Quote:
Originally Posted by Soldim
I am surprised about this statement. Unfortunately, censorship reaches far beyond the realm of governments. In particular readers writing to an editor of a magazine requesting certain pieces or opinions not to be published are de facto asking for censorship.
Editor based censorship is, in my opinion, just ad despicable as censorship by government.
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Even accepting your viewpoint of censorship for a moment...no one DID censor them. No one threatened to not publish them. Readers asking for certain types of columns, covers or articles to not be published isn't censorship, therefor the authors should not have started yelling about it. In this case, it seems to be an attempt to move the focus off of the complaint:
"You complained about my article, rather than address the issue and its merits or lackthereof, I will yell censorship. I can "write" whatever I want."
Yes, you can. BUT, Readers have every right to exit an organization if they don't like the publications, rules, columns, etc. They have every right to take their money elsewhere and not buy a magazine. That is not censorship at all. Thus speaking up and threatening to leave if a magazine continues to publish things they don't want to read, does not call for authors to write a column yelling censorship.
By yelling about such a controversial topic, it shifts the focus of conversation and attempts to make the authors some sort of victim *rather than addressing the topic at hand.*
Now again, I am not even attempting to say that their original article WAS sexist. What I'm saying is that they chose a response that in no way cleared up the issue, did not offer dialogue, didn't even offer much of a denial (romance novels do it! Go pick on them if you're so worried about the issue!) and didn't show a willingness to step back and talk about the history of women in sci/fi, problems they had and whether those problems still exists (unconsciously in some cases?) today. Worse, even if they didn't think they had done anything wrong, they didn't appear to consider or state that they were all about the WRITING and the STORY and anything else that came across was a mistake.
Missed opportunities all over the table.