Fun loop I wind up in over and over again: someone in a position of authority, earned or unearned, asserts that SF/F has become corrupt as a genre. They don't SAY it's because of all these damn women and queers, but they still say it if that's the subtext you've been...
...reading for your entire life. It's like the lesbianism in XENA. You can't necessarily articulate it, because the part of the brain that handles vocabulary is not as good as the part that handles slicing situations for information, but you still recognize it. It's always there.
So I respond, because that is how I'm wired. I respond by pointing out that I have as much right to be here as anyone else; there are no "you must have this much genre cred to ride this ride" signs, but I DO have that much genre cred, and I'm not afraid to use it.
And then, inevitably, the "I just look for good stories" people show up. "I don't care if the author is a man or a woman,"--but never "I don't care if the author is non-binary"--I don't care about their sexuality. I care about the STORY. I'm better than you, because you care.
But here's the thing. When the people in charge of deciding what "good story" means--of making the lists, of offering the criticism--when they care, if you DON'T care, you're letting their biases take pole position.
I had someone tell me proudly that they only ever read books that made the Hugo ballot. Well, until the last few years, that meant they were reading 90% straight, white, men. I wish I could catch up with them now and find out how they feel about their new diversity of texts.
I've had other people tell me, "oh, I only read books recommended by *author name.*" And most of the time, the author they name is a man well known for only recommending other men.
No one is unbiased when they live in a biased world.
Letting my biases be the ones you live by does not absolve you of their existence.
Making an effort to read widely and diversely does not make you somehow "less" than if you read completely organically, guided by hidden bias.
Letting my biases be the ones you live by does not absolve you of their existence.
Making an effort to read widely and diversely does not make you somehow "less" than if you read completely organically, guided by hidden bias.
It is SO EASY to only read straight white men if you only go by what the big names (many of whom are, yes, straight white men) are recommending, if you only pick up your books from the shelf at the front of the store.
It's also SO EASY to make an effort to do better, to spread our literary horizons, and to resurrect that amazing feeling of THIS IS SOMETHING NEW that many of us lost when we were twelve.
