Indeed. The point is with fridging is that it is not an inherently bad thing, but by repetition, and by being predominately women being fridged to motivate men, it begins to be unfortunate.
While we’re on the subject of bringing in larger context, I’d like to point out the context of your complaint: The SFWA (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America) regularly goes off the rails over perceived instances of people not being politically correct enough. One recent incident involved the (female) editor of the SFWA bulletin being forced to resign over the following examples of “sexism”:
1) A column in the bulletin used the word “lady” to refer to women and complemented some of them on their appearance.
2) The same issue had a bikini-clad warrior woman on the cover.
This was enough to cause a huge controversy. However, the authors of said column subsequently published another column defending their previous column and pointing out how absurd the controversy was and in particular that “lady” is not a slur. This was considered completely beyond the pail and resulted in the above mentioned resignation as well as the bulletin being put on a six-month hiatus while the issue was being investigated.
I just looked through the articles you linked to and haven’t noticed anything that disagrees with my summary (I have also looked through many others you did not link to before posting my comment). Perhaps you could describe what specific additional information you think my summary is missing.
I’m not interested in having a discussion of the incident; I’m interested in directing readers of your comment to where they can find out more. Any particular sources you suggest?
Well, the sources you side are as decent as any in conveying the facts once one gets past the fact that they’re written as insane troll logic diatribes (or rather two are such diatribes and one was written by someone begging for mercy from said insane trolls). As for sources I’d recommend well Andrew Fox’s and Sarah Hoyt’s accounts are more reasonable, but they may come off as alarmist exaggeration until one realizes how common the insane trolls are.
One of the more obvious details noted in fubarobfusco’s articles is the complaints about how the articles about the female authors had much attention to female authors’ physical appearances. That was a major source of the complaints, especially in the context that one would not see similar such remarks about male authors. This isn’t the only difference, only one of the ones that jumps out.
One of the more obvious details noted in fubarobfusco’s articles is the complaints about how the articles about the female authors had much attention w [sic] to female authors’ physical appearances.
There’s a severe scale difference here in description. This wasn’t just complements but more strong language. Frankly, I’m inclined to think the whole thing did get blown out of proportion, although I suspect that the primary reasons for it had as much to do with the never ending internal politics of SFWA which seems to spend more of its time as a drama factory than anything else, as much as it had to do with feminism. But even given that, it still seemed like your summary downplayed the concerns.
Incidentally, I’m slightly curious if you downvoted my comment and fubarobfusco’s comment; both comments were downvoted within a few seconds of your replies. I don’t particular care much about karma one way or another, but it probably isn’t a great idea to downvote people one is having a discussion with if one is going to have any minimal hope of caring out a productive conversation. Among other issues, it can easily increase cognitive dissonance levels and make it substantially harder to accept an argument from the person one is talking to.
I’m not entirely sure what this has got to do with my comments, other than it is an issue related to feminism in science fiction and fantasy writing. I don’t really want to get into this argument, but would suggest simply that it this situation is perhaps more complicated than your post suggests.
Both arguments are based on the position that while something is not inherently bad (e.g., the frigging trope, complaining about aspects of a story that bother you), this instance of it is a problem because of the larger social context in which it is embedded.
As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, keep in mind that tropes are not bad.
Indeed. The point is with fridging is that it is not an inherently bad thing, but by repetition, and by being predominately women being fridged to motivate men, it begins to be unfortunate.
While we’re on the subject of bringing in larger context, I’d like to point out the context of your complaint: The SFWA (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America) regularly goes off the rails over perceived instances of people not being politically correct enough. One recent incident involved the (female) editor of the SFWA bulletin being forced to resign over the following examples of “sexism”:
1) A column in the bulletin used the word “lady” to refer to women and complemented some of them on their appearance.
2) The same issue had a bikini-clad warrior woman on the cover.
This was enough to cause a huge controversy. However, the authors of said column subsequently published another column defending their previous column and pointing out how absurd the controversy was and in particular that “lady” is not a slur. This was considered completely beyond the pail and resulted in the above mentioned resignation as well as the bulletin being put on a six-month hiatus while the issue was being investigated.
Edit: Here are Andrew Fox’s and Sarah Hoyt’s articles on the subject.
Your description of the incident does not seem to be very complete or accurate.
Fortunately, others have written about it — such as E. Catherine Tobler’s open letter, this io9 article … and, of course, SFWA president John Scalzi’s statement.
I just looked through the articles you linked to and haven’t noticed anything that disagrees with my summary (I have also looked through many others you did not link to before posting my comment). Perhaps you could describe what specific additional information you think my summary is missing.
I’m not interested in having a discussion of the incident; I’m interested in directing readers of your comment to where they can find out more. Any particular sources you suggest?
Well, the sources you side are as decent as any in conveying the facts once one gets past the fact that they’re written as insane troll logic diatribes (or rather two are such diatribes and one was written by someone begging for mercy from said insane trolls). As for sources I’d recommend well Andrew Fox’s and Sarah Hoyt’s accounts are more reasonable, but they may come off as alarmist exaggeration until one realizes how common the insane trolls are.
One of the more obvious details noted in fubarobfusco’s articles is the complaints about how the articles about the female authors had much attention to female authors’ physical appearances. That was a major source of the complaints, especially in the context that one would not see similar such remarks about male authors. This isn’t the only difference, only one of the ones that jumps out.
Um, I noted that in my summary.
There’s a severe scale difference here in description. This wasn’t just complements but more strong language. Frankly, I’m inclined to think the whole thing did get blown out of proportion, although I suspect that the primary reasons for it had as much to do with the never ending internal politics of SFWA which seems to spend more of its time as a drama factory than anything else, as much as it had to do with feminism. But even given that, it still seemed like your summary downplayed the concerns.
Incidentally, I’m slightly curious if you downvoted my comment and fubarobfusco’s comment; both comments were downvoted within a few seconds of your replies. I don’t particular care much about karma one way or another, but it probably isn’t a great idea to downvote people one is having a discussion with if one is going to have any minimal hope of caring out a productive conversation. Among other issues, it can easily increase cognitive dissonance levels and make it substantially harder to accept an argument from the person one is talking to.
I’m not entirely sure what this has got to do with my comments, other than it is an issue related to feminism in science fiction and fantasy writing. I don’t really want to get into this argument, but would suggest simply that it this situation is perhaps more complicated than your post suggests.
Both arguments are based on the position that while something is not inherently bad (e.g., the frigging trope, complaining about aspects of a story that bother you), this instance of it is a problem because of the larger social context in which it is embedded.