Women: Missing Voices In Science Fiction

My name is Jo Zebedee and I write science fiction. That’s Jo, not Joe. And, yes, I get the odd comment about why I’d want to write something like that, and how on Earth I got into such a genre (thankfully, less as time goes on.)

To answer. I got into this crazy genre without actively thinking about it – the story I wanted to write was a Space Opera. I like Space Opera. Why wouldn’t I write it? I didn’t stop to think about whether being a woman was a good thing, or a bad thing, or even a thing. I simply wrote the book.

Now, I’m going to state this right here. I have no agenda in this post. I’m not out to ask for equal representation of women in science fiction, for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, I don’t think there is an active bias towards men. I actually think fewer women write science fiction in comparison to other genres. A few years ago I asked the question on a sff forum. Only 3 of the women wrote science fiction, a tiny percentage.

Which leads me to believe the question isn’t around exclusion, precisely, but around why women don’t enter the genre in the first place.

They read the genre, we know that – accepted figures are that 60% of the genre are male readers, but when we allow for women being bigger readers overall, the algorithms come up with a 50/50 readership figure. (http://www.sfwa.org/2014/01/reads-science-fiction/)

Out of interest, I looked at the Top 100 science fiction books on Amazon UK. As far as I could ascertain (because some writers could be using a pen name, as is common with male romance writers) 76% were written by men, 18% by women – a fair number of which were sf romance writers – and 6% were not gender-identifiable.

I then went and had a look at Space Opera, that great behemoth of accessible science fiction. 89% of the names in the top 100 were men. (The same as for Military science fiction, often seen as a male preserve.) Amazon US came up with 83% male writers. A visit to my local bookstore and library showed a similar bias – line after line of books by male authors with only a few women’s names. Women, we know, have historically won fewer sf awards. (http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/women_sf_writers)

All of which invited the question, where are the women’s voices? What are we getting wrong? Because something is wrong. Unpalatable as it may seem, 50% of our readers are being represented by a tiny percentage of our writers.

Some of the common answers I’ve come across include:

Women write about characters, not technology. Whilst I dispute the lack of technology – and challenge anyone to continue to believe that after picking up a Pat Cadigan book – I do agree that women writers may come at a theme differently.

When I wrote Inish Carraig, about an alien invasion of Earth (Belfast, to be precise), I stripped it back to a story more about people than the aliens. I am consistently surprised at the comments I receive to the effect that the story feels different to any other alien invasion story.  I think that might be because my focus was not on the – fairly cool – tech, but the characters.

What’s wrong with a story about characters, not tech? Even if it is provable that women writers are different in terms of their focus, why should that mean their voices aren’t getting through in a genre they’re obviously invested in?

Another reason I’ve heard is that it’s reflective of women taking fewer hard science subjects in school. In hard sf, I could see that (if, again, the figures of women taking sciences are proven.) But in Space Opera? No one needs a science degree to write it. I sure don’t have one, and I’ve managed a Space Opera trilogy without too many howlers in a genre pretty tolerant of pushing the scientific boundaries.

The third reason I commonly hear is that books by women in science fiction sell less and are a risk for publishers. Why then, hasn’t the gap closed as self-publishing has opened up the market?

My belief is that people need role models. We see it with sports success, time and again, how after success new talent comes through. Perhaps we do not see enough female sci-fi writers to encourage our younger writers to take the leap and try it themselves.

Where are the female success stories? Do we shout them out enough?

Ever heard of Karen Traviss? Shortlisted for the James Campbell award and Phillip K Dick award, multiple New York Times bestseller and extensive writer within the Star Wars universe. Why is her name not up there with other sf authors of similar pedigree?

Could reviews be part of the conundrum? A recent article in The Guardian newspaper found that science fiction books by women were less likely to be reviewed than those of their male counterparts. https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/may/12/sci-fi-media-coverage-dominated-by-men-survey-shows

With the success of current writers like Ann Leckie and Becky Chambers, in winning awards and becoming more mainstream, it may be a good time to hope for a trickle down. Perhaps, with more prevalent female writers, we will be able to convince our daughters that they can enter this genre, if they want to. If we can find a way to inspire them to believe the genre is as much theirs as their brother’s, we might bring those voices in.

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Jo is the author of four books: The Inheritance Trilogy (Tickety Boo Press) and Inish Carraig, about an alien invasion of Belfast. Her next book, Waters and the Wild, will be released in summer 2017, a dark fairy-fantasy. She’s also a prolific blogger. When not writing, she runs a consultancy, runs after not-so-small children and enjoys walking and reading.

Follow her on Twitter  @joz1812
Www.jozebedee.com
Www.jozebwrites.blogspot.co.uk

Tags: featured, science fiction, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing