The General SF Reading Public: WTF there are only men in that anthology.
Many SFSignal Commenters: OMG this is messed up! Only men? Boo.
Some Black Chick: Yeah and also: no POC.
Many Other SFSignal Commenters: EVEN WORSE, omg.
Paul Di Filippo1: Dear Friends of SF–
I generally steer clear of controversies in my senescense, having participated in more than my share as a card-carrying cyberpunk2–but I simply cannot allow the unanimity of asinine comments on exhibit here to go unremarked-upon3.
Every single commenter here seems to me to be committing a logical fallacy of tremendous dimension, one so big it distorts entire worldviews:
DEMANDING THAT EVERY SINGLE INSTANCE OF EVERYTHING COMPOSITE SHOULD BE ABSOLUTELY STATISTICALLY REPRESENTATIVE OF THE COMPOSITION OF THE ENTIRE COSMOS4
You know what: a potato field is not likely to contain corn plants5. A pine forest might feature an oak or three, but be 99% pine trees6. The Beatles were 4 white guys7. Sonic Youth has no people of color8! My ream of copy paper is all white, with no sheets of lettuce included9!
Variety is great. Heterogeniety is great. Bias and prejudice suck. A genre–VIEWED AS A WHOLE–must feature a million different voices to be accurate and interesting10.
BUT NOT EVERY SINGLE BOOK OR MAGAZINE OR BAND OR WORK OF ART NEEDS TO CONFORM TO THE LATEST CENSUS RESULTS11.
SFSignal Commenters: WTH was that shit?
Paul Di Filippo: But let me reiterate that there is no law of the universe or of sensible human culture that demands that every institution or product fully represent every possible choice in its compositional makeup12.
If you go to a restaurant, do you demand to see the staff of the kitchen to ensure that they represent the full spectrum or genders and races and ethnicities13? I hope not! You order food and if you like it you patronize the place again. (We’re omitting elements of atmosphere, price, fellow customers, etc. here14.)
If this particular anthology delivers stories that fulfill its premise and title, then it’s done its job15. If you or someone else chooses not to support its existence because it does not meet extra-literary criteria16, then that is perhaps a morally superior, wonderfully principled, honorable stance17. Or perhaps it’s an addled, PC, chip-on-the-shoulder stance18. But there was never any obligation or constraint on Mike Ashely to satisfy these demands19.
Now, if you got the annual LOCUS survey of books published and pointed out to me that there were N number of anthologies published in 2008 featuring Y number of stories, and that only X percent of these stories were written by folks who were not WASP males, and then you argued that X percent was way too low, I would consider you had the beginnings of a rational argument and gripe20.
SFSignal Commenters: Are you HIGH?
Some Black Chick: Dear Paul Di Filippo, What the hell is wrong with you?
Paul Di Filippo: I’d like to raise two matters: First, how are anthologies assembled? By 1) an editor’s reference to his past reading experience, for reprints; 2) “invitation only” for new stories; 3) “open call” for new stories.
The book in question was assembled by a combo of 1) and 2). Obviously, Mike Ashley recalled only stories by men and invited stories only from males21. (Or possibly, invited women who did not respond or qualify22.) This resulted in a men-only book. Is this sexism23, or is it a function of the phenomenon illustrated in the SEINFELD episode of the big-breasted waitresses? Elaine was incensed that a certain diner featured only big-breasted waitresses–until she discovered that all the women were the owner’s daughters. In other words, what seemed to be sexism was “family bias.” Mike relied on his “family connections,” to the dead or living24. And that family included no women. Limited family maybe, but sexism? Your call25.
Second, I think in any such argument it’s always useful to ask “whose ox is being gored?” and to “follow the money.”26
I don’t want to cast aspersions on anyone’s motives, or attempt to mind-read27. But I have to say that when ANY WRITER (not just female writers or writers of color) complains about being excluded from a venue and cites issues of platonic principle and idealism, I always first posit underlying jealousy28 and a desire for status underneath all the lofty hypothetical talk29. Why do I posit such a cynical thing30? Because I’m a fucking writer31, and guilty as all others32! I vividly recall my sense of exclusion from the “adult table” after having had one or two stories published, but before being able to sell regularly33. Hell, I still feel this way, being without a major publisher34.
Now there’s nothing wrong with wanting a place at the table for one’s personal, individual works. If a writer did not believe in her stuff, why would she bother? And if you believe in your stuff, you’ll want it to get the best possible treatment. But to cloak one’s personal gripes, however subconsciously, in the cloak of solidarity with all downtrodden is just plain disingenuous–to use the nicest word35.
I really wonder, as an unperformable thought experiment, whether if the MAMMOTH book had included a token one or two writers of color or female gender, if these writers would have returned their paychecks or even spoken out when the current controversy arose36.
“Walk it like you talk it” remains the operative phrase37.
SFSignal Commenters: What. The. Hell?
Paul Di Filippo: I don’t have time to answer all your petty questions about my ridiculous statements, I have a story to write! Email me if you want, but I have more important things to take care of. *flounce!*38
SFSignal Commenters: What. The. Hell? No, just no.
Paul Di Filippo: Oh, also, Walt Whitman is gay, so therefore you won’t mind if I quote from him. What does Walt Whitman being gay have to do with anything here? Well, Some Black Chick said that he hated men! Okay, bye for realz now! *flounce again!*39
SFSignal Commenters: [attempt to pick up the pieces of the conversation and return it to something resembling sense, all the while on the lookout for further resurgences of greater internet fuckwaddery.]
The End.
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Footnotes
- Who is, incidentally — or perhaps not — in the anthology in question
- this is the part where he tries to position himself above everyone else in the conversation — oh, ho ho silly beings. I will lower myself to your level, but only this once!
- if he allowed it, it would be like some free speech or something.
- notice how actually no one was demanding this.
- what?
- And this is relevant to the discussion how?
- …
- and strawmen have no brains, what the hell is your point, Paul?
- So, I’m given to understand that women and people of color SF writers are like lettuce in copy paper? The Othering going on here is just astounding.
- But viewed as just a section we don’t need all that pesky diversity! Gotta have some safe spaces for the white men.
- I again wonder who ever suggested this? Oh wait, no one. Okay then.
- Show me a universe or sensible society where a deliberate selection is uniform by accident.
- No, but that’s because I assume that any business that wishes to stay in business will conform to laws that say it’s illegal to discriminate on the basis of several factors, including gender and race. SF anthologies are not subject to this law. Nor should they be. But it would explain the variation in how I approach two completely different and unrelated situations such as you have posited here.
- also omitting anything that makes any damn sense at all.
- if that job is presenting its readers with a heteronormative, white and male view of SF, then yes. If it claims to be presenting the “The 21 Finest Stories of Awesome Science Fiction”, then no.
- Here’s what you don’t get: the specifics about the authors are not extra-literary, Paul. Who a writer is, where a writer comes from, how they see and experience the world, all feeds into their writing. I thought you were a writer, surely you understand this.
- Only inasmuch as it doesn’t exclude and marginalized oppressed groups, yeah.
- Oh, you’re about to pull THIS argument out?
- Nope, there sure wasn’t. And look what he produced: 21 stories of the same old monochromatic maleness.
- Actually, I believe people have done this and more and left out the bad algebra to boot.
- Yes, obviously, and if you had any damn sense you would see why that’s extremely problematic.
- I guess they don’t qualify if they only write stories about “people and feelings and crap”.
- Yes.
- And while it’s acceptable to have your family staff your restaurant, if you’re putting together an anthology of “best” stories and you only ever choose authors you’ve heard of, you’re not really choosing a best, are you? You’re choosing the best of a narrow subset of stories. That is: the best by white men whose writing appeals to someone who can’t be bothered to read anything by women or people of color.
- Oh good. Cuz I say: yes. Or, at the very, very least: bias borne out of lazy ignorance.
- Yeah because women and POC don’t have money to spend, or when they do they don’t buy books. I think they buy pretty dresses and “bling”.
- Liar. Cuz you’re about to do just that.
- ABW takes off her earrings.
- So, let me see if I rightly understand you: the only reason anyone would ever have to complain about this kind of thing is jealousy and a desire to be included? Even when the people complaining are readers, not writers? Even when the writers complaining are not just women and people of color but white men? Even when other publishers and editors are like: “Dude, that’s not right.”? Even when ALL of those groups get together to call this out as a problem it all comes down to some jealous, whiny women and darkies causing a fuss because they want to be included? Listen, Paul, I have something very important to say: FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE. You are NOT, I repeat: NOT allowed to dismiss the concerns of readers and writers and editors and fans and lovers of the genre and those who strive to erase racism and sexism and other forms of prejudice just because they have an issue with an anthology you are in. Seems to me that the reason this upsets you so much, the reason you obviously find it so threatening, is that if someone were to judge your writing up against that of, say, Octavia Butler, Nisi Shawl, Nnedi Okorafor, Samuel R. Delany, Stephen Barnes, Tobias Buckell, L. Timmel Duchamp, Elizabeth Hand, Nancy Kress, Connie Willis, Yoon Ha Lee, or any number of the amazing women and POC writers in this field, it would be found wanting and you’d find yourself in fewer anthologies. And while I strive to see more diverse voices in anthologies just for its own sake, I have to say that the idea of them edging you out is just buttercream icing on the cupcake. Because I don’t care how good a writer you are, this genre and this community does not need people like you spewing this utter, utter bullshit all over its public places. What we need are people who don’t use the term PC like it’s a dirty word, who don’t compare women and minorities to pieces of lettuce, who don’t stomp into conversations around contentious and important issues and proceed to pull down their pants and wave their asses around with vigor. Get out of my genre, dude! We do not need your crazy!
- because you’re projecting?
- Wait, you mis-spelled that last word. Should be: wanker
- yeah, projection. Look, our issues are not yours, Paul.
- …if sitting at the adult table means being next to creepy uncle Paul who no one ever leaves you in a room alone with then, um, yeah I’ll stay over here at the kids table.
- No comment.
- THANK GOD YOU’RE USING THE NICE WORDS.
- I guess we’ll never know, since the editor doesn’t believe in tokenism. But good to know that if there had been some women or people of color in there, they’d just be tokens and undeserving! Also of note: had there been any women or POC, we would not be having this conversation because the controversy would not have arisen. People don’t get all upset when anthologies are inclusive. Well, normal, sensible people.
- Indeed. It just doesn’t mean what you think it means.
- This one is paraphrased.
- Yes, paraphrased. But yes, Walt Whitman and gayness did randomly come up.
This is the man who wrote “Math Takes a Holiday”, about a math professor who can’t stand to be in the same room as a certain woman — until divine intervention (literally) turns her thin, at which point he falls instantly in love. For some reason, his prior disgust for her didn’t bother her a bit.
Yum, buttercream icing.
Not knowing a great deal about the SF genre, I was willing to be open-minded to Paul Di Filippo’s defense of this anthology’s white-males-only nature until the text that goes with footnote 21, at which point I thought, “Wow, this guy has his head so far up his butt he honestly sees no problem with this. Someone should introduce him to Paul Tagliabue*.”
* NFL commissioner who looked at the team owners who weren’t hiring any black coaches because “Well I just don’t know any and we hire based on who we know,” and said, “Fine, it is mandatory that you interview at least one non-white coach before making a hire. If you don’t know any, this will motivate you to start meeting them.” Also known as the Rooney Rule. Although there’s no requirement to actually hire any of these non-white coaches, simply being required to look beyond an existing ol’ boys club and interview people has brought a lot more non-white coaches into the NFL. Give folks a chance, and they might impress you.
Wow. Is this a direct quote? Because it sounds to me like he’s saying that his anthology has only white men in it because science fiction is only supposed to have white men in it.
I think pretty much everyone who gives a sweet goddamn about sci-fi can think, off the top of their head, of at least one woman and one black person who is a prominent science fiction writer. But apparently to them, Octavia Butler isn’t a real sci-fi author but a corn plant in a potato field, a sheet of lettuce in a box of paper. Not only unusual, but undesired and likely to be removed by force lest she ruin the crop.
This is just…..breathtakingly racist.
@3 Yes, and you can read it in it’s original home through the link at the top. The comments there aren’t number but it’s quick to find if you do a search for lettuce.
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of people who looked at the toc and said “wow, all white guys, fail”.
After reading the linked thread’s comments, I think I get how this happened.
“As for the theme of the anthology, in the introduction Mike Ashley says it’s about how the sense of wonder of golden age science fiction stories survived into the modern day.”
According to the intro to my copy of Kindred, the phrase “golden age sci-fi” basically means white dudes, most of whom did not treat female and minority characters’ experiences as worth discussing, with the possible exception of Bradbury’s ‘Way in the Middle of the Air.’
So if Mike Ashley was trying to communicate that, I’m not surprised that he — perhaps even unconsciously — ended up with a bunch of white dudes. People who want to replicate the past often end up carrying in the bad as well as the good. (Sort like “if only Strom Thurmond had won the presidency in ’48…”)
Also, I am very amused by the person who pointed to The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance as a similar instance of ignoring the variety of people contributing to a genre. If there are the same percentage of men working in Vampire Romance — heck, just the romance genre — as there are women and PoC working in Sci-Fi, I’ll buy both of these Mammoth books.
Leigh Greenwood (aka Harold Lowry) said during his two-year stint as president of the Romance Writers of America that their membership was about 1% male. Is the largest national association of sci-fi writers 99% white males? I have read a lot of American romance and contrary to “As Good As It Gets,” there are maybe three major (award-winning and/or bestselling) male authors in the genre: Leigh Greenwood; Tom Curtis of the husband-wife writing team Sharon & Tom Curtis, which hasn’t published since 1987; the late T.E. Huff.
Is the largest national association of sci-fi writers 99% white males?
NO, IT IS NOT.
Excuse the caps, but
NO IT IS NOT.
Even the most tilted major magazine has 20-30% female authors in the toc.
Interestingly:
This is because “corn” has been (to some extent) consciously bred to not spread its seed–i.e. remain controllable by humans. AND because corn and potatoes are artificially separated and weeded for the purposes of humans. *ahem* … in any case, I’m sure that potato fields contain more plants than just potatoes, you’re just choosing to focus on the potatoes. You’re not even bothering to LOOK at or for the other plants in the field.
You, sir, clearly know nothing about trees. Please define “pine forest” before continuing that thought processes. Natural ecosystems may be DOMINATED by a certain species of tree, but that does not mean that the percentages of pines in a pine forest would be that high, even if we were to limit ourselves to just trees, and not include the wider variety of plants (and animals) that are necessary to maintain that ecosystem.
Finally…
…that my dear, is because your ream of paper is entirely designed, constructed, and distributed by humans. The INTENT is to not include lettuce, or anything that’s NOT white paper anyhow. …Other shades of paper are frequently just as sufficient as white paper is for expressing whatever you want to with that paper. Sometimes even better. But you’ll never know that if you keep sticking with the white paper, now, willya?
In conclusion: I don’t really think that these analogies fail so much as they don’t not fail in the way that he thinks they don’t not fail.
To put more of an emphasis on what PG said, the issue is largely that the theme the editor wanted to pursue naturally excludes most other serious sci-fi author’s work. He wanted work that is more like Rudyard Kipling rather than Mark Twain, with characters that represents a kind of tip of the social culture interacting with the surrounding elements but with layers of obtuseness surrounding the premises of the background context. Because that makes it too hahhad to read!
Thing is, very few people outside of a certain kind of white male want to write that way. Neither Herman Mellville or Mary Shelley wrote about similar themes as Jules Verne. CJ Cherryh, Octavia Butler, CS Friedman, LM Bujold, Catherine Asaro, Kay Kenyon, Nicola Griffith among plenty others have written exploration stories in the short form (I believe). They just write with a critical narrative that challenges the reader’s assumptions, which are why these guys are good. Also, it would be silly to expect that women/POC to want to write for this volume because this “love of exploration” fairly naturally excludes the experiences of the potential authorial canidates. About the only woman/POC that I can think of who wrote anything like what the editor wanted is Rosemary Kirstein, and she wrote a series of books and not short stories. That deconstructs and decants science from fantasy. Which ultimately analyzes the connections between motives and true knowlege. She wouldn’t have gotten a pass either despite some of the greatest exploration/meet the natives scenes evah…
Happy Happy Science Fiction, with no critical narratives!
….
blech
Shah, several people have put together lists of women who write mind-blowing SF. I can’t put any credence into your ignoring all those stories.
Wow, Mandolin, what?
How can you possibly read into my words that women don’t write mind-blowing sf? I don’t think that was sarcastic either… If not…
FAIL
Mandolin, I think you missed that shah8 was being sort of sarcastic @9. The impression I got was that she was saying the editor was looking for stories that simply echoed that “golden age” style without taking any kind of critical or deconstructive perspective on it, and that women/POC authors usually bring that kind of perspective to such stories — which shah8 thinks makes those stories much better than they would be otherwise, but evidently is not something with which the editor wished to deal.
>DEMANDING THAT EVERY SINGLE INSTANCE OF EVERYTHING COMPOSITE SHOULD BE ABSOLUTELY STATISTICALLY REPRESENTATIVE OF THE COMPOSITION OF THE ENTIRE COSMOS
*cough* Sturgeon’s Law! *cough*
BTW, in my humble opinion, The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF was published 37 years ago. It was called Again, Dangerous Visions. It included stories by Ursula K. Le Guin, Joanna Russ, and James Tiptree, Jr.
The way the cited para (from the original scifisignal thread) from the introduction to the collection read, it seems pretty clear that “Golden Age” is a code word used by people who don’t really like “multiculturalism” in their scifi.
I think that’s why Paul DiFilipo flipped out when some people suggested that maybe the pool could include some other people.
I agree that one of the cool things about including fiction from a variety of perspectives is that one tends to end up with counter-narratives and deconstruction.
But women have written non-deconstructive stuff, too. Seriously.
If you’re going to have an “I’m still right, so there!” session, I think I’d like to ask you what stories that fit the editor’s ambition that women/POC have written. I don’t doubt that there are such stories. What I do doubt is that any of them can match up in pure, mindblown, speculative vision as Bloodchild, A Momentary A Taste of Being, or The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. If you think I’m just going with the goodies but oldies, that’s just because short fiction isn’t my thing. I know where the sugar is though, and I can easily find the good stuff. I also know that, to a large degree, the broad themed science fiction has rejected golden age science fiction–Delany, Niven, Tiptree, Le Guin etc. The kind of plot themes that had Capt’n Kirk rescue those lovely Orionian greenies had gone out of fashion for just about any science fiction anyone takes seriously–especially for women or minorities. Warhammer40000, Star Wars might have them, but precious few do, otherwise.
So really…Let’s see some mindblowing short stories by women and minorities without racial/gender/ethnic analysis and plenty of exploration. Yeah, there are Ann Aguirres of the world, but she doesn’t write mindblowing stuff, unless you think with your gonads or something. Look, even when it comes to fantasy, the among the very best vampire novels is stuff like Robin McKinley’s Sunshine. Pulp will always be with us, but the good stuff will always contrast with it.
I truly, truly hate it when people who don’t know what they are talking about get in my face for saying true things. This place is not some stupid sandbox and I’m not the 98lb weakling.
shah8,
It’s sometimes difficult to tell exactly what you are saying. For example, in your last comment, I can’t tell if you’re slamming or praising McKinley’s “Sunshine.”
Slamming Ann Aguirre, praising Robin McKinley.
Good, we can be friends :-)
I found an interesting link where the editor replied with a little detail. He kept on digging…
http://silk-noir.livejournal.com/308817.html?thread=2622289
He essentially said that women do not write much hard science fiction, and they like things like, ohh, character development and other things people should want in their novels.
While yes, female Greg Egans are quite a bit scarcer, they are out there in quantity and quality. Thinking on that, I really really wish that Chris Moriarty’s kid would just grow up already and leave her to write another novel!
Shah, tune down your rhetoric by like 20x. And I’m not having an “I’m still right” moment; my objection immediately was to the idea that all women’s SF is inherently deconstructionist. You misread me, which I determined was possibly because I’d spoken badly, and so I stepped back and accommodated your position, only to get flamed by you.
Your position that women don’t write mind-blowing fiction that isn’t deconstructionist is not far from the editor’s argument that all women’s SF is about people instead of science. I’ve listed my candidates in places like Tempest’s original thread on the subject, and yeah, I’m well aware of the thread on Marguerite’s LJ, where you’ll also find comments from me.
Here’s a short list of mind-blowing SF stories by women and poc that are not inherently deconstructionist (or not any more deconstructionist than “Mother Grasshopper”):
Ted Chiang’s “Tower of Babylon”
James Tiptree’s “Last Flight of Dr. Ain”
Octavia Butler’s “Speech Sounds”
Eleanor Arnason’s “Knapsack Poems”
Pat Caddigan’s “Roadside Rescue”
Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life”
Eileen Gunn’s “Stable Strategies for Middle Management”
Connie Willis’s “The Last of the Winnebagos”
Connie Willis’s “Fire Watch”
I can analyze some of those from a deconstructionist lens, but I can do the same to any of the stories in Ashley’s collection.
Shah, I’m going to just back up and say — don’t say shit like this on the blog again. You probably lucked out by saying it to me, because I won’t mod you hard for having said it to me, but if you’d said the equivalent thing to someone else in an equivalent situation (e.g. having told a lawyer to go learn law), your nose and a rolled up newspaper would be having an Introduction. Don’t tell a writer, editor, and until-recently professor of short form speculative fiction that she “doesn’t know what she’s talking about” when it comes to specfic short stories.
I used to read scifi like I used to breathe: every book in every library in town. Not much anymore, though.
I can sort of vaguely understand how this might happen:
If one assumes that it’s reasonable to have the author’s personal characteristics imprint themselves on the stories to some degree, and if the “age” one is trying to replicate is an age in which the vast vast vast majority of well published writers were white men, with almost always male protagonists; and if one looks for a very certain style of scifi within that age… well, you might end up with mostly, or all, white men now.
Might. That’s a lot of “if” statements, though….
So you’d like to complain about tone now?
You were actually 100% wrong in your first reply. Then you kept on digging. And now you give me a list of stories that just seems to be a grab-bag of prize winners without being particularly responsive to the challenge of
a) Exploration stories
b) Stories that do not depend on deconstruction
I mean, you don’t even reach for the maybe obvious with Eleanor Arnason’s Lydia Duluth series.
It’s hard for me not to percieve a bit of malice and/or disrespect.
Sailorman:
Right. Except that the anthology includes a number of more recent stories and also 5 stories that were commissioned for the anthology (including the one by Mr. Lettuce Di Fillipo.)
Hey Shah, cut it out.
Your tone in these replies is wrong for this blog, and if you keep it up, you will be commenting elsewhere.
Or maybe not! Maybe you’ll be napping on your couch. But you won’t be commenting here.
Be Polite.
—Myca
Okay, so you are a professor of writing and the moderator of the blog. That said, step off your high horse. You aren’t actually right, and if John Yoo was right in front of me, I’d smack him for being egregiously wrong on the law as well.
Myca, fine. I’m just more than fustrated with Mandolin’s inability to be responsive to what I’m saying. I won’t respond to Mandolin anymores. I’ve dealt with obdurate professors before, and the best way is not to interact.
P.S. Don’t tell people to tone down when they are not even cussing, and nary an ad hominem.
Heya, Shah, perhaps I was unclear.
When I asked you to be polite, first it wasn’t really up for discussion.
Second, this:
This doesn’t qualify as polite.
So long, Shah.
—Myca
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