Thoughts on Removing Bias

There's a big brouhaha going on about the recent nominations for the Romance Writers of America (RWA) major yearly awards, the RITA.

I'm not a member, so I have no skin in this game. Except that I think they're falling victim to a problem that EVERY major award of this sort is prone to.

With book awards (the RITA, the Carol, the Christy, etc etc), the books submitted are already published. Which means they have an author name and, generally, photo associated with them. So when the contest judge gets their pile of books to read, they are able to make automatic assumptions. And they do. Whether or not they realize it.

See a name you recognize and read for pleasure? That book is automatically going to rate higher simply because of the author's name on the cover. See a name you've not heard of? Lower. See a name you've heard negative things about? Same goes. Glance at the author photo on the back and don't like what you see? Lower score.

Now I think everyone - EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON THE PLANET - would say they don't/wouldn't do this if they were judging a contest. But it's a lie. Unconscious bias is a thing. So is conscious bias. (There's a reason women who write fantasy and science fiction still more often then not use initials or a pen name.)

So how do you fix something like this? How do you ensure books are judged solely on their writing merit (if that's what you say you're going for)?

You make entries anonymous.

To enter, authors would have to provide a PDF that's been generated from a document where all identifying information has been stripped. Maybe even the book title (because if something has been insanely popular, we all know the title and it's going to tip us to the author and invoke that bias again.) Additionally? Judges might have to submit a list of authors and books they've read so they can't accidentally be given a book to judge that they've read (or if they get one, they have to recuse themselves from that title.) There's a tiny bit of honor system required there, but I'm not sure how to get around that.

Which is part of the problem. In a situation like this, bias can't be completely removed. It simply can't. Steps can be taken to lessen it, but absolute eradication? Nope.

It's a sad situation to watch and I hope they can find a solution before the animosity flying around on Twitter from every sector tears the organization apart.