Following on from the Oscars, The Guardian has an article by Sarah Churchwell pointing out that women only seem to win those little nudey man statues when the contest is for being a woman (or for doing things that women do, like making clothes or putting on make-up). I mention this because I’ve been doing my Hugo nominations and, as is often the case, a lot more than half of the people on my ballot are men. And when the list of nominees comes out there will doubtless once again be a chorus of disapproval from people complaining about how awful the SF industry is, and how this is all the fault of Evil sexist “Hugo judges”, Evil sexist SMOFs who fix the ballot, and Evil sexist publishers and editors, not to mention Evil gender traitors like myself who vote for men.
Well, actually, no. I know that is is much easier, and much more fun, to yell and scream at people you know than to deal with the real problem but, as Churchwell points out, it happens elsewhere too. The reason problems, I suspect, are more to do with the fact that many boys are still socialized from birth to believe that women are inferior and not worth their notice except as sex objects, and that many girls are still socialized from birth to believe that they are inferior and so they shouldn’t try to compete in a world that belongs to men (or indeed that the whole idea of competing in unfeminine).
To pick up on a theme from Churchwell, separatism does not equal equality, having quotas does not equal equality, only cultural change brings equality.