Thanks to Terri who pointed me to this little beauty over at Amazon where a Turkish woman reviews a fantasy novel set in, well not the Turkey she knows nor the one I visited. She points out all the factual errors that prevented her from enjoying the book due to the offensiveness of it and then the author and his sockpuppet and sockpuppet editor ( Read more... )

I read Justine Larbalestier's awesomely awesome post this morning on Derailing and why it's derailing to take a discussion about one thing and make it about you, even if you are just asking a question to help you understandI've been in some mindbending conversations lately about feminism and Joanna Russ and that has encouraged me to continue ( Read more... )

I'm about to write a bunch of posts, separately, sorry for that but I want to keep a bunch of these things discrete.

I've been thinking a lot about the "Russ Fuss" as I tagged my feminist post on Friday. The comment threads really got me down, to be honest. I know I was not a fun date on Friday night (sorry) and it kinda squelched my wanting to ( Read more... )

Now, I *am* tired today. I had a rough night. But I tell ya what, I'm getting damn sick of people constantly trying to place the blame for things onto other people. Why is it that people are so quick to avoid analysing their own behaviour to see if perhaps, maybe, they could have contributed to things that go wrong in society?

Take this: Kick a ( Read more... )

When you defend racist hijinks, just be careful what exactly you are defending.

This from an opinion piece on news.com.au which, I think, I might stop reading:

A NEW division has been set up within the Federal Police to deal with a scourge on society. The Fun Police will conduct raids on homes across Australia searching for evidence of jokes ( Read more... )

It seems like we, as women, have to work so hard to get positive symbolism and recognition of equality, and that even when we do make real progress, it gets dissed for being "mere tokenism". Course when it's in the reverse direction, we get told we're being too sensitive or picking the wrong fights or not looking at the bigger picture ( Read more... )

But it doesn’t take a seer to predict that with more awareness and a more open mind, editors will be less likely to dismiss, even unconsciously, fiction that is good but isn’t only about white heterosexual male concerns.
Creating Better Magazines (And Anthologies)I've been enjoying K Tempest Bradford's commentary on the diversity of voices in ( Read more... )

To the Speculative Fiction Community ( Read more... )

Just a quick wrap up from around the place on others appreciating women:

jasonfischer appreciates Melissa Auf Der Maur and Heart
jonathanstrahan appreciates Aimee Mann and Bachelor Number 2
I'm loving hearing about people discovering new music from all the recs being blogged. Here's catundra's.
ladnews raves about Fourplay who are currently on tour with their new album. Fourplay may be ( Read more... )