Quote:
Originally Posted by Worldwalker
If we want decisions to be made based on the merits of the work, independent of the gender of the author, shouldn't we be judging on the merits of the work, independent of the gender of the author?
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Yes, that's very true. At the same time, some readers (especially in certain genres, like sf) will inevitably notice and become curious when a large number of works published are being written by a certain subset of the population (be it sex, race, etc.). For example, I'm sure some readers of romance wonder about male authors, since they seem to be in the minority (in fact, I think there was a recent thread about this). Therefore, for people interested in knowing more about female sf (or male romance) authors, threads like these are a good place to start. Which, as you point out, doesn't mean we shouldn't judge works on the basis of their merit.