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From the New York Times news section on the whoop-tee-doo in Spain I wrote about before in which a bestselling lady novelist named Carmen Mola turned out to be three guy screenwriters:
… George Eliot was the pen name of a female writer who dismissed the plots of fiction written by many 19th-century women as trivial and ridiculous. And J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, said she abbreviated her name before she was famous to look more male and avoid sexism.
Little boys are often very sexist.
But in these cases, it was frequently a woman choosing a male name, fearing discrimination if she used her real identity. Which has raised the question in Spain: What does it mean for a group of male writers to take on the identity of a woman?
Obviously, it means that in today’s publishing industry, it’s better to be perceived as a woman.
Still, some female writers said giving the male screenwriters the prize wasn’t fair because they had been dishonest.
They’d made up a story. Are novelists allowed to do that?
“Where did these grown men hide themselves before doing this? Behind the name of a woman?” wrote Nuria Labari in the newspaper El País.
Ms. Casielles said that early in her career as a poet, female voices were few in publishing. But in recent years, publishing houses have sought out anthologies by female poets and it felt as if the authors were exploiting the same cultural shift.
“This has been felt by women, by female writers, by activists, and by many readers,” she said. “And it feels like a bad joke.”
Affirmative action is less and less seen as proof against discrimination but as reparations: e.g., blacks deserve your home equity because if it weren’t for, uh, redlining, they would have inherited a superbly maintained house in a lovely zero crime neighborhood, which shows an affection estimation of their ancestors but is at least understandable.
But why are women writers today supposed to get reparations for discriminations against women writers of the past. Are they descended from women writers? Are they only descended from women? I’m really not following the reproduction logic of reparations for women?
English
Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
Dutch
French
German
Hebrew
Hindi
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Vietnamese
Multipolar Trans Writers are Writers!
Really?
Because every work deserves its due.
Hidden figures, Mad’m. Hidden Figures.
“Activists” not “feeling things” would be a miracle of biblical proportions. But apparently the readers don’t feel much.
In any case, the injustice of not being assaulted by books authored by female writers laid out on large tables (the books, not the writers, this is not Story of O) right when you get in a bookstore shall not stand!
It’s the same logic as the miasma theory of white supremacy. There’s evil maleness in the air, and there’s no way to counteract this evil maleness than to actively counter it with reparations.
I dunno, but we might suggest telling them they can fast-track getting some of Joe’s stash by flying to Mexico and walking/swimming across the border.
This is discriminatory against T women.
And, when we’re talking about these issues, Italians still refuse to be Americanized …
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/27/italy-senate-votes-down-anti-homophobic-violence-bill
‘Disgraceful’: Italy’s senate votes down anti-homophobic violence bill
Italy’s senate has killed off a bill that would have made violence against LGBT people and disabled people, as well as misogyny, a hate crime.
…………………………
When you understand the goal is to overturn the natural order then it makes sense.
Back in the Cretaceous, when I was still reading fiction, I noticed how few female canonical authors there were out there (except in poetry) & that they were, at least 80% of them, from the Anglosphere.
If you enumerate them all, from the 1820s to the 2020s – not a big number. Even if you take only the post-1960s period, you won’t find too many eminent female prose writers.
But is this unreasonable?
First, women are less driven to achieve than men.
Second, their IQ curve peaks more in the middle than at the extremes.
All things being equal, I would expect there to be fewer eminent prose writers who are women that there are eminent prose writers who are men.
...Just as fewer women than men are convicted of bank robbery. It doesn't follow that the courts are discriminating against men in some way.Replies: @Reg Cæsar
They only wrote to market. They studied every way known to humanity to market their titles and boost sales, and talked about nothing else. A few men talked about art and got laughed and sneered at by the women. The women had no qualms about buying good reviews for their books and thought the goal was worth the risk of being caught at it.
It was crazy how relentless the women were about writing only for money. Until I'd seen their attitude, I wouldn't have believed it. Some of them had reasons that were rational, wanting out of a dead-end job and having a special needs kid who needed to be looked after, meaning the mothers had to work from home, but I didn't find a single woman who wanted to write for art. They didn't care at all about art.Replies: @Reg Cæsar
Was it ever not seen like that?
I’d argue it’s the other way around, increasingly you see demands for it in places you wouldn’t previously with the justification that the lack of diversity must result in discrimination. We must have a black woman on the board of a heavy metal festival committee, for example because a committee of all white males will surely be biased and discriminate!
And, finally- probably that’s how a typical female mind operates. Sitting in coffeehouses, waiting for the train or tram etc., I’ve noticed what we all, of course, know- females are obsessed with men. From 15 to 35 or more, all they talk about are men in their lives: men, men, men…. he said this, I said that …men, men, men …
Males, on the other hand, generally talk about four things:
1. food
2. sports
3. cars
4. politics
Different cast of mind ….
The logic is very clear: “It never hurts to ask.”
How about operations for male writers, until you have the required number of “female” writers?
This confirms that it takes three men to produce the work of one woman.
These people conspired with publishers and promoters to push the success of their books, all the while lying about their gender.
One thing that definitely has not changed, as evidenced by multiple male commenters, is the fear of, and unwillingness to compete on a level playing field with, women.
men already hold advantages because they *are men* in a patriarchal society. It’s like a white person saying they are Black on a college application to benefit from affirmative action.
Let me make it clear. So, you have two kids. A and B. A gets attention that improves their life conditions because A is male, white and has blue eyes…. The point is that A gets important benefits for superficial reasons. Because you realize this, you set up a situation were B, who is not as attractive (to people in power) is going to get a chance to display her abilities, which are deserving of the same support A gets. But then A decides to cheat and pretends to be B. So, the result now is that A has both benefits, the original one and the new one.
If you oppose that sort of swindling, you're obviously an antisemite and a misogynist. For shame.
I don’t think so. Most children’s books are (and mostly always were) written by females.
I think it was very clearly early on that J. K. Rowling was a woman and I don’t think she chose the initials to hide her sex.
It’s just fancier for a writer, male or female, to use only initials, especially in Britain. J. M. Barrie, T. S. Eliot, S. E. Hinton, D. H. Lawrence, etc etc.
Unbelievable ...
They identified as women. Case closed.
In an effort to boost my wife’s libido, I bought a pile of women’s novels off ebay, with the justification that it would help her English comprehension. Also would be some help in getting through the coming long winter nights. I can’t just retire to my workbench full of disassembled cameras, or watch youtube militaria for hours a day.
So I started reading one to her. A “Barbara Newcomer” blockbuster about Texas hill country ranchers. It’s excruciating. Conrad said a work of art must carry it’s justification in every line. A women’s novel must pack painful cliches into every line. We’re talking fingernails on chalkboard. And no ripping bodices yet, just women’s faces being cradled by understanding sun-leathered ex-sherrifs. Did I mention the former Army Ranger? He’s trying too hard to capture the attention of the new schoolteacher in town, who simply ignores his entreaties. Chapter Two…oh I can’t go on. The pirate novels and Harlequins lurk with anticipation at the bottom of the pile. Maybe things will improve and she will be overcome with passion. Or I will be spending more time repairing those Russian rangefinders.
Yeah, if a publishing house wants to put out a book that makes the bestseller list, a poetry anthology is a sure winner. Right up there with Stephen King.
This is the problem with appeasing those demanding reparations. Giving in to them doesn’t satisfy them – it only whets their appetites for more. If you give in and publish a female poetry anthology that you know will be a sure loser (unless maybe it’s assigned reading in mandatory courses – more appeasement) they are not going to thank you, they are going to demand that you publish ONLY female poetry anthologies. Markets and profits mean nothing to ideologues.
Make that an Anthology of Black and Latino Transgender Poets.
On the other hand, my wife reliably informs me that the single best-selling title put out by the book-publishing arm of the defunct literary journal Open City, with which she was intimately involved, was the late David Berman's only volume of poetry Actual Air. Then again, as the unifying force behind Silver Jews, David Berman was an indie-rock legend.
On the other other hand, my wife's late mother-in-law from her previous marriage was the co-founder and longtime executive editor of Grove Atlantic, who for years insisted that the press issue one volume of poetry a year--until she stopped doing so maybe a decade ago: none of the poetry they'd published made any commercial sense at all.
A group thing, of sorts.
I’m sure we will soon be handing out reparations to gay people for past discrimination. Every gay persons gets a check. Just because.
Victorian novelist Maria Louise Ramé wrote as “Ouida”, as her racy style was considered unsuitable for a woman.
https://www.victorianweb.org/authors/ouida/biography.html
But she didn’t fool the diarist and parson Francis Kilvert:
This is the problem with appeasing those demanding reparations. Giving in to them doesn't satisfy them - it only whets their appetites for more. If you give in and publish a female poetry anthology that you know will be a sure loser (unless maybe it's assigned reading in mandatory courses - more appeasement) they are not going to thank you, they are going to demand that you publish ONLY female poetry anthologies. Markets and profits mean nothing to ideologues.Replies: @Dumbo, @Jim Don Bob, @Bardon Kaldian, @slumber_j, @pyrrhus, @Mr. Anon, @Johann Ricke
Actually, “anthologies by female poets” could be racist and sexist if they are just white “cis-hetero TERF” women.
Make that an Anthology of Black and Latino Transgender Poets.
A few typos there, I think. “Affection estimation”? And missing question mark in the second bit.
No need to post this comment.
There is a one-word explanation of the “logic” here, which applies to affirmative action and reparations more generally.
It’s gibsmedat.
It’s likely that the most common form of affirmative action – college admissions – has siphoned vast amounts of money out of blacks through student loans used to leverage degrees never earned or substantially less valuable than the cost of the debt. This is probably also true for a fairly large share of non-Asian college students as well though not to the same extent.
Colleges and universities have been a key breeding ground for the DIE/woke poison that is ruining our country – it’s time to delegitimize them and the idea that they provide value to the majority of their marks/students. Starve these institutions of the students and the loans necessary to keep them running at their current staffing and program levels.
Obviously that means a sustained assault on the conventional wisdom that ‘college is good’ for just about anybody, but the fact is that higher education is largely a predatory industry at this point and there are literally millions of people out there who have experienced it first hand.
Of course, there is a strong argument that colleges don't actually teach much of anything, but admission to them and attendance until graduation at them is simply the world's longest and most expensive aptitude exam, so they do have a social function, even if a highly inefficient and highly inexact one.
I suspect though that there is still a certain amount of actual learning taking place, just enough to legitimize the wokeness that parasitically free-rides upon it. Indeed, wokening of academia could be compared to leveraged buyouts of corporations, where the buyout artists pile on just as much debt as they think the underlying productivity of the target corporation can bear. The trick for everyone else is to separate the parasitical wokeness/debt from the underlying learning/productivity.Replies: @Arclight
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/11/01/college-degree-value-major/
I'm sure we will soon be handing out reparations to gay people for past discrimination. Every gay persons gets a check. Just because.Replies: @bomag, @Polistra
And this gets us into the problem of group punishment/group reward, which we are not supposed to do, but everyone does.
Ask on Twitter.
Lots of st*tlibs patrol that who will no doubt be willing share their wisdom.
Is “affection” mistyped or am I just not understanding?
Took me a while as well.
“blacks deserve your home equity because if it weren’t for, uh, redlining, they would have inherited a superbly maintained house in a lovely zero crime neighborhood,”
Of course, blacks actually DID inherit superbly maintained houses. For instance, blacks seem to think that they somehow created Harlem, but in fact Harlem was built by the Dutch and the Irish (I don’t see any mud huts on 125th street), then it was Jewish, THEN it became black. Harlem is superb housing stock located just north of midtown Manhattan (conveniently connected by underground rail also not built by blacks), and bordering on Columbia University and magnificent Central Park — it is some of the most desirable real estate on planet Earth. Yet it was ceded to blacks, who promptly turned it into a byword for crime, uninhabitable chaos, and misery — with a smidgen of jazz and bad poetry excusing itself as the ludicrous “Harlem Renaissance.”
It could have been the Left Bank, or its own industrial hub, but instead it became a no-go zone. The same is true about other perfectly good, well-built neighborhoods in NYC like Bed-Stuy, Bushwick, and large portions of the Bronx.
I happened to be in London at the time of the Rodney King riots, and the British papers were full of photographs of the splendid, spacious, well-built housing stock of South Central LA (also conveniently located to downtown, full of broad boulevards, splendid real estate). I kept overhearing random Londoners looking at the lovely houses and muttering to themselves, “What the hell are they so angry about? I’d give my eye teeth to live there!” Plenty of Londoners, noticing my accent, came up to me and asked me these sort of questions, totally incredulous.
Now of course they are busy destroying London and Paris, and the process is near complete.
Redlining, schmedlining. I’d say catapults are in order.
Literature is full of writers authoring poems, essays and novels under a nom de plume. They all had their reasons to shield their real identity. Samuel Clemens writing as Mark Twain is one example. But now we are supposed to beleive that a book by a woman would not be well received when we know good writing attracts readers. Bitch,bitch,bitch.
This is the problem with appeasing those demanding reparations. Giving in to them doesn't satisfy them - it only whets their appetites for more. If you give in and publish a female poetry anthology that you know will be a sure loser (unless maybe it's assigned reading in mandatory courses - more appeasement) they are not going to thank you, they are going to demand that you publish ONLY female poetry anthologies. Markets and profits mean nothing to ideologues.Replies: @Dumbo, @Jim Don Bob, @Bardon Kaldian, @slumber_j, @pyrrhus, @Mr. Anon, @Johann Ricke
Because it’s not their money they are giving away.
Colleges and universities have been a key breeding ground for the DIE/woke poison that is ruining our country - it's time to delegitimize them and the idea that they provide value to the majority of their marks/students. Starve these institutions of the students and the loans necessary to keep them running at their current staffing and program levels.
Obviously that means a sustained assault on the conventional wisdom that 'college is good' for just about anybody, but the fact is that higher education is largely a predatory industry at this point and there are literally millions of people out there who have experienced it first hand.Replies: @Jim Don Bob, @Almost Missouri, @Patrick in SC, @S. Anonyia, @Fidelios Automata, @Seneca44
Right. Critical Race Theory started at Harvard Law in the 1980s, metastasized into DIE and then trickled through colleges and universities first and is now so thoroughly embedded in public schools at every level that even kids in kindergarten are being taught that white men are bad, trannies and POCs are sacred, America is evil, etc.
Colleges and universities have been a key breeding ground for the DIE/woke poison that is ruining our country - it's time to delegitimize them and the idea that they provide value to the majority of their marks/students. Starve these institutions of the students and the loans necessary to keep them running at their current staffing and program levels.
Obviously that means a sustained assault on the conventional wisdom that 'college is good' for just about anybody, but the fact is that higher education is largely a predatory industry at this point and there are literally millions of people out there who have experienced it first hand.Replies: @Jim Don Bob, @Almost Missouri, @Patrick in SC, @S. Anonyia, @Fidelios Automata, @Seneca44
Probably provably true.
True. Maybe not so objectively provable, though I think everyone knows it whether or not they admit it.
Last I checked, more education still does correlate with higher income. Obviously, a lot (most?) of such data comes from the pre-woke era, so maybe someone could see if this correlation is breaking down with more recent, more woke, cohorts. (The very recent cohorts that have completely dropped tests for admissions should be interesting, but it will be years before they show up in the statistics.)
Of course, there is a strong argument that colleges don’t actually teach much of anything, but admission to them and attendance until graduation at them is simply the world’s longest and most expensive aptitude exam, so they do have a social function, even if a highly inefficient and highly inexact one.
I suspect though that there is still a certain amount of actual learning taking place, just enough to legitimize the wokeness that parasitically free-rides upon it. Indeed, wokening of academia could be compared to leveraged buyouts of corporations, where the buyout artists pile on just as much debt as they think the underlying productivity of the target corporation can bear. The trick for everyone else is to separate the parasitical wokeness/debt from the underlying learning/productivity.
Hospitality, arts, social work degrees are all pretty low return, as is education although if you get a job with a public school system it probably works out overall when you factor in all the ancillary benefits that come with government employment. Law school is also a bad bet for a lot of people since the average lawyer doesn't really make all that much money, and there are plenty of law, masters, and doctorate programs that will accept and graduate students in the bottom half of the distribution who go on to $65k a year jobs after taking on another $50K-$90K in debt for their graduate degrees.Replies: @ic1000, @anon
This is the problem with appeasing those demanding reparations. Giving in to them doesn't satisfy them - it only whets their appetites for more. If you give in and publish a female poetry anthology that you know will be a sure loser (unless maybe it's assigned reading in mandatory courses - more appeasement) they are not going to thank you, they are going to demand that you publish ONLY female poetry anthologies. Markets and profits mean nothing to ideologues.Replies: @Dumbo, @Jim Don Bob, @Bardon Kaldian, @slumber_j, @pyrrhus, @Mr. Anon, @Johann Ricke
Women stronk!
No!
Next question.
Colleges and universities have been a key breeding ground for the DIE/woke poison that is ruining our country - it's time to delegitimize them and the idea that they provide value to the majority of their marks/students. Starve these institutions of the students and the loans necessary to keep them running at their current staffing and program levels.
Obviously that means a sustained assault on the conventional wisdom that 'college is good' for just about anybody, but the fact is that higher education is largely a predatory industry at this point and there are literally millions of people out there who have experienced it first hand.Replies: @Jim Don Bob, @Almost Missouri, @Patrick in SC, @S. Anonyia, @Fidelios Automata, @Seneca44
That’s coming down the road: “People of color are disproportionately affected by the student loan rackets. Therefore, these loans should be forgiven for POC!” The sop to the student loan sharks will be that Evil White Men will not be entitled to as much of a break, if any.
I assert that I am a transwoman. Now you are obligated to include me in your all-female anthology.
(By the way, what are you doing tonight? Don’t forget – if you reject my advances, you’re an evil transphobic bitch.)
Of course, there is a strong argument that colleges don't actually teach much of anything, but admission to them and attendance until graduation at them is simply the world's longest and most expensive aptitude exam, so they do have a social function, even if a highly inefficient and highly inexact one.
I suspect though that there is still a certain amount of actual learning taking place, just enough to legitimize the wokeness that parasitically free-rides upon it. Indeed, wokening of academia could be compared to leveraged buyouts of corporations, where the buyout artists pile on just as much debt as they think the underlying productivity of the target corporation can bear. The trick for everyone else is to separate the parasitical wokeness/debt from the underlying learning/productivity.Replies: @Arclight
I have no doubt more education does correlate with higher income for a decent swathe of college degrees, but I am guessing the effect is neutral or maybe worse for a fair number of people when you factor in the time and expense of paying down loans and how that crimps the ability to save or buy a home, perhaps even more debt through credit cards.
Hospitality, arts, social work degrees are all pretty low return, as is education although if you get a job with a public school system it probably works out overall when you factor in all the ancillary benefits that come with government employment. Law school is also a bad bet for a lot of people since the average lawyer doesn’t really make all that much money, and there are plenty of law, masters, and doctorate programs that will accept and graduate students in the bottom half of the distribution who go on to \$65k a year jobs after taking on another \$50K-\$90K in debt for their graduate degrees.
2. Give colleges and universities some skin in the game. When a former student defaults, he or she can be on the hook for half, and the alma mater can pay the remainder of the tab. They can book the loss under "negative profits due to false advertising."
There should be an escape clause for hallowed institutions of higher learning. If they can show that they lured in students and their parents on the basis of "Great Parties!" and "4+ years of luxury summer camp!", with no references to "learning," "career," or "future prospects," then they are off the hook -- they delivered as promised.Replies: @Arclight, @Mr. Anon
I'd argue it's the other way around, increasingly you see demands for it in places you wouldn't previously with the justification that the lack of diversity must result in discrimination. We must have a black woman on the board of a heavy metal festival committee, for example because a committee of all white males will surely be biased and discriminate!Replies: @LP5, @Hermes
We haven’t reached peak whinge yet, but that is fast approaching. The public will finally get saturated with evermore tales of past injustice, blaming, demands for attention or just angsty bullshit.
Lots of st*tlibs patrol that who will no doubt be willing share their wisdom.Is "affection" mistyped or am I just not understanding?Replies: @anon, @J.Ross
affectionate estimation
Took me a while as well.
This is the problem with appeasing those demanding reparations. Giving in to them doesn't satisfy them - it only whets their appetites for more. If you give in and publish a female poetry anthology that you know will be a sure loser (unless maybe it's assigned reading in mandatory courses - more appeasement) they are not going to thank you, they are going to demand that you publish ONLY female poetry anthologies. Markets and profits mean nothing to ideologues.Replies: @Dumbo, @Jim Don Bob, @Bardon Kaldian, @slumber_j, @pyrrhus, @Mr. Anon, @Johann Ricke
Right. It amazes me that anyone bothers publishing poetry anymore, and I am or have been a poet. It’s an art form that most people now fear and/or loathe, mostly for good reason. For more on that see e.g. Ben Lerner’s book-length essay The Hatred of Poetry.
On the other hand, my wife reliably informs me that the single best-selling title put out by the book-publishing arm of the defunct literary journal Open City, with which she was intimately involved, was the late David Berman’s only volume of poetry Actual Air. Then again, as the unifying force behind Silver Jews, David Berman was an indie-rock legend.
On the other other hand, my wife’s late mother-in-law from her previous marriage was the co-founder and longtime executive editor of Grove Atlantic, who for years insisted that the press issue one volume of poetry a year–until she stopped doing so maybe a decade ago: none of the poetry they’d published made any commercial sense at all.
These guys needed a front, not a pen name. Black women are made for this job; they’d really enjoy the public appearances and awards, and they are very practiced at posing for photos.
Lionel Shriver, for my money the top female novelist of our era, or maybe the top novelist period, is an interesting case. It’s not a literary front or anything like that. She reportedly changed her name to Lionel at age 15 because she did not like Margaret Ann, and as a tomboy felt a male name was a better fit. (I don’t believe she’s gay, she’s been married to a jazz drummer for 20 years.)
Off topic: the tiki torch VA election hoax proves once again that white nationalism is political poison.
In what sense were these writers male? It’s not their DNA that matters. Their self identified gender is female, no? Geeze, don’t these whiners understand the first thing about this? They presented themselves as women and were enthusiastically received as women. How are these men writers not the women writers we thought they were? Of course they were.
JK Rowling has published under two masculine names: after she made it with “Harry Potter” she started writing thrillers under the pen name Robert Galbraith, and apparently submitted them like that too. She wanted to see if she could get a book published on its own merits. Supposedly the publishing house only found out when contracts were drawn up. So presumably she was trading off men being more associated with violent thrillers. The books enjoyed a modest success until her identity was revealed by a wife of one of the lawyers on Twitter, whether as part of a pre-arranged ruse to increase their sales after Rowling’s curiosity was satisfied I don’t know.
My youngest son laughingly broke this to me. He was amused that they spent years giving interviews and stringing so many people along. When he brought up the accusations of fraud, I said hey it’s not like they’re Milli Vanilli, they actually wrote the stories. Imagine writers using a pen name! Besides who says these days that a university professor and mother of three has to be woman?
Affirmative Action will taper off the same as bussing did and for the same reason. The increasing rare White Child.
Colleges and universities have been a key breeding ground for the DIE/woke poison that is ruining our country - it's time to delegitimize them and the idea that they provide value to the majority of their marks/students. Starve these institutions of the students and the loans necessary to keep them running at their current staffing and program levels.
Obviously that means a sustained assault on the conventional wisdom that 'college is good' for just about anybody, but the fact is that higher education is largely a predatory industry at this point and there are literally millions of people out there who have experienced it first hand.Replies: @Jim Don Bob, @Almost Missouri, @Patrick in SC, @S. Anonyia, @Fidelios Automata, @Seneca44
Traditional higher ed should only be for the top 15 % of students, honestly. Specific community college programs that lead to some kind of useful professional or semi-professional certifications for the next most talented 25 %, then everyone else goes straight to the workforce.
All of Carmen Mola’s female fans need to retroactively un-enjoy her books immediately.
I'd argue it's the other way around, increasingly you see demands for it in places you wouldn't previously with the justification that the lack of diversity must result in discrimination. We must have a black woman on the board of a heavy metal festival committee, for example because a committee of all white males will surely be biased and discriminate!Replies: @LP5, @Hermes
I thought the same thing. Affirmative action started as a means of rectifying alleged past wrongs, on the mistaken thesis that once one generation of blacks had been given an artificial leg up to get them caught up, they wouldn’t need it anymore. It’s morphed into endless preferences for NAMs and women, and disfavor of white men, even to the point of hiring blatantly incompetent people and degrading the quality of work, and the creation of entire sectors of do-nothing make-work jobs whose only purpose is to pay these people white-collar salaries, with these things seen not a means to an end, but rather goods in and of themselves.
What is “affection estimation” and why should we care about it? Do blacks care about whites’ “affection estimation?”
I’m not convinced that female writers were EVER discriminated against, at least not in the last 200 years. There were numerous successful female writers during the Victorian era, as well as in the pulp fiction market of the early twentieth century. Today, they are strongly favored. Sci-fi writer Jon del Arroz did an informal study that estimated that female sci-fi writers were twice as likely to be published as their male peers. His suggestion to have analogous “men only” fiction analogies got him banned from the writers association and local sci-fi conventions.
Colleges and universities have been a key breeding ground for the DIE/woke poison that is ruining our country - it's time to delegitimize them and the idea that they provide value to the majority of their marks/students. Starve these institutions of the students and the loans necessary to keep them running at their current staffing and program levels.
Obviously that means a sustained assault on the conventional wisdom that 'college is good' for just about anybody, but the fact is that higher education is largely a predatory industry at this point and there are literally millions of people out there who have experienced it first hand.Replies: @Jim Don Bob, @Almost Missouri, @Patrick in SC, @S. Anonyia, @Fidelios Automata, @Seneca44
Any degree that’s not in STEM is worse than worthless.
The absurdity of it all is that writing is one of the fields where women haven’t been particularly discriminated against. There have been celebrated female authors right back to Napoleonic times. I can think of at least two female winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature from before the Second World War: Pearl Buck and Sigrid Undset.
Hospitality, arts, social work degrees are all pretty low return, as is education although if you get a job with a public school system it probably works out overall when you factor in all the ancillary benefits that come with government employment. Law school is also a bad bet for a lot of people since the average lawyer doesn't really make all that much money, and there are plenty of law, masters, and doctorate programs that will accept and graduate students in the bottom half of the distribution who go on to $65k a year jobs after taking on another $50K-$90K in debt for their graduate degrees.Replies: @ic1000, @anon
1. Make student-loan debt dischargable under bankruptcy, like every other kind of debt. This reform is a natural for Joe Biden, given his oft-demonstrated willingness to stand up to the banking industry to protect the interests of the little guy.
2. Give colleges and universities some skin in the game. When a former student defaults, he or she can be on the hook for half, and the alma mater can pay the remainder of the tab. They can book the loss under “negative profits due to false advertising.”
There should be an escape clause for hallowed institutions of higher learning. If they can show that they lured in students and their parents on the basis of “Great Parties!” and “4+ years of luxury summer camp!”, with no references to “learning,” “career,” or “future prospects,” then they are off the hook — they delivered as promised.
it is kind of pathetic that jane austen is now reckoned one of the greatest novelists, but her novels are just about girls trying for good marriages.
men ran a feudal protection racket on women. but the men were just too sexy. call it “stockholm syndrome”.
To the woman He said: “I will sharply increase your pain in childbirth; in pain you will bring forth children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
Be as it may - she is an artistic novelist; she possesses an impeccable moral sense; her characters may belong to a rather narrow social circle, but they are vivid & "real"; hers is a completely un-Romantic mind & don't see why is she lumped together with Romantic authors.
Also, she is surprisingly modern. In comparison with Walter Scott, she's light years ahead.
Mark Twain's rage against her is just a sign of his severe limitations as a fiction writer. He couldn't understand the inwardness of her characters & saw only annoying and pretentious English snobs. Needless to say, Twain couldn't come close to the great French & Russian fiction writers of the 19th C.
That said- Jane Austen is simply not my cup of tea.
Moreover, girls trying for good marriages is a fundamental theme of human nature and great subject matter for high art.
Moreover, great art doesn't need a great subject - read John Donne's meditation on a flea, or Faulkner discoursing on the virtues of a mule.Replies: @Reg Cæsar
Honestly. It goes right back to the Middle Ages. Saint Teresa of Avila. Heloise of Abelard and Heloise. Women have always been perfectly welcome to write — even back when they weren’t allowed to be firemen. This is the most wretched nonsense imaginable.
WTF?
Hospitality, arts, social work degrees are all pretty low return, as is education although if you get a job with a public school system it probably works out overall when you factor in all the ancillary benefits that come with government employment. Law school is also a bad bet for a lot of people since the average lawyer doesn't really make all that much money, and there are plenty of law, masters, and doctorate programs that will accept and graduate students in the bottom half of the distribution who go on to $65k a year jobs after taking on another $50K-$90K in debt for their graduate degrees.Replies: @ic1000, @anon
the tragedy which none ever speak of is:
1. there are gobs of smart students who don’t go into engineering because they’re young and stupid and horny and engineering is boring to them.
2. bidness majors shouldn’t exist but finance and/or accounting majors make as much as engineering majors.
as usual steve’s SAT and GMAT are too low for a blog license.
2. Give colleges and universities some skin in the game. When a former student defaults, he or she can be on the hook for half, and the alma mater can pay the remainder of the tab. They can book the loss under "negative profits due to false advertising."
There should be an escape clause for hallowed institutions of higher learning. If they can show that they lured in students and their parents on the basis of "Great Parties!" and "4+ years of luxury summer camp!", with no references to "learning," "career," or "future prospects," then they are off the hook -- they delivered as promised.Replies: @Arclight, @Mr. Anon
I have been flogging your 2nd point for years. Make higher ed decide whether a given student is really worth the economic risk, and force an assessment of which courses of study produce the most losses. Obviously many of the Ivies and even a lot of mid-level universities have a sufficient cushion from their endowments to absorb these losses, but they should be forced to take them on anyway.
This is the problem with appeasing those demanding reparations. Giving in to them doesn't satisfy them - it only whets their appetites for more. If you give in and publish a female poetry anthology that you know will be a sure loser (unless maybe it's assigned reading in mandatory courses - more appeasement) they are not going to thank you, they are going to demand that you publish ONLY female poetry anthologies. Markets and profits mean nothing to ideologues.Replies: @Dumbo, @Jim Don Bob, @Bardon Kaldian, @slumber_j, @pyrrhus, @Mr. Anon, @Johann Ricke
If the real Steven King was actually Stephanie King….the estrogen bunch would still be screaming discrimination….
There’s a lot of Peter-Turchin-esque ‘overproduction of (wanna-be) elites’ driving this story.
You have many more-or-less-literate women who would like to enjoy the social and pecuniary rewards of being a ‘successful writer’ in the style of the last century (which they know of from books, TV shows, and their elders’ wistful stories), even though most of them aren’t very talented and there’s too much competition and writing is no longer worth much (yes, there is still a bit of a tournament market).
They look around and see that for Googles the key to success is whining about ‘racism’ and claiming unearned (indeed, entirely unmerited) accession to fame and fortune as reparations for the imaginary repression of their group.*
The greedy women naturally try to work the same trick, even though that means retconning all the successful female writers of the last 150+ years out of existence (Harriet Beecher Stowe, anyone? How about Ngaio Marsh?) and contradicting themselves about equal opportunity.
( *Of course the real driver of affirmative action is the overclass handicapping potential rivals from below, but most people don’t understand that.)
You have many more-or-less-literate women who would like to enjoy the social and pecuniary rewards of being a ‘successful writer’ in the style of the last century (which they know of from books, TV shows, and their elders’ wistful stories), even though most of them aren’t very talented and there’s too much competition and writing is no longer worth much (yes, there is still a bit of a tournament market).
They look around and see that for Googles the key to success is whining about ‘racism’ and claiming unearned (indeed, entirely unmerited) accession to fame and fortune as reparations for the imaginary repression of their group.*
The greedy women naturally try to work the same trick, even though that means retconning all the successful female writers of the last 150+ years out of existence (Harriet Beecher Stowe, anyone? How about Ngaio Marsh?) and contradicting themselves about equal opportunity.
( *Of course the real driver of affirmative action is the overclass handicapping potential rivals from below, but most people don’t understand that.)Replies: @Redneck farmer
It’s really hard to get some people to accept that once you get more than 2/3 to 3/4 of the way up the latter it’s pretty hard to stay at your rung, let alone climb. Especially for your offspring.
I don’t know about Spain but the American trade book publishing world (which is what most people mean when they talk about book publishing) has been 70-80% female for decades, and many of the few guys present are gay.
Back in the ‘70s and earlier, the books game was indeed heavily male. It encompassed everything from high intellectualism and artiness (Barth, Bellow) to rock ‘n’ roll pop stuff (Terry Southern, Vonnegut), all the way to hardboiled crime and porn. It was a rowdy and scrappy scene, and even the ladies who got involved were often pretty tough and hardboiled themselves. It used to be that if you had some daring, some irreverence, some rock ‘n’ roll spirit, or some urge to Greatness and your talents were verbal rather than visual or musical, you could take up writing or publishing or agenting or reviewing, or (usually) some mix of the above.
These days it’s a very different world. With women in charge and with the companies more corporate (coincidence?), the books world offers us a lot of prettily-packaged, multicultural, moralizing drivel. It’s a schoolmarm-and-design-editor, rowdiness and irreverence-free world now.
Given as well the big role women play in gatekeeping and guidance (as teachers and librarians) where reading goes, it’s not surprising that book-writin’ and book-publishin’ are no longer terribly appealing fields to gifted, driven straight guys.
As always, some exceptions allowed for.
But not, you know, a Nazi man writer, like those bastards Hemingway, Miller, Wodehouse or Lovecraft.Replies: @JMcG
Lots of st*tlibs patrol that who will no doubt be willing share their wisdom.Is "affection" mistyped or am I just not understanding?Replies: @anon, @J.Ross
Their ancestors are not smiling on them.
2. Give colleges and universities some skin in the game. When a former student defaults, he or she can be on the hook for half, and the alma mater can pay the remainder of the tab. They can book the loss under “negative profits due to false advertising.”
I like the idea. And we should have an option where the student is let off the hook for their half in exchange for surrendering their right to vote.
Possible iSteviness bankshot: the new Wes Anderson film The French Dispatch is a Westaphorized encomium to the self-image of the New Yorker, an anthology built around the memorial of a recently deceased founding editor played by newly serious Wesgular Bill Murray as not!EB White. So, in a way (which recalls The Writer representing Stefan Zweig in Grand Budapest Hotel) further illustrated by one of the stories, which follows the creative process, there is a sort of pathetic mourning for the masculine Writer. Being from Wes it’s quiet enough to be ignored (unlike the bit in Budapest where they break the fourth wall and harangue the audience about being too proud to accept foreign rapists).
But not, you know, a Nazi man writer, like those bastards Hemingway, Miller, Wodehouse or Lovecraft.
OT
But not, you know, a Nazi man writer, like those bastards Hemingway, Miller, Wodehouse or Lovecraft.Replies: @JMcG
Hemingway was a lousy commie, not a Nazi. Other than that, I agree.
2. Give colleges and universities some skin in the game. When a former student defaults, he or she can be on the hook for half, and the alma mater can pay the remainder of the tab. They can book the loss under "negative profits due to false advertising."
There should be an escape clause for hallowed institutions of higher learning. If they can show that they lured in students and their parents on the basis of "Great Parties!" and "4+ years of luxury summer camp!", with no references to "learning," "career," or "future prospects," then they are off the hook -- they delivered as promised.Replies: @Arclight, @Mr. Anon
Tucker Carlson suggested something similar: make Universities be the co-signers of the student loans taken out by their students. If the student defaults, then the University pays. Why they might even have to stop hiring more diversity administrators.
This is an important point that is too little appreciated.
The ancestors of whites are mostly white. The ancestors of blacks are mostly black.
But all men have just as many female ancestors as all woman.
The idea of reparations from whites to blacks to compensate for unjust treatment of blacks by whites in past generations, dumb as it is, at least makes sense.
But the idea of reparations from men to women to compensate for unjust treatment of women by men in past generations? Give me a break.
This is the problem with appeasing those demanding reparations. Giving in to them doesn't satisfy them - it only whets their appetites for more. If you give in and publish a female poetry anthology that you know will be a sure loser (unless maybe it's assigned reading in mandatory courses - more appeasement) they are not going to thank you, they are going to demand that you publish ONLY female poetry anthologies. Markets and profits mean nothing to ideologues.Replies: @Dumbo, @Jim Don Bob, @Bardon Kaldian, @slumber_j, @pyrrhus, @Mr. Anon, @Johann Ricke
They mean a lot to the ideologues of markets and profits.
If you enumerate them all, from the 1820s to the 2020s - not a big number. Even if you take only the post-1960s period, you won't find too many eminent female prose writers.Replies: @Colin Wright, @james wilson, @Anon
‘If you enumerate them all, from the 1820s to the 2020s – not a big number. Even if you take only the post-1960s period, you won’t find too many eminent female prose writers.’
But is this unreasonable?
First, women are less driven to achieve than men.
Second, their IQ curve peaks more in the middle than at the extremes.
All things being equal, I would expect there to be fewer eminent prose writers who are women that there are eminent prose writers who are men.
…Just as fewer women than men are convicted of bank robbery. It doesn’t follow that the courts are discriminating against men in some way.
If you enumerate them all, from the 1820s to the 2020s - not a big number. Even if you take only the post-1960s period, you won't find too many eminent female prose writers.Replies: @Colin Wright, @james wilson, @Anon
You still don’t. I’ve read through the best fiction so I peruse libraries sampling female writers looking for product. I know when one is successful when she’s got a shelf or more to herself. But even they are a bust. Guys cannot be reading this stuff, so girls read girls, which is fine. But the ladies also read men because men are far better at t his. As they are in all art. Men, or males at least, even design the cloths women wear.
I think it was very clearly early on that J. K. Rowling was a woman and I don't think she chose the initials to hide her sex.
It's just fancier for a writer, male or female, to use only initials, especially in Britain. J. M. Barrie, T. S. Eliot, S. E. Hinton, D. H. Lawrence, etc etc.Replies: @Bardon Kaldian
Ahahhaah, Steve is ironic & he’s taken literally.
Unbelievable …
Partially off-topic, but then she is a woman writer going by the name of Lionel. (No, her Dad was not a model railroad hobbyist – she picked the name as a teenager.):
For you, Steve, and for International Jew who recommended it, I just finished the Lionel Shriver book The Motion of the Body Through Space. Man, the ending is HEAVY. It was another great book though, and Peak Stupidity will have a review soon enough.
These people conspired with publishers and promoters to push the success of their books, all the while lying about their gender.
One thing that definitely has not changed, as evidenced by multiple male commenters, is the fear of, and unwillingness to compete on a level playing field with, women.
men already hold advantages because they *are men* in a patriarchal society. It’s like a white person saying they are Black on a college application to benefit from affirmative action.
Let me make it clear. So, you have two kids. A and B. A gets attention that improves their life conditions because A is male, white and has blue eyes…. The point is that A gets important benefits for superficial reasons. Because you realize this, you set up a situation were B, who is not as attractive (to people in power) is going to get a chance to display her abilities, which are deserving of the same support A gets. But then A decides to cheat and pretends to be B. So, the result now is that A has both benefits, the original one and the new one.Replies: @Kratoklastes, @Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY)
That’s the whole premise of how Jacob – literally the Founding Father of the 12 Tribes of Israel – swindled Esau out of his inheritance… egged on by his mother, who was, by all reports, a woman.
If you oppose that sort of swindling, you’re obviously an antisemite and a misogynist. For shame.
These people conspired with publishers and promoters to push the success of their books, all the while lying about their gender.
One thing that definitely has not changed, as evidenced by multiple male commenters, is the fear of, and unwillingness to compete on a level playing field with, women.
men already hold advantages because they *are men* in a patriarchal society. It’s like a white person saying they are Black on a college application to benefit from affirmative action.
Let me make it clear. So, you have two kids. A and B. A gets attention that improves their life conditions because A is male, white and has blue eyes…. The point is that A gets important benefits for superficial reasons. Because you realize this, you set up a situation were B, who is not as attractive (to people in power) is going to get a chance to display her abilities, which are deserving of the same support A gets. But then A decides to cheat and pretends to be B. So, the result now is that A has both benefits, the original one and the new one.Replies: @Kratoklastes, @Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY)
I read, superficially, Jane Austen’s two novels & she is a great novelist. I forced myself to do it recently, just to see what it’s all about (otherwise, I don’t care for her & her cult).
Be as it may – she is an artistic novelist; she possesses an impeccable moral sense; her characters may belong to a rather narrow social circle, but they are vivid & “real”; hers is a completely un-Romantic mind & don’t see why is she lumped together with Romantic authors.
Also, she is surprisingly modern. In comparison with Walter Scott, she’s light years ahead.
Mark Twain’s rage against her is just a sign of his severe limitations as a fiction writer. He couldn’t understand the inwardness of her characters & saw only annoying and pretentious English snobs. Needless to say, Twain couldn’t come close to the great French & Russian fiction writers of the 19th C.
That said- Jane Austen is simply not my cup of tea.
I'm sure we will soon be handing out reparations to gay people for past discrimination. Every gay persons gets a check. Just because.Replies: @bomag, @Polistra
OMG, I just realized how totally hot you are, bomag. Let’s do it right now.
Boys don’t care who writes their stories as long as those stories are good. When Beverly Cleary, R.I.P., served as librarian in Yakima, the town’s boys would request books about boys like themselves. Those were hard to find, so she wrote her own, starring Henry Higgins. Eventually a tertiary character, Ramona Quimby*, got her own book and took over the series. Ramona’s fans owe a debt of gratitude to the boys of Yakima.
Boys will even accept girls as protagonists, but only when the stories are top-notch. I write as My Little Pony comes in over Roku. The “brony” phenomenon is a perfect example of this.
They even had an episode in which a filly and colt bonded over “A. K. Yearling” books. The two later got into an emotional spat over whether her most recent work had “sold out”. Early adopters of Fleetwood Mac, the Bee Gees, Bruce Springsteen, and Tom Petty know this script all too well.
*Yes, named for the same Portland family and street as Homer Simpson’s mayor.
Sexism and racism are the absolute worst things ever. Therefore we must practice them every chance we get. Against males and whites, obviously.
No need to post this comment.Replies: @Polistra
Silly me, I looked up the phrase, certain that I was about to learn a new economics term of art.
Of course, blacks actually DID inherit superbly maintained houses. For instance, blacks seem to think that they somehow created Harlem, but in fact Harlem was built by the Dutch and the Irish (I don't see any mud huts on 125th street), then it was Jewish, THEN it became black. Harlem is superb housing stock located just north of midtown Manhattan (conveniently connected by underground rail also not built by blacks), and bordering on Columbia University and magnificent Central Park --- it is some of the most desirable real estate on planet Earth. Yet it was ceded to blacks, who promptly turned it into a byword for crime, uninhabitable chaos, and misery -- with a smidgen of jazz and bad poetry excusing itself as the ludicrous "Harlem Renaissance."
It could have been the Left Bank, or its own industrial hub, but instead it became a no-go zone. The same is true about other perfectly good, well-built neighborhoods in NYC like Bed-Stuy, Bushwick, and large portions of the Bronx.
I happened to be in London at the time of the Rodney King riots, and the British papers were full of photographs of the splendid, spacious, well-built housing stock of South Central LA (also conveniently located to downtown, full of broad boulevards, splendid real estate). I kept overhearing random Londoners looking at the lovely houses and muttering to themselves, "What the hell are they so angry about? I'd give my eye teeth to live there!" Plenty of Londoners, noticing my accent, came up to me and asked me these sort of questions, totally incredulous.
Now of course they are busy destroying London and Paris, and the process is near complete.
Redlining, schmedlining. I'd say catapults are in order.Replies: @Dmon, @The Germ Theory of Disease, @Reg Cæsar
This, absolutely. I remember as a small child (pre-1965) being excited when I found out we were going to visit my Aunt who lived in a glittering city of beautiful houses and immaculate yards with orange trees – Inglewood, CA.
“My daddy was grossly smarter than me or my mommy!” That is the definition of “sexism”.
Nature is unfair.
If you enumerate them all, from the 1820s to the 2020s - not a big number. Even if you take only the post-1960s period, you won't find too many eminent female prose writers.Replies: @Colin Wright, @james wilson, @Anon
I used to hang out on a board for writers, and my God, the women were INSANELY mercenary. They wanted money, period, and didn’t care any about anything else.
They only wrote to market. They studied every way known to humanity to market their titles and boost sales, and talked about nothing else. A few men talked about art and got laughed and sneered at by the women. The women had no qualms about buying good reviews for their books and thought the goal was worth the risk of being caught at it.
It was crazy how relentless the women were about writing only for money. Until I’d seen their attitude, I wouldn’t have believed it. Some of them had reasons that were rational, wanting out of a dead-end job and having a special needs kid who needed to be looked after, meaning the mothers had to work from home, but I didn’t find a single woman who wanted to write for art. They didn’t care at all about art.
A White jazz drummer, no less.
But is this unreasonable?
First, women are less driven to achieve than men.
Second, their IQ curve peaks more in the middle than at the extremes.
All things being equal, I would expect there to be fewer eminent prose writers who are women that there are eminent prose writers who are men.
...Just as fewer women than men are convicted of bank robbery. It doesn't follow that the courts are discriminating against men in some way.Replies: @Reg Cæsar
Oh?
So yes, black men are indeed getting discriminated against in sentencing. Just not as blacks.
They only wrote to market. They studied every way known to humanity to market their titles and boost sales, and talked about nothing else. A few men talked about art and got laughed and sneered at by the women. The women had no qualms about buying good reviews for their books and thought the goal was worth the risk of being caught at it.
It was crazy how relentless the women were about writing only for money. Until I'd seen their attitude, I wouldn't have believed it. Some of them had reasons that were rational, wanting out of a dead-end job and having a special needs kid who needed to be looked after, meaning the mothers had to work from home, but I didn't find a single woman who wanted to write for art. They didn't care at all about art.Replies: @Reg Cæsar
This is the problem with appeasing those demanding reparations. Giving in to them doesn't satisfy them - it only whets their appetites for more. If you give in and publish a female poetry anthology that you know will be a sure loser (unless maybe it's assigned reading in mandatory courses - more appeasement) they are not going to thank you, they are going to demand that you publish ONLY female poetry anthologies. Markets and profits mean nothing to ideologues.Replies: @Dumbo, @Jim Don Bob, @Bardon Kaldian, @slumber_j, @pyrrhus, @Mr. Anon, @Johann Ricke
I think we’ve been enstupidated by the propaganda that this is ultimately about ideas. Maybe on our side. For these people, it’s purely about personal power and perks. They lack the ability to get these for themselves in the marketplace of goods and services. Why not lever themselves into positions of political power so they can take from the haves?
It seems that Dante, Cellini, Montaigne, Saint Simon, Flaubert, Tolstoy, Henry James, Conrad, Henry Adams, Kafka, Rimbaud, Proust, Joyce, … were all – blockheads.
Actual great female artists are pretty intolerant of most other female artists because the former recognize how horrible the latter are without being hindered by the usual male indulgence of female foibles. e.g. Jane Austen’s work was actually a parody of the silly female love novels of her day.
Actual great female artists have more of a “masculine” mind that allows them to create, and thus reject the feminine “feels” work that girls create and bore us with. They can recognize rather coldly when a female is trying to write crap but get by because vagina, and they don’t like it. Many had strong fathers who made them live up to high standards and didn’t let them weasel out with girlish whines, and so tolerated none in other women.
I recall one bisexual woman I knew who would try really hard to go to feminist poetry events and rock shows and the like to “support female artists” and then bitch about how awful they were compared with male-dominated versions. She also had little tolerance for female complaints about male behavior in relationships because she dated women and saw how awful they were behaving while projecting it on to men. This chick was a total headcase slut but her (true) bisexuality screwed her head on straight when it came to male/female differences.
Camille Paglia is an example of a lesbian who appreciates male standards of artistry.
The first chapter of her “Sexual Personae” is one of the most carefully honed pieces of prose I’ve ever read.
Paglia can blather on far too much in a female way, having never learned the male-Spartan method of "less is more" communicating, and her weird fascination with Madonna and other pop tart music as "deep artists" weakens much of her intellectual credibility. Still, hearing her lecture lefty audiences on their stupidities and b.s. when it comes to this stuff is nice.Replies: @JimDandy
Paglia has been all over this tranny nonsense like the Greatest TERF on Earth. She’s correctly pointed out that this signifies the end stage of many cultures and that this nonsense (and she calls it nonsense) isn’t new, just a harbinger of a society about to be steamrolled by a masculine one.
Paglia can blather on far too much in a female way, having never learned the male-Spartan method of “less is more” communicating, and her weird fascination with Madonna and other pop tart music as “deep artists” weakens much of her intellectual credibility. Still, hearing her lecture lefty audiences on their stupidities and b.s. when it comes to this stuff is nice.
I hadn’t read through the comments when I wrote mine above, K.F.
Let’s keep going with this, Steve. I’m really not following your ancestry logic of why sons should pay for the sins of their fathers.
This has been your logic whenever you still support, AA, right? Look, nobody alive today in America has been a slave. Nobody alive today in America is a slave owner.* The highway department doesn’t even hold me responsible for my Dad’s speeding tickets! Why do the later generations need to be punished for the sins of their ancestors? C’mon, man!
.
* OK, besides •Indian and West African immigrants in far-away places like California, Chicago, and New Jersey. See “The Horrible Legacy of Slavery Continues …” and “New Jersey Jones and the Temple of Doom”.
Suppose Mr. Smith steals something of great value from Mr. Jones and as a result the Smith family is rich and the Jones family is poor. Suppose 10 years later Mr. Jones successfully sues Mr. Smith and regains the thing of great value making the Jones family rich and the Smith family poor. In a sense the Smith sons are paying for the sins of their father. Of course for various good reasons we generally limit how far you can look back in this sort of situation but there is some sort of moral claim.
Right! I really need to read the thread first. I noted a few of us have noted Steve’s illogic here.
What % of these are purchased as assigned reading for some college (or high school) course?
https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393930153
Long the standard teaching anthology, the landmark Norton Anthology of Literature by Women has introduced generations of readers to the rich variety of women’s writing in English.
Now, the much-anticipated Third Edition responds to the wealth of writing by women across the globe with the inclusion of 61 new authors (219 in all) whose diverse works span six centuries. A more flexible two-volume format and a versatile new companion reader make the Third Edition an even better teaching tool.
And women studies are a serious ....study
https://wgss.yale.edu/undergraduate-program
Students majoring in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies take a series of core courses, develop an individual area of concentration, and write a yearlong or single-term senior essay. The program encourages work that is interdisciplinary, intersectional, international, and transnational. Individual concentrations evolve along with students’ intellectual growth and academic expertise. Recent examples of concentrations include literature and queer aesthetics; transnational feminist practices; the intellectual history of civil rights activism; AIDS health policies; gender, religion, and international NGOs; women’s health; food, sexuality, and lesbian community; and gender and sexuality in early education.
And on and on and on ....
http://gss.princeton.edu/
Or: https://wgs.fas.harvard.edu/people/specialty/bgltq-studies
BGLTQ Studies
https://as.cornell.edu/major_minor_gradfield/feminist-gender-sexuality-studies
Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies
major minor graduate
As a feminist, gender & sexuality studies major, you’ll have the opportunity to study a wide range of fields from the perspectives of feminist and LGBTQIA critical analysis, in a global context and with the purpose of promoting social justice. You’ll use the skills you learn in these classes to engage with such disciplines as anthropology, performing and media arts, English literature, Africana studies, comparative literature, Romance studies, music, Asian studies, industrial and labor relations (ILR), science and technology studies, sociology, government, history, history of art and many more.
Of course, blacks actually DID inherit superbly maintained houses. For instance, blacks seem to think that they somehow created Harlem, but in fact Harlem was built by the Dutch and the Irish (I don't see any mud huts on 125th street), then it was Jewish, THEN it became black. Harlem is superb housing stock located just north of midtown Manhattan (conveniently connected by underground rail also not built by blacks), and bordering on Columbia University and magnificent Central Park --- it is some of the most desirable real estate on planet Earth. Yet it was ceded to blacks, who promptly turned it into a byword for crime, uninhabitable chaos, and misery -- with a smidgen of jazz and bad poetry excusing itself as the ludicrous "Harlem Renaissance."
It could have been the Left Bank, or its own industrial hub, but instead it became a no-go zone. The same is true about other perfectly good, well-built neighborhoods in NYC like Bed-Stuy, Bushwick, and large portions of the Bronx.
I happened to be in London at the time of the Rodney King riots, and the British papers were full of photographs of the splendid, spacious, well-built housing stock of South Central LA (also conveniently located to downtown, full of broad boulevards, splendid real estate). I kept overhearing random Londoners looking at the lovely houses and muttering to themselves, "What the hell are they so angry about? I'd give my eye teeth to live there!" Plenty of Londoners, noticing my accent, came up to me and asked me these sort of questions, totally incredulous.
Now of course they are busy destroying London and Paris, and the process is near complete.
Redlining, schmedlining. I'd say catapults are in order.Replies: @Dmon, @The Germ Theory of Disease, @Reg Cæsar
@ “Truth”: any kooky little unfunny one-liner ripostes to add?
You bet many of them.
https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393930153
Long the standard teaching anthology, the landmark Norton Anthology of Literature by Women has introduced generations of readers to the rich variety of women’s writing in English.
Now, the much-anticipated Third Edition responds to the wealth of writing by women across the globe with the inclusion of 61 new authors (219 in all) whose diverse works span six centuries. A more flexible two-volume format and a versatile new companion reader make the Third Edition an even better teaching tool.
And women studies are a serious ….study
https://wgss.yale.edu/undergraduate-program
Students majoring in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies take a series of core courses, develop an individual area of concentration, and write a yearlong or single-term senior essay. The program encourages work that is interdisciplinary, intersectional, international, and transnational. Individual concentrations evolve along with students’ intellectual growth and academic expertise. Recent examples of concentrations include literature and queer aesthetics; transnational feminist practices; the intellectual history of civil rights activism; AIDS health policies; gender, religion, and international NGOs; women’s health; food, sexuality, and lesbian community; and gender and sexuality in early education.
And on and on and on ….
http://gss.princeton.edu/
Or: https://wgs.fas.harvard.edu/people/specialty/bgltq-studies
BGLTQ Studies
https://as.cornell.edu/major_minor_gradfield/feminist-gender-sexuality-studies
Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies
major minor graduate
As a feminist, gender & sexuality studies major, you’ll have the opportunity to study a wide range of fields from the perspectives of feminist and LGBTQIA critical analysis, in a global context and with the purpose of promoting social justice. You’ll use the skills you learn in these classes to engage with such disciplines as anthropology, performing and media arts, English literature, Africana studies, comparative literature, Romance studies, music, Asian studies, industrial and labor relations (ILR), science and technology studies, sociology, government, history, history of art and many more.
ginger bread man————Women writers writing revolves around their vaginas.No female book is complete without emoting about femaleness.
Also Selma Lagerlof?
Indeed. The whole notion that women as been discriminated against as writers is impressively ridiculous.
Yes, women have been discriminated against in other fields -- even discriminated against wrongly. I'll grant that. But as writers? Utter nonsense.
Novels are great when the writing and treatment of the subject appeals to intelligent, experienced readers. Jane Austen is indeed a great novelist.
Moreover, girls trying for good marriages is a fundamental theme of human nature and great subject matter for high art.
Moreover, great art doesn’t need a great subject – read John Donne’s meditation on a flea, or Faulkner discoursing on the virtues of a mule.
Moreover, girls trying for good marriages is a fundamental theme of human nature and great subject matter for high art.
Moreover, great art doesn't need a great subject - read John Donne's meditation on a flea, or Faulkner discoursing on the virtues of a mule.Replies: @Reg Cæsar
Of course, blacks actually DID inherit superbly maintained houses. For instance, blacks seem to think that they somehow created Harlem, but in fact Harlem was built by the Dutch and the Irish (I don't see any mud huts on 125th street), then it was Jewish, THEN it became black. Harlem is superb housing stock located just north of midtown Manhattan (conveniently connected by underground rail also not built by blacks), and bordering on Columbia University and magnificent Central Park --- it is some of the most desirable real estate on planet Earth. Yet it was ceded to blacks, who promptly turned it into a byword for crime, uninhabitable chaos, and misery -- with a smidgen of jazz and bad poetry excusing itself as the ludicrous "Harlem Renaissance."
It could have been the Left Bank, or its own industrial hub, but instead it became a no-go zone. The same is true about other perfectly good, well-built neighborhoods in NYC like Bed-Stuy, Bushwick, and large portions of the Bronx.
I happened to be in London at the time of the Rodney King riots, and the British papers were full of photographs of the splendid, spacious, well-built housing stock of South Central LA (also conveniently located to downtown, full of broad boulevards, splendid real estate). I kept overhearing random Londoners looking at the lovely houses and muttering to themselves, "What the hell are they so angry about? I'd give my eye teeth to live there!" Plenty of Londoners, noticing my accent, came up to me and asked me these sort of questions, totally incredulous.
Now of course they are busy destroying London and Paris, and the process is near complete.
Redlining, schmedlining. I'd say catapults are in order.Replies: @Dmon, @The Germ Theory of Disease, @Reg Cæsar
The Dutch built farms. Their descendents sold out to developers, who sold to anybody. In large portions of Harlem, blacks were the first urban residents. This is even more true of Fort Greene. Many of those blacks– usually mulattoes– were escaping the wild Irish (and Jews) of the Lower East Side.
Obviously blacks needed outside help in building Harlem, but their claims do have a kernel of merit.
There was a time when Georgetown was black and the rest of the District of Columbia white. Imagine that.
Paglia can blather on far too much in a female way, having never learned the male-Spartan method of "less is more" communicating, and her weird fascination with Madonna and other pop tart music as "deep artists" weakens much of her intellectual credibility. Still, hearing her lecture lefty audiences on their stupidities and b.s. when it comes to this stuff is nice.Replies: @JimDandy
I support sexist explanations as a general rule, but I attribute her jabberbox qualities more to her Italianality. Have you ever seen Scorsese interviewed?
‘Also Selma Lagerlof?’
Indeed. The whole notion that women as been discriminated against as writers is impressively ridiculous.
Yes, women have been discriminated against in other fields — even discriminated against wrongly. I’ll grant that. But as writers? Utter nonsense.
.* OK, besides •Indian and West African immigrants in far-away places like California, Chicago, and New Jersey. See "The Horrible Legacy of Slavery Continues ..." and "New Jersey Jones and the Temple of Doom".Replies: @James B. Shearer
“Let’s keep going with this, Steve. I’m really not following your ancestry logic of why sons should pay for the sins of their fathers.”
Suppose Mr. Smith steals something of great value from Mr. Jones and as a result the Smith family is rich and the Jones family is poor. Suppose 10 years later Mr. Jones successfully sues Mr. Smith and regains the thing of great value making the Jones family rich and the Smith family poor. In a sense the Smith sons are paying for the sins of their father. Of course for various good reasons we generally limit how far you can look back in this sort of situation but there is some sort of moral claim.
Colleges and universities have been a key breeding ground for the DIE/woke poison that is ruining our country - it's time to delegitimize them and the idea that they provide value to the majority of their marks/students. Starve these institutions of the students and the loans necessary to keep them running at their current staffing and program levels.
Obviously that means a sustained assault on the conventional wisdom that 'college is good' for just about anybody, but the fact is that higher education is largely a predatory industry at this point and there are literally millions of people out there who have experienced it first hand.Replies: @Jim Don Bob, @Almost Missouri, @Patrick in SC, @S. Anonyia, @Fidelios Automata, @Seneca44
Even the Washington Post is now publishing articles for normies which quantify the extremely bad investment a liberal arts degree from a private uni is.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/11/01/college-degree-value-major/