Oh people, my people....

[lagilman]

ETA: and now people have decided that attacking and shaming me is the acceptable response to this post. People, "they're allowed to have strong feelings but you aren't" isn't helping the situation. I have not "gone after" anyone (in fact, the only person I've gone after was the author of the original article). I vented my own feelings on the topic, and my disappointment and crankiness that people have left over this, and at the same time ignored the good that's being done, too.  Trying to shame me for that does not win you debate points.




So this weekend a bit of a nasty kerfuffle started in SFWA because of an unfortunate article published in the SFWA Bulletin.

I won't go into details, but suffice it to say that an older member of SFWA who has repeatedly revealed a rather wide streak of misogyny and arrogance took offense at other members calling him on it, and reacted badly (i.e. threw a temper tantrum). Apparently this older member has not realized that freedom of speech also means other people have the right to call you on your asshattedness. In public.

The SFWA board acted swiftly, not to punish anyone for their right to speech (we still believe in that) but to make sure that more editorial oversight is exercised over what is printed in an official SFWA communication. They also took responsibility for not previously exercising that oversight, and plans are underway to make sure that this doesn't happen again.

As a SFWA member, personally, I'm satisfied that the Board is doing what it should to protect SFWA going forward (sadly, we can't boot members for being asshats unless they cross a certain legal line). However, as I'm sure everyone can imagine, this has not stopped people on both sides from deciding to turn this into a mudfight and/or leaving SFWA in a huff.

IMGO, leaving SFWA because we (alas) have asshats in the organization makes me wonder if those people are also going to leave the human race. I think that's a fair question?

This is particularly grating on a week when some of us have spent our time volunteering to make sure that the SFWA booth at Book Expo America (BEA) runs smoothly, and our members are well-represented to the publishing industry (including librarians, bloggers, and audiobook people, etc). This kerfuffle has totally overshadowed any mention of what we're doing, and I may be a bit cranky about that.

Comments

[oldcharliebrown.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, no, this has been going on for years, and people have complained for as long, privately, and somewhat publicly, with no progress. This time it went public, and suddenly we have change. This didn't blow out from one issue, but a number of issues. It came about by a multitude of transgressions, which were ignored by SFWA for a number of reasons, and it finally hit a boiling point. With a task force in place, perhaps something can be done, now.

[lagilman]

Yes, SFWA has definitely had a problem, and it's not only the older men causing it - the incident of the overly-sexist cover most recently was one, and one that people spoke out about, immediately. The Bulletin has long been problematic, and people have been discussing it for a while now.

However, saying the issues were "ignored" is both unfair and untrue. The results may not have been visible to the public, but there hasn't been a culture of ignoring these issues in at least two and possibly three administrations. Mainly because people stepped up and took charge and said "this needs to change." We've already taken steps to make the SFWA spaces safer, and not allow the recent convention crap to happen in our official areas. And other things that are ongoing.

Unfortunately, as I said in my original post, we don't have the ability to toss a member just because they're an asshat. If I'd been the Bulletin editor, would I have let the recent articles go? No. I would have kicked it back so hard the writers would have spun like tops. I don't think there's ANY disagreement in this thread on that matter.

[oldcharliebrown.livejournal.com]

Oh, I definitely agree to your last point. I place most of the blame at Jean Rabe's feet. It was so stupid that I'm still surprised she signed off on it. And now we have to clean up the mess.

[neoguardian.livejournal.com]

Other, dissenting opinions were given equal space.

So those other, dissenting opinions were paid the same amount of money per word for their responses as the two guys who wrote the column? Or they'll be writing a column of rebuttal at an equal pay rate in a future issue? Forgive me if these are silly questions, I really don't know much about the inner workings of the SFWA. Not trying to start a fight, just trying to understand.

[lagilman]

I'm not sure why money paid is an issue for you, but anyone who pitches an article gets paid .07/word (last time I checked). The article in question was a long running (and in my opinion useless, but I've been saying that for a while) column covering a range of topics, but mostly ranting.

My specific example was that Jim Hines' article about problematic gender cover images and treatment of women ran in the same issue (I haven't read the article yet, because my ulcer won't let me open the Bulletin again any time soon, but other people have mentioned it).