Thread by @imyril

Let’s talk older women in SFF! #worldcon

Sam Hawke moderates Lauren Roy, Ali Baker, Julie C Day and Anna Stephens

...so, where shall we start? How do we define older women?

AB: well I’m 50 so I don’t exist, as far as Hollywood / media is concerned. In fantasy, I’d be the mother of a 40 year old hero

I am totally too tired and buzzing from the Library Bards to keep up tonight, I apologise in advance!

JD: some or most of us up here are 40+ and somehow that feeling of invisibility you gain is really useful. People don’t see us so we get to see people in unguarded moments.

JD: There’s a lot of unexamined tropes in fiction, the mother, the wise woman and we’re not all wise, we fuck up all the time! (Laughter) But it makes for really interesting characters

SH: so is it just sexism & ageism? If they don’t want to shag us they can’t see us?

AB: in SFF we have maiden / mother / crone, but in modern life we’re less likely to die young or in childbirth. We don’t fade out of our children’s lives. But fantasy is often focused on orphans - often young men - off having adventures & nobody asks if they’ve packed clean pants

AB: and yet women blossom after their kids leave home. But I think this is a western trope. I went to a YA conference and was amazed that Chinese fantasy doesn’t have a Chosen One narrative, which obviates the need to kill the parents & lets it prize wisdom

AB: vs say Arthurian myth where older women are crazy or untrustworthy

LR: but there’s some great peripheral characters coming through: AuntMay in Into the Spiderverse, Mrs S in Orphan Black (room says mmMMMmmm)

AS: coming back to maiden / mother / crone, the problem is that there’s 30 years between those last two. Why can’t we go off and have the adventure

Interruption: Jen Williams

AS: yes!

AS: but Hollywood is happy for Bruce Willis to be an action hero in his sixties. I think it’s our turn now. The longer you live, the more you learn. Just because there’s a number on the birth certificate doesn’t mean you can’t DO things any more

LR: so let’s talk Essun in the Broken Earth. She’s trying to find her daughter, but she’s got so much going on, she has her own agenda and it’s a nice balance

JD: and then in publishing your editor says they couldn’t relate & bounced off the story

AB: in British publishing we have a recognised issue of underpaid junior editors & unpaid interns living in one of the most expensive cities in the world.

AB: It is problematic it limits who can get in - young upper class white people - and that limits what stories get told

JD: and short story venues often have similar issue

SH: let’s talk about examples of great characters

AS (and help): Admiral Cornwall on ST Discovery. She’s got white in her hair, lines on her face and it’s not hidden. It’s visible. She’s not Botoxing with a Starfleet medical device. She’s quiet calm competence & still desirable

AS: and she has desire, and I think it’s rare to see portrayals of women in their 50s with a sex drive.

LR: Alex Marshall’s A Crown for Cold Silver. Cold Cobalt is in her 80s and she goes on her revenge tour and summons her mercenary armies! She’s a terrible human being and a wonderful character

AB: controversially, I’m going outside of SFF (oooh) and go with Diane Lockhart - The Good Wife and now The Good Fight.

AB: also she throws axes and I want to do that (in theory, in practice this is a terrible idea)

JD: Brightfall is upcoming by Jaime Lee Moyers, where middle aged Maid Marian solves crimes

(*imyril: I’m about to read this. So excited)

AB: Una McCormack’s Baba Yaga and Star of the Sea, where a woman over 40 gets pregnant; and a woman who never expected to have kids is forced into a maternal character and it makes a fascinating narrative

SH: and lets have another shout out for Vintage in Jen Williams trilogy; and General Mulavhesh in City of Stairs - a category of women who give no fucks and I can’t get enough of it

This may be the only comment not a question I will forgive. Yes, we see you lady.

Q: Can we go back to older not wise women?

Whole panel: NANNY OGG

Q: circling back to the question of bouncing off editors who buy books about AI, so isn’t that an excuse? (Snorting from room)

AB: unexamined ageism and misogyny. Easy

AS: you’re young and desirable, or a disembodied AI, or you’re dead.

LR: there are people out there who buy dragons but not Brienne kicking ass. They buy spaceships but question queer people. These people commission books.

Side note: I thought @AnnaSmithWrites was very humble not to mention she too wrote an awesome older woman - mother, priestess, rebel, badass of compassion - in her Godblind trilogy. I loved spending POV time with Gilda in Darksoul.