I’ve written a great deal lately about the way that nerds can be less than progressive, whether by failing to establish anti-harassment policies and ethos at conventions or by relying on continuity and fidelity to text as a way to disguise an antipathy to diversity. But if we want the nerdosphere to be a more progressive place, I think it’s important to mount critiques that will actually be effective, rather than ones that can make the critics feel self-righteous, which is why I’m so dismayed by Sady Doyle’s condescending and willfully misleading critique of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series and the people who read it.
This is a fascinating piece. Click the pic for the column, and be sure to click the link in it to see the “Sady Doyle piece” it refers to.
NOTE: I originaly and unintentionally posted the entire column. I have shortened it and made the picture actually link to the whole thing.
Someone's Got To Say It 
Thanks for linking this. Another friend had linked to the Sady Doyle piece last night, and I opened it up because I was in the mood to see GRRM get a beat down. But she kept undercutting her points with mistaking opinion for fact and generally having a hate-on for the entire fantasy genre, so I gave up in disgust. So it’s nice to see another female who was also disgusted.Not to say that GRRM doesn’t make some questionable story choices that set my feminist teeth on edge. But there are plenty of male characters getting raped to sleep by the dickwolves in his books too.
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Ack. I had no idea it was going to reprint the entire column here. Ah well, live and learn.
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