Social Justice in SF&F

[HarryT]

I completely agree with you, darryl.

[Waylander]

fjtorres: where does she say that all the women in Jim Butcher's Codex Alera books are raped? I may have missed it, and would like to read that to get some context for such a ridiculous comment. The women in that series are some of the strongest characters in the books for crying out loud! Btw, judging past societies with modern morals and ethics is technically known as teleological bias. (yeah, I'm a historian )

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by HarryT

"Big game" hunting was a popular subject for children's books certainly as late as the early decades of the 20th century. The original "Tom Swift" series of teenage adventure stories, for example, contained a title called "Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle", published in 1911, (the book's title, purely as a side-note of possible interest, subsequently formed the basis of the word "Taser", the electric stun-gun used by police forces today) in which the eponymous hero commits mass slaughter of elephants, rhinos, etc, for the pleasure of the activity. Social attitudes to hunting were very different then to what they are today, and hunters at the time took a positive pride in killing the last members of what would today be called "endangered species".

You appear not to have read my post. Much as I find big-game hunting personally distasteful, that's not what I'm referring to in King Solomon's Mines. In the book, the protagonist kills many, many elephants, maybe a whole herd, for ONE MEAL. That's repulsive and wasteful, and not (as I understand it) big-game hunting.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

I think you are sadly mistaken. Between the 1830s and 1890s (maybe 1880s), the American Bison was nearly made extinct by white hunters who wanted two things from them, their hide for buffalo robes, and their tongues as a delicacy meat. In most cases, the rest of the meat (usually between 1,000 and 2,000 pounds) was left to rot. The number of bison in 50 years dropped from the millions to at most a couple thousand

I have read that the buffaloes were exterminated en masse to wipe out the American Indians' food source, and so wipe out the American Indians. I would hope that even in that time, many people who were aware of the carnage hated it.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Waylander

fjtorres: where does she say that all the women in Jim Butcher's Codex Alera books are raped? I may have missed it, and would like to read that to get some context for such a ridiculous comment. The women in that series are some of the strongest characters in the books for crying out loud! Btw, judging past societies with modern morals and ethics is technically known as teleological bias. (yeah, I'm a historian )

While I don't mind being referred to as fjtorres, I must confess to have written the post

Here is Liz Blogendorff's review of Furies of Calderon:

https://blogendorff.ghost.io/book-re...s-of-calderon/

[hildea]

Huh, how many of you people who criticize that article have read past the first sentence?
She's not surprised or shocked that old books reflect old gender roles.
She does not say that all old SFF is sexist.

She is commenting on a list made when a bunch of readers voted on the best SFF in 2011. Her main point is that she's disappointed that these readers in 2011 chose so many sexist books.

Mind, I don't necessarily agree with everything she writes. (Admittedly, I've only read about half of the books/series on the list, so I can't judge all of them.) The most glaring weakness, in my opinion, is that she only chooses to mention one single book she'd like to see included there. (None of the authors haydnfan mentioned are there, to pick just a few glaring holes.)
But if you want to criticise her, you should criticise what she actually writes, not some imagined straw woman built from the heading and the first few sentences of the article.

[eschwartz]

All I can speak for is myself, but yes I read the whole thing, and yes I am aware that she was heavily disappointed in the people of today for approving those books, and I still think she is a tush. Sorry.


Appreciating the SF&F of yesteryear in the context of when it was written is not the same as thinking that all books should continue to be written in the same style. Nor does it mean she has even accurately judged all the books on that list see my earlier remarks.


P.S. Thank you kindly for your non-judgmental, non-confrontational post, which I feel really enhanced the general atmosphere of this thread.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by hildea

She is commenting on a list made when a bunch of readers voted on the best SFF in 2011. Her main point is that she's disappointed that these readers in 2011 chose so many sexist books.

I've had favorite books / movies / etc that were "products of their time", so to speak. The fact that times have changed doesn't reduce their value to me. Should I stop loving old tv shows and movies that portray the expectation that women should be stay-at-home wives just because we've moved away from that?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Rizla

You appear not to have read my post. Much as I find big-game hunting personally distasteful, that's not what I'm referring to in King Solomon's Mines. In the book, the protagonist kills many, many elephants, maybe a whole herd, for ONE MEAL. That's repulsive and wasteful, and not (as I understand it) big-game hunting.

It's fiction. No elephants were harmed in the writing of the book . Why not mention the thousands of human beings who die in the war at the end of the book? Isn't that equally distasteful?

[DiapDealer]

The fact that she's commenting on a "Best of List" compiled in 2011 is irrelevant (and yes, I read the article). The titles weren't voted on in a vacuum by people who only nominated books they read in recent years. Like the authors who were products of their time, the readers were voting with memories from the time they first read those books.

Favorites are favorites--nostalgic or otherwise. Being disappointed in other peoples favorites is silly. Especially when books that DO fulfil your expectations are readily available.

If she wants to see a "Best of all Time" list that contains more works that reflect the attitudes/sensibilities of the SFF genre today... then she needs to wait twenty years or so. That's when new readers of today will look back fondly on the works that molded their tastes.

[JSWolf]

She seems like a born again feminist.

[DiapDealer]

That's not helpful.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

That's not helpful.

Neither is her criteria for NPR's list.

[fjtorres]

There's a bit more to this crusade:
http://flavorwire.com/533478/uncomfo...genre-fiction/

BOOKS
In Defense of Uncomfortable Subject Matter in Genre Fiction
BY TOM HAWKING AUGUST 18, 2015 2:08 PM


It’s an interesting essay, and makes some valid points about the weight of nostalgia on this particular corner of genre fiction. But it also falls into a pattern that’s worryingly prevalent these days in the world of criticism, particularly when it gets to the topic of rape and sexual assault in fantasy. It’s at this point that Lutgendorff’s argument falls into the trap of confusing a depiction of something in a work of fiction for an endorsement of that thing (at least, in any instance where there’s an absence of explicit, unequivocal condemnation of it).

There is certainly no such explicit condemnation in the work of Stephen Donaldson, for whom Lutgendorff reserves some of her harshest criticism. She describes Lord Foul’s Bane (the first book of Donaldson’s Unbeliever series, #58 on NPR’s list) as “one of the most miserable books on the list,” largely for its depiction of a rape committed by Thomas Covenant, the book’s protagonist. I’m singling this out, not because I necessarily want to defend Donaldson (although, for what it’s worth, I think Lutgendorff’s criticism isn’t entirely warranted), but because Lutgendorff’s problem doesn’t appear to be with the nature of his depiction of rape as much as it is with the presence of rape in the narrative at all.

More at the source.

Also worth noting, this relevant quote from S.M. Stirling:

"There is a technical term for someone who confuses the opinions of a character in a book with those of the author. That term is idiot."
Conquistador (2003)

[Freeshadow]

Originally Posted by HarryT

"Big game" hunting was a popular subject for children's books certainly as late as the early decades of the 20th century.

^That. And if extinction wasn't the goal, then even later: A most famous youth adventure series in Poland (not having a series title but usually referred to as "The Adventures of Tommy Wilmowski") depicts the life - from teenage to adulthood - of a boy whose father, a fugitive after the Kościuszko uprising, hunts living animals for Hagenbeck's zoo. The stories are choke-full with infodumps on local flora, fauna and culture of native inhabitants of the regions visited (what we call edutainment nowadays), always pro natives, as the Polish fugitives felt compassion with those being driven from or attacked at their home soil.

I grew up with that stuff.