Did Groff Conklin exclude women?

A Reactor blog post on women in early SF says "early anthologists such as John W. Campbell, Jr. and Groff Conklin went out of their way to exclude women SF authors". I found a similar comment in passing in a thread on Dune. A search on Conklin in the Google copy of Davin's Partners in Wonder: Women and the Birth of Science Fiction doesn't turn up anything incriminating.

Campbell's behavior is well documented. Does anyone have links to anything substantiating the claim about Conklin?

Interesting. What methodology would you use, I wonder. Proportion of women in the sf magazines vs in his anthologies? I looked up on isfdb one book I read long ago, Invaders of Earth. Out of 22 authors, 3 women. But then there weren't that many women in SF then. I'm not aware of any quotes from him on women writers.

>2 dukedom_enough: More recent histories have shown that there were more women in early SF than come to mind, but that they were reprinted far less often. I'm perfectly willing to believe that Conklin was guilty of the biases most men had at that time. But was it conscious? Is there anything documenting the claim he "went out of his way" to exclude women?

>3 ChrisRiesbeck: (So if it's not "conscious" it's okay? That argument doesn't really work anymore.)

>4 karenb:

I wouldn't say that it's "okay," just (in context) unremarkable except as part of an examination of wider scope.

The claim seems to originate with a Wired article, which I can only access via the Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20190202184806/https://www.wired.com/2019/02/geeks-g...

It in turns cites a Lisa Yaszek interview in the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy podcast: https://geeksguideshow.com/2019/01/24/ggg346-lisa-yaszek/

I am not going to listen to a podcast (but would be curious to know what you find if you do), but Yaszek does discuss it some in this interview: https://middletownpubliclib.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Interview-with-Lisa-Y...

Her source seems to be Leslie Stone:

And Leslie Stone recalls that Campbell wasn’t the only sexist editor she dealt with in the late 1930s and 40s: Groff Conklin expressed outright horror (to Stone’s husband, of all people!) when he realized he had published a story by a woman in The Best of Science Fiction...

Aha, I found more details in this article from Science Fiction Studies: https://doi.org/10.5621/sciefictstud.47.2.0161

It quotes Leslie Stone's unpublished manuscript "Reminiscences of a Science Fiction Writer." This is what Stone said about a publication party for Conklin's The Best of Science Fiction, which included one of Stone's stories:

On meeting Groff Conklin ... my husband, Bill, said rather modestly, “My wife writes science fiction.” “Oh does she,” said Conklin in a derogatory tone, “and what is her name?” So Bill said, “Leslie F. Stone.” Well, at that the man’s mouth dropped to the floor. Getting back his composure somewhat, he gruffed, “Are you telling me I used a story written by a woman in my book? I don’t believe women can write science-fiction.”

That article also some cites some discussion of Conklin in this essay:

Attebery, Brian. “The Conquest of Gernsback: Leslie F. Stone and the Subversion of Science Fiction Tropes.” Daughters of Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century, Ed. Justine Larbalestier. Middletown: CT: Wesleyan UP, 2006. 50-66.

>6 Stevil2001:, >7 Stevil2001:

Yeah, I'd say that qualifies as not unremarkable in terms of overt chauvinism.

Quite the jerk it appears. Sounds like the sort of person who becomes a "big name fan" and then resents any perceived challenge that might undercut their "achievement."

>Stevil2001 Thanks. That's really helpful. The line "I don’t believe women can write science-fiction" seems inconsistent with the fact that Conklin reprinted a few stories by women almost from the beginning. I'm sure he knew who C L Moore was. Her "No Woman Born" was in his second anthology, A Treasury of Science Fiction, two years after The Best of Science Fiction where Stone appeared. Katherine MacLean's "Defense Mechanism" appeared in his third anthology The Big Book of Science Fiction and she appeared again with "And Be Merry... in The Omnibus of Science Fiction, along with Ann Griffith's "Zeritsky's Law".

Maybe he learned better in the intervening years. And there's always the phenomenon of viewing a few members of the excluded group as special, worth valuing above others like them.