Don’t ever let it be said that all Men’s Rights Activists hate women so much that they can’t recognize any contributions that women have ever made to civilization.
In the Men’s Rights subreddit, one brave soul named omegaphallic recently stood up to give two cheers to the ladies:
Yeah, saying women hardly ever produce scientific or cultural stuff is bullsh*t, and it makes the MRM look bad.
So let’s hear it. What have the little ladies done?
Some of the best actors, musicians, volleyballs players, writers, pornstars, plus there are some really good female scientists now adays.
Well, that’s an interesting list, omegaphallic. But it seems a little … incomplete.
Hell even in the MRM, the honeybadgers are a major cultural influence, amoung other women.
Ah, I knew there was something missing! The Honey Badgers truly are some of the most accomplished women the world has ever seen, especially when it comes to getting people to send them money for completely ridiculous lawsuits.
Look just because we had a genuine conflict with feminists, and women have sexist advanatges like the pussy pass, doesn’t mean there aren’t awesome a talented women out their.
Yeah, I mean, they have things way easier than us, but you know, some of them aren’t totally incompetent, especially when it comes to the volleyballing, the porning, the Honey Badgering.
I support the MRM to fight discrimination against men and to fight feminist lies and corruption, not to just dump on women for sh*ts and giggles.
I actually tend to like alot of women and enjoy their company for its own sake, so I hate it when some guys act like MRM cliches.
Alot of women, huh?
You’re welcome!
H/T — r/againstmensrights
In the YA aimed areas Kelley Armstrong is a fantastic read. The two main characters are really well developed theirs both a lot of really horrifying stuff but also a sense of fun and adventure. In fact its so good I wrote a review of it. https://theeveningstarr.wordpress.com/2015/05/26/sea-of-shadows-by-kelly-armstroing/ The sequil is slitly weaker in my opinion but still very high quality. She also does a Urban fantasy series that I heard was quite good.
Holly Black is also a fantastic writer. She as a middle grade author with a beautiful series called the Spiderwick Chronicles. She now primarily writes YA. Her Curse Workers series (starting with “White Cat”) is a really clever series full of scheming and complex family relationships. She also has a trilogy of Graphic Novels called “The Good Neighbors” that are absolutely masterful.
I love Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, its one of my favorites.
Also, I see many similarities between the Honey Badgers and Serena Joy. They are Patriarchal Women who enable the groups like the MRA and general misogyny. There’s also a similarity between Serena Joy and Margaret White (from Carrie); they are both religious women who embrace the patriarchal gender roles that they wouldn’t even dream of questioning it.
From a Jungian perspective (I read a lot of Jung and Freud and James Hillman) its like these Patriarchal women are repressing their animus.
It seems there are a lot of people here conversant with YA fantasy–maybe you can help me identify a book. In this world random people have/develop element magic. For some reason these people are asked to form into groups of four, one for each element. The people in these groups are from different backgrounds/social strata/etc. and aren’t predisposed to get along, but most of the story (in the first book, at least–I believe it was a series but I only read the first one) was how the four people in one group learn to get along and work as a team. I recall the cover was a sort of art noveau line drawing. Does this ring any bells?
Guest, that almost sounds like the Circle of Magic series by Tamora Pierce (do the names Briar, Tris, Daja, and Sandry ring any bells?).
It doesn’t quite match, because there aren’t exactly 4 elements, and there aren’t multiple groups…
But the coming from completely different backgrounds adn the learning to work as a team?
Dead on.
The first book was “Sandry’s Book” if I remember correctly.
I thought at first that might be it (I think someone mentioned it upthread), which is what brought it to mind, but I read the plot synopsis and unless I’m wildly misremembering (certainly possible) that’s not it. Some of the differences are that ISTR specifically that each member of the group had a specific element magic (not plants or weather etc. but rather the ability to work with/manipulate a single element), the people involved are brought from their relatively stable home lives to be formed into a team, and they are (somehow, I forget why) competing against other similar teams of four.
Manga has been mentioned, but there are also women authors in western comics worth checking out. Gail Simone has pretty much spent her whole career adding diversity to DC’s roster, both “Secret Six “series (pre and post New 52 versions) are in the process of being released. Also her take on “Red Sonja” is a lot of fun, culling all the problematic stuff from her backstory and putting her in more sensible clothes.
Kelley Sue DeConnick is also someone whose work I enjoyed, most recently her take on Captain Marvel, which I hope will provide the template for a possible Captain Marvel film in the future.
There appear to be more women artists than writers knocking about the world of western comicdom, my personal favourite being Fiona Staples who makes Brian K.Vaughan’s “Saga” story so compelling.
Guest, I can’t recall anything like that. But… it sounds awesome. If you find it, drop us a note?
@ Brony
Dresden Files. If you’re looking for recommendations, right now my advice would be to try out Faith Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock series. Urban fantasy, where the city is a character and not just a setting, first-person viewpoint, noir feeling even during the daylight scenes, and a broad-based approach to the supernatural. Plus some very well-done fight scenes, characters who are keeping secrets they won’t reveal straight away, and some other cool elements I won’t share due to spoilers.
@ mockingbird
Aw, shucks. Thank you kindly for the compliment. I hope you find some new authors to enjoy.
Last published book that I read that I know was written by a woman was Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl, which I loved. What a twisted look at modern relationships and abuse.
Got beat to the punch re: Gail Simone–she was the only one who leaped to mind that no one else had mentioned. I’ve got my grubby hands on Secret Six but haven’t read it, yet, but having been a rabid Birds of Prey fanboy, I have nothing but high expectations.
Others that were already named: Gail Caringer, Margaret Atwood (I just finished The Heart Goes Last–it’s odd, kind of like two very different, really good books that were mashed together somewhere around the midpoint), Madeline L’Engle (if all Christians were like her, I might never have become an atheist; as it is, she’s a big part of the reason it’s still easy for me to respect people of faith), Joyce Carol Oates, Dorothy L. Sayers (whom I rank well above Agatha, despite having once owned/read literally every book the latter ever wrote), Toboso Yana, Patricia Highsmith (I still need to finish the Ripley series), and of course, Shaenon Garrity (she technically mentioned herself, correctly assessing her own quality as a writer).
Other names to add:
Rumiko Takahashi (probably any number of manga/anime authors, actually–I just don’t recognize Japanese naming conventions well enough to pick out feminine names, so I just know what I like, unless a specific author’s gender is brought to my attention), Marguerite de Angeli (a very distant cousin who wrote awesome children’s books–I can’t recommend her work highly enough, especially Black Fox of Lorne), I’m bizarrely hooked on Diana Rowland’s Demon paranormal romance series, and, oh, lest we forget: Mary “Hi, I invented this genre the Sad Puppies think only men can write, you’re welcome” Shelley.
I think the books with elemental magic you are trying to remember is the Blendingseries by Sharon Green. I remember reading them, way back. One of those series with some fantasy elements and some sex.
Gail Simone is also the writer who took what Liefeld had created (which honestly wasn’t good), improved it, and gave us the REAL Deadpool.
@ Skiriki
Gail Simone did quite the rehab job on Catman, too.
“women have sexist advanatges like the pussy pass”
Tell me more about the nonexistent “pussy pass” and its “advanatges”, Sir. You’re such a fount of wisdom when it comes to us women-folk.
Trufax.
Liefeld and Nicieza did give us a good foundation, but what makes Deadpool really great (instead of just a Deathstroke joke) was the artists and authors that came after them to really flesh him out and make him more than just a joke.
@ Victorious Parasol
I’ve always hated the idea of bring back some old character to make a laughingstock of them. Seeing Simone do that in reverse was honestly one of my favorite moments in comics.
@ pitshade
Agreed. I couldn’t believe what I was reading at first, but Simone came through, as she does so well.
Back when I was a young adult, I discovered Anne McCaffrey. The first book I read was The Ship Who Sang. I have all of the Dragonrider series, which husbeast and I bonded over when we first met.
I’m 55 and still love YA fiction *shrug*
If we’re going to bring up names like Dorothy L. Sayers, I’d like to add Ngaio Marsh, one of the best I’ve ever read.
Also, if we can go back past 1989, I’d mention Barabra Tuchman as one of the great US historians of the 20th century.
And I’m sure someone has mentioned Rita Mae Brown, but just to be sure …
In the YA field, I’d recommend “Missing Pieces” a first novel by Meredith Tate just published last year (with a second novel to appear soon), and I’ll swear on the Collected Works of Virginia Woolf that I’m not saying that just because Meredith has been my daughter’s best friend since second grade.
A few other names to throw on the pile: Martha Wells (fantasy/science fantasy, great worldbuilding), Kristine Smith (hard SF, novels pondering what it means to be human and what happens next), Elizabeth Ann Scarborough (try The Healer’s War if you’re interested in Vietnam), and Elizabeth Hand (try Waking the Moon if you’re tired of sugar-sweet goddess stories, or Black Light if you’re interested in Greek myths and the 1970s).
IKR? Seriously, how ignorant do you have to be to go “And there was that one recent series by a woman that was pretty good, but I forget what it was…oh, Harry Potter! That’s it!”
However, I’m contractually obligated to tease you for saying “fiction novelist.”
A few writers I haven’t seen mentioned yet:
C.J. Cherryh. Writes wonderfully complex plots and characters, though she’s not to everyone’s tastes.
Ellis Peter. Her Brother Cadfael books have a wonderful feminist spin on them, as well as being a detailed look at Medieval lives and times.
C.J. Freidman (I think I spelled her last name right). In Conquest Born and The Wilding are great examples of how to write SF humans without leaving the reader with the idea that white is the default human color. They’re also great reads in their own right, to boot. Plus I swear that the Braxin race is her showing what Gor would be like if real people were running that society….
Redsilkphoenix: I agree with you on Cherryh’s characters; I just got repeatedly annoyed with her endings–I don’t need everything wrapped up, but a lot of the time I just felt like she got bored and stopped typing.
Earlier when I asked about books like The Dresden Files I asked about “similar books by female people”. Would it have been better to say “non-cis male people”? I realized that was a bit exclusionary, I think.
@Katz
http://s9.favim.com/orig/130911/beautiful-bring-it-on-cute-disney-Favim.com-914052.gif