- Joined
- Jun 25, 2008
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As to sexism being a factor in the industry as a whole I suspect that there is some, but not nearly as much as you're suggesting. (Suppose that makes me 'naive,' ;-)
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But the way to amend that is for women to excel in their fields and prove the stupid lingering biases wrong.
I've taken the liberty of cutting and pasting a few of your points slightly out of context, so please tell me if I've muddled your point at all. I just assume your suggestion for fixing sexism in society is the same as your suggestion for fixing sexism in the literary world.
I think the point here is that a lot of women in literature have proved the detractors wrong--I gave three examples in my first post. But the sexism still exists (at least it is many of the opinion of many that it does).
And besides, our idea of what constitutes good literature was created by a gender-biased society. Nobody argues that that woman in your example is very awesome, but "good writers" and "good books" are, (as we have been reminded many many many times on this site) subjective. Throwing yourself in front of a bullet is not.
Which is not to say that all conventional wisdom of literary standards is rubbish, but it does make us wonder how things might have been different if women were more respected and "feminine" books and writers weren't instantly regarded as inferior.