On the subject of authors having feet of clay

[rivenwanderer]

So, a while ago, I got the book She's Such A Geek and, while I didn't read every single essay in it because Oh Hai My Short Attention Span--a lot of the book really made me happy. Many different types of female geek, from science to engineering to gaming, and not all straight and white and able-bodied and cisgendered (though many of them were those things) were talking about stuff I'd been going through and thinking about and noticing while I was at MIT. Their experiences either rang really true because I'd had similar ones or seen friends having them, or gave me what felt like valuable insight into female geekdom from different eras and from cultural backgrounds I was less familiar with. I glowingly recommended it to a few geeky friends who were working through gender/feminism stuff.

And so finding out one of the editors has some glaring and problematic issues that she thinks are good things! to proclaim loudly and publicly! about trans people was very very GAH. Especially since in this case her name is on the cover but a bunch of (as far as I know) independent-and-unrelated-to-her voices (of people who presumably don't necessarily share her problematic ideas about trans people) are in the book. I like talking about the intersection of feminism and gender and geekiness, and I am troubled that someone with skeevy (to me) ideas about trans people is at the forefront of what I thought of as a really important work on the subject. And I'm not entirely sure what to do about it. I mean, I think that everyone else's work in the anthology should stand on its own, but her name is still on the cover. Should I say something when I recommend the book to other geeks? Should I not recommend it? Do I keep recommending it and not say anything about her other issues and hope that people who research her can do their own work in separating the uncomfortable stuff she's said from the awesomeness of all of the stories in the collection? (I'm not actually asking my reading list to answer these for me--these are the questions I have to resolve for myself.)

Bah.

Anyone have links or book recs on the feminism/gender/geek topic?

Comments

[holyschist]

Gah, that's hard. I have the book but haven't gotten around to reading it yet. And I did read some of the critiques of Newitz and agree that WOW THOSE ARE SOME ISSUES THERE.

So I guess--does anything she says in her parts of the book touch upon trans issues? If not, I'd probably recommend it, but warn people not to go looking for more of Newitz's work.

[onceupon]

So I guess--does anything she says in her parts of the book touch upon trans issues? If not, I'd probably recommend it, but warn people not to go looking for more of Newitz's work.

Totally this.