Publishers, Market Forces, and Feminism

[leahbobet]

(Okay, we're pulling out the Alan Moore icon again. Baby, why you make me do that?)

I have had an interesting shot of perspective this afternoon, brought on by coalescent's straw-poll/count of women's names on the front of the upcoming Night Shade Books anthology Eclipse and the response over at jlassen's. The chain of thought goes thusly:

1) "Huh, that is true, there are all boys on that cover."
2) "Oh, that is a Night Shade book, they are good guys and likely not participating in sexism."
3) "Okay, this is upsetting me because good people are being wailed on, and they are clearly becoming upset, and the methods of argument being used here are no-win ones."
4) GVG says "welcome to the club" and thus we get our perspective.

Now, this may just be a flaw in how I've been conducting things with regards to The Revolution. However, I'm putting it out here because I suspect it's a flaw in the discourse, or if not, it's turning into a flaw in the discourse.

I suspect that there is an element in the LJ feminist discourse where we sit around doing the Man Comes Around thing: we take names, decide who to free and who to blame, etc., and everybody won't be treated all the same. I think a chunk of the discussion around making SFF a more egalitarian place on grounds of gender has taken a turn into labelling people as sexist or not-sexist: on our team or the other team, and then it stops there.

Where do I derive this? My copious internal struggle in this case -- dealing with people I know -- versus my lack of said struggle in the case of the F&SF and sexism discussion -- dealing with people I know less well or don't know. I had people in the Good! box and am asked to move them to the Bad! box, which is harder than moving people from the Neutral! box into Good! or Bad! boxes. I think that's what we do. Move people into and out of boxes.

This is a bad thing. Here's why:

Because it trades on personality, and ultimately stunts any real change.

I'm back to the whole placebo activism idea again. I think yelling at people and then feeling better about yourself because you put them in the right box doesn't really accomplish much. Remember, sexism, racism, classism, etc. are systemic issues. If people keep saying it's the market, sure, that could be an excuse for their inaction. I suspect it's not an excuse because of that systematizing of prejudice that's reflected in other aspects of life (why's it one or two guys here if it's systemic elsewhere?) and the really fucked-up ideas we have in publishing of who has power over the whole apparatus.

We all work in the framework of the market. If the market is sexist, business decisions will carry that flavour, because otherwise those companies will go broke. Systemic prejudice doesn't just punish the people with boobs or that one drop of non-white blood. It punishes everyone who lives under it. Everyone has a role. Nobody gets to step out of line.

---

Here's my question then, because this shot of perspective and a small chain of logic have led me to what might be more effective to change the face of SFF. Yes, it's harder. I'm starting to think if it doesn't require some serious fucking thinking and a truckload of work, it might not actually be activism.

How do we change the market?

Comments

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

That's interesting, because my perspective is the opposite: I'm perfectly willing to believe that Jeremy Lassen is a good guy with a commitment to feminism, but his behavior during the debates has shown he doesn't get the concept of male privilege on a really basic level. Or maybe he gets it, but lost in this particular case. In either case, the aggrieved cookie demands just exasperate me more, as does his willingness to listen to a commenter with a male name, but not to listen to the same complaints made more angrily by women. It is pretty much a textbook demonstration of the parody post you put up a few weeks ago.

I understand that it's hard to confront privilege. I have a hard time with it myself. But I am also tired of the demands *from the people in power* that the people being discriminated against have to make all the behavioral concessions, regardless of whether or not this is fair or even commercially sensible (as the notion that a company can tell their customer base how to act is kind of, um, not commercially sensible).

In terms of language: I felt the poll was neutral, some of the commenters were snarky, and the first commenters to get outright abusive were Jeff Vandermeer and nightshadebooks. And that's one of the problems with tone on the Internet: nightshadebooks (who is not jlassen, I think?) and Jeff V. clearly interpreted the tone of commenters differently than I did. But, you know, tone and complaints about tone are a major warning sign: when a man starts complaining about a woman's tone or a white person complains about a POC's tone, they automatically lose credibility with me, because there's a whole history of power relations there they should be aware of, and if they're not even aware of stuff that's *that* basic, the whole conversation is just going to be a ton of work.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

The comments from nightshadebooks were signed by Jason Williams, rather than by Jeremy.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Okay. But when you participate in a debate as "Night Shade Books" and then the publisher of the company posts on the debate in his LJ, I don't think it's unreasonable for your words to be taken as being on behalf of the company, even if you are clearly posting in the heat of the moment.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I agree, and I'm sure they stand by each others' statements anyway.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

That's interesting, because my perspective is the opposite: I'm perfectly willing to believe that Jeremy Lassen is a good guy with a commitment to feminism, but his behavior during the debates has shown he doesn't get the concept of male privilege on a really basic level.

Yeah, there's a degree to which he may not. And yes, I don't want to be anybody's mom and handhold them through the process of living in society. I just don't think a lot of the snark is going to...well, alter that in a positive way, for anybody? And the ongoing potshots at GVG, a full year after that particular Livejournal spat, aren't going to encourage anyone else to even engage with the issue. No, I don't want to make all the concessions either. But there has to be a middle ground here. I really want to find one.

And that's one of the problems with tone on the Internet: nightshadebooks (who is not jlassen, I think?) and Jeff V. clearly interpreted the tone of commenters differently than I did.

Yeah, definitely. It can be read as more humourous or very hostile, because of that losing all the tone and body language internet thing. I picked up the hostile, it seems, which is interesting to me (I wonder why, on this issue, on this day).

But, you know, tone and complaints about tone are a major warning sign: when a man starts complaining about a woman's tone or a white person complains about a POC's tone, they automatically lose credibility with me, because there's a whole history of power relations there they should be aware of, and if they're not even aware of stuff that's *that* basic, the whole conversation is just going to be a ton of work.

The thing is...while that's true, I think we still ought to keep our own eyes on ourselves to check things like tone. Because I was a woman and wow, I did not appreciate some of the snark and tone and flippancy in that conversation, from men or other women, and it wasn't even pointed at me. Ostensibly, it was snark and tone and flippancy in my best interests, and I near crawled under the table from not wanting to be associated with some of those comments.

Again, I think the question is moderation and providing checks and balances: the same way that it's not always a valid complaint because of that history of power relations, it's not always an invalid one because of that history. (Heh, and surprise surprise, like always, I'm saying "it's complicated".) And...I think all men or whoever aside, if the loose collective of feminists in SFF are going to get things done, we need to maintain a certain core integrity in our language -- when we talk to other people, when we talk to each other.