It's smart and sexy - and not for me

If there's one thing guaranteed to make my hackles rise it's women being described as 'smart and sexy'.  And when books are described that way, well, they're not for me, to use the famous rejection phrase.

I'm sure that I'm missing out on some cracking good stories because of this labelling, but to me it's a point of principle.  As far as I'm concerned, every character I write about is 'smart'.  There are no losers in my stories.  My characters have drive, dreams, and goals, and the determination to reach them.  They are the qualities I value in people, and they're the kinds of character I want to spend my time with.

Often when I've picked up a book with a female character labelled as 'smart' I've found her anything but.  These are often characters making bad decisions, irrational or badly thought out actions that someone of their training and experience should never make.  I can't help but wonder at those times whether the writer has dumbed down her character in the service of the plot.

Or is this 'smart and sexy' labelling merely the misplaced perception of a publisher as to what the reading public want?  Note to publishers: if you think you'll attract women in to reading SF by putting books out there with female protagonists labelled as 'smart and sexy', think again.

I want books that have women characters I can believe in.  And that means women who think about something other than sex.  Every day that evidence is all around me.  I see a growing number of single mature women freed from sex and the delusions of 'romance'.  Women grounded in solid professional and business lives who prefer to share their homes with a beloved pet, if they share them with anyone at all.

So where are these women in the books being published?  Where is the marketing that appeals to these mature, comfortable in your own skin women?

And don't give me the line that these women don't read SF.  If you think that, buy yourself a membership to any SF convention, go, and just look around you.  I've struck up friendships with several mature, single, non-sexy women at these events.  Women who love the authors and books that I do.  

Books with real women doing real jobs.  And not a 'smart and sexy' in sight on the cover blurb for those books.