Ever since I can remember there has been a debate over the place of women in SF. There are many women who read SF and many women who write it, but far fewer are published. There are many sides to the debate including: women are just not capable of writing compelling SF, or there is an inherent sexism in genre fiction, or not enough women are actually writing 'real' SF.
The first argument is of course utterly rubbish. The second might have some teeth. The third? well it depends on what you consider SF to be. If you are talking 'hard' SF, that which is more focused on stories about real or plausible science and technology and less on philosophical ideas, you may have a point. Though the last two arguments are not entirely true there is something to them.
Why is the first one complete and utter rubbish? well, it's not simply because it's offencive to women writers and belittles their contribution to the genre, it is because it is absolutely false. In my opinion the first known example of western science fiction is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
Many consider this to be the mother of classic, gothic, monster horror which is true, but it is also a book about science and technology. Written during the Industrial Revolution it is a warning against the abuse of man's new found knowledge in the sciences and increasing reliance on machines. It poses questions of morality and philosophy. It is the first work of socio-political SF. So, in fact, when the author Sheri S. Tepper says "...science fiction is the genre of ideas..." she is not hypothesising on a certain sub-sect of science fiction. She is making a true statement about the entire genre.
It was my intention to write a very detailed post or series of posts on women who write science fiction and the history of women in SF. Although it is my intention to focus on this issue, I've expanded the idea into writing reviews of books written by women, who write science fiction over at Beyond Fiction run by Mark Deniz and Sharon Ring of Morrigan Books.
My first such review is of Grass by Sheri S. Tepper a stunning work of both ideas and adventure.
I would like to invite the discussion of women's contributions to science fiction and why it's seems so hard to find great female SF writers in print on a regular basis. For my own part I see that there might be some sexism still at play in the genre itself amongst both readers and publishers, however, what I see more is that there is less taste for socio-political science fiction these days than there is for the likes of hard, military and space opera SF. Could this be the reason that women struggle to make themselves known in this genre? This is just a question, a thought for discussion, not an assumption. So if you feel the assertion is wrong, let's discuss!
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