Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith

Dumping the SFWA

So the quarterly SFWA clusterfuck has arrived, brilliantly laid out in this Dear John letter.

This isn't a fluke.  People routinely undermine women's accomplishments by turning attention from what they do to how they look.  Consider what happened to gymnast Gabby Douglas: "Really?  I won two gold medals and made history, and what's trending is my hair?"  It's a vicious distraction tactic, reducing women to sex objects because their ability to do other things somehow seems threatening.  

It's all the worse when such things happen in allegedly "professional" organizations.  Folks?  If your "professional" organization sounds like something out of Playboy?  It's not professional, unless you're organizing the world's oldest profession.

Fuck that noise.  Write.  Edit.  Win some medals.  And tell the sexists to take their stupid ideas home to play with Rosie Palmer.
Tags: activism, gender studies, networking, reading, writing
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  • 6 comments
ext_1169799

Women and appearance.

George William Claxton

June 2 2013, 21:34:33 UTC 8 years ago

There is a problem with people focusing too much on women's looks, for example when Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, was in negotiations and news outlets talked about her suit.
However, we should note that most of the people whining about Gabby Douglas' hair were black women (as a black male, I find that really troubling).
ysabetwordsmith

Re: Women and appearance.

ysabetwordsmith

June 2 2013, 21:46:07 UTC 8 years ago

>>There is a problem with people focusing too much on women's looks, for example when Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, was in negotiations and news outlets talked about her suit.<<

Yes, that's true. *chuckle* But wow did she nail them back when an interviewer asked her about her clothes, and she said, "Would you ever ask a man that question?" "... no, probably not." Sooooo busted.

>> However, we should note that most of the people whining about Gabby Douglas' hair were black women (as a black male, I find that really troubling). <<

Also true. Internalized sexism/racism gets ugly fast.
starcat_jewel

starcat_jewel

June 3 2013, 02:16:59 UTC 8 years ago

It's encouraging to see that men as well as women are slamming the sexism. I'm afraid, though, that in the long run SFWA will prove to be like science -- progress being made one death at a time.
rhodielady_47

rhodielady_47

June 3 2013, 03:16:23 UTC 8 years ago

I've been reading SF since my teens, and in all that time, there's been a fairly steady undercurrent of male hostility toward women coming from male SF writers.
As if their bad attitude wasn't bad enough, you wouldn't believe what was said if women showed their own version of that attitude toward men!
:(
je_reviens

je_reviens

June 3 2013, 15:08:25 UTC 8 years ago

Really, and if those douchebags had published a conversation about how "Negro writers" were ok that would have been fine too?
lb_lee

lb_lee

June 3 2013, 22:16:31 UTC 8 years ago

Urgh. Back when I had money, I considered joining SFWA, but I'm kinda at the point where dealing with that shit is beyond my capacity. I'm a member of the local comics roundtable, for comics creators, and just the offhand talk against mental illness or trans people is enough to make my attendance there spotty. I have no desire to experience more.

--Rogan