Peg Tittle
Every month, philosopher Peg Tittle, author of What If....Collected Thought Experiments in Philosophy (Prentice Hall), casts off the calm, measured and qualified
style of her profession to deliver her opinionated and impassioned column, exclusively for the TPM philosophy café...
I finished a novel by J. D. Robb the other day and also happened to read the
back inside cover blurb: "Nora Roberts is the #1 New York Times bestselling
author of more than one hundred novels. She is also the author of the bestselling
futuristic suspense series written under the pen name J. D. Robb. With more
than 145 million copies of her books in print and more than sixty-nine New York
Times bestsellers to date, Nora Roberts is indisputably the most celebrated
and beloved women's fiction writer today." Why the qualification women's
fiction? My guess is that with those numbers, she's a very well celebrated and
beloved fiction writer, period.
And what exactly is "women's fiction"? Fiction by women? Unlikely.
Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird would be women's fiction then. As would be
Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.
Fiction for women? That is, fiction that women are interested in? As if all
women are interested in the same things. We are as different from each other
as we are from each man. It's painfully clear that not all women are interested
even in feminism/sexism. Just as not all blacks are interested in racism. (Is
Mockingbird ever called black fiction?) And J. D. Robb's "Death" series,
of which the book I read is part, is about a cop, murder, good and evil, justice
- men aren't interested in these things? Since when? And her "Key"
series, written under the romance writer pen name, Nora Roberts, is described
thus: "Three women. Three keys. Each has 28 days to find her way through
a dangerous quest. If one fails, they all lose. If they all succeed, money,
power, and a new destiny await each of them. It will take more than intellect,
more than determination. they will have to open their hearts, their minds, and
believe that everything and anything is possible." Success, money, power,
destiny - of interest only to women? Hardly.
Even if Roberts does write about romance and love - well, I can see that men
are not interested in romance, because it's a fantasy of love that has more
benefits for women than men; men prefer the other fantasy, porn, which has more
benefits for men than women. But we're in big trouble if men aren't interested
in love. (Women, take note.)
Or is 'women's fiction' fiction about women? Well, yes, Robb's and Roberts'
fiction typically, if not always, features a female main character. So, what,
when the main player is female, men aren't interested? Wow. Let me say that
again: when the main player is female, men aren't interested. That explains
a lot. It also predicts a lot.
(So fiction about men is men's fiction? I've never ever even heard the phrase
'men's fiction'. Let alone applied to fiction with male main characters. That
would make To Kill a Mockingbird and Atlas Shrugged men's fiction. I've certainly
read a lot of men's fiction, then.)
And why is that? Why is it that women are interested in both women's fiction
and men's fiction, but men are interested only in men's fiction, only in reading
about members of their own sex? I suspect it's because it's not really, or not
just, 'aren't interested in' but 'don't consider important/valuable'. (Recall
the Jane and John essay study done, what, thirty years ago? Identical essays,
one supposedly written by Jane Smith and one supposedly written by John Smith;
the one by John Smith was given higher grades by both male and female students.)
According to an article by Katha Pollitt (titled "Invisible Women"),
op-ed editors wonder where the women are. ("In nine weeks, only 20 percent
of pieces [in The Los Angeles Times op ed pages] were written by women";
all five of USA Today's political columnists are male, all Time's eleven columnists
are male, one in six in print and two of thirteen on the web for Newsweek….)
Pollitt lists fourteen women op-ed writers 'off the top of her head'; I've heard
of most of them - why haven't the mentioned op-ed editors? It seems to support
what I'm saying: when a woman is the main player, men just aren't interested
- it doesn't even register on their radar.
And consider Washington Monthly blogger Kevin Drum who apparently mused upon
the absence of women bloggers and, says Pollitt, got a major earful from women
bloggers, "who are understandably sick of hearing that they don't exist.
'I'm staring you right in the face, Kevin,' wrote Avedon Carol (sideshow.me.uk),
'and even though you've said you read me every day you don't have me on your
blogroll.'" Why are women so underrepresented? Because male gatekeepers
don't see them, don't recognize them, aren't interested in them, don't consider
them important or valuable. Because they're writing women's stuff? Like women's
fiction? About cops and murder and good and evil and justice?
(So for those who think this is a post-feminist era, think again. Sexism has
just become more subtle, less overt. We need young women and young men more
than ever to be vigilant, to call others on their sexism, conscious or not.)
