In the wake of recent raging sexism in the science-fiction writers community, the SFWA has convened a task force to address the issues. It has the potential to be a good response, or a strategy for procrastination…we’ll just have to wait and see. It looks like some good progressive people on the committee, at least. John Scalzi has stepped up and accepted responsibility, which is also encouraging.

Meanwhile, the response is getting hot. Rachael Acks unleashes the fury, and so does SL Huang. That last post includes complete scans of the 6-page dialog from Resnick and Malzberg that elicited the anger. It’s an amazing piece of work: Resnick/Malzberg first brag about the sexist work that they’ve done in the past with no complaints (from women editors, even) and then whine at length about how they’re being censored and crucified by liberal fascists (Malzberg favorably cites talk radio and Sean Hannity for that one). It’s a pathetic spectacle.

They aren’t being censored. They’re being criticized for saying stupid things.

Does this sound familiar? What is it with old white guys who get all this respect and recognition as leaders in their fields, who then wilt into self-pitying whines of “witchhunt!” at any bad press, no matter how mild?

Here we go again. Read this letter from a former member of the Science Fiction Writers of America.

It began with issue #200 of the Bulletin—all right, #199 if we want to get technical. It began with the Resnick and Malzberg Dialogues, a long-time feature of the publication. It began when two men sat down to have a dialogue about editors and writers of the female gender. How fantastic, I thought, because I, being a writer and an editor and female, had a keen interest in such things. I love reading anthologies such as Women of Wonder (and its sequel) and seeing how women impacted and contributed to this forward-looking and -thinking genre I love. I hoped they might include the women who inspired me and introduce me to many I hadn’t yet discovered.

That’s not what I found. I found a dialogue that seemed more focused on how these “lady editors” and “lady writers” looked in bathing suits, and that they were “beauty pageant beautiful” or a “knock out.” I am certain no condescension was intended with the use of “lady,” but as the dialogues went on, I felt the word carried a certain tone—perhaps that was a fiction of my own making. As I listened to these two men talk about lady editors and writers they had known, I grew uneasy. Something wasn’t right.

That sounds so familiar. But wait, there’s more!

The editorial staff (headed by a woman) vowed to improve, to seek more membership input. Issue #201 was little better—it included an article, written by another man, that told women to emulate Barbie, to “maintain our quiet dignity as a woman should.” I could not believe those words—yet there they were, in black and white. I asked my friends again—was I mistaken? Was I simply taking these words out of context? They were surprised, appalled, outraged. First at the idea that someone felt such a thing, and next at the idea that SFWA published it in the magazine which is part of our public presence.

Be…like…Barbie? To an SF audience? I’m surprised I didn’t hear the loud splat of a world-wide Picard facepalm.

So the little ladies complained and complained and complained, and then the men who started this all replied. Quit picking on us men, they said!

Issue #202 brought with it a “rebuttal” from Malzberg and Resnick, in which they used the words “censorship,” and “suppression,” and “ban.” In which they said those who complained about their article were anonymous to them, that the SFWA forum had become “the arena for difference.” Was it members who objected to “apparent sexism,” or was it a larger, darker, more hostile and threatening thing that wanted to suppress their dialogues?

In all the complaints that were voiced, there was never a call for censorship. There was never a call for suppression. There was a call for respect.

Whoa, man, deja vu. Deja vu all over the place. And really, there’s nothing special at all about atheism/skepticism, is there?

I tell you, I’ve been tagged in a whole lot of email conversations lately, and there are a lot of women out there who are seething with fury at Ron Lindsay…and now Greta has stepped forward to express that anger at both the content and context of the introductory talk at Women in Secularism 2.

I have a reputation as undiplomatic and blunt, while Lindsay is supposedly an objective philosopher and lawyer, quite calm and cool. To put it mildly, his reputation has just taken a major hit. How could the leader of a secular organization screw up a short introduction to a conference so badly? Apparently, he charged in with the intention of giving the attendees a rhetorical slap in the face.

“removed from youtube”? What the ever-lovin’ fuck? I finished watching it, at least, and it is very grim: it points out the new tropes beyond rescuing the damsel. Many games now have you witnessing the grisly death of women to drive revenge stories, or have the woman suffering such extreme abuse that they ask the player to kill them to put them out of their misery.

So it is very violent — but it’s not Sarkeesian’s violence, she’s merely describing the repetitively vicious approach taken by many video games.