I recently read this article on The Mary Sue.
It made my blood boil. It touched a nerve about a systemic problem I faced at
university, epitomised by a recent article in the fabled British bastion of
liberal journalism, The
Guardian. A paper I now regard with an edge of scorn because they
allowed that particular troll to write such vile click-bait.
The article on The Mary Sue deals with a review on Amazon for
a recent sci-fi anthology called Dark
Beyond the Stars. The article on The
Guardian showed an ignorant outsider labelling Sir Terry Pratchett’s brilliant
works of fantasy fiction as “ordinary potboilers”. Arguing that he wasn’t a
literary genius at all and people should stop regarding him as such. This kind
of thinking is the systemic problem I faced at university – the brazen
arrogance of those who sneer at genre fiction because they think it’s too
formulaic and because of all its rules, nobody can write anything original. The
review at the centre of The Mary Sue’s article went one step further. Instead
of the genre being attacked by an outside force that had already made its mind
up without any due consideration of the genre’s offerings, a male author has
decreed that the females of the species lacks the adequate talent to write
skilfully in his chosen genre.
Bull-shtak.
I must beg the readers’ forgiveness now, because I am likely
to devolve from civilised discourse into childish demonising and name calling.
I’ve learned to develop a thick skin over the literary snob’s disdain for
science-fiction, fuelled by one simple truth – I’m good at writing it, so they
can suck it. But when those within start attacking each other? That’s when it
all becomes a bit ludicrous. When it’s a guy telling women to get back in the
kitchen because they can’t write science-fiction? I fetch my shovel and
shotgun.
I’m a firm believer that humans can do absolutely anything
they put their minds to. Often that sentiment is specifically applied to women,
often subjected to archaic, patriarchal limitations, epitomised in the idea
that there are things, or jobs, that are “just for men”. That’s frakkin’
bull-shtak. As a result of erroneous statements such as that, I determined very
early on that I wanted to write about women doing things most people might
think are jobs for men. Starting in 2005, when I wrote a story about a female
assassin called Angel, set in 2207 on the red planet known as Mars, not being
an object of sexual desire, not a helpless damsel in need of a strong man to
rescue her, but a fearsome and formidable killer.
Of course, the offending male author (who I am disgusted to
learn is British, he brings shame not only to his genre but my country as well)
in The Mary Sue article isn’t purporting that female characters are the problem. No, he is telling us that women can’t
write decent sci-fi. To this man, I have this simple message.
Go frak yourself.
Some of the most fearsomely talented writers I know are
women and a lot of them I have the privilege to call my friends. One, whom I
don’t have that privilege with, but had the incredible fortune to know even for
five minutes (yes, I am referring to the mysterious woman discussed in The
Garden of Forking Paths and Destiny
is not what it seems) wrote a science-fiction novel in her final year of
university that overwhelmingly impressed her tutor, a man who doesn’t feel that
much of an affinity for science-fiction. She told me that despite his general
aversion to sci-fi, the excerpts of her novel she submitted really made him
want to read the whole thing.
Women have incredibly important, incredibly beautiful and
incredibly insightful voices. These voices should be heard, singing to the
rafters, singing to our bones. That a man dares to silence them in such a
blatant and condescending manner boils my blood beyond the limits of that which
even a Targaryen can endure.
What’s more...it may seem like an extremely petty thing to
pick on this guy for, but those who were at university with me know this was my
thing. I am a stickler for the rules of punctuation. So when I saw this
absolute gem...well, my already non-existent respect for this frakwit took an
even deeper nosedive – “Leave the genre to those of us
who know how to write scifi, being well versed in it’s many nuances...”
I tell you what, frakwit. Leave the
writing to those of us who know how to use punctuation, being well versed in
its many nuances.
Looking at the comments attached the
review, I am elated to see that the first one picks him up on the very point
I’ve just made about his punctuation. The rest proceed in similar veins of
highlighting his misogyny, his complete misrepresentation of a genre that was
pioneered by women (thank you, Margaret Cavendish and Mary Shelley) and his
other grievous error, calling it “Star Gate” as opposed to Stargate, as it should properly be rendered. Ironically, dig into
the man’s review history, he reviews the original Stargate movie. I believe, in the common vernacular, he could be
called “a poser”. I still prefer to call him a frakwit. Many thanks to Chief
Galen Tyrol, deck chief of Battlestar Galactica
(BSG-75) for that beauitful word.
To anyone who doesn’t think women
can write science-fiction, to anyone who has problems with science-fiction
being used a prism through which to examine the social and psychology issues
affecting society – including those of sexual identity and gender identity
(mentioned in The Mary Sue article, being lamented by a different frakwit) – I
say this. Please feel free to vacate this planet at your earliest convenience.
You want mindless violence and spaceships? Build some spaceships, fly them to
the opposite end of the galaxy and keep out of the frakkin’ way. Ideally,
destroy yourselves through mindless violence. Science-fiction is for everyone.
To read and to write.
