Mythago,

a) unless things have changed drastically from when I followed SF closely, the overwhelming majority of authors have some kind of science or engineering background. Whether or not that’s necessary might be worth a discussion, but I’d be surprised if what I’ve stated isn’t still a fact. I’m presuming that there’s a gender imbalance in the science and engineering fields; I’m wondering if that’s reflected in the gender balance of SF authors.

b) That’s not my presumption; that’s my question.

Furthermore, should the latter case exist, how much of it comes from editors/publishers being predjudices against female-written SF and how much of it comes from publishers making the economic decision of not wanting to try to sell SF that will not be accepted by the reading public due to reader predjudice against female authors?

Definitely, there is. When Ron asks if the problem is the demographic though, I read him as not only asking if there are prejudices against women, but also if there aren’t women around. The latter is untrue; there are lots of us vulvaed creatures XXing around the place.

Even the first part is only part of the story, IMO, as I said earlier. Margaret Atwood writes about how when she did her MFA women writers were scoffed at because they could never have lived gritty lives, since living gritty lives required fucking women. There are some overt nastinesses in genre (for instance, the recent incident on the Asimovs message board), but the ratio of male to female names in Harper’s Magazine is appalling — worse tham any of the well-known SF mags, IIRC.

Still, the flavor of the problem is very different between the two communities, in my experience.

Personally, I think the bulk of the problem is on the editorial/publishing end, although people do talk about some men’s unwillingness to pick up a book with a female name on the cover.

As far as bias in the field, what level of influence does the preponderance of males in science and engineering (those professions being the source of many of the field’s authors) have? How much of this is women’s writing not being accepted and how much is not as many women writing? And is there an issue with acceptance of womens’ writing by the reading public, acceptance by editors and/or publishers, or both?

Thanks for stopping by.

Obviously, I disagree with you. We’ve got the years of evidence of bias — if not specifically in the Hugos, then in many other aspects of the science fiction field in specific, and life in general. If it’s a coincidence, it’s an odd and suspicious one. Occams razor in this case suggests to me that this is just another incidence of business as usual.

SarahO,

That was my first and final reading, too. I just had an intermediate moment of seeing it another way.

Female hard SF writers off the top of my head: some of Connie Willis (Doomsday Book, Passage, many of her short stories), Nancy Kress, Joan Slonczewski, Sarah Zettel, Maureen McHugh’s _China Mountain Zhang_, Lois McMaster Bujold. James Tiptree if you like short stories. Among up and comers, Ekaterina Sedia is a biologist who has had a few stories in Analog, and I like both her and her work very much. And of course, some of Octavia Butler’s work has a root in very interesting biology.

As to whether or not it’s possible that this year just happened to have all the best stories by men, the first thing that comes to mind is to point out that “the best” isn’t an objective term. The other thing is to say that, sure, it’s statistically possible, but since it just happens to align with the historical precedent of railroading women’s work out of the field, I’m not inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt. Plus, many of the short stories I loved best this year were by women, so I would argue that in my opinion it’s not true that all this year’s best were by men.

Melanie Fletcher
Guest Editor and Webmistress
Helix
http://www.helixsf.com

As a female who very much likes to write and read science fiction from a wide-variety of authors, I was very much heartened by this recent Helix issue and Mr. Sanders’ remarks as well. And I guess I got the impression that, not only was he making a right decision, he was doing it for the right reasons.

“Really, if things were as they should be, nobody should think it surprising or remarkable that an SF magazine should publish an all-women’s issue — any more than if, say, all the contributors… were all straight white guys. That happens all the time, and nobody seems to find it strange.” (+emphasis)

This quote seems to me to show that Mr. Sanders recognizes that there are two different scenarios, “things as they are” and “things as they should be;” and that, in the latter one, an issue of all straight white guys truly would be unremarkable, because it really, truly (in anti-racist feminist etc. utopia) would be a genuine statistical fluke. But we don’t live in that utopia - we live in a place where an all-women’s issue raises eyebrows, and an all-straight white male, till very recently, was pretty much the everyday norm.

That’s how I read it anyway. And now I look forward to going out and getting my hands on that issue of Helix. :0)

I still pick up Analog and F&SF on the rare occasion that I’m in a bookstore that carries them

Sweet god, F&SF is good.

I’m a lucky bastard, because the folks who live across the street from my mom have a subscription, and once a year they sell all of their back issues for a nickel apiece, so I’ve got something like 8 years complete or something ridiculous.

—Myca

I used to read a lot of science fiction. I still pick up Analog and F&SF on the rare occasion that I’m in a bookstore that carries them (the combination being the rare state). I’m not up to speed on what authors one can depend on to tell a good science fiction story these days, as opposed to hack SF. And I’m not much of a big fan of fantasy overall. Any recommendations? I tend more towards the “hard” science fiction, but not exclusively so.

With regards to the above quote; already having stipulated my lack of awareness of the current state of the field, is there no room to think that the best stories happened to be written by males last year? Where do you think the problem is?

Just one point, though - where on Earth did you get the idea I am a “right-wing libertarian”? I am most assuredly not a right-wing anything, or a libertarian either, and I can’t think how anyone could get that impression. Maybe because I own guns? In this part of the country a lot of good staunch Democrats do.

(I don’t consider myself as following any particular political orientation; if I had to write something down I’d probably say “outlaw” - I agree with Ernest Hemingway that the writer’s hand should be against the government, no matter what sort, because its hand will be against him if he tries to tell the truth. But my views probably would be considered on the left more often than not.)

Never mind; this isn’t about me. What’s important is what you said about the magazine. There’s always a plentiful supply of people ready to complain about a given situation, but too many of them can’t be bothered to support the people who are trying to do something positive about it. Thank you again and best wishes from all of us at Helix.

William Sanders
Senior Editor
Helix
http://www.helixsf.com

Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling, and Kelly Link (with a side of Gavin Grant) always edit excellent, excellent work in my opinion. Reading something with their names on it is a treat.

I don’t remember how they compare to other reprint anthologies in terms of gender numbers. I do know that while awards given have reached almost parity in some fields, reprints have lagged behind, and tend to favor a disproportionate number of men.

Holly,

I completely agree.

There’s also a lack of acknowledgement that “good” is a relative, culturally determined term — not to mention of course that it will vary from editor to editor. So if an editor has a subconscious bias against feminine stories, then that will factor into hir decisions about what “the best” stories are. There is no objective “best.”

I think that many women and people of color writers have bought into the libertarian/conservative idea that being the recipient of affirmative-action type things mean that one’s work is inferior and weak and needs an extra boost based on our sex or color or sexuality. There’s no acknowledgement that the straight white dudes already have a boost for being straight and white and male.