More on The Bomb

Someone contacted me privately to say that the submissions bomb idea is, and I quote, "the most patronizing thing you could have ever done to 'women' and I'm still in shock at how you don't see that." And Ben Peek feels strongly that "there's some irony in watching a white male who has been published in Fantasy and Science Fiction fairly regularly motivate the poor, downtrodden, and unwanted feeling women to submit". He agrees with nihilistic_kid that women should abandon F&SF because it's only a men's magazine and submit elsewhere.

Like, because, I'm a man, I automatically have to play on the boys' team? I'm not allowed to see a problem and call for people to address it? I'm not writing the stories, I'm not submitting them, I'm not taking any of the risks or doing any of the work, I'm not even offering any advice on how to do it. The people who are writing and subbing are the football team: I'm just standing on the sideline like a cheerleader. So I don't buy it.

And I disagree that F&SF is exclusively a men's magazine. In fact, I find the idea of segregated men's and women's fiction magazines deeply troubling. The day I can't open F&SF or Strange Horizons or Asimov's and read good stories, regardless of author gender, is the day I lose interest in spec fic.