coalescent: (Default)
Niall ([personal profile] coalescent) wrote2007-08-29 10:18 am

Who's missing?

[Poll #1046886]

Actual answer here. Vote before you click.

EDIT: See also [livejournal.com profile] jlassen's two entries, and Andrew Wheeler here.

FURTHER EDIT: Commentary from [livejournal.com profile] rosefox here and [livejournal.com profile] cristalia here.
seajules: (soul food)

Re: The real answer

[personal profile] seajules 2007-08-30 02:45 pm (UTC)(link)
How are you using "token" here? Because I hardly think it's token in a dismissive sense to put a name on the cover that represents fifty percent of the content.

Re: The real answer

[identity profile] jamiam.livejournal.com 2007-08-30 03:37 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, I was thinking of "token" in the sense of: "it's still ridiculous to think that one name to represent 50% of the population is somehow adequate. But they didn't even manage that..."
seajules: (mod goddess)

Re: The real answer

[personal profile] seajules 2007-08-30 03:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah. In that case, I would have to agree.

Re: The real answer

[identity profile] jamiam.livejournal.com 2007-08-30 04:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, I thought you might. ;)
seajules: (mod goddess)

Re: The real answer

[personal profile] seajules 2007-08-30 04:43 pm (UTC)(link)
You never know. I mean, it's not like I wrote the comment you quoted for which several people seem to be giving you flak. Sorry about that.

Re: The real answer

[identity profile] jamiam.livejournal.com 2007-08-30 04:59 pm (UTC)(link)
S'okay. There's enough flak for two here, anyway.

And while there probably are better (and ultimately more-productive) ways to explain to publishers/editors how "gender blindness" inevitably leads to "gender inequality," other people are doing that work down-thread. Your point still stands: it makes you angry. It makes me angry, too. And that is a marketing consideration--which Mr. Williams has said he will ignore. Which doesn't precisely do anything to assuage my annoyance.

So here we are, back at the beginning.
seajules: (mod goddess)

Re: The real answer

[personal profile] seajules 2007-08-30 06:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Frankly, I think the anger such "blindness" engenders is de-emphasized too often. Particularly in a case like this, because my mood and my feelings about the publisher do influence my book-buying, and these are legitimate factors in said book-buying. We're not talking textbooks, we're talking leisure reading. How I feel about it is kind of the point.

It's like the "genderblindness" that always resulted

[identity profile] bellatrys.livejournal.com 2007-08-31 09:02 am (UTC)(link)
in women auditioning for orchestras not being As Good As any of the men auditioning, until orchestras were required to audition applicants truly blind, behind a screen, and found out to their shock that women actually could play just as well as men...
seajules: (mod goddess)

Re: It's like the "genderblindness" that always resulted

[personal profile] seajules 2007-08-31 03:31 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes. Not only is blindness not a thing to aspire to, but it so often ends up being code for "blindness to my own socially-cultivated biases."