If we’re talking specifically about female creators, I think that we sometimes have this notion that sexism is worse in comics than it is anywhere else. I don’t think that’s true. I think that sexism is a part of our world, not just publishing. Not just comics. You know, welcome to culture. This is the thing you’re going to have to face no matter what industry you go into, so go into one you enjoy! If you’re going to fight the fight, you might as well fight it for something that’s going to be a good time, right?
Whether you’re male or female, you’ve gotta start making comics. And it’s scary. I get it. It’s terrifying. But you have to do it anyway.
What do you love most about working in comics?
Being done.
I think in our culture, superhero comics are still very dominant. Because of TV show stereotyping, we have these notions about comic book readers as basement-dwelling bottom-feeders, or completely socially inept weirdos. And there’re certainly those comics that attract those readers, but there’s also a wealth of comics that attract readers who are drawn to a kind of heroic idealism. They are extraordinary people, and I am blessed to have them in my life.
What’s it like to be an “inspiring feminist figure” in your own industry?
I’ll take that! That’s great!
(Laughs) I have a lot of growing to do yet as a writer and as a person. But if something that I do or say moves someone to make some forward action, that’s a gift to me. I’m a human being. I’m going to screw things up. I think most people are very forgiving of that. Most people understand that. I’m also very open about how, you know, I’m a mess! (Laughs)
Somebody wrote me a while ago and asked a question that was like, “Tell me about your work-life balance.” And I was like, WHAT work-life balance?! I do not have this figured out. I can tell you what I do, how little I sleep, and how tired I am all the time. I have some adjustments I’m making now to try to make things a little better.
I think people sometimes want there to be an easy answer. Pretty Deadly deals with a lot of mythic elements. It’s one of those books that we get a lot of goose-bump moments as we’re putting it together, where things, seemingly unrelated pieces, clearly go together. It feels like we’re more discovering the book than writing it.
It’s a very adult book. My six-year-old boy saw a couple of pages I had laid out on the table. It was a violent passage. It was an animal being shot. So he had a lot of questions, and we talked about it. Then he told me about a dream he had had. He had hurt a hummingbird. He hadn’t meant to hurt it, but he hit it with a water gun and it fell out of the air. He went to check on it and he said, “I tried to give it my breath, but it was too late.”
It was very sweet and very sad, but we talked about how we hurt things as we move through the world, whether we mean to or not. I think that that is more the price of our humanity than the being hurt. Then we talked about Jenny and the bunny. It was a very similar thing. Jenny didn’t so much mean to hurt the bunny as just see what would happen. But in the fiction space, Jenny and the bunny became connected, and the bunny tells her story.
Because of that conversation, I wanted to include a hummingbird in Pretty Deadly, so I started reading about them. And I found this study that was fascinating. They were trying to figure out how a hummingbird that weighs less than a penny stays aloft in the rain. And they did all this research on how they do it. And what they found out was, the hummingbird works harder in the rain. There’s no secret. There’s no magic. It’s harder to fly in the rain.
That’s the thing I keep coming back to lately, this notion that some things are just hard! You just have to work harder.
What do you think about female body image in comics?
We’re in a culture where our bodies are not our own. I think having a daughter has changed that conversation considerably for me as well.
Every once in a while something gets by me. I’ve got an issue going to press that has a shot of a much beloved character to me where—it’s called a broke-back pose, where you can see both breasts and both butt cheeks at the same time. I asked that it be corrected, but I don’t know that it’s going to happen before the book has to ship because we’re putting these things together in thirty days. It’s an impossible amount of work in thirty days.
The naysayer response is always, “Well, you have to understand that the male characters are idealized as well.” So then my head explodes, and then hopefully after I calm down we have a conversation about how the male figure, the male superhero, is idealized to communicate the idea of strength. The female figure is idealized to communicate the notion of sexual availability. Which is why you want both breasts and both ass checks to face forward. It’s why their costumes are cut to expose as much as possible. I’ve had to place a word balloon over a crotch because I could see her cervix; we were having a pelvic exam on the page, you know? And I’m not a prude!
That assumes a male heterosexual audience, which is not a message I want to send to my female reader. I don’t want her to feel unwelcome.
From the moment we start consuming media, we are taught how to identify with the male protagonist. Women are so under-represented in our media. We have no problem making that leap, but we don’t ask young men to do the same because women in our society have a lower status and you don’t want to imagine yourself down, right?
There’s an apocryphal story about how J.K. Rowling chose to make it Harry Potter instead of Harriet Potter because it would be more universal. Apparently, this is not a true story, but you get the idea. There is this assumption in media that the male character is default and you have to justify any variation from that. I find that offensive.
I was asked in an interview not too terribly long ago, “You’re doing another book with a female lead, aren’t you afraid of being pigeon-holed?” I was like, “Has that question ever been asked of a man in the history of ever?” We’re half the population! Was Hemingway pigeon-holed? What?!
I write across genres. I write a superhero solo title. I write a funny team book. I write a ghost story. I write a horror-Western. What am I going to be pigeon-holed as? A girl?
I think it’s time that we stop supporting that structure.
What does it mean to you to be creating and writing strong women characters for a new generation of readers?
I’m not doing anything that’s never been done before. I’m not even doing anything that’s never been done with this character before. You know, maybe it’s just payback. A thank you to the Wonder Woman comics of my youth or the Ms. Marvel comics of my youth.
Are there enough women working in comics and in sci-fi/fantasy?
Oh, hell no. I think mentorship is crucial. I try to hire women every opportunity I get. I ask for women as much as possible. If I can’t take a job and I need to recommend someone else, I try to recommend a woman.
Who was a mentor for you?
Brian Bendis and Warren Ellis are the ones that spring to mind. There have certainly been women who have gone before me in the industry that have opened doors. Gail Simone springs to mind. Louise Simonson, Trina Robbins, certainly. Colleen Doran. I could go on and on. There are one or two names working now, too, but it’s not enough. We’re still, I think, under ten percent? We might be under five percent. That’s not good enough.
I personally think we should aim higher than fifty percent, too. I want like ninety. Throw the bums out.
What about sexism in the comics themselves?
Where it was a problem, it’s still a problem. There have always been comics that were not hideously offensive, and there still are. If that’s what you want, you can certainly find it.
Every once in a while I’ll get a letter from somebody who’s mad that Carol’s wearing pants. Which is hilarious, because Carol’s pants are skin-tight and shiny. You know, if you could just color that flesh-color, it would be exactly the same, my friend!
I am not trying to eradicate T&A comics. They are always going to exist. I would just like for the
re to be some other options. Like, dude, they still make Bondage Fairies, I believe. Go get you some. But we’re taking this one.
At the end of your career, what do you hope your lasting impact will be?
If I’ve written a story that has made someone feel connected to their humanity, feel that they are less alone in their experience of this world, then I have been a success.
If I have, by my presence, shown another woman that it can be done, then I have been a success. You know, I didn’t grow up Kelly Sue. I use my middle name because my first name is gender-neutral. I want it to be clear that I am a woman writing this book.
If something happened to me tomorrow, I would feel pretty good about this part of my world. I would like for that to not happen, because I want to see my kids grow up. So let’s just put this out to the universe, that this is not some kind of ironic interview!
Maybe I just don’t like the pressure of it, but I don’t like the notion of the writer as shaman, or the artist as special. I am much more comfortable with a worker among workers. You show up and you work, whether the muse decided to turn up that day or not.
It brings us back to the hummingbird. Some days it rains. Guess what? It’s harder on those days. I get to feel like I’m doing my job and I feel a part of a bigger picture.
There’s a civil rights attorney that wears her Captain Marvel dog tags under her suit when she goes to court. That’s somebody who’s doing something important.
There are two different women suffering from MS who have written to me about the second arc of our last run and how Carol dealing with her tumor spoke to them, because of the experience of needing to ask for help and that feeling of having been betrayed by your body. Those letters taught me about the importance of representation in a way I’ve never really understood before. It’s so vital to see ourselves reflected in fiction.
We are fifty percent of the population. Why are we not fifty percent of the cast, you know? Why are we not fifty percent of the heroes? It means so much to see ourselves. Stories are how we make sense of the world. Just that message that you matter, that you count, that you are here.
Jennifer Willis is a writer and editor in Portland, Oregon. She has written for The Oregonian, The Christian Science Monitor, Salon.com, and The Writer. In fiction, she is the author of the urban fantasy/YA series Valhalla. Find her online at jennifer-willis.com.
“The Status Quo Cannot Hold”: A Few Words from Women Who Wrote/Are Writing the Goddamn Book on Destroying Science Fiction
Tracie Welser
Science fiction is experiencing a new Golden Age. Did you know?
Science fiction is a thriving field of increasing diversity, the subject of study at universities and symposiums and conferences around the world. And it’s increasingly feminist.
That’s right, I said it. Feminist. Sure, naysayers cling to the past and drag their feet, but they always have. Audacious imaginings for the future dance on. We dance on.
My desire to dance and dare and imagine comes from a basic human yearning: The future has to be better than the world we have now. It has to be. But we have to imagine a better future before it can become.
The utopian yearning at the center of feminist SF means it’s about more than robots and rockets and alien worlds, even though I want those, too. But I want my literature to confront what’s wrong with world: imperialism, racism, sexism, and ableism. Instead of holding up those structures (oh, Heinlein, you broke my teenage heart), give me tools to tear them down. Give me a vision of a better future. Or better still, step back. I’ll write my vision. Science fiction is my playground, my toolbox, the literature of the future, the literature of ideas, of dreams, and I dream a utopian future.
That’s feminist SF, to me, and it’s bigger and bolder than a handful of “strong women” characters, what some folks call the “add-women-and-stir” method of inclusion to playing fields that otherwise remain unaltered.
So, imagine my delight when I learned of The Sally Miller Gearhart “Worlds Beyond World” Symposium on the subject of Feminist Utopian Thought! Anything “utopian,” and I’m there, count me in. Add “feminist,” and it’s like cookies in my ice cream. This delicious but all-too-brief event was hosted by the Center for the Study of Women in Society at the University of Oregon, home to the Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, and Fantasy Collections of the Knight Library, a significant archive including papers from feminist SF writers and authors such as Joanna Russ. The Symposium was one part of a three-day event celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Center, a day one participant referred to as a “mini Wiscon.”
This Symposium brought into conversation a number of women I admire: Ursula K. Le Guin performed a reading and participated in a witty Q&A after a warm introduction from Molly Gloss; Dr. Kathryn Allan was awarded the 2013 Le Guin Feminist Science Fiction Fellowship; trailblazing authors Suzy McKee Charnas, Vonda McIntyre, L. Timmel Duchamp, Kate Wilhelm, Andrea Hairston, and Larissa Lai spoke on complex subjects dear to my heart (the history and vital work of feminist utopian narrative). More remarkable women made up the audience; Gearhart herself was present and briefly stood to give the assembly a dignified wave.
The title alone! The participants! As Duchamp later remarked, “Feminist SF is a grand conversation.” The conversation here included writers and academics (as well as writer-academics) and, in short, asked where did this begin, and where are we going?
Of the Symposium’s four panels, two stirred the utopian yearnings dearest to my heart. Brilliance flew far and fast, and I was helpless to capture all but a few salient points. In session number two, “Feminist Science Fiction as Political Theory,” moderator Larissa Lai asked about the relationship between SF and the 1970s women’s movement, and the participants highlighted the fact that simply writing as women was deeply political. Suzy McKee Charnas said, “Raising questions in a story was a hugely political act … the whole thing reeked of politics from the beginning and still does.”
When asked, “Is our work propaganda?” Vonda McIntyre replied, “I thought we finished with this debate about women in scifi in the 70s … Our work has been called shrill, strident, but suburban lit is also propaganda.”
Most passionate of the panelists, Kate Wilhelm stated that “the status quo was male adventures and women wringing their hands and saying, ‘be careful’…‘she writes like a man’ was a high compliment! Well, goddamn it, I didn’t, and I don’t.” She expressed “distress” at “how far they want to roll back the curtain,” and firmly asserted that “utopia equals absolute equal rights. “The real message,” she said, “is that we are not satisfied with the status quo, and we might nudge others or hit them over the head if we need to … The status quo cannot hold.”
Lai also asked provocative questions about ways of knowing and challenges to patriarchal knowledge production. Aqueduct [Press] editor and author L. Timmel Duchamp noted that emphasis on masculinization of female characters, particularly in urban fantasy, highlights “extraordinary women” rather than “ordinary” ones, and is a substitution rather than a challenge to the normative emphasis on individualism. Charnas pointed to newer authors like Nnedi Okorafor, whose work introduces readers to diverse cultural contexts and values.
Session number three, “Building Feminist Worlds,” moderated by Margaret McBride, asked, in part, how do we get to utopia? Is there a “there” there, and how can we avoid essentialism/tokenism while building that inclusive world?
Larissa Lai pointed to the risks, saying “I don’t want to lose our histories … our specificity [in order to avoid essentialism].” And those histories, Lai says, are often nasty, awful and complicated. She noted the potential of “metaphoricity,” of SF to create new forms, such as when Octavia Butler invented her own species with their own “bodily and cultural logic.” L. Timmel Duchamp added, “We need fictional identities to be as complicated as we can stand.” On categories, Andrea Hairston says, “I protest that way of knowing the world … I don’t need to rely on th
ose paradigms. They’re on our bodies.”
Molly Gloss expressed the need for not only new ways of thinking about character, but narrative itself, saying, “We need stories where conflict doesn’t feature as central to story.” And Andrea Hairston further linked the social message of feminist narrative to political and theoretical thought, saying “I take it to my lab [storytelling] … I eat theory every day,” which strikes me as an elegant way of saying that there’s really no difference between theory and story.
In a follow-up interview, fellowship recipient Kathryn Allen (whose work focuses on representations of disability in SF) said, “Women have been ‘destroying’ SF since the beginning. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is, arguably, the first identifiable science fiction text … I’m totally biased when it comes to thinking about ‘women destroying SF’ because to me, women BUILT SF.”
This event was thrilling to me because it created an environment for conversations about what’s at the heart of feminism, about what kind of world we have, what kind we want, and the lengths to which we will or will not go in order to achieve it, what Larissa Lai calls “utopian tactics.” These “tactics,” Suzy Charnas says, “are personal,” and utopia is a process, not a destination. Like their fiction, the participants present a complex dialogue, an important one, and in my opinion, quite possibly the most important one in the world as we know it. These authors and their texts (which you, dear reader, are free to seek out so you may join the conversation) ask vital questions about the ways in which current models of society and citizenship prevent the actualization of more equitable visions, and suggest that other modes, other futures are possible. In this way, they suggest that change in the present is also possible.
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