The wondersome, brilliant, and insightful Elizabeth Bear matociquala wrote this column for the Winter 2007 edition of Subterranean Press. I saw it, of course, via When Fangirls Attack, the entry for December 3.

If you read Bear's column, you'll know why it appealed to me. Check it out:

. . . I’ve been hearing some complaints that women are taking over fantasy and science fiction, getting our relationship and character germs all in it, and ruining it for honest blaster-lovin’ men. That our books are all soft and fuzzy and full of ponies with braided manes and pretty princesses and happy endings where true love triumphs over the wicked king and then there is a wedding.

Now, me, I love a good blastering as much as the next guy. But apparently, I’m in ur genre, spreadin’ my girl germs, and ruining it for the boys.

It seems I’ve become a poster child for female SF authors (an interviewer told me not too long ago that I was notorious for penning strong women) which amuses me to no end, because the odd thing is, I can walk around for days on end without remembering that I Am A Girl. I just don’t think about it, frankly. Except when I have to put on a bra before I walk to the corner store.

I don’t think of myself as a woman writer. I think of myself as a writer, full stop, or a speculative fiction writer, if it comes right down to it. If somebody asks what I do for a living, I tell them I’m a novelist. I don’t tell them I’m a woman novelist.

This could be me, only my area is fantasy for teenagers. In the last couple of years, there has been a lot of stuff about how we don't have enough books out there for boys. Subtext: there are too many girls writers out there. We are getting our girl cooties all over things, with our pretty princesses and our long-maned horsies and our royal weddings. We're getting relationship and character germs all over teh Bookz and the boys are running screaming with their t-shorts over their heads out of the libraries--

to read gamer manuals, gaming magazines, computer magazines, whatever's online, plus books by Eoin Colfer, Anthony Horowitz, Clive Cussler, comics, and nonfiction.

Bear is also right in that we girl writers are not being sponsored by charitable institutions as an alternate means of putting us in sweatshops. (Trust me, a lot of us would sew our fingers to the Britney t-shirts.) We are on the shelves because we have a market, and it is made up of both sexes. My own audience now stretches from ten to eighty, with more and more over-twenties at every appearance. And a lot of those are librarians, teachers, and booksellers.


This led me to a second conversation on WFA, this one being held on the blog of anon, a mouse, in the thread ur doin it rite. Bear's column was the subject, and women writers finding an audience, whether it is with the comics Big Two--Marvel and DC--was one point raised. That's when a lot of things came together for me: what the posters were saying (at least one of whom I've had knock-down, drag-out fights with), what Bear said in her first paragraph, and my last two years' experience in the world of comicdom. I had a moment of comics satori

As far as the Big Two are concerned, women are never going to get a serious foothold. I'm not as 100% positive on this where DC is concerned--they make moves like hire Gail Simone to do Wonder Woman and try the Minx line, still going when other houses would have dumped it, and my conviction wobbles. But I am certain about Marvel. I am also certain about the fanboys. Not all of them. There are seriously good guys out there, and I feel bad for them, being tainted by the brush of the rabid, vicious, snapping, wild-eyed, runny-nosed, spitting, slavering, howling, gnashing, straining, grunting, muscle-flexing, finger-clenching, vein-popping, yapping, knee-jerking guttersnipes who turn on and savage anyone who dares to breathe on their comics worldview. They encourage each other to descend to their circle of the mudpits with slaps on the back and bonus points at each tentative sign of trogdom.

And they hose any person not one of their cherished creators if that person attempts to do anything in comics. They create a closed circle of stagnant growth with the connivance of the Big Two.

We don't have to do this. Every woman who has made a name for herself and her own vision in the arts has done so by taking whatever opening she was given and muscling her way to creating her own audience, those who appreciate her unique vision. Gail has been able to do that at DC, but Lea Hernandez established her kingdom with the indies. There are women building their audiences with independent comics, creating their worlds without the savagery of the Big Two and their fanKomodos to fight. Yes, it's thankless. Yes, it would be cool to write Spider-Woman, Storm, Huntress, Rogue, Black Canary, et al., who were our heroes as kids.

But on the other hand, rather than be dissed time after time, maybe it's time to turn our backs on the asshats and build our own icons, online and via the independents. Yes, it will take years and lots of frustration to do it. It will take some of our own money and soul-crushing day jobs.

In 1979 I went to work for a literary agency. It was there I learned that 80% of us--people in the arts, including writers, DON'T MAKE A LIVING AT IT. Most of my friends have day jobs. I knew, after three years of reading income statements, reverting rights for authors, and going over contracts, that my chances of making a living were slim. I was going to write anyway, because I was dirt poor and had nothing else to make me better off. So I worked as a secretary and wrote. I began to publish a book here and a book there. Then I was told I could do better if I wrote boy heroes--but I didn't want to write boy heroes. So even though I knew I could do better, I kept writing girl heroes, because that's what I wanted to do. Things got really bad in the 90's, when I quit working in an office and tried to get a writing career off the ground--but by then I'd become one of the 1% who can barely live on her writing. By 2000 I was one of the .5% that made a good living at it. And I was still writing girl heroes.

Fuck the meanness and the smallness of the mainstream comics. Let's do it for ourselves. Let's build a new publishing empire. We know there's a market, otherwise who is manga selling to? But who needs this abuse, from the publishers who make fun of us to the fanboys who abuse us? Let's do it like we want it.