GENDER AND SEX: RETHINKING LABELS IN VIEW OF NEW EVIDENCE

A recent article in The Washington Post announced that “1 in 6 Gen Z adults are LGBT: And this number could continue to grow” (their original source is BedBible.com) Gen Zers are the persons born between 1997 and 2012 (or 2015 depending on the sources). They are, thus, between 6 and 24 years old, but […]

RETHINKING LITERARY CRITICISM: SEEKING A NEW BALANCE

Blogger Jim Harmon (http://wisdomofthewest.blogspot.com) left a comment on my post “Theorizing Character: A Few Pointers”, recommending an article on characters published in The Guardian by James Wood: “A Life of Their Own”. I didn’t know who Woods is: a major literary critic employed in publications such as The Guardian itself, The New Republic, and currently […]

RAMBLING THOUGHTS ON GENDER: A FEW NOTES ON RECENT MATTERS

My post today has to do with a direct question asked by one of my MA students (to what extent is gender natural?) and with issues raised in the paper proposals of my Victorian Literature students, all about Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. So, here we go. As you will recall, if you’re familiar with Dickens’ […]

THE ROLE OF ADMIRATION IN LOVE: A FEW THOUGHTS

More on gender today, this time inspired by my reading of two extremely different volumes: Núria Gómez Gabriel and Estela Ortiz’s Love Me, Tinder: Una Mirada Crítica a lo que Ellos Ofrecen (2020) and Antonio Bolinche’s El Síndrome de las Supermujeres (2020). Gómez Gabriel and Ortiz dissect with verve but rather superficially men’s written self-presentations […]

DISMANTLING PATRIARCHY: RONAN FARROW’S CATCH AND KILL, AGAINST THE TIDE

The Harvey Weinstein scandal exploded almost three years ago thanks to two articles that earned the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service to its authors: The New York Times’s “Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment Accusers for Decades” by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey (5 October 2017), only available to subscribers, and The New Yorker’s “From […]

THE STRAIGHT WHITE MALE STRIKES AGAIN (AND IS STRUCK…)

These days an article published in the new magazine The Critic, sponsored by Brexiteer billionaire Jeremy Hosking, has made a bit of noise. In their launch issue of November 2019 editors Michael Mosbacher and Christopher Montgomery announced that “Our writers will subscribe to no editorial line nor serve the interests of any party, faction or […]

WHERE ARE MEN’S ROLE MODELS?: AN URGENT CALL

I was waiting to see Todd Phillips’ controversial Joker before writing this post but now that I have seen it, I have very little to express about it –except indifference. And puzzlement that Mr. Cow Saviour (a.k.a. Joaquin Phoenix) has chosen to play a creep rather than a vegan hero, a figure we really need. […]

WORKING ON EMPATHY ON THE INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR THE ELIMINATION OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN: “IT COULD HAVE BEEN YOUR DAUGHTER”

In my previous post I argued that as feminism progresses the women already interested in power will claim it for (patriarchal) domination, and not at all to help other women. I also spoke about the women who are complicit with patriarchy from subordinate positions because they seek male approval, on which they are dependent. Today, […]

LUNCH WITH A WRITER: NECESSARY ENCOUNTERS

I have had the good fortune of sharing a few lunches followed by a long afternoon conversation with author Care Santos, whom I met thanks to my good friend Isabel Santaulària. Care has a long, accomplished career both in Spanish and Catalan, which includes major awards Planeta, Ramon Llull, and Nadal. Since 1995, she has […]