Some of my students had fun with my topic “What would ‘Big Bang Theory’ be like if it was about for smart girls and a handsome guy ( Read more... )

I’ve noticed something curious about some women’s essay writing style; they often come at gender issues sideways. I noticed it in Deborah Tannen’s essay about communication between genders, in which she starts talking about gender difference in how children talk and in the end warns about how date rape occurs. I’m noticing it now in Margaret Fuller ( Read more... )

I’d noticed while reading “The Oxford Handbook of the Self” that of the 31 essays, twenty-four where written by men, but the essays I learned the most from were both written by women, in part because the essays women wrote were a lot easier to understand. I was puzzling over this when I came to the last essay, by Lorraine Code, who discussed the ( Read more... )

I can’t believe that watching “G. I. Joe: Retribution” of all things broke my recent writing block. When I got home all I wanted to do was write really cool action scenes. Between all of us, “Retribution” could have been more than awesome eye candy if they’d given me twenty-four hours with the script. It was off to a great start, but the ending was ( Read more... )

Science fiction has allowed discussion of gender in plenty of bent mirrors, especially after women started writing it.  However, I shall begin with Asimov's Susan Calvin, a very masculine heroine, cold, intelligent, and assertive at a time when most SF heroines were pretty girls and great listeners when the male characters rambled on about the ( Read more... )