Some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen

[rolanni]

So!  The pictures are rolling in for the Do It Like A Delm Challenge.  You can see the first gold contestants at this link.

Wanna play?  Here's the link to the rules.  Steve and I look forward to your entry -- and remember!  Every week, one lucky entrant will win a coupon from Baen, for a free ebook of the winner's choice.

* * *

For those who haven't seen it, Judith Tarr did a guest post on Charlie Stross' blog regarding the [insert tongue in cheek] lack of women writers in the genre of science fiction [remove tongue from cheek, save for later use].  Here's the link.

Now, honestly, when I saw the topic, I thought something along the lines of Oh, please, there cannot be a single person connected to the internets who doesn't now know that women write SF.  Why are we having this discussion, again?  But, you know what?  The commenters pretty much prove that this is a discussion we still need to have.  My favorite comments are the ones stating that the female experience, while interesting, really has nothing to do with them* (because they know no women?); and the ones that state categorically that any book with a woman's name on the cover is, ipso facto, a feminist rant, and therefore of no interest to the reader.

So now my question is -- How do you inhabit a universe wherein there are No Women Writing Science Fiction?  Do you never visit a bookstore?  Do you instruct your bookseller to put a monthly bundle of books together for you that only have masculine names on the cover -- and no initials, either!  Sneaky things, initials; you never know who's behind lurking behind initials.

I can't even.

Mind you, this is not my fight -- I'm invisible to the no-women side, and to the all-men-all-the-time side, because I have a male co-author (worse! I have a husband co-author, of many, many years standing.).  The worst hassle I've gotten was the guy who thought it was "nice" that my husband let me put my name on his books.  Steve's worst, I think, was the guy who chastised him for not asserting his rights as The Man in the partnership and allowing his wife to drip Romance all over what ought to be SciFi books.

But, still, I wonder, how the hell you find, and continue to live in, this particular cocoon.  Women have been writing science fiction since before there was science fiction.  And it seems the more that proposition is put forward, the more -- rather than the less -- resistance it generates.

I used to be a fan of the internet; I used to think the internet would foster understanding between diverse peoples and viewpoints.

Yeah. . .too naive to live.

Today's blog post comes to you from Woody Guthrie by way of Ramblin' Jack Elliott, "Pretty Boy Floyd."  Here's your link.

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*Mind you, I read SF books from the male viewpoint for years, and years, and years, and years.  I credit this circumstance with teaching me how to write believable alien characters.  So, yanno, it can be a good thing to read about an experience that's different from your own.

Comments

[badgermirlacca.livejournal.com]

I can only think that the proponents of that philosophy must be very, very lonely.

[bandicoot.livejournal.com]

Most of my most favorite SF authors are women. I've never stopped to figure out what it is I like in my SF, but maybe it's like wine. A winemaker did a vertical cab tasting a few years ago. You tasted 4 or 5 cabs and rated them in the order of your preference. He then told you what it was you were looking for in a cab. In my case, he told me I liked complexity. I think that's maybe true of SF as well, and often, women writers write more complex situations/characters. Not always, but often.

On the other hand, like wine, thinking about this too much will give me a headache :)

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

I read a lot of the comments on that post until I got too disgusted and gave up. I think the way to live in a universe where there are no women writing science fiction is to ignore and refuse to see anything that contradicts what you want to believe. Some people seem to be very, very good at that. I regularly see them spewing their illogical, easily disproven ideas all over the internet and in the letters to the editor of the local newspaper.

[reedrover]

Meh. People who choose to be ignorant can't be schooled by the internet.

One of the first science fiction books that I touched in my life was taught in elementary school as a great work of children's literature: A Wrinkle in Time. Oh, pardon me, the faceless mass writing Wikipedia calls it a "science fantasy book," whatever that means. Hugo-award-winning Downbelow Station is probably labeled by the ignorant masses as a trampy little romance. And I'm certain that The Ship Who Sang and especially The Ship Who Searched are considered nothing but feminist soapboxing by those who think women shouldn't write or be written.

Well. *flounce* Everyone's entitled to his or her own opinion. Rather than engage the unreceptive, I think I'll just wander over here to the comfy couch and read Cordelia's Honor again...

I credit this circumstance with teaching me how to write believable alien characters.

[bookmobiler.livejournal.com]

I like that line.
You haven't mentioned it before , but you must have read a lot of books by arborist too. You also write convincingly about trees.
If it weren't for the fact that it's an avocation "willful blindness " would be the oldest profession.
I our ancestors could get that point of view across in grunts why would the internet be any different.

women writing sci fi

[catherine ives (from livejournal.com)]

I've found sci fi written by women is different. I likee. I like sci fi written by men too. But prefer sci fi written by women. So there it is.

Re: I credit this circumstance with teaching me how to write believable alien characters.

[star-horse3.livejournal.com]

I more than like that line. I love it- in fact I laughed for 5 minutes straight. What a deadly little stiletto that was!

[gerald heaton (from livejournal.com)]

And let's not count the female authors who had to write under a pseudonym to get published.

WTHO
I don't care whose name is on the cover. I care that the story is well written, had little or no sexual antics described it detail, and has a good "feel" to it.

THEN if I like it, I look to the authors name to find MORE of the same.

Without going into a LONG list

Andre Norton
Your self
Lois McMasters Bujold
Anne Macaffery
Christine Warren (skipping over the sex)

[thewol.livejournal.com]

As for the "women don't write SciFi" -- I have three words for that argument: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Re: I credit this circumstance with teaching me how to write believable alien characters.

[attilathepbnun.livejournal.com]

You mean second-oldest profession. The Oldest, according to Terry Pratchett, is actually flint-knapper