Bizzarketplace of Ideas: Rejecting Male Literature

Anita Sylvanstra is a feminist blogger and involuntarily terminated barista with an Associates Degree in Transgendered Sculpture. Her current objective is to turn her blog into a full-time careeahahahahaha

The Year I Rejected Male CIS-liture

After being asked to abdicate yet another community college creative writing course for "plagiarizing the thesaurus", I found myself perusing perfectly typical literature by perfectly typical CIS-gendered authors. I first delved into the pages of Kafka's The Metamorphosis, though my reaction to his other works was an unadulterated clowncar of "meh." By the time I concluded the aforementioned novel, my inner Venus was alight with Genderfury (Copyright 2013, Sylvanstra Genderprises). Since when is transforming into an insect an excuse to foist your breadwinning role on your sister? You possess six hands on that thorax, sir, and only require two for standing. Methinks your productivity would increase four-fold. As my indignation blossomed, I pondered from whence this fury originated. Certainly, Metamorphosis is sexist, but so are other tomes beyond number, celluloid travesties, and every program produced by CBS. For what should I credit my rage, which confounds me like a rat in a cage? But then, an epiphany! Metamorphosis and every other book I had absorbed in 2013 were not self-same! Kafka was a man!

I had not connived to avoid men. It simply was. Reading women is one of the many great hazards a professional-level blogger has when challenging archaic notions of gender and culture. Spare me your sympathy. This is a burden that I have chosen to bear. The bulk of the femliture I purchased emerged from the sultry depths of the YA genre. I found myself enmeshed in a veritable cornucopia of feminine prose. Alas, when I at last emerged from this estrogen hotspring--my skin smelling of rosemary and jasmine--I found myself unfulfilled.

Should you turn on your television after eons of binge-watching television online, you might find your ears revolt at the sound of obnoxious commercials promoting the majesty of Geico Insurance by means of a cockney gecko. My journey was similar, but rather than being subjected to an irreverent CGI reptile, I found that every book penned by a man contained no women. Rather, I found male deficiencies molded into female form.

Clearly, I am unaccustomed to wielding the psyche of a male protagonist, and my ability to objectify women (as all men are known to do) was bedecked with rust. Thus, it was vexing to encounter scores of acclaimed men portraying the female mind in a manner that was inconsistent with my encounters in femliture. Verily, they appeared extraterrestrial in comparison. At last, I had broken free from the bondage of dead white men mansplaining to me! Oh, if only these poor fools had a guiding light in a brave Blog-Her such as myself!

As a highly capable student of the arts, my mind was unwittingly poisoned by the ichor spewing from the typewriters of charlatans. Hemingway and Pound spat on my embattled gender, and I delighted in their casual misogyny. Male authors were evaluated with lenience. For what were they but victims of their circumstances? The cultural zeitgeist had not yet moved! After rejecting the fascism of testosterone, I saw the folly in this reasoning. Even if these men were responsible for compelling works that transcend time in their relevance, it was obscene beyond all imagining that I was expected to know what it means to be a woman after reading novels from men who regarded us as second-class citizens (not that I let literature define every aspect of my life rather than evaluating it on its academic merits or cultural insights).

That is not to suggest women should avoid Kafka! Nay, perish the thought! But to expose them to this malicious assault on their gender prior to the latter years of college (everyone DOES go to college, right?) is simply a tragedy of the patriarchy. Exclusive access to femliture is what young women require. And not that gender-traitor BITCH Jane Austen with her lacy dresses and submissive ways! I merely mean that white male authors cannot accurately portray any character that isn't a white male themselves. Similarly, I resent the fantasy genre for permitting non-elves and non-direwolves to depict characters they could not possibly comprehend (for more on this, see my sister blog "Orcs are Beautiful Too"). After all, white males are not omniscient. That's not to imply that I am, but actually I'm not sure how I should continue this line of reasoning. Deep breath. New paragraph.

Forsooth! Envision young lasses that are confined to classrooms where teachers profess the glorious white male, who spits in the face of their femininity! Though there are contemporary male authors who are conscientious of their privilege, their numbers are few. Modern publishers greet the white male's manuscript with an enthusiasm they would dare not provide small-scale female writers like J.K. Rowling. Franz Kafka wrote a story about a family's young breadwinning son transforming into an insect, perhaps because on some level Kafka understood that he is vermin. Unworthy of his place in Her-story.

My tale of abstinence--be it from red meat, mirrors, showers, psychiatric medication, paying student loans, earning any income whatsoever, and sex--might imply that I have learned a lesson about consuming certain kinds of literature in moderation. Yet, my year without male writers or any positive human contact of any kind has made me ardent in my resolve to blog in support of female writers until my fingers are but scrambling spider's legs (only ten of them, not eight, although I don't know if my thumb counts because all it really does is hit the spacebar). Young women musn't be allowed to judge themselves through the white male lens. If they are to judge themselves by any metric, allow them to consider if they are attractive enough to woo a 120-year-old vampiric man who still hangs around high schools. Empower them with stories of child murder contests with love triangles! Regale them with explicit tales of bondage play! Only then will our gender find the literary freedom it deserves.