Lord of the Flies with girls.

[Orang Utan]

This is fair enough, but as soon as you write a statement like 'women are better at writing men than men are' or 'men are better at writing women than women are', you'd better be able to back it up.

Ah, so just listen and absorb. Don't ask questions.

^^^
more evidence of you not listening. you think i've said something that's only in your head

 

[Johnny Vodka]

^^^
more evidence of you not listening

No, not really. You're very easily TOLD what to think as long as you believe the source to be 'right on'. Given how many books are written, I'd rather go with the "it's nearly impossible to say that 100%" option and consider that critics who say they know 100% are probably self-selecting a very small subset of books. Heck, it's not like we're even restricting the grand statements to a particular genre. I don't intend to argue with you further on this topic. But you go on pushing grand statements like 'women can write male characters better than men can' if you like.

 

[Orang Utan]

No, not really. You're very easily TOLD what to think as long as you believe the source to be 'right on'. Given how many books are written, I'd rather go with the "it's nearly impossible to say that 100%" option and consider that critics who say they know 100% are probably self-selecting a very small subset of books. Heck, it's not like we're even restricting the grand statements to a particular genre. I don't intend to argue with you further on this topic. But you go on pushing grand statements like 'women can write male characters better than men can' if you like.

YOU'RE NOT LISTENING AND JUST MAKING STUFF UP ABOUT WHAT I SAID
(and most of the preceding statement either makes no sense or is very badly expressed)

 

[Johnny Vodka]

YOU'RE NOT LISTENING AND JUST MAKING STUFF UP ABOUT WHAT I SAID

Nope. Night.

 

[Orang Utan]

Nope. Night.

Did I say ''women can write male characters better than men can'?

 

[Johnny Vodka]

Did I say ''women can write male characters better than men can'?

#82 is close enough, not an exact quote but hey-ho.

 

[Orang Utan]

#82 is close enough, not an exact quote but hey-ho.

no it's not, this is your problem.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

no it's not, this is your problem.

So what was your point then?

 

[Orang Utan]

So what was your point then?

i've made my point, you haven't read what i said.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

i've made my point, you haven't read what i said.

I could have sworn I did... Anyway, this is going nowhere. Night.

 

[Orang Utan]

I could have sworn I did... Anyway, this is going nowhere. Night.

no, you are thinking i am making black and white statements - this is your problem, you can only see black and white in a world of gray

 

[mrs quoad]

Crikey.

It's all gone a little bit #MRA.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

no, you are thinking i am making black and white statements - this is your problem, you can only see black and white in a world of gray

Erm, no. How the heck do you figure that out?

 

[mrs quoad]

That patriarchy thing?

Meh.

Did no one notice Nancy Reagan?

It's all individuals, really.

History? What history.

Women? Everywhere.

Literature? Oh, no. Canon? What canon. Political correctness gone mad.

I like Cormac, me. Thumbs.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

That patriarchy thing?

Meh.

Did no one notice Nancy Reagan?

It's all individuals, really.

History? What history.

Women? Everywhere.

Literature? Oh, no. Canon? What canon. Political correctness gone mad.

I like Cormac, me. Thumbs.

Erm, okay.

 

[Orang Utan]

Erm, no. How the heck do you figure that out?

you rewrote my statements, even putting them in inverted commas, to say something i hadn't.
If you really want to know which male writers write well about women, why are you asking me?
i can confidently state that a lot of women writers I've read are more insightful about men than some men writers, because I've read those books. have you?

 

[Johnny Vodka]

you rewrote my statements, even putting them in inverted commas, to say something i hadn't.
If you really want to know which male writers write well about women, why are you asking me?
i can confidently state that a lot of women writers I've read are more insightful about men than some men writers, because I've read those books. have you?

Which books? You do realise that the assertions you make are opinion, don't you? What one person finds insightful another might not, especially given we're all individuals and characters are written as such.

 

[Orang Utan]

Which books? You do realise that the assertions you make are opinion, don't you? What one person finds insightful another might not, especially given we're all individuals and characters are written as such.

this is an entirely redundant statement.

 

[Orang Utan]

Which books?

again, why is it my job to school you?
i did mention some authors earlier anyway.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

again, why is it my job to school you?
i did mention some authors earlier anyway.

I don't read much these days, even less sci-fi - but I can accept that sci-fi as a genre might be more about ideas than characters as a starting point.

 

[Orang Utan]

I don't read much these days, even less sci-fi - but I can accept that sci-fi as a genre might be more about ideas than characters as a starting point.

well there you go. you won't read and you will only view literature through a lens of 'ideas', divorced from any political or social reality, so you don't even understand science-fiction

 

[Johnny Vodka]

well there you go. you won't read and you will only view literature through a lens of 'ideas', divorced from any political or social reality, so you don't even understand science-fiction

Won't? I don't have time for more than an hour's fix of popular culture a day between working, looking after a flat/garden, caring for my dad and exercising. But the criticisms levelled at books are the same levelled at TV shows and films (which I have just slightly more time for), even though the viewer has more choice than ever and no-one can claim to have experienced everything going. What is it you don't think I understand about science fiction?

 

[DotCommunist]

of course sci-fi itself discusses ideas surrounding gender and so forth- Ursula Le Guin for instance. For a long time this was exception rather than norm though. Sci Fi remained a male dominated field for most of her early life ('The women's movement has made most of us conscious of the fact that SF has either totally ignored women, or presented them as squeaking dolls subject to instant rape by monsters--or old-maid scientists desexed by hypertrophy of the intellectual organs--or, at best, loyal little wives or mistresses of accomplished heroes' ULG).
Asimov is a good example to use in the way to explain an uncertainly realised (in his own head) chauvinism. His Susan Calvin is a character completely desexed by that hpertrophy. In the one story where she does come to love she destroys the robot consciousness because it can lie- the woman scorned- and I grant you he was a creature of his time and place but an ungenerous reading is that Susan Calvin is every female scientist or lab assistant who gave him the cold shoulder or adhered to professionalism in what was a male dominated sphere where they were considered wives-in-waiting or indeed, old maids.
Christ philip k dicks was more than capablre of a certain attitude that does not sit well, rudely yanks you out of his deliciously paranoiac otherworld sometimes.

Thats why things bear close examination, thats why simply 'I recon' in place of rigour doesn't cut it. Make the argument, if it is there to be made then do it.