Comments on: What Would Tod Goldberg Do?

By: Paul Bens

Paul Bens — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 23:47:25 +0000

Mike Cane said:

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.

By: Mike Cane

Mike Cane — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 20:09:53 +0000

>>>Or compare the amount of respect the romance genre gets compared to sports

Don’t get me started on sports. Heh.

By: Shayne

Shayne — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 01:05:37 +0000

I would think if readers spent more time reading, and writers spent more time writing, a large number of fucktards would disappear.

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

Then again, it might just be me.

By: Jane

Jane — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 00:47:38 +0000

@Mike Cane: I assume that you are directing your statement at me. Yes, I do believe that women do not get respect that men do with the same immediacy and at the same levels. I’ve worked in a male dominated field for years and, particularly in my early days, was not accorded with the same level of respect as male peers. Women, white collar women, still earn 80 cents to the dollar of men. There was a research study done showing that transgendered individuals were paid more when they were men than when they were women.

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.

By: Mike Cane

Mike Cane — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 00:34:58 +0000

>>>Women have to work twice as hard to gain respect as men do. This is as true in the real world as it is on the internet.

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.

By: MD

MD — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 02:04:11 +0000

Emmy…
Just my 2 cents, but lumping Laurie and Ann in with DAM is incredibly inappropriate and unfair. I think you owe them both an apology.

By: Emmy

Emmy — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 22:03:04 +0000

Lee

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

Emmy

By: Lee Goldberg

Lee Goldberg — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:28:06 +0000

Emmy,

Different Goldberg, different show. Same old Ann.

Lee

By: Emmy

Emmy — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:54:49 +0000

Oh, look….another episode of the Somerville-Goldberg show. And me without my popcorn.

By: roslynholcomb

roslynholcomb — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:44:16 +0000

This discussion is particularly interesting to me because I’ve had an online presence for more than a decade. I’ve only been a published author for two years, but I’ve been around various political and social forums for years. Had I known I would eventually start writing I probably would’ve been less likely to pop off my opinions for fear of offending people. Or perhaps used a pseudonym of some sort. Frankly, it never occurred to me that those two worlds would ever cross, or that people would hold it against me if they did. I guess I was a wee bit naive.

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.