As a woman writing horror, I get a certain kind of disgust from other women in my life that I wouldn't get if I were a man. Until I read Seanan McGuire's FEED I was honestly stuck comparing myself with the successful men of the genre, because all the women who wrote horror that I knew of had been dead for a century.
If spending one month recommending awesome female writers, movies, directors, and horror movies with fantastic female actresses can put another girl like I was in touch with a book, or movie, or play that makes her feel like it's okay to be herself, and that she doesn't have to feel like a girl trying to forge a path where she's unwanted, that's ace. That's why I participate in the Women in Horror month.
But if you want to take the time to discuss the greater issues, that's fine, too. And anyone who doesn't see why this isn't important hasn't received THAT look enough. The one that people give you when you say you're a writer and they clearly expect you, because you are small and cute, to say your genre is romance and instead you say horror.
It's an issue in society. It's an issue amongst professionals at conferences. And it's not one we often talk about, because really, it gets dull. One month? Not a bad time frame.
Moving on to more interesting topics, I'm on a ghost kick again. I need more ghost movies. I swear there are like four good ones, in the history of movies.