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May 2022 In Review

31 May, 2022

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This month sees the addition an entirely new, very boring exciting statistic, for which see below the cut. 

May 2022

22 works reviewed. 13 by women (59%), 8 by men (36%), 1 by a non-binary author (5%), 0 by authors whose gender is unknown (0%), and 8 by POC (36%)

Year to Date

107 works reviewed. 60.5 by women (57% ), 42.5 by men (40%), 4 by a non-binary author (4%), 0 by authors whose genders are unknown (0%), and 39 by POC (36%).

Grand Total to Date

2115 works reviewed. 1184.5 by women (56%), 882.5 by men (42%), 30 by non-binary authors (1%), 18 by authors whose gender is unknown (1%), and 613.75 by POC (29%).



2022 May 2021 May 2020 May 2019 May 2018 May 2017 May 2016 May 2015 May 2014 May
Women 13 10 11 12 12.5 12 12 14 4
Non-Binary 1 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Unknown 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 0
POC 8

9

9 9 5 6 4 3 0
Total 22 21 21 21 22 22 23 28 4
% Women 59 48 52 60 57 55 52 50 100
% Non-Binary 5 10 5 0 0 0 0 0 0
% Unknown 0 10 5 0 0 0 0 0
% POC 36 43 43 43 23 27 17 11 0






















2021 TD 2020 TD 2019 TD 2018 TD 2017 TD 2016 TD 2015 TD 2014 TD
Women 60.5 57.5 56.6 57.75 58.5 58 63 77 6
Non-Binary 4 3 4 0 2 1 2 0 0
Unknown 0 3 3.5 2 4 0 0 0 0
POC 39 44 41 42.75 42.5 34.5 25 8 0
Total 107 106 106 103 108 106 105 132 6
% Women 57 54 53 56 54 55 60 58 100
% Non-Binary 4 3 4 0 2 1 2 0 0
% Unknown 0 3 3 2 4 0 0 0 0
% POC 36 42 39 42 38 33 24 6 0


And now for the extremely boring exciting new feature! 

For years I’ve been grumbling about the frequency with which I encounter autocracies in science fiction and fantasy. It occurred to me that perhaps this was merely observer bias, that because autocracies irritate me, I notice them more. Further, it would be entirely possible for me to keep a running count of government types in fiction. And so I shall.

I considered stealing Traveller’s government classification system but for personal convenience I have decided to use the following categories:

Not Applicable:
For anthologies, non-fiction texts and other works that lack a single setting.
Unclear:
For works where I could not figure out how government functions.
Anarchy:
For works with no functioning governments
P
ure democracy: For works where all inhabitants have a say in communal decisions
Representative democracy:
For works where people select representatives to make decisions on their behalf.
Oligarchy:
For works where a small group of people govern without meaningful input from the populace.
Autocracy:
For works where a single person governs without meaningful input from the populace.

Works are categorized using the time-honoured I know it when I see it” system. I will not be explaining how individual books were categorized and for even greater clarity I will not be justifying why I categorized books as I did. This isn’t intended as a detailed study, but merely rough statistics to provide me with perspective.

Month May April March February January
Government Type




Not Applicable 3 1 3 6 4
Unclear 1
3

Anarchy 1 1
1 1
Pure Democracy 0


1
Representative Democracy 7 8 8 5 3
Oligarchy 6 9 4 7 9
Autocracy 4 2 5 1 3
total 22 21 23 20 21






YTD




Government Type




Not Applicable 17 14 13 10 4
Unclear 4 3 3

Anarchy 4 3 2 2 1
Pure democracy 1 1 1 1 1
Representative Democracy 31 24 16 8 3
Oligarchy 35 29 20 16 9
Autocracy 15 11 9 4 3
total 107 85 64 41 21

Not the result I expected. While Oligarchy is definitely the front runner, Representative Democracy comes in a very respectable close second. This is, I think, because a lot of the works I read this year are set in pre-Apocalyptic Canada and the US, both of which I treated as Representative Democracies, at least of a sort.