The British Science Fiction Association AGM

Tomorrow is the AGM of the BSFA.  I'm a newly-rejoined member, and I'm going to the meeting.  It's around a decade since I was last a member.  Back then I did try to find something of relevance to me as a women in the journals and news, but I couldn't.  The book reviews were of men's books, and women didn't seem to figure in the genre at all.  I felt like it didn't have any place for me, so I cancelled my membership.

So what's changed in the intervening period?  Lots of things.  In the last year the issue of women's under-representation in the genre has hit the headlines.  The spat between members of the Science Fiction Writers of America gave it public focus.  When well-respected female writers cancel their memberships of that august body then something's wring.

The VIDA statistics on women's representation in literature in general out this into perspective.   Women's under-representation in the genre is part of a wider problem of us not being published as often, not being reviewed as often.  Twitter was abuzz with items relating to the SFWA, and every day I came across new blog posts that told me a little more of the history of this situation.

As I pieced the evidence together, I realised I wasn't the problem.  The problem was with that old chestnut "women don't write SF".  Some women's stories and novels were nominated for the genre's top awards.  And some of those stories won them.

There are other changes afoot.  Having exhausted the handful of agents who would handle SF in the UK a decade ago, I came to a dead end in my submissions process.  I'd run out of agents to try, and there were no publishers willing to look at unsolicited manuscripts.  Today the position has radically altered.  The rise of self-publishing has forced changes on both editors and agents,  in a recent trawl on-line, I found dozens of agents I hadn't submitted to before who now represent SF novels.  Newer publishers like Angry Robot and Jo Fletcher Books have established themselves as very successful genre publishers.  And lately it seems that just about every publisher is launching a new speculative fiction imprint.

SF is in vogue again, and it's publishing women's work, so it's time for me to re-join the fray.  At the BSFA AGM tomorrow Jo Fletcher is a guest of honour, and I'll be listening very carefully to what she has to say.  It's time to get submitting again.  And maybe one day soon we'll remove the last impediment to women writing women's SF.  We might finally get rid of kick-ass heroines and allow the women in our books to be authentic people.

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.

An independent truth

Reading Arcfinity's blog discussion with the six authors who have been shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke award, I came across Chris Priest's comment that "writers need to develop and keep an independent mind."  For me, the issue is more a case of revealing my independent truth.   I'm not a fan of grimdark, and I've steadfastly refused to  delve into all those books touted as the must-read piece of darkness.  

Some SF writers have a love affair with their shiny new tech.  It never breaks down, and they don't worry about its effects on the world it's unleashed on.  But my independent mind asks questions like "Why are we doing this?" and "What are the side-effects of this process?"  And often I read another's invented world and ask why nobody is doing anything about its harsh injustices. 

Humans have independent minds, and you'll never find a bunch of us all seeing the world the same way.  Dissention will always be with us.  People will always hold a broad spectrum of beliefs and values.  And yet in too many SF stories I see no evidence of these independent minds.

Currently, women protagonists seem to have morphed from feminist military SF to  kick-ass (a phrase I hate) bounty hunters.  My independent mind has no connection to these so-called women. They look like a recycling of the ladette, with the addition of her willingness to have unlimited sex with as many people as she can find.  Ho hum.

Which leaves me feeling disconnected from SF yet again.  I had hopes that the equal representation in the genre issue might translate into seeing books that show women in a broad range of occupations and  situations.  Maybe they'd put down the blaster and find the antidote to the plague that's decimating the planet instead.  Perhaps they'd use their calm demeanour to negotiate with a warlike alien species bent on taking over their planet and save their world and their people.

I've bought and read a couple of this year's awards books, but I haven't enjoyed either of them.  Getting to the end became a matter of willpower.  I looked on reading them as academic research.  I  had to resort to that because I had no connection with the protagonists.  I didn't fall in love with the stories' ideas either.  

Somebody might argue that there's no room for independent minds in the middle of a thousand years' war, but I'd argue that the agronomist tending the fields growing food, the doctor working away to provide a treatment for the diseases of the battlefield, are vital to their species' survival.  It's time we heard it for the quiet power and independent minds of these people working out of the spotlight.  These are the stabilisers of their worlds.

I want to see the genre show the independent thinking that marks out the human mind.  How about stories arising from conflict over a society-shattering new technology?  And what about really challenging attitudes to sexuality.  How about freedom from sex?  What would a world ruled by a woman with no sexual interest in anyone be like? Less open to corruption?  SF is supposed to be the genre that questions and challenges the status quo.  Let's reclaim that function.