It is now a well established theory of popular journalism that the best way to get lots of eye tracks for your web site is to get someone to write something manifestly stupid, and hopefully offensive, and then sit back and wait for the flame war to develop. I’ve been busy running economic models all morning, but the helpful Will Plant has pointed me at the latest exercise of this type over at The Guardian.
The basic plot is as follows: because some male persons have said unkind things about JK Rowling, this is proof positive that the literary world is dominated by Evil Male Critics who will stop at nothing in their tireless quest to put down everything ever written by women in the history of the universe, Evah! You can guess how the comment thread goes. This is, I’m afraid, one of those articles that will be quoted again and again when men want to prove what pathetic, selfish idiots feminists are.
On the plus side, it has given people the opportunity to mention a whole raft of wonderful women writers who might not otherwise have got their names in front of the great book-reading public. If it leads to a few book sales down the road that will be a good thing. I’m sure there are more names that could be dropped, if you fancy popping over there and can stomach the pile of righteous outrage in the comments.
What I can’t understand, though, is that there are people who are surprised at the description of the Eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings movies as a “big burning vagina”. Isn’t it obvious?
ZOMG BURNING VAG1NA, XY AUTHORS SUXX!!!1!! Ahem. Thanks, that was entertaining in ways the author (Bidisha) didn’t anticipate. 😉
Mostly Unrelated: Bishida’s bio (“her debut novel, Seahorses, was published to critical acclaim in 1997 when she was 18”) reminded me of your snark in Emerald City about Glenda Larke’s * The Aware having “a scantily clad swordswoman riding My Little Sea-Pony” on the cover.
* XX author alert! 😉
Quite. And for the benefit of those not familiar with that review I hasted to point out that Glenda had written a wonderful book about a tough, no-nonsense heroine, but the publishers obviously felt it needed to look a bit more girly in order to sell. These things happen to women authors.
Whoops, I should’ve given more context. (I meant to at least point out that the book was great.)
Now that I think about it…have I somehow supported Bidisha’s thesis?! LOL….
Kendall – If you mean “have I highlighted one of the problems that women fantasy writers encounter in their careers?” then the answer is “yes”.
I suspect that Bidisha’s thesis is infinitely flexible to encompass any issue you might raise, dismissing inconsistencies as irrelevant where necessary.
For the benefit of those who haven’t seen the cover in question:
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n29/n147879.jpg
Heroine: HELLA TOUGH. Seahorse: not so tough.
Hi,
I’m a reader from England and I think you’ve misunderstood Bidisha’s thesis, which caused a splash over here in the media. She is not talking about male critics of Rowling’s working but the tendency of people of both sexes to gratuitously slander Rowling in the most casual terms – a misogynist practice which is typified by its jeering, slangy tone. This is very different from the measured critique of standard book reviews in which a critic does not like the book they are reviewing. Bidisha also says, rightly, that in the high-culture canonical tradition, male SF and fantasy writers are endorsed while the many excellent female authors are ignored. So Asimov is taken to be a pioneer of the genre while Octavia Butler is ignored. Quite how that relates to your insult that Bidisha and feminism are “pathetic selfish idiots” is a mystery. That is exactly the way a womanhater would talk.
Hello, I’m a science fiction critic from Wales who is well aware of what goes on in the UK. It sounds like you know as little about the SF community as Bidisha. Rather than try and enlighten you myself, let me refer you to my good friend Dr. Farah Mendlesohn, as quoted in the latest edition of Ansible.
If Bidisha wants to complain that mainstream literary critics haven’t got a good word to say for female science fiction and fantasy authors, well she’d be pretty much right, but then mainstream literary critics generally don’t have a good word to say about any science fiction and fantasy authors. But to claim that people in the SF&F community are all biased against women authors is, as Farah noted, plain bonkers, not to mention a serious insult to the many academics and critics who specialize in studying works by those authors.
The situation isn’t ideal. There are always ways in which it can be improved, and many of the people that Bidisha dismissed as irrelevant because we were inconvenient to her argument have been working hard for years to improve things. But ill-thought-out and obviously ill-informed articles like Bidisha’s do nothing to help the situation. In fact they make our lives much worse by making us sound stupid too. You don’t win arguments by playing victim politics and hopelessly exaggerating your case, and then yelling “womanhater” at anyone who dares to disagree with you. All that happens when you do that is that people laugh at you and bring up your inept arguments again and again as evidence of how poor your case is. And I am quite sure that Bidisha’s article will be used against people like Farah and me long after Bidisha has gone away to make trouble elsewhere.
Of course, not content with attempting to label me a “womanhater”, you have also deliberately misquoted me above. I most certainly did not describe feminists (or even Bidisha) as “pathetic selfish idiots”. I said that her article would be used by men to portray us as being like that. If you are going to insult someone on their own blog, you might at least try to avoid misquoting them. It really doesn’t put you in a very good light.
If you are serious about doing something for women SF&F writers then perhaps you should stick around here. I’ll certainly be doing my bit to promote them, as I have been doing for years, and I’d be happy to point you in the direction of other people who are doing the same. You might also very usefully buy memberships in this year’s and next year’s Worldcon so that you can vote for some women writers in the Hugo Awards. If, on the other hand, all you want to do is whine and yell insults, then please stop wasting my time. I have a cause to fight for, and you are not helping.