http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/18/you-might-not-think-youre-a-sexist-until-you-take-a-look-at-your-bookshelf?CMP=share_btn_fb
What do you have to say for yourselves, /lit/?
I'm a sexist tbqh
>>8078380
This
Why did she honestly think this article was worth writing?
Well lets see I have Jane Austin, Charlotte Bronte, Simone de Beauvoir, Luce Irigaray, Judith Butler (minus points for Lesbian), Arundhati Roy (bonus points for non-white), hope to read Virgina Woolf in the future
Write better, woman, if you want to be on my bookshelf.
Why women always play dirty?
When I read contemporary poetry it's pretty much 60% female. But other than that it's got to be like 80% men, I'm sort of working on it though I guess.
>>8078412
>Butler gets docked points for "Lesbian"
>no comment on Beauvoir's Lesbian Paedophilia
My favorite part of this 3rd or 4th wave feminism is that they spend 99% of their effort and time calling each other sexists.
>>8078412
All safe white-male picks. Keep reveling in your soft sexism, senpai.
>Part of the problem is that while art or books that white men put out is portrayed as universally appealing, culture produced by women or people of color is seen as specific to their gender or racial identity.
Maybe they should write about something else besides their gender or racial identity
My god, how inane.
>>8078406
have a look at the list of articles she has written
in her mind, practically everything in existence is some perceived slight against women
her next article is probably going be something like, those little packets of sugar you get in coffee shops are symbolic of the patriarchy
>>8078406
click counter
i mean i won't click it and the writer is probably a retard that drinks the kool aid but their handlers and overseers know why they hire them.
also that's probably mild by academy standards.
>>8078376
There are 3-4x more submissions of book manuscripts to publishers and agents by men than by women. This figure was doubtless even greater in the past.
I feel like that's all that really needs to be said on the matter of why we read more men than women, but apparently not.
>>8078376
Shannon Hale is outraged that only girls came to her AMA at some middleschool
>I don't only talk about girl stuff
She's the author of The Princess Academy series
>>8078451
Beauvoir wasn't a proper Lesbian though, she was just an evil cunt
>>8078380
First post best post.
>>8078376
That white men have produced better quality work and are better in general at pretty much everything compared to all other groups. That's why they could conquer and colonize the entire planet, subjugate women for millennia and maintain world dominance throughout history. No shit they write better books too.
>>8078376
I don't read women because I relate more to men and how men think. I don't relate to women and how women think. I read Pride and Prejudice and thought it was boring. I finished the entire book, I forced myself through it because I wanted to read a book by a woman. It was good but boring.
>>8078904
>I don't read women because
dude if you haven't read Middlemarch just because it was written by a woman, you've missed out on one of the best books ever written in English
but then if you dismiss Pride and Prejudice as boring then you're probably better off with Tom Clancy or whatever
>>8078376
Liberal feminism is inane.
>>8078915
Tom Clancy is pretty bad, I like how you just assume things based on my statement that I thought Pride and Prejudice was boring, good one. I'll look into Middlemarch.
>Reading a book written by a woman, that's not about bunny rabbits or wizards
>>8078928
the best book about bunny rabbits was written by a man
>>8078888
Butler claims there's only performed lesbians and genders etc was the point I was getting at. Though I agree Beauvoir's an evil cunt, it does make me wonder if feminists really read her or are just trolling us.
Not really sure where this would go.
>>8078960
This anon knows what he's talking about. Accept no inferior female substitute when it comes to rabbit based fiction.
homie i do not give a fuck
>but when your worldview is solely shaped by men, you are missing out.
on what?
>>8078412
whats the best edition of the second sex? if that is what you are referencing
do women believe the lies men tell them
The last two books I read were The Godfather and The Family Corleone, and I loved them both to bits.
Guess I'm a chauvinistic prick.
>>8079114
"i promise i won't cum in your mouth" usually only gets believed twice at most
>>8078376
I almost exclusively read books by
>dead
>white
>men
HUEHUEHUEHUEHUE SAVEMEFROMTHEMADNESSOFBOLSHEVISTSOCIETY
I just took a look at all the books that I own. 100% male authors.
I'm not sexist i just want to read books i can relate to not some cheesy romance written by some stupid woman fuck women man they're all whores why wont they sex me
Literally all the greatest works were produced by men. I don't choose to consume men; I choose to consume the greatest works. These people are discounting the importance of books solely because of generic, imprecise and possibly irrelevant characteristics of the books' authors, rather than because of the content of the books themselves.
>>8078376
>http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/18/you-might-not-think-youre-a-sexist-until-you-take-a-look-at-your-bookshelf?CMP=share_btn_fb
this has been flamed so hard they disabled comments
I mostly read men because men have written most of the great books ever published.
I like and own books by quite a number of female authors though, including:
>Emily Dickinson
>Emily Bronte
>Anne Bronte
>Charlotte Bronte
>Jane Austen
>George Elliot
>Virginia Woolf
>Alice Munro
>Sylvia Plath
>Sappho
Okay I think that's it. For what it's worth Woolf and Munro make it into my top 5 favourite authors, alongside Chekhov, C.S Lewis and Tolstoy.
My book shelf is almost all male, but my record shelves are like 20% women. Am I sexist?
>For example, I was riding the subway recently when I noticed my seatmate scrolling through a Twitter feed that looked remarkably like mine. I was tickled to be sitting next to a like-minded person, but as I looked on I noticed there was one thing that seemed to be missing from his newsfeed: women.
how about you don't stare into other peoples phones creep?
this is my favorite novel
am i a sexist?
>>8078874
>I feel like that's all that really needs to be said on the matter
>>8078376
Ideas are not sexist, if you really wanna get deep and intimate, you ought to check out my anus to see if I'm really sexist or not.
>>8078376
I don't usually think I'm sexist, but then I read articles like this and realize I really do hate women.
All the women in my shelf are Nationalists and Chantel Mouffe
what benefit is it to me, a straight white male, to read more books by women? lolalso lmao @ the trans erasure in this article
>>8079127
guess you're a pleb kek
>>8079982
Not to mention the lack of asexual gender fluid otherkin. Absolutely triggering
>>8078376
jokes on them i don't have a bookshelf
>>8078968
The Second Sex is essential feminist literature
>>8080008
wow, funny and original
>>8079982
>trans
>""""people""""
Male readers need female writers like a bicycle needs a fish.
I'm so much happier without them.
stopped reading when I saw it was written by Jessica Valenti" to be honest
>>8078376
My bookshelf is a bunch of big beautiful dicks.
Just like the English canon.
literally the first sentence of this article is false. Just because you saw it on a picture doesn't mean it's true. I met John Waters like 3 or 4 years ago and he was doing a monologue on how he never said that.
all women writers write is clickbait man hate shite.
no way I'm spending money on that when I can get it for free on the internet
>mfw I heard a sjw (and a literal social crusader, not the /v/ manbabby "everyone who is a girl and isn't alt right is a sjw" sjw) today quote Nietzsche
i liked the left hand of darkness im progressive now
I thank virginia woolf for not making me sexist.
>>8080941
I tried to read virginia woolf to give women a shot but then the book was utter shit (albeit with some solid prose) and it reinforced whatever latent sexism was there
>>8080930
SJWs and Alt-Righters are the degenerate children of Nietzsche's übermensch via 60s counterculture
>>8080984
The übermensch is all about breaking out of a crashing moral structure and reinventing one by force of will. Which SJWism has done very well. Their moral structure is at its core completely incomprehensible to rational people.
The alt-right, however, is a big tent movement encompassing essentially every active objection to SJW ideas and methods. It is not defined by the believes-in-ZOG niche, and most of those people are just trolling anyway to poke fun at the reaction to these secular shibboleths of modern "leftism."
>>8080962
This. I read Dalloway and thought it was kind of indulgent, but I read Room of One's Own to give the author a second chance. Probably didn't make that choice smartly in retrospect.
The Dispossessed is one of my absolute favorites though, and is by a woman.
>>8078376
I'm openly and proudly a so-called sexist, same with "racism" and "anti-semitism".
>>8081062
The alt-right is a pretty bizarre and wholly postmodern phenomenon. A pseudo-nazi moverment led by Jews and homosexuals. Little shits who don't know whether their racism is genuine or ironic and really don't care anymore because their whole world is nothing but unrelenting absurdity. Much like liberals, their politics are pure performance achieving anything is less important than generating a reaction. The older white nationalists have adopted some aspects of meme culture, though rather awkwardly.
>>8078376
how can you stuff so muchEOLOGY in one single paragraph.
>>8081113
But absurdism and postmodernism is fun.
>>8081062
>doesn't appreciate woolf
>"The Dispossessed is one of my absolute favorites though"
genre trash is hopeless
>>8081138
that's what the hippies said
>>8081138
At least until it devours us all
>>8078820
This
I don't judge books by the authors gender. I really enjoy O'Connor, woolfe, Emily bronte, Dickinson and plath.
But the fact is that more men have written more great books. I won't lower my standards for someone else's opinion of me.
>>8079204
I like your taste, Anon.
>>8081202
croats don't apply.
>>8081113
literally me to be honest
I'm pretty sure my racism is ironic but I think I really do hate people who choose Islam as an ideology.
Honestly I could care less about the white race or any race in general but its good fun offending people on twitter by spouting this stuff with an anime avatar.
If I took it more seriously I'd probably just be a centrist, but this is more fun.
There are some people who really believe this stuff, especially those who do podcasts or youtube and I think that is the funniest thing. Its like the SJWs but this way I get to laugh at them too.
>>8081113
You may be confusing their methods with their message. This guy understands the meme magic well http://www.lukeford.net/blog/?p=93156
>wholly postmodern phenomenon
I hadn't heard that before. I'm pretty skeptical of the idea but very curious and willing to entertain it. Do you have any material that makes the case in depth/at length?
>>8080311
>essential
clearly not
>>8081252
The real question for you is:
If your boss came up to you and gave you the choice of
A. Becoming muslim, getting a 100k a year raise, and 2 15 year old wives, and continuing your life as before
or
B. Getting fired, which would you choose?
>>8079105
Sorry its been a few years since I read it and don't have my copy at hand so not sure which version it was
>>8078820
Well yea that's what happens when you make your race or gender 100% of your identity weird how that works.
well at least I can feel superior to feminists!
I'm also a male, so that must make me better than them too. And on top of that I'm white AND cis, so I'm pretty much amazing without actually doing anything with my life
yes, this is really the way you people think
everybody with half a brain can see through this garbage on both sides, and it really makes me sad that so many of you seem to be caught up in anti-feminism just as the young women are caught up in their brand of feminism
you are no better than them, that's for sure
>>8078820
>tfw no dykish qt to write sentimental gender neutral Americana in the modern day
>>8082639
Then I become a self loathing muslim because I am a man without principle or consistency
>>8078376
I wasn't sexist until I started reading this bitch's articles. I hate women with a passion now.
Most of my books are by men
Most of the music I listen to is by women
Riddle me this
>>8082715
music is inferior to literature
women are inferior to men
>>8078875
If you read the article you illiterate shitlord you'd have learnt that they only sent the girls to listen to her
>>8078820
Exactly, no one thinks Flannery O'connor or Alexander Dumas were specific to their gender or racial identity.
>>8078376
I have Susanna Clarke, GEM Anscombe, and Dorothy Sayers; none of which could be considered to be 3rd wave feminists/feminazis.
I really only have Agatha Christie other than some psychology books that have female co writers.
>half my bookshelf is ancient history
No women there that's for sure.
>>8078820
This.
>>8078412
INTO
THE
TRASH
YOU
GO
Maybe women should write better books. Or maybe they better understand what books women want and therefore their books appeal more to women?
>>8082903
anon if you haven't read any mary beard, you're missing out.
>>8082724
ok buddy
Last book I read written by a woman was SPQR. I found it to be a very competent book. Informative, interesting and the word "misogyny" only appears three or four times during a short chapter about ancient Roman women in Roman society.
Prior to that... Fuck if I know, might be a few classical/older collections that were compiled/edited by a woman or man/woman team.
I GUESS I'm sexist? Boo-hoo.
>>8078376
I think maybe a quarter or a third of the books I read are written by women authors. I guess that makes me a huge muh sogginist because women aren't fifty percent or higher. Oh well. Honestly I would read a book by a cannibal or a serial killer if it was good, I don't care what colour or gender the author is.
It's just that nowadays, when a book by a non white author comes out and gets attention, I wonder if it's being praised because it's well written, or if the author is from an interesting minority. I don't really see evidence for discrimination against women in literature so I don't get the same suspicion for books by female authors. I want to read good books, not get memed into reading something because the author is from a fashionable outgroup.
Just look at the whole "Yi Fen Chou" shitstorm.
>>8083340
Isn't she a pop history writer? I saw her book SPQR but wrote it off in favor of reading primary sources and more erudite but less accessible secondary sources like Gibbon and Mommsen.
>>8083602
>Isn't she a pop history writer?
she's professor of classics at cambridge mate
it's fair to say she's pretty "erudite" herself
>primary sources
one of the points she makes is that primary sources are often unreliable
>>8083652
Being a classics professor says nothing about what you write, only about what you read.
>unreliable
Everyone knows that. But if you're not a classics scholar, who cares? Nobody is going to test you on specific details, and part of the fun is getting different angles from different countries and time periods to see what each guy's deal is.
And even in terms of secondary sources why bother with a minor modern writer when there exist world-famous writers with hundreds of years of repute, and even nobel prizes won for their work? Bearing in mind the nearly bottomless pile of books on Rome, what makes Beard so worthwile?
The only woman that ever had any literary talent was Virginia Woolf
But damn, could that woman write
>>8082724
Joyce was of the opinion that music was superior to literature
>>8084562
Joyce also had a mustache. I don't trust men with mustaches.
>>8084143
>Everyone knows that. But if you're not a classics scholar, who cares? Nobody is going to test you on specific details
Seriously?
People shouldn't care that the history they're reading is bullshit because "nobody is going to test you on it lol :^)"?
Fuck off.
>>8081252
I only hate the Turks and I consider myself to be a pretty serious socialist
>>8083602
>Gibbon and Mommsen
Gibbon and Mommsen are both pretty fucking outdated at this point 2bhwu
I'm a Classics student and my favourite author is Syme. I have used Mommsen a lot though. I just did a Ancient History course on the Meditteranean and the main reading in that field was Finley, Ian Morris and Horden&Purcell.
>>8078820
Pushkin's great grandfather was an African slave. Patricia Highsmith was a lesbian in the fifties. Jack London was a child laborer in a factory and then literally homeless.
They wrote about their personal struggles, but had the depth to consider issues not directly pertaining to their own lives. Indeed, one could speculate that the difference between a memoirist and a novelist is the capacity to write and consider perspectives which are not their own. Self insertion and heavy handed lectures are limiting (inb4 but jack London...)
>>8084633
There's a difference between "Xenophon had a pro-Spartan bias because he was buddies with their king and retired on land gifted to him by their state" and "lol everything Xenophon said was wrong," retard.
>>8084654
Had only heard of Syme in passing (recognized "the roman revolution" on his wiki page after reading your post) but his books look impressive. What does someone like Syme add to your understanding of the ancient world that isn't provided by the older outdated authors? Any other book recommendations? I've churned through a lot of primary sources, and while I'm not done with them yet I'm starting to keep an eye out for worthwile secondary sources.
>>8078820
but you're supposed to like it
they don't have to appeal to an audience, the audience should come to them out of kindness and fairness and general goodness and as reparations for past wrongs
>>8084717
Syme's focus on historians (his works on Sallust and Tacitus) provide a great understanding of the contemporary Roman historians that makes reading their work more fulfilling. Also if you can grab a book of collected Syme essays, they've really helped me. If you care at all about the Classical economy, Moses Finley's Ancient Economy is very well written and was seminal. Ronald Mellor is good for some overview, as is David Abulafia (writing about the whole Mediterranean) and Fernand Braudel for something more erudite. Honestly, the Cambridge Companions to {X} are generally great as a collection of good essays.
As for what they give us that older authors don't is a fresh view, influenced by both older authors and new evidence. Despite what you might think, there are important discoveries made quite often, such as new papyri or other archaeological finds. Almost all modern authors will, for example, agree that Gibbon overstated the decline narrative. Not to mention that we in the modern age understand the world differently to how Gibbon understood it.
what's with the /pol/ style threads lately? no one gives a shit about sexism and racism.
>>8085605
Thank you very much for the recommendations. I've read the historians investigated by Syme (even Sallust's fragmented histories and pseudo-Sallustian letters to Caesar), and am definitely interested in some modern scholarship on them; on reading Sallust he immediately became one of my favorite ancient historians, and although Tacitus wasn't as fun, I got the feeling while reading that he would be one of the writers I turn around and appreciate in retrospect, like how I despised Polybius only to adore him after reading a few more historians.
And thanks for the perspective on modern scholarship. The significance of it looks to depend heavily on what you hope to glean from history; obviously the ancients weren't overly concerned with accuracy, and although I've enjoyed their usual angle of moral instruction, I'm definitely interested in at least checking out what modern history is "supposed" to look like, if only to better prepare for reading modern works on more modern issues.
Much obliged, mate! Cheers!
>>8078376
>http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/18/you-might-not-think-youre-a-sexist-until-you-take-a-look-at-your-bookshelf?CMP=share_btn_fb
I was going to read this article until I realized it was written by a woman.
>>8078820
Muh fragment
>>8084143
it seems to extremely unlikely that you will ever be a professor of anything
unless you are simply professing your own idiocy
>>8079093
Periods.
>>8078820
But they do! Take for example "Ayiti", which is a series of short stories about Haitians. Yes, there is obviously a cultural perspective (they are Haitians after all), but the struggles presented are not uniformly about "being Haitian". Even this book by an SJW who would probably earn the worst ire on 4chan could present insight on the human condition, not just the Haitian condition.
The real problem isn't that they only right about narrow experiences, at least I've never seen this. The problem is that these SJWs demand that 1. We respect these works as representative of some broader human condition while 2. Trying to promote reading these authors based on their identity. Their identity becomes the reason for their promotion, while at the same time, the promoters ask why people are only talking about their identity.
I see no easy answer. There is a homogeneity in academia which needs fighting, but fighting it for its own sake trivializes actually good work.
>>8086381
Yeah that's exactly my point. I have no interest in a modern academia type investigation of ancient history, and frankly anyone else who isn't interested in being a classics professor is wasting their time obsessing over exact accuracy. Ancient writers did not care about facts in the same way that we do now, and reading them for "accuracy" outside of an academic setting betrays an ironic lack of understanding about the purposes and styles of early writers of history, and would earn the derision of most of them, for having totally missed the point of what they wrote.
>>8087464
>i know the minds of ancient writers
quite a trick, anon. can you contact the spirit of my dead dog for me too?
btw, i can call spirits from the vasty deep
>>8082649
We're just self sufficient.
We really don't need women writers.
And it's not like women writers are nice people who deserve a break and love and money and adulation and attention. They're competently toxic. Fuck 'em. Let the sisterhood support them.
>>8085847
Denial of the existence of unpleasant facts is a poor strategy for life.
>>8087580
I'm not in denial of anything. Life is too short to give a rat's ass about some sexist woman.
>>8087580
nuh uh
Only book I have written by woman is Frankenstein.
>>8078376
Maybe more women should write better.
As it stands, I only have Flannery O'Connor, Virginia Woolf, Djuna Barnes, and Iris Murdoch. I'm not a sexist. I just prefer good writing.
The social justice can't lead anywhere because its core argument is that there's a right to interfere with one's mind to “correct” it, which isn't possible, neither technically or legally. This article is suggesting people should be bound to read authors within a set of conditions, whether it is formalized through an education bill or a publishing policy, and moreover they must be forced to appreciate female and minority writers. Both make no sense. When you're required to do so, simply tell “no”, that your opinion is the highest authority when deciding your tastes, or that you “won't read more female authors”. There's nothing a social justice warrior can do about it.
>>8078380
this (And also a racist)
>>8079212
yes
Nothing anyone ever says or does will make me want to read an author because of their gender, or sexuality, or socioeconomic background.
I'm not devoting hours of my time to something I don't want to read purely because someone somewhere thinks there's a quota that should be met over what my personal taste should be.
If I want to read something, it's because I fucking want to read it, and to suggest I do otherwise is fucking absurd.
>>8088984
It's sexist to prefer good writing though, since it's a masculine value
