Women of quiet power

I've been thinking some more about the Women in Science Fiction  panel I attended in London last week.  

The overall feeling of the panel was that women were getting a rough deal in the SF genre.  They felt that the problems for women writers in SF were systemic.  Women were not getting published enough, they were not being reviewed enough, there were not enough women reviewers. The VIDA count and the Strange Horizons survey were quoted to back this up. One panelist felt that nothing had changed in five years.

But hang on there a moment.  I left the genre a decade ago because these issues weren't even being aired properly.  I cancelled my subscriptions to SF organisations because they appeared to have no women in them, and certainly didn't feature any women writers.  The world I was seeing then didn't include me as a participant.  But I can't say the same today.

The biggest thing that has changed is that people are aware of the gender imbalance.  Things are not the same. Two of the five nominees for the Hugo Best Novel this year are women writers, and women are shortlisted in nearly every other category of the award.  

A bigger concern to me is not the blanket issue of representation, but what women writers are being recognized for.  I don't want to read books about female assassins.  I also have a dislike of  kick-ass mercenaries.  Neither of these stereotypes bears any relation to the life i live.  I'm undomesticated and fiercely independent too, so I don't want to read stories where women are trapped in families either.

So what do I want to see?  First, as an introvert, I'd love to see more strong introvert characters, women of quiet power.  Introverts are the inventors, the people who stick at challenging tasks the longest.  I want to see stories where these people are forced to stand up for their beliefs and values against extrovert kick-ass types.  Stories where the answer isn't to raze the whole planet to the ground with the biggest superweapon we can build.  Stories where we talk to aliens and negotiate tricky diplomatic solutions instead of opening fire on them,

I want to see quiet heroines saving the galaxy.  Not cowed, owned women, but tough, independent characters who stick to the findings of their research and warn people of the truth about corrupted organisations and governments.  Women who are tough enough to withstand threats of blackmail and violence to uphold the truth,

Quiet power and courage, that's the sort of SF I'd like to see.  Save the planet, save the universe - without annihilating a huge swathe of something or someone else.