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Could This Really Be A Guardian Report?

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anotheoldgit | 10:00 Thu 13th Jun 2013 | News
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jun/12/science-fiction-sexism-sfwa

/// The columnists, Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg, responded to claims that their descriptions were sexist in another bulletin, where they wrote that "all we did was appear in a magazine with a warrior woman on the cover, and mention that a woman who edited a science fiction magazine 65 years ago was beautiful. If they get away with censoring that, can you imagine what comes next? I'm pretty sure Joe Stalin could imagine it … Even Chairman Mao could imagine it." ///

We could be nearer than first thought.
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Apparently, it is.

But there is so much more to the article than that....
An overreaction from Mike and Barry there. They must stop being so hysterical about a few people airing their views - this is a free country after all.

Seanan McGuire, who has something to do with SFWA, said on the subject of objectification of women:

"…women get forced to understand men if we want to enjoy media and tell stories, while men are allowed to treat women as these weird extraterrestrial creatures who can never be comprehended, but must be fought. It’s like we’re somehow the opposing army in an alien invasion story, here to be battled, defeated, and tamed, but never acknowledged as fully human."

There's also some trumpeting of having "lads mags" pulled from supermarkets: http://ukfeminista.org.uk/2013/05/top-lawyers-tell-high-street-shops-to-lose-the-lads-mags/

I find UK Feminista to always miss the point (and to commit just as prejudiced assumptions of man = monster on many occasions), but I think their drive could be seen as tangentially linked to an modern attitude that women might like to be people first... rather than objects.
Sorry, i was trying to provide some background - I've only just now read the article.

Barry and Mikey have said some very stupid things.
Also:

"Could This Really Be A Guardian Report?"

Yes, it says so at the top. Have I missed the joke?
I kind of assumed that the title of the post was AoG doing irony :)

The report itself documents a rather petty squabble amongst authors of niche fiction - science fiction and fantasy - a genre which has attracted a fair share of criticism over sexism over the years.

What interests me more is the kind of blog and comment responses those women who have complained have received, some threatening violence and rape - talk about hyperbolic and thuggish responses!

When you have neanderthals willing to offer up those sort of comments, or when you have authors and editors being just casually, unthinkingly sexist, it is no surprise that women might feel that the struggle for equal treatment and a recognition of equality has still to be won....
the Guardian does a good job on reporting on sexism here and abraod, so yes, it can really be a Guardian report. Less likely to be a report in the Sun, I predict.
"I kind of assumed that the title of the post was AoG doing irony :)"

Sorry, I follow now. I'm coming down with a bit of gnome-flu so my head is on backwards this morning.
The message is in the text. It's not really about a magazine cover or one remark, which the authors robustly defend.it's about a current of sexism apparent within an organisation.
I'm not really sure what the question is here, but the link has some very good coments from readers. Thoughtfully articulated and healthily debated.
Question Author
AB Editor

/// Sorry, i was trying to provide some background - I've only just now read the article. ///

/// Barry and Mikey have said some very stupid things. ///

You had me worried when I read your first answer, but obviously your female colleagues soon made you change your views. :0)

/// "Could This Really Be A Guardian Report?" ///

/// Yes, it says so at the top. Have I missed the joke? ///

No joke Ed, only pointing out that had it been a Daily Mail report it would have been lambasted by the 'Anti Daily Mail League' regarding it being a slow news day etc etc.
Not the only thing that the Daily Mail might not print, aog. The Guardian has a full page article, by Suzanne Moore, headed " I am proof that anyone can sit an exam stoned and pass by spewing out facts. So why is Michael Gove advocating learning by rote?"

The piece in the link was in the Guardian's book section, a serious section. Does the Daily Mail have a serious book section? If it does, it might yet get around to this piece.
"No joke Ed, only pointing out that had it been a Daily Mail report it would have been lambasted by the 'Anti Daily Mail League' regarding it being a slow news day etc etc."

Don't know about that - it's a quite interesting topic!
do you think anyone noticed that Barbie isn't real, she is a doll for little girls. I never had one but did have Sindy, she was lovely.
"The piece in the link was in the Guardian's book section, a serious section. Does the Daily Mail have a serious book section? If it does, it might yet get around to this piece."

I doubt the story will make it to the pages of FeMail though, which might be the place you'd expect it to go?
Sexism is all the rage at the moment. In the press.

“Beware of the man who denounces woman writers; his penis is tiny and he cannot spell.”
"do you think anyone noticed that Barbie isn't real, she is a doll for little girls. I never had one but did have Sindy, she was lovely."

I'm not sure I follow your point? Barbie and Cindy were real, you had one after all!
"she is a doll for little girls."

Thats a bit sexist isn't it?
octavious, not all at, the boys had Ken and the girls generally had Barbie.

The point was in the article a truly stunningly stupid comment about Barbie as a role model and dignity, total tosh. I was being tongue in cheek, i liked sindy better than barbie.

A growing chorus of science fiction authors have been speaking out about sexism in the genre after much-criticised recent editions of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's (SFWA) magazine, Bulletin, which featured a woman in a chainmail bikini on the cover and the claim that Barbie is a role model because she "maintained her quiet dignity the way a woman should".
If that's the point Em is making, I wonder what happened to advertising like this: http://resources.news.com.au/files/2011/12/23/1226229/323829-lego-ad-1.jpg

Do little girls need pink Lego to be interested in "building stuff"? Are little boys not allowed to create a fuchsia spaceship?

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