A new annual literary prize, named in honour of the late writing legend Carol Shields, will be launched in 2022 —awarding $150,000 to a single work of fiction by a woman or non-binary writer. | @CBCBookshttps://t.co/xFkpxrJXrC
Oh for godssake. It’s bad enough that it’s incredibly easy for men to self-identify as women when they want access to a women-only grant or space or privilege. But at least that usually requires some minimal degree of effort — a minimal amount of friction in your social interactions; there’s usually some pressure to make at least some superficial gesture towards “femininity” when you’re a male who insists everyone go along with the conceit that you’re a woman. (Even Karen White was warned by the prison guards that he ought to keep his ridiculous wig on.)
But nonbinary status has literally zero prerequisites and zero cost to qualify. Any guy can do it; he wouldn’t even feel compelled to shave his beard or ask others to call him ma’am to qualify. There is no context anywhere on earth where there’s a relevant difference between a man who has checked a box on a form declaring himself nonbinary, and a man who has not checked such a box. It’s less binding than those stupid Terms of Service we all have to agree to when using software. Non-binary is nothing. It has no meaning. It doesn’t even exist outside of application forms. Literally any male who’s written a book is eligible for this award.
So why even bother having it as a criteria if it’s meaningless? It’s like having a special award that’s limited to women and also people who profess to like kittens. The Carol Shields Award for Women and Non-Kitten-Haters.
Has Sam Smith written a book? Maybe he (they? xe?) can apply.
Boy, I just went to the source, and look at all those comments from whiny men being left out. Don’t the snowflakes know they just have to tick a box to enter?
hahah the comments are pretty funny. Clearly this article has been picked up by some kind of right-wing shock-jock because it’s nothing but men whining that this award excludes men. Which is funny because I expected to see a bunch of comments complaining that it inadvertently INCLUDES them!!!
A new annual literary prize, named in honour of the late writing legend Carol Shields, will be launched in 2022 —awarding $150,000 to a single work of fiction by a woman or non-binary writer.
I take it that the class ‘non-binary’ includes trinaries, quarternaries, pentanaries and the rest.
These are non-trivial classes. Some people may have well-established relationships with animals of a variety of species. It would be shocking if they were discriminated against because of some arbitrary gender-specific but not species-specific rule; or vice-versa.
So if you have a donger hanging off you, don’t bother to apply; UNLESS…. (at this point, the mind boggles.
They had to add women writers to their phony non-binary award, otherwise there would be nothing worth reading. If you want to award $150k to the profoundly ignorant non-binaries, just leave women out of it, make it an all non-binary free for all. I’m sure the people who don’t identify as gender deniers won’t mind.
It probably goes without saying that in this instance the use of ‘woman’ is a tacit acceptance of transwomen as women since they are not specifically mentioned.
Also, being open to anybody who does not identify full-time as a man, it does raise the question of whether male-identifying women writers are excluded from consideration.
Discrimination. They should include hexadecimal writers too.
Oh for godssake. It’s bad enough that it’s incredibly easy for men to self-identify as women when they want access to a women-only grant or space or privilege. But at least that usually requires some minimal degree of effort — a minimal amount of friction in your social interactions; there’s usually some pressure to make at least some superficial gesture towards “femininity” when you’re a male who insists everyone go along with the conceit that you’re a woman. (Even Karen White was warned by the prison guards that he ought to keep his ridiculous wig on.)
But nonbinary status has literally zero prerequisites and zero cost to qualify. Any guy can do it; he wouldn’t even feel compelled to shave his beard or ask others to call him ma’am to qualify. There is no context anywhere on earth where there’s a relevant difference between a man who has checked a box on a form declaring himself nonbinary, and a man who has not checked such a box. It’s less binding than those stupid Terms of Service we all have to agree to when using software. Non-binary is nothing. It has no meaning. It doesn’t even exist outside of application forms. Literally any male who’s written a book is eligible for this award.
So why even bother having it as a criteria if it’s meaningless? It’s like having a special award that’s limited to women and also people who profess to like kittens. The Carol Shields Award for Women and Non-Kitten-Haters.
Has Sam Smith written a book? Maybe he (they? xe?) can apply.
I have a step-grandson who is self-declared non-binary.
I think he’ll be surprised to learn that he is a woman since that isn’t a status he has ever claimed for himself.
Surely all men’s prizes must also be open to non-binary, unless non-binary does, in fact, mean woman. And, men aren’t good sharers.
Boy, I just went to the source, and look at all those comments from whiny men being left out. Don’t the snowflakes know they just have to tick a box to enter?
@Papito hexadecimal is non-binary, unless you count it as four binary “digits”.
hahah the comments are pretty funny. Clearly this article has been picked up by some kind of right-wing shock-jock because it’s nothing but men whining that this award excludes men. Which is funny because I expected to see a bunch of comments complaining that it inadvertently INCLUDES them!!!
We live in bizarre times…
I take it that the class ‘non-binary’ includes trinaries, quarternaries, pentanaries and the rest.
These are non-trivial classes. Some people may have well-established relationships with animals of a variety of species. It would be shocking if they were discriminated against because of some arbitrary gender-specific but not species-specific rule; or vice-versa.
So if you have a donger hanging off you, don’t bother to apply; UNLESS…. (at this point, the mind boggles.
@Colin. You’re right. I should know better than to try and be humorous while I’m cooking. At least the gravy came out good.
There’s a joke in there somewhere, and I’m sure if I keep digging I’ll find it.
They had to add women writers to their phony non-binary award, otherwise there would be nothing worth reading. If you want to award $150k to the profoundly ignorant non-binaries, just leave women out of it, make it an all non-binary free for all. I’m sure the people who don’t identify as gender deniers won’t mind.
It probably goes without saying that in this instance the use of ‘woman’ is a tacit acceptance of transwomen as women since they are not specifically mentioned.
Also, being open to anybody who does not identify full-time as a man, it does raise the question of whether male-identifying women writers are excluded from consideration.
Roj Blake @4: Check out the comments at the tweet for a palate cleanser. They’re about 99% critical.