Hugo statistic
Mar. 31st, 2018 01:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacSo this year's Hugo finalists have been released, and since in past years I've been keeping track of the percentage of women writers in the fiction categories, I might as well continue. Counting Best Series as a fiction category in addition to the traditional ones, I find that of the 30 works (all single-author), 22 are by women, 7 by men, and 1 by an author identifying as non-binary.
That's 73% women, slightly exceeding even last year's all-time high of 71%.
Concerning the announcement, though, I would just like to opine, as a member of the Jewish persuasion, that the convention had absolutely nothing to apologize for because it held the announcement during Passover. Pesach isn't Yom Kippur, you know: it does not require fasting or introspective prayer in the synagogue, but is rather the opposite: it's a festive holiday whose primary form of worship is a formal celebratory meal at home called the seder. (To which non-Jews are often invited: after that D.C. councilman made that silly remark about the Rothschilds, the response of the Jewish community to was to invite him to seders, where he can learn about the Jewish people.)
I am not myself observant, but I've noted a lot about observant practice, and I have never heard anything suggesting that Jews are in any way forbidden from engaging in secular activities during the eight days of Pesach. If you're going to forbid that, why don't you add in the Counting of the Omer while you're at it,* and pretty soon there won't be any permitted time to do anything at all.
If one wishes to spare observant Jewish sensitivities, one should be far more concerned that it's Shabbat, the Sabbath, about which the restrictions for everyday secular activities can be pretty severe for the observant. Yet the halakhic laws of Shabbat don't prevent plenty of observant Jews from attending science fiction conventions on that day of the week, and we should be all the less worried about Passover.
If it doesn't bother us that the Hugo finalists are now traditionally announced, because it's a slow news day, on Holy Saturday, which is smack up against what I understand to be both of the two holiest days of the Christian calendar, we shouldn't flake out over the Jewish calendar either.
*I may get slammed for this comparison, but the Omer is sort of the Jewish equivalent of Lent, in the sense that it's a long-lasting low-grade dampener on festivity.
That's 73% women, slightly exceeding even last year's all-time high of 71%.
Concerning the announcement, though, I would just like to opine, as a member of the Jewish persuasion, that the convention had absolutely nothing to apologize for because it held the announcement during Passover. Pesach isn't Yom Kippur, you know: it does not require fasting or introspective prayer in the synagogue, but is rather the opposite: it's a festive holiday whose primary form of worship is a formal celebratory meal at home called the seder. (To which non-Jews are often invited: after that D.C. councilman made that silly remark about the Rothschilds, the response of the Jewish community to was to invite him to seders, where he can learn about the Jewish people.)
I am not myself observant, but I've noted a lot about observant practice, and I have never heard anything suggesting that Jews are in any way forbidden from engaging in secular activities during the eight days of Pesach. If you're going to forbid that, why don't you add in the Counting of the Omer while you're at it,* and pretty soon there won't be any permitted time to do anything at all.
If one wishes to spare observant Jewish sensitivities, one should be far more concerned that it's Shabbat, the Sabbath, about which the restrictions for everyday secular activities can be pretty severe for the observant. Yet the halakhic laws of Shabbat don't prevent plenty of observant Jews from attending science fiction conventions on that day of the week, and we should be all the less worried about Passover.
If it doesn't bother us that the Hugo finalists are now traditionally announced, because it's a slow news day, on Holy Saturday, which is smack up against what I understand to be both of the two holiest days of the Christian calendar, we shouldn't flake out over the Jewish calendar either.
*I may get slammed for this comparison, but the Omer is sort of the Jewish equivalent of Lent, in the sense that it's a long-lasting low-grade dampener on festivity.
no subject
Date: 2018-04-01 01:36 pm (UTC)Observant Jews living outside of Israel don't do work on the first two and the last two days of Passover, which means they can't use electricity on those days. The prohibitions are almost identical to those for Shabbat, actually; the only exceptions are that they can still cook and carry things outside during Passover. (For complicated reasons, those living in Israel don't do work on just the first and last day of Passover.)
If 31 March 2018 were only Shabbat, then observant Jews would have been able to access the announcement online and join in the discussion shortly after sunset on the same day. Because of when Passover falls this year, however, observant Jews outside of Israel won't be able to participate online until shortly after sunset today, 1st April. Whether you think that additional day's wait is a terrible inconvenience or not is up for debate. Still, I certainly don't think it's wrong for the concom to apologize for the fact that some fans won't get the results for up to 30+ hours after everyone else due to their religious observance.
(Thanks for the update on the Hugos gender breakdown, btw, which is how I found this post originally. Very interesting! It's cool to see women writers being better represented after some pretty bleak years not that long ago--and I'm not even talking about the Puppy years!)
no subject
Date: 2018-04-01 02:02 pm (UTC)If the entire outrage is about having to wait 30 hours instead of having to wait 6 hours to participate in online discussion of the Hugos, then some people really need to get a life.
I think they also need to remember the purpose of Shabbat. It's supposed to be a time of reflection and calm away from the bustle of the world, and not an occasion for Jews to moan in frustration at the bondage created by their own self-imposed restrictions.
no subject
Date: 2018-04-01 06:06 pm (UTC)I was mostly trying to point out two things in my previous comment:
1) There are in fact "restrictions for everyday secular activities [that] can be pretty severe for the observant" during certain parts of Passover. It's fine if you don't believe those restrictions should affect Worldcon's decision regarding finalist announcement dates, but they do exist.
2) It's not wrong for an organization to apologize when a decision they've made inconveniences part of their membership for 30+ hours. ime, that's a pretty standard response, and given that many of the alternatives are more likely to escalate the situation rather than defuse it, I think it's also a good response.
Note that this year's Worldcon didn't actually do anything differently in response to the complaints. They still announced the finalists at the planned day and time. They just apologized that it wasn't an ideal day and time for all of its members. That seems like good PR to me, and I support the concom both in their decision to stick with the planned date and in their decision to acknowledge that that date wasn't universally popular.
...
Though I guess I'll now add:
3) The observant Jews of my acquaintance have managed to adjust themselves to living in a society where the goyim are not required to adjust their lives around Jewish halakhah.
Worldcon isn't exactly like society at large. It's more like a club, and in a club, the membership is generally welcome to express their opinions regarding how the club is being run. If one or more members has a problem with something, then the club may decide to change things in order to make those members more comfortable. This is especially true if the unhappy members are a fairly large percentage of the membership; or if the change is a relatively painless one for the club to make; or if the change has other effects that would benefit the club as a whole.
Contrariwise, the club is less likely to change things if the unhappy members are a tiny minority; or if the change is difficult to make for any reason; or if the change has drawbacks for the club as a whole.
As I indicated above, I don't have a horse in this particular race myself (unless a future Worldcon inexplicably decides to announce in May or something; that I'd complain about). But I don't think there's anything inappropriate in other people complaining about the announcement date, whether they're observant Jews inconvenienced by it, or Christians who are inconvenienced by it, or people who just think it's terrible from a publicity standpoint.
no subject
Date: 2018-04-02 01:26 am (UTC)1) It's a restriction sufficiently obscure that I, a lifelong Jew and one familiar with many religious restrictions though I don't practice them, was not aware of it. Therefore I can hardly blame the Worldcon for not considering it.
2) A simple "We regret this caused you annoyance" would have been sufficient. But this was phrased as if they were regretting having actually done something wrong and inconsiderate. They did not.
3) That the Worldcon is a club only reinforces my point. In a club, small coherent groups of members can have disproportionate influence more than in society at large, yet observant Jews have (to my knowledge) neither tried nor succeeded in having cons moved off of Shabbat.