Judith Tarr

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• Commented on What Goes Around...
  Points to you for demonstrating the point of the OP. Women did not "push into" power in large numbers because of millennia of powerful cultural pressure against them. Which makes it all the more remarkable that so many have managed...
• Commented on What Goes Around...
  I came across an article this morning that illustrates how deep gender bias can run, even when there's an active attempt to prevent it: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/02/gender-diversity-journalism/463023/?utm_source=SFTwitter Female journalist defaulting to all-male source lists, over and over, and even getting worse as...
• Commented on What Goes Around...
  Nice derail there. Perception was that fantasy was "fluffy" and "suitable for women." There were masses of women writing it, and being patronized for it. Similar to how romance is perceived now (and was then)--romance has always been strongly female...
• Commented on What Goes Around...
  The Ballantine editions of LOTR and The Hobbit hit the US in the late 1960s. I still have my paperback copy of The Fellowship of the Ring with inscription from my brother: his Christmas gift, 1967. That was the great...
• Commented on What Goes Around...
  What the algorithm does, of course, is demonstrate its own bias. That's the problem with gender(ed) studies....
• Commented on What Goes Around...
  On the "there were a handful of powerful medieval women I've heard about" thing: What tends to happen in culture after culture is that early on and at intervals as the years passed, women may hold equal or at least...
• Commented on What Goes Around...
  I should add that those who diss romance might do some thinking about why they're doing so. The market is huge, the sales are enormous. But--it's a predominantly female genre. Quality? Have you actually read any men's adventure fiction, old-fashioned...
• Commented on What Goes Around...
  I love you guys. Note a few comments to respond to when I'm off the tablet and on the laptop, schlep out to wait hand and foot on equines, come back in and find my answers all answered for me....
• Posted What Goes Around... to Charlie's Diary
  I'm in another Storybundle this month--another of those "Women In" collections, this time Fantasy, and as usual it's a great communal experience. We all get together, help each other push the bundle, and read other's books. It's fun, it's profitable....
• Commented on The Future Is Not American
  Thanks to you and everybody else who has clinbed on board....
• Commented on The Future Is Not American
  Why, sure, but that's why the development of solar-powered computers, flashlights that run on kinetic energy, etc. While the flashbang piles up in the dragon hoards, the rest of the world will find workarounds and adaptations and alternatives. Which may...
• Commented on The Future Is Not American
  I shovel plenty of liberal manure every day, so mostly I don't feel the urge to do it online as well. Also, busy week got unexpectedly busier, so I haven't been able to check in as often as I might....
• Commented on The Future Is Not American
  Thank you, you demonstrate my point nicely....
• Commented on The Future Is Not American
  Mm hmm. (taking notes)...
• Commented on The Future Is Not American
  Oh, honey, that's such a lovely challenge for a working writer....
• Commented on The Future Is Not American
  Bingo. That's my point....
• Commented on The Future Is Not American
  It might help the above points to mention works by other than white male authors. Speaking of the hegemony thereof. And yes, there's a white male English-speaking bias overall, but the USA! NUMBER 1! NUMBER 1! faction is particularly loud...
• Posted The Future Is Not American to Charlie's Diary
  Wouldn't you know, just as I put up a Kickstarter for a space opera set a thousand years in the (non-white-American, non-male-dominated) future, a new trailer came out for the latest installment in that great movie space opera series, Star...
• Commented on Where Have All the Women Gone?
  Thank you. I'm really glad you like the book. In a ms. of almost 150K words, revised multiple times and heavily rewritten three times (the editor is a stone-hearted bitch and I love her and curse her in equal measure),...
• Commented on Where Have All the Women Gone?
  Readers like to score points by snarking at external aspects such as proofreading and editing. Generally authors grit their teeth and endure, but here, it points to one of the theses of my post, which is what women's work cannot...
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  He has been recorded as stating that it's all performance art. Hoooookayyyy....
• Commented on Where Have All the Women Gone?
  It had both, dear. It even had a proofreader. If you found errors, please let us know. As a "small outfit," we can make corrections easily and quickly. Having been with the "big outfits" for decades, I can assure you...
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  In addition to what's been said about the YA/SF disconnect (and those reflexive sneers at "wish fulfillment" would bear examination of assumptions), I am reminded of an article I read in the Guardian a few days ago in which a...
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  Harlequin is anything but a small press. It's an international monster that publishes romance. Luna was an imprint of HQN that tried to move more toward non-romance fantasy. It did not succeed. HQN carries on as a megabillion-dollar/euro operation selling...
• Commented on Where Have All the Women Gone?
  When next I need a sterling example of false equivalency, I'll link to this....
• Commented on Data, books, and bias
  As noted in previous post, the fact you are blind to it does not mean it does not exist. The statement is, for my experience as a woman in the Western (specifically US) world, accurate....
• Commented on Where Have All the Women Gone?
  Belittling. That's a big one on the Suppression list. We've seen a lot of it here....
• Commented on Where Have All the Women Gone?
  My point is that attitudes can be adjusted. If we're aware, if we watch for the unconscious assumptions, if we question and point out and if necessary raise some hell, we can shift the narrative. I'm watching the script play...
• Commented on Where Have All the Women Gone?
  And there we see one way to suppress women's writing (or editing): belittle the efforts of a woman who has set out to raise the visibility of women in SF. Helen Lewis, you are so right....
• Commented on Where Have All the Women Gone?
  I was reminded on twitter of Helen Lewis' Law. There's a fair bit of it around here today. I'm having a great deal of fun with this, and when I see a male reader/writer who wants to push against his...