Helix SF has all-woman issue and nobody notices

[james_davis_nicoll]

To quote William Sanders:

There's been a lot of talk in the SF community - some of it rather intemperate, as always happens in such cases - about "gender bias" in the genre or in certain magazines, about the largely estrogen-challenged Hugo list, etc. You'd think that there would be a favorable reaction when a magazine comes out with an all-women's issue. Realistically, I don't expect it's going to happen, to any great extent - that's how it goes, people yell and scream about something and then when somebody does something about it they don't have a word to say - but somebody ought to say SOMETHING.

(seen via secritcrush)

I have something to say about this:

Part of the lack of public reaction to this might be related to the fact that Analog, that stodgiest of stodgy SF magazines, had their all-woman issue in June 1977.



[Added later]

Actually, because of the realities of publishing (and more to the point, the desire not to piss off readers by interrupting serials) there were a couple of betesticled ringers in there:

The Screwfly Solution • shortstory by James Tiptree, Jr. [as by Raccoona Sheldon ]
The Ax • shortfiction by Jayge Carr
Salamander • shortstory by Leigh Kennedy
Lord of All It Surveys • shortstory by Alison Tellure
Eyes of Amber • (1977) • novelette by Joan D. Vinge
After the Festival (Part 3 of 4) • serial by George R. R. Martin
"And Then There Were Nine..." • essay by Trudy E. Bell
Biolog: Trudy E. Bell • essay by Jay Kay Klein
Tunnel Visionaries • essay by Teri Rapoport

Comments

[annafdd.livejournal.com]

Plus, after all the wells he's pissed into, I don't suppose a lot of people are paying too much attention to Sanders.

[jwgh]

I'm not sure what Sanders thinks people should be saying about this.

Although looking down in the newsgroup discussion I see that a lot of it is taken up by him apologizing to people who did, in fact, mention it in their blogs and such.

[zeborah]

I saw a few people saying they'd mentioned it; and I saw him replying to say, "Oh yes, but you're the only one," and "Oh yes, but you were involved in the magazine," and "Oh yes, and I forgot so-and-so - but no-one commented on their post," and "Oh yes, but either they didn't link to the magazine or their readers didn't follow the link so it's not in my statcounter," and "Oh yes, but _the people who dissed me last time_ haven't said a word. (Oh, and a demand that people renew their metaphorical subscription.) But I haven't actually seen what might be termed an apology, per se. Have I missed something? It's possible; either there are missing posts or the threading's screwed up, at least in my view of the discussion.

[jwgh]

No, that's about it. You're quite right, 'apology' is a bit of an exaggeration.

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

Well, I think what he'd really like is a link to the magazine in, say, this or Chance's journal so that we click through to it, show up on the tracking details, and he can thus discover that we're talking about him. Remember that he's not all that great with the new fangled internet, and can probably only manage to track the most basic stuff, not the fancier things that might lead him to that which he wants to find (by which, of course, I mean his name or references to his name. :)

[jwgh]

I think you're right. He says here: "Interesting fact: our tracker is showing practically no hits coming from that blog page." Of course, that's because secritcrush didn't link to Helix's website.

He likewise seems to suggest that Secritcrush should be grateful because he linked to her blog, thereby driving up traffic, which is the same kind of thinking in reverse.

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

Oh noes! Beth Bernobich is going to unfriend her now!

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

Well, hell. Thirty years ago isn't that long. That's around the time Star Wars came out.

It sure seems like yesterday to me, but then I went to see Star Wars on my eighteenth birthday.

[lauriemann.livejournal.com]

I went to see it on my honeymoon.
With Jim, of course, and other folks in our SF club.

I guess what I find troublesome about the "all gender/all the time" theme is that we shouldn't "normally" have all male/all female versions of almost anything. I noticed that there were quite a few women in the last Helix, but I didn't double-check every name. OTOH, I've seen a depressing number of all male magazine issues over the last thirty years so...

As you know

[redbird]

Tiptree isn't a "betesticled ringer," since the actual person behind the name was a woman, Alice Sheldon. (I mention this only because of your phrasing on that list; there's no question that Martin and Klein are men.)

Re: As you know

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

That's funny, I saw by James Tiptree, Jr. [as by Raccoona Sheldon ] and completely misread it because I know who Tiptree really was.

Re: As you know

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

Betesticled ringer: a small, mischievous monkey noted for its rude behavior in public.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Wow, that cover is a lot uglier than I remembered it. I think I must have been thinking of this EoA cover:

[le-trombone.livejournal.com]

Hmm, can't agree with you, but then I have the magazine too and I'll say that the scan that you have is pretty murky (well, murkier, since the artist is portraying a fairly thick and murky atmosphere). Besides, the Analog cover gets major points for accurately portraying a scene in the story.