dear Krista

I am very honoured that you took the trouble to read my book.

I secretly (well hardly, now I've made it open) wonder in my mind if you are really female, or pretending to be so to infiltrate this group.

Well, I hope not, and if you are not female, please stop it.

On the other hand, if you really are a woman, I award you the title of 'feminine hero, first class.'

But I have something serious to say regarding what I have read here - that is, ALL the comments.

Why do we have to have this culture of 'us' and 'them'? (i.e. men and women envying and hating one another).

Why are you ladies so upset about some silly man winning a competition or some research that says men are cleverer or more 'sucessful' than women, or whatever?

Can you think deeper please?

e.g. what is CLEVERER?

what is 'success'?

It is about getting an 'important job title' and money?

I would just like to say that I think success is about having a kind, loving human heart.

Who gives a monkey's about IQ tests?

High IQ people are rarely 'happy' so what sort of success is that?

Or maybe we should judge success on 'status.'

So in that case, is anybody really jealous of George Bush Jr?

Would you like to do the blowing up of other countries and so on instead of him, and wear that president 'hat'?

Please, please - I beg you all - stop this war between men and women.

There's no need. It does no good.

If you don't hate men to the point of wanting to extinct them, please consider being friends with us.

If you just can't tolerate men, OK. Avoid us. Live in your own female world.

But please don't brand us all with the same brush.

We ARE human beings just like you.

If the world - and the feminist culture - stops labelling men as animals, as beasts, and starts thinking of us as human beings, maybe there is a slight chance we will become so.

Some men are beasts quite true. But many men so desperately want the chance to love women, and I mean not just in a sexual sense, but to care for and be kind to all the women they can find. And children too.

best wishes

SF

Hello,

I recently read the following books. I found them to be very interesting.

Please note that they are all by female authors except for one of them.

The Manipulated Man
by Esther Vilar

Legalizing Misandry: From Public Shame to Systemic Discrimination Against Men by Paul Nathanson, Katherine Young

Predatory Female by Shannon Lawrence

The WAR AGAINST BOYS: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men by Christina Hoff Sommers

A Men's liberation guide to women
by Sam Fryman

Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women by Christina Hoff-Sommers

WHAT OUR MOTHERS DIDN'T TELL US: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman Paperback by Danielle Crittenden

Edited by author 10-07-2005 02:40 PM
Catfight

Germaine Greer and Sappho; who woulda thunk?

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hmmm...obviously a man wrote that, because I do believe the correct grammar is

"Women are more clever than men..."

Good morning! Welcome to a new week! Update: You still live in a society geared at every level to undermine the success of women

New tests indicate men are cleverer than women. Hmm. Who wrote those tests, I wonder?


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not often one hears a man say that george. kudos.

Your bodies go under the knife

Just looking out the window these days tells me that perhaps it's not the best year to update a feminist classic. Our Bodies, Ourselves goes under the knife and comes out slender and pink. Additions include trendier graphics, prettier people, opinions on the Brazilian bikini wax, and, unbelievably (unless you've been following America this last decade), a new pro-marriage emphasis. I can feel my inner lesbian lacing up her parade boots.


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Shriver on winning

Lionel Shriver, winner of the Orange Prize for We Need to Talk About Kevin, says women can't compete.

Throughout the whole Orange prize experience I was confronted with evidence that women are uncomfortable with naked ambition, trained to have low expectations, embarrassed by head-to-head competition, and virtually obliged to act abashed when they win. In contrast to a certain other sex that will go unmentioned.
...
Another hunch: men who win big literary prizes are rarely asked if they are "surprised", much less required to be. On TV, I watched Alan Hollinghurst win the Booker for The Line of Beauty last autumn, and his lengthy acceptance speech was clearly prepared. I doubt that any journalist asked him afterwards if he was surprised. He was expected to have faith in his work, and so to be honoured and gratified but not embarrassed or shocked. And a man, even an American man in Britain, would much more readily get away with that "subterranean suspicion" remark without seeming brash. Men who believe in the value of their work and expect its quality to be rewarded are confident. Women of the same ilk are uppity.

Interesting theory. And I think largely right. But I do have to say, I've been doing the "I'm not gonna win" thing for years. Mostly with the lottery, but I do it.


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Edited by author 06-10-2005 09:49 AM
Appignanesi on Simone de Beauvoir

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Edited by author 05-31-2005 09:37 AM
You never listen to me; I mean really listen

So, it looks like it isn't that the Orange prize ghettoises women, it's that men ghettoise women. This is so disappointing. Boys, I am so disapponted in you. Go to your room.

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We are family

That's why we fight so much. A brief history of the women's movement in Canada.

One big happy family, it was not.

The women's movement in Canada was rancorous and chaotic for much of its 35-year history. But it achieved more, lasted longer and became more racially and ideologically diverse than any feminist coalition in the world.



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Sing it, sister

Former Women's Review of Books editor Lynn Walterick dispells some myths about the reviews recent announcement of impending doom.

...feminism is not "over" and it won't be. But, then, feminism is not merely a movement or a "wave": it's a way of being in the world. One of my friends, a fiction writer, was asked in an interview whether her stories represent a feminist perspective. In her reply she said she believes the word has gotten distorted over time, and added, "I love that Rebecca West quote: 'I've never been able to find out precisely what feminism is. I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.'"

Anyone who has gone shopping for a doormat recently, or looked through house and garden magazines, will know that doormats have undergone a makeover: no longer dull, mud–colored rubber or bristled slabs, they now feature whimsical chickens, or pigs, or cats, or sweet vine–covered cottages, in hues not unlike those in a Crayola box.

But people still wipe their feet on them.



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In Macleans?

When I first saw it on PFW, I thought, holy flurking snurt! An article about feminism in Macleans? WTF? That's like finding an article on chaos theory in Sports Illustrated. Then, I read it.

NEIL BOYD KNOWS how to stir a pot. In the past 16 years, he's denounced mandatory minimum sentences for murderers, promoted decriminalizing marijuana, and argued that biology, not culture, is primarily responsible for male aggression. You might think this last position, which he staked out in The Beast Within (2000), puts the Simon Fraser University criminologist in league with another group of biological reductionists, radical feminists. Think again. With his most recent book, Big Sister (Greystone Books), Boyd, a self-described equality feminist, takes on what he calls "extreme feminism." Its doctrine that women are victims of an aggressive male sexuality, he argues, has infiltrated North American laws regulating pornography, sexual harassment, sexual assault and domestic violence. In the process, it's spawned a "sexual McCarthyism" that undermines feminism as a whole.

Bad feminists! Bad bad! It's your own darn fault things aren't equal. Luckily the reviewer takes a(n overly) diplomatic swipe at this load of crap.



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Bell Hooks in Toronto

Profile of feminist, writer, theorist, children's author Hooks, in town for readings and talks.

Part of her particular gift as an academic is her ability to make highfalutin, incomprehensible theory accessible to a huge range of people. She's deeply committed to challenging the elitism of academia. In town for this weekend's Spirit Matters conference at the University of Toronto, she's spending Saturday giving a public talk on behalf of the Toronto Women's Bookstore, prefaced by a free storytelling session for kids.



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"It's reasonable to assume that there is a gender gap between a book called "The Bases Were Loaded (and So Was I)" and anything with "Shopaholic" in its title."

Mother's Day books* highlight a perceived gender gap in reading tastes. Once, when I was 15 and working at Coles (a Canadian bookchain bought out by WH Smith which was then bought out by Chapters which was then bought out by Indigo) a woman came up to the counter with a book called The Yeast Connection. I looked at it blankly and said, "What is this, some kind of cookbook?" She went white and my assistant manager hauled me to the back room for a long talk my mother should have already had with me. What I'm trying to say here is, of course books are gender-coded! If it had been a guy, that book would have been about bread or beer.



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