Don't Submit, Ladies!

Thanks to an intriguing proposal by Charles Coleman Finley as hyped by the lovably trouble-making, John Scalzi, we have another juicy discussion of gender bias at the "Big Three" science fiction mags--Asimov's, Analog, and Fantasy and Science Fiction. Of course, when I say "big," I mean "big" in the context of the market for short science fiction, which is to say very small.I too have been dissed by two of the Big Three (I've never submitted to Analog). I've been dissed by many of the SF mags both paper and online. I never thought my submissions consituted a large enough sample size to make grand assumptions about gender bias at any of them, but the idea seems to have gained traction among SF writers. Lots of very thoughtful people have opined on the issue and suggested possible causes and solutions, but I think Nick Mamatas said it best when he suggested that getting published in a magazine printed "on newsprint and wrapped in a cover most fifteen year-olds would be embarrassed to be seen with on a bus," ain't much to aspire to anyway.I'll admit, I wanted my hard SF street cred, which is why I submitted to F&SF and Asimov's in the first place. And Charlie Stross makes the wise point that publication in the Big Three is the surest route to a Hugo nod, something quite handy when shopping one's novel. But is feminizing the Big Three a worthwhile effort? I'm not so sure.I've discussed this before, but I'll say it again. Most people think they hate science fiction in part because science fiction books and magazines are embarrassing to look at, what with all the spaceships and shit. You could say we SF writers suffer from a stigma that is, in part at least, caused by the SF publishing industry itself. Now I'm not going to say women writers aren't stigmatized. They might be, but that stigma pales in comparison to the SF stigma. So my thought is this. Rather than trying to squeeze into the already massively stigmatized and vanishingly small short SF ghetto represented by the "Big" Three, why not exploit the fact that you're outside of it. Why not go after the eyeballs of people who would never give those magazines a second look. Why not consider writing....drum roll please....Gateway Science Fiction.And no, I'm not talking about this Christian SF magazine. I'm talking about science fiction that regular janes and joes can read. And I don't believe you have to water anything down to achieve this worthy goal. All good fiction should be decodable from the content of the story itself. And while much of the fiction in the Big Three is indeed decodable and potentially welcoming to non hardcore SF fans, the magazines themselves say very clearly "Keep away!"Science and technology are important. They are changing the world we live in at such an alarming pace that we are fast becoming a species which experiences the generation gap every two to three years. And you know which branch of fiction deals directly with this massively significant cultural phenomenon? Science fiction. I ask you, is this the right look for such an important literary endeavor?If this is the ghetto keeping you out, ladies, I say thank your lucky stars and look elsewhere.