Some links on feminist issues, sexism & gender awareness.

Sarah Rees Brennan is writing awesomeness about women in fiction again, debunking all the dumb excuses people give for being more critical of female characters than male (features the big spoiler for The Demon’s Lexicon):

There are also issues with writing people with disabilities, people of colour, people who are gay. There are even issues with writing straight white guys, because they too live in a world where inequality exists, and this affects them too! All these issues! That’s why it is impossible to ever write any characters at all. And so all my writing goes like this ‘the void… BLANK PAGES … the void… BLANK PAGES.’ It’s very deep.

Cheryl Morgan talks about how to get women nominating for and appearing on the Hugo shortlists, and looks a bit at the psychology that means women usually don’t get fairly represented. In particular she suggests that women are more likely to disqualify themselves from being well-read enough to venture an opinion.

 coffeeandink on male privilege & perception of merit in comics – a beautiful illustration of the ways in which some men can unconsciously discount the work of women, particularly in geek-friendly arenas. This might be one to bookmark and point people to as a great example of invisible sexism at work.

A round-table discussion on how to define and redefine ‘strong’ when it comes to YA heroines.

Moving away from speculative fiction and geekery circles, here’s an interview with Natasha Walter about the return of sexism and the pressure on young girls who don’t feel they have a choice to opt out of porn culture.

This one had me at hello. I love retellings of fairy tales, and adding bisexual themes to Cinderella instantly made me sit up and take interest. Also, there was buzz, and I do love me some YA fiction that comes with added buzz.

I pre-ordered this beautiful book (isn’t the cover glorious?) and it promptly sat beside my reading chair for months, as Christmas and the post-Christmas haze swallowed up my intensive reading time. I was pretty sure this was one of those books I was going to tear through in a couple of sittings, but I was hesitant to go near it, maybe a little afraid that it wouldn’t life up to the wonderful cover. But this week I had a really bad day – mothered out completely, so sick I could barely see straight (strep throat, not recommended) and I’d had at least two emotional meltdowns by lunch time. I took my baby to daycare, sent my older daughter off to play at my Dad’s place, and in between doctor’s appointments and housecleaning, I gave myself a couple of hour-long sessions to Read A Book.

Yes, books can be medicinally applied.

Ash was what I was hoping for – an elegant, well paced read, combining familiar fairy tale elements with well-rounded characters and some awesome original worldbuilding to give it some depth. It’s hard not to compare with Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted, who used an obedience curse to explain the passivity of Cinderella. Lo instead chooses the timeless technique of emotional blackmail on behalf of the stepmother, and shows how hard it would be for an unmarried girl to function without the protection of parents in the type of society usually found in fairy tale tradition.

(spoilers for the second part & ending of Ash below)
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One of my projects for this year was to educate myself about Joanna Russ, a major figure in the history of feminist SF. I have read quite a lot about her, but very little of her actual work.

I started with On Joanna Russ, edited by Farah Mendlesohn, and only a few essays in, I’m thoroughly mesmerised. At the same time, I ordered a pile of paperbacks, including The Adventures of Alyx and How to Suppress Women’s Writing.

I read the first story of the Alyx collection, “Bluestocking,” immediately upon reading the first essay of the Mendlesohn book, “Alyx among the genres” by Gary K Wolfe. All very meta, but I enjoyed the experience very much. I was surprised to discover that Alyx is not, as I thought, another of those Jirel of Joiry types (glamorous swordswomen on horseback) but is instead more of a trickster character – small, unassuming, with more in common with the Grey Mouser or the noir private detectives than with the pulp fiction glamazons.

Even more interesting, according to Wolfe, the stories get more meta the deeper in you get to them, and move from heroic adventure through to planetary romance: in other words, from fantasy to science fiction. Also, Alyx’s stories often revolve around other women: the first one has her playing bodyguard/mentor to a fluffy redhead, and having quite an effect on her. The ending bemused me, and entertained me, and I’m still thinking about the story days later. Considering how many stories I read a year for LSS, that’s quite an achievement.

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There’s been some reaction to Realms of Fantasy’s recent announcement of a women’s special issue in 2011. Celebrating women in fantasy, it will contain fiction and art entirely produced by women, and preference will be given to stories that engage with gender, sexism and um “other areas important to feminine speculative literature.” Across the internet, some women are welcoming the issue, while others are decrying it as an anachronistic way of dealing with a real problem (or indeed arguing that there is no need for it at all).

Sarah Monette posts on the issue here, with some very valid points. The comments are worth reading, too. Likewise, the comments on the Rof blog, which include Douglas Cohen explaining a bit more about how the issue came about – in a way far more sympathetic to me than the initial call for submission, which frankly rubbed me the wrong way with its patronising tone. Meanwhile, Cat Valente has an awesome post up that pretty much sums up the way I feel – that is, torn between responses.

Here’s the thing: I believe in affirmative action in the spec fic short fiction scene. I’ve gone back and forth on this one, but I do. I think the only way we’re going to get a better and more diverse mix of quality, interesting short fiction in the scene is by a) having and supporting the editors whose tastes automatically skew towards a diverse mix of authors and fictional themes, and b) challenging the best and most respected editors in the field to look beyond their automatic taste response to see the value in some stories other than those written by straight white men, or those which largely feature the problems, concerns and imaginary futures of straight white men.

Publishing is a meritocracy. But merit is subjective, and it is fluid. Editors who read “without considering matters or gender, race or author background” and yet consistently publish work which is about the default white male gaze do need to be challenged by their audience, if that audience has an interest in diversity in fiction. Sometimes affirmative action, of whatever kind, is necessary to help editors (not necessarily male editors) find value in stories that they might have missed out on otherwise – not because they are deliberately creating a culture of sexism (or racism, etc, let’s stick to sexism for now) but because their actions and to some extent their personal taste are unconsciously supporting said culture.

Which, you know, if you’re only interested in an (aging) readership of a certain kind of bloke, is just fine. Slap a label on the magazine which says ‘SF/Fantasy for Men’ and be done with it. (or just put a cover on it where a madeuppy woman has her boobs falling out of chain mail, this has a similar effect) Sure, you might lose some audience – both male and female readers – but at least you’re being honest about where your priorities are.

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For the record, I didn’t intend for yesterday’s post to be particularly negative! I was hoping for more evidence that there were in fact whole slews of fantasy fiction which centres around more than one female character, and their interactions. Thanks to comments here and on LJ, I have a few more to add to the list:

Thoraiya Dyer reminded me that while big chunks of the Mists of Avalon are about Morgaine-Arthur-Lancelot-Gwenhyfar with the women being the only ones not really having a relationship, Morgaine does have relationships with Viviane and Morgause and basically the whole book is about women talking to each other. Sometimes not even about men. Which is true, and my only excuse for not remembering is that I read it in my teens and the book represents my first ever literary experience with an Arthurian threesome.

[in addition I'd like to shout out to Merlin, which looks on the surface to be a Boys Own show but does have Gwen and Morgana who are, though very very divergent from the traditional versions of said characters, are at least two girls who talk to each other, and this is much better than poor old Marian in Robin Hood who was only allowed to talk to smelly men in armour. I haven't got to see the second season yet but I just read Sarah Rees Brennan's summary about sensible girls and the romantic boys who love them, and sadly it looks like there isn't nearly enough Morgana in season 2...]

This discussion of Mists of Avalon reminded me of The Firebrand, which I think is a magnificent and much better book than MoA (basically does everything Bradley did in MoA but with TROY which is infinitely cooler than the Arthurian cycle imho) which gave me Kassandra and Andromache and Hekuba and Amazons and the wimpiest most annoying Paris ever and is basically awesome and stacked with womenfolk.

Rowan mentioned The Oathbound by Mercedes Lackey, which features two women from widely different backgrounds who become blood sisters, work together in everything and generally appear on the covers together. Mercedes Lackey! I definitely should have remembered her, and it makes me sad that I didn’t read enough of her books in my teens when I think they would have been at their best. I have quite liked her recent fairy tale books especially The Fairy Godmother.
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I’ve had a tab open to this post by Jim C Hines on Girly Books and gender stereotyping all week, pretty sure that I wanted to say something about it, but not sure what.

I understand his bafflement at male readers being hesitant to pick up his new books, the ones with girls on the cover. I remember the almost physical blow I felt the first time an acquaintance told me to my face that he wasn’t going to read my books because he didn’t read anything with female protagonists. (ten years later I’m still going, seriously? Seriously?)

Looking at Hines’ covers, which are gorgeous, it occurs to me how unusual they are in the fantasy genre. Having a female character on the cover, even a female and no male character, is not that unusual – but three women, with no man in sight? I can’t think of another fantasy cover ever that has had such a composition.

Fantasy fiction is not short of female characters, even memorable and important female characters, but it’s hard to escape the fact that so many of the sourceworks, the deeply respected historical texts that helped to form people’s idea of fantasy fiction, tend to place female characters in a vacuum.

From fairy tales through the pulp stories and Tolkien to the epic fantasies of the 1980′s – whether women are crunchy protagonists and point-of-view characters or cardboard love-interests and prizes, what they most have in common is feminine isolation. The princess’s most important relationship is with her potential prince, and her value is often calculated on how well she gets along with male characters. Often this is well meaning – an awesome female character stands out very effectively when surrounded by blokes. Also her awesomeness is often created by an unflattering contrast with other women – she is special, they are drips.

(I do this too, I’m horrified to realise, most of my female relationships in novels are based on conflict, and the best friendships represented are male-female)

These traditions bleed through to modern storytelling, and I can think of so few examples of fantasy fiction which has an emphasis on family or friendship relationships or even teamwork between women. I have to admit, when I first heard about Hines’ Stepsister Scheme my first thoughts were very cynical, that the idea of fairy tale princesses ganging up together and kicking arse/fighting crime was a bit of an old cliche. But thinking about it again – no, it isn’t. It’s horribly original. There just aren’t that many fantasy stories out there that are predominantly about women – and women plural, not just one really great woman.
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So in the early hours of this morning I ended up feeding my baby to the sound of an interview with Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, the most bestselling duo of fantasy authors of all time.

It was odd.

Not the interview itself, which was kind of awesome. It was really fascinating to hear about how the mega publishing sensation that was the Dragonlance books came into being, and to listen to these two people who have had such a close working relationship for 25 years – how an editor and a game designer became bestselling novelists.

But what was odd was that I sat there, snuggled under my doona with my baby, and I started feeling all warm and fuzzy and nostalgic… about Dragonlance.

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