Oh SFF Community, the SFWA Bulletin Petition

So, to refresh memories, last year there was a big hoo-hah about some pretty sexist issues of the Bulletin, the official mag of the SFWA. I blogged about that here.

Since then, to their credit, the SFWA have made several changes to how the Bulletin works, including improving the editorial oversight process for the mag to make sure the problem doesn’t happen again.

Great right? The SFWA has learnt from the episode has moved forward! That would be my position, but others, it seems disagree.

A petition has started to try and prevent this new editorial process, invoking the First Amendment and other straw men. However, the one that’s going around isn’t the first version that was sent to many writers. Natalie Luhrs over at Radish Reviews has a brilliant post that covers the whole thing.

I think my thoughts can be summed up as follow:

  • That’s a damn long petition to basically say you want to keep on saying sexist crap in the official magazine for an organisation
  • The authors who signed the petition should be ashamed, this is not censorship, this is editorial control, something oh I don’t know EVERY SINGLE NEWSPAPER DOES.
  • I really hope the petition doesn’t come to anything, the changes to the Bulletin are a good thing.

I need to point out that first: the person who started the petition isn’t a SFWA member, but many of signatories are, and second: I’m not a member of the SFWA, just a fascinated outsider.

Sexist attitudes like those shown last year that caused this whole thing, shouldn’t be part of the SFF community in 20-fucking-14. It’s just not acceptable anymore. Steps to make it clear that those views aren’t welcome anymore is good. It’s not censorship, it’s saying your views aren’t welcome here anymore.

For a community that talks so much about the future, it seems to spend a lot of time trying to stay in the past. Efforts to move it forward is good, not attempts to keep it that way.