Editor of SFWA Bulletin resigns

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by FizzyWater

My experience with "lady"-anything is that it's just a little to close to "little lady" (pat-pat on the head).

In the quotes I read, Resnick was stressing various things about the fact that the editor, who happened to be a woman, didn't complain about X, Y, or Z.

So his stressing the gender, at least in those comments, made sense. I think the women would have preferred "female" to "lady" (again, think "lady-pat-pat on the head" )

That's exactly what I thought - that the use of "lady" in particular might not have been the most sensible choice over "female" or "woman", but that the distinction of female in this particular article made sense.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

I think it depends on the person and the circumstances. Some are more easily insulted than others and that is just the way it is. Personally I am not generally offended by "lady" but I've certainly heard it used in a manner to "set aside" a woman. For example, in talking about someone on a project, "So and so in in charge. She's a lady/woman." And you're left thinking...so?? Because her gender shouldn't mean diddly. It's like saying, "So and so is in charge, and he's fat." SO WHAT? It's unnecessary baggage.

Whereas where I work, that would sometimes be useful information. I'm working with a lot of people from around the world, with first names that often don't provide me with obvious gender identification, so they've just saved me the embarrassment of referring to someone as him rather than her.
While it is possible to avoid using any gendered pronouns in English, it becomes very awkward.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Whereas where I work, that would sometimes be useful information. I'm working with a lot of people from around the world, with first names that often don't provide me with obvious gender identification, so they've just saved me the embarrassment of referring to someone as him rather than her.
While it is possible to avoid using any gendered pronouns in English, it becomes very awkward.

Of course. It all depends on why it's tacked on there. In many cases it's an unconscious sexism/warning kind of thing. I'm not even saying only men do it. In the computer industry it was pretty common for a guy to say things like that about any female engineer. Oh--she's a woman and she's a pretty good engineer. As if...well, EVEN THOUGH she's a woman, she's actually a good engineer. It's part and parcel.

As an aside, I always found it interesting that the worst culprits of sexism (the ones who tended to make SNIDE comments, not just unconscious ones) were often just plain assholes to everyone, taking opportunity to put anyone down when they got a chance.

[CRussel]

Using "lady" do describe a person's occupation is nearly always offensive to many men and women. It carries a connotation of "little lady" as well as "properly behaved" (by the male person making the judgement). If a gender description is required (and it RARELY is!), then it's almost always best to stick to the neutral "male" / "female" / "transgender".

The original article (and yes, I went and read it) was sexist and condescending, IMHO. The follow-ons were nearly as bad. And remind me why I'm extremely cautious about picking up an unknown male SFF writer's work. And why, if I look at the list of books in my Calibre database, I'd have to guess that 2/3rds of them are written by female authors. And if I add to that books/series where the primary protagonist is female, that number goes up to closer to 3/4s. That doesn't mean there aren't excellent SFF books written by men with male protagonists. Just that it's a lot less common than you would think if one of your filters is that you're sick and tired of the propagation of ludicrous and non-sustainable gender stereotypes into a "future" world.

[gbm]

I am an old fashion southern gentleman, where I come from "Lady" is the highest complement you can give a woman. You people are going way [I]overboard[/I ] psychoanalyzing this.

bernie

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by CRussel

The original article (and yes, I went and read it) was sexist and condescending, IMHO. The follow-ons were nearly as bad.

Do you need a subscription to be able to read the original article or is there a scan somewhere? I only found a scan of the rebuttal article so I'm still trying to get a proper sense of the original.

I wouldn't mind reading it myself and assessing my own feelings on it - as an exercise if nothing else. It's not something that's worth a subscription price to me though.

[Fluribus]

Originally Posted by gbm

I am an old fashion southern gentleman, where I come from "Lady" is the highest complement you can give a woman. You people are going way [I]overboard[/I ] psychoanalyzing this.

bernie

I blame it on Tom Jones.

"She's a lady. Whoa-a-whoa-whoa. She's a lady."

[MikeB1972]

Not sure Margaret Thatcher would have been thrilled being called the "Iron Female" either.

Looks like we will have to ban the resurgence of superhero (sorry, supergenderneutral) movies as well.

[pdurrant]

There's a big difference between lady as a noun or title and lady as an adjective.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

There's a big difference between lady as a noun or title and lady as an adjective.

Especially in cases where the writer would not have used an adjective had the person being described been a man. If a writer uses the expression "lady editor" in a situation where they would not have said "gentleman editor", that's both condescending and sexist.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Especially in cases where the writer would not have used an adjective had the person being described been a man. If a writer uses the expression "lady editor" in a situation where they would not have said "gentleman editor", that's both condescending and sexist.

Mostly I'd agree with you, except, you normally have expectations of the gender of a person when discussing some roles (and I'll admit to not knowing enough about publishing to know if that is the case here), and if the gender is not the one that automatically comes to mind you add the gender - think of the stag party if they book a stripper and get a male stripper

Similarly you have others where you wouldn't mention the gender for the opposite because it is assumed :-
women's football teams
male cheerleaders
honest politicians
women racing drivers
ladyboys (confusing enough already without stripping out gender references)
white rapper
male model
male nanny
female jockey
etc

OK, I admit I was going to add something for Liverpudlian's but held back

Bring on the flames

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

Mostly I'd agree with you, except, you normally have expectations of the gender of a person when discussing some roles (and I'll admit to not knowing enough about publishing to know if that is the case here), and if the gender is not the one that automatically comes to mind you add the gender - think of the stag party if they book a stripper and get a male stripper

The case of a stripper for a stag (or hen) party is a case where it's perfectly valid to be specific about the gender of the person involved, but in a role such as editor, lawyer, teacher, etc, it's totally irrelevant. A person's plumbing arrangements has no correlation whatsoever to their ability to edit books.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The Vorkossigan books suffer from generic covers and always have.
I wonder if they have a problem depicting Miles himself (a hyperkinetic 17year old that can pass for 30-something would be hard for most artists) since Ekaterin and Ivan do resemble their in-book profiles.

There are some good depictions of the Vorkosigan characters in the GURPS role-playing game conversion. The portraits were approved by Bujold herself. They work for me.

http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/vorkosigan/

Incidentally, if you're a fan of Miles & co the book is an excellent reference even if you're not into role-playing.

Graham

[Fluribus]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Especially in cases where the writer would not have used an adjective had the person being described been a man. If a writer uses the expression "lady editor" in a situation where they would not have said "gentleman editor", that's both condescending and sexist.

Depends on how unusual it is. It's a normal human tendency to comment on the unusual.

"Our nine-foot tall editor will take a look at it. Seriously! Dudes a giant."

Originally Posted by Fluribus

Depends on how unusual it is. It's a normal human tendency to comment on the unusual.

"Our nine-foot tall editor will take a look at it. Seriously! Dudes a giant."

I think the [other] offensive bit here is that it's 'lady' editor, not 'female' editor. 'Lady' and 'gentleman' when appended to a job-role tend to have connotations of amateur/dilettante/hobbyist that 'male' and 'female' don't. Think 'gentleman-thief' or 'lady explorer'. Comes from the days when ladies and gentlemen didn't have to work, so if they had a job it was a hobby rather than a necessity.

And surely female editors aren't so unusual (unlike nine-foot-tall giants) that it would be natural to remark on it every time one is mentioned? In medicine nowadays, the proportions of the sexes is so near equal that a doctor's gender isn't mentioned unless it's relevant (e.g. a patient has requested a male, or a female, doctor for modesty reasons).