The stat that might be most meaningful is acceptance rates for men and women in F&SF. Many, many places (from magazines to scientific journals to companies) that think they're gender-neutral and treat women fairly actually give significant preference to men - as much as 400% in some scientific fields. Even when "prominence in the field" and "quality of work" are controlled for as much as they can be, women generally get the shaft. (And that doesn't mean that people have to be HUGELY biased. If you do the math, even a 1% bias against women in each decision works out to a significant practical disadvantage over time.)
While I think this idea of getting lots of women to send stories in is a good one, and I agree with you that it really should be women who aren't already submitting, I think the real investigation that has to happen here is about whether the perception of not being welcome is *factually* correct. Getting a hundred women to send in stories isn't going to fix any structural issues that may exist. Finding out the truth about the perceived bias, on the other hand, can go a long way toward correcting it all by itself; when this sort of unconscious bias was pointed out to people *with facts and figures to back it up* they were able to implement fairer judging criteria and the like.
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yati
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Date: 2006-06-15 08:57 pm (UTC)While I think this idea of getting lots of women to send stories in is a good one, and I agree with you that it really should be women who aren't already submitting, I think the real investigation that has to happen here is about whether the perception of not being welcome is *factually* correct. Getting a hundred women to send in stories isn't going to fix any structural issues that may exist. Finding out the truth about the perceived bias, on the other hand, can go a long way toward correcting it all by itself; when this sort of unconscious bias was pointed out to people *with facts and figures to back it up* they were able to implement fairer judging criteria and the like.