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Jan. 12th, 2009 02:42 pmI'm trying hard not to get into the discussion that's started up on flist blogs on women writers and publication rates. Right now, alas, I'm too busy.
All I can do is throw a reminder that this discussion and its variants (women as fans, women as writers of hard SF, women as worthy of prizes and other note, women as senior in industry) is nothing new. I think everyone concerned in the debate knows this anyway, but, because I feel guilty about staying quiet on something that needs talking about, I'm going to throw some references out into the wilderness and pretend that they are a contribution.
My sole contribution to this field is in the Women in SF and Fantasy: An Encyclopedia (Greenwood claims it's out, but I haven't seen a copy) and does include stuff on women writers. They're all Medieval though. Not much use currently. Does it help to know that men got more recognition and money then, too? I thought not.
First, a bit of an overview of fandom by Camille Bacon-Smith, who wrote Enterprising Women and Science Fiction Culture (that's two books, not one with a long name). If her name sounds familiar from good fiction you have read, it's because she is another in that growing number of women with PhDs who also write good fiction. Speaking of that group of women, there's also Justine Larbalestier. Her bibliography is here. Neither of these two writers addresses the exact question being discussed right now, but both of them have explored many of the relevant issues. It's part of the broad background on which that question rests.
If you want to explore the parameters of what forms acceptable writing and if gender plays a part, you also might want to factor in children, in which case Farah Mendelsohn's work is an excellent place to start. I'm not going to even get started on ethnicity issues, except to say that work on them has spawned a bunch of questions that need to be answered for women as well. And there's a feminist SF wiki. There is a lot of scholarship on women in SF/fantasy and women and SF/fantasy.
This list is intentionally small. I have not gone into a single academic database to find it. I have put it together in three minutes. This is partly because I only had three minutes, but it's also partly as an answer to those who are saying "Prove there's a problem."
We're talking established subjects here - it really is just a matter of checking databases and starting research (in a normal way) with a literature overview. Not doing a literature overview doesn't prove there isn't any work on the subject - it just proves you haven't looked for any. There may not be any on a specific aspect (eg the numbers that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
girliejones is crunching right now, since they're recent, are likely to bring forth something new, for instance). This is the nature of scholarship - complex issues get addressed in a complex way.
I can now go back to getting over my virus and writing 5000 words in a day (look, Mum, I'm multiskilled!).
PS I did two hours on teaching stuff for the coming year yesterday, and boy does it show in this post!!
All I can do is throw a reminder that this discussion and its variants (women as fans, women as writers of hard SF, women as worthy of prizes and other note, women as senior in industry) is nothing new. I think everyone concerned in the debate knows this anyway, but, because I feel guilty about staying quiet on something that needs talking about, I'm going to throw some references out into the wilderness and pretend that they are a contribution.
My sole contribution to this field is in the Women in SF and Fantasy: An Encyclopedia (Greenwood claims it's out, but I haven't seen a copy) and does include stuff on women writers. They're all Medieval though. Not much use currently. Does it help to know that men got more recognition and money then, too? I thought not.
First, a bit of an overview of fandom by Camille Bacon-Smith, who wrote Enterprising Women and Science Fiction Culture (that's two books, not one with a long name). If her name sounds familiar from good fiction you have read, it's because she is another in that growing number of women with PhDs who also write good fiction. Speaking of that group of women, there's also Justine Larbalestier. Her bibliography is here. Neither of these two writers addresses the exact question being discussed right now, but both of them have explored many of the relevant issues. It's part of the broad background on which that question rests.
If you want to explore the parameters of what forms acceptable writing and if gender plays a part, you also might want to factor in children, in which case Farah Mendelsohn's work is an excellent place to start. I'm not going to even get started on ethnicity issues, except to say that work on them has spawned a bunch of questions that need to be answered for women as well. And there's a feminist SF wiki. There is a lot of scholarship on women in SF/fantasy and women and SF/fantasy.
This list is intentionally small. I have not gone into a single academic database to find it. I have put it together in three minutes. This is partly because I only had three minutes, but it's also partly as an answer to those who are saying "Prove there's a problem."
We're talking established subjects here - it really is just a matter of checking databases and starting research (in a normal way) with a literature overview. Not doing a literature overview doesn't prove there isn't any work on the subject - it just proves you haven't looked for any. There may not be any on a specific aspect (eg the numbers that
girliejones is crunching right now, since they're recent, are likely to bring forth something new, for instance). This is the nature of scholarship - complex issues get addressed in a complex way. I can now go back to getting over my virus and writing 5000 words in a day (look, Mum, I'm multiskilled!).
PS I did two hours on teaching stuff for the coming year yesterday, and boy does it show in this post!!