This article from Politics Daily caught my eye (tweeted by @robinwasserman) yesterday.  Lizzie Skurnick discusses the consistent way that literary awards lists are dominated by male authors.  As some of you know, this one’s a pet topic of mine.  Skurnick’s article particularly interests me because she cuts right past the idea that this is a deliberate exclusion of women by the patriarchy (the straw argument that most people argue against when this topic comes up – “I’m not sexist, we didn’t consider gender at ALL, so there,” etc.) and deals instead with the rather more troubling idea that our culture is so geared towards calling “books by women small and books by men large, by no quantifiable metric,” that we don’t even realise we are doing it.  And that the ‘we’ in question can as easily encompass women readers/jurists/reviewers as men.

I’ve been arguing this for a while.  We’re past the point where anyone can actively stand up and say “well women’s work is inferior” without looking like a complete arse, so instead we get “it’s all a matter of taste and I just happen to like these books that just happen to be written by men.”

“But that’s the problem with sexism. It doesn’t happen because people — male or female — think women suck. It happens for the same reason a sommelier always pours a little more in a man’s wine glass (check it!), or that that big, hearty man in the suit seems like he’d be a better manager. It’s not that women shouldn’t be up for the big awards. It’s just that when it comes down to the wire, we just kinda feel like men . . . I don’t know . . . deserve them.”

Skurnick is against affirmative action as a solution.  I go back and forth about the idea.  I understand the arguments against it.  Whether we’re talking about editors selecting stories to publish, or jurors deciding which books are best, the idea of giving someone “an unfair advantage” doesn’t seem right.  Many people are understandably offended by the idea of being asked to reassess what they think of as “good” or “the best” or even “stuff I like.”  Demanding some kind of quota system (as was proposed and promptly squashed) for the Hugo’s this year) is threatening because it asks people to reassess their notions of quality.  But it is also an important question to consider, because it asks people to reassess their notions of quality.

Until it is universally recognised that having one gender consistently recognised as “better” than the other is an actual problem, we need to keep returning to this conversation.

I thought this article was particularly interesting in the description of language used to assess male v. female authored works.  The use of the word ‘ambitious’ is particularly telling – where men are being consistently honoured for books that try and fail to achieve something great, and women are being penalised for writing books that are, you know, good.  But ‘unambitious’.  She may be talking about the literary world, but there are parallels in spec fic – in the dismissal of urban fantasy as some stupid vampire-shagging genre that only women like, in the way that women can never write SF “hard” enough to count as the real thing, in tables of contents that just happen to contain all male authors (not because of sexism, cos the editor is so non-sexist that they don’t even think about gender when they choose stories, isn’t that awesome?) and in a reviewing culture that prioritises books (ambitious or otherwise) which are written by men.

I also see parallels to recent discussions by  sarahreesbrennan, Justine Larbalestier and others on how even male characters can get away with so much more than female characters, who are judged more harshly for their flaws and for being too perfect.  Hell, I see parallels in the way it’s so hard to find coverage of women’s sport because “people aren’t interested” (how can we be interested if there’s no coverage?”) and as touched on in the previous post, how “girls don’t game” so it’s fine to ignore/not ask what they want from games.

The problem is not, for the most part, the sexism that people know they are perpetuating.  It’s all the other kinds.  And this is why the internet reacts by piling on when, for instance, a new anthology appears which presents the totally-gender-neutral-concept that mindblowing SF can only be written by men.  Once your eyes are opened to the hidden, unintentional inequalities, it’s hard not to see them everywhere.  Because they really are everywhere.  Still.

PS: other people have commented on Twitter etc. about the headdesky nature of the comments to that article. I was pleased I had not risked sanity points by looking at them.  This time around, I accidentally read some and omfg. The 78 yr old man who proclaims that women can’t write as well as men because they only write books of interest to other women – thus they sell more despite being not as good.  And not having as many words in their sentences.   Also he’s not a chauvenist (sic) cos he has three successful daughters.  WITHOUT IRONY, PEOPLE.  HE SAYS THIS WITHOUT IRONY.

PPS: Must – stop – reading – comments – before – stupid – rubs off on me – gah.

Tags: awards, critical thought, feminism, gender, linkage, sexism