• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Sarah Rees Brennan

New York Times Bestselling Author of the Demon's Lexicon Trilogy

  • Home
  • Biography
  • Blog
  • Books
    • The Winx Saga
      • Fate: The Winx Saga: The Fairies Path
    • C.S. Pacat’s Fence Series
      • Fence: Disarmed
      • Fence: Striking Distance
    • The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
      • Path of Night: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Novel 3
      • Daughter of Chaos: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Novel 2
      • Season of the Witch: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Novel 1
    • In Other Lands
    • Tell the Wind and Fire
    • Team Human
    • Lynburn Legacy Trilogy
      • Unmade
      • Untold
      • Unspoken
    • Demon’s Lexicon Trilogy
      • The Demon’s Surrender
      • The Demon’s Covenant
      • The Demon’s Lexicon
    • Collaborations & Anthologies
  • Extras
  • Appearances
  • Contact

Shut Up, Ladies

January 28, 2013 by Sarah 12 Comments

It made me so sad to see, in an article about Jane Austen, that even though Jane Austen remains super popular there has been a decline in respect for her as a serious artist. Because it’s ‘chick lit’… as if any genre is Automatically Bad. And as if anything a woman created that a lot of women really like… is Automatically Bad.

I was reading some fan responses to the Vampire Diaries over the weekend (sharp left turn from Jane Austen! Also, yes, I’m very cool!) —and I started to get viscerally uncomfortable about how often the women involved in creating it were named and hated on. Julie Plec and Caroline Dries were brought up time and again, with a constant refrain that they shut up, drop out, SHUT UP, if only Kevin Wiliamson or Jose Molina would save the situation. The dudes’ names only ever came up associated with praise.

The stuff the fans didn’t like which was masterminded by dudes, was talked about differently: that episode sucked, that season had this off time. Never, ever ‘this dude sucks.’

It reminded me of how I used to see the same hatred of Marti Noxon on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Which really sharply contrasted with the refrain of ‘Joss Whedon is my master now.’

Look, I am no expert on television here: I never know who’s written an episode, or who’s behind a certain plot arc. (I also barely know how to turn it on or change the DVD player settings, but that’s shame for another day.) I’m sure all these ladies are imperfect. Maybe all these ladies have done terrible things to their shows! Please do not tell me all the details of any of these women’s awful crimes against fiction.

My point is that I doubt that the dudes were flawless in their handling of fiction: the problem is the insistent pattern that goes ‘SHUT UP, WOMAN’S NAME, SHUT UP!!’

I remember looking at one site and seeing a female YA author being discussed. Her appearance, her manners, whether she’d written too many books, too many books in one series—I have seen at least six female authors called ‘whores’ (OH. I. SEE.) and ‘money-grubbing hacks’ for writing a long series. I have never seen similar criticism for, say, Rick Riordan (don’t stop writing Rick Riordan, that’s not what I meant! I like a long series! I’m just making a point!)—whether she was grateful or gracious enough.

Then I looked at what they had to say about a male author in the same field… apparently his worst offense was being friends with the female author… (Kind of like how the most criticism I see against Neil Gaiman is actually against Amanda Palmer, asking why he doesn’t get her to… guess what… shut up.)

It’s so much easier for people to hate on a girl than a guy. A lady’s success will so often be looked on with dark suspicion, while a dude’s success is looked on as his due.

Of course my opinion here is personal: I’m a lady creator, though not as fancy as the ones I’ve been discussing. I’ve had my appearance criticised, and the company I keep, and how I conduct myself, and that all sucks. Quite recently I remember a blogger described my behaviour at a public event as ‘attention-seeking’ (no! good gravy! who do I think I am, up on a stage talking?)… I’ve seen that word used for a lot of women, but I’ve never seen it used for a man. It’s almost as if… people see a dude up on stage talking and think ‘Yes, things are as they should be.’ And they see a lady and think ‘SHUT UP, WOMAN’S NAME, SHUT UP.’

I’ve said snarky things and been roundly criticised for my rudeness. (Like, this weekend.) So have many ladies! While snarky dudes are celebrated, quoted, applauded: while we all know that dudes can get away with a million more things than we can.

Having a semi-public job means a certain amount of scrutiny. Creators are always going to get critiqued, because that’s what people should do with art, and if people don’t care about your fiction you’ve gone wrong somewhere! That’s all fine.

But I wish, wish, wish there wasn’t that obstacle for women, that kneejerk ‘SHUT UP!’

Pride and Prejudice is two hundred years old today. Jane Austen wrote in another book, Persuasion, ‘Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story… The pen has been in their hands.’

The pen should not be seen as solely belonging in their hands.

(Wow, this got long.) (Maybe I should shut up.) (But I hardly ever do.)

…

I saw and much appreciated the responses to this impromptu rant from writers I know and love like Maureen Johnson, Holly Black, Seanan McGuire and Kiersten White… and it reminded me of a point that seems applicable!

Here it is: groups of writers, as well as individual writers, and how they are perceived.

This is probably not going to surprise you: when they are groups of ladies, or groups that include ladies, NOT SUPER WELL.

Let us consider the Inklings: a group of writers including J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, which is often considered a fantastic example of writerly communion and community. But lots of people want to be very clear that mystery writer Dorothy L. Sayers may have been Tolkien and Lewis’s friend, but she wasn’t one of the Inklings. She didn’t attend meetings! Okay maybe one but it didn’t count! They were all, all dudes. (Okay. Maybe so. But chill yourselves, why is this so hotly contested? … Oh wait I know why.)

But everyone is definitely sure the Inklings read aloud from this other lady’s bad writing.

(Q: Have I ever mocked bad writing, sometimes by women, in a group of writers?

A: BOY HAVE I EVER. I have done nothing else for a week straight. But I STILL think the Inklings could’ve decided to mock a dude as well as/instead of this lady.)

There is an old boys’ network which exists, especially in Literary Fiction Circles, i.e. the most highly regarded and best paid. 83 per cent of the books reviewed in the New York Review of Books are by men… and 83 per cent of reviewers are men, too. (What a highly interesting coincidence!) When questioned about the Super Sketchy Numbers, the editor of the Times Literary Supplement (surprise: he’s a dude) said ‘The TLS is only interested in getting the best reviews of the most important books.’ (Oh. I. See.)

These dudes with this power are able to silence any silly praise of ladies. Remember me talking about Dorothy L. Sayers above? This is what a dude writing for the New Yorker said about her: ‘I have often heard people say that Dorothy Sayers wrote well… but, really, she does not write very well.’ (Thanks for clearing that up, buddy.) Dudes are more likely to get awards, shiny objects that say ‘Here is your Well Done for Speaking Up, Dude. NONE FOR YOU, LADY.’

Dudes are more likely to get praise because of this network: they’re more likely to get awards because of this network. It provides a loop of infinitely helpful feedback for dudes, and so the praise dudes give other dudes is listened to, is given more of an official voice, whereas the message sent to ladies talking about books by ladies is too generally (stop me if you’ve heard this before) ‘Shut up, Woman’s Name, shut up!’

The Bronte kids, Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell, had a writing group: they all wrote collectively about a land of their imagination. Later, Charlotte, Emily and Anne all went on to write classic works of literature (under dudes’ names of course). Branwell went on to take a bunch of drugs. Critics at the time floated this brilliant theory: WHAT IF THE DUDE OF THE GROUP TOTALLY WROTE ALL THE BOOKS? (Shut up, the actual geniuses of the group!)

One of my great Writing Group inspirations is that of Jenny Crusie, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Pat Gaffney, Anne Stuart and many others. I’ve never seen anyone talking about that group except for the ladies themselves. (Because they’re romance authors?) (Shut up, ladies writing about lady stuff, shut up!)

So, my closest writer people and critique group, mostly ladies. I’ve heard us called a ‘clique’ (like Mean Girls, sure! Ladies=clique!) with suggestions we’re ‘pretending to like each other (For Some Reason) (you know how those catty insincere ladies are!)’

People talk about us as if what we do is sit around plotting pettily and doing each other’s hair. (It’s a fair cop: I have done Holly Black’s hair. Her whole kitchen was purple afterwards, it was like I murdered a giant grape. Will not make it as hair stylist: must stick to writing.) Shaping each others’ writing, talking about each others’ writing, talking about our literary influence (almost every lady writer I know: hella influenced by Robin McKinley)… any discourse we have is ignored or dismissed as untrue. ‘Shut up, ladies, shut up!!!’

Oddly, I haven’t seen anyone suggesting that Neil Gaiman is pretending to like/forming a clique with John Green because he was a guest at his Carnegie Hall event. I haven’t seen anyone suggest that the overwhelmingly male critics of literature, writing overwhelmingly about dudes, are a) lying about how great these dude books are or b) being mean by talking about only dudes/dudes they’re friendly with/majority dudes/more positively about dudes.

And I’m not saying that dude authors, or any dudes, or any ladies buying into the ‘Shut up, woman’s name, shut up!’ thing are being mean, either. I’m saying, there’s a pattern we’ve all, to some extent, unconsciously adopted. I’m saying that when we think ‘SHUT UP’ about a lady we should examine that impulse.

Because until then, for all ladies… Our words aren’t as valued, and that doesn’t just mean our books: it means our critique as well, and our community.

Okay. *glances around* Uh. *hopes has not alienated all dude authors ever and shot all (slim already) chances of ever being asked to write a piece for a major publication or shot all (slim already) chances at an award*

I maybe have to both shut up and change my name to Benedict Cumbersnoot. 😉 Excuse me…

Filed Under: General Blog

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Kandrel says

    January 29, 2013 at 5:50 am

    I wonder how much of this is due to the publishing ‘Good Boy’s Club’, and how much is to do with the fans themselves? I see them as separate entities with only limited control over each other. Both of them require cultural shifts to knock this on the head, but the cultural momentum is going to be huge.

    I’m curious, though, if the answer to this isn’t fed through small press and publishers. I know of a few moderately successful female authors in niche fandoms who seem to avoid a lot of the ‘shut up’ by writing for a more progressive crowd. Niche grinds into mainstream at a glacial pace, so the revolution we may be brewing in small press now may only hit wider culture in a decades or more.

    Reply
    • Sarah Rees Brennan says

      January 29, 2013 at 8:09 am

      Well, the fans are a definite factor as well as the boys’ club: I talked about their perception of women writers quite a bit! It’s the same attitude, and they feed into each other.

      Small presses and publishers are great, but I also wouldn’t go to them in order to avoid the ‘shut up’: I can see lots of good reasons to go to them, but that’s not one, it’d feel a bit like leaving the field to the dudes. I think continued pressure to change on all levels and talking about these issues is important: I am also not willing (though of course I might have to, but I won’t accept it gracefully!) to wait decades.

      Reply
  2. Zoë Marriott says

    January 29, 2013 at 6:12 am

    THIIIIIIIIISSSSS! *RTs like a mad thing*

    Reply
  3. Victoria Lamb says

    January 29, 2013 at 8:04 am

    This is truth.

    Reply
  4. Meghan @ Coffee & Wizards says

    January 29, 2013 at 8:22 am

    Thank you for not shutting up. Please, never ever ever EVER shut up.

    Reply
  5. Sana Shams says

    January 29, 2013 at 8:43 am

    Men do get away with a lot of things and while it is enough to make us women cringe, I just don’t think it is fair. I know life isn’t fair. But the thing is maybe in an ideal society the value of the written word would be more than the value of the gender. However, that isn’t so. So here’s to us ladies to never shutting up.

    You rock.

    Reply
  6. Tara says

    January 29, 2013 at 9:57 am

    This is super interesting. I’m just wondering though where you got this statistic: “83 per cent of the books reviewed in the New York Review of Books are by men… and 83 per cent of reviewers are men, too.” It’s believable to me, but I’m just wondering where it came from.

    Reply
    • Sarah Rees Brennan says

      January 29, 2013 at 1:35 pm

      http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/feb/04/research-male-writers-dominate-books-world

      Reply
      • sarahreesbrennan1 says

        January 29, 2013 at 8:27 pm

        Approve.

        Reply
      • Tara says

        January 30, 2013 at 8:59 am

        Thank you!

        Reply
  7. Rachel Hanley says

    February 5, 2013 at 11:22 am

    I was once appalled when I saw a terrible review of one of my favorite author’s books. The person hadn’t even read her book; she was reviewing the female author’s hair…pretty ruthlessly, too.

    Reply
  8. Valerie (pink) says

    February 10, 2013 at 11:09 pm

    This is a disturbing trend I’ve noticed too. A woman puts herself in the public sphere and everything she does and is can be criticized. A man does it and only his work is fair game. I don’t understand and I don’t like it. I don’t think we should accept it, either. One time Hillary Clinton said, “Would you ask a man that question?” when an interviewer asked her who her favorite designer was. I’m not sure who was in the room at the time but I hope everyone shouted, “Oh, SNAP!”

    I’ve also noticed that whenever women break into a field the respect people have for that field drops. We greatly respected biology research when the field was still full of dudes; now that so many biologists are female it’s thought of as more of a soft science, easier than math and physics. (At least, that’s what I observed in college.) It’s harrowing.

    This article about how cheerleading used to be respected until women started doing it illustrates the point perfectly: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/12/28/the-manly-origins-of-cheerleading/

    Keep on not shutting up! Also, I’m sure that for every person criticizing your public appearances there are hundreds who walk away starstruck (if a bit peeved because you didn’t tell them for sure whether Jared would stop being an ass, bah!) I know I did.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

sarahreesbrennan

674

The rarely seen baths and puffy coats picture! ...

Open
The rarely seen baths and puffy coats picture! Gellért thermal baths and its Art Nouveau decor, only one of the aquatic delights offered by Budapest. We also saw the Parlament from a trip down the Danube river. My brother & sister put up with me mentioning Jonathan and Mina Harker of #Dracula got married in Budapest, and my insisting on eating chicken paprika like Jonathan. That and soup in a bread bowl comforted me when I was made to walk 300 steps at the Basilika and even more around Buda Castle while protesting I am a potato who sits on the sofa and writes the novels. Budapest was beautiful and so was seeing it with my sibs: I will remember this trip a long time. #draculadaily #budacastle #gellertbaths #danuberiver #ststephensbasilica #hungary🇭🇺

Writing to you live from Budapest! My gorgeous ...

Open
Writing to you live from Budapest! My gorgeous little sister surprised me with the amazing birthday present of a city break - and our baby bro came too. This is us at Szimpla Kert, the original of Budapest’s ruin bars: repurposed dilapidated buildings, filling old places with plants and art and music. More from Budapest soon… #szimplakert #budapest #ruinbar #bettyandbiddy

With changes over on twitter, I see many people ...

Open
With changes over on twitter, I see many people stressing over where and how they can talk up their writing and art. It reminded me of the difficulty I’ve had talking about a project dear to me. I’d see other writers talking about their word count or their plans, and be lime green jelly that I couldn’t, because it was so dear that talking about it felt weighted, because I didn’t have any confidence after being sick, because hope and fear pin down the tongue and keys. There are always challenges when talking about art, whether they come from within or without. But I do believe one of the hardest and most necessary things is to make art with faith it will speak to people when the time comes. So I wanted to put this up here as a way to say: be hopeful, fearful and courageous with your voice. When you can. The time will come. #authorsofinstagram #writing #sarahreesbrennan #srbrennan

Well beloved fairy folk and fans, I know you got ...

Open
Well beloved fairy folk and fans, I know you got sad news last week and I am so sorry! I also know @straffiiginio and Rainbow do have glorious plans for much in the Winx franchise. For now, I offer signed books as a little comfort! @Soraseilyn, @dutchwinxer and @blindchannxl on Insta, and ladygeeke & subtle-skipping on tumblr, please email me sarahreesbrennan at gmail to collect your winnings. My other cat (about whom more soon!) has been guarding them for you. For myself, I feel lucky to have been part of the journey to Alfea, to write fun books with great characters and to get to know you all: you’ve been so welcoming and kind to me. Thank you and I hope we stay friends. Who knows what is to come? 💕🧚#winxclubforever #fatethewinxsaga #abigailcowen #bloompeters #winxstella

For the end of spooky season! Cancer is about ...

Open
For the end of spooky season! Cancer is about loss: of hair, teeth, friends… and words. For a couple years before I was diagnosed with late stage lymphoma, I watched my writing go off a cliff in terms of quality and speed - sentences turned to nonsense, and I couldn’t finish anything. It was terrifying. So was trying to come back to writing and publishing after having a traumatic time with chemo. ‘Where was she last year?’ ‘Who’s that again?’ ‘Oh, I thought you were…’ My confidence was shattered, and being approached for Sabrina was a life raft to cling to: being remembered, having fun with writing again, falling for a wild strange fantasy world. It opened the door to other worlds I was honored to be invited into, their lovely fandoms, and to courage that I could perhaps write my own books again. Here’s #chillingadventuresofsabrina and #fatethewinxsaga in Feltrinelli in Rome, and me, because fantasy opens all the escape doors. Happy All Hallows’ Day, and hope you had a great #Hallowinx and you find the doors you’re hoping for 👻🖤. #feltrinelli #romeitaly #cancersurvivor #writersofinstagram #writing #fencecomic

I see many photos where the ‘after’ shows ...

Open
I see many photos where the ‘after’ shows someone thinner than the ‘before.’ Here’s a different version. When I’m feeling vulnerable, I cover it with jokes. ‘Hey, at least I was skinny!’ ‘Dr: Any unexplained weight loss? Me: I wish!’ It’s safer than saying: When people were telling me I looked great, I felt lousy, scared, and sad they thought I looked better when I felt worse. Once I was in recovery people kept telling me how bad I’d looked. That doesn’t help either. We all have uncomfortable relationships with our bodies, because of society, ideas about what health is, and the fact our outside self is all most people can perceive of us! I was diagnosed late: I kept being told it was bronchitis, pneumonia, a kiwi allergy (that one was weird…), I’d be fine, I was clearly healthy. I often think about what my life, relationships and health would be like if I was diagnosed earlier, if people hadn’t assumed I was lying and secretly dieting or exercising a lot. But I get why they did: I get why I didn’t want it to be a warning sign. Weight is a weighted topic. I wish it wasn’t, for all of us. I love and find beautiful (not that my opinion matters) people of a hundred shapes and sizes, but we always have the most tangled relationship to our own bodies. The body is a vessel that carries us through our lives. If we’re happy with however that vessel looks, I think that’s awesome—but sometimes positivity is difficult. Here are 2 full-length pictures of me, during chemo and a couple years after. Honestly, I’m not happy with how I look in either. But in one, I’m trapped at home with medicines around me. In the other, I’m outside with my sister, on her wedding day. In the end, it’s about where the vessel takes you. #twweightloss #cancersurvivor #wedding #twweighttalk #milestonecountdown
This error message is only visible to WordPress admins
There has been a problem with your Instagram Feed.

On Tumblr

  • Hope everyone had a beauteous #stpatricksday weekend! Tis the... March 20, 2023
  • Listen! This is Jadis. She is just a little kitten sitting in a... March 16, 2023
  • kitherondale:MEAN GIRLS2004, dir. Mark Waters March 16, 2023
  • biography
  • blog
  • contact
  • home
  • appearances
  • © Copyright 2007-2023 Sarah Rees Brennan. All Rights Reserved.
  • Site by Moxie Design Studios