What about the men!?

[james_davis_nicoll]

Won't someone please think about the men!?

Comments

[agent-mimi.livejournal.com]

If someone had just invented a memetic prophylactic tag, I never would have clicked on that link!

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Sorry sorry sorry.

[pats-quinade.livejournal.com]

DITTO. Dangit.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, it's _wrong_, but to me it didn't seem offensive, like the stuff that tag is usually applied to. In what way am I being clueless? (With the caveat that I didn't read the comments, so there might be nastiness there.)

(Second caveat: I am acquainted with one of the authors plugged, so maybe my brain got sidetracked by being happy for a friend getting free advertising.)

Respectfully,
NPH

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

A HA HA HA, I saw that in my newsreader this afternoon and may possibly have shared it with a very similar comment...

[zeborah]

I love it when I get to use this icon.

[drcuriosity]

I love it when you get to use that icon, too :-) Well played.

[rosefox]

*cries*

(just like a girl)

[seawasp]

Not screams? People get to scream like a little girl, too.

[moonlithoughts.livejournal.com]

I'd really love to see how the female list compares. I honestly doubt it's much longer, if at all.

Are those comments carefully vetted, or is no one seriously calling them out?

[txanne.livejournal.com]

AFAIK, tor.com's comments are completely unmoderated. So really, we're lucky it isn't worse.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

We've been thinking about the men for the past 5000+ years.

[dagbrown.livejournal.com]

Huh. I always thought feminism was about equality, not revenge. Silly me!

I shall labor under that misimpression no longer, and quite possibly become one of those tiresome Men's Rights advocates while I'm at it.

Under the No True Scotsman rule, I'd guess that the author of the article is also a tool of the evil patriarchy, right?

[bedii.livejournal.com]

I said nice things about a good author listed there who's next book now has a ship date, but didn't point out the "well, now it's no longer a subgenre filled with girl cooties" thrust of the rest of the article, mainly because I couldn't believe that SOMEBODY would mention it at some point. Well, it *still* hasn't been mentioned and I feel like an idiot for not having done so. Then again, I'm temporarily on some pain meds that make me a little foggy so I may not be the best person to point it out, what with the interesting spackle pattern on the wall over here...

[dagbrown.livejournal.com]

So I'm to take from this that "Abigail Johnson" is actually a man, not a woman wanting to address her own perception of a bias in a particularly-small subgenre (where such odd biases would be, I'd imagine, amplified)?

[barberio.livejournal.com]

"particularly-small subgenre"... Which world have you been living in recently? They give "paranormal romance" it's own section in book stores now. There's multiple TV shows, and multi-million dollar movies in this "small subgenre".

Plus... Notice how there are so many comments on the article providing counter evidence to the premise...

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Won't someone please think about the men!?

OK. Mmmm. Men.

[seawasp]

ECCHIIIIIII!

[kynn.livejournal.com]

Harry Connolly's comment is awesome.

I think the majority of the commenters didn't think beyond the "oo a chance to use my Trivia (geeky shit) skill bonus!" stage about the article, and that's why there are so many comments that just uncritically play along with the original premise.

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

Meh. After recently reading a bunch of threads on the Penny Arcade "Dickwolves" brouhaha, this article just rates somewhat clueless.

[kynn.livejournal.com]

James, is this misogynist troll a pal of yours?

I don't generally like to fight with fellow guests in someone else's home.

[laetitia-apis.livejournal.com]

"There are hardly any male protagonists in paranormal romances. In fact, all I can find are . . . that's quite a lot, isn't it?"

And people are getting excited about this?

It doesn't matter that I didn't notice the comments; I don't wish to be judged by what complete and utter nutcases say in response to my comments, and refuse to do that to others.

Besides, having *any* male protagonists in a romance genre is worthy of note; I wish I could remember enough to ID the genre romance told from the viewpoint of the shattered veteran courting the admirable Miss whoever. (Had to be from his viewpoint because she was depicted as the goal of all unmarried males in the county, and knew it; you can get suspense from "which of two", but not so much from "which of everybody".) Using his Ramilly coat as a blanky isn't much distinction, particularly since I've almost certainly mis-spelled "Ramilly". (Ramilly was the battle during which he first wore the coat.)

I think that was the story in which a stylish young acquaintance, praising the new skin-tight styles, says of his new coat "One does not put on a coat like this, one *acquires* it, gradually."

[mishalak (from livejournal.com)]

Sounds like a story I would like to read.

[goldjadeocean.livejournal.com]

How brave those male protagonists are, showing their faces in a genre where they are usually liked and accepted.

[fengi.livejournal.com]

To think men in urban fantasy languished for so long with nothing but the status of being the central character of every flagship title in Vertigo comics.

Harry Dresden and others have had to tolerate the indignity of not having paperback only releases, not being shelved with the romance novels in many libraries and being optioned for network television series and so on. It's a wonder how they deal with the obscurity.

Worse, a man was forced to write one of the most popular and oft cited female characters in the genre, how he must have suffered, not being able to find any room for his male protagonists.

If only some male character could have the good fortune of Anita Blake, and appear in one of the most dreadful and porny adaptations in recent memory.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

I love every word in this comment, including "and" and "the".

[(Anonymous)]

My theory is that the article's author has a teapot, and needed a tempest to clean it.


William Hyde

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

How did I know you'd jump on this?

I saw it yesterday via Twitter. It first came up last month via a Facebook post where there was a call for male UF protagonists. There were five names there on the list and I dutifully suggested my own.

But I felt kinda bad about it. I probably shouldn't have put forward my own name and I probably shouldn't have commented on yesterday's post. It's just that I keep running across these people who are happy to find UF that isn't about women and their sex lives (to paraphrase) and it makes me unhappy.

[agent-mimi.livejournal.com]

Your comments were terrific over there. I share your sadness over people who are "intimidated" by UF because it is "female oriented" and need to be coddled with a list of male protagonists so they don't get scared. It's a foreign concept to me, honestly, to expect a certain percentage of my genre of choice to cater to my own foibles.