Books To Jump Up and Down Over
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (Bat Segundo interview with Murphy)
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (Bat Segundo interview with McClear)
Sexism Archive
-
Jennifer Schuessler: “Literary Occupation: Housewife”
Posted on June 6, 2011 | 4 CommentsWhy does Jennifer Schuessler and The New York Times believe that any women who speaks her mind is engaging in a feud? Or little more than a happy housewife heroine? -
The Super Bowl: Madison Avenue Misogyny
Posted on February 8, 2010 | 11 CommentsIt was a great game, perhaps the most gripping final NFL showdown of the past five years, with a second half opening with a daring onside kick and Garrett Hartley... -
McCain’s Women’s Clinic
Posted on September 15, 2008 | No Comments -
Dave Sim: The Stalin of Comics
Posted on May 27, 2008 | 5 CommentsIn case you haven’t heard the news, the once great Dave Sim has demanded that anyone who corresponds with him must pledge that Sim isn’t a misogynist. The whole business... -
I Need a Husband!
Posted on February 13, 2008 | 29 CommentsAbout six months after I continued to remain happy and childless, I saw a woman sitting with her son on a blanket. Her name, I later discovered, was Lori and... -
Watson, Can You Smear Me?
Posted on November 5, 2007 | No CommentsMany things have been written about James Watson’s inglorious Imus homage, but for my money, Annalee’s column, pointing out the remarkable arrogance and needless associations with race and gender, is... -
Sam Tanenhaus: Let the Cheap Sensationalism Continue
Posted on September 22, 2007 | No CommentsHave you heard the latest from Sam Tanenhaus’s dismal literary tabloid? Writers should be pilloried for writing the sentence “Men are rats.” It’s an absolute scandal. Toni Bentley, presumably recruited... -
Unnamed “Surveys” That I Pulled Out of My Ass Confirm That NPR is Full of Shit
Posted on September 12, 2007 | No CommentsNPR: “McEwan’s prognosis is surely hyperbole, but only slightly. Surveys consistently find that women read more books than men, especially fiction. Explanations abound, from the biological differences between the male... -
Apparently, David Remnick Also Thinks Women Aren’t Funny
Posted on September 4, 2007 | 5 CommentsBenjamin Cohen has a gender breakdown of contributors to the New Yorker‘s “Shouts & Murmurs” section. The results are extremely troubling. It seems that only 17 of the 133 authors... -
Roy Den Hollander: A Man of Limitations, A Man of Principle
Posted on July 27, 2007 | 7 CommentsSeveral groups of men have, at long last, discovered the true evil that lurks beneath the nightlife underbelly and have initiated the appropriate legislation to exact justice for the greatest... -
“Unlike a Lot of Women, I Like Beer!”
Posted on July 17, 2007 | 3 CommentsWell, who knew that there weren’t a lot of women who imbibed beer in the 1970s? That is, if we believe Michelob. There are important questions that must be answered:... -
Screenwriters: All White, All Male, All the Time
Posted on May 8, 2007 | No CommentsHollywood Reporter: “With the exception of female TV writers, women and minority scribes have made little progress of late in seeking fair employment and earnings in Hollywood, according to a... -
Garrison Keillor: Spokesman for Sexist Hunter-Gathering Revival Movement?
Posted on January 24, 2007 | 4 CommentsGarrison Keillor: “It’s a guy thing, shoveling snow. It’s a form of marking. You shovel the walk to show other males that you’re on the scene and operating at full... -
Comedy: Rated XX
Posted on December 7, 2006 | 2 CommentsChristopher Hitchens: “If I am correct about this, which I am, then the explanation for the superior funniness of men is much the same as for the inferior funniness of... -
The Same Way You “Cure” an Agoraphobic By Dropping Him Off Into an Iowa Cornfield and Driving Off
Posted on November 13, 2006 | No CommentsUPI: “Women with allergic symptoms after intercourse may be allergic to their partner’s semen, but the cure for some is more sex, say U.S. researchers.” -
Maryland Appellate Court to Women: “Shut Up, Bitch! He Said You Said Yes!”
Posted on November 6, 2006 | No CommentsWBAL: “An appellate court said Maryland’s rape law is clear — no doesn’t mean no when it follows a yes and intercourse has begun.” This is utterly appalling and utterly... -
Credibility Gap
Posted on September 19, 2006 | 1 CommentNew York Times: “The panel dismissed the idea, notably advanced last year by Lawrence H. Summers, then the president of Harvard, that the relative dearth of women in the upper... -
I Assume This Has Something to Do With the Invite She Got to the Flanagan Barbeque
Posted on September 6, 2006 | No CommentsGuardian: “Telling women not to expect orgasms but to fake them, and to praise their partner lavishly afterwards, is not advice normally associated with a woman who has been in... -
Boys Will Be Boys
Posted on September 4, 2006 | No Comments -
Harlan Ellison: The Norman Mailer of Speculative Fiction
Posted on August 28, 2006 | 49 Comments[Photo removed at the request of Keith Stokes. Offending image available here.] [UPDATE: Keith Stokes continues to play a game of cultural revisionism, regularly changing the filenames of his photographs... -
Otto Peltzer Gets Cozy
Posted on August 11, 2006 | No Comments[EDITOR'S NOTE: This post, as you've probably already gathered, is a parody of Otto Penzler's New York Sun column. But since Mr. Penzler has threatened me by email, I have... -
But It’s a Different Kind of Sexist Assumption. It Comes from a Television-Obsessed Yokel at the Kansas City Star.
Posted on August 3, 2006 | No CommentsAaron Barnhart really should know better: “But she’s a different kind of nerd. Brainy, pretty and ironic, Wagner blows away the stereotype of the pasty-skinned white male with a closet... -
This Week in Gilead Watch
Posted on July 25, 2006 | No CommentsHouston Chronicle: “Under the bill, anyone who helps a pregnant minor cross state lines to obtain an abortion without parental knowledge could be punished by unspecified fines and up to... -
PBS is Sexist and Spineless
Posted on July 22, 2006 | 47 CommentsPBS has fired Melanie Martinez, host of The Good Night Show. Her crime? Appearing in this amusing thirty-second video, which doesn’t feature Ms. Martinez naked but has her making fun... -
Why Boris Johnson Won’t Get Laid Any Time Soon
Posted on June 15, 2006 | 4 CommentsBoris Johnson suggests that the world can be described as one involving women who read and men who don’t. Actually, it can be divided as follows: people who think, people... -
One Step Closer to Gilead
Posted on May 16, 2006 | No CommentsWashington Post: “New federal guidelines ask all females capable of conceiving a baby to treat themselves — and to be treated by the health care system — as pre-pregnant, regardless... -
Who Knew the Male Book Reviewers of New York Were So Sexist?
Posted on April 19, 2006 | 2 CommentsNew York Press: “Who knew the women of public radio were so attractive?” -
A Nation of Forensic Vagina Inspectors
Posted on April 9, 2006 | No CommentsNew York Times: “There are other countries in the world that, like El Salvador, completely ban abortion, including Malta, Chile and Colombia. El Salvador, however, has not only a total... -
Tell Caitlin What You Think
Posted on March 30, 2006 | No CommentsIt looks like Caitlin Flanagan is scheduled to guest blog at the Powell’s blog next week. But here’s the important thing: the Powell’s blog has comments. What does this mean?... -
Against Sexism
Posted on March 8, 2006 | 11 CommentsSexism is a woman making two-thirds the salary that a man earns for the same position. Sexism is a man getting time off to be with his family, but a...