The Big Idea #10: Eula Biss
On Immunity author Eula Biss speaks to Suzanne Koven about mythology, personal freedom, and the history of vaccines. ...more
Posts Tagged: sexism
Seriously, Though
At Salon, Lydia Millet gets serious about sexism, climate change and extinction, and the literary establishment’s dismissal of funny books:
...more“Important” serious books often seem to be picked based on the simplicity and safety of their content as a barometer of upper-middle-class cultural preoccupation, and humor’s too complex and ambiguous to be a flagship like that.
A Girl and Her Car
A car is a way of being in the same body—four heartbeats speeding towards a common destination.
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Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
Murakami's depiction of the murdered female sex object at the center of his new novel is not only sexist and irresponsible. It's also lazy writing. ...more
Knausguaard as a Lady
Katie Roiphe of Slate has some ideas about what Knausgaard’s critically acclaimed work would be like if, instead, he was a woman.
...moreI imagine to this committed Knausgaardians would say that they are responding to the quality of his writing and thinking.
Rumpus Round-Up: All the Abramson News Fit to Print
Jill Abramson, the first woman to head the New York Times as executive editor, was abruptly fired Wednesday and replaced by managing editor Dean Baquet.
The New Yorker attempted to explain why, with the leading theory being Abramson’s discovery several weeks ago that she earned less than her male predecessor.
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The Pie Lady’s Manifesto
During the first meeting with the man who would become my cookbook editor, I said “I’m not going to write another sweet little book about pie.” ...more
A Year of Women Writers
...moreAlthough plenty of critics and academics have done a wonderful job reinterpreting what it means to be “the canon,” there are still many readers in the US who, consciously or subconsciously, believe that men have contributed most of what we know to be literature.
A Book Review Column That Isn’t All About White Men
As VIDA’s annual stats have made very clear, most publications favor male writers reviewing books by other male writers.
Our inimitable essays editor Roxane Gay has also talked about the lack of representation of writers of color in many publications.
Ron Hogan, who runs the literary website Beatrice, wants to help change that by starting a new book-review column that intentionally focuses on the work of a diverse range of authors.
...moreWhat’s Sexist and What’s Not
Novelist Jennifer Weiner has long been an outspoken critic of literary sexism, vocally demanding respect for herself and other female authors and pushing back against stodgy heavyweights like Jonathan Franzen.
But how much dismissal of Weiner can be attributed to contempt for women’s issues, and how much can be attributed to the fact that her books often have predictable plot arcs and formulaic happy endings?
...moreChildren’s Books Still Dominated by White Boys
We’ve blogged before about the issue of representation in children’s and young-adult literature.
This post by Soraya Chemaly looks at the numbers and finds that kid-lit books feature twice as many male protagonists as female ones (three times as many when the characters are animals), and about a bajillion more white protagonists than protagonists of any other race—and that’s just for 2012.
...moreLiterary Geniuses Say Some Not-So-Genius Things
In “honor” of David Gilmour’s comments to a Hazlitt interviewer about how he refused to teach books by female authors, Rumpus contributor Michelle Dean rounded up some other literary men’s contributions to the field of misogyny.
From Hemingway blaming all men’s problems on women’s diseased brains to T.
...moreRest in Peace, Patriarchy
Yesterday, Slate announced the death of the patriarchy at the age of several thousand years.
The Cut’s Kat Stoeffel has honored the dearly departed, which will be mourned by civilizations across the globe, by compiling a list of “39 Things We’ll Miss About Patriarchy, Which Is Dead.”
Some of the blessings we will now tragically be forced to live without: “Not having mandatory paid maternity leave,” “revenge porn,” and “that thing where dudes get an extra half of a seat on the subway for their balls.” Rest in peace.
...more“Hunting Deer at the Spa”
“Do you feel pressure to have children before it’s too late?”
“There aren’t a lot of photos out there of you. Is there a reason for that?”
Read these and other questions that have been posed to female authors—but at Whack!
...moreNYRB Joins LRB in Hole, Helps Keep Digging
As we’ve documented pretty extensively before, arts organization VIDA has done a lot to expose gender inequality in the writing world with its annual count comparing female bylines to male ones in a number of publications.
The New York Review of Books‘ ratio has been less than stellar for the past three years, with female reviewers and female authors reviewed never rising above 20% of the total.
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The Slut-Shaming of Anthony Weiner
What would it look like to slut shame a middle-aged, heterosexual man? The Anthony Weiner scandal is giving us a clue.
...morePay No Attention to the Sexism Behind the Curtain
At a relatively slim 3700 words, Moira Weigel’s and Mal Ahern’s essay “Further Materials Toward a Theory of the Man-Child,” sparked by less-than-enlightened political text Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl, manages a comprehensive indictment of misogyny in all the places it’s not supposed to be.
...moreLRB Finds Itself in Hole, Keeps Digging
We’ve written a fair amount about this year’s VIDA numbers. We even featured an essay by Andrew Ervin, a writer who realized he was part of the problem—only 23.5% of the books he had reviewed during his career were by women.
...more“Male Rapper” List Spoofs Industry Sexism
...moreFrom his boy-next-door looks, you sure wouldn’t peg Eminem as superstar material. But put a beat behind him, and he turns from a feisty-cute Detroit blonde into a raging microphone demon. His autobiographical film 8 Mile is a riveting account of coming up as a male rapper in the inner city.
Women are Bitches
“Women are bitches,” says a young man as he sits down. Apparently a woman at the bar wouldn’t give him her number. He’s talking to the man sitting on his left in spite of the fact that I am sitting two feet to his right and at the same table.
...moreCoverflip: If Books By Men Were By Women
As Elissa Bassist’s recent Funny Women column “The Next Great American Woman’s Novel” reminded us, books by women tend to get treated a little…differently from books by men.
What would it look like if male authors’ novels were treated like Bassist’s hypothetical feminine masterpiece All the Single Ladies Just Wanna Have Fun?
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FUNNY WOMEN #100: Writing the Next Great American Woman’s Novel
A lot of women people (as opposed to men people, or just “people”) are upset that Wikipedia editors have created a subcategory for "American Women Novelists.” But I’m not. ...more
Dear Wikipedia Editors,
Not all of you, just the ones who decided that it was a good idea to start removing women from the category “American Novelists” and putting them into a new category: “American Women Novelists.” You guys.
What the hell, man? What’s wrong with you?
...moreWhat VIDA Stats Mean on A Personal Level
This year’s VIDA stats gave us a (depressing) wide-lens view of women’s status in the writing industry, but for a (depressing) close-up perspective, read Deborah Copaken Kogan’s recent essay in The Nation about the sexism she’s encountered during her career as a photographer and writer.
...moreWomen Still Not Equal in Writing World
VIDA, the organization that tracks the status of women in the writing world, has posted their annual count of female writers published in major literary magazines in comparison to male writers published in the same places.
This year, they’ve posted side-by-side statistics for 2010, 2011, and 2012, all in easily readable bar-graph form.
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Holy Orange
Years later, Bombay is still fresh in my mind and in my bones. As a visitor, I was naïve and lost. When I hear bells, I still see statues of Ganesh in a cool, stone temple and smell sandalwood incense. ...more
The Sexism That Makes Facebook Run
When Katherine Losse’s The Boy Kings, a book about the sexist culture she encountered while working at Facebook during its early days, came out, Melissa Gira Grant paid attention.
Grant had worked for a Silicon Valley gossip blog during the same time period and had come to her own dismayed conclusions about women’s roles in the tech industry.
...moreThe Good Old Days
Before social media, people spread ideas with postcards.
Collectors Weekly features an article of the double-edged sword variety. Lisa Hicks provides a selection of Suffrage-era postcards (both pro and against), but her accompanying essay is a far cry from a casual discussion of turn-of-the-century illustration and rhetoric.
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My Body, My Machine
I run so I can inhabit my own body. I run so that in moments like these, when my lack of power in this world becomes more violently apparent, I can feel the strength of my own body, enough to ignore provocations, enough to know alone that I could destroy both of those men if I wanted. ...more
In Defense of Lolo Jones
Much controversy has been sparked over the recent media attention being bestowed on the American hurdler Lolo Jones.
Jones, who placed fourth in this Olympics’ 100-meters hurdle competition, has been a figure of debate since the New York Times wrote an scathing article about her reliance on image to win endorsement deals and garner national attention.
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