despite the last 500 years or so of european history being presented to us as some kind of renaissance, we're actually living within the ideas and constructs created by 500+ years of white men who used systems of violence to make servants out of everyone else while they invented things and thought about stuff.
yes other types of humans have managed to contribute essential ideas and inventions despite all this, but understand that we are barely breaking out of this intellectual man desert
@seachanger@ricardoharvin I was dehumanized completely by age 12 as a dark-skinned immigrant boy to Chinese owned & operated Singapura. It has taken me 22 years to re-humanize & (re)educate myself, 17 years of which were in Canada where I have met with several doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, therapists. Buddhadhamma, nature, and love, are the only reasons I am alive today and capable of communicating the truth of my lived experience.
@seachanger Malena, I can agree with your conclusion that we’re barely breaking out of the intellectual man desert of some 500 years of European history, but I have a slightly different take. My understanding of that period in Germany is that everyone accepted the church’s view that you were born into a status level that god wanted you to accept. Napoleon broke up the feudal system to a degree that change could begin, and we can thank him at least for that. Certainly an odd twist!
@seachanger those white men piggybacked of the ideas of brown men and women. The societies and cultures who didn’t suddenly decide that science was evil.
@seachanger It is hard for me to read stuff by white cishet male people because the characters are depicted as vanilla, and I can't empathize with the characters without pretending either myself or the characters are somebody we're not.
It is crazy how many decades it took me to realize this.
@seachanger At some point, I realized how many of the thousands of books I had read were by white guys, but that the books I enjoyed reading the most tended to be written by women like Octavia Butler (or Ursula LeGuin years ago). So, I made a conscious decision to try to catchup on works by others, especially those who explore the full diversity of what it means to be human. The most recent authors I have been reading (other than everything Octavia Butler wrote in her too-short life) include: @maryrobinette @marthawells @ann_leckie
And some others who aren’t on Mastodon yet.
If anyone has any other recommendations for women and non-binary science fiction authors who explore humanity in all its diversity and potential, please share!
I would highly recommend Justina Robson.
Currently fishing for words...
Let's just say that there is a section in my private library with the inofficial name "things that wrenched open doors and made me realize new things about myself".
I see a bunch of good recommendations in this thread already, but I’m going to throw in a huge recommendation for Becky Chambers. Her books have really changed my view of what speculative fiction can do and offer.
Susanne Clarke, Alix E. Harrow, Nnedi Okorafor, N. K. Jemisin, Katherine Addison, and Genevieve Gornichec (The Witch’s Heart is wonderful) are also worth a shout.
@Hey_Beth@seachanger What are the top things that ruin women characters in books? I have been writing a story with women characters and would like to avoid as much bad writing as possible.
@seachanger@Hey_Beth OMG FFS NO! Sexuality is only a small issue in the grand scheme of things in my story and mostly implied. Two of the top characters are a geology professor and a botany professor, both women, and they talk about things other than men.
Other than gross sexist stereotypes and bad sex, is there anything perhaps in the intellectual direction that is badly written with women characters?
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