james_davis_nicoll | As pointed out in email: " There are girl cooties on my space ship

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I really dislike playing the gender card, but when someone chucks a whole packet of cards in my face, it becomes harder to ignore.

OK, something happened and I’ll be really brief about it. The discussion went like this:

Me: I heard you are interested in hard SF
Publisher: yeah, we are, but… *looks uneasy*
Me: … if it’s written by a woman?
Publisher: yeah, I hate to say that, but yeah

Crossposts: http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/4322106.html

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

agent-mimi.livejournal.com

I'd love to get behind Patty on this, but prefacing her experience with sexism with multiple paragraphs dismissing sexism ever happens... yeah. Sounds very much like "sexism happened to me and it was real; when it happens to you, you're just blaming your lack of luck and persistence on external factors."

Also, I notice that in her paraphrased conversation, she jumped immediately to suspicions of sexism after two paragraphs telling us she never jumps immediately to suspicions of sexism. Someone in comments says she had an "outburst" on Twitter, too.

Yet I can't help but feel that if someone else had an outburst, she'd scold them for "agitating out loud" and "pointing fingers and crying, 'sexist'" unfairly.

EDIT: Oh, I see in comments she says "Women are to blame just as much as men" for sexism in the sciences, because they don't have the right interests and instead talk about "girlie things."

Is anyone actually reading what she wrote?

LAST EDIT (and sorry James for the multiple email notifications you get on edits!) -- I'm not saying she deserved sexism, by the way. Just that she was the victim of sexism while also being sexist herself, and enabling of the system that perpetuates sexism. Figured I'd better clarify that.

Edited Date: 2013-05-03 12:42 am (UTC)

From:

sinboy.livejournal.com

This

I dunno how not to see "In short, I really dislike playing the gender card, but when someone chucks a whole packet of cards in my face, it becomes harder to ignore." as "It's different when it happens to me."

There's a whole lot of "I'm a tough broad and feminists are whiny" packed into that blog post. I can't say I'm impressed with the lack of interest in solidarity, fixing things. She could start by admitting that the faceless (presumably feminist activist) women she accuses of "playing the gender card" were *right*. And she's wrong to use "playing the gender card" as some sort of mallet to bash people she sees as complaining too much.

From:

ethelmay.livejournal.com

I think this is actually the first time I've seen the usage "playing the gender card," and I'm hoping it doesn't become more common. I've only ever seen "race card," and I'm very, very, VERY tired of that (in fact have been known to mutter that there is no such thing, which may be going a bit far).

From:

agent-mimi.livejournal.com

She is indeed rocking the "exceptional woman" trope pretty hard.

Re: Your avatar: I just caught up on Oglaf last night! I'd left off at the "fucktopus" so I had a lot to read. NSFW but (or should I say and) an absolute joy of a comic.