Welcome to day two of the guest blogs. Today author Katharine Kerr talks about Girls’ Books vs. Boys’ Books. It was interesting to read her story and compare how books were segregated in the 1950s vs. the way they’re marketed today. And as she notes, it’s not just how the books were shelved, but the stories themselves that made clear who was and wasn’t welcome in the genre.

Come back tomorrow for a post from Susan Jane Bigelow.


I was lucky enough to grow up in a family of readers. Admittedly, on my mother’s side of the family, some of them mostly read the Bible or religious works. Others, like my mother and grandmother, loved the “sweet” Romances of the period. My uncles loved Westerns and police thrillers. My father’s parents, on the other hand, were serious Leftists and read serious Leftist books, like DAS KAPITAL in the original German. Both sides, however, believed in reading aloud to children. They also believed in public libraries.

From the time I was big enough to walk the ten blocks or so to our local branch, my grandmother and I made a weekly trip to the library. She loaded up on genre reading for her, and I loaded up on books from the children’s section, mostly animal stories, which I particularly loved. As soon as I could read, I read a lot, well beyond that illusory category, “grade level”. That’s when the trouble started. Not from my grandparents, I hasten to add, but from the other adults around me.

When I was an older child and young teenager, back in the 1950s, I began to hear entirely too often, “You shouldn’t be reading that book. It’s not for you.” No, I hadn’t picked out a book with too many big words or too much sex, nothing from the “Adult” section of our public library, no Leftist tracts, either. I had committed the sin of liking Boys’ Books.

It may be hard to imagine now, but there used to be fixed categories of Boys’ Books and Girls’ Books. Boys got science fiction, adventure stories, historical stories of battles and exploration. Girls got junior Romances, stories of girls helping others or setting up their own homes, horse stories, and . . . well, I never found much else in that section of the library. Some were well written, like the “Anne of Green Gables” books or the “Flicka” horse stories. Most struck me as utter crap, even at thirteen, particularly the junior Romances, such as the Rosamund de Jardin “Marcy” series. Oh yes, I can’t forget the forerunners of “self help” books. Those available for girls in the 1950s centered around “how to look pretty and get a boyfriend.” I never noticed any self help in the Boys’ section. They, apparently, didn’t need advice.

What I wanted were the adventures, the battles, and the science fiction. Among the Boys’ Books, I discovered Roy Chapman Andrews and Robert Heinlein’s YA novels, along with a lot of lesser writers whose names, alas, I have forgotten but whom I loved at the time. When I went to the library desk to check these books out, the voices started. “Are you getting those for your brother? No? Why do you want to read those? They’re for boys. You should look in the Girls’ section.” No librarian actually prevented me from taking the books home, mind. That was reserved for my mother. “Why are you reading that junk?” was one of her favorite phrases. “It’s not for girls. Take those back. Get some good books.”

I read most of Heinlein’s YA books while sitting in the library. Why risk taking them home and getting nagged? When as a teen, I graduated to SF for grown-ups, the disapproval escalated, too. My mother helpfully tried to get me to read proper female literature by checking out books for me. I dutifully read them — hell, I’d read anything at that age, from cereal boxes on up — but I never liked them. Finally she gave up.

But even the books I loved told me I shouldn’t be reading them. Some had no female characters at all. Some had a few females placed here and there, as servants or, back in the delicate ’50s, “love objects.” (Raw sex objects arrived in SF a bit later.) A few had horrible female villains, like THE STARS MY DESTINATION, where a bitter woman, trapped in a teleport-proof prison to protect her virtue, schemed against the hero. There were exceptions, like Jirel of Joiry. The librarian let me check those out without comment. But on the whole, the Boys’ Books had merely grown up — or grown older.

Reading a lot of SF did make me profoundly interested in science. I desperately wanted to be part of the space program. In high school I took all the science and math I could. I got the highest marks in those classes only to be told that no one would ever let me into an all-male space program. And back in 1960, it was most definitely all-male. One of my teachers even joked that maybe I could be a receptionist at JPL. I realized at some point that reading the “wrong” books had given me the “wrong” dreams. At 16, confused and vulnerable, I gave it all up. I took no more “hard” science courses. I left the math classes to the boys, just like the boys wanted. I read no science fiction at all for years, until I came across Ursula Le Guin in the late 1960s.

I have been known to snark at writers and editors who question the need for including a wide range of characters in their fiction. Why? I know first hand that it hurts. Had I been black or Asian or a member of some other minority group, it would have hurt even worse. People who read a lot of fiction form judgments based upon their reading about how the world works and should work. Books can give us dreams and ideals and goals. Saying to any group, “these dreams, these goals, are not for you” harms not just the individuals, but our culture. These days, the future needs all the help it can get. Let’s not turn anyone away who wants to be part of it.


Katharine Kerr spent her childhood in a Great Lakes  industrial city and her adolescence in Southern California, from  whence she fled to the Bay Area just in time to join a number of the Revolutions then in progress. After fleeing those in turn, she became a professional story-teller and an amateur skeptic, who regards all True Believers with a jaundiced eye. An  inveterate loafer and rock and roll fan, she begrudgingly spares some time to write novels.

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

Warning: parody and snark ahead, in response to this silliness, a petition to prevent something that doesn’t and won’t actually exist.

Originally, I had intended to gather signatures for my parody, but a wise friend pointed out how that could be counterproductive, adding to the sense of an Us vs. Them schism within SFWA. Which would have been ironic, considering how I was grumbling about such attitudes earlier in the week.

I like SFWA. They do a lot of really good work. It annoys me when someone who isn’t even a member stirs up this kind of silliness, creating conflict and bad press over nonexistent “hypothetical” boogeymen or issues that were dealt with — including the solicitation of input from the entire membership — a year ago.

I like RWA too, for that matter. I love hanging out with romance writers, and I’ve learned a lot from talking to them. I have zero patience for people who, despite never having read the genre, go around dissing romance as nothing but mantitty and bodice-ripping and simplistic formulaic fiction. (Also, I wish my genre sold that well!)

My response is not meant to belittle anyone or anything except for the original, ridiculous petition and the individual who put it forth.

#

RWA President Secretly Censoring Romance Writers Report?

By Jim C. Hines

Terry McLaughlin, President of the Romance Writers of America, has obviously been part of an ongoing policy of P*litically C*rrect censorship in the organization’s organization’s professional publication, a professional magazine for professionally writing professionals, the Romance Writer’s Report., the Romance Writers Report.

As a professional author who once read a romance novel, I was shocked when I investigated this organization I don’t actually belong to and found covers such as this gracing their magazine:

Yes, they’re wonderfully clean and professional-looking covers. But I visited the page on the RWA website where the Romance Writers Report is described as, “a trade publication that mails monthly and covers all aspects of the romance writer’s career. Free with your membership.” (Emphasis added.)

This mission statement is, on the surface, seemingly harmless. Unless, that is, you are aware of the ongoing history of cover art selected for the Romance Writers Report and my selective oversimplification and misrepresentation of that history! Because the alleged meaning of “all aspects” here doesn’t mean what it’s commonly taken to mean, which becomes clear when you look at these covers and see the meaning that’s missing.

The problem can be summed up in one word: mantitty.

It’s the lack of mantitty that made me sit up and rub my eyes to make sure I wasn’t seeing what I thought I wasn’t seeing. These covers represent “all aspects” of a romance writer’s career? Say whaaaaaa…? As an amateur cover model, I’m quite familiar with the manly pecs and flowing man-locks that are such an essential part of my selective interpretation of the romance genre’s history and roots.

[SELF-CENSORED EDITED TO REMOVE SECTION ABOUT HOW GAY MEN LIKE MANTITTY TOO SO THIS IS TOTALLY DISCRIMINATORY AGAINST THEM]

There is a tradition in this country of people misunderstanding the First Amendment and crying “Freedom of speech!” when a professional organization chooses not to publish content it deems unprofessional. As a Writers’ Organization, RWA should be at the front line in the deep, wet trenches of this battle, fighting in their torn uniforms, with sweat glistening on their firm muscles, their piercing blue eyes fixed upon the Enemies of Freedom. Enemies who had once been allies on that winter night so long ago, when firm hands slipped beneath the tight waistband of our jeans to grasp our tight buttocks and pull us close—

…sorry. Where was I? Oh, right. Freedom! The heart of the matter is that RWA has been committing an ongoing offense against freedom of the press – its own press! – through this blatant self-censorship of mantitty!

So I clasped my pen firmly in my strong, eager fingers and spilled my ink onto the page.

[Email to RWA President Terry McLaughlin, February 11, 2014]

“Hi Terry :-)

Why have you chosen to TRAMPLE THE FREE SPEECH AND FREEDOM OF THE PRESS by not putting rock-hard abs and chiseled man-chests on the cover of RWR?

Why do you hate freedom? And mantitty?

Sincerely,

Jim C. Hines”

I received no response. I blame censorship. (Or the fact that I didn’t actually email her.)

In the light of the preceding unsubstantiated fearmongering and hot-button buzzwords that don’t actually exist in RWA’s policies or procedures, I strongly object to the RWA’s ongoing mantitty-censorship. Specifically, I have the following objections:

  1. “Romance writer’s career” is so vague it leaves many questions unanswered. What is romance? Who is a writer? Why are you so determined to portray these “writers” as professionals instead of the boa-wearing, bon-bon munching stereotypes of old?
  2. What about the advertisers? Will you be auditing them to make sure the purity of your publication isn’t soiled by mantitty-tainted dollars?
  3. If you continue this Politically Correct censorship of mantitties, aren’t you creating a slippery slope that leads to DEATH PANELS?

In view of these considerations, I ask that the President and Board of the RWA (1) put out an open call for mantitty and (2) begin a conversation about romance cover art, because this topic has never before been discussed in a venue where I was able to satisfactorily explain to everyone else why they were wrong.

[SELF-CENSORED EDITED TO REMOVE SECTION ABOUT HOW HOLDING A PROFESSIONAL MAGAZINE TO PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS IS JUST LIKE SLAVERY!]

It cannot be emphasized too strongly here that the issue is not one of Left vs. Right, SF/F vs. Romance, Peanut Butter vs. Jelly, Kirk vs. Picard, or Fabio vs. Hugh Jackman. The only issue here is a First Amendment one that lovers of both Fabio and Jackman should be able to agree on. When our forefathers signed the Constitution of the United States of America, it was with the understanding that Thomas Jefferson was going to get to see some chiseled, powder-wig-wearing man-chest.

 “Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!”

—Charlton Heston (actor, and apparently the kind of guy you quote in petitions)

It is my hope that RWA President Terry McLaughlin will immediately kill any “professional” guidelines or oversight in the organization’s publications that might censor or infringe upon any RWA member’s Freedom to Enjoy Mantitty (and throw out any and all respect they’ve fought so hard to earn) in the pages of the Romance Writers Report.

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

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