For the Ladies
I hesitate to post on this topic, both because so many smarter and more august persons have already done so, and because whenever I post about something that could be considered a “woman’s issue” I am bombarded with comment spam selling knockoff handbags (which, not even going to get into that). But there is one aspect of the SFWA Bulletin imbroglio I wanted to comment on. I don’t get the bulletin myself, so I don’t have first-hand knowledge, and like I say a lot of clever SFWA members have already commented on the important parts of the controversy.
But what the heck is up with Mike Resnick and Barry N. Malzberg writing about “lady editors” and “lady writers”? Set aside the discussion of how hawt they are – I recall thinking that was a bizarre and clunky formulation when MacGyver used it to refer to a “lady general” in the cold open of the classic episode “Target McGyver” in nineteen-friggin-eighty-five (by the way, the fact that this episode also features the comically re-dubbed Axminster makes it easily the most awesome episode of MacGyver, and possibly any TV show, ever).
It just seems to me that it behooves a wordsmith, particularly one engaged in speculative fiction, to be up enough on the current lingo to avoid using phrases that sounded dated about thirty years ago.