Quote:
Originally Posted by BillSmithBooks
All I know is that Jean Rabe is a tremendously talented, kind-hearted generous person who has given her all to help writers over the decades I have known her.
The cover is...tame. Annoying is you really have nothing better to get worked up about, but tame...certainly less offensive than a lot of romance covers. Oh, but there's no uprising about beefcake covers. Seen plenty of Conan covers where the Barbarian is one mis-step away from terrible embarrassment.
The articles are undoubtedly sexist...fine, write, criticise, have a party. The wonderful thing about freedom of speech is letting small-minded people sound their ignorances in public for the whole world to see and then mocking them for it.
Everyone has grievances, especially in this day and age where it is trivial to round up the Internet lynch mob and try to silence a very politically incorrect voice.
I think Orson Scott Card is a total dink for his position on homosexuality and gay marriage but I wouldn't dream of saying he should be prevented from showing the whole world he is a bigot.
Creating such a tempest in a brazier* that Jean feels forced to resign is just shameful.
* Yes, that's intentional
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I don't know her, but I have read several columns by Resnick and some of his fiction. And quite frankly I was surprised that he took the "personally offended that anyone is offended" route. He's a smart man. He's well-written (as in able to convey his thoughts well). Even if he didn't believe he was in the wrong, he did not step back and try to understand the other point of view at all and that surprised me. Pointing to other instances in the industry (romance novels) and in such a...manner as he chose to do so, was insulting and off-point. The censorship argument was simply insane. He's been around long enough to know that censorship applies to government action--and not to a magazine where readers have every right to refuse to buy it or write to the editor. He could have used the opportunity to start a dialogue. He could have used the opportunity to write another column where he explored how women in sci/fi in the past haven't been so successful--and why. There are a number of authors who used initials rather than submit as women.
Just a lot of routes that could have been.
It is a shame the editor felt she had to resign.