User:Chavey/Gender

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Gender of SF Authors

This section represents an attempt to classify the gender of book authors in the ISFDB lists. The current project limits itself to authors (or editors) who have published a book from the "Classic" time, i.e. more than 25 years ago. Specifically, it includes those individuals who have published a Novel, Collection, Anthology, or Omnibus prior to 1985. (This does not include chapterbooks, short stories, essays, nonfiction or non-genre books.) The lists linked to below are, currently, limited to enumerating the women writers and those writers whose gender cannot yet be identified. The methodology used to claim the gender of the author is detailed at the bottom of this page.

These lists are inclusive when it comes to defining "women". For example, they include: (i) Pseudonyms which are names for joint authors, one of each gender (often, husband and wife). (This probably deserves a separate list.); (ii) Writers who are transgendered or transexual. (I know of no intersexual SF writers, but they would be included also.)

Progress

This project has currently analyzed only those authors whose last name begins with A-D. I continue to work alphabetically through the authors.

The lists linked to below include authors, the date of their first book publication, the number of books they published before 1985, and, where applicable, the number of books they've published since 1985.

This does not include authors (or books) added to the ISFDB since Jan. 1, 2011.

This project has stalled while I've been working on other projects, and re-thinking how to approach the gender classification project.

Women Authors

Women authors who have published a book (novel, collection, or anthology) prior to 1985. Organized by the first letter of their last name. The number after the letter is the number of authors in that category.

  A (56)   B (149)   C (100)   D (52)   -E-   -F-   -G-   -H-   -I-
  -J-   -K-   -L-   -M-   -N-   -O-   -P-   -Q-   -R-
  -S-   -T-   -U-   -V-   -W-   -X-   -Y-   -Z-

Magazines and Fanzines, prior to 1980, that were edited by women

A
A. Merritt's Fantasy Magazine Mary Gnaedinger, 1949-50
Amazing Science Fiction Stories / Amazing Stories Cele Goldsmith, 1958-65
Amazing Stories Elinor Mavel (as "Omar Gohagen), 1979-82
Astra's Tower Marion Zimmer Bradley, 1947-49
B
Belgravia (non-genre) Mary Elizabeth Braddon, 1870-72
C
Cry of the Nameless Elinor Busby, 1958-59
Chacal Pat Cadigan, 1977
Capt. Hazzard Rose Wyn, 1938
D
Dr. Yen Sin Edythe Seims, 1936
Doc Savage Daisy Bacon, 1949
F
Famous Fantastic Mysteries Mary Gnaedinger, 1939-53
Fantastic Novels Mary Gnaedinger, 1940-51
Fantasy Book Margaret Crawford,1947-51
Fantastic / Fantastic Stories of Imagination Cele Goldsmith, 1958-65
Fantastic Elinor Mavor (as Omar Gohagen), 1979-80-65
G
TITLE EDITOR, FROM-TO
H
TITLE EDITOR, FROM-TO
I
TITLE EDITOR, FROM-TO
J
TITLE EDITOR, FROM-TO
K
TITLE EDITOR, FROM-TO
L
TITLE EDITOR, FROM-TO
M
TITLE EDITOR, FROM-TO
N
TITLE EDITOR, FROM-TO
O
TITLE EDITOR, FROM-TO
P
TITLE EDITOR, FROM-TO
Q
TITLE EDITOR, FROM-TO
R
TITLE EDITOR, FROM-TO
S
TITLE EDITOR, FROM-TO
T
TITLE EDITOR, FROM-TO
U
TITLE EDITOR, FROM-TO
V
TITLE EDITOR, FROM-TO
W
TITLE EDITOR, FROM-TO
X
TITLE EDITOR, FROM-TO
Y
TITLE EDITOR, FROM-TO
Z
TITLE EDITOR, FROM-TO

Authors of Undetermined Gender

A

G. W. Abyl (1982, 1)
Adelphos (1912, 1)
C. M. Alexander (1979, 2)
Drax Amper (1953, 1)

B

C. H. Badet (1954, 1)
R. A. Banks (1977, 1)
Perl T. Barnhouse (1952, 1)
Landell Bartlett (1928, 1)
A. H. Barzevi (1931, 1)
Cragg Beemish (1953, 1)
Leigh Beresford (1981, 1)
F. H. Bolton (1913, 1)
Vektis Brack (1953, 2)
J. S. Bradford (1936, 1)
C. J. Browne (1980, 1)
G. S. Burdick (1982, 1)

C

Jay Callahan (1983, 1 + 1)
D. D. Chapman (1975, 1)
J. A. Coffeen (1984, 1)
Dale Cowan (1982, 1)

D

K. C. Dennis (1984, 1)


Selected Online Resources: Women authors, feminism, gender issues in Speculative Fiction

Resources available, including lists of books and lists of authors associated with feminism and gender issues in speculative fiction, lists of women authors in speculative fiction, and closely related topics. In some cases, these are "directory" pages, which link to various other pages that should be included directly here. For now, we have not yet pulled in all of these indirect links. (But that will happen eventually.)

Lists where I've verified this data is in the ISFDB, where appropriate


Lists yet to verify against the ISFDB


Books on Women, Gender, and Feminism in SF

    This list omits (at least for now) books that focus on the work of a single author, or a small number of authors. The focus is on books that treat the SF field more generally, but from the view of Gender-related issues.

Preliminary List:


Anthologies of SF by Women

Anthologies devoted (or primarily devoted) to works by women authors. Specifically, anthologies where at least 85% of the stories are by women. This does not include anthologies that are about women, but not necessarily by women.











Gender Identification Methodology

Methodology used to determine gender:

In general, I believe the name being used by an author, and accept most "gender-specific" names as evidence of the gender of the individual. Of course many authors write under gendered names that do not agree with their gender, but the presumption is that when this is known to the SF or literature world at large, the true name is known from a pseudonym relation or from the "Legal Name" associated with that author, and that the true name reflects the individual's gender.

For each author that meets the criteria of this analysis, I proceed as follows:

  1. If the author has a wikipedia page, the gender specified there is accepted. (The large majority of individual pages there do specify a gender, but not all.)
  2. If the ISFDB database has a "Legal Name" for the author, and that name is gender-specific, that is used as the author's gender.
  3. Otherwise, the name used by the author, when gender-specific, is used to list the gender of the author.

Some names (John, Barbara, etc.) are well-known to be gender-specific for English-born writers. In unclear cases, I decide if a name is gender-specific by checking Wikipedia pages for individuals with that first name, e.g. via Jules for the name "Jules". I require that I have at least 20 people with that name, and check 20-100 such names. If 95% of those names have the same gender, I assume the name is gender specific. For example, checking 100 "Jules", I found 99 men and Jules Asner, a woman. Thus I view that name as male-specific. Of course as this example shows, this process can result in errors. Gender specificity for a name can change as a result of the country of origin (e.g. "Jean" is female in the U.S., but male in France) or the year of birth (e.g. "Hilary" is male in the 19th century and female in the late 20th century). Issues such as these, as discussed on Wikipedia's Unisex Names page are taken into account. For authors with such gender ambiguous names, more proof is required before being listed by gender.

In most cases, reviews of books (especially historic era books), that specify the gender of the author are accepted as conclusive. (Unless, of course, we have a Legal Name for the author that indicates otherwise.) The presumption here is that the reviewer was specifically familiar with either the author or else with the way that name was used at that time.

In the case of authors who write under initials only, I attempt to determine a legal name for the author. This information may come from online web pages, Google Books, or (occasionally) "About the Author" essays in their books. When successful, this is entered into ISFDB. In the case of gender-ambiguous names, I do similar research to attempt to identify the author. In some cases, I discover enough about the author to write a short Biography of them, which I include in ISFDB. In these cases, if I have identified the gender, I include that information in the Biography. In doing this research, I have identified the "true name"/identity of about 200 authors in the database.

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