Claiming my genre

A few days ago I was in my local bookshop, browsing the science fiction and fantasy section of books yet again.  My mind went back to how I felt, standing in that same space, a decade ago.  Back then I used to feel uncomfortable being seen browsing in that section, as If I wasn't meant to be there.  The only other people I saw browsing SFF books back then were men.  I felt that at any moment they were going to march up to me and demand to know what I was doing there, tell me to go away because this section wasn't for me.

A lot has changed in the intervening decade.  Everything wouldn't be too grand a description for the changes that have swept through our genre.  I've changed on the inside, and the world and the genre has changed massively on the outside too. That decade ago I was still writing SF, and still just as much in love with the genre.  But I was seeing little evidence on bookstore shelves that women wrote SF.  I could find lots of fantasy sure, but SF?  Very little.  Now, with easy access to the Internet, I know there were many women out there writing and publishing brilliant SF.  But their books weren't stocked in any bookshop I went into, and they were invisible to me.

This invisibility really mattered to me back then.  I wasn't on social media, and my internet use was sporadic.  I hadn't joined Facebook or Twitter either.  My logins to the Internet were slow, and social media was too much of a hassle.  That meant I was missing out on a wealth of knowledge and discussion about the genre.  I knew that Urusla le Guin had been there for decades, and Anne McCaffrey.  And Katherine Kerr and CJ Cherryh.  But I discovered their works via a brilliant library. 

So what's changed? I got an iPad, and connected to the Internet far more.  I discovered there were far more women SF authors than I ever dreamed of.  Then Anne Leckie and NK Jemisin won Hugos, and not only were women back in vision in SF, but so were issues of gender and colour.  Women had taken the  genre and dared to write stories about issues that mattered to them.  And in the process ruffled the feathers of the Sad and Rabid Puppies.  And in 2017 NK Jemisin has won her second Hugo, and it seems that at last women have regained their visibility in the genre.

Now when I browse the SF section in the bookshop I don't feel furtive or apologetic.  I know I have the right to be there.  This is my genre too.  And the heartening thing is to see how many other women have joined me there, many of them looking for books by women SF authors.  I have claimed my genre, and so have many other women.  The future is looking a lot brighter now.