I'm never included in any of these things

[mariness]

"There seems to be a 'secret feminist cabal' that gives the impression that if you are female and want to be published in sci-fi, you must write overtly feminist tracts and diatribes or else you aren't publishable."

Why I am always left out of cabals like this? I mean, it's bad enough that I'm continually getting left off the homosexual/queer agenda, but this one really hurts. Sniffle.

(Quote appears in a comment by celebrim, January 5, 2010, 8:33 pm. I will add that Joanna Russ was another one of those writers forced on me as Someone You Absolutely Must Read In College and while she was decidedly better than, say, Djuna Barnes, I was not left with a happy impression. I am doubtless being unfair.)

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

Well to be honest, Joanna Russ wasn't much of a happy writer (although her juvenile Adventures of Alyx is fairly cheery).

All her works were important to my intellectual development. How To Suppress Women's Writing helped me get rhetoric. But none of them were pleasurable.

Aside from unhappy, what color was your impression?

[mariness]

Tedious, mostly, and as you said, she wasn't a pleasure to read. But my main response was, yeah, not going to keep seeking out this writer.

Of course it's been years, and I could try reading her again...but I doubt I will.