Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:19:06 -0400
From: "Michael Walsh" <mjw at press.jhu.edu>
To: <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Worldcon news
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

& how do you know the gender of the author?

Two words:  James Tiptree.

mjw

>>> Madeleine Yeh <myeh at wap.org> 08/10/09 9:39 AM >>>
   What about a category for the short story by the best
male author and if there are no good  stories by a male
authors give it to the most tolerable story by a male
author.
     Madeleine

On Sun, 09 Aug 2009 23:07:03 -0400
  "Mike B." <yahoo at omniphile.com> wrote:
> Michael Walsh wrote:
>> The WSFS Business Meeting had a last minute
>>constitutional admendment =
>> proposal that the meeting declined to consider, hence
>>there was no debate: =
>>
>> "We've received one piece of late new business for the
>>WSFS Business =
>> Meeting, submitted just before the deadline:  A proposal
>>that would =
>> require that in each of the written-fiction Hugo award
>>categories, if no =
>> selected nominee has a female author or co-author, the
>>highest-ranked work =
>> with a female author or co-author from the "top 15
>>nominees" list would be =
>> added to the nominations in that category."
>
> What a stupid proposal!  It manages, in one short
>paragraph, to be
> sexist, condescending, and incompetent!
>
> Sexist should be obvious.
>
> Condescending in that it presumes that female authors
>need a quota
> system to win a Hugo.  They've done it before without
>such help, and I
> doubt they need it now.  C.J. Cheryh, for example, has 5
>of them I
> think, and was nominated for at last one more.  Seems
>all you have to be
> is good.
>
> Incompetent in that it doesn't deal with the situation
>where there are
> no female-authored or co-authored nominees in the "top
>15 nominees" list.
>
> I'm not surprised that they declined to consider it.  If
>they had, I'd
> consider putting one in requiring that there be at least
>one deaf
> author, one blind author, one lame author, one
>illiterate author and one
> author over 6'5" tall (hey, I might write something
>someday...).
>
> -- Mike B.
>