Award activism

Award Activism

So not enough women are winning genre fiction and related awards. That's not good. But it isn't going to change unless we (and by "we" we mean "you" as well) do something about it. So what can you do?

Current year's award-eligible works

Add to this list, and nominate from it: Works by women eligible for 2010 SF Awards

Locus Poll

If you can read this wiki then you can vote in the Locus Poll. You have no excuse. Check the Locus web site each March.

Hugo

The Hugos are owned by the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS). Voting is open only to WSFS members, but you can easily become a member simply by joining the current year's Worldcon. Fortunately you don't have to actually attend the convention (which can get very expensive). You can buy a supporting membership. This entitles you to nominate and vote in the Hugos, nominate for the following year's Hugos, and vote in the site selection ballot which determines where Worldcon will be held two years later. You also get copies of all of the current Worldcon's publications (a glossy souvenir book and a number of progress reports).

The cost of a Supporting Membership varies each year, and is currently running in the range $40-$50. That's less than $1 a week to do your bit for promoting women writers.

You may have heard that voting in site selection also costs money. It does, but you get a free supporting membership in the winning convention in return for your voting fee. If you were going to buy that supporting membership anyway you are not out of pocket. And if you end up wanting to attend you can upgrade to an attending membership, usually at a discount for having voted.

Some regular WSFS members believe that supporting memberships are too expensive and/or that Worldcons should offer a cheaper voting membership to encourage participation in the Hugos. WSFS is a democratic organization whose rules are set by a meeting open to all members held at Worldcon. Also individual Worldcons have considerable leeway in what memberships they can offer, and as they are volunteer-run they are always looking for enthusiastic fans to help out. If you are serious about changing the Hugos, it is possible to get involved in WSFS politics and have an impact.

If you really can't afford a supporting membership, you can still influence those who can. During the nomination period there is much online discussion of potential nominees. The most prominent site for such discussion is the Hugo_Recommend LiveJournal community [1]. Anyone can recommend works/people here, and the blog is read by many people who do have Hugo nominating rights.

Finally, while thousands of people are eligible to nominate and vote in the Hugos each year, less than 1,000 actually do so. If you can nominate and/or vote, please do so.

World Fantasy

Members of the World Fantasy Convention have a say in the nominees (but not the final winners) in the World Fantasy Awards. Unlike Worldcon, WFC has no supporting memberships. Joining the convention will cost you at least $100, but that does get you the right to nominate for three years. WFC is predominantly an event for industry professionals rather than for fans, so you may find it less interesting to attend than Worldcon or Wiscon. But if you are an industry professional it is well worth attending for professional reasons, and you get to nominate in the awards.

National Fan Awards

Many countries have fan awards given out by fan associations or by national conventions. These include the BSFA Awards (UK), the Auroras (Canada) and the Ditmars (Australia). The USA has no national fan awards, but a number of regional fan groups do give awards to local writers. If you are an active fan you can get involved in voting in these awards.

Judged (juried) Awards

Judged (also "juried") awards are decided by the judges, and you generally don't get to be a judge unless you are a well known writer, editor or critic, or perhaps a well-respected fan. But that doesn't mean that the rest of us cannot at least try to influence the results.

To start with, judges read. For all you know, some award judges may be reading your blog. What you say about fiction may influence them.

Secondly, some judged awards only consider books submitted to them by publishers. A publisher may not bother to submit a book if it hasn't been selling well, or has been getting poor reviews. Buying books, and writing about them when you find that they are good, can help them win judged awards.

And finally, you can complain about the results if you don't like them. You never know, the following year's jury might take your complaints to heart. But before you go yelling "bastards" at the judges, please remember that awards are given for excellence, not for gender. So long as more men get published than women, it is statistically more likely that men will win awards.

You may also be concerned about the representation on juried panels. While judges certainly try to do a good job, there is some evidence that men are less likely to pick up and read a book by an apparently female author, and it is reasonable to assume that unconscious biases may also inform a judge's evaluation of a work. Thus, ensuring that selection of juries takes into account gender, and other major identities that may implicate relevant social criteria for that award (most often ethnicity, but language or nationality are also likely candidates) is important.