His slap
The insult of nominating a man to win a women’s writing prize is compounded by the fact that the book is badly written as well as stomach-turningly sexist. (I haven’t read the whole book, but I have read snippets, and writing that bad is not confined to snippets. The snippets are as it were diagnostic. Someone who writes that badly writes that badly all the time.)
It just couldn’t get much worse. It’s a prize for women so the people in charge nominate a man who calls himself a woman, for a book in which he writes that “feminization” is all about being the object of violence. We don’t have our own sex any more, it’s now a toy for narcissistic fetishists.
I wondered what kind of “oldest, vilest, & most dangerous homophobic rhetoric “ was coming from feminists when I remembered that TRAs constantly think in analogies. “Men shouldn’t get prizes reserved for women” is just like saying “men shouldn’t have sex with other men.” “Transwomen are not women” is just like saying “you only need to find the right girl, buddy.” They’re connected. They’re the same arguments.
Seems like he’s entered the wrong contest. Any of those excerpts would surely be a front runner for the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest.
Somewhat (but not really) off-topic, the responses to that tweet led me to Keira Bell’s narrative of her transition and de-transition. Too much to quote; it’s a well-written (though infuriating) antidote.
Sounds to me like one or two of the involvees here could profit from a good sound kick in the arse. Worth a try, surely.
So gross.
@Omar, I wouldn’t if I were you. There might be a second book in that.
Has this board been taken over by incels or something? I can’t imagine a more definitive “FUCK YOU” to the original intent and impetus for the prize.
Is he pornifying the 1950s too? My understanding was that housewives of the 1950s weren’t “that kind of girl” – they were ladies, certainly not the kind of woman rumoured to be planning BJs, even for their husbands. And if said husband heard a man talking like that about his wife, he would have challenged that man to a fist fight over his wife’s honour. Or was that not the 50s either?
My gosh, that’s just porn.
He mentions Betty Draper, i.e. Mad Men (so the 60s I think?)… and that show is just too painful to watch for just that reason.
I had a look at the Read Inside feature at Amazon, but couldn’t get through more than a few sentences before deciding that it was too awful to continue.