Post: #1

The Article: http://flavorwire.com/520536/are-literar...out-women/

Here is the whiny part:

Quote:What she discovered goes even deeper than a byline count. Unfortunately, it’s not simply books by women that are ignored by prize committees, but also books about women. In all the major prizes Griffith surveyed, books by women with primarily female subjects got seriously short shrift, while books by men and about men notably dominated.

The article is staring the obvious in the face but just can't admit it. Books by women and solely about the lives of women are often childish and boring (See Twilight).

Quote:One of the social trends feminist critics of the current literary culture have long decried is that stories about women, no matter how they’re written or packaged, are too often seen as a special interest, something that would appeal only to women readers, while male-penned books about men are treated as “universal.” There is a smart argument to be made that says that old dynamic is changing, but clearly the prizes don’t yet reflect any sort of major change.

The article also argues against itself, outlining the very arguments that I would make (sans the racial argument- there have been many good male authors of color):

Quote:Part of the problem is that while art or books that white men put out is portrayed as universally appealing, culture produced by women or people of color is seen as specific to their gender or racial identity.

I will admit to enjoying two books by female authors. The first is "the Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck, an incredible literary work about the rise of a Chinese man from being a peasant to being a rich landowner. The second is "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen- not because it is a great epic work, but because she does such a good job of capturing the silliness of many women in the portrayal of the mother and the sisters of the protagonist, and additionally the failure of the father to properly lead his family (like an 18th century beta male warning).

Post: #2

Most people who chair awards committees are dilettantes whose need to feel important exceeds their own ability for producing creative work. Any two bit hack can critique.

Any type of "award" for any creative endeavor is fraught with politics, in fighting, posturing, and other crony tactics. Why do they think they aren't subject to the same annoying BS male authors are subject to?

There are many more male creatives who have been snubbed by the very same award process for various reasons.

Honestly, there are only two metrics that most music, video, and print works should be held against. Monetary, ie how many people bought the work and staying power. How popular is the work after 1,5, 10,50, 100, etc years? Both are not mutually exclusive.

Who really cares what type of "awards" are given when a piece of your art is recognizable in the minds of commoners years after its release?

Off the top of my head they have JK Rowling, Emly Bronte, Jayne Ayre, and Ayn Rand who are arguably successful and renowned authors in both of the categories I listed above. What more do they want?

Post: #3

If a hobby or job attracts mostly men, the women who do partake will be more masculine than the average woman; and in the practice of writing fiction, that means those more masculine women may identify with male characters more, and find them more compelling, explaining why female authors write male protagonists. And this masculinity of female writers is not a physical, muscular, aggressive type, but a mental one - it can actually be an attractive trait, if she is otherwise feminine.

Post: #4

Hilarious...so a lack of awards presents itself and instead of just CREATING their own award, they complain about it and want someone else to make the award...for feminists...who are supposed to be strong, equal and independent women. The irony is spectacular.

Post: #5

(05-31-2015 11:33 AM)Basil Ransom Wrote:  If a hobby or job attracts mostly men, the women who do partake will be more masculine than the average woman; and in the practice of writing fiction, that means those more masculine women may identify with male characters more, and find them more compelling, explaining why female authors write male protagonists. And this masculinity of female writers is not a physical, muscular, aggressive type, but a mental one - it can actually be an attractive trait, if she is otherwise feminine.

Sometimes women writers are not brainwashed idiots and realise that male protagonists appeal to both males and females. And they realise that good writing is more important than pushing feminist dogma.

I used to enjoy S.E.Hinton's books when I was young. Mainly male protagonists in her books.

Post: #6

They just need to write more novels about dinosaur romance like this broad did. Her story won a Hugo Award.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_You_Were...r,_My_Love

"A narrator explains to their love how things would be different if that person were a Tyrannosaurus rex."

Post: #7

For a man to feel accomplished, he strives to master his environment. History is replete with examples. Anything from taking on the Himalayan & Alpine peaks in mountaineering to Genghis Khan uniting the tribes of the steppes for world conquest to the Vikings venturing into uncharted seas on their longboats to Doestevsky trying to unravel the human condition to our current era's Elon Musk pushing new technologies.
For the modern Western woman to feel accomplished she just needs to knock down some man or co-opt some established male space or have some media approved heroic meltdown.
I know which stories i'd rather read about...

Post: #8

This is an example of the immature self-absorption and grandiose delusion of modern women in the West.

These are the sorts of people who believe "the personal is political," or in other words, that everything in this world speaks to a person's identity, that even seemingly innocent tastes in fiction writing can betray the sexist fraud lurking beneath. Unwilling and unable to even ratchet back in personal relationships, these personality types will find evidence of pervasive, systemic oppression even in lists of favorite musical artists on a man's dating profile.

This exhausting worldview is on display in Valenti's excerpted piece. It betrays a defect that she assumes all women and non-white men share when discussing white men--that women and non-white men don't have the capacity to enjoy things life simply because they enjoy them. Their identities supersede anything else in life and colors their ability to appreciate anything. If you recall, anti-GamerGater's kept repeatedly mashing their concerns about women in with non-white males, assuming that non-white males have the same psychic defect as they do.

This sort of inability of separate the self from "people like them" and the highly immature tendency to politicize innocent and personal enjoyments speaks the personality type that has been curated in modern women. Unconcerned with the plainly obvious fact that female protagonists and characters have populated the literature of every culture since the dawn of time, they chose to bloviate against patriarchal limitations on female potential, while splitting off 99% of female accomplishment in this area by pretending that a "new era" of the female main character is dawning on us. Hence, The Hunger Games reference and Jonathan Franzen's new book.

As a side note, there is a funny anecdote about Stephen King and female protagonists. Before he was a full-time writer, he was a schoolteacher and an prolific short story writer in his free time. At a dinner party he attended with his wife, he was accosted by a crotchety woman, who accused him of male chauvinism because none of his stories involved female main characters. He rebuffed the woman, claiming that he hadn't had an idea for a story about a woman yet. As you know, the genre of horror wasn't at all popular at the time. King decided to write a story about a girl, and came up with a short story about an incredibly repressed fat girl who got relentlessly bullied by her peers. This short would eventually become the basis for Carrie and King's long career.

What I suspect is that what men dislike is the illusion of agency that women often mistake for actual agency. There aren't too many male readers of Twilight or xoJane because men strongly dislike it when women speak in terms of "what happens to her in life" instead of what they have actually done. The inability to appreciate this serious flaw is often fatal to a woman's ability to connect with both men and women.

Post: #9

Women are naturally, instinctively, genetically wired to care only about other women (and children).

Men care about both men *and* women.

That's why men are better authors. And better doctors, scientists, airline pilots, politicians, and policemen. Because men think about 100% of the society, whereas women focus only on themselves.

Post: #10

(05-31-2015 02:55 PM)MrLemon Wrote:  Women are naturally, instinctively, genetically wired to care only about other women (and children).

Men care about both men *and* women.

That's why men are better authors. And better doctors, scientists, airline pilots, politicians, and policemen. Because men think about 100% of the society, whereas women focus only on themselves...(ellipses added)

...which is why women are not fit to lead our schools, our businesses, or our country. Because they focus on women at the expense of men and hence the expense of society itself.

If you want to see where things will go when women lead, look at the public school system, which has been re-arranged to suit the anti-competitive, touchy-feely inclinations of girls at the expense of boys.

Or look at the inner cities, where women-led families reign...along with chaos.

But back to the schools: The millions of disengaged men who never connected, and therefore never went to college and now sit around unemployed, are the fruits borne of a woman-led system.

When women lead, they lead us back to the Third World.

Post: #11

(05-31-2015 11:26 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  Most people who chair awards committees are dilettantes whose need to feel important exceeds their own ability for producing creative work. Any two bit hack can critique.

Any type of "award" for any creative endeavor is fraught with politics, in fighting, posturing, and other crony tactics. Why do they think they aren't subject to the same annoying BS male authors are subject to?

There are many more male creatives who have been snubbed by the very same award process for various reasons.

Honestly, there are only two metrics that most music, video, and print works should be held against. Monetary, ie how many people bought the work and staying power. How popular is the work after 1,5, 10,50, 100, etc years? Both are not mutually exclusive.

Who really cares what type of "awards" are given when a piece of your art is recognizable in the minds of commoners years after its release?

Off the top of my head they have JK Rowling, Emly Bronte, Jayne Ayre, and Ayn Rand who are arguably successful and renowned authors in both of the categories I listed above. What more do they want?

^^^^ Jayne Ayre is not an author but a character... and it's Jane Eyre..