Researchers sent out resumes to a number of top law firms for prestigious positions. Everything directly career-relevant on them was identical; the only differences were in some carefully planned indicators of gender and class in the candidates’ names, interests, and extracurricular activities.
What happened next will completely fail to surprise you.
Originally shared by Walter Roberson
Just watched Galaxy Quest for the first time. (Yes, I know. There are a lot of movies that “everyone” has seen that I haven’t seen. I’m not a big movie guy.)
I can see why people love it. Great actors, good script, the parody is affectionate and on point. On the other hand, massive feminism fail. And the guy with a Chinese name, playing a character with a Chinese name, was played by… Tony Shalhoub? Who did an amazing job, but why use Chinese names if you’re going to end up casting a Lebanese actor? (Yes, I spotted the “Kwan isn’t even my real name” joke. Hanging a lampshade on it doesn’t make it OK.)
Star Trek is notable for its contribution to diversity and representation in popular culture. Galaxy Quest is notable for its failure to match this, with the one token woman with no arc who ends up with her clothes half torn off (played by Sigourney freaking Weaver, of all people), and the one token black guy with almost no arc and no real contribution to the plot. Who at least doesn’t die, I suppose.
Otherwise, though, good film.
I recently learned that Cosmopolitan started out as a “serious” magazine that published some speculative fiction. It may yet loop back around, as women’s magazines defy the stereotype that you can either be interested in politics or interested in makeup, but not both.
Originally shared by Jennifer Ouellette
“Women’s publications have been offering substantive, worthwhile political takes for years now. That we still find this development remarkable is a measure of how our culture has segregated “women’s issues” from politics at large.” http://qz.com/866305
I’ve been watching DC’s Legends of Tomorrow lately, and I have thoughts.
While it doesn’t have quite the heart of The Flash or Supergirl, it’s a worthy show despite the large quantities of cheese and many plot holes. It’s an ensemble cast – something I generally enjoy, especially if it’s well done, and the writers do some things well with it.
Most notably, they avoid the tropes of That One Kickass Woman or That One Black Character. There are two kickass women, one of whom is also one of the two black characters, which fixes the tropes much more than you might think. Because when you have two of some kind of character – like two criminals, or two physicists, both of which the show also has – you can make them different from each other, and all of a sudden you don’t have a single person standing in for their whole group of people and the implication that the group is all alike – if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. They can be fully realised, complex characters with their own stories, who also happen to be physicists, or criminals, or black, or kickass women. That becomes one dimension of a multidimensional character. (There’s only one character who isn’t straight, though, unless Snart is asexual, which I’m starting to suspect.)
There is a terrible shortage of nerds on the show, despite a bit of Trek love at one point. Nobody has mentioned Doctor Who so far, even though there’s a British guy with a time machine; and when they went to the 1980s, nobody referenced Back to the Future, either.
Still, despite the occasionally clunky SFX, self-contradicting plot and abundant ham-and-cheese, I’m enjoying it. I’m going to watch some more right now, in fact.
This whole article is very much of interest to me, since I have two close female colleagues, a woman boss and a number of female customers at my new day job. All the points are good, but here’s one that needs to be made more often:
“A man’s evolved frontal lobe — should he choose to use it — allows judgment, prudence, self-regulation and impulse control. Self-awareness means not pretending to be invulnerable to feelings of attraction, but also not giving into them and thereby putting the mentoring relationship, the female mentee and themselves in harm’s way.”
Via Singularity Hub
I believe it’s important to think about the implications of any trope you’re using, but this one is particularly important.
Originally shared by The Mary Sue
Is there a way to include sexual assault in a TV storyline that DOESN’T perpetuate rape culture?
Via Derrick Sanders.
Originally shared by Gennifer Bone
Inclusion matters.
While the article itself undermines its unmodified claim that “Wheatley was the first person of African descent to publish a book,” this is interesting.
Originally shared by The Public Domain Review
Phillis Wheatley, the first ever African-American woman to be published, died today in 1784. Vincent Carretta looks at her remarkable life: http://buff.ly/2gTJLSE
I’m sure there are mentally ill female characters in SFF, though offhand I’m struggling to think of any really obvious examples. Even in my own Hope and the Patient Man, Hope’s issues are framed as a magical curse, though it has definite psychological aspects to it.
Can anyone think of examples?
Originally shared by Cody Sisco
I appreciate this discussion of how female mentally ill characters are portrayed, and I understand and respect the writer’s decision to focus on female characters. But I don’t think mentally ill characters of any gender identity are often or well represented in fiction. What do you all think?
At least they’re making an attempt.
Originally shared by Maria Rich
This is very interesting! I like what they are attempting to do. Tom Weldon, chief executive of Penguin Random House UK, said “We feel very strongly about diversity in publishing. For me it is a real problem when we don’t reflect the society we live in. It’s not good for books, or culture, or commercially. We are going to become irrelevant.”
What they are doing about it also interesting. A three-part workshop for potential new authors and a year-long mentorship for three of those. Also, they are making efforts to employ more diversity. To the extent of changing their hiring qualifications!
Weldon said, “When a publisher has a bestseller, it’s easy to [just keep publishing] what sold yesterday. [But] there are amazing writers out there who we aren’t commissioning. The whole industry needs to change.” AMEN. Now can we bring this thought process over to the US?