Useless submission guidelines

I've been spending the weeks since the New Year getting my story submission records up to date and checking out SF magazines' submission requirements.  And what I'm finding when yet another email  thuds into my inbox with a rejection is that the submission guidelines are useless.

Yes, they tell me to submit stories double spaced in 12 point Times New Roman, and that the magazine won't accept stories with excessive sex and violence.  But that's as far as it goes for content.  The guidelines are totally useless for trying to divine what kind of story an editor might buy.

"Stories must have some element of technology to them" one magazine declares.  Another says it wants "character-oriented stories, in which the characters, rather than the science, provide the main focus for the reader's interest."  Another says that "all types of science fiction will be considered."

Sounds great, doesn't it?  An inclusive magazine market, at last.  Not so fast.  Since the New Year I've had stories rejected exploring the consequences of rape, overpopulation of planets, bioengineering and its effects on alien relations, and psychic abilities stopping a war between humans and aliens.  All of these stories were set in the future, have some speculative elements to them, and were character-driven stories.  So they fit the guidelines, right?  

Yes, there are many female magazine editors out there.  And every time the suggestion that women's stories are disadvantaged is raised they indignantly point out their presence. But the thing is, ladies, my stories never get before your eyes.  Look to who your first readers are.  Most of the rejections I've received this year have been from male first readers.  Is it any surprise that they don't like stories challenging the patriarchy?  I'd like to be proved wrong in this, but I suspect I'm not.

And, of course, a magazine doesn't have a totally free hand in what it publishes. If it proclaims itself as a feminist magazine, but it publishes in print, and most of those print subscribers are white cis males, it's going to be influenced by that demographic.  A magazine can't risk challenging the sensibilities of its majority group of subscribers and having them cancel their subscriptions.

My deep suspicion is that the real guidelines of many magazines reject strongly feminist stories.  Not because the stories aren't good, but because it's too much of a risk to publish them.  It might harm their sales in a competitive market.  I hope that one day somebody will prove me wrong, but until then I'll keep my suspicion that SF magazines aren't quite so welcoming as they would like us to believe.