Wendig on Sexism and Misogyny

Wendig is awesome .

That post needs to be required reading. Over the last week, I have gone from being slightly ashamed of my genre to very proud, as so many good people have sounded off.

... goods tips.

*waves Chuck Wendig fanbanner*

Thank you so much for introducing me to Mr. Wendig's blog! And what a wonderful blog-post to have as an intro. He nailed much of the problem very neatly.

Sounds an awful lot like a combination of censorship and political correctness, to me. Let's just write the truth as we see it, and p[rotary the world as we see it, and let the marketplace decide who gets published, and who sells well.

People talk an awful lot about misogyny, but somehow never even mention the fact that misandry is every bit as common, but is somehow politically correct. So much so that it almost never gets mentioned.

Most of the articles I see about misogyny are nothing more than blatant misandry.

THis idiot sounds like one more oh so want to please women and appear completely unbiased white guy who has no clue.

Love it! Thanks for posting. Now I'm off to read the blog posts he references...

Chuck Wendig's blog is a sweet guilty pleasure... oh, yeah. *smacks lips*

His tweets about his son give me life. Love him.

He has a follow-up post today, discussing some of the responses to the original. It's as good as the first one was.

Sorry not to have posted the linkee, I had removed it from my email after reading and then was lazy.



But yeah, he rocks.

Linky to the follow-up post. Just as awesome as the first one. One of the things I like about Wendig is that when he talks about this stuff he doesn't just say all the right things, he ALSO tends to say something along the lines of "But I'm also a privileged straight white guy who can't always take off the privilege-specs so if I've said something wrong please straighten me out, oh and everyone else GO LISTEN TO [insert non-privileged group he's talking about] who are saying the SAME THING!"
Anyway, I think that sort of thing is important in any ally.

And Bogna, I love hearing about his son too. Partially because his son is about 6 months older than mine, and they're very similar, so it's like a 6-month-window into the future.

Another big thank-you for introducing me to this man's blog. It depresses me so much to see sexism and other forms of bigotry in the arts -- though I have to admit I lol at the irony when it's SF sexism; gods, we're all so doomed -- reading statements like his and the ones he linked to give me a thin thread of hope.

Great blog, but frustrating. Not just in the content but that several women over the last few weeks have been talking about the exact same subject and none were linked to here. Further, like usual, they all got rape/death threats, and he did not. It's not at all his fault the response to his blog is so much more positive than when female authors write the exact same thing, but it reflects just the issues he was talking about.

I don't want men to stop blogging about this, I just wish women could earn as much popularity as the likes of Scalzi and Hines and he does (gentlemen I greatly respect, btw) and earn less disgusting vitriol. Le sigh.

Don't forget to also read the 2 blog posts he links to in #1:

http://www.annaguirre.com/archives/2013/06/02/this-week-in-sf/

and

http://www.delilahpaints.blogspot.de/2013/06/on-sexism-in-publishing-or-why-im.html

It is a little depressing, that Wendig gets nothing but praise for speaking up - yet those 2 blogs get an awful lot of hatemail and hatecomments.

Pretty good blogging. I never heard of Chuck Wendig before, but now I'm intrigued and want to check out his fiction. (Even if he does, like so many people, misspell the word "yea" as "yay".)

Toothpaste said:

I don't want men to stop blogging about this, I just wish women could earn as much popularity as the likes of Scalzi and Hines and he does (gentlemen I greatly respect, btw) and earn less disgusting vitriol. Le sigh.

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My guess is that misogynists seek out articles and blogs by women just so they can harass them. Some people are terminally resistant to education, so there'll probably always be a core of people like that.

Toothpaste said:

Great blog, but frustrating. Not just in the content but that several women over the last few weeks have been talking about the exact same subject and none were linked to here. Further, like usual, they all got rape/death threats, and he did not. It's not at all his fault the response to his blog is so much more positive than when female authors write the exact same thing, but it reflects just the issues he was talking about.

I don't want men to stop blogging about this, I just wish women could earn as much popularity as the likes of Scalzi and Hines and he does (gentlemen I greatly respect, btw) and earn less disgusting vitriol. Le sigh.

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Chuck addresses this in today's post.

It IS frustrating that a guy's blog on the subject gets more attention, but that's more a symptom of the whole problem than his fault - not that I think you're saying that. (And to be fair, his is a very popular blog anyway, so I'm glad he wrote about it, because it brought it to the attention of a lot of people)

It can be a tricky minefield to negotiate for everyone tbh.

ETA:

several women over the last few weeks have been talking about the exact same subject and none were linked to here

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There's a whole thread about it in the SFF forum, with the links to several women's blogs about the whole SWFA debacle.

Well that's good. Just a pity it was in the genre specific area, not one of the more general areas.

Nonetheless it remains true that when men blog about it they get more praise and attention. It's not their fault though, and all three of the men I've mentioned acknowledge their privilege. It still makes me upset though, that a woman gets hated if she blogs regularly about this stuff, and men can become famous for it.

Manuel Royal said:

My guess is that misogynists seek out articles and blogs by women just so they can harass them. Some people are terminally resistant to education, so there'll probably always be a core of people like that.

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There's that definitely. There's also the fact that women are supposedly less rational, less intelligent and more emotional. So when we talk about the sexism we face we are clearly just overreacting, but when a man does well he has reason and logic on his side, he must be making a valid point.


ETA: if anyone feels like getting uber depressed, check out the stories at Everyday Sexism Project just to see how pervasive such attitudes are: http://www.everydaysexism.com/

Well, it was specifically about SWFA (and Chuck was talking more generally I think).

And yes, it is highly frustrating. But as you say, Chuck, Scalzi etc acknowledge their privilege and I'm glad they do talk about it.

Bravo to Wendig et al., but the very medium they use to reach millions also gives an anonymous voice to the sexists, misogynists, sociopaths and racists. These cowards, who hide behind the cloak of electronic communication, do what cowards do--seek out the actual victims of their discrimination to spew their venom from within the safe-house of anonymity.