Sexism in publishing

Venusian Broon

Venusian Broon

Defending the SF genre with terminal intensity
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Here's an article that was in today's Guardian that has relevance for our community I think:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/06/catherine-nichols-female-author-male-pseudonym

They quote from a Catherine Nicols blog post (it's linked in the above article, but I thought I'd pull it out because its good to read), titled 'What I learned sending my novel out under a male name'. Essentially when using her real name she got 1 request out of 25 attempts for a follow-up submitting her manuscript to an agent, however when she sent out her work again under a male nom de plume she got 17 requests for follow-up out of 50 agents:

http://jezebel.com/homme-de-plume-what-i-learned-sending-my-novel-out-und-1720637627

In her blog post Catherine does try and rationalise her experiment without resorting to claiming outright Sexism, but it reads to me that it seems to be the root cause.

Thoughts? Is it even more pronounced in the more male-centric genre of SF*, say?


---------------------------

* It is my perception that has been and is now, I'm pretty sure I can pull down survey on writer gender and readership preferences that show that.
 
Well , that's depressing statistics. I'm going to start sending my novel around next month, I guess I'd better update the query to sound gender-neutral (since my pen name already is).
I've seen numerous mentions of such descrimination... I guess its because men are condidered the main target audience for sci fi, and they may be reluctant to try female writers...
 
As Ray pointed out, and I think Boneman? Romance may be just as sexist. Just the other way around.
 
Romance is just as skewed but I think there is a key difference - whilst some men do read romance, the vast majority of readers are female.

That is not the case with SFF. There is a bias of 60-40 male-female readership but because women tend to read more that bias is wiped out and readership of sff (I've never seen it broken down into sf vs fantasy, which might tell a different picture) is about fifty-fifty.

So, having to take a female name to make it when the majority of your readership is female is different from having to take a male name when half your readership aren't male. That's bias. Pure and simple.

I'm lucky - I've encountered only support in my journey (but we come again to why I chose to be Jo and not Joanne - and Jo not Joe - and all the little nuances within that) but I do encounter people surprised I write sf. Mostly intrigued as opposed to anti it, to be fair. But still surprised.

Mostly I think it's a sad reflection on a genre that's supposed to look to the future and be progressive.
 
Quellist said:
As Ray pointed out, and I think Boneman? Romance may be just as sexist. Just the other way around.
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I wonder why romance should be sextist. Not that I read it, but a man written romace sounds interesting. Its easier to believe that men don't write it rather then that they are rejected. After all it's supposed to be written from a female point of view, and a man would sound fake...
 
Jackie Bee said:
I wonder why romance should be sextist. Not that I read it, but a man written romace sounds interesting. Its easier to believe that men don't write it rather then that they are rejected. After all it's supposed to be written from a female point of view, and a man would sound fake...
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There are a surprising number of male romance writers, actually. So they must be faking it quite well ;) :)
 
About a 1/3rd of successful romance writers are supposed to be men with women's names.

Jackie Bee said:
After all it's supposed to be written from a female point of view, and a man would sound fake...
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Lots of Women can write good male characters and vice versa.

Did anyone ever claim the majority of Mills & Boon or Harlequin etc are actually well written?

Have you read lots of male main POV books by women and vice versa?
However I started with Mary Stewart and gradually been reading more "mainstream" Romance authors. Read my first "Mills & Boon" (a Rachel Ford, about 1990) last night. Less sex than I expected for 1990.
 
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Jo Zebedee said:
That is not the case with SFF. There is a bias of 60-40 male-female readership but because women tend to read more that bias is wiped out and readership of sff (I've never seen it broken down into sf vs fantasy, which might tell a different picture) is about fifty-fifty.
Click to expand...

I do remember reading some survey and the breakdown is that SF is male dominated readership and F is getting to be female dominated, so putting the two together gives you about 50/50 (I think, I stand to be corrected!)

EDIT - oh and I also think that Fantasy as a genre is much bigger than SF, so if Fantasy is 60/40 Female/Male readers it could easily cover up a 20/80 split in SF. Again I'm taking these figures off the top of my head and could be way out!
 
Why would a female character written by a male sound fake?
 
Quellist said:
Why would a female character written by a male sound fake?
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Not in a general ficton, but in romance they describe pretty specific physical and emotional stuff. What it feels like for a girl kind of stuff :) Anyway, people here have pointed out that many male romance writers do it well, so I guess I was wrong...
 
I can say that none of the characters, female or otherwise in the more "traditional" Romance novels I've read strike me as being like real people (or girls / women) I know. But of course all fiction would be boring if the characters were totally realistic. It seems less formulaic than most people that haven't read romance think. Of course there is difference between Chicklit, Women's Fiction (AKA Fiction written for Women) and the Romance Novel proper. The Romance novel does seem to be always from single female POV and usually end with HEA, and often a Wedding.
My research isn't complete yet. What she thinks and what she thinks he thinks seems to be more important than the physical intimacy. In the older books (before 1970s) they may not even spend much time together till the last few chapters. Georgette Hayer seems the most formulaic one* so far with a few being much older men, girls initially in teens and either pretending to be boys or tom-boyish. Some of hers are quite different. I've read multiple titles per author but only about 10 Authors so far. So too small a sample so far. :)
The main POV in some of my SF is a woman. The main criticism in 1st draft from women readers was "I don't like her". Current version she isn't disliked. I need a wider range of female readers. I need Teen Beta readers, esp some Female. No Teen beta readers yet for any of my 8 stories of the last year (Jorath's Quest in 1993 had teen readers as my Kids still in Teens then!)

[* I feel would be easy to "copy", but that would be like doing a Hardy Boys Or Famous Five. Why would I? The Bride of Pendorric Victoria Holt, really Eleanor Hibbert is like a bad copy of Rebecca, some of her others seem better. Daphne Du Maurier was hardly a conventional Romance writer]
 
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Unfortunately if I tried romance it would most likely end up with a gunfight, funerals and tears. Possibly aboard a sentient spaceship with dreams of galactic domination.
 
I also prefer violence to romance. Which may explain why I'm single.
 
I submit short science fiction stories to various magazines for consideration. Rejections are usually polite standard e-mails or helpful critique. Neither of these cause me concern.

But sometimes I get rejections whose timing and/or tone of voice make me wonder if it was an automatic rejection... and was it because of my name that clearly indicates I'm a female?

If we didn't have all this botherations demonstrating beyond doubt that female science fiction writers are being treated unfairly, then the question would not even pop into my mind. But like it not, there now are two magazines that I'm extremely unwilling to submit to as a result of this suspicion.


PS Before anyone asks... the science in the science fiction is based on my engineering experience... so that is not an issue...
 
Quellist said:
Unfortunately if I tried romance it would most likely end up with a gunfight, funerals and tears. Possibly aboard a sentient spaceship with dreams of galactic domination.
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I think I just read the beta draft of that.
Why "unfortunately"? Starwars made lots of money :)
 
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