The 2007 Hugo nominations are in, and out of 20 fiction writers, only one woman was nominated: Naomi Novik, author of His Majesty’s Dragon. Well, gosh! I mean, I’m thrilled that the judges voters have found a sure-fire way to keep women from having their breasts fondled at the podium — just don’t let them up there in the first place! Or maybe it’s the other way around — next time, the women will learn to keep their mouth shut, or they don’t get to play in the sandbox at all.
One person comments here:
[Y]our stereotypical Hugo voter is unlikely to have read many books by women in the first place. Put it another way: I doubt there are many people who nominated Novik and Vernor Vinge. And I suspect a lot of people who nominated Vernor Vinge are looking at the shortlist going, “well, I know who Stross and Watts are, but who the hell is Naomi Novik?”
And here, Patrick Nielsen Hayden says:
That’s really remarkable. And remarkably stupid, considering how much good SF is written by women these days.
I didn’t notice it until you pointed it out. The essence of sexism is that “male” is the unremarkable “default state.”
Also, Ide Cyan notes:
And there are no Japanese nominees either, although Worldcon, where the Hugos are awarded, is taking place in Japan this year.
The lack of Japanese nominees was first Rachel Brown’s observation, here.
“Well, gosh! I mean, I’m thrilled that the judges…”
The Hugo shortlists aren’t decided by judges; they’re compiled from nominations by Worldcon members. Of course, arguably that makes the gender balance more depressing.
And I first saw the observation about the lack of Japanese nominees on John Scalzi’s blog, on the 28th.
Keep in mind that “the judges” include anyone with a Worldcon membership who bothers to vote. It’s a people’s choice type of system. Not that I’m happy about the paucity of women who were nominated. Read the new works each year (in all categories), join Worldcon at the supporting level, and vote for your favorites.
The most depressing part is that the Hugo awards aren’t the only male- and white-heavy book lists/awards. The New York Times is guilty, too, and so is Random House. Look at Lizzie Stark’s post here. She argues that part of the problem is that men don’t read books by women as much as women read books by men. C’mon guys, won’t you pick up the book if it has a woman author? Puh-lease. Is this the 21st century or what?
[...] “The essence of sexism is that ‘male’ is the unremarkable ‘default state.’” — “I mean, I’m thrilled that the judges voters have found a sure-fire way to keep women from having their breasts fondled at the podium — just don’t let them up there in the first place!” [I think I linked this before, but I have not been keeping my bookmarks properly in order, and better to post it twice than not at all.] [...]