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One of the most interesting discussions I saw at
the AWP conference was one sponsored by
VIDA, with editors and writers talking about the results of
VIDA's 2013 count of female and male writers in various publications. This year, they were able to offer a particularly revealing set of graphs showing
three year trends in book reviewing at major magazines and journals.
The only report of the discussion I've seen so far is that of VIDA volunteer
Erin Hoover at The Nervous Breakdown (although I'm sure it was covered by Twitter when it happened). Hoover gives a good overview of the panel and the issues. I took lots of notes, so will here add some more detail to try to show how the discussion went.
After introductory remarks by moderator Jennine Capó Crucet, the first responses were made alphabetically by last name, and so two men began:
Don Bogen, poetry editor of
The Cincinnati Review, and
Stephen Corey, editor of
The Georgia Review. Bogen noted that, inspired by VIDA, he'd done a count of the poetry published by CR during his 7-year tenure and discovered to, really, his surprise that he'd achieved parity between male and female writers (or at least male and female bylines). How had he managed to do this unconsciously, he wondered? The best hypothesis he had was that he seeks real diversity of experience and point of view in poetry and has eclectic taste — indeed, the only poems he said he's not particularly interested in are ones that reflect his own experience. He noted that certainly the idea of parity depends on where one is counting from, as particular issues of the magazine would go one way or the other, and he tends to organize blocks of poems in between other genres in each issue in ways that have sometimes been balanced but also sometimes been entirely female or entirely male. Many times, too, he said, he does his best to read blind, paying little to no attention to a byline, and has often discovered that material he thought was "male" or "female" had been written by someone of another gender. Thus, the magic of literature.
Of the panelists, Stephen Corey seemed perhaps least comfortable with the discussion. His initial statement was simply a set of questions. (I think I managed to write them all down, but may have missed something.) When we talk about gender balance, he asked, are we talking about balance in submissions? In page counts? (Does a 30-page story count the same as a 1-page poem?) Should reviews be counted the same as poems, essays, or stories? Do you want an editor to read your work with gender in mind? Should a publication put out a call for more work by males or females? Should a publication put out an anti-call against one gender? When you read, do you care if what you read is by a man or a woman [
audience: YES!], and should an editor care?
After Corey,
E.J. Graff said so many interesting things I had trouble taking notes. Here's what I wrote down:
- The count is an example of why all English majors should take a course in statistics. Graff: "I wish I had!"
- The submission gap is enormous. With opinion pieces, women editors solicit women and are often turned down or need more time, whereas men often say yes and offer to get the piece done very quickly (important for current events).
- Men continually send pitches after rejections, women don't.
- Structural acculturation. We have to overcome our own socialization — and not just in terms of gender. The audience, for instance, was overwhelmingly white.
- We must make our own choices conscious because many of our prejudices are unconcious. Graff pointed to the Implicit Association Test.
- For students, there is a dramatic shift between the world of school and the world of work. It can be difficult to learn how to promote yourself. Men tend to do this more comfortably than women, because it's generally more socially acceptable for men.
- Make a posse. Promote yourself and your group. Start a movement or magazine. Challenge each other, help with drafts and careers, but as a group move each other forward.
- When lesbians and gay men started working together in the 1980s, there were many difficulties, suspicions, and prejudices. To overcome these difficulties, many groups decided on a shared leadership structure that required equal power sharing between a man and a woman rather than just one leader. Why not do that with more prizes, editorships, groups?
Katha Pollitt (a personal hero of mine, and one of the main reasons I went to the panel) then offered her perspective, particularly as someone who has a long career as a poet and essayist, as well as a former editor with
The Nation. Because I love Katha Pollitt, I tried to write as fast as she talked, and so here are my notes from her initial statement:
- Some editors are quite conscious, others not at all — and some of the latter group are women. They can be very far away from consciously considering the issue, they can be very far away from any sort of balance, and yet still think they're doing great (and thus not need to become conscious).
- As VIDA has shown, raising the issue can, sometimes, make change.
- At The Nation, the front and back of the magazine are totally separate. In front, the subject areas (politics, news, current events) and speed of weekly publishing means the editors have settled on "go-to" people who they know are very reliable — maybe not the best writers, but they turn in clean copy on time. These editors would need to make the time to seek out new, female experts who are reliable. Some places have made such an effort — Alternet and Mother Jones, for instance.
- You have to think about it (make the issue conscious) because we have to compensate for elements in the culture.
- There are too many women trying to write in too few subject areas. Look at how many women are writing about Girls! Women should try to cultivate interest and knowledge in areas outside those seen as "feminine" or "women's issues".
- If you're not getting submissions from women, you have to ask why. Why would a woman throw herself at your wall?
- Most op-eds are solicited. Most slush piles aren't even read by an editor. Slush is not where the problem lies.
- Things are fairer at newspapers. They have unions and must follow anti-discrimination policies.
Then the discussion moved on to questions and comments from the audience. Again, from notes, which may distort some things simply because I couldn't write fast enough. (I'll offer some summary and response at the end.)
Q: Is gender-identified subject matter more or less appealing? Also, racially-identified? Etc.
Don Bogen: An experience can be gendered, but not to the writer. Surprised plenty of times to discover the gender of a writer whose byline was indeterminate. The otherness of the imagination is important.
Q: 99% of news is what is seen to be traditionally male. Much of human life is dismissed as female.
E.J. Graff: It's worse than you know! The
Global Media Monitoring Project statistics are horrifying. Women in the news are usually victims or family members ("the wife of", "the mother of", etc.). These create our implicit biases. Though, as Katha Pollitt said, there may be a good amount of female bylines in newspapers, the top editors and the columnists tend to be male.
Q: Wal-Mart has a huge effect on the economy because it is so large, and so getting Wal-Mart to change practices can have a massive ripple effect. Is there a Wal-Mart of the literary world that we should focus on trying to change?
[Some laughter, cross-talk]
Another audience member: The Wal-Mart is in the room. Unsubscribe from magazines you don't like the numbers for, and let them know. Let Harper's know. Let The New Yorker know. Don't let your subscription lapse silently — it's important that the magazines know why you are leaving them, and what it would take to get you back.
Q: Why is the literary world so obsessed with dudes from Brooklyn?! I don't want "women's literature", I want literature. Even when women are put forward, though, they become invisible.
Pollitt: Yes, why when Jonathan Franzen writes a book is everybody else suddenly invisible? Can Karen Russell get the same amount of notice? She should, but does she? It's a problem of publicity. Some women get attention. But does the attention last? Will it last? Can we make it last? The writers are there, the quality is there, the publicity is not.
VIDA volunteer: Feel empowered. Email magazines. Use knowledge to use your money and time well. VIDA is 10 volunteers. You are many. Vote with your dollars.
VIDA co-founder Erin Belieu: Most of the media reports on the count frame the story as, "It still sucks." And it does. But there's more to it than that. Many places say they need a comment from people such as New Yorker editor David Remnick if they're going to run a big story, but the editors of the highest-profile magazines won't talk, and so the story is not seen as journalistically significant. Behind the scenes, though, there is concern. One well-known female fiction writer gots calls from multiple editors when the count was released this year — the publications were embarrassed, and they wanted this writer to contribute. She didn't have any short fiction available and also didn't want to be the token female, so she gave the editors the names of 5 other writers who might be able to give them something.
Q for Katha Pollitt: Is there a perception among editors that there are female and male subject matter? Is more male subject matter being covered?
Pollitt: War, politics, etc. — these are not "male" subjects! More women are killed by war than men. Women's lives are deeply, intimately, and constantly affected by politics. These are human subjects. The New York Times has two male columnists who started out as food writers, a subject often associated with women. Get to know a lot about something interesting in a less crowded field and you will have an easier time getting published.
And then time ran out.
The take-away message was, as Erin Hoover wrote, consciousness. The world we live in is structurally biased against equality, and as people who live in this world, if we don't consciously work toward increasing equality, we will unconsciously contribute to inequality.
I love the idea that we could follow Don Bogen's lead and try to read and publish eclectically, seeking experiences and representations outside of our own, and thus achieve equality. But I don't think it would work. I expect he's an outlier and his example would be difficult, even impossible, to replicate. Worse, a stated interest in diversity might be used as cover. I think too many publishers and editors could just say to themselves, "Hey, we're nice, tolerant, liberal people who sorta like, you know, value that diversity thing. Yeah. We'll be equal," and then go right on reinforcing the status quo. I actually would prefer that someone just say, "I couldn't care less about equality," and not pretend.
Let's go back to Stephen Corey's questions. They're good for discussion, but I think they're problematic overall. With regard to page lengths and genres, etc., it's really not that hard to compare like to like, and VIDA, for instance, offers statistics in various breakdowns (books reviewed, reviewers, etc). The "overall" stats that VIDA provides are useful as a way to view the problem generally, but yes, there's a difference between a 200-word review and a 10,000-word article. The general view is useful, though. We're not to the point where distinctions necessarily say a lot. The trends are so bad that getting too specific is pretty much a waste of time. Maybe in the future it would be an interesting exercise, but right now the information is pretty damn unambiguous and shameful. As Don Bogen showed, there's plenty of reasons for an individual magazine issue or section of an issue to be dominated by women or men, but once you step back from individual issues and sections, once you increase the data set, then consistent, significant inequality speaks for itself.
Do we want editors to read our work with our gender in mind? I've never assumed they wouldn't. I'd love to live in a world where my gender presentation was irrelevant, but I don't live in that world, and pretending I do just reinforces a status quo I loathe. My name is Matthew and I physically present as male; that affects people's perceptions of me consciously and, especially, unconsciously. How much does that matter to any one editor? I assume a bit (at least), unless they want to give me multiple results from the
Implicit Association Test showing that they are utterly unaffected by gender ... at which point I might assume they don't entirely care about my apparent maleness. Otherwise, I'm going to assume they're living in the same swamp of associations that I am.
Should there be a call made for more of one gender, or against another? Oh, please. This is a question better left to
concern trolls. I can just imagine the sort of call that would go out: "Dear Womens: We don't know any female scribblers. Please submit to us so we can see if you know how to write. Thanks!" Or, even better, "Hey guys! These feminazis are doing their thing and we're afraid it might hurt our reputation in this politically correct environment, so please cut it out with the submissions for a while. Once we've published some girls, then we can get back to the real work."
More interesting to me is the question: Do you care about the gender of a writer you read, and should an editor care? The audience loudly affirmed that they care about the gender of writers they read. For me, this is a similar sort of problem to whether I care about if an editor knows my gender when I submit writing to them. In an ideal world where gender is as meaningful as handedness or eye color, a writer's gender for me would be an interesting and inconsequential detail. But I don't ever expect to live in such a world. Human culture has been and continues to be meaningfully and significantly affected by gender. To not care about a writer's gender in such a world is to not care about something that meaningfully and significantly affects that writer. So yes, I notice the gender of writers I read. I care about it. The world does not just naturally drop a nicely balanced group of male, female, and genderqueer writers on my readerly doorstep. The world makes it easiest for me to read white male writers who use the English language and publish with major publishers. I make the conscious effort to seek out others. (Among the books I'm currently reading: Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin; The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates; The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde; Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde by Alexis De Veaux.) If I want to know about the world outside of my own experiences — and that really is why I read — then I have to pay attention to some of the categories the writers I read fall into. It's why I got interested in African literatures, even before I ever traveled to Africa. I can't imagine not reading such work now. Not for reasons of political correctness or some other overloaded scare term, but for purely selfish reasons: my life is richer and more interesting with such writings in it than not.
So it's probably not surprising that I think editors should notice and care, because otherwise the structures of our culture are going to notice and care for them, and will replicate the dominant status quo.
The most important thing to come out of the VIDA count, though, is a desire from editors, writers, and readers to actively fix the problem. This, it seems to me, is VIDA's real message and value. Here are the stats. If you don't care about them, then don't care about them. (You're an asshole, but maybe you're okay with that.) If these numbers shock, dismay, annoy, or even just vaguely bother you, then do something. If you're an editor, seek out female writers and work to make sure your venue is not one that posts various signs saying, "GIRLZ KEEP OUT!" (Hint: If you publish mostly male writers and seriously wonder why non-males don't submit more to you, you're behaving like an oblivious dunderhead.) Be conscious, put forth some effort, and don't start whining for cookies because you did what you should have been doing all along. If you're a reader, let the VIDA count guide you.
Tin House, Poetry, and
Threepenny Review are three magazines that have deliberately tried to get their numbers to be better, and they're three great magazines well worth your support. There are others, too, and will, I expect (I hope!), be more. If it matters to you, speak up with your voice and your writing, with where you submit work, and with where you spend money. We can be proactive.
And remember E.J. Graff's advice:
Make a posse. Promote yourself and your group. Start a movement or magazine. Challenge each other, help with drafts and careers, but as a group move each other forward.
That's the way it feels to me lately. The issue of gender in librarianship, especially as it relates to those of us who work in youth librarianship, has been sleepily in the background for a long time.
A number of issues that have cropped up recently have brought the subject back to the forefront and women and men are standing up and saying, "Whoa! Wait! Stop!" "Let's back up here and get real again!". It feels as if powerful people who have long been sleeping are once again awakening and looking around - and want to claim -or reclaim -some power that has long been lost or trivialized.
Part of the discussion has been in the blogosophere; part on twitter and part on a librarian group on Facebook, Think Tank. What started in a somewhat rancorous way is building to something slightly different - an open and honest exploration of the roots of discourse on gender in librarianship. People are talking, exploring and sharing.
Kate Kosturski over at
Librarian Kate blog has written two posts in the last few days tracing the scholarly research on gender and librarianship (
here and
here) and they are fascinating. Her part 3 will be on youth librarianship as it relates to gender issues. Please read the posts and consider sharing your experiences of gender bias in youth work with her at
librariankate7578 at gmail dot com. I think we need to read more.
I can imagine the research is might thin on this topic. Other than recent blog posts , some of which I cited in my
last post, I have seldom read of youth librarianship and bias issues in my almost 40 years in the business. What there is probably was probably published in small presses and gathered in the marvelous
Alternative Library Literature anthologies (edited by Jim Danky and Sandy Berman) of the '80s through early part of this century.
I, for one, am glad we're waking up to have this discussion.
Image: 'Open wide.....' http://www.flickr.com/photos/66164549@N00/2884630721 Found on flickrcc.net
Kelly over at Stacked just wrote a
powerful post on being a woman and speaking your mind. If you haven't already, head right over and read it. I'll wait for you. *quietly scrolling through tweets*
Ah, good. You're back. Kelly has a couple of, oh, ten or twenty cogent points, eh? She is speaking truth to power - and to us.
The issues of gender and power, girls and power and the destructive subtlety of people speaking and working against women who wish to be themselves and self-directed has been a lifelong concern of mine. As a young fire-brand librarian I was active in Women Library Workers, a feminist library network and support group that now is in an embers stage of it's existence. I have stood down from much of my active work but I have never believed for a nano-second that we are in a "post-feminist" age.
My partner is a guy with a voice pitch that is slightly higher than encountered in most guys. He has spent considerable time on the phone in his jobs. When men on the other end of the phone mistakenly think they are talking to a women,
to a man, they are patronizing, dismissive, abrupt and sassy. When the person on the other end thinks my partner is a man, he is treated completely differently. This has been a conversational topic between us for over thirty years. "Post-feminist age," my eye.
When Kelly talks about the expectations that men and women have for women and girls I hear her talking. As I commented on her blogpost: "I was reminded of a photo going around FB where Jada Pinkett Smith was asked why she let her daughter shave her head. Pinkett Smith wrote, 'The question why I would LET Willow cut her hair. First the LET must be challenged. This is a world where women, girls are constantly reminded that they don't belong to themselves; that their bodies are not their own, nor their power, or self determination. I made a promise to endow my little girl with the power to always know that her body, spirit, and her mind are HER domain. Willow cut her hair because her beauty, her value, her worth is not measured by the length of her hair. It's also a statement that claims that even little girls have the RIGHT to own themselves and should not be a slave to even their mother's deepest insecurities, hopes, and desires. Even little girls should not be a slave to the preconceived ideas of what a culture believes a little girl should be.' "
This spring I attended a wonderful and enpowering unconference at UW-Milwaukee called
"Out of the Attic and into the Stacks: Feminism and LIS". Lots of students and lots of old-guard feminist librarians. It was great to be around that living timeline of feminist librarians. One question that came up from the students to the vets was, "How do you bring feminism into your work?"
This is what I said: You bring feminism into your work every day in every way. By making sure that you purchase and display materials that highlight strong women and gentle men; that open up the hidden contributions of women and that highlight girls as strong and not just frilly. You do programs that empower girls but also don't shut out either gender. When girls come in to your library, you compliment not their hair or clothes but tell them they are looking strong or tall or smart today. The messages that we give - no matter how small - matter.
We need to stand strong together on these issues of women and girls and power. It does make a difference and will make a difference for decades to come. But we have to commit to doing the support every day in every way.
Image: 'Superhero' http://www.flickr.com/photos/51336161@N02/5416260011 Found on flickrcc.net
Last week's
Readercon was among the best of the many I have attended, for me at least. Inevitably, there wasn't enough time for anything — time to see friends, time to go to all the various panels I had hoped to go to, time to mine the book dealers' wares... Nonetheless, it was a tremendous pleasure to see so many friends and acquaintances again, as well as to be immersed in such a vibrant community of people who love to talk about books.
I've been on the Programming Committee for Readercon for the past two years now, which changes my experience a little bit, because I find myself paying closer attention than I did before to how the panels end up working in reality (after we on the committee have puzzled over their possibilities for a few months) and to how people on the panels and in the audiences respond to them. (Note: We're actively trying to expand the invitation list to Readercon. If you have any names to suggest [including yourself],
please see here for more info.)
I don't love being on panels myself, because I don't really have any confidence in my ability to say anything beyond the banal in an extemporaneous situation, but I was on a couple this time, and though I don't think my contributions were anything memorable, there were some good moments. (More thoughts on panels and the current discussion of gender parity on panels at cons below.)
The two panels I was on were both on Saturday morning, which turned out to be less than ideal for me because I hadn't gotten to sleep until sometime after 2am (having been part of a long and wonderful conversation with Eric Schaller, Jeff VanderMeer, and Michael Cisco), so I was pretty exhausted. The first panel was on John Reider's excellent book
Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction, with the other panelists being Robert Killheffer, Darrell Schweitzer, Vandana Singh, and, as leader (that is, moderating participant), Andrea Hairston. I thank the gods of scheduling that Andrea was the leader, because her skills at moderating are a wonder to behold. I wouldn't have been leader of this panel for anything, because not only is there a potentially controversial topic, but it's the sort of topic that is wide open to unproductive tangents — for instance, it may bring out the history geek in participants or audience members to such an extent that they can't help demonstrating how much they know about exactly what happened in 322 BCE and how
that is what really explains the
Berlin Conference. There was a bit of this, and Andrea brilliantly brought the conversation back toward things that could be more effectively discussed in the hour we had without making the person who just couldn't help talking a lot about the Romans feel entirely squashed. (If he did, he didn't behave as if he'd been squashed.) I find it hard to stay on track during panels myself, so always appreciate a moderator who can moderate without humiliating.
I'm not sure we were able to really say anything beyond what the book itself already says, but we affirmed that its analysis is provocative, powerful, and generally convincing, and if we succeeded in sparking curiosity about the book in one or two other people, then it was a success. (Copies seemed to be selling well at the Wesleyan University Press table in the dealers' room.)
After the panel, Andrea
By: Beth,
on 7/10/2012
Blog:
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School’s out, I’m no longer sick, and the blog is no longer down! In honor of the evolving focus of this column, I’ve changed its title and broadened my scope. But don’t worry; I’ll still be trolling the various databases for hard-hitting research, too. The first month of summer is usually the busy one, in which students are still finishing school, are already in summer school, or have begun to embark on busy summer adventures, like camp and travel. So the ideas I’m offering you are a bit more low-key or focused on the librarian, rather than the patron, since I gather that your patrons are not exactly in the mood yet for anything that requires a lot of commitment.
Last weekend, PostSecret put up a (trigger warning) postcard from someone who dislikes being labeled intolerant for saying that certain types of people are, maybe, hypocritical about oppression. That made me think of a tumblr I found once upon a time called Oppressed Brown Girls Doing Things, whose tagline, “Because we’re still oppressed,” is awesomely readable in a multitude of ways. You might just find this fun to read when there’s a lull in your day, but I know I’d love to see some of these posts find their way into a collage on a library wall, a bookmarks list on a library computer, or into the meeting of any group that meets in your teen room. While the content ranges from NSFW language to sarcastic gifs, the blog also brings up a lot of pertinent points about what it means to be a woman of color.
While definitely NSFW, I have to share this music video based on a Jay-Z and Kanye West song whose title I won’t put here. Two Brooklynites re-set the song to be all about how hard it is to be a cool, reading girl who can’t find a guy to keep up with her tastes or pronounce Proust correctly. If you have an advisory group or teen book club that meets, you might show the video to spark a conversation about what it means to be “nerdy,” who the video is aimed at, or what it means to take a genre so known for its subculture and turn it on its head by making it about something usually so “uncool.”
Judith Butler is widely known for her groundbreaking works on gender identity and the idea that gender is a social construct that is performed by members of society, not a biological, unchangeable aspect of a person like eye color. It is Butler’s ideas that so many feminists, media critics, psychologists, and other professionals grapple with when trying to understand how images and stereotypes in the media affect self image and self performance, as well as how damaging it can be to force someone to perform normatively. But in a fascinating ethnographic study, Olga Ivashkevich discovered that young pre-teen girls are much more willing to play with body representation, drag, and non-normative physical ideals than many researchers think. The girls Isvashkevich studied drew each other as various vegetables, allowing them to skew various parts of their bodies, and other anecdotes in the article reveal how even something as obviously “damaging” as a Barbie doll can lead girls to experiment in cross dressing, mutilation, and more. If you and your children’s librarian colleagues have been searching for a way to reach tweens, as well as younger teens, this might be your in. Try leaving a box of Barbies, paper dolls, fashion magazines, or other objects that support alteration and creation on the body, as well as relevant clothing items and art supplies, with a note explaining that patrons are welcome to experiment with the box and maybe even reflect on what they’ve done by taking a digital photo and writing about it for the library’s blog, or s
I had no intention of ever writing anything ever
again whatsoever about
Prometheus, or even mentioning the movie ever
again in my life, but I just read two great pieces about it, so can't resist sending attention to them. (One links to the other, in fact.)
First, Elaine Costello's amazingly rich, provocative, nuanced, thoughtful, beautiful stream-of-theoryness wonderings about the film — about its economies and genders and races and religions, its unsaid saids and said unsaids. ("...which reminded me that the spaceship is a military-industrial [and so imperial-colonial] apparatus...") Here's just a tiny taste of an extraordinary tapestry:
What I wonder about is this: if David really can be read as an anti-colonial and anti-corporate saboteur, why does this progressive message, this transgressive messenger, still have to wear the most Aryan body imaginable? I’m aware that casting an actor of color as the android character would have made the slippages that David animates, between subordinate-saboteur, product-producer, and particularly colonial-colonized, perhaps more difficult to represent. (Though not necessarily; you can have Idris Elba imitating Peter O’Toole, why not? I would have watched the hell out of that, actually, can you imagine how fucked up and interesting that would be, the commentaries you could make on the reversal of racial drag, etc.) What I’m trying to say is that it is still impossible for mainstream Hollywood film to imagine a person of color in a role as potentially complex and subversive as David’s. A character of color who could be plotting to destroy the imperial-corporate complex he was created within, and is forced to work for? That would be too radical. Which is to say, that would be too real.
Idris Elba once said himself, “Imagine a film such as Inception with an entire cast of black people – do you think it would be successful? Would people watch it? But no one questions the fact that everyone’s white. That’s what we have to change.”
Subashini at The Blog of Disquiet picks up on some of Costello's ideas, and others, offering particularly interesting interpretations of the movie's use of body horror, its apparent nihilism, and Idris Elba as the One Black Dude:
I do think that having acrimonious feelings towards the film is the actual point—the film seems to be a stand-in for a certain segment of humanity and its imperialist, ruinous ambitions, though like most films coming out of Hollywood this seems to coexist with its appreciation of capital, technology, and involuntary/reproductive labour. That in itself doesn’t make it inherently unlikeable, not at all. But as Susan Sontag wrote in “The Imagination of Disaster,” “Science fiction films invite a dispassionate, aesthetic view of destruction and violence—a technological view,” and perhaps it’s the nihilist technological determinism of Prometheus that is inherently unsettling. Perhaps it’s this utter lack of meaning in the movie that is its meaning, and consequently the source of my loathing. Maybe a part of me just wants machines and people to get along? I’m not sure.
I haven't hated a movie as much as I hated
Prometheus in a long time. It is a movie that screams for mockery.
Some of my favorite writings on it so far...
Nick Mamatas:In the grim meathook future of this film, corporations rule the planet, CEOs rule their corporations on whims, and women wear naught but Ace bandages as undergarments, the poor sexy sexy things.
Kameron Hurley:In the world of Prometheus, we all came from white dudes, who went around seeding the universe with their magical, life-giving sperm.
Genevieve Valentine:One of the saving graces of the psychosexual terrorization in the Alien franchise is the leveling of the gender playing field – the rape threat they represent is omnipresent and sexually indiscriminate. But not in Prometheus! Thanks, Prometheus.
Richard Brody:Which is to say that, despite the lack of intentional humor, lots of things in the movie are laughable, from the giant tiki-head of primordial power or the flying cruller that threatens humanity to the cumbersome pseudo-mythology that blends Sunday-supplement science with the kind of puffed-up archetypes of genesis that would have embarrassed Wagnerian epigones—and which Scott’s proud earnestness renders all the more ridiculous.
Also, the production design and cinematography are dull and repetitive, the plot is little more than a videogame script (and thus about as much fun as watching somebody else play a videogame), the characters are all idiots and stereotypes who spout pseudo-profundities they apparently picked up from Fortune Cookies of the Gods, and Guy Pearce is stuck in
Dustin Hoffman's Little Big Man make-up for no apparent reason. (I liked Michael Fassbender's performance, though. He seemed like a refugee from an incomparably better movie,
A.I.)(Even though the movie is ploddingly predictable, if you haven't seen it and want to predict every plot turn five minutes ahead of time yourself, don't read on.)
And let's not forget Charlize Theron as the Ball Busting Career Woman With Daddy Issues, Who Might Be A Lesbian — I mean, Robot — a character who finally gives in to the propositions of the Hunky Black Dude Who Will Make Her A Bit More Hetero — I mean, Human — Just Long Enough For Us To Imagine Them In Bed Together. It's not enou
By: Justyna,
on 3/1/2012
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By Rosemary Wright
Greenwich pensioner by Whistler 1859. Source: Library of Congress.
In 2011, the oldest Baby Boom workers reached the age of 65 — an age that more than 60 million Baby Boomers will reach by 2030. The issue of retirement weighs particularly on women, who are likely to outlive men and therefore have a longer period of retirement to finance.
In the study “Paying for Retirement: Sex Differences in Inclusion in Employer-Provided Retirement Plans,” I turned to the Baby Boomers to determine whether this new generation of women were well-prepared with retirement benefits. Is the retirement gap between Baby Boom men and women narrower than for older retirees? Are women still dependent on a husband’s retirement income for security in old age? To look at these differences, I examined a large sample obtained from the 2009 Current Population Survey for the differences between Baby Boom men and women’s inclusion in retirement plans, as well as predictors of inclusion in these plans.
The results of the new study showed a significantly higher percentage of women than men (68.4% vs. 65.2%) worked for an employer who offered retirement benefits. A slightly higher percentage of men than women (92.4% vs. 91.1%) were included in their employers’ retirement programs. Overall, significant positive predictors of working for an employer with a retirement plan were sex (women more likely than men), employment in a core industry or in a primary occupational sector, educational attainment, and government worker status (government workers more likely than non-government workers). On the other hand, significant negative predictors were minority status (minorities less likely than non-minorities), age (older workers less likely than younger workers), having children younger than age 18 (those with children under the age of 18 less likely than those with no children under 18), and immigrant status (immigrants less likely than non-immigrants).
Minority status and educational level were the only two predictors for which there was a significant sex difference. Minority women were less likely than minority men to work for an employer with retirement benefits. As educational attainment increased, men were more likely than women to work for an employer providing retirement benefits.
Significant positive predictors of a worker actually being included in an employer’s retirement program were age (older workers more likely to be included than younger workers), employment in a core industry or in a primary occupational sector, educational attainment, marriage (married workers more likely than non-married workers), and government worker status. Minority status was the only significant negative predictor of inclusion (minority workers less likely than non-minority workers to be included).
There was only one variable with a significant difference between men and women: government employment. Female public employees were more likely than male public employees to be included in their employers’ retirement programs.
Two major good-news stories emerge from this study. First, a much larger group of workers is included in an employer’s retirement plan in this study than received pension benefits in earlier studies. This reflects the expansion of the types and availability of retirement benefits available to workers today, and is a good sign for retirement security as Baby Boom workers begin to retire. Second, there was only one predictor for which the likelihood of being included in a retirement
By:
Bill Kirk,
on 1/26/2012
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Just when you thought it was safe to break out your rhyming dictionary (or start running all your rhyming endings alphabetically through your head), someone tells you there's gender to contend with in the rhymes you write. What's up with that? After all, the last time you paid any attention to linguistic gender was Spanish class in the ninth grade---or was it when you ordered that beer during Spring Break in Puerto Vallarta?
No matter. The last place you thought gender would be an issue had to be rhyme, right? Well, fear not. It's not quite as problematic as you may anticipate. In fact, except that someone back in the day must have thought structural endings and sounds ought to be classified according to gender, it's unlikely that anyone would even notice. But just out of curiosity, it might be fun to try and sleuth out who among the ancients decided gender was important---and why.
So, where did the whole gender in rhyme thing originate? Did the early Chinese rhymers grapple with gender in their day? Although some of the oldest surviving Chinese poetry contains lyric aspects, because the written language is character based, any gender association to poetic form may be difficult to tease out. Left with that uncertainty, is the male-female poetic structure primarily western in origin? Could it simply be a non-functioning, vestigial "leftover" from Old Latin which etched its subtle tracks on the English language as romantic entanglements ebbed and flowed across Europe?
According to one source in the English Department at Carson-Newman College, (http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms_R.html) the word "rhyme" itself originates "from Old French, rime meaning 'series,' in turn adopted from Latin 'rithmus' and Greek 'rhythmos'." Given some of the other gender assignments in Greek and Latin, might we ascribe gender features to the rhyming verses penned by the early Greeks and Romans?
No doubt, the definition of gender in rhyme could probably be argued until the cows come home, with a break taken only for milking before the debate starts again. As is true with virtually any sorting out of why words in any language might be classified as masculine versus feminine, rhymes are no different. One thing seems clear: at least in English, gender in rhyme seems to have little or nothing to do with the gender rules found in some romance languages.
That is, whether a line of verse in English ends in an "a" or "o" or other gender laden vowel or consonant, doesn't really matter as much as it does in the Spanish language. And speaking of word endings, despite its compromise value in the Italian language, the use of a neutral vowel (such as the letter "i") at the end of the plural form of both masculine and feminine words is not a gender-driven issue in English rhyme. But you have to admire the logical recognition of not being able to sort out gender in groups.
In the French language, the definition suggests line ending words which end in "e" are feminine and those that don't are masculine. Some sources also refer to "e" endings and unaccented ending syllables as being weak. Although I was a French major in college, I'll leave the "why" of those "differences" to others who know far more about the origins of the French language and who don't mind getting their shins kicked.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, although the reasoning might be debatable, the rules regarding gender in English rhyme are remarkably clear. According to the Collaborative International Dictionary of English, a female rhyme has a rhyming set in which the rhyming lines end in double-syllable words (ego, amigo). A male rhyme, on the other hand, is one where only the last syllable in the line endings agree (stand, demand). No doubt you have noticed the difference in where the stress is placed---keep reading.
The definitions are extended slightly in Brande and Cox (A Dictionary
 |
| A Dangerous Method |
Dartmouth College has a long-standing relationship with the Telluride Film Festival, and every year a group of films that premiered at Telluride are shown as part of the
Telluride at Dartmouth program, a highlight of any northern New England cinephile's year. (It was at Telluride at Dartmouth last year that I saw
Never Let Me Go.)
This year, I've decided to try to see as many of the films as I can, and unless exhaustion wears me down, I expect to see five of the six. (Unfortunately,
The Kid with the Bike, the new movie from the
Dardenne brothers, is playing on a day when I have a prior commitment.) I won't do in depth reports on the films here, I don't think, because of a lack of time, but I do want to record initial impressions.
The first film shown was
A Dangerous Method, David Cronenberg's best comedy since
Crash. Most people probably wouldn't classify
A Dangerous Method as a comedy, and it's certainly not being sold as such, but I find it a helpful way to view it. Cronenberg has the most developed and complex kitsch aesthetic this side of
Abel Ferrara, and much like Ferrara, he allows actors to indulge their most histrionic tendencies with utter sincerity. Such acting can create a variety of effects, and the style's strength is the complexity of feelings it can evoke in an audience -- a complexity especially apparent when one cannot suppress laughter at the unbridled mugging on screen while also wondering whether this is something you should be taking more seriously (one of the funniest scenes I've ever watched is the one in Ferrara's
Bad Lieutenant where
Harvey Keitel talks to Jesus). Yet the filming and acting make no concessions to comedy in such moments -- and many viewers do not see them as funny; indeed, some see them as "great acting" and powerful, authentic expressions of emotion. Which they may be. Most of James Dean's reputation is based on such scenes, and one of the legacies of American Method acting, particularly as proselytized by
Lee Strasberg, is a whole canon of "Look at me, Ma, I'm emoting!" moments. The filmmaking process can tone down, fragment, and distort such performances, and the brilliance of a Cronenberg or a Ferrara is to go in exactly the opposite direction -- to indulge the actors and allow them to reach their full melodramatic heights. More traditional directors and editors try to manage the emotions represented and the emotions evoked in the audience, and their greatest nightmare would be an audience laughing at a scene intended to be dramatic, but the filmmakers who love the melodrama inherent in their material cast that fear aside.
A Dangerous Method is a perfect example. The last thing the world needs is another historical drama about the re
By: Lauren,
on 9/20/2011
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By Sydney Beveridge
Some of the earliest detailed census data on education came from 1850 when the census reported information about school attendance. For many decades, the census focused on literacy rates, which we discussed in part two of the back to school series.
By the mid-1900s, data on educational attainment emerged (elementary school, high school, college, etc.), adding new insight into education
By: Anastasia Goodstein,
on 1/31/2011
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"Glee" star Matthew Morrison's (debut album gets a thumbs up from his costars, who compare his musical style to Justin Timberlake's. Fox is planning heavy "Glee" promotion during the Super Bowl, with Lea Michele performing at the game and a new... Read the rest of this post
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Since writing my first post about My Princess Boy, I got to thinking about boys who wear pink, and other non-traditional gender roles. Was there a place for them in children’s books before this news story? Turns out, there was, and librarians and readers have been making lists for ages! Here’s my own list, with some personal favorites for boys and girls:
(Note: I also went to the bookstore and read My Princess Boy. My two cents? I’m not a fan of an illustration style with faceless figures, though I understand the attempt to be “universal” and androgynous, and I know others that liked it. Ultimately, though, I respect the point of the story, and that’s satisfying enough for me!)
Little Women – by Louisa May Alcott / There’s no contest: Louisa May Alcott, in the guise of her autobiographical protagonist, Jo March, is the original tomboy. She’s independent, stubborn, and refuses to accept the feminine societal norms that eat up the rest of her sisters’ time and energy. Women for generations have idolized the way she bravely cuts off her hair (her one beauty!), but fans were a little less content with her refusal to marry Laurie… or anyone at all. In fact, Alcott later wrote,
“Jo should have remained a literary spinster, but so many enthusiastic young ladies wrote to me clamorously demanding that she should marry Laurie, or somebody, that I didn’t dare refuse and out of perversity went and made a funny match for her”.
Listen to a great story about Jo March on NPR, here.
Hattie Big Sky – by Kirby Lawson / There are many wonderful contemporary novels featuring spunky historical heroines, but my favorite is “the one about the girl homesteader”, aka. Hattie Big Sky. Hattie is a 16-year-old orphan who winds up with a piece of land in rural Montana, and has to successfully farm it in less than a year to stay. I love Hattie’s unique voice and the community that she creates for herself within a harsh setting… she can’t help but have guts to stick through her situation!
0 Comments on My Princess Boy Part II: Books With Non-Traditional Gender Roles as of 1/1/1900
My latest Strange Horizons column has been posted. It's about one of my favorite books of nonfiction, Ann Fausto-Sterling's
Sexing the Body.
I first tried to write it as a straightforward appreciation, but for reasons that will become obvious from the column, I couldn't do that right now. So I broke the voices in my head into two configurations, X and Y, and had them talk to each other -- they're neither and both "me", and that proved to be just the distancing effect I needed.
Here's a sample:
X: Anyway, what I was saying was that I wanted to talk about Sexing the Body, which was one of those books that, when I first encountered it, completely changed my way of viewing the world.
Y: No it didn't.
X: What?
Y: I was there. You first read it for a graduate course on sexuality and science where a chapter was in the course packet. You sought out the book for a paper you wrote about Eugen Steinach, one of the crazier of the crazy bunch of early endocrinologists. That summer, you read the whole book cover to cover. Then a few months ago, you read the whole thing again.
X: Yes, and it completely changed my—
Y: No, no, no. It confirmed what you already believed, even if you couldn't quite articulate it as well as you could after you read the book.
X: How did it confirm what I already believed if it was full of information I'd never encountered before?
Y: Because you already believed that social construction is a more satisfactory explanation of just about everything than biological determinism is. And you've got a complex relationship to your own gender identity, so naturally you were receptive to a book that complexifies questions of gender.
X: Well, yes. But it also blew my mind.
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Since I've been spending the past few weeks preparing a Gender & Science Fiction class, there's very little I seem to want to write about at the moment other than the thing Kate Bornstein calls "the gender cult".
Thus, we have yesterday's Strange Horizons column (written a week and a half ago), "The Failure of Masculinity" and today's latest episode of the Sandman Meditations, "Men of Good Fortune". They are in many ways companion pieces.
By the way, I haven't had a chance yet to mention that Strange Horizons is holding their annual fund drive. SH has paid contributors, volunteer staff, and no advertising revenue other than that which comes through Amazon Associates links to books. This is SH's tenth year of putting out a new issue nearly every week. It's an amazing endeavor, and the archives are rich with a wonderfully varied collection of material. They are able to do so because each year lots of readers thank them with a contribution. Let's keep thanking them!
This summer my attention was directed to YA author Hannah Moskowitz's blog entry about her perception of a problem with boy characters in YA fiction. Her main point is that one reason more boys don't read YA fiction is because male characters are stereotyped and sanitized; they don't act like real boys. "Boys need their blockbusters, too," she writes.
I have to confess that my reaction to her article, and many of the comments in response, was "Give me a [expletive deleted] break." Hello, Harry Potter? Not to mention Percy Jackson, Vladimir Todd, Eragon, Alex Rider, Pendragon, Cherub, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid... to name just a few extremely popular series for kids and teens that feature male main characters.
Yes, there are gender differences in verbal development and reading preferences, and perhaps teen boys aren't into novels as much as their female peers. But is it true that YA publishing is seeing a dearth of fully realized, three-dimensional teen male characters? Maybe it's because I work in a public library whose policy is to select widely from books that get good reviews in professional journals, and not in a major chain bookstore whose main emphasis is profit (I have noticed that at Borders and Barnes and Noble the shelves of the YA section are filled with "pink" books), but I don't see evidence of such a trend. And I'm certainly not about to attribute teen boys' reading habits to a lack of "real" boys in literature.
Honestly, my perception is that female characters are still playing catch-up. Twilight becomes a worldwide sensation, and suddenly boy readers have no literary heroes to identify with?
I appreciate groundbreaking, feminist YA fantasy author Tamora Pierce's comment on Moskowitz's post. She doesn't cite her sources, but I agree with her perception that -- particularly in fantasy and science fiction genres -- male characters still dominate the field, both in sheer numbers and in terms of how they are portrayed. Yes, Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games series, Kristin Cashore's Graceling, and Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series hit it big. But from where I'm standing, a current of sexism runs through the public's response to these exciting books -- this attitude, verbalized or not (and so often it is; as a public librarian, I can attest to this), that these books are great reads for both boys and girls in spite of having female main characters.
Anyway, today Abby (the) Librarian linked to this related post by popular YA author Maureen Johnson: "Sell the Girls. It's a long essay but worth the time to read it. Like Moskowitz, Johnson starts with the alleged "crisis" of literature for teen boys, but she takes it in a completely different direction.
So, we’re thinking about boys and girls and what they read. The assumption, as I understand it, is that females are flexible and accepting creatures who can read absolutely anything. We’re like acrobats. We can tie our legs over our heads. Bring it on. There is nothing we cannot handle. Boys, on the other hand, are much more delicately balanced. To ask them to read “girl” stories (whatever those might be) will cause the whole venture to fall apart. They are finely tuned, like Formula One cars, which require preheated fluids and warmed tires in order to operate—as opposed to girls, who are like pickup trucks or big, family-style SUVs. We can go anywhere, through anything, on any old literary fuel you put in us.
Largely because we have little choice in the matter.<
I've just been approved to teach a class next term at
Plymouth State University called "Gender and Science Fiction". It's an upper-level Topics in Women's Studies course, open to any major. I've been talking about such a course to my colleagues at the university for at least a year now, and so I'm very excited and have spent a lot of time coming up with possible syllabi. I now have, I think, at least 5 years worth of material that I'd like to share and discuss in one term.
That, of course, is not possible, so I'm pruning and shaping and focusing. For instance, perfect as
Trouble on Triton is for such a course, I can't imagine spending less than a month on it, and I also think most of the students would still struggle unprofitably with it, because most will not, I expect, be experienced readers of science fiction, so it's unlikely I'll use it, or at least all of it. (I do want to include some Delany, of course, but may go instead with
Babel-17, some of the short stories, etc.) I also don't want to include only obviously feminist work, but also some things like, perhaps,
Starship Troopers (also interesting because of the film of it). Gender doesn't have to be the obvious concern of the text for us to be able to have interesting conversations about gender/sexuality/etc. within it.Anyway, I have some questions for all of you out there sliding through the intertubes.
Did a work of science fiction (and I am trying to stick to science fiction rather than fantasy) ever really blow your mind with regard to ideas of gender roles, family, sex, sexuality, etc.? It's okay if it's something that's attained classic status and I'll have probably thought of already -- part of what I'm weighing is how to balance obvious classics and less obvious choices (Russ's
The Female Man will be included no matter what, I expect, but I'm really torn between Le Guin's
Left Hand of Darkness and
Four Ways to Forgiveness, a book I personally enjoy more). I also have to keep reminding myself that most of the students will never have read any science fiction beyond, perhaps, a few YA novels or perennial classroom favorites like
1984...
And if you're especially interested in these sorts of questions and want to answer some additional ones, here's some
extra credit: Did you ever learn anything about science or society that changed your view of gender roles, etc.? How did you learn it? Did you ever read an article about science, or a work of critical theory, that memorably expanded your view of gender roles, etc. when you were in your late teens / early 20s? If you were to make all the undergraduates in the world read one text about gender roles, etc., what would
In fact, in the spiritual world, we change sexes every moment.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson, Representative Men
I object to anything that divides the two sexes ... human development has now reached a point at which sexual difference has become a thing of altogether minor importance. We make too much of it; we are men and women in the second place, human beings in the first.
--Olive Schreiner to Havelock Ellis, 19 Dec 1884 [quoted in Monsman]
I first tried to read
The Story of an African Farm some years ago when I went on a
Doris Lessing binge; I hadn't heard of the novel before reading Lessing's praise of it, and what she said intrigued me. But I went into
The Story of an African Farm expecting it to be, well,
a story, and it was soon apparent that, for all the book is, it is only "a story" in the loosest sense -- indeed, it's more accurate to say it is a book containing a lot of stories, but even that misses much of what is wonderful and unique in Olive Schreiner's creation.
The next time I thought about reading
African Farm was when I first encountered J.M. Coetzee's
White Writing, wherein Coetzee seems somewhat dismissive of the book, noting that it is a kind of fantasy because the reader gains almost no sense of how the farm in the novel is able to be sustained. I then assumed
African Farm to be just another Africa-as-exotic-setting novel, something of historical interest perhaps, but not much more than that.
As I was first thinking about putting together a new version of my
Outsider course, though, I came upon some references to Schreiner and this novel that piqued my interest and brought me back to it. I wanted some context to consider the book in, so I grabbed library copies of
Olive Schreiner's Fiction: Landscape & Power by Gerald Monsman and
Olive Schreiner
by
Ruth First and Ann Scott. These were extremely helpful, especially the Monsman, because he provides a valuable analysis of the book's structure, defending it from the many critics who have said that
African Farm, whatever its virtues, is a failure as a novel. Monsman places the book within a tradition of philosophical novels such as those by
Walter Pater and
Thomas Carlyle, although Schreiner's book is, to my mind at least, more accessible and emotionally affecting than those. Nonetheless, they are important to mention in any defense of Schreiner, because it's too easy to assume a narrow definition of "the novel" and judge Schreiner a failure against it. She clearly wasn't tr
Fuse #8 linked to these lists of the Hottest Baby Names of 2008, per Parents.com. (And while you're there, check out the whiteness of all those babies pictured! Not an Aaliyah among them, I bet.)
One thing that struck me, perusing the Top 50 lists, is how many names appeared on both lists. Eight of fifty are, based on popularity, gender-neutral. And I'm guessing that if you looked at the Top 100, you'd find a bunch more. Here are the eight:
- Avery (#15 girls/#13 boys)
- Riley (#16/#15)
- Dylan (#26/#23)
- Logan (#27/#24)
- Hayden (#35/#29)
- Bailey (#40/#31)
- Brooklyn (#41/#33)
- Taylor (#46/#35)
I have to admit, I'm a fan of gender-neutral names. I can't fully articulate why. My reasons range from thinking, "What if someday I have a child with ambiguous genitalia?" (yes, I really do ask myself these questions) to remembering how much I despised my own name when I was a kid (sorry, Mom). I never felt like a "Lisa," which struck me as a very delicate, feminine name. I wasn't pretty; I didn't want a pretty name.
I remember being thrilled in fourth grade when, in a musical, I got to choose a name for my character. I chose "Leslie"—which has lost popularity as a boys' name in the past couple decades but historically is gender-neutral. At one Scout camp I worked at, I went by "Wishbone." At another, "Pete." Sometimes I still forget, when people say "Lisa," they're talking about me.
In one of my novel manuscripts, the main character has a gender-neutral name. The few people who read the first draft came back to me and said, "Hey, I didn't know until page eight that Colby was a girl. Was that intentional?" Actually, Holly Black, who critiqued my first ten pages at the Wisconsin SCBWI conference, said something to the effect of, "For the first eight pages, I thought Colby was a boy—and a real asshole!" I ended up revising the second paragraph to include a gender reference, clearing up the confusion and exonerating Colby of asshole-ism. The character was so clear in my mind, I never guessed people would think she was a boy. Oops.
Not that it always matters. A friend pointed me to Fish, by L. S. Matthews. The story is told in first person by a completely gender-ambiguous narrator. The narrator is referred to only as "you," "Tiger," or "the child." A very rare thing, no? I think I've seen some first-person picture books with gender-ambiguous narrators, but they're definitely in the minority, especially when illustrations come into the mix. Can you think of any?
One more thing about these "hot" baby names—the obsession with Aidan is getting on my nerves. Check out these names from the boys' list:
- Aidan (#1)
- Jayden (#2)
- Caden (#6)
- Peyton (#17)
- Hayden (#29)
- Brayden (#37)
Am I the only one who thinks this is a little silly? I mean, we're naming babies, not playing the Name Game, right? I half expected Bananafanafofaden to make the list.
By: Kirsty,
on 4/24/2009
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Happy Friday everyone. It’s been a busy week here in Oxford, so let’s all just take a few minutes to chill out on this sunny Friday. Why not start by having a look at some of my favourite links this week? May you all have wonderful weekends. Me, I’m planning two days of doing as little as possible other than reading.
The Guardian publishes tributes to J.G. Ballard, who sadly died this week at the age of 78.
The Orange Prize for Fiction 2009 shortlist has just been announced. My money’s on Marilynne Robinson for Home.
The Age of Uncertainty on using photos as bookmarks.
Yesterday was St. George’s Day here in England. Here’s a poem to celebrate.
Waiting for Godot is coming to London with an impressive cast: Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart. The Times asks comedians what they think of Samuel Beckett.
The world’s earliest known dust jacket has been found here in Oxford!
Australian authors defend language.
Have many University of Oxford colleges can you name in 3 minutes? (I am ashamed of how badly I did, and I *live here*).
I’m really not a football (by which I mean soccer) fan, but I loved this story about a German team refunding tickets because they played so badly.
Do our voices always reveal our gender?
For certain reasons, I've been musing on some of the science fiction stories that, over the years, at one time or another, I might have classified as "mindblowing". Just a little personal list, one made very quickly...
"The Lost Kafoozalum" by Pauline Ashwell
"Blood Child" by Octavia E. Butler
"Fool to Believe" by Pat Cadigan
"Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang
"Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" by Samuel R. Delany
"The Start of the End of It All" by Carol Emshwiller
"The Faithful Companion at Forty" by Karen Joy Fowler
"Midnight News" by Lisa Goldstein
"The Violet's Embryos" by Angélica Gorodischer
"Out of All Them Bright Stars" by Nancy Kress
"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula K. Le Guin
"Tiny Tango" by Judith Moffett
"No Woman Born" by C.L. Moore
"Rachel in Love" by Pat Murphy
"A Scarab in the City of Time" by Marta Randall
"The Food Farm" by Kit Reed
"Souls" by Joanna Russ
"The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet" by Vandana Singh
"Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled with Light!" by James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon)
"The Mile-Long Spaceship" by Kate Wilhelm
"The Last of the Winnebagos" by Connie Willis
(Some of those writers, I could have put many stories on the list, but I decided to limit it to one story for each writer, choosing the one that most immediately stood out in my memory.)
Posted on 8/22/2009
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I n a statement signed by Raymond B. Cattell, Hans Eysenck, Arthur R. Jensen and Richard Lynn, all eminent professors and experts in the field of intelligence and IQ testing, they concur that the definition of intelligence is “general mental capacity that involves the ability to reason, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience.” These gentlemen agree that intelligence is not merely book learning or test-taking smarts; rather it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending one’s surroundings. It is important to realize that “catching on,” “making sense” and “figuring out” are the key factors in “intelligence.” The professors also agree that IQ tests measure this general ability, and that most standardized IQ tests measure more or less the same traits - so far so good! However, they overemphasize the role genetic factors play in the measurement and understanding of human intelligence. According to these men and 48 other signees of the approval of the conclusions of the book The Bell Curve, Blacks are doomed to be less intelligent than Whites and Asians. The group further declares that there is no convincing evidence that the IQ bell curves for different racial groups are converging. In unison they affirm that there is no definite answer as to why IQ bell curves differ across racialethnic groups. Could it be that IQ tests themselves hold the key to this problem…? Is it really “genetics” that explains why a hungry child in Ethiopia or young student in some war-torn area of the globe does not learn math and language as well or score as high on an IQ test as his counterpart who lives in a good neighborhood in the socalled First World, is at peace with himself and his environment, has the benefit of a decent education and parents who can care for and tutor him? The signees believe that research on matters of intelligence relate to some unclear social and primarily biological distinctions. A phenomenon known as the Flynn Effect may reduce or eliminate differences in IQ between races and cultures in the future. With IQ scores in affluent Holland and Spain up by 6–8 points, respectively, in just one decade and an astonishing 26- point increase in the past 14 years in developing Kenya, it is evident that the Flynn Effect is a reality and that genetic bias against Blacks does not carry any weight. There is, in addition, an argument that the average IQ of the United States was 75 before improved nutrition increased the scores of the general population. (The IQ for the average American is currently 98.) It is almost universally agreed upon that a person’s IQ can predict academic success, but not how to function successfully in one’s environment. Furthermore, there is considerable evidence from re-testing and the application of different tests that a person’s IQ does not remain fixed over his lifetime.
Emotional and motivational factors play a key role on how one scores on any given test and may vary from one test to another. It is a believed that as many as 60% of IQ test scores change significantly over time. With this in mind, can we assume that a test score accessed at a particular point in an individual’s life is a valid indicator of his “native” intelligence? “G” or “general intelligence” is as cultural as it is controversial. The core element in measuring a person’s intelligence is vocabulary. Vocabulary reflects one’s cognitive skills but exposure to words is not genetic, it is learned (read environmental). A child or an adult who has never seen an octagon or the male icon or symbol (B&) or the symbol for female (@&) would most certainly not recognize them if they were presented to him in an intelligence test. The genetic component in IQ is the reciprocal of the environmental component: the larger the difference in environments, the less thecomponent determined by genes will appear. Today it is acceptable and realistic to embrace the view that racial and gender differences are not genetic but reflect environmental challenges. But consider Harvard University’s President in 2005, Lawrence Summers. Summers suggested that gender differences in intrinsic ability were a cause of the dearth of top echelon female scientists. He cavalierly disregarded the realities of bias in hiring, discriminatory tenure practices and negative stereotypes. Stating that sex differences in cognitive ability were the “real” reason there were less women scientists than men; he and his supporters felt that research on the matter clearly pointed in that direction. Summers must have completely forgotten about Marie Curie, the only person to win two Nobel Prizes: one in chemistry and the other in physics! Summers later apologized for his “reckless” language and shortly thereafter resigned. Phillip Emeagwali, who helped give a boost to the supercomputer, is a Nigerian-born scientist who stunned the world of high tech and HIQ when he won the Gordon Bell Prize in 1989. The fact that a Black African would have an IQ of 190 and be married to a Black American microbiologist/biochemist may have caused racist Nobel Prize winner, Dr. William Shockley, to roll over in his grave. Ironically, Shockley died the same year that Emeagwali won the Gordon Bell Prize for The Connection Machine. Andy Warhol was one of the most important representatives of pop art and best remembered for his representations of Campbell’s Soup cans. Warhol created hundreds of other works during his allotted 58 years, including commercial advertisements, films, the blotted-line technique and the process of silk screening in painting. His IQ was allegedly 86. Yet many would call both Emeagwali and Warhol geniuses despite the 104 point difference in IQ scores. The idea that one group of people is, in comparison to another, smarter or dumber than another should be discarded. Clearly there will always be individual differences, but it should be emphasized that the individual who is well adjusted has the capability; life experience and motivation will be a success in his elected vocation.
Posted on 8/22/2009
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I n a statement signed by Raymond B. Cattell, Hans Eysenck, Arthur R. Jensen and Richard Lynn, all eminent professors and experts in the field of intelligence and IQ testing, they concur that the definition of intelligence is “general mental capacity that involves the ability to reason, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience.” These gentlemen agree that intelligence is not merely book learning or test-taking smarts; rather it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending one’s surroundings. It is important to realize that “catching on,” “making sense” and “figuring out” are the key factors in “intelligence.” The professors also agree that IQ tests measure this general ability, and that most standardized IQ tests measure more or less the same traits - so far so good! However, they overemphasize the role genetic factors play in the measurement and understanding of human intelligence. According to these men and 48 other signees of the approval of the conclusions of the book The Bell Curve, Blacks are doomed to be less intelligent than Whites and Asians. The group further declares that there is no convincing evidence that the IQ bell curves for different racial groups are converging. In unison they affirm that there is no definite answer as to why IQ bell curves differ across racialethnic groups. Could it be that IQ tests themselves hold the key to this problem…? Is it really “genetics” that explains why a hungry child in Ethiopia or young student in some war-torn area of the globe does not learn math and language as well or score as high on an IQ test as his counterpart who lives in a good neighborhood in the socalled First World, is at peace with himself and his environment, has the benefit of a decent education and parents who can care for and tutor him? The signees believe that research on matters of intelligence relate to some unclear social and primarily biological distinctions. A phenomenon known as the Flynn Effect may reduce or eliminate differences in IQ between races and cultures in the future. With IQ scores in affluent Holland and Spain up by 6–8 points, respectively, in just one decade and an astonishing 26- point increase in the past 14 years in developing Kenya, it is evident that the Flynn Effect is a reality and that genetic bias against Blacks does not carry any weight. There is, in addition, an argument that the average IQ of the United States was 75 before improved nutrition increased the scores of the general population. (The IQ for the average American is currently 98.) It is almost universally agreed upon that a person’s IQ can predict academic success, but not how to function successfully in one’s environment. Furthermore, there is considerable evidence from re-testing and the application of different tests that a person’s IQ does not remain fixed over his lifetime.
Emotional and motivational factors play a key role on how one scores on any given test and may vary from one test to another. It is a believed that as many as 60% of IQ test scores change significantly over time. With this in mind, can we assume that a test score accessed at a particular point in an individual’s life is a valid indicator of his “native” intelligence? “G” or “general intelligence” is as cultural as it is controversial. The core element in measuring a person’s intelligence is vocabulary. Vocabulary reflects one’s cognitive skills but exposure to words is not genetic, it is learned (read environmental). A child or an adult who has never seen an octagon or the male icon or symbol (B&) or the symbol for female (@&) would most certainly not recognize them if they were presented to him in an intelligence test. The genetic component in IQ is the reciprocal of the environmental component: the larger the difference in environments, the less thecomponent determined by genes will appear. Today it is acceptable and realistic to embrace the view that racial and gender differences are not genetic but reflect environmental challenges. But consider Harvard University’s President in 2005, Lawrence Summers. Summers suggested that gender differences in intrinsic ability were a cause of the dearth of top echelon female scientists. He cavalierly disregarded the realities of bias in hiring, discriminatory tenure practices and negative stereotypes. Stating that sex differences in cognitive ability were the “real” reason there were less women scientists than men; he and his supporters felt that research on the matter clearly pointed in that direction. Summers must have completely forgotten about Marie Curie, the only person to win two Nobel Prizes: one in chemistry and the other in physics! Summers later apologized for his “reckless” language and shortly thereafter resigned. Phillip Emeagwali, who helped give a boost to the supercomputer, is a Nigerian-born scientist who stunned the world of high tech and HIQ when he won the Gordon Bell Prize in 1989. The fact that a Black African would have an IQ of 190 and be married to a Black American microbiologist/biochemist may have caused racist Nobel Prize winner, Dr. William Shockley, to roll over in his grave. Ironically, Shockley died the same year that Emeagwali won the Gordon Bell Prize for The Connection Machine. Andy Warhol was one of the most important representatives of pop art and best remembered for his representations of Campbell’s Soup cans. Warhol created hundreds of other works during his allotted 58 years, including commercial advertisements, films, the blotted-line technique and the process of silk screening in painting. His IQ was allegedly 86. Yet many would call both Emeagwali and Warhol geniuses despite the 104 point difference in IQ scores. The idea that one group of people is, in comparison to another, smarter or dumber than another should be discarded. Clearly there will always be individual differences, but it should be emphasized that the individual who is well adjusted has the capability; life experience and motivation will be a success in his elected vocation.
By: Rebecca,
on 12/1/2009
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Elvin Lim is Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com. In the article below, he looks at The Twilight Saga: New Moon. See Lim’s previous OUPblogs here.
Children are, if they are lucky, taught at home and in schools. But they are also taught with books and movies, where retrograde social conventions and meanings are re-inscribed under the guise of good clean fun.
The Twilight Saga: New Moon is a romantic fantasy fusing teen lust and fantasy, but in the story of vulnerable girls swooning over powerful vampires, and rabid werewolves fighting the undead (who nevertheless retain their human form), we have a movie genre best reserved for Halloween.
Critics have been much better at picking up the retrograde gender subtext of the screenplay, at how it exploits the fine line between rape and lust, and how Bella Swan plays a terrible role model for teenage girls. Bella, the female protagonist, is portrayed as weak, vulnerable, virginal, and young, while Edward Cullen, her male vampire love interest is portrayed as supernatural, more powerful than he dares admit, 17 and yet over a hundred, young but wise. Throughout the first half of the movie, Bella is depressed because Edward has left her, and she ultimately attempts a pseudo-suicide by going cliff-diving and nearly drowns, but lucky for her, another supernatural male, Jacob Black, who plays a werewolf, swoops in for the rescue. Throughout the movie, young girls are comforted and encouraged in mixing sexual desire with sexual vulnerability, that to be loved is to be rescued. As a preview of the next sequel, we are tantalizingly promised the consummation of Bella’s and Edward’s love, that he will finally agree to change her into a vampire. He would then take everything that is hers, no less than her life and her soul, and shockingly, it is everything that Bella ever wanted.
If this is what causes teenage girls (and not a few self-confessed middle-aged feminists) to swoon at the movie, the unconscious racism in the movie takes us to a new league of egregiousness.
A google with the search terms “Twilight,” “full moon” and “racism” only turned out less than 10 germane hits, with one of them addressing the fact that some fans were agitated that the character, Laurent, was played by a black man. They charge that vampires, whose skin sparkle in the sun (according to author Stephenie Meyer) surely have to be white. These fans probably felt that fidelity to the book (or art) was sacrificed at the altar of political correctness. I’ll tell these fans to lighten up (no pun intended) though, since the author as well as the movie’s casting director is clearly on their side, because Laurent, the sole black vampire in the screenplay, was conveniently dispatched by the werewolves early on in the movie.
Laurent, in any case is just the side-show to the movie’s considerable moral insensitivity. The main battle in the movie is between the vampires and the werewolves, played by chara
I'm stealing these points from a recent post from Cheryl Morgan because they're important and succinct, and I like a reminder now and then myself:
1. Every time you make a joke about how someone born female is “really” a man you are reinforcing the idea that trans women are something shameful. It is like kids in a school yard yelling “spastic” at the current target of the bullies.
2. Every time you describe trans women as “deceptive” you are denying their gender identity and their right to live as they feel appropriate. You are also making it harder for them to get access to jobs, health care and so on. You are labeling them as inherently dishonest.
3. Every time you describe trans women as deceptive sexual predators you are reinforcing the myth that trans people only do what they do in order to satisfy perverted sexual desires.
4. Every time you advise men to be wary of being “deceived” by trans women you are providing support for the “trans panic” excuse for murdering trans women. This is no different from the “gay panic” defense for murdering gay people, which is still being used today.
5. Every time you attack trans people but actually only attack trans women you are reinforcing the idea that for a woman to want to live as a man is a natural and understandable ambition but for a man to want to live as a woman is somehow shameful and degrading.
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I'm glad that the VIDA count is reverberating through the literary world. Things in that world don't tend to degenerate into huge online brouhahas [with I guess, the Franzenfreude thing being an exception](although sometimes they turn into genteel brouhahas in the pages of major newspapers and magazines) so it's sometimes a bit difficult to see what is making waves and what isn't. I'm also sorry that I missed your panel w/ Delany and Reed. I hope it went well!
Dear Mister Cheney,
My name is Carla Lerner. I couldn't find an email address to contact you at, so that is why I am posting on this post. I apologize for lack of relevance to the particular blog post.
I was looking up images from the play Far Away by Caryl Churchill and I read your article on it. You mentioned that it was a play you constantly returned to, but had never seen. I have the excellent fortune to be playing Joan in a production of Far Away through the Columbia University MFA Directing program, so I wanted to invite you to come see. Maybe New York City is too much of a trot, especially on such sort notice. However, I really liked the way your wrote about Far Away, and in working on the play I have come to really love it, so I wanted to at least make the gesture of the invite. There is info on the facebook page if you are interested. http://www.facebook.com/events/424071084349015/?fref=ts
Cheers,
Carla