STACKED

books

About The Girls Around The Web

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Here’s a round-up of some of the posts I’ve read over the last couple of weeks that fit into the question of “what about the girls?” Some have been sent to me and others came up in my own daily reading. I’ve also included a post I cowrote with Preeti Chhibber at Book Riot at the end, which gives practical things you can do to promote female writers you love, be they published authors or budding creators.

If you’ve written something that fits recently, feel free to link to it in the comments. I’m staying away from linking to reviews, but any thoughtful commentary, round-up, or responses are totally worth a share here. I’ll let these do the talking for themselves:

  • Girls Behind Bars Tell Their Stories (I just finished Ross’s book and it’s so, so good. Get this for your collections. It’s worth the price. Ross does this all on his own.)

24 Thoughts on Sexism, Feminism, YA, Reading, and The Publishing Industry

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This requires no more introduction than saying it’s a handful of thoughts worth considering and working through after the last week.

1. My feminism isn’t about making you comfortable.

As a feminist, I am not obligated to make you comfortable. As a feminist, what I owe is honesty, integrity, and truth, no matter how uncomfortable it is. Not liking my feminism is your problem, not mine.

2. Being part of an oppressed class means using subversive means.

Having a conversation in a calm, collective, “professional” manner depends entirely on how we define calm, collective, and “professional.” Those definitions are made through those in positions of power and privilege. And when the powerful class doesn’t want a critical lens turned on them, they will deny the oppressed class those calm, collective, “professional” tools.

So you do things in the way you need to to achieve a desired effect. Satire. Humor. Sarcasm. Protesting.

Those who don’t want to be criticized and don’t want to face the truth won’t listen to you anyway, so you do what you can, how you can, in order for everyone else to hear and understand.

3. Means, methods, tools, and places for criticism vary. 

You can’t use the same critical tools in every situation. Your methods depend entirely upon your goal and on the subject and situation at hand. When talking about an issue of sexism, if talking about the texts at hand won’t do the job, then you pick up the next tool available to you. This includes public commentary and interviews.

Sometimes a blog post is effective. Sometimes Twitter is effective. Sometimes Tumblr. Sometimes the best tool isn’t online at all but in an interview in person. On a panel discussion. During a Q&A.

If one tool doesn’t work, you pick up another.

4. White male allies need to step back. 

Quit patting yourself on the back for “empathy,” “niceness,” or “feminism,” especially if you’re a “nice, empathetic, feminist white guy.”

Use your platforms and your privilege to amplify the voices of the oppressed. You don’t need to interpret it through your perspective. Let others have your stage for a bit and listen.

As Eric Mortenson put so well — and this is hands down one of the best things I read this week: “If you’re really on women’s side, you don’t need to tell them. They’ll know.”

5. We love amplifying the white male ally voice.

Take a hard look at whose voices you’re relating to and sharing. If it looks like a sea of white men, reassess.

Watch who you’re crediting when you’re crediting an internet “kerfluffle.” Watch who you’re crediting when you’re crediting a discussion of sexism in publishing.

Bet it’s not the same people getting credit.

6. When you speak in generalities, people insist on examples. When you provide examples, you’re called a bully. 

When you talk about institutional sexism in a broad sense, people want explicit examples. But when you provide explicit examples, you’re a bully for doing the very thing you were told you needed to do in order to prove your arguments legitimate.

7. “Nice” doesn’t mean above criticism.

Plenty of nice people screw up every day. Plenty of nice people have good intentions.

Your “niceness” doesn’t mean you’re above being critiqued or above being called out for a thing you did that’s not good. Your “niceness” doesn’t absolve you from responsibility. Your “niceness” has zero bearing on what you create and the art or thought you put out in the world.

8. Art and artist are not one in the same. It is HARD to separate art from artists, as well as art from personal taste.

We are complex, challenging creatures. We don’t always know what we’re doing when we’re doing it. We don’t always know what we’ve created until it’s outside of ourselves. Let’s be generous enough to allow artists to live separately from the art they’ve created.

Art and artist are also separate from personal taste. You may find someone’s art distasteful; I may find it enjoyable. That is not a reflection upon the artist or his talent.

9. Girls don’t get points for experimenting. They have to get it right the whole way through. Men are right when they try, even if they fail.

“Trying” to be better isn’t the same as being better. Especially in a world where women can never be right and are never getting better.

“Trying” doesn’t pass for women.

10. We insist we love critics and criticism until the heat is on.

Back in the day, artists used to critique one another and did so harshly. There wasn’t fear that saying something critical about another artist’s work meant doom for your own career.

Now that we rely on outside critics more often than not, in the form of trade reviews and yes, blog reviews, we constantly talk about the important role those criticisms play. Those who take this seriously do so because they care deeply about the art and they care deeply about representation, voice, accuracy, and a whole host of other things.

But as soon as critics start to actually criticize art, suddenly, they’re out for blood. They’re the enemies. They have a vendetta.

11. Criticism isn’t easy, and it certainly isn’t fun.

It would be worthwhile to praise those critics who work with the heat is on high as much as it’s worthwhile to continually pat those on the back who praise things generously, with less criticism.

There are people who are absolutely, positively dedicated to change and fair representation. They put their criticisms out there every day in hopes of sparking change.

It’s not easy.

It’s NECESSARY.

It makes us BETTER.

12. You don’t get to determine whether someone’s concerns about sexism, or any other -ism, is correct or incorrect.

Just because it isn’t sexist to you doesn’t mean it’s not sexist to those who are speaking up about it, as well as the legions who are too scared to speak up or don’t have the means to speak up.

13. Nothing is either/or, but/and. Everything is a spectrum. Everything is complex.

Calling out a weakness in an author’s work — or a series of work — doesn’t mean that the rest of the work is done poorly. Badly drawn female characters are not an indictment against how the boys are written.

Suggesting that girls should be fully developed characters doesn’t take away from boys being fully developed or being the absolute center of the story. It’s not saying the books are bad.

It means readers want these stories, where both boys and girls are fully developed.

14. Sometimes people who are “outsiders” have to speak up because insiders are too close to the source.

Outsiders are reading the criticism. They offer a perspective that those too close to the art could never offer without bias.

Critics put their work out into the world for outsiders, not insiders.

It’s your job to help your friends and colleagues. It’s not mine.

15. Being called out sucks. Learn and do better.

We are all problematic. We are not without fault. And when you’re called out on something, it sucks, especially if you were trying everything to not be wrong. Sometimes you still are.

I am not above being called out. You are not above being called out. No one is.

Learn from your mistakes. Listen to those who are offering you insight. Then DO better. When you’re given the chance to learn from your mistakes, take it.

It takes privilege to leave the conversation before it’s over. And certainly, when you decide you’re exiting a conversation, rather than acknowledging it’s even happening — even with a simple “I am busy and can’t talk about this right now but will soon” — you’re not listening.

Listening means sticking around for the hard parts.

16. There aren’t fair levels of scaffolding in this industry. Be aware of yours and what others are.

Critics don’t usually have agents, editors, publicists, publishing houses or any other level of scaffolding behind them. There aren’t other people to step in and do damage control or offer up insight into process.

If there are people on your side with a financial stake in your career when you go up to bat for something, are selling a product, or creating art, you’re damn lucky.

17. You don’t get to invoke someone’s personal life as an excuse or value judgment. That’s theirs and theirs alone.

You aren’t empathetic or understanding when you invoke my mental illness as part of your “being understanding” of what I may be going through when I speak out. You also aren’t entitled to bring someone else’s personal life into the explanation for their creative weaknesses.

Those things are personal and the individual owning them is the only person who gets to invoke them in discussion, even if they’ve been open about it.

18. If you express criticism directly at someone, you’re a bully. If you don’t, you’re subtweeting/talking about them behind their backs.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. See #6. See #12.

19. Criticism isn’t bullying. 

The purest definition of bullying is this: when a person with superior strength or influence uses their their influence to force a person to do what s/he wants.

Speaking up about sexism isn’t bullying.

Being told you should die and never come back or else you’ll be given a reason never to come back is bullying.

20. No one likes being called a cunt, a whore, a bitch, a pain in the ass, and no one deserves to be told they should be given something to be scared about.

Women don’t often engage in conversation about sexism because they are fun and the rewards are high.

21. People go to the ends of the Earth to defend a nice guy. People don’t defend women in the same way.

See: #KeepYAKind, #GrasshopperGate, #AndrewSmith, change your avatars to a Smith cover, buy all of the Smith books, give away all of the Smith books.

The only reason I (and others, all female) knew people cared about me or defended my right to say what I did and how I did it was because I was reached out to.

Privately.

Those who agree with you most are the ones with the most to lose if they speak up. Speaking up without fear of career consequence is a privilege I have that many others in this industry — those who experience the DIRECT CONSEQUENCES OF SEXISM IN THIS INDUSTRY THIS IS DIRECTED TOWARD IN THE FIRST PLACE — do not.

Because that’s how institutionalized sexism and racism work.

22. True feminism isn’t about ideation. It’s about action.


If you don’t put your money where your mouth is, you’re not working toward a solution to the problem. You’re hot air.

You can’t just believe in change. You have to be an active part of doing something about it.

And it’s not only about women. It’s about ALL classes of people that face oppression.

I assure you straight white males are not part of the oppressed. Even if they think they are.

23. These conversations are born from hurt

No one decides overnight to highlight direct examples of sexism.

They are the result of people being hurt over a long time.

24. I have the right to speak. 

The risk of speaking up for women, as a woman, is great and often ends in threats of violence and death. When I told another woman I don’t know how some feminists do this every single day, she said, “If you stay, as a woman in this fight, you end up steel whether you want to or not.”

For further reading:

  • Phoebe North on Why

Reading Report Card: 6 Months into 2014

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Last year in December, I took a look at what I’d read that year and broke it down into quantifiable categories. Was I reading more debuts than the year before? Was I reading more male writers than female writers? What about the sort of diversity I was reading, either in terms of authors of color or stories featuring a main character of color?

I’ve noted this has been a slower reading year for me, and because of that, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at my reading at the half-way point of 2014 and see where I have been and figure out what, if anything, I should be doing better in the second half of the year. As of writing this post, I’ve read 45 books, or about two books per week. I did not include any of the manuscripts I’ve read this year (probably between 8 and 10) but rather, books that are available now or will be available before the end of the year.

The entire list of my titles read with how I categorized them is accessible here, if you’re curious. I had planned on looking at genre as a key part of my breakdown, but I read mostly realistic fiction for many reasons, and it wasn’t surprising that was the bulk of this year’s titles already.

Book Audience and Format 



Let’s look first at the types of books I’m reading in terms of who the general audience is:

One thing I’ve wanted to do is read more adult books, and I don’t think this is too bad so far. 

So far, I’ve read 7 adult books this year and 38 YA books. Of the adult books, one title was non-fiction and of the YA books, one title was non-fiction (or rather, it’s a collection of poetry and images, which I’d categorize under non-fiction, rather than fiction in terms of it being like a novel).

Since I’m on format with this, might as well get a look at where my format reading is so far.

The majority of my reading has been fiction this year. I’ve read 2 graphic novels, one novel in verse, a poetry collection, and one non-fiction title. I separated the last two out in this chart, as opposed to the chart above.
I think I’d like to try to sneak in a little more non-fiction reading this year. Last year, I got to read so much non-fiction, and this year, I have not been reading it much at all. The title I did read was danah boyd’s It’s Complicated, about teens and their use of technology and the internet. I think picking more titles up in that realm is a goal I’ve got before the end of the year. 
Books by Gender of Author and Main Character
So what about gender? This is of particular interest to me this year with the “Year of Reading Women” campaign. Do I tend toward more female authors or male authors? I haven’t been keeping tabs on this this year or spent a lot of time being conscious of this on purpose. 

Out of the 45 books I read, there were 47 authors writing them.

I read more females than males this year, roughly 80% to 20%.

And how that translates in terms of the gender of the main characters of the books I’ve read this year:

This breakdown was very tricky. Part of it was because I had to identify “main character” when the novel was told from more than one point of view. I decided if it was only 2 points of view, I could count both. If it was more than two, I threw it into a catch-all “cast of characters” category; in this instance, all four of those titles featured both male and female voices. The not applicable category went to my poetry collection and the non-fiction title, which didn’t have a dominant main character voice (though the poetry collection is geared toward female readers). 
The numbers here show I read more female main characters than male (32 compared to 6). Of those female characters, four of the books I read featured 2 female characters each. Interestingly, I haven’t read a title this year yet that features two male main characters, but I have read 5 titles that feature a male and a female main character. 

Publication Year and Publication Debut


It has been a very slow year for debut novel reading for me. I haven’t been seeing as many pop up, and I’ve definitely not been seeing as many review copies pop up on Edelweiss nor in my mailbox that are debut or speak to me. It may be the case there are many more debut genre novels this year than in the past, which I am less inclined to read than realistic debuts.

Hre’s how the debut vs. not a debut titles look. I define debut in the purest sense: first book, period. I don’t care if they wrote an adult novel before or self-published a book before. I only looked at debut novels from 2014 — if a novel was a debut from another year, I did not include it.

Maybe it’s not as bad as I thought.  Almost 20% of the titles I read were debut novels. I’d like to amp that up in the second half of the year, but it’s better than I expected.
I looked, too, at the publication year of the books I’m reading, in order to get a sense of how much backlist I’m reading. Of the 45 books I’ve read, 6 were not published in 2014. As of this writing, the book I’m reading and the one following it are backlist, which should help those numbers a bit at the end of the year. 
Likewise, I looked at the series vs. not a series titles I’ve read. Of the 45 books, only 4 were from a series. And actually, calling those four books series titles is true, but three of them are stand alone series titles: Biggest Flirts by Jennifer Echols, Dirty Wings by Sarah McCarry, and To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han can all be read alone, without context from previous/forthcoming titles. Sex Criminals I threw into the series category, though. I know I can pick up the single volumes, but I prefer my graphic novels in a larger edition, so I’ll be waiting eagerly for the second volume here.

Diversity


One thing I have paid far more attention to with my reading this year has been diversity. I don’t like making specific reading goals, since I think it can kill my reading interests, but I have been very conscious of reading more books written by or featuring main characters of color. Talking about these books is important to me, and I’ve been trying to be better at highlighting them.

Out of the 45 titles I’ve read, I looked at a general breakdown of the books either written by or featuring a character of color. Some of these books have overlap to them — Pointe by Brandy Colbert, for example, is written by and features a person of color — but I kept the tally for it at one. In this count, I included Nina LaCour’s Everything Leads to You because the main character’s racial makeup, while not at the forefront of the story, is important.

More than 1/4 of the books I read were written by or featured main characters of color. I think this is better than in past years, and what’s maybe more interesting to me is that increasing that number has not been hard. I don’t make to-read lists or get fussy about what order I read books in. I make a tall stack and go as the interest reaches me. Reaching for more diverse titles has not been a challenge in the least. Maybe the hardest part is what comes before that though — learning what those books are and seeking them out.

I think that’s the real battle we’ll keep having. Once they’re accessible, they’re a lot easier to pick up and talk about.

It seemed worthwhile to look at sexuality in terms of diversity in my reading, too. How many books featured non-straight characters, either as a main part of the story or as a part of the character’s identity, regardless of how it wove into the greater narrative. Out of 45 books, four featured non-straight characters for me so far. Those four include Everything Leads to You, One Man Guy, Grasshopper Jungle, and Far From You. Two of those books feature bisexual characters, on features a lesbian main character, and one features a gay character.

The Second Half of 2014


I don’t like goals, like I said before, but I think in looking at my breakdowns, I know where I can be a better reader. I know, too, where I’d like to be a better reader. Seeing the quantitative breakdowns helps shape my thinking about reading and where/what I could be a better advocate for, as well. It’d probably be beneficial to look at what the breakdown of titles reviewed here is, too: am I talking up enough diverse titles? Could I do better at it?

I’m hoping to blow past 100 books before 2014 rolls to an end, and I don’t think that’s an impossible goal.

I’m curious to hear from you: what have you seen with your reading this year? Any interesting or noteworthy trends? Have you had any favorite reads that surprised you or you think other people should know about and read? Lay it on me!

Define “Reading”

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A couple of really interesting studies have popped up recently.

First, this survey, done by the Reading Agency, notes that 63% of men feel like they aren’t reading as much as they think they should and a full fifth of men admit to saying reading is difficult or they don’t enjoy it.

NPR wrote about the findings Common Sense Media had when combing through a series of studies that teens aren’t reading like they used to. This one cites a few reasons why this might be, including the rise of tablets and internet-connected devices, as well as the always-present “not enough time” (that’s the big reason for the survey above on why men are reading less).

But before we cry about how no one is reading anymore, perhaps we should examine one of the biggest factors not examined in either of these studies: how is “reading” defined?

It appears in both cases that “reading” is defined as sitting down with a book — print, of course — and reading it cover to cover. This is how we all traditionally perceive reading, and it’s what we’re taught reading is from a very early age. There are different types of reading, including close reading (something that is brought up in Corey Ann Haydu’s Life By Committee in a way that I think all teens “get”: sitting down with a pen and marking reactions, questions, and favorite lines), reading for research (which also includes note taking, whether in the margins or on paper), and skimming/scanning. There are other reading skills taught to us, of course, but those are easily the three biggest ones. All three are taught from early on, and they’re taught via the print medium.

The problem is that in today’s world, this idea of reading is limiting. It defines reading by the medium in which one type of reading occurs, rather than opening up the idea of reading as an activity one can engage in across multiple platforms, devices, and mediums.

A few years ago when I was working the entire youth services program in my small library, I decided I wanted to shake up how our summer reading program looked. For a long time, the program required readers to track the number of books they read in exchange for rewards along the way. While this is an easy tracking system on the end of the library, it’s a very limiting system for readers. Aside from the fact it privileges readers who choose smaller books over larger books and it privileges faster readers over slower ones, it also reinforces the idea of what reading is: a book.

My proposal was that we count time read, rather than books read. After the change was made, when I got into the schools to talk to teens, I asked them specifically what they they thought counted as “reading.”

Many thought graphic novels and comics didn’t count as reading.

Many thought reading anything on the internet — blogs, magazine websites, gaming forums — didn’t count as reading.

Many thought picking up a newspaper or magazine in print didn’t count as reading.

Many thought that listening to audiobooks didn’t count as reading.

When their impressions of “reading” were shared, I told them their perceptions of what counted as reading were very narrow. Why didn’t graphic novels or comics count as reading? Was it because those aren’t typically what’s being read in the classroom? Is it because graphic novels or comics can sometimes have many pages where there’s no text? What made a magazine — either in print or online — not count as reading?

That summer, I told them I wanted them to count those things as reading. I told them I wanted them to count other things that involved reading to be counted toward reading. Do you spend time reading text messages? Then count it. Do you spend time reading the instructions before you dive into playing a game? Then count it. Do you spend time reading Facebook updates? Then count it. I told them to be reasonable — count those things no more than half an hour a day — but that those things absolutely, positively counted as reading.

When summer ended, I saw a marked increase in participation in the reading program, as well an impressive number of hours logged by teen readers. There was nothing inflated and nothing out of the ordinary. Instead, teens saw a redefinition of reading to include the very things they do every single day that require them to be active and engaged readers. You can’t respond to your friend’s text without reading it, processing it, then forming a response to it. Those are the same skills necessary to engage with a novel or a work of non-fiction assigned in school. The responses may be different. The contexts are different. But all require reading.

Reading is a skill set.

Reading is an activity.

Reading is not a format nor a context.

Of course teens aren’t reading like they used to. Of course men aren’t reading like they used to. Why would they? The world of reading is wide and vast and it’s not limited to one thing anymore.

Before panicking about the numbers and what it is teens or men or women or any other group or category of people are or aren’t doing when it comes to reading, or how things were so much better and greater “back in the day,” think about how those researchers have defined reading. Think about how we have defined reading for those groups. Are we limiting them to one idea of reading? Or are we allowing them to think about the fact that nearly every single thing they do in today’s world — online and offline — requires them to engage in reading?

For some more thoughts on this, go read Liz Burn’s post “Teens Today! They Don’t Read!“