The one thing I can promise you is that publishing companies have done far more research and have far more stats at hand to make their decisions with than any of us do.

 

[Hex]

You're right @RX-79G -- without a proper study it is impossible to know what caused inequities (or inequalities), but it's fun to hypothesise (so that when we run the study we have a proper set of research questions ). I'd suggest -- off the top of my head -- that part of it might be that the industry in general feels it is under threat and is increasingly (?) conservative.

It seems to me likely -- indeed, in the links Jo had, actually the case -- that more men than women read science fiction (and fantasy). Unless I misunderstood the stats, which is entirely possible (though, as Brian says, the chances are that publishing professionals are basing their decisions on something, or one would like to think so, anyway)

Given that, I guess, conservative publishing professionals looking to sell books and knowing that women will read books written by men as well as books written by women, will take what would seem the safe option: to publish more books by men.

 

[RX-79G]

I would like to know what the demographics of the supply side are. How many SF manuscripts are being submitted through all the various channels by each gender?

I would like to know if there is a perception by publishers of a difference in topic, theme or style between male and female authors.


Without any access to the headwaters of the publishing industry, it becomes very difficult to understand what or why things are happening downstream.

You're right @RX-79G -- without a proper study it is impossible to know what caused inequities (or inequalities), but it's fun to hypothesise

You would think it would be fun, but it certainly hasn't been for me.

 

[HareBrain]

As part of my day job, I did some work with a Big 6 publisher on their online surveys, and I got the impression that they didn't really know what data they wanted to acquire, and wouldn't have known how to acquire it if they did. I suspect that the research side of traditional publishing isn't very well organised or funded, so it wouldn't surprise me if publishing turned out to be governed by perception rather than proper analysis. It's also likely that the perceptions its governed by are those of the people at the top, whose grass-roots knowledge of who buys what is probably decades out of date.

 

[Brian G Turner]

How many SF manuscripts are being submitted through all the various channels by each gender?

I know a couple of publishers have published these stats - here's one from Tor UK:
SEXISM IN GENRE PUBLISHING: A PUBLISHER'S PERSPECTIVE

I'm tempted to think there's a rough correlation between the stats for submissions and actual readership. However, there are a lot of qualifiers - such data is quantitative, not qualitative. Additionally, as we've seen in other discussions, it can be difficult to precisely define a genre.

 

[Hex]

I would like to know if there is a perception by publishers of a difference in topic, theme or style between male and female authors.

This is an interesting one, though I don't have an answer to it. Certainly, I find a difference in the books I read by male and female authors, and I suspect the books that may appeal more to men seem to me to be predominantly written by men -- they feel more violent, for example. With the entrails and everything. Are there lots of women who write grimdark?

Sorry hypothesising hasn't been fun

I wonder also what the impact is of agents trying to second-guess what editors will be interested in -- I suppose that adds a whole level of narrowing down -- and the effect of acquisitions meetings.

Sorry if someone mentioned this before (I blush to admit it, but I haven't read the whole thread): is it the case that self-publishing in sff is more evenly balanced gender-wise? Would that tell us anything about how the traditional publishing industry works, because I guess it would remove the gatekeeper bias (though leave us with all sorts of other biases, arguably)

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Re grimdark - there are some women write the genre. I'm at the edge of it, for instance (though these days am erring more to the psychological than the entrails) but Teresa Frohock is established and Anna Smith Spark is about to explode on the scene with her debut.

As to self publishing - hard to tell. When I researched for a blog it still seemed - in terms of top sellers- there was a bias towards the men.

(There is a stated belief in some quarters if you want to read good sf seek out the women as we'll have worked much harder to get anywhere!)

 

[SilentRoamer]

I think the readership in SFF is heavily male skewed and the publishing industry therefore pushes what it perceives to be male oriented SFF. My evidence is anecdotal of course but almost all of the book sellers, car booters, friends who read SFF are men. The exception is people I have met from this site at the Northern Chronfests but that's to be expected as this is a gathering place for the greater minds with a love of SFF.

@Hex I do perceive a different reading experience between male and female authors.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I think the readership in SFF is heavily male skewed and the publishing industry therefore pushes what it perceives to be male oriented SFF. My evidence is anecdotal of course but almost all of the book sellers, car booters, friends who read SFF are men. The exception is people I have met from this site at the Northern Chronfests but that's to be expected as this is a gathering place for the greater minds with a love of SFF.

@Hex I do perceive a different reading experience between male and female authors.

And yet I see the opposite. I have loads of female mates who read sff. Maybe they're a little shyer about it?

 

[Hex]

But do you think it's equal?

I have to confess in the real world most of the people I know who read sff are men -- less so now than when I was growing up, but back then I don't think I knew one other girl who liked reading the things I read (but lots of boys who did). I wonder if there's some kind of societal issue that made girls less inclined to admit to it -- perhaps the very perception that sff is a male-dominated thing? And of course, in Warhammer, where I spend inordinate amounts of time (and money), everyone's male (except me and the other mothers standing around looking at pictures of Necrons and wishing there was a place to buy coffee instead of a display of Eldar warships )

On here, of course, and in other online environments, I know lots of women who like sff, but in real life I think I know one, or possibly two (I don't know the reading habits of all of my friends). Maybe that's changing -- everyone reads Harry Potter (but then, once upon a time everyone read Narnia as well).

 

[RX-79G]

I know a couple of publishers have published these stats - here's one from Tor UK:
SEXISM IN GENRE PUBLISHING: A PUBLISHER'S PERSPECTIVE

I'm tempted to think there's a rough correlation between the stats for submissions and actual readership. However, there are a lot of qualifiers - such data is quantitative, not qualitative. Additionally, as we've seen in other discussions, it can be difficult to precisely define a genre.

If only 22% of SF submissions are from women, why even discuss the decisions that publishers must make with so little material?

And yet I see the opposite. I have loads of female mates who read sff. Maybe they're a little shyer about it?

Maybe women are reading SF in large numbers. Do women readers prefer SF stories written by one gender or the other? Is it possible that the deciding factor in gender sales has been the female readers? (Yes, it is possible.) Donald Trump was elected because 46% of woman voters didn't vote for Hillary. Women consumers have massive power, and it is important to remember that many of them buy and vote across gender lines.

As part of my day job, I did some work with a Big 6 publisher on their online surveys, and I got the impression that they didn't really know what data they wanted to acquire, and wouldn't have known how to acquire it if they did. I suspect that the research side of traditional publishing isn't very well organised or funded, so it wouldn't surprise me if publishing turned out to be governed by perception rather than proper analysis.

This is common in many industries. Try having a discussion about metallurgy with knife makers. They point to industry charts that show that steel A = steel B, but don't know what to say when other industry charts show B is = to C, but C is not = to A. And that's industrial engineering information.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I think for fantasy it's not that unequal. I think for sf it's less equal. Since both genres were equally guilty of sidelining women I suspect there is an imbalance in SF.i also know @Gary Compton says he rarely gets sf submissions from women - and we know, even on the Chrons (cos I asked) a tiny minority of the women write sf rather than fantasy.

What we don't know is how big that imbalance is (and how it varies between the genres) or if it has been led by exclusion or natural tastes.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Incidentally this isn't about decisions publishers take with the submissions they receive per se - but if there is equity in the industry on a range of parameters. Publishing is, ironically, only part of it.

Equally interesting are embedded assumptions around sff - like that women going to a sf film might not be interested in it per se, but going along. Like that it's naturally a man's genre and women are not inclined to be attracted to it.

Those assumptions are part of what feeds into accessibility to the genre. Frankly these days I'm mostly writing fantasy (which is more a serendipity thing than avoidance of sf, in which I have several planned projects) and am finding it a much more welcoming zone than sf. How many other women feel like that and walk away? We'll never know until we at least make them feel welcome and not like some sort of strange being for being both a woman and into sf....

 

[Hex]

I think I need to go and read the rest of this thread...

The article was about lists of "great authors" as represented in newspapers etc, which rarely mention women. Can I suggest a radical (and possibly unpopular) theory?

It's men who like making lists.(*)

(*) High Fidelity

 

[nixie]

I do prefer fantasy although I am starting to read more sci-fi. My tastes do lean towards Grimdark and the majority of my favourite authors are male. Before I joined here I hadn't met other females who read sff. I have encountered a few since but not any who have same tastes. I get a lot of raised eyebrows when asked who my favourite authors are, they can't believe I enjoy authors like Erikson, Abercrombie, Lawrence, etc.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I think I need to go and read the rest of this thread...

The article was about lists of "great authors" as represented in newspapers etc, which rarely mention women. Can I suggest a radical (and possibly unpopular) theory?

It's men who like making lists.(*)

(*) High Fidelity

Hey! I'm an auditor. I love me some lists!