patriarchyisbullshit:

At least according to The Spearhead, an online magazine that bills itself as “An expression of our growing voice, and combines the talents of some of the Anglosphere’s best bloggers on men’s issues.”

There are lots of Men’s Rights sites out there, and this one is only different in that it does a slightly better job of dressing up its anti-woman schlock as a valid worldview instead of plain old discrimination, and it reaches a relatively wide audience — especially with it’s recent article about the “feminization” of science fiction. The article has been picked up and tossed around the internet a great deal — it popped up in my RSS reader a total of four times from both feminist sites and science fiction sites.

The article essentially blames women for the increase of character and plot driven science fiction recently, using the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica as its example (over and over and over again). Why is this a problem, you ask? Oh, because apparently, “Science fiction is a very male form of fiction.” And “feminizing” it will result in “[A] generation of boys [that] will not have inspiration from science fiction, at least not from science fiction on television and in movies.” And as a result will not go on to have careers in the fields of science and technology (where, as we all know, men are VASTLY underrepresented).

While the number of people who seem to agree with the author is neither heartening nor surprising, a lot of people seem to be publicly calling bull on this one. (The Spearhead notes with glee that their article ended up being a topic of discussion in their “local feminist gutter-rag.”) My favorite response so far is from author John Scalzi, who retorted with:

The premise of [this article] essentially boils down to:“Science Fiction is by boys and for boys and now girls are ruining it for anyone with testicles, except the gays, who are just like girls anyway (and whose testicles frighten me).”

2:47 pm  •  24 October 2009