Feminism

Pots, Kettles and Discrimination

~ Cheryl ~ 24 Comments

An interesting discussion transpired on Twitter this morning (sadly a very poor medium for serious discussion) about this BBC article. In it a group of bishops are complaining that the government discriminates against Christians. Specifically they are talking about people losing their jobs for wearing crucifixes.

As someone who has suffered employment discrimination (there is a good reason why I’m self-employed, you know), I’m fully supportive of anyone who is at risk of losing their job simply for wearing a religious symbol. So score one for the bishops there. However, like many things in life, this issue is a little more complicated.

To start with, losing your job for wearing a crucifix is not the only sort of discrimination that the bishops complain about. The “rights” that they want protected include the “right” to discriminate against, and spread hatred towards, other people; specifically LGBT people. Indeed, Church of England Bishops in the House of Lords have been in the forefront of every fight to prevent LGBT people gaining civil rights in the UK. Trans people, in particular, had to go to the European Court because there was no chance of their getting any rights in the UK without support from elsewhere. So while I feel very sorry for Christians at risk of losing their jobs simply for wearing religious jewelry, I think it is a bit rich for some bishops to complain about being discriminated against on the one hand, while pushing hard for the right to discriminate on the other.

There are, of course, many Christians who are wonderful people. I have a good friend who is a Catholic Priest, another who is a Methodist Minister, and one who is training to be a CofE vicar. They are not the sort of people who go around persecuting others. Unfortunately they get tarred by the bad behavior of other Christians. And that brings me to the thorny subject of symbols.

Symbols, religious or otherwise, are powerful things. They can convey a great deal of information, and a great deal of emotion, very effectively. I’m trying not to invoke Godwin’s Law here, so apologies to any Jewish friends who may feel left out, but let’s use the Confederate flag as an example.

I very much doubt that the people behind the Somerset Rebels speedway team had any political reason for the name and symbol they chose. For most people in Somerset the Confederate army has the vaguely romantic overtones of the underdog. Their generals tended to be more likable than Grant and Sherman. But to an African-American the Confederate flag means something very different and specific. It suggests that the person wearing it is proclaiming his racist views, and his hatred for African-American people. It suggests that because there are people who use it in that very way.

The same sort of confusion, these days, is true of a crucifix. A person who chooses to wear one may well think that doing so sends out a message of, “I believe in Jesus Christ and His gospel of love.” Unfortunately an LGBT person seeing that crucifix may interpret the message very differently as saying to her, “I hate you and wish you dead.”

This is where the whole issue gets very difficult. Imagine yourself in the position of an openly gay person who is seriously ill. Fortunately you are in the UK and are able to go to hospital. But once there you discover that one of the nurses wears a crucifix. Are you going to be comforted, or very frightened?

There are no easy answers to this. There are, however, things that we can do. Those of us who are not religious need to be supportive of the moderates in various religions who are prepared to stand up against the bigots. Equally, religious people who want our support have to be prepared to take a stand. They also need to be aware that their holy symbol may be a symbol of fear for others.

#ALD10 Wrap

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Well done folks. Over 2000 pledges this year, and hopefully most of those turned into posts.

One post that caught my eye was at the official WordPress blog. The folks at Automattic wanted to celebrate the works of the girl geeks on the WordPress team. Given that I use WordPress just about every day, I too am very grateful to these ladies.

On the other hand, the BBC managed to get completely the wrong end of the stick, somehow coming away with the idea that people were voting for their favorite woman geek. If that was the idea, we’d see much less variety, which would defeat the whole object of ALD. Ah well, all publicity is good publicity, I guess. Sad that the media has to turn everything into some sort of American Idol style popularity contest, though.

And finally, those of you who missed the live webcast of the London event can see the whole thing here, including presentations by Maggie Philbin, Suw Charman-Anderson and Sue Black.

(I am, by the way, very impressed with the quality. Either UStream has upped their act significantly since last year or the ALD event had a really good connection.)

Mary Anning – #ALD10

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Mary AnningFor this year’s Ada Lovelace Day I’d like to focus a little closer to home. Like many young proto-fans, I was very fond of dinosaurs while I was a kid. That may have been in part because I also happened to have an aunt who lived near Lyme Regis, one of the most famous fossil-hunting sites in the world. Why is it famous? Because it was in this little Dorset seaside town that the whole dinosaur story started.

Mary Anning was one of two surviving children from a poor Dorset family. Her father made a meager living by collecting interesting shells and other curiosities from the local beach and selling them to tourists. Mary and her brother, Joseph, were trained in the family business, and when Richard Anning died of consumption in 1810 Mary and Joseph had to take over. Mary was just 11 years old at the time.

The following year Joseph found what appeared to be the skull of a crocodile protruding from a cliff by the beach. Mary was fascinated and began the painstaking work of excavating it. When she had finished she became the owner of the first known fossil of an ichthyosaurus.

Further discoveries followed: a plesiosaurus, a pterodactylus. The scientific world began to take notice, and young Mary was obliged to defend herself from accusations of fraud. Despite having little formal education, Mary was able to hold her own and establish herself as a world expert in the new science of fossil hunting. But, as a woman of working class origins, she was unable to join the scientific establishment. Instead she continued her work at Lyme, interacting with scientists and wealthy patrons when they came to visit.

As a woman, Mary was unable to attend the Geological Society meetings where her discoveries were presented to the scientific world. Indeed, according to her Wikipedia article (which appears well researched and is heavily footnoted) she was not even mentioned when her discoveries were announced. As the Natural History Museum puts it: “William Buckland, Henry de la Beche and William Conybeare were some of the many scientists who owe their achievements to her.” (My emphasis). And because ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs are only distantly related to the giant land-dwelling creatures of the time, you will still see Buckland credited as the discoverer of the first dinosaur, because his later find was of a land animal, Megalosaurus.

The picture accompanying this article is a portrait of Mary and her dog, Tray. As you can see, she has a bag to collect her fossils, and a hammer to extract them. As this BBC article reveals, that hammer can still be seen in the little town museum at Lyme Regis.

And to finish, here is a charming, if somewhat fanciful, animated film about Mary that I found on YouTube.

Hello, #ALD10

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Yes, today is the second annual Ada Lovelace Day, celebrating women in technology. It looks like being a busy one. According to the ALD Twitter feed (hi Suw!) the #ALD10 hashtag is trending in the UK and the official web site has had over 7,000 visitors already today. If you can’t raise it, don’t worry, try again later; it is creaking a bit under the strain. (A case of #notneilsfaultwebfail).

My post will be up shortly, but first I wanted to point people at something I’ve discovered today: Girl Geek Dinners. These are basically social get-togethers for women in technology. They started in London, but have since spread all around the world. They have them in Bristol, and I shall try to get along to one soon, though tomorrow night is liable to be a bust given the chaos my life is in right now. Bay Area folks should check here for their local events.

Hey, if we can change the world with bake sales, whole dinners should be pretty darn spectacular.

Yet More Linkage

~ Cheryl

Because I have spent most of today on Day Jobbery.

– Joe Gordon reports on a BBC story about a supposed real-life Glasgow vampire that caused massive moral panic and led to censoring of comics.

– Justine Larbalestier has a tribute to the brilliant and sadly missed Alexander McQueen. (Go on, click through, just look at those fabulous dresses!)

– Space Ship Two has successfully completed its maiden flight. (And Virgin Galactic reports that they have sold over 330 tickets for flights.)

– And finally, a horrific tale of a mother of five from Durban whose life has been destroyed because prison authorities mistook her for a transsexual.

A Little Activism

~ Cheryl ~ 6 Comments

Some of you may remember that a couple of weeks ago I talked about a rather dangerous aspect of the new diagnostics manual being proposed to the American Psychiatric Association. Psychiatrists have long taken an interest in men who like to dress as women, if only because the social stigma attached to such behavior can cause considerable distress. DSM-V, however, removes the requirement for distress from the diagnostic criteria. As a consequence a psychiatrist will be able to label a man mentally ill simply for wearing clothes that he deems more appropriate for a woman. As I noted at the time, this also provides a “back door” by which transphobic psychiatrists can label trans women crazy despite the general retreat on such issues evident in the parts of the DSM specifically aimed at trans people.

I don’t think I need waste your time pointing out just how pernicious this is. The simple fact this this “diagnosis” applies only to men and trans women should be quite enough to ring alarm bells and suggest that it is more a product of the psychiatrists’ misogynistic phobias than any real science. How much influence we outsiders can have over the APA is, of course, a matter for conjecture. But if you feel like signing a petition, you can find one here.

Linkage in Progress

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Today has been another busy one. The Day Jobbe has taken up much of my time, but I did get to look at a small, fully furnished cottage that just might be exactly what I need. I’ll be putting in an application tomorrow. Meanwhile I have a few links for you.

– Issue #3 of Yipe!, the costuming fanzine, is now available.

– Science in My Fiction discusses how to cook pasta on Mars.

– The Florida Family Policy Council of Orlando proves that no lie is too outrageous when it comes to hating gay people.

– And finally, over at SFWA, Nnedi Okorafor tries to decide what it means to be African. Some of what she says is remarkably reminiscent of ridiculous turf wars over who is a “proper” trans person, and indeed who is a “proper” science fiction fan. Identity politics can be dangerous stuff.

New Linkage Collection

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Guess who has spent most of today staring at code rather than blogging.

– Alex C. Telander interviews AussieCon 4 GoH, Kim Stanley Robinson (podcast).

– The Guardian puts the boot in to bad fantasy character names.

– Mark Kelly starts gathering some interesting statistics about how SF&F books are published.

– A Western Australia newspaper has a very positive article about Aussiecon 4.

– Jeff VanderMeer has compiled a wonderful list of recommendations of good 2009 SF&F from many different countries.

– Charles A.Tan talks to the publishers of an anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction.

– On Saturday I tweeted about a group of people in V masks who were demonstrating outside of the Scientology offices in Tottenham Court Road. I now suspect that they may have been the racist and homophobic group talked about here.

– The Scavenger has an excellent interview with trans activist, Julia Serano.

– The Guardian publishes another trans-positive article (which I note because it shows they are making progress).

– Australian resident wins the right to have no gender.

More Linkage

~ Cheryl

Because the world keeps getting more weird, and religious bigots keep shooting themselves in the foot.

– First up a humiliating defeat for right-wing bishops as the House of Lords decides that the Church of England does not have the right to force all religions to hate gays.

– Then we have one of those lovely stories about gay-hating Republican politicians being caught frequenting gay bars. This time it is a California state senator who was a leading proponent of “Proposition H8”.

– Not to be outdone, a Vatican chorister has been sacked for running a gay prostitution ring. Nice to see your boys setting a good example, Mr. Pope.

– Meanwhile South Carolina is compiling a register of people plotting to overthrow the US government. Several amusing Discordians appear to have registered, but no sign of Sarah Palin as yet.

– Back with sanity, Nick Harkaway is plugging a fundraiser anthology helping victims of the Haiti earthquake.

– And finally, one of the cutest things I have read in a long time: Georgia Roberson writes a letter to Dr. Seuss.

Linking Again

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Because I should be packing for P-Con and doing the day job.

– An interesting statement by Christopher Handley’s lawyer on the subject of obscenity and manga, and why they chose to plead guilty.

– A great article on fear being the enemy of gender equality (thanks Nnedi!).

– A suggestion that the iPad is the Wii of the tablet market. Actually the thing I found most interesting about this is that if you go into a computer games shop in the UK all of the effort goes into selling XBox and PS3 games, with the Wii stuff hidden away in a small corner. That’s odd if Wii is easily the top-selling console. Anyway, I don’t think I’ll be buying an iPad until it has the eye-friendly Kindle-style screen. The iPhone hurts my eyes quite enough.

– Peter Tennant of Black Static takes the opportunity to show that not all male horror fans are sexist. Nice piece of PR by TTA Press there, which is another reason why it is important to apologize well.

Diversity Linkage

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

We are off around the world.

– Justine Larbalestier has guest post by a writer who is an Australian Aboriginal.

– Joe Gordon notes that the fabulous comic creator, Asia Alfasi, along with the equally talented Daryl Cunningham, is being interviewed on BBC Radio Scotland.

– World SF News interviews Brazilian writer, Jacques Barcia.

– And Fábio Fernandes talks about portrayals of Brazil in science fiction.

– The Guardian has news of an interesting Japanese take on contemporary politics.

The manga stars former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, may his mane ever ripple. Portrayed by author Hideki Owada as Japan’s last action hero, Koizumi settles matters of international diplomacy with slavering, corrupt world leaders from Kim Jong-Il to “Papa Bush” over histrionic, blood-spattered sessions of the ancient game of mahjong…

– Finally back to Australia with the good news that a Malaysian trans woman has been granted political asylum because of the persecution she faced back home. (By the way, if any Australian readers know Jenni Millbank, tell her to talk to the Transgender Law Center in San Francisco, who do a lot of good work in this sort of area.)

We Are All Handmaids Now

~ Cheryl ~ 8 Comments

I’m late in talking about this, partially as I’ve been busy with other stuff, and partially because I was too angry to be coherent. Hopefully I have calmed down a little now.

The State of Utah is introducing a new law that will make women liable to face murder charges if they suffer a miscarriage.

Yes, you did read that correctly. There you are, utterly distraught over having lost your baby, and instead of being comforted you find yourself up in court on a murder charge. It is the sort of thing that could only happen in some imagined dystopia such as the world of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, or the various violent patriarchies with which Sheri Tepper fills her books.

In fairness to the Utah lawmakers, what they are trying to do is address an issue about an abortion. In theory the law is there to deal with women who try to induce a miscarriage because they can’t get an abortion legally. The example given in the story I linked to is pretty horrible. But regardless of of your views on abortion this law will be a disaster, because the potential for misuse is enormous.

Consider what happens in rape trials. In theory a rape trial is all about proving whether a man is guilty of rape. In practice all to often it comes down to a woman having to prove that she is innocent of having had sex willingly. The mere fact that intercourse took place is taken as evidence of her guilt.

The same is going to happen here. The fact of a miscarriage will be taken as evidence that the woman is guilty of failing to look after her baby properly, and it will be up to her to prove her innocence. You say you fell down stairs, madam. How are we to know that you didn’t do that deliberately? You caught an unpleasant illness? Well surely you should have been at home taking care of yourself and the baby, not at work where you would be at risk. Your partner beat you up? Are you sure that you didn’t provoke him deliberately?

And if you are thinking “this won’t happen”, think again. Because Iowa has a very similar law in operation, and such cases are already happening.

In related news, Mercedes Allen has a story from New Orleans about about an 1805 law against “unnatural copulation” that is being used to label prostitutes as “sex offenders” and place them under the same legal restrictions created to control pedophiles. Oddly enough it is only women who are targeted in this way. The men who take part in, and indeed pay for, these “unnatural” acts get off without charges.

A Little Linkage

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Hmm, what have we got for you today?

– “Bring me the head of Amenhotep III!” Or maybe not. It is 2.5 meters tall and made of solid granite. I’m not sure there is room on the patio. Those Egyptians sure did do BIG.

– “The name’s Dare, Dan Dare.” PS Publishing announces a tribute to the great Frank Hampton, creator of many a British schoolboy’s (and schoolgirl’s) dreams. That looks like a must-buy book.

– Time on women’s ski jumping, including IOC member, Dick Pound, trying his best to sound like a Chicago Crime Boss. (hat tip: Zoe Brain)

More on Invisibility and Apologizing

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Yes, I’m sorry there’s more on this, but I have a couple of interesting links.

The first is a piece on how not to get sucked into RaceFAIL situations, written by Kate Nepveu for a talk at Boskone. While it is technically about race issues, much of what it says in equally applicable to people trying to respond to angry outbursts from any identity group. The last section is particularly to the point.

Suppose I step on someone’s foot. They say, “hey, ouch, you stepped on my foot.”

My proper response is, “Gosh, I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful.” Depending on the situation, I might add something like, “I was looking for my kid’s sneaker that she always kicks off,” or “I’ve got something in my contact,” etc.

My proper response is not, “Well, I didn’t mean to step on your foot, so why are you angry?!”

For Ian Berriman’s benefit I might also add that the proper response is not, “My foot is rigorously intellectual whereas yours is unimportant, therefore I am perfectly within my rights to tread on you.”

The other link is an article in today’s Guardian about the lack of women and minority judges in the UK. It talks about a report on the problem produced by a committee headed by Lady Neuberger. The article itself, and in particular the subhead, which I know I should not blame on the author, makes it seem like although we now have plenty of women lawyers, none of them are as good as the men. However, if you read carefully you will see that Lady Neuberger doesn’t say this. Firstly she notes that being a judge is not a career that it is easy to follow if you already happen to be a housewife and/or a mother. But the most important comment is right at the end:

But the most important category of potential judges identified is those women and minority members who don’t even think of applying because they’re sure they have no chance or don’t think of themselves as judge material, or are ignorant of the possibilities that exist, or lack the confidence to realise their own talents.

So if people still believe that society is biased, they won’t put themselves forward for such jobs. And if women are trained from birth to believe that they are inferior to men, they won’t put themselves forward for the jobs.

Similar sorts of problems may well explain why women writers are more likely to submit to lower-profile, poorer-paying markets, rather than to major publishers and magazines.

Does anyone have Neuberger’s actual report? Marjorie?

Lamda Literary Goes Live

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

The Lambda Literary Foundation has been busy re-vamping their web site and today they launched the shiny new, community-based version. Lamda is a mainstream literary organization, but it is friendly to genre writers (Nicola Griffith is on the Board). Consequently we get a fair slice of the launch content. Malinda Lo talks to other writers about what LGBTQ teenagers want from their reading. There’s an interview with Elizabeth Bear. And there’s me, talking about “Trans Lit” (and whether there is such a thing).

I must say that I’m very honored to be in such excellent company. I also very much enjoyed writing the article because it meant I got to have phone calls with Kate Bronstein and Jenny Boylan (squee!). If I can sell them on an article that gives me an excuse to interview Jan Morris I shall bounce with glee.

Given the past record of Lambda with trans issues I was a bit apprehensive. The editor, Antonio Gonzalez, like many gay men, knew little about trans people when we first started talking. However, unlike certain other people (hello, Bil Browning – still in the bunker refusing to admit to any mistakes, are we?), he was very willing to learn. If there are any trans people out there who are nervous about getting involved, I can say that thus far my experience of their attitude has been very positive.

How Not To Apologize

~ Cheryl ~ 17 Comments

Behavioral etiquette on the Internet is something that is very much in flux, so there is no right way to respond to public outrage. Nevertheless, it is often very instructive to see how people do respond to being called out for perceived misdemeanors, and sometimes you can see people getting it very wrong.

When Maura McHugh complained about a book of interviews with horror writers not containing any women, the publishers, the British Fantasy Society, were immediately very contrite. Chairman Guy Adams penned this response, of which a key paragraph is:

It is disgustingly simple for a man not to notice these things, a blindness to the importance of correct gender representation that I feel embarrassed to have fallen into.

That’s simple and honest. Guy, as the man at the top, stuck his hand up and took responsibility. There was no question of making excuses, or trying to duck the issue. A job well done.

Recently SFX magazine published a horror special that also largely ignored women in the field. Maura challenged this too. The response, from editor Ian Berriman, was very different.

Berriman starts off in victim politics mode. It took the poor fellow three months to put that issue together. It’s not fair, he suggests, that someone should attack it over something as trivial, to his mind, as the number of women mentioned.

The rest of his response is full of excuses, and additional attacks on McHugh’s right to complain. There is talk of emails going astray (would Berriman have made more of an effort to make contact had the author in question been someone he felt was important, rather than just a woman?). There is supposed support from conveniently anonymous female horror fans (yes, “the lurkers support him in email”). Berriman goes to great lengths to show how he rigorously defined the people he would write about, most of whom happened to be male, and doesn’t see any irony in this. Indeed, he appears to be at pains to define what “horror” means to him, and that definition seems to include, “not the sort of stuff that women usually write.”

Perhaps most telling of all, Berriman admits there was one woman writer whom he should have included, but forgot to do so. There were, of course, many other women he might have included as well, but he appears to be unaware of them. As Guy Adams said, it is disgustingly easy for men not to notice these things; for them to be simply be unaware that they have missed out a huge section of the market they are supposed to be covering. And in Berriman’s case, even after having had his omission pointed out to him, to be unable to see that he has done anything wrong, or that anyone has any right to complain about what he has done.

This is why it is necessary to complain. There are all sorts of good reasons why a survey of writers in almost any market other than romance should be male-dominated. Horror may well be worse than most (though I happen to know of three top-class horror novels by women published last year, all of which have been widely praised, and one of which I have read and was hugely impressed by). But all bell curves have tails, and to completely ignore women in such a survey suggests that a lot of “forgetting” has taken place; that women are out of sight and out of mind. And if they are marginalized in this way, then of course their books will sell less well, they’ll be less famous, and people like Berriman will have more excuses for not talking about them. Only by complaining about their absence, as McHugh has done, can women writers be brought back into the spotlight, and only then will people like Mr. Berriman stop “forgetting” them.