I agree that the Mixon report had instances that seemed to conflate negative reviews with abuse. But I'm surprised to see it dismissed on the basis of bad statistics. (And I say this as a stat grad student, for whatever that's worth.)
(1) Arguing that there are reasons why winterfox read/reviewed more poc works than others (i.e. 50books_poc) doesn't change the fact that published poc writers in sff were disproportionately targeted (6 out of the 23 published writers, if I'm reading the report correctly, were poc), or make that claim bad statistics. It just gives reason/means/additional context for that claim.
(2) SH data might be a more accurate comparison, but I doubt the demographical distribution is so radically different that it would change the overall conclusion. Even if there were double the amount of poc (14% of published sff writers instead of 7%), it would still yield an 88% probability for WF disproportionately targeting pocs (just run a binomial test).
So, yeah, bad statistics isn't a valid argument, imo, especially considering the anecdotal evidence, that there were a lot of woc that didn't feel comfortable coming forward, and so weren't counted.
But, like I said above, I do feel that Mixon's report conflated abuse and critiques, and the way the comment threads went was rather eye-opening in a "wow, great to see how little's changed from SFF's golden days" way. Also, needless to say, I don't see this as equivalent to supporting WF/RH/BS. I'm surprised that some people are, especially in your case -- you're one of the first I remember publicly speaking out against her.
I'm sorry that this has been so stressful for you; you have my respect & sympathies.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2015-04-06 08:48 pm (UTC)(1) Arguing that there are reasons why winterfox read/reviewed more poc works than others (i.e. 50books_poc) doesn't change the fact that published poc writers in sff were disproportionately targeted (6 out of the 23 published writers, if I'm reading the report correctly, were poc), or make that claim bad statistics. It just gives reason/means/additional context for that claim.
(2) SH data might be a more accurate comparison, but I doubt the demographical distribution is so radically different that it would change the overall conclusion. Even if there were double the amount of poc (14% of published sff writers instead of 7%), it would still yield an 88% probability for WF disproportionately targeting pocs (just run a binomial test).
So, yeah, bad statistics isn't a valid argument, imo, especially considering the anecdotal evidence, that there were a lot of woc that didn't feel comfortable coming forward, and so weren't counted.
But, like I said above, I do feel that Mixon's report conflated abuse and critiques, and the way the comment threads went was rather eye-opening in a "wow, great to see how little's changed from SFF's golden days" way. Also, needless to say, I don't see this as equivalent to supporting WF/RH/BS. I'm surprised that some people are, especially in your case -- you're one of the first I remember publicly speaking out against her.
I'm sorry that this has been so stressful for you; you have my respect & sympathies.