Christ, say what you mean with style and substance, and people will respect you because of it. Don't be a fucktard and hide behind your sex.

I just have to jump in and respectfully make a comment.

Mike, your comment is the ideal, but I do have to say that while there are some people who will “hide behind their sex” or other minority status, quickly blaming every ill that befalls them or every unkind word on subtle (or not so subtle) discrimination, the vast majority of people don’t do this. There are very real pejorative attitudes toward women/gays/people of color as I’m sure you know.

It’s also true that there are a lot of people are quick to say when minorities complain of these things, they’re just playing the “race card” or the “gay card” or the “women card.” “They just want to blame everything on being gay/a woman/a person of color.” Sure, people do play those cards and those people are as dangerous to me as bigots and racists and the like. But the fact that there are asshats who pull these stunts doesn’t negate that these things actually do happen.

Just one quick example…

My mother was told for 6 months before she died that she was a hypochondriac. Her doctors were male. She kept telling them something was seriously wrong. None would believe her. On the night she died (of an aortic aneurysm and not her imagination), the doctors to my sister who called that there was absolutely nothing wrong with my mother. She had been dead for 2 hours, her body breathing reflexively.

After this, I looked into it. Male doctors tend not to believe women patients when they say something is wrong. Yet, men generally are paid attention to. When my father complained of a pain in his chest, the doctors couldn’t find anything, but they kept looking. It took them 9 months to find the lung cancer, but never once did they doubt something was wrong.

Anyhoo…that’s my .02, though many may think I’ve overestimated its value.

Don’t get me started on sports. Heh.

Which would make a lot of us happy. Damn, would it make a lot of us happy.

Then again, it might just be me.

The romance genre, by itself, is the perfect example of the lack of respect that women get. The genre is constantly being derided as being intellectually bereft; that somehow relationships and story about relationships and love lack the same value as male directed books. Or compare the amount of respect the romance genre gets compared to sports, where grown men where costumes every week and get paid millions of dollars to beat the crap out of each other or throw a ball through a hoop.

I do think that attitudes toward women are changing but that women have to be part of that change by not elevating male discourse over female discourse.

Jaysus. Are you for real?

Do you know one of the blogs I admire? This, by a *woman*.
http://f-ckingc-nts.com/

Another — by a woman:
http://www.violentacres.com/

Christ, say what you mean with style and substance, and people will respect you because of it. Don’t be a fucktard and hide behind your sex.

Any writer can hold any opinion. I don’t bring political or other ideological differences/similarities into my judgment of a writer’s *work*. That’s being a fucktard.

LOL! I was going with Tod’s thesis of fraternal transference..ie: she’s only picking at him because she adores you so.

Emmy

Different Goldberg, different show. Same old Ann.

Lee

I’ve had people tell me I needed to ‘pipe down’ in my commentary for fear of offending potential readers, and I considered it for a nanosecond. Then decided I simply can’t be bothered. On certain forums I’ve had people claim they’ll never read my books because they don’t like what I’ve said. There’s not a helluva lot I can (or would) do about that. I do, however, watch what I say about other authors. If I like a book I’ll praise it to the skies, but I won’t talk about it in public if it’s bad.

My political and social opinions are still just as raw and gritty as they ever were. I do occasionally pop off with them on my blog. I don’t do that nearly as much as I used to simply because I don’t have the time. I like to put a lot of research into something before I actually express an opinion on it. These days, both my research and writing time is taken up with trying to make a living.

To be fair, I had never read DAM or Laurie or Somerville in the first place, but I would not now purchase their work if I came across it.

Emmy, how many times are you going to make this declaration? Is there anyone in Romancelandia who hasn’t heard you bang your fist on your chest and declaim how unworthy I am of your patronage? Do I have to repeat what I said the first time you babbled about this? I don’t want you to read my stuff. Please. Keep away from my writing. My readers are intelligent, open-minded and likable people who I’d be happy to sit down and have coffee with anytime. I want to keep it that way.

As for the clumsy attempt to link me with DAM and Laurie… If you truly think there’s some equivalence, then all I can say is you really do have a twisted world view. Of course, to some people, a loud-mouthed woman really is a criminal, but then you and I will have to hang together on that score, wouldn’t we?

If you didn't care, Ann, you wouldn't be here.

Oh, did this become Tod Goldberg’s blog while I was on holiday?

Sorry, I thought I was commenting on a post by Jane Litte on her blog. Damn, my Google Reader must have reset itself.

The answer to ‘What would Tod Goldberg do?’ is, as far as I’m concerned – who gives a flying lemur’s nipple?

It speaks to what Jane noted about fear of stating opinions because you don’t want to deal with the blowback, but it also says something about a culture that revels in debate but doesn’t really want to take the steps toward change. When I call someone a fucktard, I’d like them to stop being fucktards, since it would make the world a nicer, smarter, less fucktarded place. The less fucktards we have, the less chance we have of ever electing Sarah Palin to office, for instance. I’m a pacifist, as Flea once said, but I will fuck you up.

I don’t think anyone apart from my wife is seduced by anything that I do, Ann. I can’t speak to Lee’s seduction abilities, though since he is older and uglier than me, I’m going to guess it’s constrained to his wife, too. You also don’t know enough about me to speak with any authority about my attitude, since the only people I treat rough are, in fact, fucktards. I urge you to spend a little time looking at who I’ve called a fucktard — apart from yourself, naturally, but what did you expect? I wanted a Tod Goldberg Is A Twat tag — and I think you’ll find that I typically talk about the bottom feeders of society. I only speak right on.

I suppose it’s irrelevant at some level, since what Jane has written here is not about me as much as it is about saying what you feel without fear of recrimination, regardless of sex, which is something you certainly do, Ann. And as long as you don’t mind being told you’re a fucktard for thinking the things you think at least as it relates to my family, well, then I’ll just keep pointing it out when you do it. Because isn’t that what you want? More people to be convinced of your position? Isn’t that what we all want? Consensus?

I yearn to be abused and encourage you to write a story about such

Strangely, I am more attracted by the tantalising prospect of John Scalzi’s bisexuality than when whether you like to take it in any orifice at all.

In fact, dear Tod, I give not a gibbon’s baculum what you or your socially challenged brother think or desire on any subject whatsoever.

I'll die happy

You had me at ‘I’ll die’ – though, for the sake of harmony and not being thought to be issuing actual threats, I’d be satisfied with you pissing off and leaving me and my blog alone. The extra attention isn’t bringing a particular high class of visitor, you know? Not a lot of cross-over between my readers and yours, strangely.

Some readers in the romance community seem to be seduced by your and little Lee’s peculiar brand of ‘treat ‘em rough and they’ll follow you anywhere’ attitude, but I am not of that inclination.

I'm of the opinion, although I haven't shared it with Goldberg yet, that the more that you insult him, the more that he appreciates it.

Yeah, I suspect it’s genetic. For a man, negative attention is a good thing because it brings out the protective nurturing instinct in their female fans. Basically, there is no downside to being a tool if you’re a guy – which is why the Goldbergs are such avid practitioners of the art of dishing it out but not taking it.

Me, I prefer the size of Mr Scalzi’s cojones, and his blog.

I can't begin to count the number of “play nice” admonitions I've read on blogs and forums. Or the number of posters who twist themselves into knots trying to be diplomatic and even-handed . . . and, as a result, reduce their comments to milquetoast. Sad to say, most of the blog hosts who resort to the ol' school-marmy tsk-tsk-tsk are women.

What K.Z. Snow said. All of it.