# Reading > General Literature >  connection between sex and prefered liteature?

## inbetween

I recognized that boys around me tend to read phylosophycal text and non-fiction while girls around me prefer novels and poetry... I myself do so (although I like some phylosophycal stuff every now and then)
did you realize simmilar tendencies?

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## Seasider

Better title would be _Connection between Gender and Preferred Literature._
Most boys...and men... in my family don't read willingly at all. Though when they do it is mainly non fiction.
Do boys prefer to get their fiction/fantasy through computer games? My 13 year old nephew can't be prised away from them.
Just out of interest...why move bodies?

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## keilj

> Better title would be _Connection between Gender and Preferred Literature._
> Most boys...and men... in my family don't read willingly at all. Though when they do it is mainly non fiction.
> Do boys prefer to get their fiction/fantasy through computer games? My 13 year old nephew can't be prised away from them.
> Just out of interest...why move bodies?


sex is correct. It refers to the biological male and female. While gender is the more sociological masculine and feminine

but to answer the OP. Yes, women like romance drivel and men like 2-fisted westerns  :Angel:

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## OrphanPip

No it's something of gender, I think it would be incredibly difficult to attach anything to do with biological sex to literature preference.

Just historically, in the 18th century the novel was a genre that was considered feminine, while poetry was generally regarded as a male pursuit. Today, we look at lyric poetry as feminine and some novels as perhaps a more masculine pursuit. However, just in general women are more likely to read anything than men these days.

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## stlukesguild

connection between sex and preferred literature

My initial thought was that this thread could be interesting. Is your preferred literature about sex? And I have long sworn by Yeats dictum that "sex and death" are the only subjects worthy of serious contemplation. But no such luck... the usual guys read adventure novels with lots of car chases and convoluted philosophy and women read romantic poetry (Man=culture/woman+ nature?) Unfortunately I actually prefer poetry myself... followed by short stories, essays, histories, and novels... I also like the opera, classical music, and even the ballet (at times). On the other hand, I like a strong Belgian ale or English stout, the Rolling Stones, Johnny Cash, and Muddy Waters and paintings of "nekkid" ladies. :Devil:  (I even make 'em myself :Ihih: )

Go figure. :Shocked:

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## Seasider

> sex is correct. It refers to the biological male and female. While gender is the more sociological masculine and feminine
> 
> but to answer the OP. Yes, women like romance drivel and men like 2-fisted westerns


I think gender is the appropriate term in this case as the poster is enquiring about social rather than biological behaviour.
And the angel icon is there to denote irony, I take it. Nice try, but I'm not convinced.

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## Dark Muse

I find it quite hysterical that my own dearly beloved who is both biologically a male, and in most regards, physiologically a male as well, he is typically a guy guy, very masculine in many regards, but go figure he reads paranormal romances which I myself find loathsome. In fact though my own reading tastes are quite varied, romance of any kind (with the exception of some classical works) does not fit in anywhere.

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## Alexander III

Honestly I have always associated poetry as the male pursuit, and novels as the female pursuit.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

The OP is from Germany. It seems for a lot of posts she makes people are nit-picking her grammar. Give her a break. We have other posters here who write grammatically non-sensical posts that don't get nearly the amount of grief she seems to be getting for something as trivial is interchangeable synonyms.

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## OrphanPip

> The OP is from Germany. It seems for a lot of posta she makes people are nit-picking her grammar. Give her a break. We have other posters here who write grammatically non-sensical posts that don't get nearly the amount of grief she seems to be getting for something as trivial is interchangeable synonyms.


They aren't interchangeable synonyms though, sex and gender are different things. Conflating them is like saying that having a vagina should make you naturally want to wear a dress.

Sex is a biological state, which I would contend is not as clear cut as the male/female dichotomy anyway, since intersex children are occasionally born. Gender is the cultural and social constructs that are built up around biological sex. Conceptions of gender vary between cultures. They aren't all two gender systems either, several cultures have been documented with different conceptions of gender systems.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

My point still stands. Cut her a break.

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## JBI

> Honestly I have always associated poetry as the male pursuit, and novels as the female pursuit.


That is actually true to an extent, and the general belief until 1960 or so too. The genre of poetry has generally been associated with men, and read by men, whereas novels were read by women, and absorbed by women.

In Canada, all genres seem dominated by women, with perhaps drama as an exception (though drama is not a dominant genre in any regards). Novelists and poets are close to 50/50, with much of the great work being done by women.

In truth though, there has been some bad pressure on women poets to be "women poets" rather than "poets." That basically stunted growth in many poets, who were restricted to alienating male audiences, and limiting their scope - the female-academic readership shot its followers in the foot, when they realized such a thing cannot be sustained, and people do not want to read about such experience for a whole anthology. The trend is still echoing but we see more and more the removal of political-poetics in favor of a return to artistic poetics - that is probably why Atwood has stopped writing novels and poetry, for the simple fact that her traumatized woman bit has gotten old, and in a country like Canada which is close to equality (though with some unresolved issues detailing men's and women's rights) her rants about male abuse and violence, of male suppression and restriction of women have gotten old, and, quite simply, she has gotten old.

The trend applies similarly to novels, but that trend is different across countries. The problem though is, that marketing has also created a rift in novels - fantasy is marketed at males, romance at women, J. K. Rowling removes her first name from the book jacket of her book, and changes her protagonist to a male as a means of securing higher sales - the world of popular fiction is screwed up, because it is way too commercial. Promotion and sales pitches have too much control, and thus, steer readers and create imaginary genres and niches.

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## Lulim

> (...) Sex is a biological state, which I would contend is not as clear cut as the male/female dichotomy (...)


I believe this is true for the psychological distinction of men and women also.

On topic, I know more men who read poetry than women. On the whole, it seems there are more women than men who read at all.

I remember having come across an article once which stated that men are (unconsciously) tending towards using their visual sense whereas women are emphasizing their tactile and auditory senses (including every kinds of variation, of course). However, if true, it could be an explanation why men seem to prefer watching movies or playing video games.

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## kiki1982

> They aren't interchangeable synonyms though, sex and gender are different things. Conflating them is like saying that having a vagina should make you naturally want to wear a dress.
> 
> Sex is a biological state, which I would contend is not as clear cut as the male/female dichotomy anyway, since intersex children are occasionally born. Gender is the cultural and social constructs that are built up around biological sex. Conceptions of gender vary between cultures. They aren't all two gender systems either, several cultures have been documented with different conceptions of gender systems.


While that is a valid argument and it is actually right at least in Anglosaxon criticism, for all we know, the OP might not know this and so knit picking like Mutatis-Mutandis says, is not exactly nice for anyone (I can testify). So, like MM has said, we should give her a break so that she may learn without being targeted, although it is probably in a nice way. I learned a tremendous amount just by reading other posts, my English was not even near to this a few years ago. 

So just talk about 'gender' and stop talking about 'sex' in that context and he/she will learn without telling her what the difference is. Otherwise she can send some of us a message asking for clarification. 

On topic  :Biggrin: :

There are probably exceptions to the rule, but probably overly romantic stuff is not going to appeal to the average man. Nor will action stuff without any purpose really appeal to the average woman, but I suppose that there are very few books of the extreme kind in the good section of lit. That said, though, there are whole target markets to certain genders: the chicklit genre as one of them. But then again classics will probably appeal to the two sexes as otherwise they would probably not have entered the canon. (apart from Austen, although I have known a few men who actually like it. It has probably rather to do with general impression than with genuine reading, though.)

Can't comment on poetry. I don't really choose to spend my time with it AND I'M A WOMAN!  :Biggrin:

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## Seasider

> In truth though, there has been some bad pressure on women poets to be "women poets" rather than "poets." That basically stunted growth in many poets, who were restricted to alienating male audiences, and limiting their scope - the female-academic readership shot its followers in the foot, when they realized such a thing cannot be sustained, and people do not want to read about such experience for a whole anthology. The trend is still echoing but we see more and more the removal of political-poetics in favor of a return to artistic poetics - that is probably why Atwood has stopped writing novels and poetry, for the simple fact that her traumatized woman bit has gotten old, and in a country like Canada which is close to equality (though with some unresolved issues detailing men's and women's rights) her rants about male abuse and violence, of male suppression and restriction of women have gotten old, and, quite simply, she has gotten old.
> .


Margaret Atwood is... Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
winner of Arthur C.Clarke Award
winner of Prince of Asturias Award
winner of Booker Prize (and shortlisted 5 times)
winner of Governor General's Literary Award twice (runner up 5)
was made Companion of The Order of Canada
And that's just a selection.
I doubt she would have achieved all this if her oeuvre could be reduced to a traumatised woman's rants about male abuse and violence. Her politics include Green and Environmental issues and Animal Welfare. 

What is described here as _political- poetics_ has a long and honourable history including Chaucer,Dryden, Pope, Shelley and Byron and that's only English poetry. I suspect it is Atwood's feminism rather than her politics that is being targeted here. Her most recent work has covered environmental matters which concern young and old alike.

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## sithkittie

I pretty much read and enjoy the same things as my guy friends, and poetry and romance are both out. Westerns, classics (I especially enjoy soldiers and epic battles or adventures), science fiction, some fantasy. I think more than gender, at least in my case (last I checked I'm female), it's up bringing. I was raised around all guys. My friends consisted of almost exclusively guys until college.

Then again, not that he reads anything, but my step dad likes sappy romance movies. My dad will only read political non-fiction. My mom reads medical textbooks and journals. I think the only people in my family who fall into a gender stereotype would be my grandparents - my grandpa reads lots of philosophy, though he also loves Harry Potter, and my grandma likes religious fiction with a touch of romance.

That would definitely be an interesting study to do, survey a population that doesn't frequent a literature forum (because obviously, we read and probably have friends who read).

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## Alexander III

I suppose it is also interesting how some classic authors are read mostly by one gender. For instance ,though some men enjoy her, most guys wont read jane austen unless they have to for an english course.

I can also think of another few examples. Personally I love Byron, but do the women on the forums enjoy him or not? I can understand why a woman might have trouble relating to the byronic hero, though on the other hand the byronic hero appears to be the guy most women dream for.

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## Seasider

I can't speak for women in general but I love Byron. My favourite is _A Vision of Judgement_ but I also like _Don Juan_ and many of his shorter lyrics. I don't think he behaved very well to the women in his life, but that doesn't take anything away from his achievements in my view.

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## Rores28

> I recognized that boys around me tend to read phylosophycal text and non-fiction while girls around me prefer novels and poetry... I myself do so (although I like some phylosophycal stuff every now and then)
> did you realize simmilar tendencies?


There are most certainly differences in preference. I don't know about poetry because so few people read poetry to begin with, but I think there is certainly a tendency of males to prefer non-fiction and philosophical material (in particular, existential and philosophy of mind issues). I have yet to meet any female with an interest in philosophy (barring one professor in college) and yet most every guy I've met if you bring up troubling philosophical issues about existence or the mind will be intrigued. Bring up the same issues to most girls and they seem repelled by its lack of practicality. This is the most salient difference I have noticed living in the U.S.

Here's what dictionary.com has to say on the issue. I'd say the words are pretty interchangeable. The only reason you'd want to avoid saying sex in this instance is because it has more commonly used meanings. For instance when I read the title of this thread I thought it might have something to do with the frequency that one has sex and their resultant literary preferences.

*Sex*
noun
1.
either the male or female division of a species, esp. as differentiated with reference to the reproductive functions.
2.
the sum of the structural and functional differences by which the male and female are distinguished, or the phenomena or behavior dependent on these differences. 
*

Gender*
2.
sex: the feminine gender.

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## Seasider

Not very enlightening.

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## Rores28

> Not very enlightening.


Which post... or both

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## OrphanPip

> While that is a valid argument and it is actually right at least in Anglosaxon criticism, for all we know, the OP might not know this and so knit picking like Mutatis-Mutandis says, is not exactly nice for anyone (I can testify). So, like MM has said, we should give her a break so that she may learn without being targeted, although it is probably in a nice way. I learned a tremendous amount just by reading other posts, my English was not even near to this a few years ago. 
> 
> So just talk about 'gender' and stop talking about 'sex' in that context and he/she will learn without telling her what the difference is. Otherwise she can send some of us a message asking for clarification.


I don't think it was nitpicking though. No one was commenting on her grammar or syntax. Conflating sex and gender is a mistake often made by native English speakers as well, I think the distinction should be obvious but many people conflate these things. Being more precise in our language isn't meant to make the OP feel bad, it's meant merely to make the discussion clearer. I don't care about how people write, as long as the meaning is clear, and when the meaning is not made entirely clear it helps to establish the terms properly.

Edit: Dictionary.com is living in the 19th century apparently. Since the 70s, the distinction has pretty much been de jure in the social and natural sciences, and the humanities.

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## inbetween

sex or gender 
take what you like
I watch and enjoy

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## Rores28

> I don't think it was nitpicking though. No one was commenting on her grammar or syntax. Conflating sex and gender is a mistake often made by native English speakers as well, I think the distinction should be obvious but many people conflate these things. Being more precise in our language isn't meant to make the OP feel bad, it's meant merely to make the discussion clearer. I don't care about how people write, as long as the meaning is clear, and when the meaning is not made entirely clear it helps to establish the terms properly.
> 
> Edit: Dictionary.com is living in the 19th century apparently. Since the 70s, the distinction has pretty much been de jure in the social and natural sciences, and the humanities.


Right, dictionary.com deals more in common parlance than philosophical / sociological jargon. For the OP, someone trying to learn English, its important to realize that in 99% of the conversations you have, this distinction is not a crucial one.




> sex or gender 
> take what you like
> I watch and enjoy



See ambiguous... I don't know if you are watching and enjoying the thread or watching and enjoying sex.

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

Rores, quit being an a-hole.

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## Seasider

> Which post... or both


My comment was about the dictionary.com definition. In this case the distinction was a crucial one. As Orphan Pip wrote, the correction was in the interests of precision which is the goal of most writers.

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## Jozanny

There are feminized male authors, just as there are masculine female authors, though the latter who do not define themselves according to our contemporary view of GBLT identity are rarer. Muriel Spark and Doris Lessing are two I can think of who don't identify, like Willa Cather, as lesbian.

I recently had a snafu, I will call it that, with the fantasy novelist Lee Doty, whose work I would deem feminine, and unsuccessfully so, yet I was riveted by Stephen Baxter, whose realism falls into hard (i.e. male) science fiction, and as a consequence I gave him a five star rating. How this breaks down along traditional gender roles and readership I cannot say, but it might serve as a critical study OrphanPip might enjoy pursuing.

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## JCamilo

> My comment was about the dictionary.com definition. In this case the distinction was a crucial one. As Orphan Pip wrote, the correction was in the interests of precision which is the goal of most writers.


This Merriam-webster, not in 19 century or anything. 

: either of the two major forms of individuals that occur in many species and that are distinguished respectively as female or male especially on the basis of their reproductive organs and structures 

The nitpicking is annoying, anyone reading the title may have doubts but not the first post. The words can be used as synounimous (Merriam-webster do list Sex as defintion of Gender) and humanisties use or water, is a restricted use. It does not nullify the use in other contexts, just amplify it. 

The nitpicking was annoying. I mean, there was more things to comment or correct in his first post that are on topic, than this.

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## OrphanPip

> The nitpicking is annoying, anyone reading the title may have doubts but not the first post. The words can be used as synounimous (Merriam-webster do list Sex as defintion of Gender) and humanisties use or water, is a restricted use. It does not nullify the use in other contexts, just amplify it. 
> 
> The nitpicking was annoying. I mean, there was more things to comment or correct in his first post that are on topic, than this.


True, but general use of a lot of words is imprecise and not very useful for discussion. As a biologist, I often face an uphill battle trying to make people understand why categorizations of living things are often merely for convenience of reference and that they fall apart under any kind of serious scrutiny, discrete species concept being the major archaic concept that hangs around in the general populace. Sex is a roughly archaic concept, which is why it is ultimately likely to be usurped entirely in academic writing by gender. Masculine and feminine is more than genitals, even at the level of biology genitals facilitate categorizations but they aren't really adequate for defining everything we mean by masculine or feminine biologically, if we took a child with a vagina and fed them male hormones are they then male, a masculine

I think it's important that we distinguish between what gendered behavior we think arises directly from biology, and what arises out of cultural understandings of how we relate to our biology. 

This is not nitpicking, it is merely clearly defining what we are talking about. Seasider wasn't even correcting the OP, she/he was just proposing new, and more precise, terminology for the discussion.

Edit: I'll add that I'm probably just a tad persistent on this terminology because I think it has honest sociological effects that propagate certain repressive systems of thought.

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## Jozanny

> True, but general use of a lot of words is imprecise and not very useful for discussion. As a biologist, I often face an uphill battle trying to make people understand why categorizations of living things are often merely for convenience of reference and that they fall apart under any kind of serious scrutiny, discrete species concept being the major archaic concept that hangs around in the general populace. Sex is a roughly archaic concept, which is why it is ultimately likely to be usurped entirely in academic writing by gender. Masculine and feminine is more than genitals, even at the level of biology genitals facilitate categorizations but they aren't really adequate for defining everything we mean by masculine or feminine.


I no more bow down to scientific narrative for guide posts than I do to religious doctrine. There are two methods for procreation, asexual generation and sexual generation and humans care more about the latter because we define ourselves along gender roles, inclusive of those whose orientation switches are biologically confused. Indeed, the best I've seen writers imagine in terms of alternative sexes are humans who have both genitalia, and that isn't saying much, because we can't imagine another type other than male, female, neuter. Culturally, socially, how we view ourselves as men and women matters, and this will always be reflected in our literature.

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## OrphanPip

> I no more bow down to scientific narrative for guide posts than I do to religious doctrine. There are two methods for procreation, asexual generation and sexual generation and humans care more about the latter because we define ourselves along gender roles, inclusive of those whose orientation switches are biologically confused. Indeed, the best I've seen writers imagine in terms of alternative sexes are humans who have both genitalia, and that isn't saying much, because we can't imagine another type other than male, female, neuter. Culturally, socially, how we view ourselves as men and women matters, and this will always be reflected in our literature.


I would agree that asexual and sexual pretty much do define the means of procreation for living things. That doesn't really demonstrate that the two sex dichotomy isn't really a matter of convenience, it works just because it first most people not because it is a solid determined thing. Besides hermaphrodites and intersex humans exist. That's without getting into the issues of sex-related traits, like brain chemistry, hormones, breasts, etc. which are not always aligned how we like to think they should. 

Of course, I agree how we view ourselves as men and women matters, but it also matters how we reconcile tensions with how we identify as men and women, and how people who identify as neither men or women feel. How exactly are intersex people supposed to feel, when their adult sexual morphology is often something that has been surgically and pharmaceutically imposed on them. Should they be forced to flip a coin and choose a sex, or go with the old "it's easier to dig a hole than build a pole" mantra.

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## Emil Miller

This has been the funniest thread since the girls discussed Twilight.
It reminds me of the form that was circulated to companies saying: 

List all the people in your company broken down by age and sex.

Count me in.

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## Jozanny

> I would agree that asexual and sexual pretty much do define the means of procreation for living things. That doesn't really demonstrate that the two sex dichotomy isn't really a matter of convenience, it works just because it first most people not because it is a solid determined thing. Besides hermaphrodites and intersex humans exist. That's without getting into the issues of sex-related traits, like brain chemistry, hormones, breasts, etc. which are not always aligned how we like to think they should. 
> 
> Of course, I agree how we view ourselves as men and women matters, but it also matters how we reconcile tensions with how we identify as men and women, and how people who identify as neither men or women feel. How exactly are intersex people supposed to feel, when their adult sexual morphology is often something that has been surgically and pharmaceutically imposed on them. Should they be forced to flip a coin and choose a sex, or go with the old "it's easier to dig a hole than build a pole" mantra.


This is as relevant to disability identity as it is to the GBLT identity that keeps pushing the envelope, and only science fiction as a genre meets those expectations, as a whole. It is a gender crossing genre in this sense.

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## illusionary

I associate philosophy, poetry, and anything serious (for lack of better word) with men. I associate fluffy chick lit, romance, and self-help with women.

Interestingly I am a female and I do not live up to my own stereotype.

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## Rores28

> No it's something of gender, I think it would be incredibly difficult to attach anything to do with biological sex to literature preference.


If you mean what I think you mean I find this to be a strange assertion. I take this to mean that if we randomly sampled 1000 humans with penises and 1000 humans with vaginae and recorded their literary preferences that no correlative pattern would emerge? Likewise, we could do the same thing with 1000 XY individuals and 1000 XX individuals. 

Edit: While I realized that vaginae was a plural form of vagina I did not realize that spell check would actually reject vaginas.  :Smile:

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## OrphanPip

> If you mean what I think you mean I find this to be a strange assertion. I take this to mean that if we randomly sampled 1000 humans with penises and 1000 humans with vaginae and recorded their literary preferences that no correlative pattern would emerge? Likewise, we could do the same thing with 1000 XY individuals and 1000 XX individuals. 
> 
> Edit: While I realized that vaginae was a plural form of vagina I did not realize that spell check would actually reject vaginas.


A correlative pattern here doesn't demonstrate a causative link, nor would it delineate between cultural and social impact over biological. Not that I think those are entirely mutually exclusive entities, as I defined gender as a function of our understanding and relation to our biology, which is itself influenced by our biology.

Or in other words, just because more people who have penises are reading fantasy novels doesn't mean that it is because they have a penis that this is so. It may be in part, but if any matter of culture is involved in producing in that pattern, then we're looking at something of gender.

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## kiki1982

I agree with Brian that this is the weirdest thread.  :Biggrin: 

@OrphanPip:

I recognise that 'gender' is the right way to talk of 'sex' in sociological terms, but I was talking of the way it was introduced. Why not just continue talking about 'gender' instead of 'sex' and be done with it? Why do we have to say, 'I think you mean "gender", right?' To me that sounds like, 'Tut-tut, you don't know it quite as well, do you', a tad offensive actually. That was my point. 

Although the rest of this dicussion is very interesting.  :Tongue:

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## Seasider

One thing I've realised from reading the posts on this forum is that posters come from a huge variety of countries,cultures,genders,languages,ages and everything else that divides people. And still we try to communicate with each other in one language about things that are interesting or important to us.And we must do it without tone or volume of voice, facial expression, body language or any of the other ways we supplement the words we use to get our meaning across.
So is it not sensible to try, when the written word is our only tool, to ensure that the terms we use,regardless of grammar, spelling or idiom as far as possible communicate the same ideas to the debaters? At the UN they have interpreters...I suppose to avoid offence being taken thus leading to An International Incident! :Smile: 

The original title was ambiguous; the word _sex_ can be used in many contexts. It was clear that the poster was speculating as to whether men and women have different tastes in literature. My suggestion was not a correction and it certainly was not a criticism of the poster. I was not saying to the poster tut tut you got it wrong! I simply suggested that if we used a more precise and less ambiguous word the chances of our understanding each other would be increased.
The only reason I post this is because what had the potential of being an interesting debate seems to have got somewhat snarled up.

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## inbetween

yep a little
when I posted this I was actually thinking of using the word "gender" but I didn't know (still don't) whether it was a gender or a sex matter... perhaps I choose sex to provoke answers and to get more readers (at least in one case this worked out exellenty...  :Biggrin: )
perhaps that's part of the question. does the difference in taste concerning literature tell us anything about the general differences? 
I saw a documentary about authism which followed the theory that there is sytemathik brain (S brain) and an emotional brain (E brain). it said men mostly have S brains and women mostly E brains (as to why that is I got my own theory... I think our brains adapted to the tasks they were given, which were, due to the physical differences, mostly emotional for women and mostly systematic for men. doesn't mean that a woman can't have a S brain and the other way round but as a matter of fact the majority of autistik people are male) . the absolute S brain was the autistic.
so the real question is perhaps: how strong is the connection between gender and sex?.. and does this literature thing tell us anything about it?

and complaining about a word (when there's something fishy with the meaning) is something I would do as well, just I'd try to choose my words more carefully not to hurt anyone... see you could as well have asked me if I meant gender rather then sex... that would have sounded a little kinder

but anyways ... none of you complained about the missing "r" in the very headline. so either you didn't notice or you were kind enought not to. (I would apreciate the later one very much since spelling is something I loose so easily when writing these things in the evening... and of course I'd be kind with you as well if it's just about spelling in comments... )

that's bin too long
I do apologize for this mass of letters, I usually have it shorter...

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## JCamilo

Since there is no way anyone can grat that both sides will not interpret the text in the way they want, except with silence, there is no much point in debating which word. 

Anyways, women was introced as public and producer of literature quite lately. They were present in the oral aspect, only after the burgoise raise in the XIX century and a considerable inclusion of reading public, which included women (with the education to them) the literature was a male game. And what was literature main products? Philosophy and Poetry. Novels in prose were behind it, so in a way, many will identify the raising of novels in XIX century with the inclusion of woman. The number of writers increases clearly on this field. And they have great importance, Jane Austen, Bronte sisters, George Elliot are all major names of english novel. Maybe only Elizabeth Barrett had such power in poetry. About the romantics, most of them are men and most are writing for men. The idealized love or woman is a good signal of that - even those who are close to their "muses" like Shelley or Keats, still consider the acceptance of his peers in first place. And in a way poetry, still a male game. The number of great male poets after XIX century easily outnumbers the female poets. But this is less about phylosophy (it should be how it is writen, not the format. We have enough themes and ways of poetry or prose for both genders) more about the social momment. Poetry and Philosophy were downcast, so woman education moved to what was on the top - prose, novels, romances - and more pratical. If the woman inclusion was earlier, they would certainly be educated reading poetry and would be writting poetry too.

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## Rores28

> A correlative pattern here doesn't demonstrate a causative link, nor would it delineate between cultural and social impact over biological. Not that I think those are entirely mutually exclusive entities, as I defined gender as a function of our understanding and relation to our biology, which is itself influenced by our biology.
> 
> Or in other words, just because more people who have penises are reading fantasy novels doesn't mean that it is because they have a penis that this is so. It may be in part, but if any matter of culture is involved in producing in that pattern, then we're looking at something of gender.



Of course... now notice the title of the thread. Connection between sex and preferred literature... _Not_ causative link between sex and preferred literature. You are not the first person to point out the dif between correlation and causality to me and I don't find it odd because it is false but because it is so obviously true. This is taught in high school science and mathematics classes. 

Furthermore, I'm not trying to be nitpicky myself but this would in fact make your assertion incorrect (unqualified by your response post post that is). I can say with a fair degree of certainty that there will be a higher vagina to Twilight-preference correlation than a penis to Twilight-preference correlation. The reason I can comfortably say this is because the number of people who have penises and vaginae, but possess significantly aberrant hormonal profiles, significantly atypical gender rearing environments, significantly strong predilections to resist status quo mentality etc... will be relatively infrequent in the population. That is to say, they will be infrequent enough that making these sex preference correlations is still possible. 

I actually think that, had the poster invoked the word gender in lieu of sex (and if we were being sufficiently naive/nitpicky to begin with and acting like in common parlance these words weren't totally interchangeable), that the question would have become more difficult and obscure, if not totally impossible to answer from what he was implicitly asking as an _anecdotal_ estimation. 

I guess what I didn't realize was that many posters on litnet required of their acquaintances complete blood panels, and rigorous psychological evaluation to determine where exactly on the gender identity continuum they fell (rather than using that audaciously un-PC "visual inspection of sexual dimorphism" heuristic) before asking them what books they liked to read.

----------


## Emil Miller

I seldom read poetry but I do read novels and always have done.So, am I atypical in this regard, or is the dividing line between the genders less clear cut than some have suggested?

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## JCamilo

In a way, all forms of literature are read by male public. All, romance, prose, poems, essays. But not all themes and subjects are. The difference wont be in the format, much more in the themes and in a way, there is very few "girls only" literature.

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## OrphanPip

> Of course... now notice the title of the thread. Connection between sex and preferred literature... _Not_ causative link between sex and preferred literature. You are not the first person to point out the dif between correlation and causality to me and I don't find it odd because it is false but because it is so obviously true. This is taught in high school science and mathematics classes. 
> 
> Furthermore, I'm not trying to be nitpicky myself but this would in fact make your assertion incorrect (unqualified by your response post post that is). I can say with a fair degree of certainty that there will be a higher vagina to Twilight-preference correlation than a penis to Twilight-preference correlation. The reason I can comfortably say this is because the number of people who have penises and vaginae, but possess significantly aberrant hormonal profiles, significantly atypical gender rearing environments, significantly strong predilections to resist status quo mentality etc... will be relatively infrequent in the population. That is to say, they will be infrequent enough that making these sex preference correlations is still possible. 
> 
> I actually think that, had the poster invoked the word gender in lieu of sex (and if we were being sufficiently naive/nitpicky to begin with and acting like in common parlance these words weren't totally interchangeable), that the question would have become more difficult and obscure, if not totally impossible to answer from what he was implicitly asking as an _anecdotal_ estimation. 
> 
> I guess what I didn't realize was that many posters on litnet required of their acquaintances complete blood panels, and rigorous psychological evaluation to determine where exactly on the gender identity continuum they fell (rather than using that audaciously un-PC "visual inspection of sexual dimorphism" heuristic) before asking them what books they liked to read.


No, the connection between sex and literature preference is obscured by the effect of gender, i.e. the relationship to cultural and social conditioning of our relationship to our sex. So, it is more fruitful to speak of the connection to gender rather than sex, because we are speaking of a cultural and social relationship, which includes the effect of biology but also takes into account the effects of social construction. Establishing such a correlation would just be a mere exercise in counting responses, it is the commentary and how we interpret this stuff that is interesting. 

Fyi. I actually answered her question as well, in my first post in this thread. Who is being nitpicky here? I never commented on her grammar, neither did Seasider. She merely said that it might be better to discuss gender's relationship to literature than sex's, which I agree with. You people are making a mountain out of a mole hill for no apparent reason other than picking pointless fights over the internet.

Moreover, I don't see why we should be sticking to the topic in the OP, it's just a pointless call for sharing anecdotal impressions of what people like to read. I just find it much more interesting to go into discussing the effects of gender, mediated through cultural and social forces, like say targeted marketing of certain literature, on how people are reading rather than just commenting on whether we have observed the same thing.

If you're not interested in that, then simply don't respond, c'est tout.

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## Rores28

> No, the connection between sex and literature preference is obscured by the effect of gender, i.e. the relationship to cultural and social conditioning of our relationship to our sex. So, it is more fruitful to speak of the connection to gender rather than sex, because we are speaking of a cultural and social relationship, which includes the effect of biology but also takes into account the effects of social construction. Establishing such a correlation would just be a mere exercise in counting responses, it is the commentary and how we interpret this stuff that is interesting.


Once again this is stemming from me pointing out your initial assertion that a connection (attachment) cannot be made between sex and literary preference and it in fact can. Whether or not the connection is obscured was not in question and in a sense is really irrelevant (that is "that it is obscured" not "how it is obscured"). Nearly every connection between two things is obscured and rife with all kinds of variables known and unknown, this is not a strange occurrence. What you typed in that particular post was simply not what you meant, and that's all I was really asking, because it was unclear to me if you really thought that.




> Fyi. I actually answered her question as well, in my first post in this thread. Who is being nitpicky here? I never commented on her grammar, neither did Seasider. She merely said that it might be better to discuss gender's relationship to literature than sex's, which I agree with. You people are making a mountain out of a mole hill for no apparent reason other than picking pointless fights over the internet.


I never questioned whether or not you answered her question nor did I say anything about grammar.




> Moreover, I don't see why we should be sticking to the topic in the OP, it's just a pointless call for sharing anecdotal impressions of what people like to read. I just find it much more interesting to go into discussing the effects of gender, mediated through cultural and social forces, like say targeted marketing of certain literature, on how people are reading rather than just commenting on whether we have observed the same thing.
> 
> If you're not interested in that, then simply don't respond, c'est tout.


Disagree. The sharing of the anecdotal impressions could actually be quite interesting if a consistent pattern emerged by which we then could form hypotheses about the sociobiological implications. But it would be nice if we had some baseline data first. I also am not averse to the thread meandering in other directions, but if you thought the originial topic was "just a pointless call for sharing anecdotal impressions" you may have been better off opening a new thread about gender.

If you're not interested in that, then Je m'appelle Emilie.

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## JuniperWoolf

> As a biologist, I often face an uphill battle trying to make people understand why categorizations of living things are often merely for convenience of reference and that they fall apart under any kind of serious scrutiny.


You ever tried telling people that calling something a "fruit" or a "vegetable" means absolutely nothing? It's like you're telling them that the universe is in a snow globe. I get into that everytime someone goes on about the classification of tomatoes.

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## Seasider

Of course.
_That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet._

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## Jozanny

No one has actually mentioned evidence, but something like Twilight is marketed toward YA females, thus correlations could be established Pip. There is a reason chick lit is called chick lit, and sure, critics can deconstruct this, but the market makes money off of two primary groups: suburban women and teens. Masculine works, literary classics, these have a more fragmented audience.

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## JBI

> Margaret Atwood is... Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
> winner of Arthur C.Clarke Award
> winner of Prince of Asturias Award
> winner of Booker Prize (and shortlisted 5 times)
> winner of Governor General's Literary Award twice (runner up 5)
> was made Companion of The Order of Canada
> And that's just a selection.
> I doubt she would have achieved all this if her oeuvre could be reduced to a traumatised woman's rants about male abuse and violence. Her politics include Green and Environmental issues and Animal Welfare. 
> 
> What is described here as _political- poetics_ has a long and honourable history including Chaucer,Dryden, Pope, Shelley and Byron and that's only English poetry. I suspect it is Atwood's feminism rather than her politics that is being targeted here. Her most recent work has covered environmental matters which concern young and old alike.


Sorry for the late reply, as I was detained (have been on the road most days, and did not catch this reply during my brief moments on the forum).

As for the question of her awards, that is true, she is renown, and for a good cause.

That however does not mean she has limited scope, or has changed and remade herself because she realizes her gimmick is over. The same way Hardy switched from novels to poetry.

Now, you target me now as a misogynist, or an antifeminist - I will start by saying, her feminist politics aren't all that - she is rather flimsy as a political discourse writer - nor has she only had one movement in her work of feminist - it has evolved throughout the course of her oeuvre. 


If you read my point (I assume you did, you just glossed it for your own means, by my reading, but Brutus is an honorable man, etc.) you would see my point was in her shift from her feminist and gender politics to her new politics (I have not read her recent one, though the last one I recall was one on Debt, which came out right when this fiscal disaster occurred a few years ago). The point is, she changed, and has gone into personality rather than author, the same way Zola's last novels are mediocre at best (which is why the translations of them on the forum are the only ones available in English). 

As someone who has worked closely with Canadian literature, I am very well versed in the poetic scenes around her time, and in the general poetics of the country at large. On that note, I feel comfortable to seeing her poetics, and to a lesser extent, her novels, as part of a limited movement - my remark was to how she was not really able to sustain her artistry once that dried up, in contrast to her predecessor poets in the Canadian tradition, namely P. K. Page who was writing excellent poems almost until the day she died. 

I was questioning the limit of gender and politics in literature, not the place of Atwood in a canonical frame, nor her esteem (which even if I called her a whining brat, as many readers have, would not be the least bit diminished). My point was on the emphasis of gender in understanding trends - it is not that we are reading gender, but that gender is being forced onto those who are writing (though less so now than earlier), the same way race, and religion have been in the past. IT is this idea that was borrowed from the French on a misreading of Freud (who in turn was misreading reality) which decided that one could "write the feminine." (Helene Cixous, The Laugh of the Medusa). The same way that there has been encouragement for the homosexual to write the homosexual, or the African-American to write the African American experience. Though, I would note this trend is dying (if slowly), and people are entering the real post-modern stage, where these issues are being overcome (in some areas, in other areas this is really just beginning). 

Back to Atwood though, she has had a knack of jumping on the political bandwagon as soon as it gets going, and a rather good command of irony, that tends to take subjects and make them as depressing as humanly possible. She seems to encourage herself into the mold of the politic, if not to take a side and make it sensationalized (with a strong sense of irony) then through just ironizing the questions in general into absurdity. Simply put, Canadian women authors have dominated Canadian writing since the modernist period - we do not seem to have the male-female readership divide problem since, simply, nobody seems to read Canadian literature in general.

Gender is important, but we have made it post modern, and did so rather early, Atwood knows this, so she abandoned the gender ship and went on to the contemporary issues - she also seems to have abandoned Canada to an extent, though she still lives here, I think.

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## Jozanny

I don't like Atwood's work, but think I'd agree that she is an outlier author along the outlines of Lessing and company. Suburban female authors don't like me either, probably because I don't see domestication as a feminine virtue-- but I think Pip is stretching the point too far, as all you have to do is look at marketing forces; they do cater to gender roles, whatever subversive challenges writers like to throw at it.

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## Seasider

@JBI

Your contributions to this thread have in my opinion been pompous and patronising.And shot through with spite and resentment and barely disguised misogyny.

Your main target seems to be Margaret Atwood who is, as I have already pointed out, an internationally acclaimed and respected writer. Far from sharing this opinion, you are brutally dismissive of her standing, and take the opportunity to repeat some anonymous person’s description of her as no more than a whining brat! Such a balanced criticism! 
While you berate her for her feminist concerns you also say
_her feminist politics aren't all that - she is rather flimsy as a political discourse writer_ 
Damned if she is and damned if she isn’t.
Later you widen your scope to include that monstrous regiment of women, the sorority of Canadian women poets, thus…

_In truth though, there has been some bad pressure on women poets to be "women poets" rather than "poets." That basically stunted growth in many poets, who were restricted to alienating male audiences…_

And presumably they succeeded in alienating male audiences by departing from the usual poetical suspects like nature, beige in tooth and claw, and the perennially appealing cycle of love’s labours lost and gained, or what you described as artistic- poetical in favour of drawing attention to the harsher realities of life experienced by some women, which you described as political-poetical. And presumably this “bad pressure” was exerted by followers of feminism, or at least those among them who read and/or wrote poetry. 

All poets worthy of the name have an agenda and often a disturbing one, and those that don’t are, and were, mere versifiers. Shelley called poets _The unacknowledged legislators of the World_

Consider Wilfrid Owen

_If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, —
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori._

How do you think that went down at The War Office? Or with the Recruiting Officers? Or with the Top Brass of the British Army in 1918?

Consider Shelley

_England in 1819
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,-- 
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow 
Through public scorn,--mud from a muddy spring,-- 
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know, 
But leech-like to their fainting country cling, 
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,-- 
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,-- 
An army, which liberticide and prey 
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield,-- 
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay; 
Religion Christless, Godless--a book sealed; 
A Senate,--Time's worst statute unrepealed,-- 
Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may 
Burst, to illumine our tempestous day._

Unlikely to endear him to The Establishment of his day.

Luckily for us and for English Literature their critics didn’t hold sway. These poets and countless others did not flinch from speaking truth to power. I hope that Atwood and other poets will not abandon their concerns with inequality and environmental issues and, *as long as is necessary,* speak out fearlessly against those who wish to retain their comfortable positions of dominance and unaccountability.

But JBI is sanguine that subversive ideas regarding gender have had their day. They are old hat,like Atwood is, in his opinion. Young people, like him, I imagine, have apparently seen through the false readings of Freud by the French feminists which have encouraged the oppressed…women, people of colour and homosexuals to write of life as they experience it.

He says 
_Though, I would note this trend is dying (if slowly), and people are entering the real post-modern stage, where these issues are being overcome (in some areas, in other areas this is really just beginning._ 

He doesn’t make it clear to me whether in the real post-modern stage oppression will be overcome or merely the tendency to write about it will be overcome. However there is a bit of a clue to his thinking here…

_ Simply put, Canadian women authors have dominated Canadian writing since the modernist period - we do not seem to have the male-female readership divide problem since, simply, nobody seems to read Canadian literature in general._

It’s resentful on two levels… as being a member of a gender that is ignored, so he says, and further as a citizen of a country whose literature is ignored…so he says.
But better times are on the way

_Gender is important, but we have made it post modern, and did so rather early,_
Who _We_ are and how _They_ have made_ It_ post-modern and rather early too, is not made clear... but his Brave New World clearly is no country for old feminists.

----------


## stlukesguild

Your contributions to this thread have in my opinion been pompous and patronising.And shot through with spite and resentment and barely disguised misogyny.

Dear Seasider... I quite assure you that our beloved JBI isn't a misogynist. He is most certainly anti-American :Patriot: , pompous, patronizing... and quite often a general pain in the nether regions... but misogynist? I think you are there mistaken. JBI is no misogynist but rather a misanthropist. He doesn't dislike women... at least not overly so... no, rather he holds everyone in equal disdain. I say this fondly, for in spite of his curmudgeon manner many of us have grown not only accustomed to his manner... but rather enjoy his comments... perhaps like the salt on a good Margarita. :Shocked: 

Your main target seems to be Margaret Atwood who is, as I have already pointed out, an internationally acclaimed and respected writer.

And as such she is above criticism? Indeed, I doubt that any contemporary writer is universally admired.

All poets worthy of the name have an agenda and often a disturbing one, and those that dont are, and were, mere versifiers.

Now here I fully disagree with you. All art is about politics? That is but a re-hatched Romanticism rooted in the notion of the "artist as visionary", "artist as conscience of the world", "artist as voice of the masses"... or "artist as 'unacknowledged legislators of the World' ". Some art... literature...poetry may aspire to such, but I'll stick with the far more rational Oscar Wilde who recognized:

_The artist is the creator of beautiful things. 
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. 
For these there is hope. 
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. 
Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.

Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. 
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. 

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. 
The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

All art is quite useless._ 

Luckily for us and for English Literature their critics didnt hold sway. These poets and countless others did not flinch from speaking truth to power. 

And who defines what is "truth?" The only "truth" that matters in art is the "truth" as perceived by the individual artist.

I hope that Atwood and other poets will not abandon their concerns with inequality and environmental issues and, as long as is necessary, speak out fearlessly against those who wish to retain their comfortable positions of dominance and unaccountability.

I'm reminded of an art exhibition I attended years ago of drawings by Sue Coe. Coe's images were unrelentingly depressing rants against everyone and everything. In her artist's statement posted on the wall she declared, "People ask me why I make such ugly art. My response is that until rape and murder and child abuse and poverty and warfare (etc... etc...) are all a thing of the past, I will continue to make the art I do." Looking at my artist friend we both commented at once, "I guess she'll be doing this sh** for a looooong time" :Nod:  :FRlol: 

The reality is that politics are but a single element of the work of art. Taking the "right" political" stance is no more assurance of artistic relevance than is choosing an attractive subject matter.

----------


## OrphanPip

It is a bit reductive I think to represent Atwood as an artist who has been all about feminism. If I were to peg any overarching element to her work as a whole, it is an obsession with historicity. You can see this in her poetic cycle The Journal of Susanna Moody, where she takes a kind of psychological/feminist perspective and uses that to re-explore Moody's original stories from Roughing It in the Bush. Of course, she then takes this created Moody persona to comment on contemporary Canadian society from an invented historical voice.

In her short story "Age of Lead" she draws parallels between the death of the Franklin Expedition from lead poisoning to burgeoning concerns about cancer and AIDS in the 80s. 

The Handmaid's Tale reverses the backwards looking trend to focus on the future of humanity. Likewise, the Blind Assassin is largely about how our understandings of historical events change dramatically as we learn new things.

Those are just the examples I'm familiar with, but she has written a lot about Classical Myths, and has written a number of historical novels as well.

Edit: I think the Handmaid's Tale isn't even as overtly feminist as people make it out to be. It's more anti-theocratic and about the way people can be complicit in advancing their own oppression.

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## blazeofglory

Sex is considered a sin, a taboo, a ban, a contemptible thing speaking from a biblical perspective. Yet sex is what makes everything possible and is therefore most sacred, all taboos, all accusations, all lows notwithstanding.

Sex is not a thing to be abhorred; it is something to be prayed, worshiped, sung, praised. 

This is something that unites humanity; it is something that harmonizes people and an object of creation.

That is why writers, being overtly aware beings cannot rule out the significance of it in literary creations and that is why literature is not short of it

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## Seasider

@St Luke'sGuild
That's a fine and rather touching example of male solidarity and bonding.

I am not an expert on quote and reply techniques but I hope this comes out with quote and response correctly formatted. If it doesn't, apologies are offered in advance

_Dear Seasider... I quite assure you that our beloved JBI isn't a misogynist._

It would take much more than your assurance to convince me of that.

_Your main target seems to be Margaret Atwood who is, as I have already pointed out, an internationally acclaimed and respected writer.

And as such she is above criticism? Indeed, I doubt that any contemporary writer is universally admired.[COLOR="DarkRed
_

I agree but undiluted bad mouthing is not criticism as much as professional assassination

_All poets worthy of the name have an agenda and often a disturbing one, and those that don’t are, and were, mere versifiers.[/COLOR]

Now here I fully disagree with you. All art is about politics? That is but a re-hatched Romanticism rooted in the notion of the "artist as visionary", "artist as conscience of the world", "artist as voice of the masses"... or "artist as 'unacknowledged legislators of the World' ". Some art... literature...poetry may aspire to such, but I'll stick with the far more rational Oscar Wilde who recognized:

The artist is the creator of beautiful things. 
To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. 
For these there is hope. 
They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. 
Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.

Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. 
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. 

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. 
The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.[Color/]_

That is cynicism uttered from the heights of elitist privilege. How does Guernica or the Raft of The Medusa, to name but two, fit into this mindset? I would never deny the importance of beauty or its immanence but I dispute the preeminence of the views of Oscar Wilde on the exclusivity of Art. And I wonder whether his experience of 18 months Penal Servitude changed them. De Profundis isn't as full of witty quips in my recollection.


[/I]Luckily for us and for English Literature their critics didn’t hold sway. These poets and countless others did not flinch from speaking truth to power. [/ICOLOR]

_And who defines what is "truth?" The only "truth" that matters in art is the "truth" as perceived by the individual artist._[/I]

In the poems I chose as illustrations the views concerned the savagery of war and the damage that the excesses of inequality produces. Self evident truths to the majority, I would say.

_COLOR="DarkRed"]I hope that Atwood and other poets will not abandon their concerns with inequality and environmental issues and, as long as is necessary, speak out fearlessly against those who wish to retain their comfortable positions of dominance and unaccountability.[/COLOR]_

_I'm reminded of an art exhibition I attended years ago of drawings by Sue Coe. Coe's images were unrelentingly depressing rants against everyone and everything. In her artist's statement posted on the wall she declared, "People ask me why I make such ugly art. My response is that until rape and murder and child abuse and poverty and warfare (etc... etc...) are all a thing of the past, I will continue to make the art I do." Looking at my artist friend we both commented at once, "I guess she'll be doing this sh** for a looooong time"

The reality is that politics are but a single element of the work of art. Taking the "right" political" stance is no more assurance of artistic relevance than is choosing an attractive subject matter._[/QUOTE]

So Coe is a politically oriented artist and while some may agree with her politics, others may not. My main point in response to JBI's rant is that his hope for the post-modern world, that people, and particularly women poets will stop complaining about oppression, give up the struggle and go back to their safe pastoral/traditional roots, is indefensible on any grounds.

Just an aside
The English Laureate is Carole Ann Duffy
The Scottish Makar (Laureate) is Liz Lochead
The National Poet of Wales is Gillian Clarke

Typical eh? You wait 394 years and three come at once!

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## Oniw17

Most of the people I hang out with don't read. As for myself, I'm a male. I hate reading poetry, generally speaking, I only read if I think it's better than something I could write. I have my on and off periods with novels. I enjoy an ideological message in what I read, and I know that. I'm the same way with my music. If I can admire a character or a culture in what I read, I like it. Otherwise, I prefer non-fiction.

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## stlukesguild

@St Luke'sGuild
Seasider- That's a fine and rather touching example of male solidarity and bonding.

Now who's being sexist? If any male defends JBI it is only the result of male bonding?

_SLG- Dear Seasider... I quite assure you that our beloved JBI isn't a misogynist._

It would take much more than your assurance to convince me of that.
...undiluted bad mouthing is not criticism as much as professional assassination

Seriously, I can't think of any member her who has more often called attention to the efforts of women writers, be it Jane Austen, P.K. Page, Atwood, Toni Morrison, or Anne Carson. From mys experience he has discussed their writings no differently than that of any male writer. By the same token, he is just as quick to make broad dismissive comments about any number of male writers regardless of their esteem and his opinions, though sometimes harsh and not always in agreement with my own, are certainly based upon a rich reading experience. There are few members here who can even begin to approach the wealth of reading experience JBI has.

Now that you have called him to task, I have little doubt that JBI will eventually present you with a far more in-depth criticism of Atwood... although considering he is currently studying in China and has limited time on the internet, you may just need to wait.

That is cynicism uttered from the heights of elitist privilege. 

And that's little more than PC thought... also from the heights of privilege in academia. 

How does Guernica or the Raft of The Medusa, to name but two, fit into this mindset? 

Wilde was not being cynical, but rather rejecting the notion that art can be judged by values or standards external to art. A work of art is not to be judged as "bad" because it expresses the wrong religious views, the wrong political views, the wrong social views. This goes against the very purpose of art which is not merely to reinforce the values, standards, and beliefs of those in the position of power or those of the audience, but rather to transmit the perceptions of the individual artist in the most artful manner.

_Guernica_ and the _Raft of the Medusa_ both have powerful social messages and are both a sort of protest... but neither disintegrates into the pathetic phenomenon of our time... the anti-aesthetic "protest art". Protest art is shallow and one-dimensional. The message is to regurgitate the ugly reality of the world back at us as if highlighting the ugliness of the world were a revolutionary act. Neither art nor tragedy are one-dimensional. Protest artists fail to recognize that beauty is the ultimate protest against ugliness, which is why the absence of beauty or the aesthetic shows that they are not truly critical... but rather wallowing in self-pity. 

As Donald Kuspit suggested in his critical text, The End of Art:

_In the post aesthetic world the work of art becomes a bully pulpit; and the artist tries to bully the spectator into believing what the artist believes. He becomes a self-righteous bully, preaching to us (or rather at us) about what we already know- the ugliness and injustice of the world. ("Come see the injustice inherent in the system")- without offering any aesthetic, contemplative alternative to it. Indeed, the aesthetic, the contemplative, the "beautiful" are bad words in the revolutionary's vocabulary._

Both Guernica and the Raft of the Medusa... as well as the poems cited employ a mastery of formal aesthetic... contrast the horror and the tragedy and the ugliness of the subject with an aesthetic beauty that transforms the work into something sublime. 

I would never deny the importance of beauty or its immanence but I dispute the preeminence of the views of Oscar Wilde on the exclusivity of Art. And I wonder whether his experience of 18 months Penal Servitude changed them. De Profundis isn't as full of witty quips in my recollection.

I doubt that Wilde, a bi-sexual in Victorian England, was ever so naive as to not be aware of the ugliness and horrors that existed in the world. He merely recognized that fixating upon such subjects was no guarantee of aesthetic merit:

_I think it is one of the artist's obligations to create as perfectly as he or she can, not regardless of all other consequences, but in full awareness, nevertheless, that in pursuing other values- in championing Israel or fighting for the rights of women, or defending the faith, or exposing capitalism, supporting your sexual preferences or speaking for your race- you may simply be putting on a saving scientific, religious, political mask to disguise your failure as an artist. Neither the world's "truth" nor god's goodness will win you beauty's prize._

William Gass

In the poems I chose as illustrations the views concerned the savagery of war and the damage that the excesses of inequality produces. Self evident truths to the majority, I would say.

Yes... they represent one aspect of "truth"... that experienced by the poets in the trenches. As such they are not far from the truth witnessed and expressed by Francisco Goya in response to an earlier war: the Napoleonic invasions of Spain:







But are these inherently superior to the paintings of J.L. David, who witnessed the events here unfolding from another perspective... that of the rise of Napoleon as hero and savior of France?





Certainly we may empathize more with Goya, but does this make him the greater artist? What if we were take this dichotomy of artistic views into another realm... that of religion. If we are of the Catholic persuasion do we dismiss the art of Cranach and Durer and Breughel that ennobles the Protestant cause... or that of the Islamic painters or Hindu sculptors? The "art pour l'art" that Wilde and Baudelaire and Pater championed was not as effete view art without moral outrage... but it was a view of art that suggested that taking the "right" stance was no assurance of aesthetic merit.

So Coe is a politically oriented artist and while some may agree with her politics, others may not. My main point in response to JBI's rant is that his hope for the post-modern world, that people, and particularly women poets will stop complaining about oppression, give up the struggle and go back to their safe pastoral/traditional roots, is indefensible on any grounds.

My guess is that JBI, from his position as a contemporary college student, does not see a great deal of oppression and disparity based upon gender. There are probably as many or more students in his classes who are female and the same probably holds true of the professors. At the same time, he probably recognizes any number of the leading Canadian writers as being female (carson, Atwood, Page). I suspect he doesn't see a need for a continued focus of women writers upon "protest" themes. I would add that there may also be a sense of posturing involved by any artist who plays up the social and political and racial cards as a way of grabbing attention, in spite of their own privileged position. I, for example, find the artist Kara Walker hard to stomach with her continual focus upon racial inequality inherent in the system ("Come see the injustice inherent in the system!") considering her own experience born into a position of wealth.

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## JCamilo

Margeret Atwood, increasing the male bounds between Stlukes and JBI. I wonder what will happen when the target is Alice Walker  :Biggrin:

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## Seasider

> @St Luke'sGuild
> Seasider- That's a fine and rather touching example of male solidarity and bonding.
> 
> Now who's being sexist? If any male defends JBI it is only the result of male bonding?
> Not at all. You are defending him as a friend and not simply as a fellow member of a universally privileged group.
> 
> _SLG- Dear Seasider... I quite assure you that our beloved JBI isn't a misogynist._
> 
> It would take much more than your assurance to convince me of that.
> ...


This is the most essential part of this conversation. 

You and JBI and me have the good fortune to live in societies experiencing the best conditions for the majority of its members that, up to now the Human Race has ever experienced. And in these favoured societies the best of wealth and status and privilege is still enjoyed by men and, in less secure possession, the women they choose to share their lives. But pressures on the environment real or imagined, have forced us to recognise that neither our locus, our wealth, our privileged status or our gender will protect us from what may lie ahead.
And that is as much the concern of artists as it is of politicians, writers, economists at al.

I realise how far I have wandered from the original parameters of this thread. I wanted to champion MA from what I felt were undeserved attacks. But I have been forced to examine and re-examine my ideas about Art and its moral and aesthetic context and it has been an interesting and challenging debate.

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## Jozanny

I am a woman, and I find Atwood's dystopian tendencies somewhat forced and anachronistic; other than that I don't have much to say about her legacy, except that I find myself comparing her to Oates, and Oates suffers from having been around too long and making love to every contemporary cultural lexicon she can think of to prove her relevance, as in her hyper-commentaries defending Tyson, packing all of her energies into saying his lack of control is heroic.

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## Seasider

_




 Originally Posted by stlukesguild


@St Luke'sGuild
Seasider- That's a fine and rather touching example of male solidarity and bonding.
Now who's being sexist? If any male defends JBI it is only the result of male bonding?


_


> [/I]
> 
> Not at all. You are defending him as a friend and not simply as a fellow member of a universally privileged group.
> 
> {I]_SLG- Dear Seasider... I quite assure you that our beloved JBI isn't a misogynist.
> It would take much more than your assurance to convince me of that.
> ...undiluted bad mouthing is not criticism as much as professional assassination
> Seriously, I can't think of any member her who has more often called attention to the efforts of women writers, be it Jane Austen, P.K. Page, Atwood, Toni Morrison, or Anne Carson. From mys experience he has discussed their writings no differently than that of any male writer. By the same token, he is just as quick to make broad dismissive comments about any number of male writers regardless of their esteem and his opinions, though sometimes harsh and not always in agreement with my own, are certainly based upon a rich reading experience. There are few members here who can even begin to approach the wealth of reading experience JBI has._
> 
> ...


_
_

This is the most essential part of this conversation. 
You and JBI and me have the good fortune to live in societies experiencing the best conditions for the majority of its members that, up to now the Human Race has ever experienced. And in these favoured societies the best of wealth and status and privilege is still enjoyed by men and, in less secure possession, the women they choose to share their lives. But pressures on the environment real or imagined, have forced us to recognise that neither our locus, our wealth, our privileged status or our gender will protect us from what may lie ahead.
And that is as much the concern of artists as it is of politicians, writers, economists at al.

I realise how far I have wandered from the original parameters of this thread. I wanted to champion MA from what I felt were undeserved attacks. But I have been forced to examine and re-examine my ideas about Art and its moral and aesthetic context and it has been an interesting and challenging debate.

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## mortalterror

Seasider, I'm as appalled by JBI's misogynistic rant as you are, but let's not be too hard on him. He comes from a very backward and paternalistic land and is largely a product of his own oppressive society. In the United States, we would never characterize a great woman writer's entire ouevre as feminist whining, or imply that she should put down her pen and get back in the kitchen. We love and respect Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, and Flannery O'Connor here. In fact, I am shocked that my own fellow countryman Stlukesguild could hold such callous and shallow views on the subject, and assure you we are not all like that.

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## Scheherazade

*W a r n i n g

Please do not personalise your comments.

Post containing off-topic or inflammatory remarks will be removed without further notice.*

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## stlukesguild

As a fairly recent contributor I regret that I have not had the pleasure of reading JBI's comments on the literary scene past and present. But I do wonder how you manage to form conclusions about the relative wealth of reading experience possessed by other members.

JBI has been a member here for probably three years or more. We have agreed at times and gone head to head at times. He is not one you can ever take lightly because it rapidly becomes apparent that he is an omnivorous reader who has a far more than normal grasp of literature... in spite of his relative youth.

How does one ascertain the reading experiences of others? I do suppose that one could always pose as having read more than one has... make claims about what one has or has not read... and look up the names one is unfamiliar with on Wikipedia. To what end, I'm unclear. To engage in intelligent and often in depth discussion of a broad range of writers, alluding to other writers, other cultures, other traditions etc... however demands a real experience, and it rapidly becomes clear in such discussions when someone really does have a grasp of a wide arrange of writers and can engage in a deep discussion on any number of these at any given time. 

I, for one, wouldn't think to engage in a great discussion of Atwood having admittedly read but a single novel by her. Thus the focus of my comments were pointed only at given statements of broader concepts. If, however, you wish to discuss Dante, J.L. Borges, Italo Calvino, Baudelaire, or Eugenio Montale be sure to count me in... :Biggrin: 

I think there may be a place for the beliefs of those who are not "in the position of power or those of the audience" but who find solidarity in association.

Yes... but again I don't think the nobility of the sentiment or righteousness of the cause assures the work of any artistic merit. I also question the very effectiveness of political art at this point in time. All too often it simply strikes me as preaching to the choir. One assumes that the majority of those educated enough to voluntarily read serious literature or attend the art galleries are well versed in the injustices and political inequalities of the world. It would seem a 30 second TV ad or posting on the internet or organized rally would be far more of an effective means for a change.

Agreed. I don't think we should make qualitative lists of artists simply because they reflect our own preferred versions of Utopia. But neither do I think we should condemn those whose vision may disturb us.

Certainly not. I have no problem with art that disturbs... excepting only that juvenile brand of shock art that shocks merely for the sake of shock... or rather as a cheap means of gaining attention... and after a while most of this isn't "shocking" in the least but just more of the SOS.

I realise how far I have wandered from the original parameters of this thread. I wanted to champion MA from what I felt were undeserved attacks. But I have been forced to examine and re-examine my ideas about Art and its moral and aesthetic context and it has been an interesting and challenging debate. 

Again, I'll not question Atwood not having read enough. I'll let you and JBI duke it out. :Ihih:

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## Mutatis-Mutandis

> JBI has been a member here for probably three years or more. We have agreed at times and gone head to head at times. He is not one you can ever take lightly because it rapidly becomes apparent that he is an omnivorous reader who has a far more than normal grasp of literature... *in spite of his relative youth.*


Alright, how old is JBI anyways? I always assumed by the amount of literature he's shown to have read alone that he's around 40. I don't know if him being younger makes him a more or less intimidating intellectual opponent.

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## stlukesguild

Seasider, I'm as appalled by JBI's misogynistic rant as you are, but let's not be too hard on him. He comes from a very backward and paternalistic land and is largely a product of his own oppressive society. In the United States, we would never characterize a great woman writer's entire ouevre as feminist whining, or imply that she should put down her pen and get back in the kitchen. We love and respect Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, and Flannery O'Connor here. In fact, I am shocked that my own fellow countryman Stlukesguild could hold such callous and shallow views on the subject, and assure you we are not all like that. 

 :Shocked:  :Goof:  :Ciappa:  :FRlol:  :Smilielol5:

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## stlukesguild

I believe JBI is in his 20s... still a student... and English is not even his first language!!!

Now what exactly was the original question? :Shocked:

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## MystyrMystyry

Ah that old chestnut - 'What was the original question?' 

Dammit when that's brought up - but put simply 'what genders prefer reading?'

In my limited sociological experience a woman among friends speaks about seven thousand words a day, where a man among friends and/or enemies will speak about three thousand (something to do with being cavemen gorillas and only having a million connections between the left and right cerebral hemispheres to a woman's four million connections)

This is not the bottom line - because the more learned presumably we have more to say?

Non!

In reading fiction we are performing an interactive task, that is we question and cross-examine (and mentally play out) the text before us

And in doing this we are using up the quota of words that we would speak to communicate, and if we write them down we use even more

So why are women largely turned off by philosophy - it simply isn't particularly interactive in the way a novel or poem is

To subdivide the genres we like to read is also to ask how we read - it was observed on another thread recently that those who read fantasy don't read it particularly closely, but it's a mere escape, while those who read romance read it to imagine alternatives, a positional reaction test if you will

But yes there are S and A brains (and alpha and omega brains) and varying degrees of m/f brains and all the rest so these things get a bit fuzzy around the edges - but only around the edges

Manbrains tend to like to make lists - to know before exploring

Womanbrains tend to like to see and explore what's out there at the time whilst on the journey and don't like to be limited to just a preferential list

Anyone who has ever met a woman and/or gone window shopping with her will attest this is true

Likewise anyone who has ever met and gone driving with a man will also attest to this


Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong

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## Jozanny

I think getting back to the original intent of the OP would include the now fairly laconic observation that women writers like Atwood and Oates and Lessing and Spark are not easily categorized as chick-lit, even though pissing each other off is much more entertaining. Fortunately for the LNF, only luke has seen me post a temper tantrum, and it wasn't in this community, but you know all the iconic cues about Italian blood lust.  :FRlol:

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## kelby_lake

http://www.online-literature.com/for...t=46672&page=4

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## Seasider

:Confused5:  :Confused5:  
Why this link?

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## aliengirl

> Ah that old chestnut - 'What was the original question?' 
> 
> Dammit when that's brought up - but put simply 'what genders prefer reading?'
> 
> In my limited sociological experience a woman among friends speaks about seven thousand words a day, where a man among friends and/or enemies will speak about three thousand (something to do with being cavemen gorillas and only having a million connections between the left and right cerebral hemispheres to a woman's four million connections)


I wonder how did you count the words.  :FRlol: 





> Manbrains tend to like to make lists - to know before exploring
> 
> Womanbrains tend to like to see and explore what's out there at the time whilst on the journey and don't like to be limited to just a preferential list
> 
> Anyone who has ever met a woman and/or gone window shopping with her will attest this is true
> 
> Likewise anyone who has ever met and gone driving with a man will also attest to this
> 
> Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong


I've heard about alpha/omega brains. But this is the first time I came across man/woman brains. I'm a Woman or to be more scientific a Female. I tend to make list before I go shopping and I simply Hate window shopping. Why waste time over something I don't need? 

As for my choice of literature, I don't read much poetry or romantic novels. It was with great difficulty that my sister cajoled me to read Jane Austen. We've Austen's complete work on the shelf but I touched them last year and I won't say I don't like them. Austen is a great writer but I prefer the likes of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Alexandre Dumas Pere and Mark Twain. I also love detective/mystery and action/adventure novels.
But that was about me. In my limited friends' circle I've met more men who prefer poetry and more women who prefer romantic novels. Not many people like to read philosophy around me but those who like are mostly men.

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## kelby_lake

> Why this link?


I posted a thread on male/female preferences for books and how much difference there was between the sexes. I've only done a female one though so far.

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## inbetween

is there any conclusion so far?

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## kelby_lake

> is there any conclusion so far?


Unfortunately there weren't many takers on discussing the list but I'll post it here and see what conclusions we could draw from it:

*The Female Top 13*

1- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (6 votes)
2- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (3 votes)
3- The Bible (3 votes)
4- The Brothers Karamazov by Fydor Dostoevsky (3 votes)
5- The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky (3 votes)
6- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (3 votes)
7- The Catcher in The Rye by JD Salinger (2 votes)
8- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (2 votes)
9- Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (2 votes)
10- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (2 votes)
11- Lord of The Rings by JRR Tolkein (2 votes)
12- The Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling (2 votes)
13- Bleak House by Charles Dickens (2 votes)

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## Alexander III

> Unfortunately there weren't many takers on discussing the list but I'll post it here and see what conclusions we could draw from it:
> 
> *The Female Top 13*
> 
> 1- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (6 votes)
> 2- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (3 votes)
> 3- The Bible (3 votes)
> 4- The Brothers Karamazov by Fydor Dostoevsky (3 votes)
> 5- The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky (3 votes)
> ...



So we can say, that the conclusion is women have terrible literary tastes  :Biggrin:

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## Emil Miller

Although the sample is somewhat limited, the fact that Lolita has twice as many votes as any of the other examples, and that that Harry Potter has as many votes as Les Miserables, is intriguing. Based on these findings, it would appear that women have an extraordinary interest in paedophilia and the ability to confuse great literature with nonsense.

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## Seasider

I'm reserving judgement until I see what the male preferred reading list reveals.
Assuming that one is being prepared.

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## Buh4Bee

WOW! The data results is so insignificant that I see very little worth in trying to interpret the outcome.

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## kelby_lake

I didn't get that many takers last time so it is a pretty small sample. I might repeat the test and see how many I get this time round.

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## inbetween

better do so (and perhaps take some nice crime novels in ... they are missing) ... and start a male list as well ... we want scientifically relevant results.. this is a serious study (and I'm shocked, seeing these results)

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## Seasider

> better do so (and perhaps take some nice crime novels in ... they are missing) ... and start a male list as well ... we want scientifically relevant results.. this is a serious study (and I'm shocked, seeing these results)


Is this a joke? Isn't it supposed to be self reporting? :Confused5:  Books are reported by the participants, not suggested by the researchers! That is if you want serious, scientifically relevant results.

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## OrphanPip

I would say if you wanted scientifically relevant results you would need a large sample size of randomly chosen men and women. Then you would probably have to provide each person chosen for the study with a selection of books, anyone who has read the books before would have to be excluded from the study. Then they would have to read every book and rank them, and they would have be prohibited from accessing external opinions about the books. 

Then you could perhaps have some data on men and women's reactions to a specific set of books which may or may not be valuable for extrapolating insights onto larger groups. Depends on what kind of trends arise. 

Of course, this would all be a humongous waste of money.

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## kelby_lake

I'm not surprised that Lolita's top of the list. I can't pinpoint exactly why but I'm not surprised.

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## inbetween

> I would say if you wanted scientifically relevant results you would need a large sample size of randomly chosen men and women. Then you would probably have to provide each person chosen for the study with a selection of books, anyone who has read the books before would have to be excluded from the study. Then they would have to read every book and rank them, and they would have be prohibited from accessing external opinions about the books. 
> 
> Then you could perhaps have some data on men and women's reactions to a specific set of books which may or may not be valuable for extrapolating insights onto larger groups. Depends on what kind of trends arise. 
> 
> Of course, this would all be a humongous waste of money.


sounds a nice idea to me though... XD but why not make it as scientifically correct as possible? (around here)

(I'm still suprised how this developed)

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## Emil Miller

> I'm not surprised that Lolita's top of the list. I can't pinpoint exactly why but I'm not surprised.


Could it be anything to do with the writing?

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## kelby_lake

> Could it be anything to do with the writing?


Well, of course it's an amazing novel but would it top a favourite books list for men as well?

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