A professor at the school where I did my graduate work taught a course on genius (ugh). No joke he said: “I’m confused why there are no woman geniuses. And no Asian geniuses either! I wish someone would explain it to me!” FACEPALM.

Yup. That’s *Exactly* what I’m talking about. My last piece was dissecting the word ‘genius’ - first for how it’s so often applied to mathematics and science, second... To men. Really fucks with your head after a while.

There are certain phenomena that play a few parts in causing these public proclamations to pop up every so often that white male writers don’t seem to be aware of. It’s nothing personal. And I don’t want to offend, but rather just offer up a frame of reference.

To be fair, the acronym for bae is just a white appropriation of a term that has existed for quite some time in black english. Bae actually is a shortening of babe or baby that I personally find much more tolerable and not quite as infantilizing. The whole “before anyone/anything else” thing is a more recent evolution…

I’m pretty sure the acronym nonsense is a backronym, and you are correct that it originally was just shorthand for “babe.”

The absolute worst for that was Girl Who Played with Fire. I swear Larsson couldn’t go a page and a half without lovingly describing Lisbeth’s breasts, and what everyone she encountered thought about her breasts.

But if people didn’t babble about it, the chances of more walking the walk would be decreased to. let them “congratulate” themselves with one fucking article. She mentioned ONE person who wrote about it more than once...like, really? I’ve worked for these supposedly self congratulatory people-I call them people who…

Yeah. . . . I’m a bit torn here. On the one hand, I think it’s obnoxious to be publicly self-aggrandizing about ANY of one’s reading choices (e.g. This year, I will only read 19th century Russian literature)—it’s particularly irritating (no, enraging) if people are heaping praise on themselves for reading literature…

I’m done reading male authors bc pretty much I’ve got the male perspective down. I don’t entirely exclude them; I will read something if it looks like it is not the same-old, same-old, but I do routinely pass up books by men for a book by a woman. Misandry, blah blah.

I did that too, one summer, and then I realized I naturally like books by women better because I don’t have the same kind of jarring moments of weirdness when I realize I’m looking at women through the male gaze of the writer, like a woman being described as having cone-shaped, very perky breasts apropos of nothing…

It’s not a boycott, though, and it’s not about making a political statement. I didn’t read female authors because male authors are bad or I wanted to stick it to them; I read female authors because, as with most people, female authors had been seriously underrepresented in my reading up to that point. It’s a bit like…

In my book group, I’m the broken record asking to read women writers.It’s crazy to me how much consciousness it takes, and it’s a women's group.

This is exactly why your piece rubbed me the wrong way. Because, for a lot of these people (though by no means all), they really ARE being brave. A lot of us are in our coastal urban bubbles, and the people who make up our emotional support networks are all generally progressive and in agreement with us, and we don’t…

I did this last year. I had just realized how many books I was reading were written by males and decided to dedicate the year to reading mostly female writers. It was amazing going to the book store and having to actually search for books because most of the recommended ones were by men.

I practice affirmative action on my picks for reading on purpose. I read around 40 books a year and I still have around 20 books in my “to-read” bookshelf at any given time. I buy books (shut up I have money and I like them). I have limited time so I need to optimize and the first year that I practiced affirmative…

I spent a year only reading female authors several years ago (2007, maybe? I can’t remember for sure). It was really eye-opening, both in finding writing I wouldn’t have found otherwise and in seeing just how heavily male my usual reading skews.

So I should read more books by women, especially women of color, I just shouldn’t talk about it or tell anyone I’m doing it, which would include encouraging others to do it.

wait wasn’t this a ‘thing’ on jezebel last year? is that why it’s passe now?

Nancy and Hillary are killing it, tho.

This is why I hate “the kids” ironic retro 80s/90s parties. Unless you’re dressing like Barbara you’re doing it wrong. this is the horror I lived through once—don’t make me deal with it again.