three links on gender in fandom

Dear Wizards: Why Failing Less at Gender in 5E Would Be Good For Your Bottom Line

The Girl Geek Community is Hidden, Ever Wondered Why?

“Geek girls” and the problem of self-objectification

And for a bonus, the tumblr Escher Girls, which I may or may not have linked to before, but is a brain-liquefying collection of everything that is horribly, horribly wrong with the visual depiction of women in comics/anime/gaming art/etc.

It isn't on par with the political issues we're facing right now, but I see no reason why I can't decry sexism in multiple forms at once.

The DWJ project: The Time of the Ghost

From my edition's cover copy:

She doesn't know who she is or what she is, let alone why she finds herself flitting invisibly through the half-remembered halls and grounds of a boarding school. Can it have something to do with the ancient evil that four sisters unwittingly awoke?

I remember finding this one of the harder DWJ books to read when I picked it up; I think I'd only read it once. Not because it's impenetrable or anything (though the protagonist's confusion as to who she is and what's happened to her do make it harder for me to attach as a reader), but because of the subject matter.

And that was before I found out the horrible parents were based on Jones' own upbringing.

This book is, I think, the closest thing to horror Jones ever wrote. Apart from the supernatural aspect (the "ancient evil" mentioned in the cover copy), the daily existence of the sisters is far worse than any of them seem to consciously realize. Their neglectful parents are so busy running the boarding school, they can't be bothered to make sure their daughters get fed. The girls have to go beg dinner from the school cook, who then blames them for not being responsible enough to fend for themselves. I spend large amounts of the book wanting to scream at the top of my lungs at these people.

I appreciate the fact that the sisters are not, in the face of this treatment, perfectly supportive of and caring toward one another; it wouldn't be realistic if they were. But I kind of want to scream at them, too, and that's another thing that makes the book hard to read. The extent to which you like it, I suspect, correlates strongly with how able you are to like Cart, Imogen, and Fenella, despite their individual and collective weirdnesses.

And now for the spoilers.

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Nearly done . . . three more posts to go.