Conference noted::sf

    I think the "question" was answered for all time by Robert Silverberg's
    claim in the introduction to the original edition of TEN THOUSAND
    LIGHT-YEARS FROM HOME that James Tiptree was obviously male. :-)
    
    Fred

    re:.1
    
    It was Tiptree's WARMS WORLDS AND OTHERWISE. More amusing given
    that what tipped a lot of people off that Tiptree was female was
    her story "The Women Men Don't See", which those people claimed
    just couldn't possibly have been written by a man.
    
    To answer the original question, I can't think of any story by a
    female author that caused me to think, "Men wouldn't react like
    that!" so I have to assume that women can write convincing male
    characters.
    
    --- jerry

    
    Mercedes Lackey has yet to write a male character I believe, but
    that's really fantasy, not SF.
    
    DFW

    Most female authors don't portray males as protangonists.  The few
    that do, do a passable job of it.  One author that comes to mind is 
    Lois McMasters-Bujold.  Her male characters are convincing enough for
    me.  I didn't notice any glaring obvious irregularities.  She tells a 
    good story too.  I think of any that have done poorly.  There probably
    are some though.

    Mike

	It interests me that there is so little response going on here.
That means one of the following:

	1. The women authors are doing fine jobs of portraying men.
	2. Men aren't reading the female authors and thus aren't able
           to respond.
	3. Men aren't terribly concerned about how they are portrayed
	   in SF.

	I have a gut feeling that #3 is the reason. 
	Why would this be the case? Or do you disagree with me?

							Brent

    Re .5
    
    I'll go along with 3, with a touch of 1 thrown in.  In my experience,
    female authors are generally better at characterization than male
    authors (though the two ranges certainly overlap by a great deal). It
    doesn't matter whether the characters being portrayed are men, women,
    or something else.
    
    My guess would be that men tend to read SF as adventure stories and
    and place more weight on good action and clever invention than women
    do, while women tend to read SF as character drama and place more
    weight on style and characterization than men do.  (Standard political
    disclaimer: I am not saying that either sex is indifferent to the
    literary values of the other, or that all individuals of either sex
    evaluate literature in that way.)
    
    To continue with the sweeping generalizations, I have the impression
    that female SF authors simply take over the hardware of hyperdrives and
    ETs made traditional in the mostly-male past and exercise their
    inventiveness with interesting cultures, politics, and personalities.
    (More power to them.)  The male SF authors are the ones who keep coming
    up with new technical gimmicks.  If the writer is any good, he goes on
    to guess at the gimmick's impact on individuals and societies; he may
    even do it quite well; but the people share limelight with the gimmick.
    
    This is, of course, the old "women focus on people, men focus on
    things" idea.  But it seems to me the literature supports that idea.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

    This is more SFantasy but....
    
    After the Dragon Riders series I was very impressed with Ann McAffreys
    protrail of "Lord Jaxom" in the `White Dragon'. She seemed to capture
    the essence of a young male in puberty, & coupled it with the Dragon
    sence installed at the Impression.
    
    Bob I
    

re: .5

>	1. The women authors are doing fine jobs of portraying men.

In some cases, like Cecilia Holland's _Floating Worlds_, and some of the
Kate Wilhelm stories I've read, the portrayals of males are just _alien_.
The viewpoint never gives you a clue as to what's going on inside the heads
of anyone but the female protagonist.  The behavior of the males especially
seems arbitrary, unreasonable and unsympathetic in books like this.  Scary
to think that men may be seen this way by significant numbers of women.

On the other hand, Ursula LeGuin frequently does male protagonists that
i can relate to (Shevek, Ai, Ged and Ramarren all come to mind).  Joan
Vinge can have a female protagonist in _The Snow Queen_ but still make
the male supporting characters believable.  Ditto for the author of the
_Cruiser Dreams_ series (Janet Morris?)...i could relate pretty well to
the scheming, nefarious husband that the female protagonist picks up early
on in the series and eventually comes to an accomodation with.

	2. Men aren't reading the female authors and thus aren't able
           to respond.

See comments under previous item.

	3. Men aren't terribly concerned about how they are portrayed
	   in SF.

I'm concerned, but more concerned with how the protagonist, male or
female, is portrayed.  I can identify with a main character that learns,
becomes empowered, and does the best that she/he can in the circumstances.
I don't like protagonists that stay helpless and ignorant.  Beyond that,
the other characters should be somewhat lifelike--understandable but
still capable of surprising you, in other words.
							paul

   I have to plead #2.  I enjoy a spot of well-written fantasy now and again,
but by and large, I prefer the "hard SF", which doesn't seem to be very
popular among the female writers.  I may try the "Dragonriders" series at
some time (I held them in the same category as Chalker's "Soul Rider"
series which I did end up enjoying once I got around to reading them,) but
I suspect I'm not alone, and it's certainly not due to sexism or prejudice.

					-mjg

    On deeper thought, I'd say it was #3--I tend to overlook "weak"
    characterizations if the plot/storyline is good.  This was prompted
    by the mention of the Drasgonriders--some of the male characterizations
    were not as strong as the female.  I overlooked this aspect as the
    theme and the potential of dragonriding overrode the minor flaws
    I encountered. 
    
    Since I've read more books prior the entering this file most of
    the title discussed were read for pure enjoyment rather than
    analysis, so its tough for me to pin some of these measurements
    down.
    
    Earl, isn't it sad we find ourselves uttering more and more disclaimers
    as the years wear on?  Why, just this morning a radio newscaster
    spoke about a fellow who "'allegedly' confessed to the murder"! 
    This will only get worse:  "Allegedly arrested", "allegedly dead",
    "allegedly authored", "allegedly out sick yesterday", ....
    
    						Don

Were "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" and "The Screwfly Solution" both
by Tiptree?

    Yes, both were. "The Screwfly Solution" was originally published
    under a different pseudonym, though -- "Raccoona Sheldon".
    
    --- jerry

    
    	There are a number of women authors I enjoy reading: Le Guin, MZB,
    Cherryh, Morris, to name a few. As pointed out earlier in these
    replies, there seems to be a large number of women writing fantasy,
    which I read sparingly. Consequently, there are many women authors that
    I don't care for: Norton, Wilhelm, etc. However, this is not due to
    their characterizations of Men. As far as books which made me feel
    uncomfortable, or situations which I felt were not on target in how a
    male would react, two come to mind: 1) Many years ago I started reading
    a book by Joanne Russ (?) and I cannot for the life of me remember the
    name of the book; but I remember thinking at the time "Boy, has this
    lady got it in for men". 2) In Cherryh's `Chanur' books, the only human
    (for most of the books) was Cully. I felt that Cully's portrayal, as an
    individual caught up in an almost continuous state of terror, was
    contrived. From personal experience, I feel that terror is something
    that gets old much quicker than one might expect, and one either tries
    to do something about the situation, becomes fatalistic, or goes crazy.
    (No, that's not how I got so crazy.) Others might have interpreted the
    situation differently, but that was my reaction.
    
    In many SF stories, the characters are either alien, or in situations
    which are so bizarre that I wouldn't quibble with the male character's
    reactions, or lack thereof. 
    
    A question which might equally well be asked is how accurately do male
    SF writers do male characters, for often when I find myself questioning
    a male character's motivations or responses or thought processes, the
    writer is a male.
    
    Mike 

    The Russ book is probably "The Female Man".  You shouldn't skip 
    Kate Wilhelm's books because they're fantasy, because most of 
    them aren't.  She usually does straight SF extrapolation, eg an 
    immortality virus, or the perils of cloning, or wide-spread 
    drought in the western US.  
    /jlr

    Let's go back a little:
    
    One of the most effective writers of her period was C.L. Moore (later
    wife of Henry Kuttner).  Some of her best work is found in a long
    out-of-print collection, _Judgement Night_ (_and other stories_).
    The title story was exceptional, with much inventiveness, but when
    viewed from a distance, was more a story of a pair of becoming-lovers
    and their relationship (properly left with an element of imminent
    tragedy, never concluded).  Her "Northwest Smith" stories are the
    equivalent of tone poems, but again, it's more the personal situation
    than the environmwent; if you stumble across these, you'll see what
    I mean.
    
    Kuttner, husband to Catherine, was a person bubbling with technology
    (with a twist, to be sure) and relatively shallow characters.  When
    he and she married, nearly everything from either author was a collaberation
    of incredible balance.  _Fury_, the novel, is an example of that,
    with both some nasty technological problems (and developments) neatly
    balanced with the story of someone who lives in a semi-underworld
    environment who discovers he's immortal.  To be sure, our knowledge
    of the Solar System dates the story (set on Venus), but the concepts
    don't.
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    The James Tiptree Jr., Award (which is presented annually to a fictional
    work that explores and expands the roles of women and men) was given
    this past week-end at Readercon, Seventh Edition.

    Winner:

    Ammonite by Nicola Griffith ("I really, really wanted to win this.")

    Short List:

    Ring of Swords by Eleanor Arnason
    The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
    In the Garden of Dead Cars by Sybil Claiborne
    "Motherhood" by L. Timmel Duchamp
    "The Other Magpie" by R. Garcia y Robertson
    "Chemistry" by James Patrick Kelly
    Dancing Jack by Laurie J. Marks
    "Some Strange Desire" by Ian McDonald
    Illicit Passage by Alice Nunn
    Coelestis by Paul Park

    Long List:

    Crashcourse by Wilhemina Baird
    X,Y by Michael Blumlein
    Glory Season by David Brin
    Drawing Blood by Poppy Z. Brite
    "Lost Girls" by Pat Cadigan
    The Rising of the Moon by Flynn Connolly
    The Rainbow Man by M.J. Engh
    Harm's Way by Colin Greenland
    "Touching Fire" by Nicola Griffith
    The Assimilation of Leah Wennover by Stephanie T. Hoppe
    "Schrodinger's Cathouse" by Kij Johnson
    "`Forever,' Said the Duck" by Jonathan Lethem
    Songs of Chaos by S.N. Lewitt
    Evolution Annie and Other Stories by Rosaleen Love
    The Year the Horses Came by Mary Mackey
    An Eye for Dark Places by Norma Marden
    Deerskin by Robin McKinley
    "The Best Years of Our Lives" by A.R. Morlan
    "Liberator" by Linda Nagata
    Burning Bright by Melissa Scott
    "A Defense of the Social Contracts" by Martha Soukup
    "The Story So Far" by Martha Soukup
    A Plague of Angels by Sherri S. Tepper
    Virtual Girls by Amy Thomson

    							Ann B.

    So James Tiptree Jr. had an award named after her pseudonym?
    
    How long has this award been around?
    
    (I enjoyed her works; was saddened at her death).
    
    Dave

    Dave,
    
    My SWAG is three years, since this was the third time the award has
    been issued.
    
    Hey, if you're going to have an award for gender-bending....
    
    							Ann B.