The Geek Feminist Revolution, page 23
PART III: LET’S GET PERSONAL
Becoming What You Hate
1. Laura J. Mixon, “A Report on Damage Done by One Individual Under Several Names,” laurajmixon.com, http://laurajmixon.com/2014/11/a-report-on-damage-done-by-one-individual-under-several-names/.
2. Kathleen Hale, “‘Am I being catfished?’ An author confronts her number one online critic,” The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/18/am-i-being-catfished-an-author-confronts-her-number-one-online-critic.
3. Elizabeth Bear, “The following is an open letter to my friends and colleagues who are established members of the science fiction and fantasy community,” Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/7312419-i-cannot-touch-the-rain.
Let It Go: On Responding (or Not) to Online Criticism
1. Jerry Lee, Buzzfeed, http://www.buzzfeed.com/jarrylee/john-green-responded-on-tumblr-to-accusations-of-sexual-abus#.huq15M01q.
2. Sam Biddle, “Justine Sacco Is Good at Her Job, and How I Came To Peace with Her,” Gawker, http://gawker.com/justine-sacco-is-good-at-her-job-and-how-i-came-to-pea-1653022326.
3. Alison Flood, “Anne Rice signs petition to protest bullying of authors on Amazon,” The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/04/anne-rice-protests-bullying-amazon-petition.
Terrorist or Revolutionary? Deciding Who Gets to Write History
1. Michael Moran, “Bin Laden Comes Home to Roost,” NBCNews. com.
2. Alissa J. Rubin, “Airstrike Hits Doctors Without Borders Hospital in Afghanistan,” The New York Times.
PART IV: REVOLUTION
What We Didn’t See: Power, Protest, Story
1. Kameron Hurley, “What living in South Africa taught me about racism in America,” kameronhurley.com, http://www.kameronhurley.com/what-living-in-south-africa-taught-me-about-racism-in-america/.
2. “History of slavery in California,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_California.
3. Greg Nokes, “Black Exclusion Laws in Oregon,” The Oregon Encyclopedia, http://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/exclusion_laws/#.VSfNvPnF-So.
4. Elizabeth McLagan, “The Black Laws of Oregon, 1844–1857,” BlackPast.org, http://www.blackpast.org/perspectives/black-laws-oregon-1844-1857.
5. “The Eye of the Beholder,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eye_of_the_Beholder.
6. John Rudolf, “Where Mental Asylums Live On,” The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/opinion/sunday/where-mental-asylums-live-on.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1.
7. Tara McGinley, “List of Reasons for Admission to an Insane Asylum from the Late 1800s,” Dangerous Minds, http://dangerousminds.net/comments/list_of_reasons_for_admission_to_an_insane_asylum.
8. “Nazi Euthanasia Program: Persecution of the Mentally & Physically Disabled,” Jewish Virtual Library, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/disabled.html.
9. Kameron Hurley, “‘We Have Always Fought’: Challenging the ‘Women, Cattle and Slaves’ Narrative,” A Dribble of Ink, http://aidanmoher.com/blog/featured-article/2013/05/we-have-always-fought-challenging-the-women-cattle-and-slaves-narrative-by-kameron-hurley/.
10. Parker Marie Molloy, “‘Because We Can’: How Society Justifies Anti-Transgender Discrimination,” The Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/parker-marie-molloy/anti-transgender-discrimination_b_4273822.html.
11. Zack Ford, “STUDY: Transgender People Experience Discrimination Trying To Use Bathrooms,” ThinkProgress, http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2013/06/26/2216781/transgender-bathroom-study/.
12. Michelle A. Marzullo and Alyn J. Libman, “Hate Crimes and Violence Against LGBT People,” Human Rights Campaign, http://www.hrc.org/resources/entry/hate-crimes-and-violence-against-lgbt-people.
13. Kameron Hurley, “A Complexity of Desires: Expectations of Sex and Sexuality in Science Fiction,” The Book Smugglers, http://thebooksmugglers.com/2014/01/sff-in-conversation-kameron-hurley-on-a-complexity-of-desires-expectations-of-sex-sexuality-in-science-fiction.html.
14. “Stark Racial Divisions in Reactions to Ferguson Police Shooting,” Pew Research Center, http://www.people-press.org/2014/08/18/stark-racial-divisions-in-reactions-to-ferguson-police-shooting/.
15. Jamelle Bouie, “Why the Fires in Ferguson Won’t End Soon,” Slate, http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/08/ferguson_protests_over_michael_brown_won_t_end_soon_the_black_community.html.
16. “Criminal Justice Fact Sheet,” National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet.
17. “Slavery Takes Root in Colonial Virginia,” Digital History, http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3576.
What Living in South Africa Taught Me About Being White in America
1. “A Matter of Color: African Americans Face Discrimination,” Oregon State Archives, http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/pages/exhibits/ww2/life/minority.htm.
2. “History of African Americans in Chicago,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_African_Americans_in_Chicago.
3. Aura Bogado and Voting Rights Watch, “Watch a Colorado GOP Poll Watcher Report a ‘High Concentration of People of Color,’” The Nation, http://www.thenation.com/article/watch-colorado-gop-poll-watcher-report-high-concentration-people-color/.
It’s About Ethics in Dating
1. Zachary Jason, “Game of Fear,” Boston Magazine, http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2015/04/28/gamergate/.
2. Taylor Wofford, “Is Gamergate about Media Ethics or Harassing Women? Harassment, the Data Shows,” Newsweek, http://www.newsweek.com/gamergate-about-media-ethics-or-harassing-women-harassment-data-show-279736.
3. Zachary Jason, “Game of Fear,” Boston Magazine (May 2015), http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2015/04/28/gamergate/.
Hijacking the Hugo Awards
1. Jay Hathaway, “What Is Gamergate, and Why? An Explainer for Non-Geeks,” Gawker, http://gawker.com/what-is-gamergate-and-why-an-explainer-for-non-geeks-1642909080.
2. Vox Day, “Why Women’s Rights Are Wrong,” WND.com, http://www.wnd.com/2005/08/31677/.
3. Amal El-Mohtar, “Calling for the Expulsion of Theodore Beale from SFWA,” amalelmohtar.com, http://amalelmohtar.com/2013/06/13/calling-for-the-expulsion-of-theodore-beale-from-sfwa/.
4. Abigail Nussbaum, “The 2015 Hugo Awards: Thoughts on the Nominees,” Asking the Wrong Questions, http://wrongquestions.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-2015-hugo-awards-thoughts-on.html.
5. Samuel R. Delany, “Racism and Science Fiction,” The New York Review of Science Fiction, http://www.nyrsf.com/racism-and-science-fiction-.html.
6. N. K. Jemisin, “Wiscon 38 Guest of Honor Speech,” nkjemisin.com, http://nkjemisin.com/2014/05/wiscon-38-guest-of-honor-speech/.
7. Ashley Broughton, “Minorities expected to be majority in 2050,” CNN.com, http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/08/13/census.minorities/.
8. Jocelyn Kiley, “61% of young Republicans favor same-sex marriage,” Pew Research Center, http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/03/10/61-of-young-republicans-favor-same-sex-marriage/.
9. Brianna Wu, “I’m Brianna Wu, And I’m Risking My Life Standing Up To Gamergate,” Bustle, http://www.bustle.com/articles/63466-im-brianna-wu-and-im-risking-my-life-standing-up-to-gamergate.
10. Alex Hern, “Gamergate hits new low with attempts to send Swat teams to critics,” The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/13/gamergate-hits-new-low-with-attempts-to-send-swat-teams-to-critics.
Dear SFWA Writers: Let’s Chat About Censorship and Bullying
1. E. Catherine Tobler, “Dear SFWA,” ecatherine.com, http://ecatherine.com/dear-sfwa/.
2. Jim C. Hines, “SFWA Presidential Election Thoughts,” jimchines.com, http://www.jimchines.com/2013/02/sfwa-presidential-election-thoughts/.
3. Anita Sarkeesian, “Anita Sarkeesian at TEDxWomen 2012,” TEDx Talks, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZAxwsg9J9Q.
With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: On Empathy and the Power of Privilege
1. Rich Johnston, “When Jonathan Ross Was Presenting the Hugo Awards. Until He Wasn’t,” Bleeding Cool, http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/03/01/when-jonathan-ross-was-presenting-the-hugo-awards-until-he-wasnt/.
2. Amy McNally, “The Hugos and Wossy,” Storify, https://storify.com/infamousfiddler/the-hugos-and-wossy?awesm=sfy.co_bbl7.
3. Beverly Bambury, “How to Handle Social Media Missteps: Book Marketing without B.S. #9,” beverlybambury.com, http://www.beverlybambury.com/2014/01/how-to-handle-social-media-missteps.html.
Rage Doesn’t Exist in a Vacuum
1. Patrick Rothfuss, Twitter, https://twitter.com/PatrickRothfuss/status/441712235925090304.
2. Alison Flood, “Jonathan Ross withdraws from hosting Hugo SF awards after fans and writers strike back,” The Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/03/jonathan-ross-hugo-award-host-twitter-backlash.
3. Cora Buhlert, “The media spin machine at full power or This is totally not what happened,” corabuhlert.com, http://corabuhlert.com/2014/03/07/the-media-spin-machine-at-full-power-or-this-is-totally-not-what-happened/.
4. Michael Hogan, “It really is time people stopped hating Jonathan Ross,” The Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/10679808/It-really-is-time-people-stopped-hating-Jonathan-Ross.html.
5. Douglas O. Linder, “The Nelson Mandela (Rivonia) Trial: An Account,” University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) School of Law, http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mandela/mandelaaccount.html.
6. Matt Berman, “The Forgotten, Radical Martin Luther King Jr.” National Journal, http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/the-forgotten-radical-martin-luther-king-jr-20140120.
We Have Always Fought: Challenging the “Woman, Cattle, and Slaves” Narrative
1. Alison Flood, “Wikipedia bumps women from ‘American novelists’ category,” The Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/apr/25/wikipedia-women-american-novelists.
2. Emily Asher-Perrin, “Lady Teenage Coder Fixes Your Twitter So No One Can Spoil Game of Thrones For You Again,” Tor.com, http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/05/lady-teenage-coder-fixes-your-twitter-so-no-one-can-spoil-game-of-thrones-for-you-again.
3. Dan Vergano, “Invasion of the Viking women unearthed,” Science Fair, http://content.usatoday.com/communities/sciencefair/post/2011/07/invasion-of-the-viking-women-unearthed/1#.VcH2S25VhBc.
4. Karen Maitland, “Sword and Scalpel,” The History Girls, http://the-history-girls.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/sword-and-scalpel-by-karen-maitland.html.
5. Foz Meadows, “PSA: Your Default Narrative Settings Are Not Apolitical,” Shattersnipe: Malcontent & Rainbows, https://fozmeadows.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/psa-your-default-narrative-settings-are-not-apolitical/.
6. Esther Inglis-Arkell, “The frozen calm of normalcy bias,” io9, http://io9.com/the-frozen-calm-of-normalcy-bias-486764924.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book of essays would not exist without the tireless persistence of my agent, Hannah Bowman. She not only championed the book to others, but also persuaded me that it was both worthwhile and possible to find a home for this collection. She gave me an outline for the initial proposal, and we hammered it out quickly, with an understanding that this was a fairly timely collection and needed to move out the door fast. She also talked me down from several Dark Teatimes of the Soul in which I’d considered nuking this project entirely. Full service agency, there.
Thank you to Marco Palmieri and Diana M. Pho for careful editing work on writing that I’d done quickly and on the fly for online audiences. There’s a permanency to writing a work that’s traditionally published that I don’t feel when I’m writing online, and getting this collection into shape required some work.
Special thanks to everyone at Tor Books for getting on board with this book. In addition to Marco and Diana, I spoke with several senior editors and staff after the sale who expressed their wholehearted admiration and support of the book. They said that when Marco came to them for their opinion on acquiring the collection their response was, “YOU MUST BUY THIS BOOK, MARCO.” I know you’re not supposed to love any book more than any other, so I appreciate all of the support at the house. It’s not easy to get a book from acquisition to publication day in nine months, but here we are, and I know that took a lot of hustling from a lot of people to pull off.
Irene Gallo and her crack team of artists did a phenomenal job on the cover of this collection, which came out just right. Thanks also to the copyeditor, Deanna Hoak, who had to work with my bizarre tendency to make up words and phrases that appear in no dictionary. Not to mention the fact that I have a lot of sentence fragments and comma preferences that can give even me a headache.
My assistant, Danielle Horn Beale, did the tireless work of reviewing and verifying all of this collection’s endnotes, as well as pulling and formatting essays that only existed online and putting all those endnotes into the correct format. It’s this sort of necessary trench work that does not get acknowledged enough in publishing. Many thanks to her for fighting the good fight.
Living out loud can have its drawbacks, and I want to thank my husband, Jayson Utz, for coming along for the ride. Many express surprise that this foul-mouthed writer has a partner, because I don’t write about it. Maybe people expect that I live alone with a lot of cats (which I think would be a pretty great life, though I’ll have it known that I prefer dogs). Let’s just say that there are some things in my life that are so precious I want to jealously keep them to myself, and he is one of them. Thanks for having my back throughout this wild career.
Finally, though my parents are proud champions of my work, they don’t read any of my fiction. I thought I’d hit a home run here with an essay collection that they may actually read, but my mom expressed trepidation on hearing I was writing stories about my life. “I’m afraid of what you’ve written about us!” she said. The truth is I love my parents to pieces, and though they certainly didn’t teach me how to have healthy relationships with money, food, or alcohol, they instilled in me a work ethic, persistence, and integrity that have helped shape who I am today. For better or worse.
I hope this collection didn’t disappoint.
THE BIG RED HOUSE
FEBRUARY, 2016
ALSO BY KAMERON HURLEY
God’s War Trilogy
God’s War
Infidel
Rapture
Worldbreaker Saga
The Mirror Empire
Empire Ascendant
The Broken Heaven (forthcoming)
The Stars Are Legion (forthcoming)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Award-winning novelist and advertising copywriter Kameron Hurley has degrees in historical studies from the University of Alaska and the University of KwaZulu-Natal, specializing in the history of South African resistance movements. Her essay on the history of women in conflict, “We Have Always Fought,” was the first blog post to win a Hugo Award.
Hurley is the author of the God’s War trilogy, a science-fantasy noir series that earned her the Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer and the Kitschies Award for Best Debut Novel. She has won the Hugo Award twice and been a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Nebula Award, the Locus Award, the Gemmell Morningstar Award, and the BSFA Award for Best Novel. Additionally, her work has been included on the Tiptree Award Honor List recognizing works that challenge and expand representations of gender. Her latest novel is Empire Ascendant, sequel to The Mirror Empire, which received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal.
Hurley’s short fiction has appeared in magazines such as Popular Science, Terraform, Lightspeed, EscapePod, and Strange Horizons, and anthologies such as Meeting Infinity, The Lowest Heaven, The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women, and Year’s Best SF. Her work has been translated into Romanian, Swedish, German, Hebrew, Chinese, Czech, Spanish, and Russian. She writes regular columns for Locus magazine and has also had work published in The Atlantic. She writes personal essays at kameronhurley.com.
In addition to her writing, Hurley has been a Stollee guest lecturer at Buena Vista University and taught copywriting at the School of Advertising Art. Hurley currently lives in Ohio, where she’s cultivating an urban homestead. Or sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Introduction: Welcome to the Revolution
PART I: LEVEL UP
Persistence, and the Long Con of Being a Successful Writer
I’ll Make the Pancakes: On Opting In—and Out—of the Writing Game
What Marketing and Advertising Taught Me About the Value of Failure*
Taking Responsibility for Writing Problematic Stories
Unpacking the “Real Writers Have Talent” Myth
PART II: GEEK
Some Men Are More Monstrous Than Others: On True Detective’s Men and Monsters
Die Hard, Hetaera, and Problematic Pin-Ups: A Rant
Wives, Warlords, and Refugees: The People Economy of Mad Max
Tea, Bodies, and Business: Remaking the Hero Archetype
A Complexity of Desires: Expectations of Sex and Sexuality in Science Fiction
What’s So Scary About Strong Female Protagonists, Anyway?*
In Defense of Unlikable Women
Women and Gentlemen: On Unmasking the Sobering Reality of Hyper-Masculine Characters
