Joyful
6hr ago
A big part of the argument (its been fun) is that Africa doesn't even have bombers. It has jets that don't have the range to get to Greece much less the rest of europe.
Joyful
3d ago
That penguin one looks super sketchy with none of the top ten being super popular. https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/mystery
I'm not going to do a bunch but of the top 25 on goodreads (it goes by shelved as mystery popularity not total readership) its 9/25 male authors. Dan brown and stieg larsson each double dipping and agatha christie sweeping 4.
Goodreads has the disadvantage of recency bias and possibly could skew more female than readership in general. But the science fiction stuff skews heavily male. https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/science-fiction Suzanne Collins and Martha Wells are the only women that crack the top 20.
Joyful
3d ago
What a fun topic!
Do you see different trends in how men and women write, and do you believe you can reliably tell the gender of a writer from their works alone?
Yes. As a child I would read anything that came near me (a broader selection across time and topic than I would choose if making purchases from a bookstore) and even then I noticed that I could usually tell. I think I've been surprised at the sex of a writer once in my life?
That said, Rowling has a great male character in Corm Strike so she's hardly the person I'd level shallow characterization accusations at. I do sometimes read something and agree that no woman would have that thought, and sometimes its bad enough to be silly, but I don't think a one off "admiring my breasts" would damage my enjoyment of a novel.
Another pointed out that male stories tend to converge on one point, whereas those written by women tend to move in many different directions.
I don't think this is at all true. I think its more about genre. Fantasy has a bunch of subplots, thrillers only a few. Both sexes can write shallow characters, both write plots that are simple or complex.
If anything its a matter of tending towards styles. Sparse female writing is Cather or Ingalls, male its Hemingway or Steinbeck. Cheap/easy womens writing tends towards sounding like a romance novel, mens it boils down to Crichton / Preston. Different stuff gets left out, elided. I'd say womens writing is more attractive but that could be because I have a female brain and that style of thought feels more correct. Note to calibrate my taste, my favorite books literary writing wise are "Time Travelers Wife", "Circe", and "Piranesi'. But many of my favorite authors are male (Pratchett, Bryson).
Joyful
3d ago
I'm terribly behind this year. I set my goals for the year at 80 rather than 100+ because I'm working full time and was finishing a masters degree. But then last week I thought fuck it I am not going to have the first year of my (remembered) life where I read less than 100 books. So now I need to finish another 20 something books in 2.5 months. To try to get myself back into things I picked up the first Mrs Polifax/Pollifax spy novel and its exactly the kind of light read I was looking for. Think Agatha Christie writes a spy novel about an old lady from NJ in 1970. What many cozy writers don't duplicate about Christie is the exoticism/escapism and the heroine has a sort of aggressive charm that mostly gets her out of trouble. I've also been slowing on my wheel of time reread, I'm more than a week into book 4 and still at 25%. Sadly book 4 seems to be the beginning of the saggy middle for the series, i'm not looking forward to the three fold land or white cloaks storylines in this book. I'm rereading Bleeding London, which I read once for a school class, it mostly just makes me sad for the London that is lost. Also more Simon Rich because they are quick and snacky and often make me laugh. Books that have fallen by the wayside - May Sarton's At 70. I have this one on my phone so I get a page or two done every day or two but I doubt I'm absorbing it at that rate. Just not as writerly of a journal as her previous work or the journals of nin / woolf. The Final Empire - I like Sanderson but I don't love him, I'm not sure Mistborn is really in the cards for me. Wizards guide to defensive baking - cute I guess? but I'm not as charmed by humorous fantasy as I was in the days of Pratchett.
Joyful
10d ago
Ingratitude isn't just an international problem. Look at what is happening in France? An entire population supported cradle to grave and they are ungrateful, resentful, and destructive of the people and institutions that entirely support their lives.
Joyful
10d ago
There is a difference between disgust at private action and believing it should be illegal. I don't think we should have a national news story about an orgy. I do think we should have one about a gang rape.
I don't think this was a gang rape and so I don't think it should be a major news story. I do think their fellow college students were right to go "ew". If the girl is in a sorority, she should be kicked out. If I was in charge of a frat with dudes that did this, they'd be reprimanded or kicked out*, but I believe in freedom of association and am not part of their associations so its none of my business now.
*Yes we are going to have a double standard here, insomuch as she does more reputational harm to her potential sorority than the guys do to their frat. If guys in a frat are assumed to be gross and slutty, that will harm them in that people might refuse to date them or hang out with them. For a girl, its both of those things (shun the delta delta delta girls) but also possibly assume they are slutty. As a woman being part of a group considered more slutty can be uncomfortable or dangerous (I was once an American teenage girl who visited several southern European cities in the 90s, and those men were pushier because they perceived American girls as more likely to put out).
This is obviously an old controversy, I remember Emily Yoffe's excellent reporting on this in the mid 2010s. Colleges should not be investigating rape cases at all. If a crime has occurred defer to the people that are experts. In the short term the college can certainly try to help the girl (lockdown dorm access or allow her to move rooms) but not at the expense of assuming someone else is guilty of a crime. When someone IS convicted of that crime, thats when they can be expelled.
I think what I feel frustrating about this case is that legally this was investigated and she agreed she wasn't raped. That should have been the end of it. There are so many real things to get upset about, how is this national news.
Joyful
13d ago
I sincerely think that arranged marriage culture leads to populations with men that are stupider, less useful, uglier, less kind, and weaker than populations where women can choose their own mates based on some virtue or perceived virture. I think this is a major shaper of the differences between civilizations over the last 1000 years. Multiply this if its cousin marriage.
Joyful
14d ago
Cornell recently released survey results claiming that 35% of female undergraduates reported non-consensual sexual contact in the last year (it will not take long for anyone here reviewing this survey to spot many issues).
This pisses me off. Being raped is not the same thing has some rando trying to dry hump you at a nightclub or a friend trying to grab your ass while drunk. As a woman I'd rather we report statistics about actual scary and life changing situations rather than obscuring the numbers with nonsense. Especially as real rape skyrockets in some countries.
Joyful
23d ago
My aunt spent years insisting that her hand drawn maps were superior to mapquest and foisted them on you at the drop of a hat. I wish I'd kept one or two.
Joyful
26d ago
Has anyone joined Blind with their company email address? I'm concerned this is the kind of thing that might get me in trouble with security flags since its clearly not work necessary and easy to search for.
Joyful
29d ago
That said, I like Mormons. They seem like genuinely nice people, with some good moral values, even though I disagree with them on a lot of things. I don't think it's a coincidence that so many of my favorite sci-fi authors are Mormon.
Likeable and actually useful members of society. Like the Amish but less strange.
Although I've joked I want to become 2005 Amish (cell phones and internet but no smartphones or modern social media). If someone starts that society sign me up.
Unless you compare the urban kids in private with the urban kids in public this table isn't helpful. Its also distorted by the racial makeup.
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