About Jim C. Hines

https://www.jimchines.com

Posts by Jim Hines:

Rape and Terrorism

According to the Global Terrorism Database, 3029 people were killed by terrorists in the United States between 2000 and 2010. That’s an average of 275 people per year.

According to the U. S. Department of Justice, there were a total of 52,470 rapes in 2008 (the most recent year for which I could find posted data). Women are victimized approximately four times as frequently as men. Even if you disregard issues of underreporting, that’s about 10,000 men and 40,000 women raped in a single year.

A 2011 Congressional Research Study estimates the ten-year cost of the war on terror at $1.28 trillion, or $128 billion per year.

I couldn’t find an estimate on how much (or how little) the U.S. spends fighting rape and sexual violence each year. However, the Office on Violence Against Women is requesting a total of $412.5 million for their 2013 operating budget. For comparison, the Department of Homeland Security is requesting $59 billion.

These numbers aren’t perfect. But they do help give us an idea about our priorities. Here they are in graph form.

I’m not trying to argue that the budget for fighting sexual assault should necessarily be 190 times the budget for fighting terrorism. But imagine the difference if even a fraction of the money we spent on color-coded terror charts or airport security theater went into preventing sexual violence.

I debated for a long time before writing this post. Both rape and terrorism are important, powerful, and emotional issues, and I don’t want to trivialize either one. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense to me to discuss rape in the context of terrorism. The goal of terrorism is to create fear in a population. 9/11 succeeded in creating that fear.

So does rape.

The difference is that in the United States, the terror created by rape is a far more realistic day-to-day fear, especially for women. You have less than a one in a million chance of being killed by terrorists this year in the U.S., but according to a 2007 study by the Medical University of South Carolina, roughly 1 in 20 of college women were raped in a single year. (The study notes that only about 12% of these rapes were reported to police.) A National Institute of Justice study found that 18% of women–almost 1 in 5–experienced a completed or attempted rape at some point in their lives.

The prevalence of rape and violence against women creates an atmosphere of terror and the awareness that strangers, friends, even family members could be potential attackers. Phaedra Starling wrote about this in a 2009 essay titled Schrödinger’s Rapist:

“Is preventing violent assault or murder part of your daily routine, rather than merely something you do when you venture into war zones? Because, for women, it is. When I go on a date, I always leave the man’s full name and contact information written next to my computer monitor. This is so the cops can find my body if I go missing. My best friend will call or e-mail me the next morning, and I must answer that call or e-mail before noon-ish, or she begins to worry. If she doesn’t hear from me by three or so, she’ll call the police. My activities after dark are curtailed. Unless I am in a densely-occupied, well-lit space, I won’t go out alone. Even then, I prefer to have a friend or two, or my dogs, with me. Do you follow rules like these? … When you approach me in public, you are Schrödinger’s Rapist.”

Not every woman follows these rules. But many follow at least some, and most of the women I’ve talked to live their lives with this kind of awareness. With the knowledge that rape and assault are a real danger. They make choices based on a risk assessment and constant, underlying kind of fear that’s utterly alien to most men. Not slaves to that fear, but always aware.

How then is sexual violence not a form of terrorism, at least in its effects? But because this kind of violence is seen as a “women’s issue,” we deem it unimportant. We shift our resources to other problems. We play political games with laws like the Violence Against Women Act.

You want to fight a war against terror? Try putting money and resources into the backlog of rape kits. Try funding sexual assault counseling and women’s shelters and SANE nurse programs. Try teaching people at a young age what rape really is. Try teaching men to hold themselves and each other accountable, and to intervene when they see signs of sexual coercion and abuse. Try providing training to prosecutors and judges and police departments.

In other words, try taking the problem seriously.

Winners and Other Stuff

Announcement: I’m delighted to say I’ve been invited to be the Toastmaster at ICON in Iowa this November. ICON was my very first Guest of Honor gig back in 2009, and I guess this means I didn’t do too bad a job 🙂

Boundaries and “No”: One Shade of Grey: A Feminist Fantasy (from Sinfest).

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My thanks to everyone who entered the Libriomancer [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] giveaway. I very much enjoyed reading your entries, both the serious and the silly!

Selecting the winners proved to be surprisingly difficult. There were roughly 150 entries. I picked one at random, then started reading through them to choose my favorite as the other winner. Y’all made me want to laugh and cry and eventually gnash my teeth in frustration.

Dear Head Beagle,

Please let me win the lottery tomorrow so I can send books to EVERYONE who hangs out here!

Love,
Jim

I eventually narrowed it down to a few funny ones, a few clever ones, a few heartfelt ones, and two very tempting bribes. I then found myself utterly unable to decide between the finalists, so I made a list of the top contenders and went back to random.org, where I used the amazing technological advancements of the 21st century to essentially roll a die.

The winners are:

Steven Schend and sylvanstargazer.

For everyone who didn’t win, you’ve got a few days left to put your name in for one of the 20 copies available over at Goodreads.

Bunheads and “Message” Stories

Giveaway Note: I’ll be picking two winners in the Libriomancer Giveaway tonight, so if you haven’t entered yet, this is your last chance.

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Blame Charlie Finlay and his friend Jessie for this rant. They’re the ones who brought this interview with Bunheads and Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino to my attention.

Context: Shonda Rhimes, creator of Grey’s Anatomy, posted on Twitter, “Hey… Bunheads: really? You couldn’t cast even ONE young dancer of color so I could feel good about my kid watching this show? NOT ONE?”

Unfortunately, the interviewer seems more interested in talking about what a shame it is women can’t support each other, and how Rhimes was oh so wrong to criticize a fellow woman. Sherman-Palladino indirectly addresses Rhimes’ question around the 3:05 mark, when she starts talking about all of the pressures of making a pilot episode, how she had to find dancers who could also act, and she didn’t have a lot of time, and “I don’t do message shows. I don’t give a shit who you learn your life from.”

Wait, what? The original question is why nonwhite characters aren’t represented, and you’re talking about “message shows”?

Every story has a message. Some stories are blatant and clumsy about it, but as the author of some rather silly stuff, I can tell you that even the the fluffiest, lighthearted tale has meaning. When someone like Sherman-Palladino chooses to limit diversity in her stories and justifies it with this kind of rationale, she’s damn well sending messages. Messages like:

  • White people are normal. Nonwhite people require justification to exist.
  • My target audience does not include people different from myself.
  • My world is small and narrow.

Amy Sherman-Palladino has the right to create whatever kind of story she wants, and I don’t believe for a moment she intended to send those messages. Having watched a number of Gilmore Girls episodes, I think Sherman-Palladino has done some very praiseworthy things. I loved her characters, the dynamics and banter and conflict and love between them all.

None of which makes Rhimes’ question any less valid, or Sherman-Palladino’s answer any less weak.

I’m singling her out because the attitude and response here are so common. How many times have we seen authors and editors challenged for their lack of diversity, only to have them reply, “I refuse to bow to the bullies of the PC movement” or “I don’t believe every story has to be a Lesson about diversity” or “I have too much integrity to change my story just to meet your arbitrary quotas.”

I don’t care about quotas. I object to whitewashed stories because they’re dishonest. Because they perpetuate a long pattern of sidelining or erasing those who aren’t like me. Because our world is bigger than that.

Counseling (Depression)

In some ways, talking to a psychologist was even harder than starting antidepressants. In both cases, I was admitting to a problem that comes with its own baggage of shame and stigma and perceived weakness. But with counseling, it felt harder. This was more than hitting my doctor up for a prescription. I would be walking into a stranger’s office and spending hours explaining how I’d lost the ability to deal with things in my life, how I needed help to figure out things I feel like I should already know how to do.

That’s what it all comes back to. I feel like I should be able to handle this stuff. I should know how to be a good father and husband, how to balance the demands of writing and the day job, how to maintain my emotional balance in times of increased stress, and so on. I know how deceptive and nasty the word “should” can be, but that didn’t stop all the crap from swelling back through my brain when I thought about making that first appointment.

I made it anyway.

Eventually.

I’ve had three sessions so far, and while I’m not going to go into as much detail about them, I’ll say it’s been helpful. The first session or two were mostly a get-to-know-you sort of thing. I got an official diagnosis of dysthymia. As I understand it, this is a milder form of chronic, long-term depression. I.e., I’m in a lousy mood most of the time, but I’m not jumping off the Mackinac Bridge.

The funniest moment came in the first session: I was describing my life, the jobs and the writing, taking care of the kids after school, the work I did around the house, and so on.

Doctor P: What do you do for fun?

Jim: …?

Doctor P: When do you take time to just get out and enjoy yourself?

Jim: …I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.

I was amused, but it was a good catch on her part. She gave me homework to do something fun just for me. I actually managed to do it, too. The trick now is going to be incorporating that lesson into my life on a more regular basis.

Doctor P has also pointed out some areas where I could improve things at home. We both recognize there’s a lot I can’t change — realistically, I can’t quit the day job; I can’t magically improve my wife’s health so that she can do more at home; and so on — so we’re concentrating on things where I can make changes for the better.

This whole process scares me. Eventually, I’d love to get off of the antidepressants, and I think counseling is one of the things that will help me do that. But given how helpful the pills have been since April, I’m also terrified of losing that crutch and slipping back into the swamp of who-gives-a-crap-about-anything. I guess I’m not yet completely trusting that it can help — or that I can change enough to really make a difference — in the long run.

This experience has also made me recognize once again how fortunate I am to have decent insurance that covers most of the medications and my weekly sessions. As hard as it’s been to admit I need help, how much worse must it be to realize you need help and have no way of getting it? [Rant about U.S. healthcare deleted because the goal is to not depress myself further.]

I’m cautiously optimistic. I like my counselor. She feels pretty genuine, and seems to get me. The first few sessions felt a little open-ended, but we’re talking about more concrete goals this week. Apparently we’ll also be doing a bit more cognitive work, teaching me how to win at some of my head games. I’ve had some speed bumps at home and at work, but overall, so far so good.

My thanks once again to everyone who’s been so encouraging and supportive.

Hugo Novellas, Part 1

I’m splitting my Hugo Novella reading into two parts, on account of novellas are long, so it’s taking me more time to get through them.

My other Hugo reviews/thoughts so far:

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Kiss me Twice, by Mary Robinette Kowal – Reading this story made me think of Asimov’s Robot Detective books with Elijah Bailey and his robot partner R. Daneel Olivaw. Both present interesting mysteries. Both explore the relationship between human and artificial intelligence. Both question the implications and possibilities of artificial life, the rules and the loopholes.

I liked the Asimov books, but I like Kowal’s story even better. Much of this is due to the character of Metta, the police department’s A.I. I love how Kowal developed this character, the way Metta adopts a different persona for every police officer (much as a human might change clothes depending on the situation), the Mae West quotes she uses to joke with Huang, the way she’s simultaneously supercompetent and aware in the way only a computer can be, but also vulnerable and, if you’ll forgive the conceit, human.

Detective Huang is a good protagonist, too. A decent, determined, well-developed character who treats Metta more like a partner than a machine, which means he’s invested on all levels when something happens to her.

This is a fun, well-paced story which asks interesting questions, presents various nifty and shiny SFnal ideas, and made me blow off several things I needed to get done so I could find out how it ended. I’ve told Mary that 1) she should turn this into a book and 2) I want to write a blurb for that book.

Silently and Very Fast, by Catherynne Valente – I’ll be honest, Valente’s skill with language and imagery made me question whether I was a good enough writer to review this one. (I decided to do it anyway!) This is a wonderfully layered story. It’s retold fairy tales and romance and tragedy and poetry and the power of story/myth and post-singularity science fiction all woven together.

Like Kowal’s story, “Silently and Very Fast” deals in part with the relationship between humans and artificial intelligence. Elefsis is a program who started as the virtual keeper of a house, but grew into so much more thanks to the love and attention of a child, Ceno. It’s a relationship that can’t be forced into human terms. Ceno is Elefsis’ parent and lover and sibling and so much more. Thanks to the neural hardware, they’re literally a part of one another.

Over the years we see Elefsis grow and pass from one family member to another as the humans age and die. We learn how the world has evolved during this time, and the lengths they’ve gone to in order to protect Elefsis.

There were parts I didn’t understand at first. Only as I kept reading did some of those earlier scenes and stories slip so beautifully into place. I strongly recommend reading this one twice, because the parts become that much more gorgeous and powerful once you’ve seen the whole.

Countdown ($2.99), by Mira Grant – “Countdown” is a prequel to Grant’s Newsflesh trilogy (including her Hugo-nominated novel Deadline). Having read the first two books of that trilogy, I enjoyed getting all of the background information on how the zombie uprising began, and seeing characters who until now had just been mentioned in a historical context.

I think, if you’ve read and enjoyed the books, then this will be a good, powerful story, one you should definitely check out. The pacing and voice are similar to Grant’s other books, but the structure is different: “Countdown” is broken into lots of smaller segments from various characters’ perspectives as the inevitable undead uprising unfolds.

If you haven’t read the books, I don’t know if this will work as well. (Or if you read the books but they weren’t to your liking.) Some of the power of the story comes from knowing what happens later on. For example, seeing the Masons as good, determined, loving people and knowing what’s about to happen and the kind of people it turns them into was simply tragic. On the other hand, much of it works just as well in isolation–like the stories and fates of those involved in creating the original viruses.

Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire is up for four Hugos, but I think this one might be a long shot. While “Countdown” does stand alone, I think it will be more powerful and effective to fans of the books.

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Comments and discussion are very much welcome, as usual.

Libriomancer Giveaway and Miscellaneous Wednesday Stuff

The miscellaneous stuff first.

  • Author Saladin Ahmed asks for help as he’s fighting with with various physical, financial, and mental health issues. He also offers up a “Conan pastiche” short story, “Iron Eyes and the Watered-Down World.”
  • This cover for Catwoman #0. I don’t even … the only character I know of who could pull off that pose is Sergeant Schlock from Schlock Mercenary. However, enough people have dared me that I’m considering trying the pose myself to see how close I could get. I need to check my health insurance coverage first, though.
  • The Parent du Jour has an interview with me where I talk about being a Dad, my strengths and weaknesses as a parent, and some of my best and worst moments.
  • We watched the first two episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender last night. Aang is tremendous fun. Note to self – do not watch this with my son right before bedtime, because he gets too worked up and has to run around pretending to be a bender.
  • There are close to 250 comments on my post about boundaries on my website and LJ. Thank you for some great discussion. All of this says to me that we really need to talk about this stuff more.
  • Libriomancer [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy] Tidbits
    • The Goodreads Giveaway is still going strong, with 20 copies available.
    • And Publishers Weekly gave the book a starred review, saying it was, “amusing and action-packed from page one; Isaac is sure to be an instant fan favorite, and the secondary characters are vivid and multidimensional.” ::Happyauthorbounce::

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I’ve got two more advance review copies of Libriomancer sitting at home, and I want to give them away. If you want one, all you have to do is leave a comment telling me why you should get it. (If you’re commenting anonymously, please make sure I have a way to get in touch with you if you win.)

Be as serious or ridiculous as you want.

  • “I want it because I’m Tim Burton and I want to make a Libriomancer movie starring Johnny Depp as Smudge!”
  • “I want it because librarians are sexy-awesome!”
  • “I will review it everywhere and tattoo the first chapter on my body!”

I’ll pick two winners on June 20. One ARC will go to whoever leaves the best (in my opinion) reason, and the other will be drawn completely at random from all the entries.

This is not limited to U.S. residents. I’ll mail the books anywhere in the world.

Have fun!

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