"Women Rise in Sci Fi (Again)"

[james_davis_nicoll]

(...) today, once again, society has this idea that women who write science fiction are a strange and interesting breed. In other words, today the community is having the same conversation it had in the ‘70s about women writing science fiction.

Comments

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

That vaguely makes sense, given how many other conversations regarding women and women's issues we seem to be having where the issues in question were -- I thought, at least -- conclusively settled in the 1970s...

Cynical? Me?

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

See Whatever Happened to Cyberpunk in today's Guardian".

Then see this comment left upon it:

[ " Cyberpunk (as a sales pitch for unconnected works, then as a prescription for How To Do It And Sell) is rather like the late 70s 'Disco Sucks' strop. SF in the late 1970s and early 1980s was getting interesting, with women, gay writers and people from ethnic minorities bringing their world-building skills and a literary sensibility to work in synch rather than against each other.

Obviously, a lot of nerdy white boys wanted an end to this monstrous regiment and, when Gibson happened, this looked like a suitable bulwark. The self-serving mythology, mainly from Bruce Sterling, is that the Movement With No Name (as some of them preferred to call it) 'saved' SF from becoming contaminated any further. The same way Sigue Sigue Sputnik 'saved' rock.

Gibson and Sterling wrote 'The Difference Engine' to try and make clear what 'Neuromancer' was really about, the Douglas Hofstadter stuff that everyone missed concerning Wintermute, but that too got turned into a sales-formula that ossified. " ]

Also -- where is Susie Charnas in that list?

Women are always needing to re-invent the wheel.

Love, C.