Baileys/Women’s Prize for fiction

Thanks boltzmannbrains that Twitter thread was really interesting and a bal as need read- I love she says a lot of ‘frothing’ had been undeserved. Interesting stuff!

I thought this was great at first but when I thought more and looked into some of the names, it did start to make me uncomfortable. I tink it's probably best to call women writers by the names they've chosen. We can still share the knowledge that they were women even if they went under a man's name, and we can talk about the reasons why they may have chosen to do this. It's also true that women writers have been able to publish under their own names in many cases but a few chose not to. A bit like now - JKR was advised to use initials but she could have published as Joanne or Jo - maybe she would have been just as successful. It's not as if people ever thought she was a man, as far as I can recall. There is sexism in publishing but lots of women publish under their own names and always have. Although there are definitely cases, like James Tiptree, where you can see why they wanted to use a pseudonym to get into what was very much a boys' club.

So yeah... this is one of those situations where what seems like a great idea at first maybe falls apart a bit when you really take a good look. Although saying that, I don't think it's harmful or wrong. Just a bit misguided. It's raised awareness of women writers who many haven't heard of and they've given some free books away, so can't be all bad!

This is an excellent and rational thread looking at the legitimate criticisms of the well-intentioned scheme, and how women’s agency is removed.

twitter.com/smcoulombeau/status/1293994306898923520?s=21

Obviously comments like “you should only do this if you can confirm they were not transmen” are but it’s simplistic to claim all the authors were forced to publish under a male name. In some cases that simply wasn’t true, and for at least one of the writers on the list, the name she was published under wasn’t a pen name but the name she went by in every day life, and she has publicly discussed her reasons for rejecting and changing her birth name. For this company to insist on publishing her under her rejected birth name and not under the name she chose to go by every day, is not an act of reclaiming but the opposite.

I was wondering about the Jack Monroe name change. So much is being made of the adoption of a typical male first name to reject female identity that I wonder if the adoption of a surname of British origin (albeit not very common and with American e addition to make it a bit special) was a conscious rejection of the identity associated with their original surname.

For the record, I know a Jacqueline who is called Jack for short. Knew another who was called Jackie. They are not male.

I know that, but she can't claim "it's a man's name" any more than Sam or Chris is a man's name.

Lovely news.
Jack is a name used by lots of women called Jacqueline. It's a very very common woman's name.

Yes, physical books which spell out 'Reclaim Her Name' would look good. However, I have too much stuff anyway and am delighted to have the 24 books (one wasn't available) on my computer.

Oh I’ve just seen the “no plans to sell them” comments - what a shame!

Has anyone got a link to buying the whole box set?

Wow that’s such a good idea. And quite moving to ‘discover’ the women behind the men’s names. And none of those women wrote under male names for any other reason than that they knew society would treat them as ‘inferior if they fessed up as female authors and they probably wouldn’t have been published. They weren’t identifying as Male, they were identifying as authors.

The sad trend of not being able to celebrate female achievement because "insert gender is non binary waffle here".

I thought she went non binary and blind her breasts for a while?

Probably @Imnobody4! Jack Monroe's angle was "I write using a 'mans' name and would be furious if someone decided to take that away." Then a whole thread of hundreds agreeing with her. So self absorbed they can't conceive of experiences beyond their own.

Love this! Thank you!

Ugh yeah, just saw a comment saying that it would only be okay if we can definitely verify that they were trans men!

If I'm looking at the right one, doesn't it say the opposite of that?
"Were you able to confirm that all of these were actual women and not trans men? If the former, great! If the latter, or if you could not confirm, that could be problematic."
"Yup, sorry if I was unclear on that! It may very well not be an issue, but I would feel more comfortable knowing research into why these people used a male name was done. If that due diligence happened, awesome!"

Something else to look forward to when the library —finally— opens!

My late mum loved a Baileys. I might buy a bottle on her honour.