Neueste feministische Forderung: Verbietet Männern die Lesungen literarischer Werke!

My qualm is neither a nitpick nor a call for revolution. But it exists. And it needs to be addressed. Too many literary readings are being both whitewashed and dick-washed by absurdly biased conversations. And the fault lies with the people in charge of these events, the moderators and authors conducting what should be thoughtful (and promotional) gatherings for their projects.

(...) Why, then, do people (men) behave at readings in a way that would cause them to get kicked out of my class? Why are grown adults (men) so keen to speak, when they have not in fact done their homework? Why do these greying men put up their hands, and why do they always get called on, when nine times out of ten they can be relied upon not to have read the book or even admit that there’s anything they don’t already know about? Finally—and most outrageously— why are neither they nor the moderators who default to them the slightest bit embarrassed that this is happening?

This, then, must be the real demand of those who moderate readings: fire the moderators. Stop asking famous men to host your book launch on the vague assumption that they’ll draw a crowd. They’re just going to distract from your work, talk about themselves, and then mess up your Q&A. Resist the institutional inertia that heaves you in this direction! Instead, ask somebody who has managed a group of people directly within recent memory. Hire a teaching assistant, a kindergarten teacher, an aerobics instructor, a bus driver. Anyone but a semi-famous male author.

(...) One day, perhaps, we all shall be on that slightly raised stage in front of some fixed mics, and frail old men will clamor for our attention and for hardbacked copies of our works. "Hear me now, fuckers?" we’ll shriek at them, feedback ringing through the bookstore aisles. "Do you hear me now?"

Hier findet man den vollständigen Text, Fuckers.