'SFX' Magazine's Omission of Women in Horror
02.25.10 By: Alison Nastasi
An article by David Barnett in yesterday's The Guardian shed light on one magazine's lack of acknowledgment given to women in the horror field. SFX Magazine, a veteran SF/fantasy UK mag, recently published a special horror-themed edition (SFX Collection: Horror), which included a "beefy 14-page news section, oodles of in-depth new features, and six great free gifts," but no women. In the article, Horror's Hidden Treasure's, 34 directors, screenwriters and authors were asked to name underappreciated cult horror that deserved more recognition, but no women were polled. Ironically, this oversight comes during Women in Horror Month -- a time set aside to raise awareness and give more love to the ladies. It also follows a previous oversight five months earlier when the British Fantasy Society omitted women from a collection of interviews with horror writers. SFX at least managed to commemorate Black History Month with a feature on Blaxploitation horror. So, what's going on with the industry folks on the other side of the pond that things like this keep happening?
Editor Ian Berriman's editorial reads: "You see, some people think horror is a limited one-dimensional genre, but I don't see it that way. Horror is a broad church. It encompasses everything from the classy chillers produced by Val Lewton through to the likes of Saw and Hostel. It comes in an almost infinite variety of forms, and I love nearly every single one of them." Do you Ian?
As Barnett suggests in his post, any list is going to be subjective and personally, I have a hard time imagining a magazine like SFX would have done this intentionally, but that's exactly the point. SFX is one of the most successful and longest-running mags on the market, which makes this an incredible oversight on their part. That this omission also comes from a group writing about science fiction and fantasy, other genres where females are underrepresented, also seems curious.Add to this something like the stigma of the Paranormal Romance genre being associated with women only and shunned by an overwhelming number of people in the horror community. This crosses the likes of Stephenie Meyer (yes, the series that sparkles), Charlaine Harris (True Blood/The Southern Vampire Mysteries) and Laurell K. Hamilton (Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter) immediately off many people's list. And yet, these women are all best selling authors. While it may not be a genre to my or your liking, it is a growing sub-genre linked to horror and sci-fi, which uses some legitimate horror/sci-fi themes. So before we stir the argument that this is a romance genre only, look at the large number of horror/sci-fi film titles that also contain romantic themes, including classics like Dracula or Solaris. Bottom line is, as soon as we start to make rules about something like this, there are a dozen ways to contradict them.
Women are underrepresented in several areas of horror, especially the screenwriting and director ranks, so it seems to me that this isn't just an oversight -- it's also just the reality of the situation. I don't think anyone expects something like the Horror's Hidden Treasure's article to be a 50 - 50 split, but women do have a stronger presence in the genre than ever before and their voices and contributions are well worth mentioning.
Filed under: News/Reactions, Discussion Posts
Reader Comments (1 of 1)
Joshat 2-25-2010
From a British perspective, I don't think there is the same need to force PC attitudes on people. Occasionally when you decide to highlight your perceived inadequacies it only makes you sound like a whinger. Get over it and move on. I don't think anyone is holding women back here.
I cherish the idea that horror is the last vestige of the un-PC.
Beyond that, I don't really think that this line "give more love to the ladies" is anything other than patronising and out of place in this context.
Sorry, but this really winds me up. Go be PC and have Midget Month in some other genre please.
Monikaat 2-25-2010
Trade secret: There are women in horror, and mentioning them doesn't ruin your "un-PC" playground, Josh. Whether we're talking about the classic Frankenstein, Albert Pyun's female scribes like Cynthia Curnan, Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark, or the many other women in the field. They're already there, sorry to burst the illusion.
Mike Brackenat 2-25-2010
Jesus, man, you couldn't miss the point more if you tried. Is expecting a magazine that covers the entirety of horror/fantasy/sci-fi to actually acknowledge that women make meaningful contributions to the very fields they cover forcing them to be PC? I think it's simply asking that they exercise some awareness and show the slightest bit of professional respect.
I think you also totally miss the point when it comes to horror "being the last vestige of the un-PC". I'll always defend horror's right to be brash and crass and politically incorrect *in the stories it tells*. This isn't that--this is expecting that people who contribute to the field be afforded the same amount of respect regardless of their gender.
Look, I don't think SFX did this intentionally. It's one of those boneheaded editorial oversights that happens from time to time. Your attitude about it is troubling though--far more troubling than anything in the original story. Your response here is indicative of the real problem--that there are guys who still think it's perfectly okay to act like neanderthals simply because they're "refusing to conform to a politically correct standard." What you've missed, so completely and absolutely, in your diatribe is that this was never about political correctness--it was about giving a segment of the horror community (one who helps create some of the "un-PC material you profess to love) a shot at having a voice.
Alison Nastasiat 2-25-2010
I couldn't say it any better than Mike or Monika.
Joshat 2-25-2010
Actually, I didn't miss the point. While it was a quick, truncated reply and on more to express than to back up, I don't really believe that what I am saying is too far out there.
I don't need a lesson in female involvement in the genre, thank you very much, from Mary Shelly to Elsa Lancaster, from Janet Leigh to Jamie Lee Curtis, from Sigourney Weaver to the aforementioned Kathryn Bigelow and forever onwards, women have always been and will always be an integral part of horror and sci fi.
Thinking about, women have had more ground breaking roles with in these genres than any other genre. Comedy, romance, drama, etc have never involved women or had more ground breaking creatives behind it than horror and sci fi. These are genres driven by people who, for the most part, couldn't get there feet in where, perhaps, they wanted, the mainstream. They had less to lose, so like Romero in NotLD, they took risks and had the freedoms to either cast people in atypical roles or they were able to take on atypical roles.
What I was saying, albeit poorly, is that based on the history of Horror and Sci-Fi, of all genres, we don't need some fantastic, trumped up attention seeking, bullsh*t like "Women in Horror Month" as I think it does a disservice to the actual women who are IN horror.
Recently Gorezone was taken to task for being sexist, and I think in that case it's true, GZ could possibly benefit from a WiH feature, shoved between the breats and two bit splatter flicks that they feature, but I think all this is stupid.
I'll say it again, stop inflicting your own insecurities on the rest of the world.
Furthermore, I'm sorry to say, if True Blood and Twilight are shunned it is with good reason, they are fantasist piles of hormonal drivel, I am by no means a prude, but TB contains more gratuitous sex scene than porn for rabbits and Twilight, outside of the purposes of this article, I think we can all agree is laughable shite and we'd be lucky to have Buffy show up to sort them all out.
Again, I will say that I think women are probably better represented and respected in the Horror and Sci Fi community than in any of the other genres.
Alison Nastasiat 2-25-2010
I wrote this article because I found it curious that two publications recently published all-encompassing editions/lists/interviews about horror and neglected to mention ANY women. As a woman who writes about horror, you can probably guess why this interests me. I think your argument is shaky and misguided, but thanks for contributing to the discussion.
Ellieat 2-26-2010
I think the poster above may have been a little heavy-handed, but I kind of get what he means. If you whine and act like a victim over this kind of thing, you'll get nowhere. Trying to create a shitstorm about how under-represented women are is not the way to go about achieving recognition. It's a way of creating divides and antagonism, setting one side up against another. Much better would have been if some women in the industry had got in touch with SFX first and pointed out the error (or more likely, oversight), with the offer to feature in another issue redressing the balance. If they refuse then maybe start a stink.
Or better still, maybe consider that SFX is a magazine, with a bottom line and a desire for profit. It is not a government-run charity that is there to defend the rights of all. It would be great if it did, but you should always consider the tone of the media and who they think their demographic is. If you don't like it, walk with your feet. If I was upset about how female sportswomen are represented in Nuts, for example, I would be completely misunderstanding the nature and remit of their magazine. And what the banner says, by the way, is not an unbreakable code of honour - it's marketing.
I believe this is still a truly patriarchal world, one that does shut the door to women in all sorts of areas. But forging on with dignity is a much better strategy than painting ourselves as victims of a huge male conspiracy. It's not conspiracy - it's society. It is changing, but 000's of years will not be overthrown by spitting the dummy. If you want to change it with rants rather than action that's your lookout, but I think people have a right to express frustration with it.
By the way, "love for the ladies" had me reaching for a sick-bucket. A truly odd phrase to use in an article that's trying to garner recognition for women on an equal footing as men.
Alison Nastasiat 2-25-2010
I don't agree with you that I "whined", "created a stink" or said I felt like a "victim".
I reported the news as I always do and inserted my opinion. That is my job. In fact, I've been a lot less verbal about my opinion on this matter than most female writers in the genre simply because I dread dealing with the typical "you're whining" responses.
I am proactive about how to promote women in the genre (check my posts about women in the giallo genre for example), but the fact that two horror/sci-fi publications recently omitted any mention of women caught my attention.
You're right. These issues aren't just happening in horror, but I'm here to talk about horror.
As for my "love for the ladies" comment -- if you read the website with any regularity, you would understand it's just my "tone" but I guess I can understand how someone might take that and twist it given the subject. I was feeling snarky at the time of writing this too.
Mike Brackenat 2-25-2010
Josh,
Thanks for clarifying your position. I think the first post was pretty inflammatory and I still don't think we view this in the same way, but I'm glad to have read your more detailed thoughts.
I'm not sure that I get how women having had groundbreaking roles in horror makes it okay that they're not asked their opinion when a major genre publication does a huge piece on horror in general and cult picks in particular, though. I'd agree that women have achieved a lot in the field (I hadn't thought about in comparison to other genres--but I'd be inclined to agree that they've done better in the fantastic fields than they have in comedy, but again, that's just a quick off the cuff evaluation)--which makes their exclusion from something like the SFX article seem pretty egregious. As I said before, I don't believe it was intentional--but I think they still deserve to be taken to task for it if for no other reason than it reeks of lazy journalism.
Whether we "need" Women in Horror month is fairly subjective. I think it's nice that we have it because I don't think anyone would argue against the notion that horror is something of a "boy's club", and while girls have been allowed in to play, we tend to not celebrate them outside of the typical Scream Queens.
I guess my question is, why are you so bothered by it? From my experience with WiH month, basically all that changes is sites run articles with a female focus instead of the more normal features we see the rest of the year. Most sites are even nice enough to label the posts so you don't have to read them if you don't want. I'd be curious to hear what women "in horror" thought about Women in Horror month--I can only guess, but I doubt many of them would think it's a "disservice" to them.
Truthfully, Women in Horror Month is a very minor part of this article as I read it. It's mentioned in a way that points out the irony of this kind of thing happening in a month where women are supposed to be getting more attention. Women may be doing well in horror--but they're still not on an even playing field with men. Granted, that's true pretty much across the board, but I don't see the harm in pointing it out here. There are numerous reasons for why this imbalance exists, but I'm failing to see how giving them some extra acknowledgment for 27 out of the 365 days of the year is worthy of so much anger and vitriol.
I don't know, though--I get the vibe we're looking at this in radically different ways. I have the feeling you see it as pushing women in a way almost like affirmative action--giving females something merely because they're women and maybe not so much because they deserve it. I tend to look at it as celebrating the contributions of some really talented individuals who make the genre I've loved since childhood into a better place. I could be wrong in how you're seeing it, but that's how it comes across in what I've read.
Thanks again for taking the time to respond.
Joshat 2-26-2010
It's early, so you'll have to excuse me, but a couple of quick points.
@Alison - I think I read this about 3 times before I noticed it was read by a woman, what does that say? I'm not sure, but given the topic at hand I suspect you could claim I was being sexist for assuming that this was written by a guy. Truth be told, I don't think that is either the case nor does it matter. But regardless, I don't want you to think this is some attack on you personally, it it merely me being a bit narky and taking, as Mike said, affirmative action to task.
@Mike - I think my key point is that women are a part of this genre, I don't feel they need to be highlighted in anyway. Highlighting a group in this way, automatically implies that they are overlooked, which as I said, I don't think is the case.
Yes, there are sub genres within horror and sci fi that are dumbed down, sexist, racist or what have you, I think a lot of the slasher and video nasty films would fall into this category, but I think on the whole, these are pretty progressive genres and perhaps instead of highlighting perceived oversights, instead countering with a celebration of that progressive and ground breaking attitude would be more productive.
Also, as I said, I think that the British attitude for this sort of thing is a bit different, there aren't really (insert downtrodden members of the population) History Months here. It might also be viewed as pandering.
Anyway I kind of liken this to Men in Barbie Doll Month, I think that there may be some social/cultural expectations that women are not meant to like horror or having not been exposed to it before they make assumptions based on that, so it's not so much that they are prejudiced against, but rather don't necessarily get exposed to (as much as guys - think early exposure like in Monster Squad) and so don't end up in an industry that they (wrongly) assume is inappropriate for them.
I think I could waffle on about this for quite a while, I'll stop now.
Again, Alison, I in no way meant to offend you personally and apologise if that was the case.
Alison Nastasiat 2-26-2010
Thanks for the apology Josh but I don't take comments like this personally. We're having a discussion which is great because that's what the post was set up to do. I only mentioned that I'm a woman to let you know that I wrote about this because as a woman who has dealings in the horror world, it interested me.
Ellieat 2-26-2010
OK, I can see why you’d have thought I said you whined and acted like a victim. I didn’t, but I wasn’t specific enough, as by the time I’d read this, the original post and the Guardian piece they’d all coalesced in my head. However, as you quote the Guardian article – which in turn quotes Splinster’s post – without anything but agreement and elaboration, I can only assume you think this is a valid path to go down. I think Maura McHugh made a huge error in not going directly to the magazine. I can see why she would want to create a stir about this, but I still believe it is an entirely counterproductive route to go down. If you don’t give the magazine a chance to comment, but just start yelling away about perceived inequality without having all the relevant facts to hand, you do a major disservice to all women in horror. I’m not saying she’s necessarily wrong in her assumptions, but she should be far more professional, otherwise she sadly tars herself with ‘victim’ status, and that is one that by association will transfer to other women in the industry. Overreactions are grist to the mill for the genuinely sexist, and those based on kneejerks even more so. Without any qualification in your article about the magazine not having been asked to comment, how can you be doing anything other than agreeing, and giving oxygen to the flame?
I’ve read a couple of your pieces on women in giallo, and they’re really interesting and impressive. But I do find it sad that it has to be a certain ‘month’ to create the space for these things. Mike, in response to Josh’s comment, says “I’m failing to see how giving them some extra acknowledgement for 27 (not 28?) out of the 365 days of the year is worthy of so much anger and vitriol.” The term ‘extra acknowledgement’ is one of my issues, the 28 days the other. I’m afraid this kind of thing either smacks of affirmative action, or is seen by many editors as a sop to be thrown – ‘it’s OK, it’s only 27 out of 365 days, so let’s give the ladies some love’. (As an aside, that’s why I object to that phrase: your tone notwithstanding, words and phrases have a genealogy and immediately create associations or allusions in someone’s mind. If you’d have used it in a more sarcastic or undermining sense, it would have been a clever appropriation of a condescendingly sexist phrase, but you use it in a straight sentence describing WiH month. I don’t see how that’s me ‘twisting’ it – I think that’s you not ‘twisting’ it enough I’m afraid). As much as my gut says WiH should be a good thing, I’m afraid intellectually I can only see it as damaging, only deepening the groove (if one really already exists, if not creating it) between women and men in horror and making it a forced and binary issue .
Finally, one of my strongest objections is your use of the Twilight series as an example of a female writer that should be more celebrated. Wittingly or not, Meyer writes about an incredibly misogynistic world and sells it to teenage girls. I truly don’t think that’s worth celebrating. It’s obviously a paradigm that old cockface RPatz has bought into, as he finds himself in an interview saying that he’s “allergic to vaginas” and essentially disgusted by them. Well, that’s just a lovely man to have half the world’s adolescent population swooning over, isn’t it? Let’s make young girls feel just a little more imperfect shall we? But beyond that, do you really think of them as horror? I mean, the Count in Sesame Street has his foundations in horror, but that doesn’t mean that he is still part of the genre. Vampires are just a veneer of edginess laid on the top of schmaltzy, sexist, YA fiction in this case.
Antiqueightat 3-03-2010
Maura did go directly to SFX. If you read her piece you would see that it shows both her letter and the reply. It is the reply which generates disappointment over and above the article itself.
As for the idea that there is a month to give women in this genre 'extra acknowledgement' - clearly necessary since a major article about horror which quoted 34 people in the industry failed to mention a single woman despite their contributions - does a disservice to women is faulty logic.
Ellieat 2-26-2010
OK, I can see why you’d have thought I said you whined and acted like a victim. I didn’t, but I wasn’t specific enough, as by the time I’d read this, the original post and the Guardian piece they’d all coalesced in my head. However, as you quote the Guardian article – which in turn quotes Splinster’s post – without anything but agreement and elaboration, I can only assume you think this is a valid path to go down. I think Maura McHugh made a huge error in not going directly to the magazine. I can see why she would want to create a stir about this, but I still believe it is an entirely counterproductive route to go down. If you don’t give the magazine a chance to comment, but just start yelling away about perceived inequality without having all the relevant facts to hand, you do a major disservice to all women in horror. I’m not saying she’s necessarily wrong in her assumptions, but she should be far more professional, otherwise she is quite rightly inhered with ‘victim’ status, and that is one that by association will transfer to other women in the industry. Overreactions are grist to the mill for the genuinely sexist, and those based on kneejerks even more so. Without any qualification in your article about the magazine not having been asked to comment, how can you be doing anything other than agreeing, and giving oxygen to the flame?
I’ve read a couple of your pieces on women in giallo, and they’re really interesting and impressive. But I do find it sad that it has to be a certain ‘month’ to create the space for these things. Mike, in response to Josh’s comment, says “I’m failing to see how giving them some extra acknowledgement for 27 [not 28?] out of the 365 days of the year is worthy of so much anger and vitriol.” The term ‘extra acknowledgement’ is one of my issues, ‘the month of women’ the other. I’m afraid this kind of thing either smacks of affirmative action, or is seen by many editors as a sop to be thrown – ‘it’s OK, it’s only 27 out of 365 days, so let’s give the ladies some love’. (As an aside, that’s why I object to that phrase: your tone notwithstanding, words and phrases have a genealogy and immediately create associations or allusions in someone’s mind. If you’d have used it in a more sarcastic or undermining sense, I’d have assumed it was a clever appropriation of a condescendingly sexist phrase, but you use it in a straight sentence describing WiH month. I don’t see how that’s me ‘twisting’ it – I think that’s you not ‘twisting’ it enough I’m afraid). As much as my gut says WiH should be a good thing, I’m afraid intellectually I can only see it as damaging, only deepening the groove (if one really already exists, if not creating one) between women and men in horror and making it a forced and binary issue .
Finally, one of my strongest objections is your use of the Twilight series as an example of a female writer that should be more celebrated. Wittingly or not, Meyer writes about an incredibly misogynistic world and sells it to teenage girls. I truly don’t think that’s worth celebrating. It’s obviously a paradigm that old cockface RPatz has bought into, as he finds himself in an interview saying that he’s “allergic to vaginas” - essentially disgusted by them. Well, that’s just a lovely man to have half the world’s adolescent population swooning over, isn’t it? Let’s make young girls feel just a little more imperfect shall we? But beyond that, do you really think of them as horror? I mean, the Count in Sesame Street has his foundations in horror, but that doesn’t mean that he is still part of the genre. Vampires here are just a veneer of edginess laid on the top of schmaltzy, sexist, YA fiction in this case.
Alison Nastasiat 2-26-2010
"Without any qualification in your article about the magazine not having been asked to comment, how can you be doing anything other than agreeing, and giving oxygen to the flame?"
If that were the case, then everything I wrote about meant I would agree with it and obviously that's not true. It was a piece to the puzzle I had conflicting details on and wasn't really the focal point for me. Sorry for not reporting that I didn't know the facts on something (I do often report this, but felt passionate and perhaps lost focus). I don't think this one piece throws my argument though.
"But I do find it sad that it has to be a certain ‘month’ to create the space for these things"
I write about women in horror all the time (see my Hammer actress pieces for example). Personally, I don't feel I need a month set aside to do that, but I don't necessarily think the idea of a month is a bad thing. My interests in horror aren't restricted to its women, but as a woman who loves horror it's something I certainly think about and it gets expressed when it wants to.
"If you’d have used it in a more sarcastic or undermining sense, I’d have assumed it was a clever appropriation of a condescendingly sexist phrase, but you use it in a straight sentence describing WiH month."
I use phrases like that in "straight sentences" all the time. It's what I do. To tell me I could have done this more or better is moot. We're talking about tone in text which is something really difficult to argue because it's so subjective. I know words/language/phrases have associations etc. and I think I'm skilled at using them, but in this case I think you're fixating.
"As much as my gut says WiH should be a good thing, I’m afraid intellectually I can only see it as damaging, only deepening the groove (if one really already exists, if not creating one) between women and men in horror and making it a forced and binary issue."
That's one way to look at it. For many men and women who have participated in the WIH month, it was something really positive and fun. My article wasn't about WIH month though...it was about the Guardian article and why I found it odd that two big publications didn't find ANY women worthy enough of mentioning in their all-consuming posts about horror. So weird! I think when we stop questioning things like this, it's a problem--so I went for it.
"Finally, one of my strongest objections is your use of the Twilight series as an example of a female writer that should be more celebrated."
I never said she should be celebrated more. I even wrote, "it may not be a genre to my or your liking..."
"But beyond that, do you really think of them as horror? I mean, the Count in Sesame Street has his foundations in horror, but that doesn’t mean that he is still part of the genre. Vampires are just a veneer of edginess laid on the top of schmaltzy, sexist, YA fiction in this case."
Personally, I don't really enjoy the Twi movies, but as I express in my piece I think it has some legitimate horror themes in it. Shunning something like Twi I think has more to do with taste than it actually being horror or not. What does horror need to have for you? Does it need gore? Be scary? Have monsters? I think one can argue the case that horror may not be a genre at all. Horror turns up in every genre, it's extremely broad, difficult to categorize....