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Female thriller writer who won €1m literary prize revealed to be three men

theguardian.com

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Re: Female thriller writer who won €1m literary prize revealed to be three men

#21

Post by PeterisP »

bitwize wrote: post #16
PeterisP wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cross-gender pen names are an common tradition. Have they also condemned the Bronte sisters or George Elliot or George Sand for creating a different gender persona for their writing? Or JK Rowling and Andre Norton literally changing their name for marketing purposes so that their gender would not be apparent on the books cover while they were still unknown as authors?

Men outrank women on the privilege stack. A woman adopting a male persona is "punching up"; a man adopting a female persona is "punching down".

I would argue that adopting a persona has literally nothing to do with the concepts of "punching up" or "punching down", which refer to cases of e.g. "verbal violence" of aggressive jokes and such; where the "up"/"down" determines the extent of how much "verbal violence" would be considered appropriate in that company.

However, the women I mentioned (like Bronte sisters) were not "punching up", they were not "punching" anyone in any way whatsoever, the choice of persona has no relation to some kind of aggression, they're simply choosing an arbitrary identity and that's it, there's not the slightest moral concern about this act, it's a well-established (and frequently used) writer's right to choose a pen name or persona and there's not the slightest thing wrong about that, no matter which group is adopting which persona - and the same applies for those three writers choosing their pen name. "Punching up" is considered less aggressive than "punching down", but adopting a persona is not even on the same scale, there's zero aggression about that.

On the other hand, attacking writers for their choice of pen name is punching. In this case it is the less-bad version because it is "punching up", but it is a form of bullying; a much more aggressive act than what those three writers have done.

Re: Female thriller writer who won €1m literary prize revealed to be three men

#22

Post by jl2718 »

bitwize wrote: post #16
PeterisP wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cross-gender pen names are an common tradition. Have they also condemned the Bronte sisters or George Elliot or George Sand for creating a different gender persona for their writing? Or JK Rowling and Andre Norton literally changing their name for marketing purposes so that their gender would not be apparent on the books cover while they were still unknown as authors?

Men outrank women on the privilege stack. A woman adopting a male persona is "punching up"; a man adopting a female persona is "punching down".

1. Explain why it is bad to give up ‘privilege’.

2. Explain why it is good to take ‘privilege’.

Re: Female thriller writer who won €1m literary prize revealed to be three men

#23

Post by dogleash »

automatwon wrote: post #2

> Beatriz Gimeno, a feminist, writer, activist – and former head of one of Spain’s national equality bodies, the Women’s Institute – attacked the men for creating a female persona in their publicity for Carmen Mola books, over several years

This line of criticism frames it as if the Carmen Mola public persona is unacceptably dishonest compared to the acceptably dishonest fake public persona called Beatriz Gimeno.

I don't mean to throw shade, it's simply the inescapable nature of cultivating a public image. Mola may be fiction, Gimeno is "based on a true story" fiction. (And interestingly enough, pen names are a time honored literary tradition.)

So when I see statements like the one you quote, my brain immediately interprets it as deflection. After a bit of turning it over in my head, I expect it's not a purposeful deflection but still find it worthwhile to make explicit. It leads us to the question: to whom and for what reason(s) is it important I see the distinction as meaningful?

Re: Female thriller writer who won €1m literary prize revealed to be three men

#24

Post by dudul »

bitwize wrote: post #16
PeterisP wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cross-gender pen names are an common tradition. Have they also condemned the Bronte sisters or George Elliot or George Sand for creating a different gender persona for their writing? Or JK Rowling and Andre Norton literally changing their name for marketing purposes so that their gender would not be apparent on the books cover while they were still unknown as authors?

Men outrank women on the privilege stack. A woman adopting a male persona is "punching up"; a man adopting a female persona is "punching down".

Who were armed by these guys' choice of pen name? Who got punch? What "privilege" was taken from whom?

Either their writing was great and would have been successful regardless, so it doesn't matter. Or they were successful only because their pen name was a woman's name, and then women have more privilege when it comes to publishing.

Re: Female thriller writer who won €1m literary prize revealed to be three men

#25

Post by bell-cot »

dudul wrote: post #10

When a woman does it, it's to expose the patriarchy. When men do it it's a scandal. Pen names have existed for centuries. Who cares?

IANAP (...Not A Psychiatrist), but a great many people who are enthusiastic readers (especially of novels) seem to imagine close relationships between themselves and their favorite authors, extensively fabricate details of the authors and relationships, and become very emotionally invested in those imagined relationships.

Hence the anger and feelings of betrayal when an actual author's identity, behavior, etc. fail to match those of the reader's close and trusted (but quite imaginary) friend.

Re: Female thriller writer who won €1m literary prize revealed to be three men

#26

Post by randomlurking »

koheripbal wrote: post #8

What I find interesting is that this author was listed among the top ten "feminist" writers. ... and that now feminists on twitter are advocating "her" removal. ... which is odd because technically a feminist doesn't need to be a woman. It really just exposes their hypocrisy, and that's why they hate these three guys.

I would agree - only that I don’t find many people on Twitter criticizing the trio. The article mentions one tweet (30 retweets, under 300 favs as of now - even after being mentioned in the guardian). Searching to the name doesn’t reveal much - some newspapers and mainly people laughing about the affair.

That’s one thing I don’t like about Twitter: I think single Tweets get blown out of portion quick, mainly because the media report on them as if „Twitter“ wanted something instead of single people.

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