I know I got my shovel, where's yours?

Yesterday on Facebook I saw that Liz Bourke had linked to Rod Rees’ little piece of codswallop, and I made a couple of bleary comments on her Facebook to the effect that (a) the guy can’t write and (b) the post was obviously just a cry for publicity for his sad little novels. Then I deleted my comments because I remembered I had sworn blind to myself that I would stay out of online stuff this summer and concentrate on writing my book.
But here we are again: sexual harassment, SFWA, marginalizing of women writers, the VIDA count…women in genre is the issue of the day. And what is happening at Jo Fletcher Books and with Rod Rees is, in my opinion, nothing more than an attempt to cash in on the outrage and frustration that so many women in this field are feeling. I know I’m bloody feeling it. I feel outraged and horrified about what’s happening in my workplace in the wider context of watching atrocities committed against women worldwide, of watching events in the US unfold that would have seemed unthinkable when I was growing up.
Science fiction is fucked at the moment. As writers we barely glimpse what effects science and technology will have on our lives six months from now, let alone in a thousand years. It has never been more difficult to write science fiction, and never less rewarding as commercial interest shifts increasingly toward other forms of escapist fantasy. But I’m still doing it, shovelling that shit against the tide. And I have a book on submission with Jo Fletcher Books. In the past I would have kept my mouth shut, faced with a post like Rod Rees’, for obvious reasons. But I am at a point where I have seen too many mediocre male writers succeed while my work languishes, unread, that I give no more fucks, flying or otherwise. I have nothing left to lose, you see.
I have had other reasons for staying out of these discussions. One reason is that I can dish it out but I can’t take it. It’s easy to hurt me. I have the world’s thinnest skin. Am I smarter than most of the dudes in this business who sell bigger than I do and shout louder? Yep. Can I write better novels? Damn straight, I can. Could I beat them all up in a fight? Hah, you can bet on it. Do I want to have to succeed by putting other people down or whacking them in the head? No, I do not.
So I have a book on submission at that house, and I ask myself: would I want to be published there if this is what’s happening? But then I ask myself, where would I want to be published that this isn’t happening? And in point of fact, despite being an Arthur C. Clarke Award winner and multiple-time nominee, despite 20 years in this business and accolades by top reviewers and writers such as Ian McDonald, Pat Cadigan, David Brin, Patrick Ness, Justina Robson, Adam Roberts, Peter F. Hamilton and Jon Courtenay Grimwood, I have been struggling to sell work, and because of that I have been struggling to write.

Now, that is no big news. A great many writers are struggling right now. We are legion. But. I am asking myself whether science fiction doesn't deserve all the bad press it gets if it keeps putting its money where its values are.
Is Rod Rees what we want as a field? Shit, we’ve just fucking lost Iain Banks. McAuley and Cadigan have cancer and I hope to God they both beat it. But really, what is the future of the genre in this country when publishers have to resort to cheap tricks like this and when idiots like Rees are encouraged to open their mouths and speak with regard to issues concerning women?
Rod Rees will be down the pub being consoled by his friends that the mean, bitter women have ganged up on him. Me, I will go back to the novel I am writing on spec—this will be the second written on spec in the last few years, because I haven’t sold enough numbers to be offered a contract on a partial—and I will write my heart out, as I always do.
But the trouble is here that the publishing system is in freefall and it’s every man for himself. That means that women support each other and women support men. Why did a woman publisher say to Rees, 'OK, put up that post, we’ll get some hits off that?' Because she is trying to sell books, I'm guessing, and she’s trying to do it any way she can. It’s called survival. Why, when Kari Sperring put up that twitter feed #womentoread, were nearly all of the respondents women? Why did Nina Allan take time away from working on her novel to blog about her top Women To Read while her much more famous partner focused on his own career? Why did the rebuttal against Rees come from Foz Meadows and not one of you blokes?
Where the fuck are you guys? I can count on one hand men who have done anything about this. Niall Harrison. Ian Sales. Um? Anybody else? Oh, Paul Cornell. I guess there must be others but I’m damned if I can call them to mind. Shit, it’s almost as hard to think up these names as it is to think of women SF writers who exist other than Ursula Le Guin and C.J. Cherryh.
What does it fucking take?
Can you tell I’m mad.
PS I’m not linking to anything, you can google if you don’t knowPPS I’m not on twitter anymore but if you are and you want to link to this, feel free.PPS disabling comments because I have a fucking book to write and not sell. Ha ha.