There are really few things quite so entertaining as watching people as ignorant as a box of pig shit offering their opinions on literature. Especially when the people in question are W.F. Price and his gang of misfit boys at The Spearhead, who are back for yet another take on the whole Women’s Lit question.
At this point I’ve run out of jokes on this particular subject, so I’m just going to let Mr. Price dig his own hole here. Here he is, trying to argue that feminism has made terrible lady writers even terribler.*
[I]t appears that since feminism’s triumph, female achievement in the higher arts has deteriorated substantially. When women no longer have to excel to be read and recognized, but simply have to advertise the fact that they are women to be celebrated for dubious achievements, they won’t put as much effort into producing anything of quality. So the sorry state of women today is a direct result of feminist privilege, which absolves them of all responsibility and deflects any criticism. …
Yes, feminism has wrecked Western womanhood, reducing the young women of today to spoiled brats who can’t take a hint of criticism, and immediately turn to authorities to bolster their self-esteem. No woman can be too fat to be beautiful, too dense to be intelligent, or too dull to be creative. They are all equally super-duper goddesses, before whom men must genuflect and heap up mounds of praise.
Price of course gives no examples to back up any of his, er, “arguments,” and somehow I suspect he hasn’t actually read any fiction written by women beyond an odd title or two he might have been assigned in high school. I wonder if Price could even name a half-dozen living woman novelists without having to resort to Google — excluding JK Rowling, Stephanie Meyer and Jackie Collins (who hasn’t heard of them?) and Harper Lee (who wasn’t assigned To Kill a Mockingbird in high school?).
*I am aware that “terribler” is not a real world.
Oh, here’s my Countdown piece, in case anyone cares. It’s not the sort of thing I usually do, not by a long shot, but I think it’s kinda cool-ish.
But I did grow up on Star Trek
B5 is only 5 seasons, so its not an epic undertaking like a longer-running show. Though, to be fair, if you started with Trek, you’ll likely see a lot of similarities between DS9 and B5 – but B5 did it first!!!
DS9 was so desperately trying to play catch up with B5 xD I love that the endings of both were like “Sheridan is Jesus and ascends back to heaven” “OH YEAH! well Sisko is Hercules and completed his tasks and joined Mt Olympus!”
xDDD
@Jodi Kindle is sweet! I haven’t used the Nook, but I do know having the entire ‘Oz’ series fit into my back pocket (14 books, by the way), as well as science articles and a good dozen other books, is amazing. And the fact that it’s so much better to read on then a computer screen.
@Ami and kirby: Yeah, it’s true. The thing that annoys me about chemistry in particular is a little different. In that, they actually teach the wrong concepts. Literally. And then they stick, like you said. How many people here think electrons go around the nucleus in an orbit? I would guess quite a few. And yet we’ve known they don’t since Bohr.
But yeah, I guess it comes back to the same thing, in a way. We’re all given information when we’re young, and it’s up to us to process that information and decide if it’s true or not. And some people can handle the fact that their old teachers, and friends, and even parents, are often wrong. And some people can’t.
I always hated that B5 had that thing where they thought they weren’t getting a 5th season so they shoved both defeating the Shadows and reclaiming Earth into S4, then got renewed for a 5th season that was always kinda superfluous to me :
“We’re all given information when we’re young, and it’s up to us to process that information and decide if it’s true or not. And some people can handle the fact that their old teachers, and friends, and even parents, are often wrong. And some people can’t.”
This is so very true. I think that’s a common human experience but my background in Christian fundamentalism throws it into particularly sharp relief for me. I attended a Christian university for my undergrad, and I witnessed so much hatred and vitriol there. When an individual’s entire existence is ordered around such a carefully ordered worldview that isdependent on a rigid interpretation,adherence to which determines one’s eternal fate, it’s difficult for that person to question that structure. And so many react with anger, because to question the structure the is to question their entire raison d’etre.
@Nobby that even had that model in TNG. In fact it was the entire thing the plot hinged on (episode: Night Terrors) where the aliens were going “one moon circles” to mean hydrogen and the computer models Data and Troi were looking at had that kind of model and Data who should know everything still subscribes to that xD
In chemistry we actually learned that’s not true, but BEFORE HS chemistry we were taught it is -_- Kinda like how we teach kids that evolution is kinda this intelligent process where things are heading towards a goal, then in university we teach them the truth -_-;; And a lot of ppl never get that far cuz they have no interest in going into those things (and you shouldn’t have to go to university to learn these things). It’s not even like the concepts are that hard xD My mom’s a scientist and she had taught me what DNA was when I was 6 years old… I think ppl underestimate what kids can understand. 😐 And also the idea that adults, or authority know better, and that the world is pretty simple and you know what you “know” :
Though I loved my teacher at the time, my middle-school science class was full of fun little false tid-bits. For a time I believed that snow and ice couldn’t be brought to a temperature lower than freezing…. It actually did take quite a bit of gymnastics to wrap my head around the truth… 😐
The trouble is that you want to present an idea thats understandable to children, that is “good enough” and that piques their interest. Once you’ve hooked them, you can then proceed to disassemble everything they think they know about reality. >:D SCIENCE!
I always hated that B5 had that thing where they thought they weren’t getting a 5th season so they shoved both defeating the Shadows and reclaiming Earth into S4, then got renewed for a 5th season that was always kinda superfluous to me
You are not the only one! Some of the episodes in S5 were still good, but I think the first and fifth seasons are generally seen as rather awkward bookends to some really fantastic television in the middle.
Yus! That’s so my feelings too! S1 and S5 dun rly fit… I mean they do but S2-4 is where it’s at :3
I’m glad I’m not alone in my assessment of B5 tho! Outside of my sister, I dunno any other fans, so I’ve always worried that it’s just me who thinks these things xD
@Ami wow, really? That makes me sad. TNG is actually not usually horrible in that regard. Not great, it is fanciful sci-fi, but to get a basic like that so horribly wrong is… sad 🙁
And yeah, it’s just so strange! As a TA I try to teach the real thing, and when there’s exceptions I point them out. And somehow, my students aren’t paralyzed by confusion! I mean, electrons exist in clouds, done. Was that so hard? And somehow easier then “electrons are in orbits”, two years later “well, kind orbits, but they’re wobbly”, two years later “Okay, not orbits at all actually”. WTF! Kids know what clouds are! And now you’ve locked tons of people, from those who have trouble shifting worldviews to people that simply didn’t get that far, away from the truth that we already knew! Arg!
And evolution is so true too! Lots of people believe intelligent design because the way they’ve been taught evolution is wrong, and so of course when someone comes along and says “That’s wrong!” they’re going to have some traction. And when scientists say “Wait, actually, that’s based on the wrong theories” it gets them even more confused and distrustful, since the same people taught them different. Grr.
And good on your mom, sounds like she treated you like a young person, and not some weird thing that couldn’t handle complex ideas. Were that more people felt the same.
Yeah, I actually provide at least half of the child care in my family, and it is in no way comparable to mowing the lawn. Not even close.
Oh, the old mowing-the-lawn thing. Being the person officially responsible for Manly Tasks like cleaning the pool, mowing the lawn and maintaining the cars? This is a bullshit whine by men who either know better, or do so little day-to-day housework (laundry, meals) that they have no freakin’ clue.
You mow the lawn maybe once a week. It takes a couple of hours, unless you have the back forty, in which case you’re using a riding mower anyway. Once it’s done, it’s done. You will not look out the window to see that the kids were playing and made the lawn grow another two inches. Your spouse will not wrinkle up her nose and say “Bluegrass? Oh, honey, why didn’t you put in fescue?” and make you dig it all up again. You don’t find out that when you sent your wife to the store to buy lawnmower powder that she forgot and bought Doritos instead.
Let’s put it this way: it wasn’t long after I took charge of the lawnmowing that my husband insisted on taking the chore back. Because you mow the fucking lawn and then it’s done. It’s not like planning, shopping for and cooking for a family three times a day, every day.
But it sure works up a sweat, so maybe if you complain to the ladies about how haaaard it is they’ll believe you.
I always found having my books in a bunch of boxes as inefficient and time consuming since I tend to reread books I enjoy.
So I got bookcases and so far have ten of them and need at least four more.
PKD had issues with women. He seems to have taken it out on his female characters, who are disproportionately selfish, manipulative, deceitful, and mean. YMMV
Science is basically all models anyway; the only real deception we spread is often saying “this is true” instead of “this model predicts reality accurately.” One theory is more true than another to the extent that one models reality better than another, but there’s nothing wrong with using a not-so-accurate model because it correctly predicts the particular thing you’re interested in.
(No, I’m not a relativist. Plenty of things are just plain true, but science deals with rather few of them.)
@Joe: No idea what YMMV means, but I’m aware that there are some problematic elements within his work. Ditto for Tolkien, whose female characters are passive one dimensional paragons who occupy a narrow role within his personal mythos. I still enjoy LotR and I still enjoy Philip K. Dick. It’s possible to appreciate certain aspects of a story while being aware of its limitations.
Your Mileage May Vary.
@Katz: “the only real deception we spread is often saying “this is true” instead of “this model predicts reality accurately.””
This is true, I’ll admit. However, that is typically taught as “this is how the world works” (because, again, kids ‘can’t handle abstract concepts’). And the more complex model still predicts the same thing. Why default to an older model which breaks down quickly in every other case, instead of simply teaching the generally accepted model at the start?
Though, I agree that there should be a hell of a lot more logic taught in lower grades, to help kids understand such distinctions.
@Nobby I ttlly agree about teaching more logic. And helping them understand the concepts they’re learning and how the concept logically works, rather than “this is what it is, we’ll teach you why when you’re older” -_-;; I always think some of the things I wish we’d teach kids at lower ages are stuff like evolution, simple statistics and probability, and modern models of chemistry and physics. 🙂 And as you said, there’s a difference between “making it easy for children to understand” and “teaching them something incorrect”. What’s the point in teaching kids that there’s some goal of evolution where every animal wants to fly, or that electrons circle, or etc when you’re just gonna teach them the truth when they grow up? -_-;;
Also my mom is awesome 🙂 She taught me so much when I was young, starting even when I was like 4… before school started. She was never home cuz she worked rly long hours, but she used to stay up at night making tapes for me where she’d read to me and I’d follow along in the book she’s reading, her tapes would explain words to me, and concepts. We read science books that way, and do math. She made little computer programs on our commodore 64 for me too, kinda like mini tests or interactive things for me to learn on 🙂 And she never treated me like I couldn’t understand stuff like DNA or the immune system.
And she did all this despite being in a terrible abusive relationship where my father was never home during the day even tho he didn’t work (he was cheating on her…) and at night… : She was the one who supported the family and raised me and my sister (and she was going to school to catch up on the newer sciences too) AND made sure that even if she was never around, or I couldn’t be around cuz she didn’t want me to see or hear what was going on (except I did : ) , she was there for me, and teaching me and everything.
we discard books and recent magazines by taking them up to the medical home on the other end of the block. They get plenty of use.
and then we don’t have to be bitter about it either.
Sorry I trailed off 🙁 I got too sad 🙁 Needless to say I love my mom and she is awesome 🙂
Zombie made me think that places that could use supplies to make art or do creative things like blackout poetry, etc could also use old comics, magazines and books (and covers) donated 🙂 Like the v awesome trauma therapy group I was part of… and doing art to help heal using donated cloth, magazines, books, etc.. :]