Queen Victoria to give women a vote in Science Fiction

Charlie Martin and Sarah Hoyt have an article over at PJ Lifestyles demonstrating the stump-stupid unreality of the claims of the social justice warriors that ruined SFWA.

By all means read the whole thing here: http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2014/11/07/the-women-some-women-cant-see/

 

So The Atlantic has discovered women in Science Fiction. To be more precise, The Atlantic has discovered that women are “rising” in science fiction.  Again. Apparently they asked Ann Leckie about women and awards in Science Fiction and Leckie, best known for writing a novel in which people have two genders and pretend to only see the female one, explained:

But both Leckie and Hurley express a combination of optimism and cynicism when it comes to whether or not women in the science fiction world are actually making progress, and how quickly. Leckie points out that this isn’t the first time women have been in the spotlight for writing award winning science fiction. “Sometimes I feel very optimistic about it, I say look at this, there are more women getting awards,” she says. “And then I look back and the ‘70s. The ‘70s was a decade that was crammed with prominent women science fiction writers, and a lot of women made their debut in that decade or really came to prominence.”

This was the time of Ursula K. Le Guin and Vonda McIntyre, who both won joint Nebulas and Hugos. Anne McCaffrey, Kate Wilhelm, Joan Vinge, and Marion Zimmer Bradley were all nominated for Hugo Awards that decade. In 1973, the Alice Bradley Sheldon, who wrote under the pen name James Tiptree, Jr. wrote the famous, feminist short story called “The Women Men Don’t See.” Joanna Russ’s feminist science fiction book The Female Man was published in 1975 and nominated that year for a Nebula.

Then, Leckie says, the ‘80s and ‘90s happened. The rate of women nominated and winning awards dipped down again. And today, once again, society has this idea that women who write science fiction are a strange and interesting breed. In other words, today the community is having the same conversation it had in the ‘70s about women writing science fiction.

This is beyond precious.  First of all, I’d like to inform The Atlantic that the (ever-shrinking) community they’re talking about is the Science Fiction Writers of America, the same organization that went on the war path against two members for using the word “lady” which is apparently derogatory.  Of course, people with such high standards are having the best conversations.  At least, they’re having the best conversations, if the conversations you’re looking for are “excuse me, is the sky made of Swiss or Guyere?”

As for Ms. [sic] Leckie, I believe she is confused about the history of the field.  In fact, women went right on winning awards through the eighties and nineties.

For instance, this is a list of the Nebulas won by women since 1982 to 2011.

  • 2011 NOVEL: Blackout/All Clear, Connie Willis NOVELLA: “The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers beneath the Queen’s Window”, Rachel Swirsky SHORT STORY (tie): “Ponies”, Kij Johnson SHORT STORY (tie)

  • 2010 NOVELLA: The Women of Nell Gwynne’s, Kage Baker NOVELETTE: “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast”, Eugie Foster SHORT STORY: “Spar”, Kij Johnson RAY BRADBURY AWARD: District 9, Neill Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell ANDRE NORTON AWARD: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, Catherynne M. Valente

  • 2009 NOVEL: Powers, Ursula K. Le Guin NOVELLA: “The Spacetime Pool”, Catherine Asaro SHORT STORY: “Trophy Wives”, Nina Kiriki Hoffman

  • 2008 NOVELLA: “Fountain of Age”, Nancy Kress SHORT STORY: “Always”, Karen Joy Fowler ANDRE NORTON AWARD: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J. K. Rowling

  • 2007 SHORT STORY: “Echo”, Elizabeth Hand SCRIPT: Howl’s Moving Castle, Hayao Miyazaki, Cindy Davis Hewitt & Donald H. Hewitt ANDRE NORTON AWARD: Magic or Madness, Justine Larbalestier

  • 2006 NOVELLA: “Magic for Beginners”, Kelly Link NOVELETTE: “The Faery Handbag”, Kelly Link SHORT STORY: “I Live With You”, Carol Emshwiller ANDRE NORTON AWARD: Valiant, Holly Black

  • 2005 NOVEL: Paladin of Souls, Lois McMaster Bujold NOVELETTE: “Basement Magic”, Ellen Klages SHORT STORY: “Coming to Terms”, Eileen Gunn SCRIPT: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson

  • 2004 NOVEL: The Speed of Dark, Elizabeth Moon SHORT STORY: “What I Didn’t See”, Karen Joy Fowler SCRIPT: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Stephen Sinclair & Peter Jackson

  • 2003 SHORT STORY: “Creature”, Carol Emshwiller SCRIPT: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson

  • 2002 NOVEL: The Quantum Rose, Catherine Asaro NOVELETTE: “Louise’s Ghost”, Kelly Link SHORT STORY: “The Cure for Everything”, Severna Park

  • 2001 NOVELLA: “Goddesses”, Linda Nagata

  • 2000 NOVEL: Parable of the Talents, Octavia E. Butler NOVELETTE: “Mars Is No Place for Children”, Mary A. Turzillo SHORT STORY: “The Cost of Doing Business”, Leslie What

  • 1999 NOVELLA: “Reading the Bones”, Sheila Finch NOVELETTE: “Lost Girls”, Jane Yolen

  • 1998 NOVEL: The Moon and the Sun, Vonda N. McIntyre NOVELETTE: “The Flowers of Aulit Prison”, Nancy Kress SHORT STORY: “Sister Emily’s Lightship”, Jane Yolen

  • 1997 NOVEL: Slow River, Nicola Griffith SHORT STORY: “A Birthday”, Esther M. Friesner

  • 1996 NOVELLA: “Last Summer at Mars Hill”, Elizabeth Hand NOVELETTE: “Solitude”, Ursula K. Le Guin SHORT STORY: “Death and the Librarian”, Esther M. Friesner

  • 1995 SHORT STORY: “A Defense of the Social Contracts”, Martha Soukup

  • 1993 NOVEL: Doomsday Book, Connie Willis NOVELETTE: “Danny Goes to Mars”, Pamela Sargent SHORT STORY: “Even the Queen”, Connie Willis

  • 1992 NOVELLA: “Beggars in Spain”, Nancy Kress

  • 1991 NOVEL: Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin

  • 1990 NOVEL: The Healer’s War, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough NOVELLA: “The Mountains of Mourning”, Lois McMaster Bujold NOVELETTE: “At the Rialto”, Connie Willis

  • 1989 NOVEL: Falling Free, Lois McMaster Bujold NOVELLA: “The Last of the Winnebagos”, Connie Willis

  • 1988 NOVELLA: “The Blind Geometer”, Pat Murphy SHORT STORY: “Forever Yours, Anna”, Kate Wilhelm

  • 1987 NOVELETTE: “The Girl Who Fell into the Sky”, Kate Wilhelm

  • 1986 SHORT STORY: “Out of All Them Bright Stars”, Nancy Kress

  • 1985 NOVELETTE: “Bloodchild”, Octavia E. Butler

  • 1983 NOVELETTE: “Fire Watch”, Connie Willis SHORT STORY: “A Letter from the Clearys”, Connie Willis

  • 1982 SHORT STORY: “The Bone Flute”, Lisa Tuttle [refused]

  • 1981 NOVELLA: “Unicorn Tapestry”, Suzy McKee Charnas

 

My comment:

The article goes on in like vein, listing over one HUNDRED Hugo awards in every category granted to lady writers and editrixes in the years mentioned.

But even if half the list was in error, the stark, staring, gibbering, screaming fact cannot be suppressed: the number of women lauded and awarded in science fiction equals or exceeds those in mainstream literature, and earlier. Science fiction is and has always been welcoming to anyone who can tell a good story, and justly proud of that fact. There was never any Jim Crow in space yarns, and even the earliest strata of science fiction — I am thinking of Shiro and Lotus from the Skylark series by E E Doc Smith or Xodar of the First Born of Barsoom — had no hint of a belief in racism. When Heinlein introduced a Jewish character in ROCKET SHIP GALILEO,  or a Filipino in STARSHIP TROOPERS, there was no stir of controversy among Science Fiction writers, nor for Sparrowhawk of Roke in WIZARD OF EARTHSEA. Neither were female character from the Red Lensman onward treated as objects of contempt.

It is a myth. It is a lie. It is an outrageous lie because of all fields of literature Science Fiction was always the most open minded and cosmopolitan. How else could it be? Xenophobia can find no place to lodge in a genre where half the heroes are not even human. There is not now and never was any bias against female writers in SF, and certainly no organized or systemic bias. Quite the opposite. Science fiction is a bastion of tolerance by the very nature of the genre. It is not just an outrageous like, it is 180 degrees diametrically opposite of the truth. It is like claiming the Pope is a Protestant.

Why tell such a lie, knowing no one is likely to believe it? No one who reads science fiction, at least.

This is an example of what I call the Unreality Principle. The Left holds it to be a matter of honor and a proof of their moral superiority to tell lies and believe lies, and the more unbelievable what they believe is, the great their honor and more inflated their esteem. In this case, the Keezy Fem (as Lobo would say) is claiming that science fiction, which from the days of Leigh Bracket onward never was unwelcoming to lady writers, suffers from the social oppression of the days of Queen Victoria, when women were not allowed to vote.

NEWSFLASH: The Nineteen Amendment passed in 1920. Women had the vote in Wyoming Territory, Utah , and Washington Territory in 1869, 1870 and 1883. This news is nigh a century out of date.

So, ladies, your concern about equality in the Science Fiction field is unconvincing play-acting where you pretend to be the victim while no one is victimizing you.

And do not tell me that the vote is not enough. You want to be regarded as spiritually equal? Let me explain the male spirit to you. Men regard it as dishonorable, a sign of womanish weakness to complain, and that is even when we have some cause for complaint: to complain where there is no cause is worse than weakness. It is nagging.

You have rejected the idea that men should admire women for their feminine qualities, such as wisdom, modesty, the purity of virgins, the fidelity of wives and the mother-love of matrons. Do you want us to admire you for your masculine qualities?

If so, man up. And shut up.

But if you are ashamed of your female nature, O female, it is no male who oppresses you or calls you inferior: it is you yourself, and no one else.

Meanwhile, the Muslim world routinely subjects women to honor killings, rape, genital mutilation, stoning. My ears are not exactly ringing in halfdeafness with the volume and frequency of social justice war-ladies of SFWA making public protests of such things. In fact, the silence is eerie in its desolate perfection.

Hypocrisy: without their double standards, the Left would have no standards at all.