On Sexual Harassment in SFWA...
Jan. 3rd, 2007 09:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catherineldfI just got the December issue of the SFWA "Forum" and opened it up to find an appalling description of one writer's experience of harassment at various supposedly professional events and another's more general perpective on the degrading way that women, new writers and young writers are treated in the organization. I am completely furious and disgusted, not to mention asking myself why I still belong to the organization.
This comes on the heels of David Moles' censure for posting newsgroup quotes from various well-known and not so well-known writers either making idiots of themselves or not over the Harlan Ellison groping incident. Now while I think that he might have attempted to get permission first, I don't think he would have gotten it. I do more or less get what he was trying to do and it's worth reading - http://www.chrononaut.org/log/archives/000878.html.
Note that Ellison or any of the field's other more notorious writerly idiots have suffered any consequences for their behavior as far as I can see.
Below is the text of a letter I just emailed off to the "Forum":
I read the letters from {authors' names removed so as not to contribute to the ongoing flaming nonsense} in the December 2006 "Forum" with a combined sense of horror and fury that such behavior is still tolerated and prevalent in an organization which is intended to provide a professional face for the field as a whole. First of all, I wanted to thank both of them for speaking out. I have been fortunate enough to have witnessed only a few of the behaviors that they describe but I've seen and heard enough to make it clear to me that these are very real and serious problems that need to be addressed.
I'm also a member of Romance Writers of America and while it too has its share of infighting and issues, the public face of the organization, the award ceremonies, publications and so forth are seldom other than well-organized and well, professional, for lack of a better word. Perhaps it's time that SFWA adopted an organizational role model. Perhaps it's also time that we as members stopped condoning stupid and cruel behavior from our peers. Certainly if we can expend amazing amounts of online time and energy over possibly inappropriate use of newsgroup quotations, surely we can manage this too. Hint: "What's the big deal?" is not the appropriate response.
Going off to contemplate better uses for my money than SFWA dues. Snarl.
This comes on the heels of David Moles' censure for posting newsgroup quotes from various well-known and not so well-known writers either making idiots of themselves or not over the Harlan Ellison groping incident. Now while I think that he might have attempted to get permission first, I don't think he would have gotten it. I do more or less get what he was trying to do and it's worth reading - http://www.chrononaut.org/log/archives/000878.html.
Note that Ellison or any of the field's other more notorious writerly idiots have suffered any consequences for their behavior as far as I can see.
Below is the text of a letter I just emailed off to the "Forum":
I read the letters from {authors' names removed so as not to contribute to the ongoing flaming nonsense} in the December 2006 "Forum" with a combined sense of horror and fury that such behavior is still tolerated and prevalent in an organization which is intended to provide a professional face for the field as a whole. First of all, I wanted to thank both of them for speaking out. I have been fortunate enough to have witnessed only a few of the behaviors that they describe but I've seen and heard enough to make it clear to me that these are very real and serious problems that need to be addressed.
I'm also a member of Romance Writers of America and while it too has its share of infighting and issues, the public face of the organization, the award ceremonies, publications and so forth are seldom other than well-organized and well, professional, for lack of a better word. Perhaps it's time that SFWA adopted an organizational role model. Perhaps it's also time that we as members stopped condoning stupid and cruel behavior from our peers. Certainly if we can expend amazing amounts of online time and energy over possibly inappropriate use of newsgroup quotations, surely we can manage this too. Hint: "What's the big deal?" is not the appropriate response.
Going off to contemplate better uses for my money than SFWA dues. Snarl.