Was anyone really SURPRISED at this? Pick two random SFF writers and give them a soapbox to speak their mind. What do you expect would ensue?
I'd expect to be bored or offended.
I was surprised, and no, I wouldn't expect that from picking any two random SFF writers. The vast majority of people in the field are thoughtful and interesting.
Actually, I read a good number of blogs by scifi writers, and they're quite informative and interesting. Not all SFF writers have column-writing skills, but many do.
^ This.
HUGELY surprised. Every male SFF writer I've met or interacted with personally has been fabulous, or at the very least, accommodating and not dismisive (and mostly charming and funny and not boring while they aren't being offensive). So this was a hell of a shock tbh.
^More this.
ETA: I pick Sam Sykes and Chuck Wendig. Man I'd love to be a fly on that wall. Be hilarious.
I pick Warren Ellis and William Gibson.
It's been taken by someone who's on his way out of the job anyway, and who has essentially admitted to not reading the newsletter before it was published, not to reading it and thinking this was a good idea.
However he did say he should have read it before giving it the okay, but had only cursorily skimmed it. That seems like an appropriate admission of responsibility. And he is on his way out, and could very easily have decided to keep his head low and let the new guy deal with the whole mess, but he didn't. There are a lot of things that could have been done better, and sooner, but at least there seems to be a genuine interest in doing better going forward.
I don't know how the SFWA operates, but in my experience with similar organizations, people elected to rotating presidencies are often figureheads more than effective managers.
Possibly part of the process of fixing what's broken in SFWA is understanding the internal structure better. That said, Scalzi's tenure as President oversaw a lot of other positive changes. I have to believe, from that, that there is a real extent to which the President affects the direction and culture of the organization.
I'm not comfortable with all this speculation about what the editor thought or did.
I agree with this, especially as Ms. Rabe has not, as far as I know, commented publicly on what happened from her own side of things. It's also hard to know what tangential circumstances outside her control may have contributed to this. For example, how much material is actually submitted to the Bulletin? Given that I saw somewhere posted that the unfortunate "Barbie" comments were added to the article last issue to pad out the article, maybe the Bulletin lacks sufficient good material that they have to kind of scrape the bottom of the barrel? We don't know. If so, that maybe should be a big part of the discussion about what the Bulletin can and should be going forward, and how to get it there.
The Bulletin thing is only one part of a larger conversation that needs to happen in fandom about entrenched sexism. It's starting to happen around cosplayers, and around convention behavior. It's starting to be noticed in ToCs, and yes, in cover art. I do think we're moving forward. This was an abrupt and disappointing step backwards, no doubt, but it's only a fail if no one takes it up as an opportunity to move forward again and do better.
