By David Futrelle
The lady literary world is reeling from the revelation that some doofus on Reddit will no longer read books written by women.
The official announcement of this new no-lady-book policy was posted earlier today on the Men Going Their Own Way subreddit.
Adding to the horror: it turns out that many of EMIYA18’s colleagues on the MGTOW subreddit also have “no books by lady authors” policies. (Except maybe that “Wrinkle in Time” book, that was cool.)
“I was like that even before MGTOW,” admitted TheDevilsAdvokaat.
A lot of women’s literature just seemed revolting. The attitudes, the ideas were nonsense and shitty.
There are very few women authors I have actually enjoyed; (So few I cannot even remember their names – I think there was one by a woman who wrote “detective” stories about a roman named Flavius set thousands of years ago). Most of them have weird notions of how the world works and males and females.
Obviously the good gentlemen of the MGTOW subreddit have much-less-weird notions about men and women and pretty much everything else.
Their “men” in particular seem two dimensional and seem to have no life or desire other than trying to please the woman in their life. Also, the most important thing in the book is a relationship between two people. It doesn’t matter if the entire universe is finally collapsing into a central black hole; the most important part of the book (And the most words) will be about some stupid relationship between the female protagonist and one or several men.
Yeah, I really hate that part in the Jane Austen book when the giant alien spiders are covering the earth in their radioactive webs and Emma is like, “Heathcliff, forget the spiders, I want to talk about us and that time you mansplained intergalactic time travel to me because tee hee I’m a girl and I don’t care, wait why am I talking to you, Mr. Darcy is much richer, bye boy, GIRL POWER!”
Ok to be honest I haven’t read any Jane Austen books.
Others agreed: Lady books are all about dumb lady things. “[M]ost of the time, feminine litterature is always about ma rights and ma vagina,” Maxentirunos sniffed. And he’s right: 60% of the time, feminine litterature is about vaginas every time.
And forget about getting any advice from a lady book unless it’s about tampons or something. “I can’t read anything written by a woman anymore about general life advice,” noted TopherOHoolihan.
Maybe if they are covering a specific topic okay, but if its supposed to be a book of wisdom- only men are wise
But it was a MGTOW Redditor called laptopdragon who took it to the next level, noting that he doesn’t even like hearing women talk.
I detest many womens voices on the radio.
especially the raspy, scratchy or whiny voices, and when they they say things:
like
you know
uhm
etc.
actually, it’s anyone with those shitty untrained lack of quality speakers that are on a speaking platform. fuck them and their agenda.
Damn those bitches and manginas pushing their insidious “like” and “you know” agenda!
In conclusion, all attempts by human females to communicate are bad. Happy Sunday!
I love Lindsey Davis’ Falco novels too. I hope she isn’t tainted by this cockwomble’s regard.
Of course incels don’t enjoy books written by (at least most) women! They’re about relationships and connections and similar fake stuff.
Incels, avoid all books. You never know when a set of initials stands for the name of some female who decided to write about her “feelings” and “ideas.” Stick to your videos that explore nonconsensual sex.
I do especially like the part about Emma and Heathcliff battling the spiders from Mars. Something like that anyway.
There’s a quote from Siri Hustvedt’s ‘The Summer Without Men’ that seems apposite here:
“Women read fiction written by women and by men. Most men don’t. If a man opens a novel, he likes to have a masculine name on the cover; it’s reassuring somehow. You never know what might happen to that external genitalia if you immerse yourself in imaginary doings concocted by someone with the goods on the inside. “
Misogynists don’t like books written by feeeeeeeeeeeeemmaaaaaaaalllles
In other news, water is wet
I bet some of them read books by Robin Hobb and enjoy them because they think she’s a man.
If we’re talking Wuthering Heights I’ll just post my favourite grumpy sign. I especially like the implied “So stop bloody asking”.
Hmm, this is interesting. Lately, my reading habits have actually changed to the point that I now read mostly female authors. It wasn’t anything intentional, and one of my favorite authors is still Terry Pratchett, who is definitely male, but I just realized that I enjoyed those books more. Turns out I actually like reading authors who know how to write women as if they’re people, rather than plot devices, and that well-written relationships are actually an important part of making characters feel believable and real. I just can’t bring myself to care very much about the world collapsing in a black hole if I don’t care about the people who would be affected by it, you see.
I am completely unsurprised that MGTOWs exclude books wriiten by women; I’ve always assumed they share a box-set of 1950s sit-coms and a collection of vintage tracts from the John Birch Society as their sole external source of information on the outside world.
I’d be very surprised they read anything by non-MGTOW men either. From their comments online they never read more than the headlines of articles, and often barely comprehend those. Also, they have developed such idiosyncratic forms of grammar, spelling and specialised vocabulary – they have their own definition of “satire”, for example – that it surely suggests a dialect arising from isolation from everyday English.
You really should read Jane Austen—she’s a brilliant satirist.
I wonder if any of the boys have read Lois M. Bujold’s “Ethan of Athos” – with a whole planet of ‘no girls allowed’ they might not even notice that the hero is a woman….
And I’m sure that Webster’s is on the verge of adding the MGTOW definition:
satire: a claim that automatically receives a get-out-of-jail-free card
I always be thankful to my mother that when I was young, Enid Blyton and Astrid Lindgreen were two of the writers my mother introduced me, to.
There are toons of great female writers (look at the Hugo, we had a nearly all womenyear of winners recently), so if you miss them your loose.
The world is so big that you can read what you want so yeah.
(I think most of the stuff I read and like is not for them, because most works have interesting female characters in it)
These guys ought to read Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy, and try to figure out the genders of the characters.
I wonder if MGTOWs would ever read anything JK Rowling published under her male pseudonym? Or perhaps we could introduce them to the works of Currier Bell?
http://www.harkavagrant.com/history/austenmonstertrucksm.png
@Kat – re:definition of satire. Exactly!
He’s got a point, though. Female authors do tend to explore the interpersonal aspect of a story more than – and sometimes at the expense of – the actual plot.
Two cases in point off the top of my head: Rowling’s Harry Potter books and Hobbs’ … well, all of her books. Yes, we get it, the angst is real. Now on with the story, please. (And these are series I actually like enough to own, as opposed to… say … Twilight.)
As to women writing flat male characters, I can’t agree with that. Unbelievable male characters, maybe, but not flat. (Looking at Snape and Fitz there, mostly, in the above examples.)
On the subject of self-help…gender matters. Any advice a woman gives me on how to be a better man is going to be taken with more than a few grains of salt.
That’s what I kept thinking when reading Jane Deana Salinger’s most well known book.
Perfect. Please make sure that every woman around you is aware of this.
I was supposed to lurk but…
Gender doesn’t matter in self-help, it’s the objective. It’s pretty obvious if a woman is aiming for a happy, good man or if she’s aiming for her personal fantasy man. Then again I just don’t even look at the author name.
/em Runs screaming into the night.
“That’s what I kept thinking when reading Jane Deana Salinger’s most well known book.”
Ha!
Actually there have been so many great responses on this thread, I wish I could send muffins to you all.
Cormac McCarthy and Ernest Hemingway are both supposed to be manly authors for manly men to read, and they are all emotion, bugger-all plot. Even if the emotion is barely emoted in dialogue.
While I’m a massive Austen fan, I’ve always found Curse of the Time Travelling Space Spiders to be a little overrated, to be honest.
I much prefer Mystery of Skull Beach (you know, the one where the two older Bennett sisters team up with Miss Havisham to find Captain Flint’s treasure)
Re the OPs
*sigh*
Yes, whatever. I’m sure all the bestselling female authors will read your badly spelled opinions and cry all the way to the bank
I know Harry Potter only came up in passing, but that’s a series I couldn’t finish. I mean, it just shot its own message for me. “Yes! Oppression is bad! (…) Now lets ignore the oppressed almost entirely so the privileged can save them from the privileged, who think they aren’t oppressive enough.” Why is mutual destruction not an option? :/