Time to crack open the canon

This story is slightly old news now, but at the beginning of the year, Vida, an organization for women in literary arts, published statistics on women authors reviewed in publications, as well as who's doing the reviewing. The statistics are dismal, but perhaps not terribly surprising. http://vidaweb.org/the-count-2010

What is more surprising however, is some of the nonsense that came from the magazine editors featured in it. In an article published in the Guardian (The full article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/feb/04/research-male-writers-dominate-books-world), Peter Stothard, editor of the Times Literary Supplement, said "And while women are heavy readers, we know they are heavy readers of the kind of fiction that is not likely to be reviewed in the pages of the TLS.
The TLS is only interested in getting the best reviews of the most important books," Stothard continued. "Without making a fetish of having 50/50 contributors, we do have a lot of reviewers of both sexes and from all over the world. You have to keep an eye on it but I suspect we have a better story to tell than others." (emphasis mine)

So you get that? Even though women buy something like 80-85% of all fiction, it's not the Important or Right kind of fiction. We all know that women flock to mindless drivel in fiction right? *heavy sarcasm* And trying to even the disparity in the authors reviewed or the critics reviewing or even just to point it out is making a fetish out of it?

Way back in 1929, Virginia Woolf published A Room of One's Own. In it, she says: "Speaking crudely, football and sport are important; the worship of fashion, the buying of clothes, 'trivial.' And those values are inevitably transferred from life to fiction. This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing room. A scene in a battlefield is more important than a scene in a shop--everywhere and much more subtly the difference of value persists." It makes me furious that we are still dealing with this mentality over 80 years later. That although we are finally accepting more views into the literary canon, women's and POC's viewpoints are still considered alternative. Alternative, not essential, less Important, of less Worth, or less Substantial than that of the male privileged set.

And then John Freeman, the editor of Granta magazine, said "While numbers and graphs like this are helpful," he said, "conspiracy theories are not, because we have to ask a deeper question, which is how gendered are our notions of storytelling? I have been on mostly women-run prize committees which questioned their own feminist bona fides and then voted for the men's books." So again it's a conspiracy to point out disparities in our world and to maybe try to do something about them. And gee John, maybe the women ended up voting for the men's books because women are told from birth that their interests, their hobbies, their books aren't as Important as men's. Even the most feminist woman can't get away from internalizing to some extent that conflict and some of the misogyny. In the end, Anne Bronte said it beautifully and simply, "If a book is a good book it is for both men and women." Maybe it's time for the privileged male to finally take off his blinders and crack wide open the canon, and realize that if women and minorities have been slipping inside another's head/skin when they read books, watch film, look at paintings/photographs/sculptures, etc, because they've had to learn how, being othered or erased completely by the white male; that privileged males can learn to slip inside another's head as well. And see that another's story has just as much merit and worth. I have faith that they are smart enough to be able to do it.

Disappointment

One of my favorite authors, Patricia Briggs, was in town this week doing a book signing. I had planned to go for a few weeks. I have never been to a book signing, and if any authors I like come into town, I generally don't find out until after the fact and have missed it. So anyway, I was extremely excited. If you look at my Strong Women booklist, every book Briggs has written is on there. She's an incredibly good solid fantasy writer, and I haven't read any book by her I haven't liked (obviously). I also love her heroines. Although they are often the "kick-butt" variety, Briggs avoids a lot of the traps many other authors fall into with kick-butt heroines. She doesn't have a 95 pound woman who can take on any opponent and win every single time, no matter how outmatched she might be or how many foes she might be fighting (although I do think a woman with training and skill can certainly take on a man bigger than her and overpower him, sometimes it just gets ridiculous in these books--it's a 5 foot woman against 20 thugs a foot and a half taller with far more weapons/skills/odds in their favor...yet somehow she always wins) . She doesn't have her heroine obnoxiously right all the time, and use that as an excuse not to listen to any other character ever, and so on. Her heroines are strong, fully three-dimensional and independent; but they're also human, and they get hurt and are sometimes vulnerable and they actually show emotions other than anger or aggression, and they love and trust and need others. They may push themselves to the limit or sometimes get in over their heads in a fight; but they are also smart enough that if there is an ally who is stronger/smarter/better skilled, they will step aside and let that person take over if necessary.
So what happened? Well, the book signing on a Tuesday an hour after I got off work. Mondays and Tuesdays are extremely long days at work for me, so by the time I get off on Tuesday night, I'm generally in a lot of pain physically with the chronic stuff all flared up. And then I had a massive migraine starting by the time I got off work Tuesday. And blah blah blah pity party, there was just no way I could go stand in line for who knows how long to see her. So boo. She does live in Washington, so maybe next book release, she'll be by the area again?

Although in other news, another author I absolutely love, Jasper Fforde, who writes the Thursday Next series, is going to be doing a book signing on Monday. (Seriously, we never get of my favorite authors in town, and then two back to back, what's going on?) And I'll actually have a few hours to recover between work and when this one starts, so crossing my fingers, maybe I'll actually make this one.

Dedicated to Rep Pete King

1700% Project: Mistaken for Muslim from Anida Yoeu Ali on Vimeo.

And There was Much Rejoicing

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has finally ceded power after 18 days of protests. The doomers and the nay-sayers are still on about possible war with Israel, or the Muslim Brotherhood taking over and enforcing a Taliban-like government, chaos, anarchy, dogs and cats living together....but they just need to hold their breath for just a little while, because right now, right now the Egyptian people have done the impossible. For the first time in a few thousand years, they have peacefully overthrown a dictator by the sheer volume of their cries for justice, freedom, and rights. And that my friends, is a feat that needs to be celebrated by the world, just as we need to celebrate what happened in Tunisia.

Triumph as Mubarak quits - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

Here's the tail-end of Pres. Obama's statement released today:

And above all, we saw a new generation emerge—a generation that uses their own creativity and talent and technology to call for a government that represented their hopes and not their fears; a government that is responsive to their boundless aspirations. One Egyptian put it simply: Most people have discovered in the last few days…that they are worth something, and this cannot be taken away from them anymore, ever.

This is the power of human dignity, and it can never be denied. Egyptians have inspired us, and they’ve done so by putting the lie to the idea that justice is best gained through violence. For in Egypt, it was the moral force of nonviolence—not terrorism, not mindless killing—but nonviolence, moral force that bent the arc of history toward justice once more.

And while the sights and sounds that we heard were entirely Egyptian, we can’t help but hear the echoes of history—echoes from Germans tearing down a wall, Indonesian students taking to the streets, Gandhi leading his people down the path of justice.

As Martin Luther King said in celebrating the birth of a new nation in Ghana while trying to perfect his own, “There is something in the soul that cries out for freedom.” Those were the cries that came from Tahrir Square, and the entire world has taken note.

Today belongs to the people of Egypt, and the American people are moved by these scenes in Cairo and across Egypt because of who we are as a people and the kind of world that we want our children to grow up in.

The word Tahrir means liberation. It is a word that speaks to that something in our souls that cries out for freedom. And forevermore it will remind us of the Egyptian people—of what they did, of the things that they stood for, and how they changed their country, and in doing so changed the world.

UPDATED 2/14/11: Had to share this cool article:

Now that President Hosni Mubarak has been swept out of office, the protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Sqaure are sweeping the city clean. Literally.

The pro-democracy protesters who have called Tahrir Square home for the past 18 days are now cleaning house: sweeping the streets, scrubbing graffiti off walls and bridges, clearing burned cars and garbage and generally trying to restore the city to order.

Volunteers repainted black and white striped street curbs around a monument by the Egyptian Museum, which had been on the front line in street battles between Mubarak's foes and supporters. Police were starting to move barricades and trying to restore vehicle traffic at Tahrir Square, where many protesters vowed to remain, CNN reported.

"We're taking care of the square, and then we'll clean up the whole country," Mohammed El Tayeb said while standing amid the volunteer cleaning crews sweeping up Tahrir Square. "This is a beautiful country. Now it's ours and we're going to take care of it."

Across the crowded square, young men walked with paper signs taped to their chests that read: "Sorry for the disturbance, we're building Egypt." After days of protests that had such names as the "Day of Rage" and "Day of Millions," today's gathering was called the "Day of Cleaning," AOL News said.

Sherif Assaf, 27, a Microsoft employee who showed up with a broom, said the massive and spontaneous clean-up effort, like the protests, had been organised by word of mouth, text messages and social networking websites, Agence France Presse reported.

"We want to prove to the world that we are a very civilised and great nation. We were protesting for political change. Now that we’ve started to change politically, the people themselves are going to change," he told AFP.

As CNN aptly noted, it’s a sign that Cairo and the rest of the country are ready to rebuild and get back to work while the country formulates a plan for governance.

http://www.care2.com/causes/politics/blog/armed-with-brooms-cairo-cleans-up-after-the-protests/

Impossible by Nancy Werlin

Impossible is a young adult fantasy based on the folk ballad "Scarborough Fair." In this retelling, Lucy finds out she comes from a line of women cursed by the elfin king to get pregnant (in Lucy's case, the elfin king possesses the body of her prom date and rapes her) at 18, and if they can't complete the 3 impossible tasks in the ballad before the child is born, they will go insane and become the king's consort forever. The premise was interesting....but yet, it was really kind of troubling. On top of really awkward dialogue and cheesy romance, the troubling part is the handling of Lucy's pregnancy and her marriage to her boyfriend while still a high school senior. The book completely fetishizes her pregnancy--after a tiny bit of morning sickness she's this glowing madonna who never has the slightest bit of discomfort or doubt about being a teen mother. Additionally the kids' marriage is complete bliss--they never fight, never have money issues, never have studying or grade issues, they only take cat naps at night so they can watch the other person sleeping because they just can't bear to miss one single moment apart (and yet can still be able to do work and school adequately the next day and Lucy do it pregnant?). Although it throws in a very brief, things were a little hard to juggle with high school and money and everything once the baby came, it was way too little and way too unconvincing after such this grand rosy picture of teen marriage and pregnancy as perfect and blissful. Additionally, there's this really nauseating bit where her boyfriend tells her she should marry him so her baby will carry his name essentially so it won't be a bastard. I kept rereading that conversation in shock and flipping to the copyright date to make sure this book was actually just written in 2008 and not 40 years ago.
The writing itself wasn't bad, and despite my distaste, it did keep me reading. But ultimately, it was far too slow building up to things. Lucy doesn't fully find out about the curse until almost halfway through the book, even though the rape and pregnancy happen at the beginning. And then it still takes forever to get started on the three impossible tasks. So all in all, I would give this one a pass.

Because this is so darn catchy (and appropriate to my life)

Song is "I'm Reading a Book" by Julian Smith

Jasmine Revolution and the Days of Anger

The last several weeks, I've been following events in Tunisia, and now in Egypt especially, alternately cheering and crying. And if you don't know what's going on across the Middle East and North Africa right now, what rock do you live under?
I did a study abroad in 1997 in Israel, Jordan and Egypt. And since then, I've desperately longed to go back. Despite not having learned the language (my semester was only 2 months, if I did the longer semester, we would have been required to take either Arabic or Hebrew), it felt very much like home. I'm sure it helped that I went during a time when it was very stable and peaceful--it was pretty soon after I went that the second Intifada broke out and there was a series of bombings at tourist sites in Egypt.
Anyway, back to current events. For those who don't know what's been happening, here's my very amateur understanding of events. It all started in Tunisia in mid-December. Tunisia is/was ranked one of the most repressive and corrupt nations, ranked something like 141 out of 167 countries, and is also very poor. It's been run by Zine El Abidine Ben Ali since 1987, who's family liked (in addition to the whole repressive and dictatorial rule thing) to buy up villas, private jets, keep pet tigers, etc while the rest of the country barely made ends meet. So in December, an unemployed college graduate was selling fruits and vegetables trying to make money, and was arrested for not having a license to sell in the market. He set himself on fire in protest and later died. That was the catalyst, and it sparked a series of mostly peaceful protests over all of Tunisia for 4 weeks which finally led to Ben Ali fleeing the country. The army has stepped in to command the country with the agreement that elections will be held in 60 days. http://www.al-bab.com/arab/countries/tunisia/tunisia_fall_of_ben_ali.htm has a good series of blog posts detailing events throughout the "Jasmine Revolution."
And from there, it has sent a shock wave throughout the whole area. Oppressed and poverty-stricken people in other countries saying wait, if they were able to rise up and get rid of their bad leaders, maybe we can to. Protests carrying on the Jasmine Revolution, sometimes calling for a "Day of Anger" or "Day or Rage," have going on in Algeria, Yemen, Jordan, but the largest have been in Egypt.
Egypt isn't far ahead of Tunisia on the corruption or repression scale and is poorer than Tunisia is. Hosni Mubarak has been president of Egypt since 1981 and is extremely autocratic and unpopular; but essentially, Egypt has been under martial law since way back to 1967. Tunisia has been cited as the Egyptians' inspiration, as well as the beating of young man to death by the police in June 2010 for refusing to pay them a bribe. http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/01/whats-happening-egypt-explained is a really good article for current updates to the Egyptian situation all in one place throughout the week-long protests.
The president has tried to quell the protests by shutting down the internet, this also happened in Tunisia. The people have found some way around it and still managed to use Twitter or Facebook or whatever else to organize the protests. One report talked about how they had organized the protesters to come in waves every half hour or so. But what's also troubling in addition to the internet shutdowns, is that there are reports that the Egyptian police are apparently specifically targeting journalists to try to silence them; several BBC journalists and others in the area have reported being beaten and arrested.
And since coverage about women in all of these protests is often non-existent (despite the fact that women were very active in the Tunisian protests and a woman, Tawakul Karman, is one of the main leaders in the Yemen protests http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/01/2011123103756528513.html), there's a great series of photographs on Egyptian women out there taking part as well: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=268523&id=586357675#!/album.php?fbid=493689677675&id=586357675&aid=268523.
There are rumors that the study abroad group I went with was in Egypt, Luxor specifically (about 450 miles from Cairo) when the protests started, and since flights have been suspended, they haven't been able to get out of the country. Since protests are going on all over Egypt, it isn't necessarily a comforting thing that they aren't in Cairo, although Cairo is certainly the epicenter. Generally, the group would take a flight from Cairo to and from Luxor, and then a flight from Cairo to/from Jerusalem, since the group was headquartered in Jerusalem. Supposedly they are hoping to be able to take a bus from Luxor out of the country someplace. Here's hoping they are successful.
There's a lot of rhetoric against the Muslim Brotherhood, a large political party in Egypt and what might happen if they gain control if Mubarak is forced out. Again, I'm not an expert, but from what I've read, although the Brotherhood has used violence in the past and although they are allies with Hamas, they have moved away from violence in the last few decades. Additionally, the Brotherhood is against al-Qaeda and has been almost since it's (al-Qaeda's) conception. So there's really no chance of the two forming any kind of alliance. But finally, this series of protests is not in any way being affiliated to one party, in fact, it's mostly secular and the Brotherhood hasn't really been involved until after it was on for three or four days, and then only offering tepid support at best. If the Brotherhood were to win control, there is no doubt that relations with Israel would not continue on the same terms, so that is definitely a concern. As I say, the Brotherhood is pro-Hamas and very much for a separate Palestine state, so that would be a big issue between the Egypt and Israel were the Brotherhood to gain control. I know Washington DC feels like a dictator committing human rights violations at home but keeping peace with other countries is better than war. I can't feel like that's the right answer, but I don't really know how we get to the right answer when both choices seem like bad ones. Anyway.

In the end, my hopes and prayers are that all protesting against autocrat and repressive regimes will succeed in forming a government of their own choosing and that this will not turn out to be aborted attempts like Burma 2007 where the government(s) succeeds in cracking down even harder; that there will not be a power vacuum in which one dictator is exchanged for another; and above all that the situation does not disintegrate into war or anarchy.

The blogger as an infant in Cairo (back in the dark ages before digital cameras)