Do you start with a negative, or with a positive?
This was a response to someone in the thread of my previous post. But I wanted to pull it up top, because it touches on the core of my frustration with this whole discussion.

There are plenty of high profile female writers. Female writers sell better then male writers... because... wait for it... more women buy books then men. In fact, there are probably more successful and high profile SF and fantasy female writers than male writers.

But... and this is the problem... NONE OF THEM ARE IN MY BOOK! Get me Ursula, or Connie or someone else, and they will easily displace Bruce or Garth or some of the others. Those front five are based on simple sales numbers.... (seemingly borne out by the actual vote tallies in the original snarky post! The only difference from the poll tallies and actual list on the front was Jones and Ford).

The editor of Eclipse, Jonathan, worked his ass off to get an outstanding anthology that was a great mix of semi-comercial names and critical darlings, and damn good stories. I'm a bit upset that this discussion of the names on the front cover is overshadowing all other discussions about the quality of the book.

I'm also a bit upset that this had to begin as a Negative conversation... In an anthology that is essentially a 50/50 gender split, it could have just as easily started with "Isn't it great that an anthology edited by this guy... with NO overt gender agenda ended up with an equal split of male and female writers? Isn't it nice to see an example where the final product actually reflects the demographics, with no gender bias, one way or the other? Isn't it nice to see something that is not explicitly marketed to women has no gender bias in the contents? Isn't it nice to see a publisher taking a chance on a category of book that is a proven loser in the market place, because they believe short fiction is important?

There are a ton of positives that could have been the basis for the beginning of the conversation, that could have led into a "yeah but... look at the list on the cover... things could always be better", and this same discussion could have been had, but in a productive way, instead of a snarky counterproductive way... But some people had to start out with the negatives... they have to do it in a demeaning, snarky way that somehow ranks and pits the contributors against each other. They do it in a way that encourages people to NOT BUY THE BOOK, and then when people state "I'm not going to buy that book" nobody says... yeah.. but shouldn't we SUPPORT anthologies who's contents reflect the gender demographics, DESPITE the problem with the cover"? Don't we wan't MORE anthologies like this one? But nobody stepped in. and a productive discussion wasn't had, because it was about taking pot shots at a seemingly easy target.

It's enormously frustrating to be trying to do good, and have one negative out of a bunch of positives thrown back in your face, with no discussion at all. To have the original poster dismiss the gender split of the contents, with a virtual shrug, and continue the discussion in such a way as to encourage people to not buy the anthology... It's tiresome and maddening.

A word of advise to anybody trying to make a point, or advance a cause or agenda. You get more flies with honey rather then vinegar. In this entire ongoing discussion in the genre about gender disparity in genre short fiction markets, I'm about as sympathetic a person as there is. I'm a feminist... a vocal one who's proud of the label. I do think there are gender disparities and in whatever limited roles I am able to do so, I try and help correct this, and help correct perceptions of the issue. And if anybody who started or participated in the thread had down a little bit of homework, they could of, or at least should have known about me, and about my relationship to the book and the company that published it. But they didn't. I, and the the work of the editor, and the work of all the contributers, male and female alike were simply dismissed...Dismissed as pointless... "But it's a bit pointless doing that if you're then going to slap a boy's own cover on the thing."

Thanks... it's called not seeing the forest for the trees.