from a place of wrath and tears
Promise to self and digiblips: at least one rant per month!
Because I ended reading this in an attempt to put off studying for my Russian exam tonight, I'll lift out some random replies.
"This is really not a positive representation of women with agency."
I've commented here before on discussions I've had on the theme of women, the cliches and genre elements surrounding them, especially in "epic" fantasy. Most of such discussions end in women not speaking to me, and helpful men trying to tell me that She is right, and I am wrong. Right there's the paradox in Female Power, you see, my dearest digiblips, because female power works like Bush's Axis of Good: you are either with them, or against them. It's a game women folk play, dear gents, and in the world of chickens, it even has a name.
Anyways, the last couple of years there has been much ado about the place of Woe-man in fantasy and science-fiction. To some points I agree: there is no reason why female authors, nor female characters, should be given less consideration and care. These are mainly issues of marketing and . But I draw the line when the solutions seems to point to More Strong Female Characters All The Time and such nonsense. When I'm in a quaint but happy mood I see in it a plot of Emancipated Caucasian Chicks Inc. putting their hands together with Men who like Two Strong Female Characters for all the obvious reasons. Let's not turn every fantasy story into "Xena and Gabrielle", thank you very much. But mostly it makes me afraid of what Emancipated Caucasian Chicks Inc. will say upon reading my stories.
Seriously, in Dreams of Cold Stone there's only 4 females. Two are simply extras, and two aren't really there (one exists only in memory, being the deceased wife, and the other, a goddess, is an even vaguer female presence).
"If Sullivan desired to invent a dialect, he should have done so. False archaism is sloppy and lazy."
OH YEAH BECAUSE WHAT FANTASY REALLY NEEDS IS EVEN MORE IDIOTS THAT CAN SPEAK IN TONGUES ALL DAY.
"Heavy handed criticism can do wonders when it comes to the too easy habit of letting authors write disposable, unmemorable fantasy/fiction in general."
Yes, because the world absolutely and urgently needs an agency to mark people that dare to write, so a proper quality control of their produce can be done all the time. And here I thought the book-trade was a market regulated world, where--however lamentable or painful this sometimes is--if there are enough people out there willingly to buy shit, writing shit is A-ok.
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Showing posts with label emancipation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label emancipation. Show all posts
Cross your heart & cross your fingers
I've promised myself to get some order in my life, including this blog; order is the order of the day, okay?
Or does that sound too much like I'm trying to convince my lazy, all-over the place, jobless self?
So, like, I'm not going to say up front what kind of organisation I promised myself, because that's setting myself up for having to call myself a liar. No lying, lying bad, okay?
Anyways, for now, let's start with this simple rule: Wednesdays are Alter Ego days.
Ergo, click here for a newly published part of my vampire existence.
And thus I leave you with a sample of our Loire-trip, an example of free thinking medieval France as seen on the outside of the Amboise-castle chapel. Imagine having this over your door...
Or does that sound too much like I'm trying to convince my lazy, all-over the place, jobless self?
So, like, I'm not going to say up front what kind of organisation I promised myself, because that's setting myself up for having to call myself a liar. No lying, lying bad, okay?
Anyways, for now, let's start with this simple rule: Wednesdays are Alter Ego days.
Ergo, click here for a newly published part of my vampire existence.
And thus I leave you with a sample of our Loire-trip, an example of free thinking medieval France as seen on the outside of the Amboise-castle chapel. Imagine having this over your door...
Eve & the snake
YAOK or NOYAOK?
Stephen Deas is looking for YA readers and will throw free copies at them (not literally; the exact reasons and manners can be read on his blog) in a search for the essence of YA.
While I have yet to read the Thief-taker's Apprentice (damned maxed out credit card!), I think Deas makes an excellent point about how subjective the picking of a hero is, and that our childhood heroes are often completely different from those we pick as adults. All you have to do to confirm this is reread a couple of your favourite childhood novels, and you'll easily find that your beloved hero turns out to be a naive git, and that the boring guy is a far more intriguing character.
Only yesterday, whilst conversing with the hubby on *issues* (or -isms as they are or are not present in books or movies; this mainly prompted by our processing of Newton's City of Ruins), we came upon the subject when he reminisced on having heard about heroes and examples in popular culture from his 18y+ students. A bunch of worldly-wise, free and outspoken young women amongst them nominated Druuna as their female heroin and champion. Seriously, if you have no idea who Druuna is, click on the link and you'll see how this is a quite baffling choice for emancipated women to make. NB: I am not judging the choice here, only illuminating that it really is not as easy as it seems.
So I think Deas is engaging in an interesting experiment here. I know I've always been confused by the many ways you can define a genre, and in the end it *is* marketing that decides (as Adam Christopher wonders in his comment), for the same reason that readers of Dark Romance are considered (by marketing dudes) to feel more at ease standing close to the Thrillers and SF&F section than the mainstream Romance.
I'm one of those crazy kids who was reading adult fiction of all genres by the time I was 13, and most of the YA novels I continued to read were either emotionally quite hefty and thought provoking, or SF&F, where the only difference with the adult stuff was the difference in language. And as it happens, one of the definitions of YA zones in on the language used (as in the actual grammar and words) and whether it is on a YA level, which is already pretty vague if we're trying to define a box, if you ask me. Yet, it's the only definition I've found that holds up cross-genre (fiction, thriller, SF/F,...).
I regularly check reviews or comments about YA books, since I'm not averse to reading a YA book once in a while. But I often wonder why adults find a story more easily not-YA-okay (NOYAOK) when it's SF&F YA (based on the -isms or violence or dark and disturbing stuff the story deals with). As if SF&F for teens must always deal with cute ETs and nice unicorns, while mainstream YA fiction can go further without its YA-okayness being questioned.
Well, unless you're asking your Catholic schoolteacher if you can read Aidan Chambers' Now I Know for your book report. Ah, if only she had known that I was also reading and working through Dante's Divina Comedia, verse by verse, as my serious lecture that year. Ah, good times, good times...
While I have yet to read the Thief-taker's Apprentice (damned maxed out credit card!), I think Deas makes an excellent point about how subjective the picking of a hero is, and that our childhood heroes are often completely different from those we pick as adults. All you have to do to confirm this is reread a couple of your favourite childhood novels, and you'll easily find that your beloved hero turns out to be a naive git, and that the boring guy is a far more intriguing character.
Only yesterday, whilst conversing with the hubby on *issues* (or -isms as they are or are not present in books or movies; this mainly prompted by our processing of Newton's City of Ruins), we came upon the subject when he reminisced on having heard about heroes and examples in popular culture from his 18y+ students. A bunch of worldly-wise, free and outspoken young women amongst them nominated Druuna as their female heroin and champion. Seriously, if you have no idea who Druuna is, click on the link and you'll see how this is a quite baffling choice for emancipated women to make. NB: I am not judging the choice here, only illuminating that it really is not as easy as it seems.
So I think Deas is engaging in an interesting experiment here. I know I've always been confused by the many ways you can define a genre, and in the end it *is* marketing that decides (as Adam Christopher wonders in his comment), for the same reason that readers of Dark Romance are considered (by marketing dudes) to feel more at ease standing close to the Thrillers and SF&F section than the mainstream Romance.
I'm one of those crazy kids who was reading adult fiction of all genres by the time I was 13, and most of the YA novels I continued to read were either emotionally quite hefty and thought provoking, or SF&F, where the only difference with the adult stuff was the difference in language. And as it happens, one of the definitions of YA zones in on the language used (as in the actual grammar and words) and whether it is on a YA level, which is already pretty vague if we're trying to define a box, if you ask me. Yet, it's the only definition I've found that holds up cross-genre (fiction, thriller, SF/F,...).
I regularly check reviews or comments about YA books, since I'm not averse to reading a YA book once in a while. But I often wonder why adults find a story more easily not-YA-okay (NOYAOK) when it's SF&F YA (based on the -isms or violence or dark and disturbing stuff the story deals with). As if SF&F for teens must always deal with cute ETs and nice unicorns, while mainstream YA fiction can go further without its YA-okayness being questioned.
Well, unless you're asking your Catholic schoolteacher if you can read Aidan Chambers' Now I Know for your book report. Ah, if only she had known that I was also reading and working through Dante's Divina Comedia, verse by verse, as my serious lecture that year. Ah, good times, good times...
Women!
Through SF Tidbits and an article on the Role of the Artist, I came across this 2008 movie (in a Nick Mamatas' comment) featuring a lot of urban fantasy covers to prove how alike they all are.
Besides pointing out advertising trends at work in cover design, what I sort of expected the movie to point out was not only how the heroines nearly all being bare backed, tattooed,... but failed to do, is that those heroines all hold their knives in that psycho-killer way that is, erm, only useful if you're going to do psycho-killing and don't really mind stabbing yourself in the leg or guts if you miss (or if you're holding a stake because, you know, then you need the staking force to do some vampire killing). Now, I'm not a card carrying member of Emancipated Caucasian Chicks Inc., yet it struck me as strange that for creatures having lived in the kitchen with sharp knives for so long, we still can't figure out how to hold them...
That said, I feel the need to rant away some on emancipation:
I consider myself an emancipated person. "Person" and not "woman", because emancipation should not care about gender or color. Besides, I don't like the crowd of emancipated women (ECC Inc.) out there. A lot of them always try to tell me how I should be emancipated, and how to dress, speak and act, and dude, that even usually didn't even work for my mom.
You think that funny? I'm rather wary of them, for a few reasons, like:
Modern Age Working Woman is still discriminated against!
They mean: they try and have this career, and also a family, and in the end they take up more sick leave and other social benefits (maternity leave for starters), and at the end of the road they'll have earned less in the Belgian Social Welfare State, because they have less days of real work. That's like, discrimination!
Now, I disagree, vehemently. I don't mind if some benefit to support The Mom is created, but this should be for The Mom, whether she has a job/career or not. But how would it be "levelling the playing field" if women get this special treatment that they don't even need to get the same amount of days of real work done to get the same paycheck? And hello men? Who got you all so pussy-whipped that you just nod and applaud at those Emancipated Women?
Besides that, I find it thoroughly insulting when Emancipated Women, in their enlightened emancipated way, are pushing forward some weird biological imperative that women are made for breeding and they just can't help getting pregnant. Nothing against getting pregnant, but in this day and age, it is a choice (yeah yeah, accidents and bad things happen to women, but overall speaking). If you want kids, you think long and hard about it, and if you're not sure, get a puppy. Because I made my choice, and I don't mind my hard earned tax-euros going to your maternity leave, your child support, the sick days you take to look after your sick children, your children's education, because socially speaking, in the end I'll be needing your children to take care of me in my old days because I'm not having any. But don't pretend it's discrimination if you don't like the choices you made, else I'll be wanting my money back.
Veiled = oppressed
A lot of those Emancipated Women are now focusing on liberating the oppressed third and fourth generation muslimas from their hijab here in Europe. Now the hijab discussion is a difficult one. Separation of state and church can lend arguments to banning the hijab from public office etc, but then, as I understand it, the hijab is not quite a religious symbol.
Banning it from school, or what some people would even prefer: from the street!, makes me rather squeamish of the current trends in society. I grew up in the late eighties/early nineties, and have vivid memories of how black was banned from school because black = drugs&sex&rock'nroll and no good can come from it! Unless it's NafNaf black, of course. Like "proper" black. Else, it's a life of addiction and welfare coupons, dudette!
Some years ago the discussion on the hijab was still about public office and limited to a more political view on things, now my hackles are raised seeing it are mainly Emancipated Women trying to liberate these oppressed young girls and giving them a chance on a real future by:
1) singling them out in a discriminatory way. You'll notice nobody cares that the young boys' cultural dress code makes them look like gangsta rapping car-thieves, I mean, they're boys, they're stupid anyway, and a lost cause. No, these girls are smart, the learn well, and if our economy is to be saved, we'll need more of those. Not those car-thieving idiots that fill up our prisons and get free meals with our hard earned tax-euros.
2)teaching them how they have to adapt to our reality, even if that reality is illegal. In my book, no discrimination means no discrimination. A whole lot of these girls are more mature and have a stronger will or voice than the average whitie kid. I don't mind if you teach them how to roll with the punches life can and will deal them, but seriously, teach 'm to stand up for their rights first. Imagine if they'd said back in the days: look sweetie, I know you have the legal right to vote, but seriously, they're just going to be mean to you when you go to the polling station. So, better stay at home. What's for dinner?
3) creating peer pressure wars between those young women who believe the hijab is a sign of decency and comply to tradition, and others that are really willing to comply to our twisted standards (mini-skirts, y'all, and no veils damnit! show those boobs!). A lot of these hijab-wearing girls are so smart, they use the veil to throw a shadow over all those things girls do in puberty. In bilingual Belgium, it's even so funny that those smart girls, who speak a North-African language and French as natives, eagerly learn Flemish because their parents don't understand it. I mean, what bunch of friends needs codes to speak about boys while parental units are near, if you have a whole language! Especially if talking that language is good exercise to land you a job! See, mom, dad, I'm a good little girl. Change the hijab into knee-length skirts and other nerd-girl signatures, and you'll see how, if not handled with calm and subtlety, you might end up with some really twisted girls.
This cry for burn yourbra veil lately feels to me like the last stand of Emancipated Women trying to get a hold on girls who threaten to find their own path to emancipation. And that simply won't do, because for them, emancipation is about control. Trust me, I've been at the wrong end of their stick once too often.
More Women Needed at Top Levels!
Personally, I'd settle for: more competent people needed at top levels, man or woman. Competence is what matters.
I especially loathe the discourse in which more women up there would make the world a better, warmer, fuzzier place.
Seriously, people who want women in powerful positions at all cost:
a) are card carrying members of ECC Inc. angling for a seat of power or supporting their local chapter's hot potato
b) if male: never had their dicks pounded into the dirt by an ex
b) never went to an all-girls school, or have never seen a cat fight up close. Laugh all you want about "hair pulling" as fighting skill, what you don't see is the months of crippling but very warm and fuzzy bullying that follows. Take it from one: women are vicious and a woman scorned, yadda yadda.
c) ehem, Thatcher anyone? Very warm and fuzzy. Yup.
I don't mind if women get power as long they're competent. But just because they will inspire the world with love and warmth: not a valid argument.
Okay, end rant.
Besides pointing out advertising trends at work in cover design, what I sort of expected the movie to point out was not only how the heroines nearly all being bare backed, tattooed,... but failed to do, is that those heroines all hold their knives in that psycho-killer way that is, erm, only useful if you're going to do psycho-killing and don't really mind stabbing yourself in the leg or guts if you miss (or if you're holding a stake because, you know, then you need the staking force to do some vampire killing). Now, I'm not a card carrying member of Emancipated Caucasian Chicks Inc., yet it struck me as strange that for creatures having lived in the kitchen with sharp knives for so long, we still can't figure out how to hold them...
That said, I feel the need to rant away some on emancipation:
I consider myself an emancipated person. "Person" and not "woman", because emancipation should not care about gender or color. Besides, I don't like the crowd of emancipated women (ECC Inc.) out there. A lot of them always try to tell me how I should be emancipated, and how to dress, speak and act, and dude, that even usually didn't even work for my mom.
You think that funny? I'm rather wary of them, for a few reasons, like:
Modern Age Working Woman is still discriminated against!
They mean: they try and have this career, and also a family, and in the end they take up more sick leave and other social benefits (maternity leave for starters), and at the end of the road they'll have earned less in the Belgian Social Welfare State, because they have less days of real work. That's like, discrimination!
Now, I disagree, vehemently. I don't mind if some benefit to support The Mom is created, but this should be for The Mom, whether she has a job/career or not. But how would it be "levelling the playing field" if women get this special treatment that they don't even need to get the same amount of days of real work done to get the same paycheck? And hello men? Who got you all so pussy-whipped that you just nod and applaud at those Emancipated Women?
Besides that, I find it thoroughly insulting when Emancipated Women, in their enlightened emancipated way, are pushing forward some weird biological imperative that women are made for breeding and they just can't help getting pregnant. Nothing against getting pregnant, but in this day and age, it is a choice (yeah yeah, accidents and bad things happen to women, but overall speaking). If you want kids, you think long and hard about it, and if you're not sure, get a puppy. Because I made my choice, and I don't mind my hard earned tax-euros going to your maternity leave, your child support, the sick days you take to look after your sick children, your children's education, because socially speaking, in the end I'll be needing your children to take care of me in my old days because I'm not having any. But don't pretend it's discrimination if you don't like the choices you made, else I'll be wanting my money back.
Veiled = oppressed
A lot of those Emancipated Women are now focusing on liberating the oppressed third and fourth generation muslimas from their hijab here in Europe. Now the hijab discussion is a difficult one. Separation of state and church can lend arguments to banning the hijab from public office etc, but then, as I understand it, the hijab is not quite a religious symbol.
Banning it from school, or what some people would even prefer: from the street!, makes me rather squeamish of the current trends in society. I grew up in the late eighties/early nineties, and have vivid memories of how black was banned from school because black = drugs&sex&rock'nroll and no good can come from it! Unless it's NafNaf black, of course. Like "proper" black. Else, it's a life of addiction and welfare coupons, dudette!
Some years ago the discussion on the hijab was still about public office and limited to a more political view on things, now my hackles are raised seeing it are mainly Emancipated Women trying to liberate these oppressed young girls and giving them a chance on a real future by:
1) singling them out in a discriminatory way. You'll notice nobody cares that the young boys' cultural dress code makes them look like gangsta rapping car-thieves, I mean, they're boys, they're stupid anyway, and a lost cause. No, these girls are smart, the learn well, and if our economy is to be saved, we'll need more of those. Not those car-thieving idiots that fill up our prisons and get free meals with our hard earned tax-euros.
2)teaching them how they have to adapt to our reality, even if that reality is illegal. In my book, no discrimination means no discrimination. A whole lot of these girls are more mature and have a stronger will or voice than the average whitie kid. I don't mind if you teach them how to roll with the punches life can and will deal them, but seriously, teach 'm to stand up for their rights first. Imagine if they'd said back in the days: look sweetie, I know you have the legal right to vote, but seriously, they're just going to be mean to you when you go to the polling station. So, better stay at home. What's for dinner?
3) creating peer pressure wars between those young women who believe the hijab is a sign of decency and comply to tradition, and others that are really willing to comply to our twisted standards (mini-skirts, y'all, and no veils damnit! show those boobs!). A lot of these hijab-wearing girls are so smart, they use the veil to throw a shadow over all those things girls do in puberty. In bilingual Belgium, it's even so funny that those smart girls, who speak a North-African language and French as natives, eagerly learn Flemish because their parents don't understand it. I mean, what bunch of friends needs codes to speak about boys while parental units are near, if you have a whole language! Especially if talking that language is good exercise to land you a job! See, mom, dad, I'm a good little girl. Change the hijab into knee-length skirts and other nerd-girl signatures, and you'll see how, if not handled with calm and subtlety, you might end up with some really twisted girls.
This cry for burn your
More Women Needed at Top Levels!
Personally, I'd settle for: more competent people needed at top levels, man or woman. Competence is what matters.
I especially loathe the discourse in which more women up there would make the world a better, warmer, fuzzier place.
Seriously, people who want women in powerful positions at all cost:
a) are card carrying members of ECC Inc. angling for a seat of power or supporting their local chapter's hot potato
b) if male: never had their dicks pounded into the dirt by an ex
b) never went to an all-girls school, or have never seen a cat fight up close. Laugh all you want about "hair pulling" as fighting skill, what you don't see is the months of crippling but very warm and fuzzy bullying that follows. Take it from one: women are vicious and a woman scorned, yadda yadda.
c) ehem, Thatcher anyone? Very warm and fuzzy. Yup.
I don't mind if women get power as long they're competent. But just because they will inspire the world with love and warmth: not a valid argument.
Okay, end rant.
