Amal El-Mohtar bravely supports Rabid Puppies and Sad Puppies 3:
We need to have a serious talk about awards and eligibility and the
awkward eggshell-dance people feel obligated to do every time this year.Recently I went on a tear on Twitter because I saw women for whom I have tremendous admiration and respect
speak up about how difficult they find it to overcome shyness and low
self-esteem enough to talk about their work, and what an ongoing
struggle it is for them to find value in their art, to think of it as in
any way contributing anything to the world.Women agonizing over
whether or not to post your award-eligible work? You don’t need this
but: I give you permission. I want your lists.
— Amal El-Mohtar (@tithenai)There’s a peculiar, unbearable, vicious smugness in sitting back and
talking about how tacky it is of people to list their publications and
that of course YOU won’t do so because while winning awards is nice
naturally YOU don’t really care about them. I find that behaviour
several orders of magnitude more repellent than asking for votes.
Requests for votes I can ignore; what I can’t ignore is the real toll
taken on brilliantly talented people by this kind of rhetoric —
brilliantly talented people who already think themselves unworthy of any
kind of positive attention.Can we please just accept — and make widespread the acceptance! —
that making lists during Awards season is fine? That it’s standard?
There you have it. Making lists is fine. It is standard. People like Amal expressly want our lists. So what on Earth can the pinkshirts possibly be complaining about? Is it, perhaps, the fact that our lists are not the same as their lists?
I have tremendous admiration and respect
for Larry Correia and Brad Torgersen, especially in light of how they have courageously overcome shyness and low
self-esteem enough to talk about their work.