Okay, so a brief explanation:

On Thursday night, I made a lengthy post in which I spewed some thoughts about the F&SF gender-bias thing. After posting it, a friend of mine read it, and said that it would probably just make things worse because it sounded defensive. I looked at it again, and thought he was right, so I deleted it. However, a lot of people still saw it, because, as it turns out, when you delete something in Movable Type, it doesn’t necessarily *delete it*. So, Gwenda, and others, that was why when you tried to post a comment to that entry, you couldn’t.

So while I’ve reconsidered wading head-on into the debate, I do want to point out that I have NO PROBLEM AT ALL with the “Story Bomb.” BRING IT ON, I say. I’m looking forward to seeing all the new stories from women writers, and especially from the writers who don’t normally send us stuff, and those who have never sent us stuff before.

If the only goal is to get more women submitting to F&SF, then I think it’s going to be great, and will certainly succeed.

If, on the other hand, anyone expects it to prove or disprove a gender-bias, well, I don’t think it will do anything of the kind. That’s my only reservation about the challenge. All of my other misgivings about this enterprise arose out of all the anti-F&SF sentiment I saw being spewed, so I was mostly reacting to that.

Here’s what Gwenda said in response to my now-deleted post:

Hey JJA — I was trying to post this on the new entry about this, but can’t for some reason. So I’m dropping it here.

Everything you say here is right and legitimate and I can even understand how this effort might ruffle your (and other people’s) feathers. My interest in this is — and I don’t think I’m alone — in seeing more stories by women on the F&SF TOC (and this dream also includes people of color). It’s as a reader, not as a writer. And the make-up of the slush may be the issue, but then the question to the magazine is what can proactively be done to change that ratio and should it? Should the magazine be concerned that so few women are submitting? And actively encourage more of it? As a reader of the magazine, again, I’d hope the answers would be yes.

I wish the same for the other magazines, but I’ll admit to wishing it more for F&SF because it’s the one I like best, the one that most regularly has stories I think are truly excellent. But it does rankle to get a new issue and see no stories by women on the TOC; it creates a disconnect for me. (And for others I’ve talked to.)

And seriously, if there are more good stories than one or two that Gordon loves in the estimated hundred that you get, why can’t you hang onto them an extra month or three and buy them then?

For the record, I agree with everything she says here, except for the ruffling the feathers part. The only thing that ruffled my feathers was the anti-F&SF sentiment, not the idea of the story bomb. I love the idea, for the reasons she outlines above.