The whole reason people wanted women on the cover boils down to "because it's wrong to have men and women not equally represented", right?
Not for me, actually. In my opinion, the major issue is that the publishers are misrepresenting an anthology with a gender-balanced and, for lack of a better term, fame-balanced TOC as being full of male BNAs. As a secondary issue, they seem to be mostly ignoring people who say "I wouldn't buy this because it looks like it's full of male BNAs", even though those people would in theory be the target audience for a gender-balanced fame-balanced anthology. I don't think false advertising in the name of reaching (which is to say, tricking) a broader audience is a good business strategy, and I don't think dismissing the concerns of people who arguably represent your core group of readers is a good business strategy. I also don't think it's ethical, but I'm not trying to argue it on ethical grounds.
I really don't like tokenism or quotas and you will never see me advocating them. In my opinion, the only reason the cover names should be gender-balanced is because the TOC is gender-balanced and the cover should fairly represent the book.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: More thinky
Date: 2007-09-05 01:26 am (UTC)The whole reason people wanted women on the cover boils down to "because it's wrong to have men and women not equally represented", right?
Not for me, actually. In my opinion, the major issue is that the publishers are misrepresenting an anthology with a gender-balanced and, for lack of a better term, fame-balanced TOC as being full of male BNAs. As a secondary issue, they seem to be mostly ignoring people who say "I wouldn't buy this because it looks like it's full of male BNAs", even though those people would in theory be the target audience for a gender-balanced fame-balanced anthology. I don't think false advertising in the name of reaching (which is to say, tricking) a broader audience is a good business strategy, and I don't think dismissing the concerns of people who arguably represent your core group of readers is a good business strategy. I also don't think it's ethical, but I'm not trying to argue it on ethical grounds.
I really don't like tokenism or quotas and you will never see me advocating them. In my opinion, the only reason the cover names should be gender-balanced is because the TOC is gender-balanced and the cover should fairly represent the book.
More on all of this, and also on the sexist market, in my very long entry here.