Best Sci Fi and Fantasy writers when it comes to fighting sexism and racism

Liosse de Velishaf said:

I was thinking more of the depth and detail he went into. Few modern story worlds have the actually worked-out written-down history behind them that Tolkien had for LOTR.

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Exactly. Whether you like Tolkien or not, the man certainly knew how to create an entire world in the literal sense. For some it's effective and for others it isn't, but the man managed to create a living, breathing mythose. Personally that's why I love his work, because it feels like a real world and is in the hearts and minds of many the world over. That's something I aspire to do myself, create something that lives and breaths. If anyone asked me who was on my shortlist of all time greatest SFF worldbuilding, I would have to put him at the top of the list. Not because he is the best writer in the world, though I do love his work. But because of his attention to detail and dedication to the world he created.

I personally think his dedication is a great lesson for any aspiring writer who wants to write a series, even though LOTR was not written as such.

Amadan said:

Probably 80% or more of my favorite SF authors are white males. I think I read pretty broadly and I certainly don't avoid authors who aren't white males. But the body of work that exists in SF, even recent SF, is still pretty heavily stacked in that direction. I doubt my favorites are wildly disproportionate to the ratio among published SF writers.

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There are probably more than you think. I seem to remember reading somewhere that the ratio is closer to 30-40% female writers for trade published SF and approaching 50%, at least, for fantasy. There may be differences between the US and the UK here, however, with a higher percentage of women in the US.

But darn it, my google search is not tossing up the reference I found last summer that listed the percentages of male and female fantasy and SF novels being published in various subgenres.

Approximately 40% of the membership of the SFWA is female. Of course, it includes people who have successfully published short fiction in pro markets as well as novelists, and this doesn't differentiate between SF and F. The membership of this organization might not be representative either, since it's possible that one gender or the other is more likely to join.

The thing is, a lot of people seem to think that female SFF writers are few and far between, but they're really not. Why is this? I think it's reasonable to hypothesize that female writers may be facing greater hurdles when it comes to being "discoverable" than male writers do.

For one thing, there's an issue with female SFF authors being less likely to be reviewed at all by the various publications that review SFF titles.

Strange Horizons does a yearly survey of this (2011 and 2012 results linked below).

The 2011 article also suggests that there's a difference between SFF books published in the US and the UK, with the US having greater gender equality than the UK for some reason. But a disproportionate number of books by men are reviewed by SF and F publications and discussed.

http://www.strangehorizons.com/blog/2011/03/the_sf_count.shtml

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2013/20130422/2sfcount-a.shtml

Buffysquirrel said:

ETA: But I confess I am weary almost unto death of the endless misogyny and sexism in so much SFF.

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Are you weary of it in particular in SFF or... in general?

Amadan said:

I guess they never heard of Robert E. Howard...

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Or Leiber, or Moorcock, or Donaldson, or Rawn, or...

But everyone knows that woman-written fantasy in particular only contains rainbow-farting unicorns, were seals, and stealth romances.

Roxxsmom said:

Or Leiber, or Moorcock, or Donaldson, or Rawn, or...

But everyone knows that woman-written fantasy in particular only contains rainbow-farting unicorns, were seals, and stealth romances.

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Were-seals sound pretty cool, actually.

Roxxsmom said:

Some I've enjoyed include

Glenda Larke
Lynn Flewelling
Barbara Hambley
Kate Elliott
CJ Cherryh

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Even though I really enjoy most of Lynn Flewelling's books, she does get things sorta-wrong in her portrayal of gay and transgender characters. I applaud her mainstreaming them in her books, but the fact she doesn't know this stuff first-hand does tend to show.

In the first Tamar book, the main character is a girl growing up in a boy's body, but Tamar never questions the fact she's a boy. From what I've heard, a lot of transgender people know from very early on -- like, four or five years of age -- that they're in the wrong body.

In the first Nightrunner books, Alec is portrayed as basically straight and Seregil is portrayed as basically gay. Then Alec ends up in love with Seregil, and he hardly ever looks at a woman again. That was never very believable to me -- and it's even kind of creepy given the HUGE age difference between the two. (Alec is sixteen; Seregil is about ninety, although that's considered young for his species.)

jjdebenedictis said:

Even though I really enjoy most of Lynn Flewelling's books, she does get things sorta-wrong in her portrayal of gay and transgender characters. I applaud her mainstreaming them in her books, but the fact she doesn't know this stuff first-hand does tend to show.

In the first Tamar book, the main character is a girl growing up in a boy's body, but Tamar never questions the fact she's a boy. From what I've heard, a lot of transgender people know from very early on -- like, four or five years of age -- that they're in the wrong body.

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This was the biggest problem I had with this book also. I otherwise liked it a great deal.

Now I do suspect that there are people, maybe even a lot of people, who could go either way with regards to gender identity. I'm pretty sure I would have been just as happy had I been born in a boy's body (and if a magic fairy came along and gave me a chance to live male for a while, I'd take it just to see what it was like), though I don't have any trouble identifying as female (though there are specific things about the assigned female role I rebel against) and I think I remember reading something Flewelling wrote saying she was similar this way.

But being suddenly switched without one's consent even would probably have taken a lot of adjustment, even if Tamir was one of those people who could adapt to being either male or female. And the lived experiences of so many people who are transgender and feel like they are trapped in a body that doesn't suit them also means the author missed a chance to touch more clearly on that issue.

I wonder if she'd write it the same way now that the issues faced by people who are transgender are more in the public awareness, at least in speculative fiction writing circles.

jjdebenedictis said:

In the first Nightrunner books, Alec is portrayed as basically straight and Seregil is portrayed as basically gay. Then Alec ends up in love with Seregil, and he hardly ever looks at a woman again. That was never very believable to me -- and it's even kind of creepy given the HUGE age difference between the two. (Alec is sixteen; Seregil is about ninety, although that's considered young for his species.)

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Yep. I agree that this was something that could have been portrayed better. I wonder if she would write it differently now, since there's been quite a shift in public awareness about these issues in general, and they're discussed a lot more often among SFF writers of a more progressive mindset nowadays.

But this is an example of how something can be great in some ways but still less than perfect. It's a particularly frustrating thing when one likes something that's both progressive and problematic.

A lot of stuff that was considered fairly progressive in the mainstream a decade or two ago is now seen as a lot less so now that the public has become more aware. I can think of tons of shows I used to love that I now realize are somewhat problematic, and I know a similar realization has caused a great deal of blow-back and roiling in the SFF community as a whole.

It's similar to other ways in which a book can be stellar in some areas (plot, say) and awful in others (characters, for example).

Springs2 said:

Bujold is very good at diversity - Vorkosigan confronts it on many levels. Cordelia Naismith is an interesting example - independent but forced, through love, to conform to a patrichal society, she changes it as much as it changes her.

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My favorite Bujold book for female journey of self discovery is Paladin of Souls. Though I recommend reading Curse of Chalion first. Both are excellent books. Bujold is a very very good author.

C.J. Cherryh is one underrated science fiction and fantasy author. She just flat out invents complex sociological situations in the far future, or even entirely alien societies, in ways that would shame Frank Herbert or J.R.R. Tolkien because she did it over and over again, with totally different societies, cultures and milieus in every series. Jack Vance is really the only other one I can think of who is as effortlessly creative at world-building, and they have different styles as writers.

Sometimes she can be a little dry and textbookish, yes, especially in her later works, but reading her is like reading an instruction manual in world-building. Iain Banks is more visionary, Peter Hamilton is more gripping, Ursula K. Le Guin is more popular, but Cherryh has a quiet power that at times outshines them all.

As far as "Ismism" goes, like many authors already mentioned on this thread she was ahead of the curve, but science fiction always has been.

Roxxsmom said:

The thing is, a lot of people seem to think that female SFF writers are few and far between, but they're really not. Why is this? I think it's reasonable to hypothesize that female writers may be facing greater hurdles when it comes to being "discoverable" than male writers do.

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I don't think they're few and far between, but they are still a relatively small number, particularly when you limit it to novel writers, and especially when limited to writers of the sort of SF novels I like to read.

Which is not to say I'm not a fan of any women SF writers, but I don't apologize for the fact that most of my favorites are men.

Amadan said:

I don't think they're few and far between, but they are still a relatively small number, particularly when you limit it to novel writers, and especially when limited to writers of the sort of SF novels I like to read.

Which is not to say I'm not a fan of any women SF writers, but I don't apologize for the fact that most of my favorites are men.

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Don't apologize for your tastes. We all like what we like.

I'm just saying it's a shame if you're not finding writers (of either gender) you might enjoy because they're not being reviewed, promoted, blogged about, talked about, put on display in book stores, recommended to friends or on fantasy and SF-focused boards and so on as often as their male counterparts.

While discoverability is an issue for all new writers these days, there is some evidence that it's more of an issue for female writers. Hence the (mis)conception that female writers of SF and F are more of a minority than they actually are.

Around 45% of the novels received by Locus in 2012 are written by women.

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2013/20130422/2sfcount-a.shtml

The number that sticks in my mind for female SFF writers is around 40-45% or so of the total number of SFF novels being published, with the numbers a bit higher for fantasy and a bit lower for SF. There are also differences between the US and UK, with the US having more women SFF authors overall. I'm having a hell of a time finding that reference now, however. I think it was an article on the SFWA site (or linked there), but eee, recreating the exact wording of google searches from months ago is not my forte.

I found one that was specific to Australia, which puts female writers of SFF to be over 50% overall, with a higher percentage of women writing fantasy (62%), and a higher percentage of men writing SF (57%). Horror seems to be heavily male (82%).

Of course, there will be gender differences between subgenres. If you mostly read harder SF, you may have fewer woman authors at your disposal. Maybe only around 30-35%. If you read UF, you may actually have more female writers. If you read secondary world fantasy, there may be a more even split.

But if you think women are only writing 20% of speculative fiction novels overall, then I think it proves my point, since they do write far more than that.

There are some lines of evidence that female authors are not getting promoted and reviewed in numbers that are representative of their participation in the field. This would present a barrier to discoverability.

http://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2014/02/waterstones-fail-to-recognise-female.html

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2013/20130422/2sfcount-a.shtml

http://www.sfwa.org/2011/06/guest-post-checking-the-gender-balance/

I remember reading another post here on AW where readers commented that women don't write in the genre. This is my ranty post about the subject:

http://www.fantasybookcafe.com/2014/04/women-in-sff-month-beth-bernobich/

Roxxsmom said:

But if you think women are only writing 20% of speculative fiction novels overall, then I think it proves my point, since they do write far more than that.http://www.sfwa.org/2011/06/guest-post-checking-the-gender-balance/

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No, if you include urban fantasy, paranormal romance, and fantasy in general, I'm sure it's much higher than 20%. But my tastes lean more towards SF than fantasy, and more towards hard/military SF and space opera. There are of course women writing in those sub-genres, but 20% does not sound far off.

Hapax Legomenon said:

Are you weary of it in particular in SFF or... in general?

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In general. But in particular in SFF, which is supposed to be my escapey-place full of imagination and difference....

Amadan said:

But my tastes lean more towards SF than fantasy, and more towards hard/military SF and space opera. There are of course women writing in those sub-genres, but 20% does not sound far off.

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I suspect there are more women writing in those sub-genres than are being published in them.

Roxxsmom said:

I suspect there are more women writing in those sub-genres than are being published in them.

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Well, there are more men writing in those sub-genres than are being published in them too.

I doubt the ratio is much different there either.

Alessandra Kelley said:

LOL, agree. I would in fact say he was beyond awful at women characters, as was Heinlein.

I agree about Ursula LeGuin as a good example. Octavia Butler is amazing. Also would recommend Sheri Tepper, Carol Emshwiller, Nnedi Okorafor, Nalo Hopkinson, and Pamela Sargent.

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LeGuin is a great writer, but I don't think she writes men particularly well. (Or rather, I think she only writes well about a particular type of man.) Sherri Tepper has the same problem, and a few others.

Heinlein wrote skeevy female characters, I agree, but one must admit that for his time, he at least wrote women who did things.

Asimov's characters were all cardboard, but his women were barely even characters.

ULTRAGOTHA said:

My favorite Bujold book for female journey of self discovery is Paladin of Souls. Though I recommend reading Curse of Chalion first. Both are excellent books. Bujold is a very very good author.

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Yes! It's pretty rare to find a main female character not doing man things and having that much agency, particularly an older female character.

Hapax Legomenon said:

Yes! It's pretty rare to find a main female character not doing man things and having that much agency, particularly an older female character.

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I don't want to derail the thread (I seem to be in this position a lot lately) but what the heck are "man things"?

Atalanta said:

I don't want to derail the thread (I seem to be in this position a lot lately) but what the heck are "man things"?

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Probably not the best way to phrase it but there are so, so many fantasy stories out there where the main character is either the only woman/one of a very few women who goes out and fights/does something in her world that is normally associated with men, as if that's the only way she can be interesting enough to carry a whole novel.

It's not extremely rare to not do that but yeah, that's what I meant.

I suspect by “Man things” Hapax Legomenon may mean fighting and quests and swashbuckling. I think women can do those things, too and there are really good books about just that that I also like (the Steerswoman books by Rosemary Kirstein. Read them now!!!). But Paladin of Souls is something special. (Though do read The Curse of Chalion first. It’s really good, too and although it isn’t required to understand Paladin of Souls it’s convenient to have that background and it’s also a damned good book so why not?)

Ista, the heroine, is middle aged. Her children are grown and married or dead. She’s been emotionally crippled by grief, curses, guilt, and the aftermath (and foremath) of being a Saint of a Goddess. This books is not about an epic quest filled with her fighting and haring off all over the continent to find/loose/destroy/create/rescue the mcguffin. She starts her journey just to get away. A fake spiritual pilgrimage to run away from the horror and grief of her former life and to get out from under servants and companions set in the old “Ista is crazy” reaction patterns.

It turns into a real pilgrimage. She struggles against taking on the role she discovers and the God that wants her to do it; but the agency of both rejecting and …. what happens next is always and entirely her own. The Five Gods cannot compel or force, they can only persuade and hope, so all decisions are hers. All the decisions were always hers, which is part of why her earlier life was such a disaster.

She’s tough and smart and interesting. She fights to be in a position where her decisions matter. Her personal and spiritual growth is gripping to read and very unexpected in lots of places. It’s a fantastic book, one of the very best Bujold has written and her very best is incredibly good.


Cross Post!

Hapax Legomenon said:

Probably not the best way to phrase it but there are so, so many fantasy stories out there where the main character is either the only woman/one of a very few women who goes out and fights/does something in her world that is normally associated with men, as if that's the only way she can be interesting enough to carry a whole novel.

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Ah, okay. I only like those types of stories when the narrative directly addresses the MC's unusual position in some way. Many of them don't. I much prefer stories set in worlds where gender-equality is the norm. E.g., the MC is a warrior, but there are a lot of women warriors, so it's not a big deal.

zanzjan said:

The only definitive thing I could think of are those baseball hats with a beercan holder and a straw that dangles down around your face. Fortunately, #notallmanthings

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The first thing I thought of was something else that dangles, but we'll leave it at that.