11 women-authored books show up on the "readers' choice" list (on the right), but 4 of them are by Ayn Rand.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
100 novels, and only 8 women?
The Modern Library "100 best novels of the 20th century" - apparently only 8 women made the cut.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
The Curse of the "Good Girl"
My First Rant: Why Can’t Women Keep Up with Men? Try the Curse of the Good Girl � Rachel Simmons
Must get this book and (after reading it) leave it around the house for my daughter to get a look at. She hasn't quite grasped what being a bitch looks like, which is surprising, when you consider that I've been role-modelling that one her entire life ... one thing this book does seem to miss, though (just from reading the description) is the fact that according to what studies there are, being assertive in school and in jobs doesn't actually get women anywhere, which is why, as rational creatures, we don't do it. If a man has a temper tantrum, he's being appropriately manly, and gets a raise and a bigger office. If a woman does, she's being a hysterical bitch and she loses all her credibility (and doesn't get what she wants, either). If a man demands a pay raise, good for him! He knows his worth. Give him the money. If a woman demands a pay raise, who does she think she is? Sideline her, she's "difficult".
So girls may learn to be "good" not just because self-confidence is systematically beaten out of them from puberty onwards, but because being assertive and confident will not get them anything they want, and in fact will be interpreted negatively by teachers, colleagues and employers. Better to learn to sound diffident. And the best way to remember to do that consistently is to BE diffident, and just hope that everyone will be nice to you because really you're not worth very much - if you try hard enough, it's easy enough to believe that.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Sexism Sinks Sales
This week's letter to the Globe and Mail:
To the Editors:
Corus CEO Cassaday seems to feel some sympathy for his advertiser's impression that if the man of the house isn't watching the show, there's no point wasting advertising dollars on it. ("“Not that many men are that interested in their wives' mascara", How to Look Good Naked? Men Wouldn't Know). What a pity that he doesn't choose instead to enlighten them on the basic economic fact that women control 80% of all household spending. If only one person is in front of the tube, advertisers should only pray that it's the lady of the house.
Yours sincerely.
(a few additional thoughts below, that didn't make it into the letter ...)
To the Editors:
Corus CEO Cassaday seems to feel some sympathy for his advertiser's impression that if the man of the house isn't watching the show, there's no point wasting advertising dollars on it. ("“Not that many men are that interested in their wives' mascara", How to Look Good Naked? Men Wouldn't Know). What a pity that he doesn't choose instead to enlighten them on the basic economic fact that women control 80% of all household spending. If only one person is in front of the tube, advertisers should only pray that it's the lady of the house.
Yours sincerely.
(a few additional thoughts below, that didn't make it into the letter ...)
Thursday, February 18, 2010
PTSD and Childbirth
Motherhood - Salon.com
This article argues that PtSD comes of a situation in which you're afraid you're going to die. Then it argues that probably mothers never used to get PTSD but now we do because a terrible outcome - the mother dying - is very uncommon these days. However I would argue that this is likely an error, and that PTSD has always been part of childbirth for some of the mothers who survived it, and that it was MORE common, not less, for those who gave birth during any other era but our own. The risk of dying in childbirth was as high as 10% before the modern era; and on top of that was the risk of living but being crippled by it. If PTSD comes of a traumatic event in which the victim has no control, and fears loss of life, why wouldn't childbirth fit the bill? That was exactly the situation in which women found themselves.
But we're not supposed to think that PTSD could result from childbirth because only warriors get PTSD; women are doing something 'natural', which translates - at least for those who haven't done it - as "miraculously easy" - if it isn't, you should feel guilty because you're doing it wrong. As if childbirth does not involve pain, uncertainty and fear, which must be met, just like battle, with submission to circumstances, courage and will.
But no. Only heroes get PTSD, and women risking their lives in childbirth don't get called heroes. So we can't admit that they might have PTSD.
This article argues that PtSD comes of a situation in which you're afraid you're going to die. Then it argues that probably mothers never used to get PTSD but now we do because a terrible outcome - the mother dying - is very uncommon these days. However I would argue that this is likely an error, and that PTSD has always been part of childbirth for some of the mothers who survived it, and that it was MORE common, not less, for those who gave birth during any other era but our own. The risk of dying in childbirth was as high as 10% before the modern era; and on top of that was the risk of living but being crippled by it. If PTSD comes of a traumatic event in which the victim has no control, and fears loss of life, why wouldn't childbirth fit the bill? That was exactly the situation in which women found themselves.
But we're not supposed to think that PTSD could result from childbirth because only warriors get PTSD; women are doing something 'natural', which translates - at least for those who haven't done it - as "miraculously easy" - if it isn't, you should feel guilty because you're doing it wrong. As if childbirth does not involve pain, uncertainty and fear, which must be met, just like battle, with submission to circumstances, courage and will.
But no. Only heroes get PTSD, and women risking their lives in childbirth don't get called heroes. So we can't admit that they might have PTSD.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
self-convicting rapists
Here's a fascinating blog entry, 'Meet the Predators", from "yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com", which summarizes two recent surveys on men and rape:
yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/meet-the-predators/
Illuminating article, which reveals that
men are much more likely to self-convict as rapists if the questionnaire doesn't use the word "rape"; and that
of those who do self-convict (answer "yes" to questions like "have you ever had sex with a woman so drunk she passed out?" or "have you ever pressured someone into sex by twisting their arm, holding them down, or that sort of thing?"), a high majority of the crimes are committed by a small minority of men (4-8% of those who self-convicted) who are repeat offenders; and that
of those repeat offenders, a much higher number of them also admitted to committing domestic violence; and that
those repeat offenders NEVER used violence on strangers; only on intimates. On strangers, they used alcohol, and drugs.
The author concludes that this argues that the repeat offenders who commit most of the crimes know bloody well what they're doing. A lot of the time people claim that date-rape is a tragic accident of misunderstanding by a good guy; but no. A high majority of the time, the guy didn't just happen to find himself in a room with passed-out drunk lady and foolishly took her silence for assent, oops, I'm so sorry. A high majority of the time, that guy meant to get into that room all along; that was his target. These are not nice guys who made a tragic mistake - these people are also the ones admitting to domestic violence in their intimate relationships. The men committing these crimes, in short, are creeps.
And how can we know this? Because these guys don't use violence with strangers (who might charge them); they reserve the violence for their friends and room mates and the people who love them, who aren't likely to charge them because they're scared of them, or are trying to preserve the relationship because they are abuse victims who think it's their fault. With strangers, they use drink or drugs, because they won't get charged for that, most of the time; the victim will get blamed instead.
Now I note, out of interest, that that number, 4%-8%, is exactly in line with the standard estimates in "The Psychopath Next Door" of the percentage of psychopaths in the population. (The author of TPND estimates at the high end; standard estimates are around 4%).
So this all makes hideous sense, doesn't it. Most stranger rapes and most date rapes are being committed by psychopaths, who know damn well that you didn't want this, and don't care. But most men aren't psychopaths. So why the high incidence of rape?
Because, argues the author, of rape culture - a few men commit a lot of rapes; but the culture condones the behaviour, is willing to accept barroom conversations where a drunk woman is called an "opportunity", where misogynistic jokes are tolerated, and psychopaths are very sensitive to social cues, because they don't want to get caught. So they do what they can get away with.
The solution, then, is to change the culture, so that these behaviours aren't socially acceptable. Not because most men rape; most men, by far, do not; but those who do, are enabled by a culture that speaks as if this behaviour is okay.
yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/meet-the-predators/
Illuminating article, which reveals that
men are much more likely to self-convict as rapists if the questionnaire doesn't use the word "rape"; and that
of those who do self-convict (answer "yes" to questions like "have you ever had sex with a woman so drunk she passed out?" or "have you ever pressured someone into sex by twisting their arm, holding them down, or that sort of thing?"), a high majority of the crimes are committed by a small minority of men (4-8% of those who self-convicted) who are repeat offenders; and that
of those repeat offenders, a much higher number of them also admitted to committing domestic violence; and that
those repeat offenders NEVER used violence on strangers; only on intimates. On strangers, they used alcohol, and drugs.
The author concludes that this argues that the repeat offenders who commit most of the crimes know bloody well what they're doing. A lot of the time people claim that date-rape is a tragic accident of misunderstanding by a good guy; but no. A high majority of the time, the guy didn't just happen to find himself in a room with passed-out drunk lady and foolishly took her silence for assent, oops, I'm so sorry. A high majority of the time, that guy meant to get into that room all along; that was his target. These are not nice guys who made a tragic mistake - these people are also the ones admitting to domestic violence in their intimate relationships. The men committing these crimes, in short, are creeps.
And how can we know this? Because these guys don't use violence with strangers (who might charge them); they reserve the violence for their friends and room mates and the people who love them, who aren't likely to charge them because they're scared of them, or are trying to preserve the relationship because they are abuse victims who think it's their fault. With strangers, they use drink or drugs, because they won't get charged for that, most of the time; the victim will get blamed instead.
Now I note, out of interest, that that number, 4%-8%, is exactly in line with the standard estimates in "The Psychopath Next Door" of the percentage of psychopaths in the population. (The author of TPND estimates at the high end; standard estimates are around 4%).
So this all makes hideous sense, doesn't it. Most stranger rapes and most date rapes are being committed by psychopaths, who know damn well that you didn't want this, and don't care. But most men aren't psychopaths. So why the high incidence of rape?
Because, argues the author, of rape culture - a few men commit a lot of rapes; but the culture condones the behaviour, is willing to accept barroom conversations where a drunk woman is called an "opportunity", where misogynistic jokes are tolerated, and psychopaths are very sensitive to social cues, because they don't want to get caught. So they do what they can get away with.
The solution, then, is to change the culture, so that these behaviours aren't socially acceptable. Not because most men rape; most men, by far, do not; but those who do, are enabled by a culture that speaks as if this behaviour is okay.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Dollhouse 2.4
Brilliant episode. One thing bothered me: why do I feel pretty damn sure that Priya wasn't given any choice about winding up back in the Dollhouse this time either? If she did remember, if they let her go free, Rossum would surely track her down, find out about Boyd and Topher and Evil Scumbag's death, dismemberment, and flushing down the bathtub. She's safer in the Dollhouse. But does that matter? I don't think she was right to choose the wipe; she didn't deserve to have to kill someone, absolutely, but she did the right thing. I didn't understand why she didn't want to remember. I didn't understand what she was doing in the Dollhouse afterwards.
Topher was brilliant. When she asked him if she was allowed beer in here and he flashed back, clearly, to imprinting her as his 'friend' on his birthday and having a beer with her, and said - "uh, on special occasions", he was clearly about ready to cry. Realising that the fake friend he was enjoying himself with only existed because Priya, a person, with a right to the body that she had never ever signed away, was gone.
He's not a sociopath; sociopaths don't learn, they just don't have the empathy and that's it. But he does have empathy, he just never bothered to use it because other things interested him so much more. That's why he interests us. People with no empathy, like the rapist scumbag one tick shy of a murderer, don't interest us except as horrors.
You'll notice that the people who are willing to hire dolls are clearly ethically compromised, or else regret it, this season? Serial Killer, who didn't hire dolls because he was using horse tranquillizer to make his own, but he's the same kinda guy; Professor Dirtbag, who's aware he shouldn't bone his students but can't get over the desire to, so hey, let's try creating one; rapist scumbag, obviously; Rossum high mucketymuck, serial killer's uncle; all of these are scum. The father who hired Echo to wetnurse his baby and love the little boy too, so someone would love him, but who realises that this was the wrong thing to do and deeply regrets it; you can see he decided to do it while his decision-making powers were deeply compromised by grief, and even then, all he was trying to do was to make sure someone loved his baby. But basically, hiring a doll identifies you as either a bad person or at least doing a bad thing, this year.
Adelle clings by her fingernails to the "meaningful consent" given by the dolls; when that last shred of justification is taken away, she has to face what she is doing, and she balks. But then she gives in; it's not just that she'll lose her job; she'll wind up in the Attic beside Dominic. She can't face that.
It did cross my mind that when scumbag pig demanded she imprint Sierra permanently and Adelle agreed, that, well, SURE she could imprint Sierra. And then later phone her. "There are three flowers in the vase." This problem could be solved in a number of creative ways; why didn't Adelle do that? Though Topher's solution was much better. Priya was robbed. Give Priya herself back; the only ethical solution. I wasn't sure why Boyd thought the result didn't turn out too well. I thought the creep needed to die, and now was dead; the result was perhaps inconvenient, but bad? This was what had to happen.
Of all the people in the series - Victor, Sierra, Boyd, Ballard, Adelle, Topher, Mellie/Madeleine (though didn't Mellie seem like more of a person than Madeleine? She would have had to become less dependent to survive, though), Dr. Saunders - the only one whose story doesn't really interest me is Echo's. But perhaps another Echo-heavy episode would cure that. Not sure. Dushku was quite endearing, and hilarious, as Kiki in 2.3 ("If only!")
Sorry they're not showing it during sweeps; since that surely means they've already made up their minds, and we're not going to get the back half of this season.
Topher was brilliant. When she asked him if she was allowed beer in here and he flashed back, clearly, to imprinting her as his 'friend' on his birthday and having a beer with her, and said - "uh, on special occasions", he was clearly about ready to cry. Realising that the fake friend he was enjoying himself with only existed because Priya, a person, with a right to the body that she had never ever signed away, was gone.
He's not a sociopath; sociopaths don't learn, they just don't have the empathy and that's it. But he does have empathy, he just never bothered to use it because other things interested him so much more. That's why he interests us. People with no empathy, like the rapist scumbag one tick shy of a murderer, don't interest us except as horrors.
You'll notice that the people who are willing to hire dolls are clearly ethically compromised, or else regret it, this season? Serial Killer, who didn't hire dolls because he was using horse tranquillizer to make his own, but he's the same kinda guy; Professor Dirtbag, who's aware he shouldn't bone his students but can't get over the desire to, so hey, let's try creating one; rapist scumbag, obviously; Rossum high mucketymuck, serial killer's uncle; all of these are scum. The father who hired Echo to wetnurse his baby and love the little boy too, so someone would love him, but who realises that this was the wrong thing to do and deeply regrets it; you can see he decided to do it while his decision-making powers were deeply compromised by grief, and even then, all he was trying to do was to make sure someone loved his baby. But basically, hiring a doll identifies you as either a bad person or at least doing a bad thing, this year.
Adelle clings by her fingernails to the "meaningful consent" given by the dolls; when that last shred of justification is taken away, she has to face what she is doing, and she balks. But then she gives in; it's not just that she'll lose her job; she'll wind up in the Attic beside Dominic. She can't face that.
It did cross my mind that when scumbag pig demanded she imprint Sierra permanently and Adelle agreed, that, well, SURE she could imprint Sierra. And then later phone her. "There are three flowers in the vase." This problem could be solved in a number of creative ways; why didn't Adelle do that? Though Topher's solution was much better. Priya was robbed. Give Priya herself back; the only ethical solution. I wasn't sure why Boyd thought the result didn't turn out too well. I thought the creep needed to die, and now was dead; the result was perhaps inconvenient, but bad? This was what had to happen.
Of all the people in the series - Victor, Sierra, Boyd, Ballard, Adelle, Topher, Mellie/Madeleine (though didn't Mellie seem like more of a person than Madeleine? She would have had to become less dependent to survive, though), Dr. Saunders - the only one whose story doesn't really interest me is Echo's. But perhaps another Echo-heavy episode would cure that. Not sure. Dushku was quite endearing, and hilarious, as Kiki in 2.3 ("If only!")
Sorry they're not showing it during sweeps; since that surely means they've already made up their minds, and we're not going to get the back half of this season.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Evil in the Whedonverse: Epitaph One
've just seen Epitaph One (unaired episode of Dollhouse, on the DVD, and available by bittorrent). Excellent acting, excellent scripting, brilliant all round, oh man, oh my oh my. And terrifying too; dystopian in the extreme, bleak bleak bleak. One thing that worries me is that I don't see, if this is "the future", how he can get out of this now; how he can give us another ending. The old dream ending? Alternate universe? This is what COULD happen if we all don't make GOOD CHOICES, kids?
Are we watching an Angelverse - all go down fighting, evil triumphs, it's night, it's raining, we're in an alleyway, Wes is dead, Gunn is dying, only the demons can survive in this universe - or a Buffyverse - we destroyed the town in order to save it, but we DID save it, only - and all - the demons are dead, now we can all patch ourselves up and get on with our lives, sun shines, we're on the road away from the Hellmouth and we've even got a bus? ON the basis of Epitaph One, we're definitely in an Angelverse. If that's how it's going to go, though, not sure how much I want to keep watching - except I'm riveted. of course. But one thing that does keep us riveted is hoping that there is a way the characters can escape their almost certain fates; if we knew for sure they were all doomed we wouldn't be so spellbound. So I'll be interested to see how Joss springs us out of Epitaph One, or makes us question it as the Only Possible Future, Because otherwise it's going to be difficult to carry on with the series; we need suspense.
But what I wanted to talk about mostly was Whedon's idea of evil, which is beginning to become steadily clearer and I think it's always the same sort of thing.
In Sunnydale, we have vampires and demons; in Angelverse, we have demons and a few vampires and Wolfram and Hart;
in Serenity we have Reavers, created by the establishment in an effort to make everything better;
in Dollhouse we have an evil establishment with tenttacles everywhere, absolute power producing absolute evil, a slave economy, and - in Epitaph One - vampires, demons, humans, and a new category, blank slates.
The "butchers" of Epitaph One are the Reavers of Serenity or the demons - some demons; the full-blood demons especially - in the Buffy/Angelverse. All the butcher/reaver humanity has been completely destroyed by the actions of an Establishment that used them for its own purposes without much caring about the effect on the individual - or even realising this would be the effect; children, playing with matches, as "Caroline" says in Epitaph One. Their behavioural characteristics - wanton violence, cruelty, vandalism, etc - is like demons in Sunnydale, and many demons in Angel. I think Joss Whedon has never really wanted us to think of demons as good; attractive, possessing many appealing human characteristics, but in the end, they're bad.
The "actuals" in Epitaph One - humans who have not had their souls erased, are still the people they were born as - are human beings.
Then we have the "imprints", who are vampires, kinda (original soul is destroyed, imprinted with someone else's personality)
And finally we have the new category, the "dumbshows", who are the dolls, in Dollhouse; the original personality has been erased, and basic functions still exist, but they're blank slates. They don't exist in Buffy or Angel.
So I think Joss Whedon is meditating on evil, or showing us the faces of evil, but the mechanisms used to produce it are changing. In Buffy/Angel, it was supernatural - demons were demonic, and some demons can take over your body and make you demonic, and you can get away with it because there is a structure of powerful demonic beings in places of power who will use agencies like Wolfram and Hart to protect you if you're useful enough to them.
In Serenity, an evil - control-freak - military industrial government complex tries to pacify an entire world and has unintentional side effects of creating demons by putting stuff in the drinking water (or the air, or whatever it was). The consequences were not intended but the mechanism was entirely human and certainly intentional. They just didn't realise what it would do. And they hid it, lied about it to everyone "for their own good", and were generally secretive; always a bad idea, in the Jossverse; and marks you as a bad guy.
And in Epitaph One, an entirely self-serving for-profit organization comes up with a cool new technology with some highly exploitable ramifications; but like the stuff in the water supply in Serenity, the technology gets out of control with disastrous results. But these results actually were foreseeable. So more and more, the responsibility for evil is becoming human, in the Jossverse; it's becoming our fault. We can't blame the demons or the side effects. We can blame people in positions of power, for sure; but they are people, not demons.
Which makes his new take on evil spectacularly scary because it is so much likelier to happen. It's so much closer to the real world.
I think the Buffy and Angelverse were metaphorical, and cautionary tales. But I'm not so sure the Dollhouse is a metaphor. I think he's saying, this is REAL, folks; this is HAPPENING ALL AROUND YOU. Maybe not this specific thing, but somewhere, right now, is the technology that's going to destroy us, and it's not even going to be very long from now.
Are we watching an Angelverse - all go down fighting, evil triumphs, it's night, it's raining, we're in an alleyway, Wes is dead, Gunn is dying, only the demons can survive in this universe - or a Buffyverse - we destroyed the town in order to save it, but we DID save it, only - and all - the demons are dead, now we can all patch ourselves up and get on with our lives, sun shines, we're on the road away from the Hellmouth and we've even got a bus? ON the basis of Epitaph One, we're definitely in an Angelverse. If that's how it's going to go, though, not sure how much I want to keep watching - except I'm riveted. of course. But one thing that does keep us riveted is hoping that there is a way the characters can escape their almost certain fates; if we knew for sure they were all doomed we wouldn't be so spellbound. So I'll be interested to see how Joss springs us out of Epitaph One, or makes us question it as the Only Possible Future, Because otherwise it's going to be difficult to carry on with the series; we need suspense.
But what I wanted to talk about mostly was Whedon's idea of evil, which is beginning to become steadily clearer and I think it's always the same sort of thing.
In Sunnydale, we have vampires and demons; in Angelverse, we have demons and a few vampires and Wolfram and Hart;
in Serenity we have Reavers, created by the establishment in an effort to make everything better;
in Dollhouse we have an evil establishment with tenttacles everywhere, absolute power producing absolute evil, a slave economy, and - in Epitaph One - vampires, demons, humans, and a new category, blank slates.
The "butchers" of Epitaph One are the Reavers of Serenity or the demons - some demons; the full-blood demons especially - in the Buffy/Angelverse. All the butcher/reaver humanity has been completely destroyed by the actions of an Establishment that used them for its own purposes without much caring about the effect on the individual - or even realising this would be the effect; children, playing with matches, as "Caroline" says in Epitaph One. Their behavioural characteristics - wanton violence, cruelty, vandalism, etc - is like demons in Sunnydale, and many demons in Angel. I think Joss Whedon has never really wanted us to think of demons as good; attractive, possessing many appealing human characteristics, but in the end, they're bad.
The "actuals" in Epitaph One - humans who have not had their souls erased, are still the people they were born as - are human beings.
Then we have the "imprints", who are vampires, kinda (original soul is destroyed, imprinted with someone else's personality)
And finally we have the new category, the "dumbshows", who are the dolls, in Dollhouse; the original personality has been erased, and basic functions still exist, but they're blank slates. They don't exist in Buffy or Angel.
So I think Joss Whedon is meditating on evil, or showing us the faces of evil, but the mechanisms used to produce it are changing. In Buffy/Angel, it was supernatural - demons were demonic, and some demons can take over your body and make you demonic, and you can get away with it because there is a structure of powerful demonic beings in places of power who will use agencies like Wolfram and Hart to protect you if you're useful enough to them.
In Serenity, an evil - control-freak - military industrial government complex tries to pacify an entire world and has unintentional side effects of creating demons by putting stuff in the drinking water (or the air, or whatever it was). The consequences were not intended but the mechanism was entirely human and certainly intentional. They just didn't realise what it would do. And they hid it, lied about it to everyone "for their own good", and were generally secretive; always a bad idea, in the Jossverse; and marks you as a bad guy.
And in Epitaph One, an entirely self-serving for-profit organization comes up with a cool new technology with some highly exploitable ramifications; but like the stuff in the water supply in Serenity, the technology gets out of control with disastrous results. But these results actually were foreseeable. So more and more, the responsibility for evil is becoming human, in the Jossverse; it's becoming our fault. We can't blame the demons or the side effects. We can blame people in positions of power, for sure; but they are people, not demons.
Which makes his new take on evil spectacularly scary because it is so much likelier to happen. It's so much closer to the real world.
I think the Buffy and Angelverse were metaphorical, and cautionary tales. But I'm not so sure the Dollhouse is a metaphor. I think he's saying, this is REAL, folks; this is HAPPENING ALL AROUND YOU. Maybe not this specific thing, but somewhere, right now, is the technology that's going to destroy us, and it's not even going to be very long from now.
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