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The whole SFWA thing has made me angy! I've wanted to write something about it...and I probably have a somewhat unique perspective on things...
First of all, let me say that I consider Sexism (eg the whole SFWA fiasco), Racism and Religious intolerance to all be aspects of the same problem, and my idea of a civil society does not include acceptance of those attitudes. But let me speak a bit about myself, and how I came to see things this way.
In the 1970s I was in my teens, and I was a nice Roman Catholic altar boy. Which means I was fairly racist (not overtly like a skin head, but causal racism, like not thinking there were anyone but white people, all of whom were Christians, etc) and treated "girls" as sex objects, and the whole 9 yards of being a young white male of that time. Thankfully, I got better! :-)
I had a number of things happen to me or around me that caused an attitude change. My parish priest retired, and a new priest took over the parish...and there was something...wrong....about him. And there was they way he would look at you, or at some of the other altar boys...Well, I decided that I had done my time as an altar boy, and quit. Years later, it came out that he was was taking some of the altar boys up to the parish retreat and abusing them. It still freaks me out a bit how close to being one of the victims of that priest. Then there was the Guidance Councillor Priest that told me it was my dad's right to beat up my mom, my sister and myself. That's when I started to drift away from the Church, and started questioning my attitudes about religion, women and race.
For me, my "dawn of enlightenment" came after I started doubting the who Roman Catholic way of life; then I fell in love with a "nice Jewish girl", and started to study (and love!) quantum physics in grade 11, all of which lead to me rejecting Christianity, becoming a Discordian, and being kicked out of the house by my dad at the age of 17. (and later, have some people try to kill me...but that's another story...)
No one is born racist, or objectifying women or feeling free to abuse people...it's a learned behaviour. But so much of today's society still reinforces those attitudes, despite the fact that we have made some progress. I sometimes fear it will take a long time to get rid of most of it, and I doubt we will be able to totally eliminate it. I can only say I am sorry to the victims, and do what I can to change those attitudes in the people around me and in myself. It's a long term struggle to totally eliminate wrong attitudes that were taught you in your first 17 years...
I've tried to write my feelings about this a number of times, and I don't know if this is any better than the dozens of attempts that I have written then deleted...but I need to get my frustration about this out, since it is the second time in a couple of years that this has affected the Science Fiction Fan community, and I really wish there was more I could to to fix it.
First of all, let me say that I consider Sexism (eg the whole SFWA fiasco), Racism and Religious intolerance to all be aspects of the same problem, and my idea of a civil society does not include acceptance of those attitudes. But let me speak a bit about myself, and how I came to see things this way.
In the 1970s I was in my teens, and I was a nice Roman Catholic altar boy. Which means I was fairly racist (not overtly like a skin head, but causal racism, like not thinking there were anyone but white people, all of whom were Christians, etc) and treated "girls" as sex objects, and the whole 9 yards of being a young white male of that time. Thankfully, I got better! :-)
I had a number of things happen to me or around me that caused an attitude change. My parish priest retired, and a new priest took over the parish...and there was something...wrong....about him. And there was they way he would look at you, or at some of the other altar boys...Well, I decided that I had done my time as an altar boy, and quit. Years later, it came out that he was was taking some of the altar boys up to the parish retreat and abusing them. It still freaks me out a bit how close to being one of the victims of that priest. Then there was the Guidance Councillor Priest that told me it was my dad's right to beat up my mom, my sister and myself. That's when I started to drift away from the Church, and started questioning my attitudes about religion, women and race.
For me, my "dawn of enlightenment" came after I started doubting the who Roman Catholic way of life; then I fell in love with a "nice Jewish girl", and started to study (and love!) quantum physics in grade 11, all of which lead to me rejecting Christianity, becoming a Discordian, and being kicked out of the house by my dad at the age of 17. (and later, have some people try to kill me...but that's another story...)
No one is born racist, or objectifying women or feeling free to abuse people...it's a learned behaviour. But so much of today's society still reinforces those attitudes, despite the fact that we have made some progress. I sometimes fear it will take a long time to get rid of most of it, and I doubt we will be able to totally eliminate it. I can only say I am sorry to the victims, and do what I can to change those attitudes in the people around me and in myself. It's a long term struggle to totally eliminate wrong attitudes that were taught you in your first 17 years...
I've tried to write my feelings about this a number of times, and I don't know if this is any better than the dozens of attempts that I have written then deleted...but I need to get my frustration about this out, since it is the second time in a couple of years that this has affected the Science Fiction Fan community, and I really wish there was more I could to to fix it.
