Gender Balance & Genre Ballots Redux

Ellen_Kushner has a thoughtful reaction from Geoff Ryman on the lack of women nominated for this year’s Hugos. A taste:

We seem to have reverted to type. It’s time at least to ask the question: is there something fundamental to the SF tradition that excludes many things women live through and write about? Or which tolerates those writers and their works while delivering an essentially masculine dream? Maybe in ORDER to deliver that masculine dream. Is this dream so deep and enduring that no amount of conscious political correctness can undo it? Is it the case that men find SF easier to write? Or do fine writers like Liz Williams, Gwyneth Jones, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Suzy McKee Charnas simply write material that is regarded as fantasy or slipstream and so doesn’t make the cut?

Please do go read the whole post and the comments; there are no easy answers, that’s for sure.

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