The Joanna Russ Amendment

What if Yonmei’s “Joanna Russ Amendment,” rejected by the Anticipation business meeting, had actually passed?

Her idea was to add to the final Hugo ballot a nominee by a female author in any written fiction category that lacked one after finalists have been selected by the usual rule. The additional item would have to come from the top 15 vote-getters.  

Yonmei wrote a blog post about the less-than-warm reception her idea received in Montreal. She must have felt its moral force counted for more than the spirit in which it was offered:

…it occurred to me cheerfully that as a WSFS member, I could propose an amendment to the Hugo rules. A sort of Joanna Russ amendment. An “up yours!” amendment to all the fans so smugly certain that the only reason there are so many all-male shortlists in the Hugos is because men are just more excellent writers of SF/F than women are: if women were as good as men, this reasoning goes, there just naturally would be equal numbers on average from year to year.

Some, like the Crotchety Old Fan, aren’t taking it well:

For the record – I’ve never picked up a book or not picked up a book because of the author’s name, perceived gender, race, whatever.

I had a little different thought. To Yonmei the list of Hugo finalists may be just another symptom of a sexist culture. But I look at final ballots over the past 10 years and see two or three male authors with a spectacular gift for self-promotion who regularly get their stuff nominated, a result having little to do with their gender but still, somebody else didn’t get a shot at those awards. I was curious who might have been added if Yonmei’s amendment hypothetically passed back in 2000:

How often would the Joanna Russ Amendment have been used?

In 2009, for Best Novel; in 2008, for Best Novel and Best Novelette; in 2007, for Best Novella, Best Novelette, Best Short Story, and Best Fan Writer; in 2006, for Best Novel and Best Novelette; in 2005, for Best Novelette and Best Short Story; in 2004, for Best Novelette and Best Short Story; in 2003, for Best Novel, Best Novella, and Best Fan Writer; in 2002, for Best Novelette and Best Fan Writer; in 2001, for Best Short Story; and in 2000, for Best Short Story.

So I looked up the work by a female author that would have been added in each case. (The number in parentheses is where it finished in the Top 15 nominees. The figure at the end of the line is the number of nominations received.)

2009 Best Novel
(11) Half a Crown by Jo Walton 38

2008 Best Novel
(6) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling 30

2008 Best Novelette
(6) “Safeguard” by Nancy Kress 19

2007 Best Novella
(12) “Where the Golden Apples Grow” by Kage Baker 12

2007 Best Novelette
(8) “Journey Intro the Kingdom” by M. Rickert 17

2007 Best Short Story
(6) “Nano Comes to Clifford Falls” by Nancy Kress 14

2007 Best Fan Writer
(6) Claire Brialey 19

2006 Best Novel
(12) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling 24

2006 Best Novelette
(15) “Little Faces” by Vonda N. McIntyre 9

2005 Best Novelette
(7) “The Fear Gun” by Judith Berman 17

2005 Best Short Story
(tie 11) “Singing My Sister Down” by Margo Lanagan 11

2004 Best Novelette
(tie 13) “Basement Magic” by Ellen Klages 12

2004 Best Short Story
(8) “Ancestor Money” by Maureen McHugh 18

2003 Best Novel
(9) Diplomatic Immunity by Lois McMaster Bujold 40

2003 Best Novella
(7) “The Potter of Bones” by Eleanor Arnason 40

2003 Best Fan Writer
(6) Cheryl Morgan 35

2002 Best Novelette
(9) “Computer Virus” by Nancy Kress 19

2002 Best Fan Writer
(7) Evelyn Leeper 23

2001 Best Short Story
(tie 10) “The Royals of Hegn” by Ursula K. Le Guin 14

2000 Best Short Story
(10) “Evolution Never Sleeps” by Elizabeth Malarette 11

What do we get? Jo Walton’s Prometheus Award-nominated novel Half a Crown would have gotten a run at the Hugo. Two Harry Potter novels that fell shy of enough votes for the final ballot would have been added. There would have been additional nominations for Nancy Kress, Ursula LeGuin, Lois McMaster Bujold, Kage Baker and Maureen McHugh, who have appeared on the final ballot many times.

I had wondered if the rule came with a built-in weakness, forcing Hugo Administrators to reach so far down the list that the stories would lack excellence, or have gotten trivial numbers of votes. From this list I see that particular problem would not have been much of an issue. 

Update 08/28/2009: Corrected reference to Jo Walton’s Prometheus Award nomination following her comment.

20 thoughts on “The Joanna Russ Amendment

  1. Thank you very much for doing the look-ups on this – I was meaning to ask someone where the top-15s were listed so I could find out just this. I’ll update the post with a link to this list.

    She must have felt its moral force counted for more than the spirit in which it was offered

    No. Getting the amendment to the Business Meeting was a Worldcon-specific, short-term goal: as I told Kevin when he suggested it had been “unprofitable” and hadn’t gotten a hearing:

    And while the meeting scrubbed the amendment without discussion, I think I can say: it was heard. People don’t expend that much venom on what they can’t hear. Cheryl was more optimistic than I was that it would get to a committee on Saturday: my guess was that it would die on Friday, but that the conversations it started would last a lot longer. No, it was by no means unprofitable: it was interesting; it was provocative: it was fun: and you do chair a meeting extremely well.

    My long-term goal was to introduce discussion and ultimately – I hope – change.

    It is absurd that an award which defines itself as promoting excellence in SF/F writing should have so many all-male shortlists and so few shortlists with a reasonably even balance of women and men. It is irritating as an infrequent WSFS member (most Worldcons are held where I can’t possibly afford to attend them) I should have to choose between “No Award” and promoting the idea that the only excellent writers in SF/F are men.

    Yes, I threw the amendment as a custard pie in Vetinari’s face. And yes, I could have been more reverent or more polite or more considerate of SMOFDOM. But …

  2. Pingback: Late Business at the Hugo Awards at Feminist SF – The Blog!

  3. Mike,

    I actually applauded Yonmei’s effort: from reading Cheryl Morgan’s blog and the Conreporting website updates, I knew it was coming before it got proposed.

    I didn’t see it as something that would pass – or even necessarily the right way to go about accomplishing this particular goal – but in the spirit of wanting to see more participation in the Hugo Awards (as a way of strengthening their importance and value), I thought that it might provoke more folks into wanting to participate in the process more in order to effect some change.

    But there is a bit of selective numbers-picking going on, and not looking at the award history in its entirety does the potential damage of weakening the overall argument.

    In the late 70’s to early 80’s, female SF authors had much more consistent representation in the novel category than they have over the past few years. There are other spurts, but if you look at winners and nominees by gender, that period stands out.

    Yonmei has suggested elsewhere that this was due to the Women’s Rights Movement/ERA around that time – but I find that to be an unsatisfactory and incomplete explanation – and one the prevents us from studying the dynamics with any hope of applying whatever is learned towards effecting positive change now.

    (There is probably stronger representation of women in SF publishing on the editorial side now than there ever has been.)

    Cheryl Morgan has suggested elsewhere that it may in fact be the voting constituency – and only the voting constituency – that is the root.

    If that is so, then my original reason for supporting (mentally) Yonmei’s proposed amendment was correct: it was pointed in the right general direction, but directed at the wrong people. Such efforts ought to be directed at creating a new constituency of voters, not trying to effect change amongst the existing voters.

  4. My problem with this whole thing is simple: if it were to have passed, then what?

    How many Hispanics have ever been nominated for Hugos? Do we put us fine writing Hispanics into a special category? What about Icelanders? Or Greeks? Or redheads?

    You can see where I’m going with this.

    The problem is if you specifically focus in an official capacity, you’re basically opening up a can of worms. Doing something like the Save the Semipro movement can work. Get a group regularly writing about the need to get more female authors read. Get permission to put up excerpts, reviewing new books, announcing new female (or for that matter, Hispanic, Icelandic, Greek or Re-headed) writers would almost certainly get bring some new attention and it might even bring about more nominations.

    Or it could flop.

    But it’s a way to do it that could work.

    Chris

  5. Half a Crown was nominated for but did not win the Prometheus Award, though I did win it last year with Ha’Penny, so that’s an understandable confusion.

    If it had been added to the Hugo ballot as an “obligatory girl book”, I’d have declined the (dubious) honour.

    I’m with the people saying that work should succeed on its merits. I think the whole argument that women need extra help is pernicious. The Hugos are a popularity contest within fandom. I’m delighted that 38 people chose to nominate my novel, I’d have been even more delighted if 58 had, but I don’t want anyone to pretend my work is more deserving or more popular than it is because of the shape of my genitals. I find the idea patronizing and infuriating. I’m very glad the Business Meeting were sufficiently sensible to dismiss this without a hearing.

  6. If it had been added to the Hugo ballot as an “obligatory girl book”, I’d have declined the (dubious) honour.

    I’m sorry you have such a low opinion of your own writing.

    I’m with the people saying that work should succeed on its merits. I think the whole argument that women need extra help is pernicious.

    So you’re okay with the idea that your work is intrinsically inferior to that of men writers?

    Seriously, if we go with the idea that the present state of the Hugos (by which I mean, the awards from the past 10 years or so) represents “work succeeding on its merits”, then the only conclusion is: men are better writers of SF/F than women can ever be. The people who nominate writers for the Hugos are judging work on its merits, and they judge you to be producing work inferior to that of male writers, and you think they’re right to so judge your work?

    I don’t want anyone to pretend my work is more deserving or more popular than it is because of the shape of my genitals.

    But you’re okay with people finding your work less deserving and less popular because you’re a girl?

    Because that’s the conclusion I came to, looking at the Hugo stats (and the more I look at them, the more clearly it comes through):

    Men writers are getting onto the shortlist because they’re men. Not because they’re just intrinsically better writers, producing more excellent work, than any of the womn writing that year: because the layers of statistical bias against women writers mean that less-deserving men are getting shortlisted ahead of better writers because those writers are female.

    And I’m finding it unsurprising, yet saddening, that the response of so many women writers to this is essentially acceptance that their dismissal from the Hugo shortlists is deserved – that, in the past decade or so, men have proved that they just are the tops, and women need to accept that their merits are less than those of men.

    I find that submission to an idea of male superiority infuriating.

  7. Though to be fair – I knew that I wouldn’t get any support for the Joanna Russ amendment from women writers. No woman writer could afford to say she would welcome that change – regardless of how she actually felt about it.

    (I hasten to add that I don’t mean to impugn your sincerity, Jo. But I think if I were a professional SF writer faced with this amendment, especially if I would benefit by it, regardless of how I felt about it, I would have to be non-committal, neutral, or moderately negative, just for my own professional survival – and quite possibly if I had been struggling against the male bias of the Hugo shortlist for years, I too would resent someone suggesting “hey, let’s try this to fix it!” Much as qualified doctors resent anyone trying to fix the problem of doctors in residency working 120-hour weeks: they had to go through that, why shouldn’t their juniors?)

    I proposed the amendment out of annoyance as a voter: I was angry that one of my rare chances to vote in the Hugos should, for multiple shortlists, have to be wasted on “No Award” rather than promote the idea that the only excellent writers in SF/F this year are male.

    As it happened, it wasn’t till the end of the con that someone recommended your “Small Change” series to me – by which time I was too late to pick up a copy from the dealers room. (They were all gone, aside from two copies of “Half a Crown”.) Hugo shortlists are, among other things, sometimes useful recommendations – at the least, a reason to pick up a book in a shop and check out the opening chapters. I don’t see any reason to dismiss “Half A Crown” as an “obligatory girl book”, but the statistics suggest it wasn’t on the Hugo shortlist because it was perceived as a “girl book” – and so, not worth nominating.

    And you think the Joanna Russ Amendment is “patronising and infuriating”? What do you think of your writing being dismissed from consideration because the penis mightier than the pen is?

  8. Jo: FWIW, and assuming you’re stll reading this (it’s now 20 to 2 where I am, but I’m still awake and I figure I might as well put my insomnia to good use)

    I apologise for the snark in my comment made August 28th, 2009 at 9:30 pm . And also FWIW: that particular variety of snark, directed at a woman writer responding to the Joanna Russ Amendment, will not happen again: if you’re interested in why, there will be a post at feministsf.blog in due course.

  9. “But I think if I were a professional SF writer faced with this amendment, especially if I would benefit by it, regardless of how I felt about it, I would have to be non-committal, neutral, or moderately negative, just for my own professional survival”

    Could you perhaps expand on your reasoning here?

  10. To quote Joanna Russ: “Our society runs on self-aggrandizement for men and self-abasement for women (…)” [MMTSPP p. 49.]

    Laying claim to the benefits of an amendment such as the one proposed by Yonmei would be a rejection of the Feminine Imperative, which is an already difficult rejection of internalised oppression that furthermore risks entailing the usual backlash of external oppression agaist women acting in their own interests. I believe Yonmei infers that women who have been published may have a very reasonable desire to avoid compromising their success by affirming that they are worthy of it.

  11. Gosh, and when did I stop beating my wife?

    Joining a debate by lambasting yourself and other women writers for not being good enough to appear on Hugo shortlists as frequently as men writers do will tend to have a certain effect on how you are perceived in that debate.

    I feel (and am still processing the feministsf blog post to expound this) that the honourable course for a professional woman SF writer would be to recuse herself from debate on this amendment – but I acknowledge the professional benefits which acrue from attacking it.

  12. “I feel (and am still processing the feministsf blog post to expound this) that the honourable course for a professional woman SF writer would be to recuse herself from debate on this amendment – but I acknowledge the professional benefits which acrue from attacking it.”

    As a rule, I find that discussions of other, and suggestions regarding, people’s implied motivations, lead to less productive conversations and insights than do discussions of people’s actions and statements. You may, of course, feel that your comment is purely within the realm of the latter, but I’m unsure that’s the only possible way your comment can or will be read.

    But since you express the view that you do, might I ask if you might extend your suggestion “that the honourable course for a professional woman SF writer would be to recuse herself from debate on this amendment” also to professional women sf editors and agents, as well? Or would you consider them less self-interested in whether their authors win Hugos? Or not?

    Incidentally, I’m curious as to why you tailored your amendment to apply only to “written fiction categories,” rather than all the categories: possibly you could clarify on that point?

    “Joining a debate by lambasting yourself and other women writers for not being good enough to appear on Hugo shortlists as frequently as men writers do”

    This may not be a universally agreed-upon reading of Jo’s words.

    “will tend to have a certain effect on how you are perceived in that debate.”

    Passive voice: as a point of usage and clarity, it’s generally best to avoid passive voice, and actively state whom you believe will be doing the perceiving.

  13. So, the propsed admentment wanted to add atleast one addiitional “female” to the final ballot. One the basis of the comments here: http://community.livejournal.com/anticipation_09/120086.html how should the Hugo Administrator define “female”?

    How should a Hugo Adminstrator verify this information?

    Some authors, granted only a few, have hidden themselves behind either genderless names or behind names that were known to be pseudonyms – Cordwainer Smith and James Tiptree, jr come to mind. Why should they reveal anything?

    Why should an author give up their anonymity?

    Would the “female” author being “promoted” to the final ballot be told they were going to be on the final ballot because of the amendment coming into play and would they have the right to decline? I suspect so, since nominees have the right in general to decline a nomination.

  14. Continuing on from my earlier comment: Since when does “I think Yonmei’s proposals are deeply flawed, and her arguments are deranged” automatically mean “I don’t think women are good enough to appear on the Hugo ballot”?

    For that matter, since when does Yonmei speak for the women of the SF community at all (herself excepted)? I’ve been on the Hugo ballot more than once. I know lots of fannish women who’ve been nominated, and many more who hope they’ll someday be nominated, and still more who participate in nominating and voting for the Hugos. We have no shortage of self-esteem.

    The notion that we’re too fearful and downtrodden to speak for ourselves is ludicrous. If anyone is in doubt on that question, they’re welcome to step outside and discuss the matter with me, Deb Geisler, Jane Yolen, Alison Scott, Lois Bujold, Patty Wells, Feorag NicBhride, Mac Stone, and Ellen Datlow … for starters. (Also because if we lead off with Gay and Beth and Avedon, it’ll be over too soon.)

    Furthermore, if through some bizarre combination of circumstances we were unable to make our opinions known, and needed a spokeswoman to champion our cause, I very much doubt we’d pick someone whose fanac largely consists of (1.) stirring up dissension; (2.) taking offense; (3.) pretending to speak for the women of fandom; and (4.) telling those same women that they’re doin it rong.

    Finally, a question: Does anyone know whether Joanna Russ has agreed to have her name thus linked with Yonmei’s latest crusade?

  15. Teresa, Usually much more frequently than this. I was in fabulous Milwaukee for four days and other hotel guests had the business center computers tied up when I was free…

    Your other comment indicates it’s a continuation, but I did not find an earlier comment in the queue I am sorry to say.

  16. Mike —

    Fortunately, I saved a copy of it, including your site’s header and timestamp:

    ==========

    Teresa Nielsen Hayden Says:
    September 2nd, 2009 at 11:40 pm

    Saith Yonmei:

    Though to be fair – I knew that I wouldn’t get any support for the Joanna Russ amendment from women writers. No woman writer could afford to say she would welcome that change – regardless of how she actually felt about it.

    The lurkers support her in e-mail? I don’t think so.

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