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San Francisco, 8:37 PM
Wed Dec 2
29 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/13/09
Or are they gender-blind, like Stephen Colbert?
If neither of these things is true, has anyone considered the possibility of an unconscious bias? (You know, the whole reason we need controls and double-blind studies in science to prevent scientists who want to "ignore gender" or whatever other factors from messing up their own results unconsciously?) Didn't a single person involved in making that list ever take PSY100?
What percentage of the people making this totally unbiased list were female? If it was a pretty low percentage, couldn't that have contributed to an unconscious bias? If that percentage was reversed, and a mostly-female group was tasked with choosing the ten best books without considering gender, would they have perhaps chosen some written by women, without consciously thinking about it?
11/13/09
11/13/09
What I talked about isn't some minor insignificant effect: It is a fact, proven by (properly designed) psychology experiments, that yes, unconscious biases about gender do affect the way a woman's work is evaluated versus that of a man. And obviously this is important in the real world: You can talk all you want about how these top-ten lists don't mean anything, but it should be obvious that if the world of publishing is filled with people who judge women's writing unfairly -- while claiming to be 100% unbiased, no less, and thus prone to dismissing any criticism -- this is likely to lead to, you know, some problems for women writers as a group. So... why isn't this worth analysing, exactly? #books
11/13/09
I'm saying that overanalyzing is bad and leads only to one of two things 1) either hyper sensitivity to the point where the quality of the story becomes totally irrelevant as long as you meet the gender quotas or 2)
an end to any such endeavour at all, because its simply not worth the headache.
Sorry if I'm a little vehement. The subject pissed me off to no end when it came up in a tor.com post some time ago. Uber-PCism to the point where the subject matter itself becomes totally irrelevant really really bothers me. #books
11/13/09
ARGH! I HATE IDIOTS! #books
11/13/09
11/13/09
I have nothing against women. I have nothing against men or blacks or even people from the middle east. Just because they were born under different circumstances than a white man doesn't mean they should obtain special privileges. Perhaps, oh, I don't know, white men have so much more because they actually work to obtain it. I state the truth of the matter, but I'm sure you'd only call me a sexist/racist. Whatever. Pretend you live in a world where we can all be equal. We don't. We never will. If you want to be taken seriously, if you want to have all that others have then you need to work for it. You need to prove yourself by your actions. You don't get something just because you are who you are. Minorities are always sided with, the preferred choice for job offers, etc. Because why? Everyone's so afraid of being the racist one. It's ridiculous. And who ends up suffering because of it? I do. Even if I'm more qualified, even if I'm ten times better, I still won't get to pass them by because idiot society dictates that those who don't have as much get to have more given to them. Yes, those who don't try to do it all get to have it all. THAT makes sense. I guess that's why Obama's president now though, eh? #books
11/14/09
11/13/09
Which are really quite subjective. I'd argue the practice of such lists should be abandoned, but let's face it, they're fun. Not a bad way to seek out new stuff to read, either.
I think people just need to accept everyone's definition of "best of" differs. Don't have a cow because your favorite of favoritest was excluded - heck, make your own list. :) #books
11/13/09
so let me get this straight...the group of people picked what they thought were the best 10 books of the year - without basing those choices on anything but the quality of the books...and people are bitching about it?
isn't this what we WANT?!?!
don't we all want things like gender, genre, race, etc etc to not matter?!?!?
Hypocrisy, you're dong it right! #books
11/13/09
11/13/09
I guess the only way to be sure would be to market books without any author information. Might be a bit too extreme, though. #books
11/13/09
Besides, if I gave you a list of ten books all written by women, and told you that these are the best books to come out this year, and I did not consider gender at all, and the fact that all the writers turned out to be female was due to pure chance, deep down, would you really believe me? If not, why do you believe the people behind this list? #books
11/13/09
I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt because the number of books written by men is probably much higher than those written by women...
damned if you do, damned if you don't...
I would have just put out the list with the statement "Here's our list. Suck It." #books
11/13/09
You know what really peeved me off, though? The fact that they actually claimed to be completely unbiased, that they actually said, "we ignored gender." They didn't even accept the possibility that their list might have an unconscious bias -- and I think that's an even bigger problem than the list itself, because we already have a hard enough time convincing people that unconscious bias *exists,* and that we don't already live in a perfect egalitarian utopia. #books
11/13/09
bias, unconscious or not, exists and will always exist...and it's interesting to me that your focus is on this one aspect of the list - that there are no women - and seems to assume that the reason there are no women on the list is because of gender and not that the people who made the list picked the books they thought were better...isn't it possible that all the books under consideration written by women were simply not as good (in their opinion) than the ones written by men?
that they claimed to be completely unbiased is unfortunate, simply because, as you've pointed out, this is impossible and saying otherwise simply invites the criticism.
who were the Publishers Weekly judges? were they all men? 51% women, 49% men? does it matter?
what were their criteria?
what does the Top 100 Books of 2009 look like (I'm too lazy to look it up and I should really be working right now)?
I'm realizing now why I find this kind of this annoying and frustrating...it's because it's petty...not to say that women don't get the shit end of the stick in almost every aspect of our society, but jebuz! to not be included on a top 10 list isn't a social injustice...
I seem to have lost track of my point...
over the past year or so I've been very consciously buying books by women, because I've felt that, though my reading habits are reasonably(?) broad they do tend toward male writers (mostly I think because of the subject matter and my tastes), but I've been bucking that trend, taking more chances. when choosing between two, otherwise identically interesting back cover blurbs, I'll pick the one written by a woman...just to hear a different voice. different, not necessarily better, as the results have been mixed, like always.
oh and based on the linked article, that Linda Lowen person is a loony...
11/13/09
Also... of every genre book written by a woman last year, "Boneshaker" was the one that got shafted? Don't get me wrong, it's a good book, but it's about as crunchy, inaccessible, and niche as you can possibly get. All due props to Cherie Priest for not trying to be all-things-to-everyone, like Niffenegger, but I doubt very much Priest thought she would be in the running for the Booker prize, either. #books
11/13/09
08/05/09
12/31/08
12/31/08
12/30/08
12/31/08
12/30/08
In fact, Meredith, the more I read this blog, the more I realise that I come here for the cool things that you find and the commenters, not your taste in entertainment.
12/31/08
12/31/08
I liked the piano, too, but I'm just a fool for "Fringe." As they say, "Love is blind," or in this case deaf?
12/30/08
And it made Peter seem like less of an asshole. More please!
12/31/08
12/31/08
12/30/08
12/31/08
12/30/08
And Jenny was awesome, but I can see where you might be intimidated by an attractive and powerful female character who gets out of tough situations with brains as well as brawn.
Gotta agree with you on the cheerleader though. The writers have utterly destroyed the most interesting character of the series. Not sure if even Fuller can save her now. Hmm.. Save the cheerleader, Save the series?
12/30/08
12/30/08
Wait—now we can use this line of argument on women, too?
12/30/08
12/30/08
12/30/08
The sheer impossibility of that phrase speaks for itself.
12/31/08
Ah, but we don't know that the actually moved the island. We just know that from where the Oceanic Six were flying, it was no longer visible.
12/30/08
12/31/08