{"id":19216,"date":"2013-06-19T06:50:20","date_gmt":"2013-06-19T10:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=19216"},"modified":"2013-06-19T07:28:14","modified_gmt":"2013-06-19T11:28:14","slug":"the-silent-majority-fear-of-sexism-is-a-misogynists-best-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2013\/06\/19\/the-silent-majority-fear-of-sexism-is-a-misogynists-best-friend\/","title":{"rendered":"The Silent Majority: Fear of Sexism is a Misogynist\u2019s Best Friend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like I said last week, I think part of the role of men<\/strong><\/span><\/a> in the discussions against sexism and misogyny is to be a signal booster — to help get the word of others out. Karina Cooper — author of the Dark Mission and St. Croix Chronicles books<\/strong><\/span><\/a> — said she wanted to continue the conversation about women in writing and publishing and the SFF genre, so here she is to talk more about what it means to stay silent in fights like this one:<\/em><\/p>\n

Can I assume y\u2019all know the history of the USA?\u00a0 Can I go into this comfortable with the understanding that you\u2019re familiar with Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement in the 50s and 60s? Is that, I don\u2019t know, a safe thing to assume?<\/p>\n

I have to tell you, I\u2019m just not sure. But because I\u2019m not your mom and I\u2019m not whatever teacher you probably ignored in school, I\u2019ll spare you the summary. You don\u2019t want to hear it from me, anyway. If you\u2019re legitimately clueless, go do some reading<\/a>. Yes, it\u2019s Wikipedia\u2014I\u2019m not willing to strain anyone\u2019s higher thought processes just yet.<\/p>\n

Fast forward forty-five years. We\u2019re still struggling with racial prejudice, but it is widely<\/em> understood that a man who says, \u201cI strongly believe darker-skinned people will lower the quality of this product\u201d is tantamount to labeling himself the white supremacist fuckless wonder that he is. We have seen evidence of this just recently, yes?<\/p>\n

So, that in mind: Would one of these rabid, woman-hating trollskins explain to me how \u201cgirls are making sci-fi worse\u201d is any<\/em> different? I mean, aside from the obvious, which is that one involves people with different color skin than yours and the other is naturally<\/em> more inclusive, since it involves people of all<\/em> color… who just happen to have vaginas.<\/p>\n

Maybe you, dear reader, missed the memo. If you\u2019ve been absent from the internet for the past forever, here\u2019s a quick refresher: some people think women shouldn\u2019t be writing \u201creal\u201d books<\/a>, playing or designing \u201creal games,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0or speaking about anything at all<\/a>. Some people, a great many outspoken people, are convinced sexism doesn\u2019t exist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Guess what? We have always been fighting this fight.<\/a><\/p>\n

No Girls Allowed<\/h1>\n

For decades, women and people of color have been barred from the SF\/F community due to, I don\u2019t know, some perceived fear of cooties\u2014or a petrifying fear of change. The people refusing them entry\u2014primarily white men\u2014routinely forced authors who weren\u2019t<\/em> white men to hide behind pseudonyms, behind false biographies, and refused to publish stories that attempted to feature anyone other than white men as heroes.<\/p>\n

In the year 2013, this has not changed all that much. It\u2019s not \u201cPC\u201d to bar people of color anymore, but they certainly continue to have a litany of problems going on\u2014usually<\/em> couched in more subversive terms involving \u201cquality\u201d and \u201cexperience.”<\/p>\n

The issues women are having, however, seems to come straight out of the lexicon the civil rights movement deemed incorrect for public use\u2014it\u2019s like watching a particularly surreal episode of Mad Men, only everyone\u2019s in jeans and on the internet. For example, in order to get any \u201ccredit\u201d (from men, the dominating force in the literary world), women are forced to hide behind initials, or crowbarred into the romance or chicklit genres \u201cwhere they belong.\u201d\u00a0They are groped by famous male colleagues<\/a>, and they are ignored or jeered at on panels.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut wait, there are all kinds of women published!\u201d you might point out, and you\u2019d be right. There are<\/em> all kinds of women published. There are all kinds of women in the gaming field. Those who work hard are extremely well-respected, too, for\u2014oh, wait. No, they aren\u2019t.<\/a> Really, anywhere<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You know what we ladies who are authors and gamers get? Unending amounts of shit from dickstroking mouthbreathers, an avalanche of vile abuse spewed from internet communities filled with spermslugs convinced that they are God\u2019s gift to all who earn their attention. That they, in their tiny little worlds with their tragic lack of a loving orifice that doesn\u2019t come shrink-wrapped in plastic, are the rightful inheritors of multi-million dollar industries\u2014the keyholders to future generations\u2019 creativity and imagination.<\/p>\n

And you know what? They are right.<\/em><\/p>\n

Despite the fact that female gamers make up 47% of the gaming community<\/a>, despite the fact that women are award-winning authors<\/a>, we are threatened with rape and violence<\/a> if we dare to speak up about how we\u2019re treated, by troglodytes so afraid of change that they\u2019ll shout as loud as they possibly can just to get the rest of the world to shut up. They are so awful, so offensive, that the rest of the world looks away with a knowing, \u201cDon\u2019t feed the trolls.\u201d They see the reprehensible behaviors of these soggy foreskins, say with feeling, \u201cAren\u2019t you glad that\u2019s not me?\u201d and go about their merry days as if that takes care of that\u2014and that<\/em>, babies, is why it\u2019s working.<\/p>\n

Because the only way to avoid feeding the trolls is to be silent\u2014and these trolls are growing up to run your world.<\/p>\n

Proud and Not So Loud<\/h1>\n

If you\u2019d be so kind, take a look at this reasonable and extremely logical post by Chris F. Holm<\/a>\u2014a fine author in his own right\u2014and you\u2019ll see he promotes two sound concepts. The second is the most important: be kind to one another, punctuated by a Vonnegut quote that has me calling everyone \u201cbabies\u201d when I\u2019m feeling philosophical. But a glance down to the comments mirrors what\u2019s being said in Der Wendighosten\u2019s<\/em> G+ page<\/a>: it\u2019s so much better to read a book because of genre, quality, and style than it is to read a book because of gender, and so choosing a book because of gender is just another form of sexism<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Naturally, no one reading a book for quality is a bigot\u2014you certainly can\u2019t be blamed for any prejudice when you\u2019re not paying any attention to the gender, color, or lifestyle of the author. And certainly, being told what and what not to read, for any reason, is anathema to cultivators of book libraries around the world.<\/p>\n

The dialogue then becomes something like this: \u201cOf course sexism is bad, that\u2019s why I\u2019m not interested in reading or acquiring books by women just because they\u2019re women\u2014I don\u2019t want to be sexist!\u201d And so the person justifying this pats themselves on the back for being an evolved being, shares some companionable nods with others like them, and lives a happy life knowing they aren\u2019t misogynistic or prejudiced or bigoted. Which is a lovely ideal, but have you finished reading about the civil rights movement yet?<\/p>\n

As I recall from my education in the subject, I don\u2019t believe any of the civil rights supporters<\/em> were saying things like, \u201cWell, naturally, racial prejudice is bad, that\u2019s why I\u2019m not interested in showing people of color any favoritism by shopping at black-owned stores just because they\u2019re black-owned<\/em>.\u201d In fact, I\u2019ll wager this sort of thing was often said by white people unwilling to make the effort\u2014or to accept the nature of equality at all.<\/p>\n

Can you imagine how the civil rights movement would have stalled without open and deliberate support by everyone<\/em> who claimed to be so open-minded?<\/p>\n

I admire Chris a great deal, and hope to one day live the philosophy he shares, but I obviously disagree with him on various executions\u2014primarily, that grace and dignity will see us through the unending amounts of abuse we receive. As far as I\u2019m concerned, centuries of grace and dignity has landed women in this mess. Like my feminist forbears, it\u2019s time to burn a few \u201cfoundation garments:\u201d starting with the concept that the silence of good people is any support at all.<\/p>\n

More Than a Dream<\/h1>\n

Martin Luther King, Jr.\u2019s speech was not one of waiting<\/a>\u2014though it was<\/em> of dignity (okay, point for Chris). Where other revolutionaries and civil rights leaders pushed for violence, King pushed for the power and passion of speech\u2014of \u201csoul\u201d force to meet overwhelming force. And he called on everyone<\/em> to do it. He spoke of freedoms of color, of class, of religion.<\/p>\n

King and the movement supporters pushed for active inclusion<\/em>\u2014standing side by side with the very same people who wanted them pushed down. He did not stop at penning dignified notes, he did not wait for the power of words to make it through the communities threatening him and those like him with violence. He gathered like-minded folks, that included <\/em>the powerful voices of white supporters\u2014political and otherwise\u2014to help make it happen<\/em>, to add their voices to his. To \u00a0bloody well say something<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Active inclusion<\/em>, babies. It\u2019s about one person\u2014maybe you?\u2014making the choice<\/em> to pick up a book by a woman author and giving it a chance, and then treating that book like you would any other book.<\/em> If you like it, pass it on with glowing recommendations\u2014not because of how the author looks in a bathing suit, or what her genitals might be, but because it\u2019s a good book. If you don\u2019t like it, reasoning why<\/em>, and have that discussion with your fellow readers.<\/p>\n

It means that though you might make it a point to pick up a book because it\u2019s written by a woman, a person of color, a man, an LGBTQ author, you\u2019re passing it on and talking about it because it\u2019s good<\/em>. Because the author moved you. Because regardless of why you originally grabbed it, the book made you feel<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about adding your voice<\/em> to support women in gaming, women in writing, women anywhere\u2014just like we would for anyone else. Because if you think this isn\u2019t about you\u2014if you think that I\u2019m only talking to the sad little boys lodged in their circle jerking internet communities, convinced that \u201ccocksucker\u201d is an insult while desperately hoping to meet a real life woman they don\u2019t have to threaten to rape to get some\u2014you are sadly mistaken.<\/p>\n

There are literally thousands of men ready and waiting to be unleashed on women like me. Men and boys who make a game of rape threats and violence, who will be spooged out of whatever black hole they dribble from, screaming that I am a threat\u2014that I don\u2019t deserve to live, that I should be raped into silence, that I\u2019m just a bitch and should shut up. These are the same assholes raising boys who think it\u2019s okay<\/a> to call an eight year old girl a \u201ccunt.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

But I know\u2014I know<\/em>\u2014that there are thousands more of men and<\/em> women who are remaining silent, because they know<\/em> they aren\u2019t among the trolls, that they\u2019re not sexist, that they don\u2019t want<\/em> to be sexist. And because they know that, they\u2019re content to simply be.<\/p>\n

\u201cSimply being\u201d is not enough.<\/p>\n

The Loudest Voices Shape the World<\/h1>\n

We like to look back at history and say things like, \u201cGandhi had it right.\u201d We like to suggest that the best way to evoke change is to live quietly, live by example. To quote an erroneous and useless bit of drivel<\/a>: \u201cbe the change you want to see in the world.\u201d They fling this around like it\u2019s gold and fail to remember that part of being that change is taking the opportunity to make a difference, not sit back and \u201cnot engage.\u201d We like to think that passive protests, protests without deeds or words, are a thing of peaceful power.<\/p>\n

We are wrong. Even Gandhi believed in refusing to bow one\u2019s head\u2014even at the cost of one\u2019s life. And he wasn\u2019t alone; or did you forget the thousands who supported him?<\/p>\n

As long as good people are willing to remain silent\u2014to look the other way, shrug and laugh and say, \u201cIt\u2019s just trolls,\u201d then people like me are forced to write things like this<\/a>. As long as people are content to passively protest sexism just <\/em>by not engaging in it, people like me will continue to feel unsafe at cons<\/a>,\u00a0 on the street, at parties and in bars, in the movie theater, and\u2014thanks to the pervasive abuse, in our own homes. (Side note: the first person to suggest that there\u2019s no reason to be \u201cthat hysterical\u201d gets a goddamn boot in the back of a Volkswagen<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

In the industry I work in, I found that when authors\u2014primarily men, but not always\u2014thought I was a reader, they were all too happy to talk with me about various sci-fi and fantasy subjects, geek hobbies, and the like. As soon as the dreaded, \u201cWhat do you do?\u201d question cropped up, I\u2019d answer, \u201cOh, I write romance!\u201d That shut the conversation down. At the nicest, I received a very sweet(ly condescending), \u201cThat\u2019s great, honey, good luck with that.\u201d At the worst, a laugh and, \u201cOh, Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n

So I learned how to talk about what I write in ways that don\u2019t use the word \u201cromance\u201d. I spoke of action and adventure, crazy conspiracies, love and loss, blood and murder. At least three different times, men have asked me with great interest where they could acquire my books. When they realized Avon was the publisher, I was given eerily similar versions of: \u201cOh, I thought it was a real book.\u201d<\/p>\n

I have been forced to endure painfully personal questions about my sex life, my fantasies, any regrets that I\u2019m married to a single man and can\u2019t really<\/em> experience all that\u2019s out there to write about it\u2014\u201cwrite what you know,\u201d to this day, remains one of my most violent rage triggers.<\/p>\n

You know what I don\u2019t hear? Anyone asking George R. R. Martin if the rape sequences in Game of Thrones<\/em> is based on personal experience. I don\u2019t hear anyone credible asking John Scalzi if the RT Reviewer\u2019s Choice Award is a real<\/em> award, anyway.\u00a0 I don\u2019t hear anyone critiquing Jim C. Hines for his outfit, Neil Gaiman for his lack of makeup of hair products. No one is asking Chuck if the sex in Blackbird<\/em> is a fantasy of his\u2014or if his spouse is laying him regularly.<\/p>\n

You know what I\u2019m asked? If I write \u201caggressive men\u201d in my books, and if that\u2019s because I have a secret fantasy of being raped. I have been asked if I write myself into all my heroines, because I just want a man to save me\u2014or dominate me. I\u2019m asked if my husband supports me by helping me \u201cblock out my sex scenes\u201d. I\u2019m asked if he\u2019s \u201cokay\u201d with me being a writer\u2014as if it\u2019s a personal hobby or darling quirk. One fellow laughed when he heard how crazy my deadlines can be, expressing concern that I\u2019m not \u201cputting out\u201d enough for my husband to make his tolerance of my writing worth it.<\/p>\n

You know what I\u2019m not<\/em> asked? If men can put their hands on me\u2014which they then proceed to do. Why? Because the pervasive mentality is that men write and women \u201cengage in a hobby.\u201d That we\u2019re there to \u201cspruce up the place,\u201d to be \u201ctoken girls,\u201d to give an appearance <\/em>of inclusion without having to actually commit. I am a piece of decorative furniture, there to give the audience\u2014comprised of men and women, because money is money, no matter the wallet it comes from\u2014something nice to look at. \u201cLook, ladies, here\u2019s one of you sitting among us real authors! Guys, don\u2019t worry about her, we won\u2019t ask her anything too tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the atmosphere that needs to change. Just as Chuck is not your toy\u2014not your \u201ctoken beard\u201d to be admired, not your manmeat waiting with bated breath to be told how nice he looks in a swim suit\u2014neither am I. Neither are any of the women writing and reading and gaming in this industry.<\/p>\n

We Need Your Help<\/h1>\n

Change does not happen in a vacuum. For every person refusing to go out of your way to give a book written by a woman a chance, that\u2019s a voice held in check, silent against the hatred and oppression barring our way.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t need gender-blindness, we need awareness<\/em>. We need help. Not talking about it, not acknowledging the problem, only feeds the same trolls hammering us down. As long as good men and women remain silent, convinced they\u2019re not part of the problem, we don\u2019t have the support we need to stand up to the misogynists shouting us down.<\/p>\n

One day, we all<\/em> will be on a level playing field, and then we can afford to be blind. One day, \u00a0women will be recognized for the qualities of their work and not the qualities of their bodies, one day people of color will be referenced first by their accomplishments and not by their heritage, one day LGBTQ people will be lauded for their achievements and not what they do in the bedroom\u2014but this is not that day.<\/p>\n

My plea: Give books written by women and games by and featuring women a chance. Give them the same chance you\u2019d give a new genre, a new type of story, a game in general. Maybe you\u2019re picking it up because it\u2019s in your favorite genre and<\/em> it\u2019s written by a woman, maybe you\u2019re reading it because some old guy said it was trash and<\/em> because it\u2019s written by a woman. Whatever the reason, let the motive for passing it on be this: it\u2019s a damn good book or game, and you\u2019d like to see more women who create like this get the same opportunities men already have<\/em><\/a> to share it.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t about wars on the internet. It\u2019s about acceptance\u2014going a little further to give people struggling against obvious and sometimes violent oppression a helping hand. Where will it start, if not with you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like I said last week, I think part of the role of men in the discussions against sexism and misogyny is to be a signal booster — to help get the word of others out. Karina Cooper — author of the Dark Mission and St. Croix Chronicles books — said she wanted to continue the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-4ZW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19216"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19220,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19216\/revisions\/19220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}