TW nominated for the womens prize for fiction

[Kit19]

for fucks fucking sake!

"Peters’ longlisting comes after organisers clarified in 2020 that it was open to any “cis woman, a transgender woman or anyone who is legally defined as a woman or of the female sex”. “It’s a prize for women, and trans women are women, so …” said chair of judges and author Bernardine Evaristo."

@ValancyRedfern

If you think 50 Shades of Grey was popular around here, you really have no idea about feminism (and haven't bothered to do a simple search to find out)

Worst attempt at a gotcha ever.

Wow good on Lissa Evans. So many book purchases... :)

Hold on I think I missed something that someone put upthread.

One of the judges has said that while people assume it's a prize for literature, that's not the case. It can 'just' be good storytelling...

Is that how like men are chefs but women are cooks? That sort of dynamic?

Wonderful.

@FortunaMajor

When the Prize mentioned last year that it wouldn't be limited to women, Lissa Evans announced that she had asked her publisher not to put her latest book forward for the prize. Her books are well worth a purchase if you want to support her decision.

That is an incredible thing to do, and having read every one of her books, I'm not surprised. She's one of the wittiest and cleverest writers I know and if she were a man would probably be much better known.

@Mn753

Just so we're clear-on the day a young woman's remains were found, a male, who writes sexual glorifications of violence against women is nominated for the women's literature prize?

Just want to repeat this so people don't skim over it, because THIS. MOST DEFINITELY THIS.

@JustTurtlesAllTheWayDown

Why are there so many deletions? The author has written a book that explicitedly makes it clear that they equate being a woman with being slapped, abused and called a bimbo or whore, and even "I want a man to love me so much he murders me. I want to die because I'm loved too much for him to tolerate my existence." This isn't an interpretation by us or any kind of dishonest representation. This is stated explicitedly in the novel. If the Woman's Prize thinks that a book that says womanhood is about being abused is acceptable, then we need to talk about it.

And this, how about we "unsilence" some women's voices in this conversation, Bernardine?

I'm still wondering how much this kind of writing has to do with what the author is trying to say. An author of this stuff could be saying "look at this awful misogyny" - the narrator doesn't have to be the hero. OTOH it could simply just be the tidal wave of excruciatingly offensive badly written porn that these excepts suggest. To find out what the book as a whole is trying to do, I'd have to read it and I don't want to

This is my exact dilemma, Windy. I need to read it to pass judgement (though on the face of it that’s a terrible gross statement by the character and seems very unlikely it’s highlighting or pointing out misogyny otherwise there would be a probable outcry over misrepresentation of trans women?) but I 100% DO NOT want to give any money to the publisher or author right now. Not even via PLR (although I’d be surprised if it was very available in libraries before the Women’s Prize announcement).

I did have higher hopes of this judging panel. Bernardine Evaristo isn’t uncritical or naive or unaware of wider cultural issues, certainly. So I sort of hope this novel is misrepresented here and there’s a deeper level to the face-value meaning of these isolated excerpts.

But it still makes me feel mad and sad on a day when male violence and how women are perceived (or disregarded) by men is front & centre in the discourse. It’s a hideous juxtaposition.

goes off to purchase a Lissa Evans book

‘The mermaid of the black conch’ won a prize earlier this year, so it’s worth checking out. If I recall correctly Monique Roffey was long listed a few years ago for ‘Man on a Green bicycle’, I read it and enjoyed it.

It’s by the by really, but I actually didn’t really like ‘Girl, Woman, Other’ that much, I found it quite patchy and a bit over hyped. But I know a lot of people did enjoy it so am prepared to accept I’m in the minority on that..

Damn, sorry. It was ‘The white woman on the green bicycle!’

Worst attempt at a gotcha ever

Shameful even.....embarrassing

hear the strange sense of satisfaction when they talk about the men that have hurt them - the unspoken subtext of it being because I am a woman.

I can't get over this part either. It brings to mind the insistence I've seen from many TRAs, in the face of all the evidence, that transwomen are much more at risk of violence and sexual assault than women are.

I don't think the author is deliberately portraying their narrator as a monster.

Many deleted messages, now wondering what they said

My deleted post - and I fail to see how it broke 'talk guidelines' spoke about the violence against women depicted in the book.

It was carefully worded and in my view did not break talk guidelines.

Anyway - that's the summary above in answer to your question.

I found that extract really upsetting tbh and I'm not generally a sensitive person in that way.

It's just. How fucking DARE you.

And this is up for a prize for women's writing?

Was that extract from the book up for the prize? It's just utterly gross misogyny. And dangerous with it. What women around with other women sharing stories of DV and it's understood that they're all revelling in the feeling of femininity that, boasting? About how violent their partner is gives them.

The idea that women enjoy being attacked by their partners is out and out gross.

Women are constantly told that our words harm various groups of men. And these words, that women not so deep down enjoy a good kicking (and presumably sexual violence as well let's not be coy) is up for a fucking prize???

The enjoying the risk of contracting HIV and equating it to the risk of pregnancy...

I'm just. ???????

How fucking dangerous to put it out there that the risk of HIV (and let's not forget all the other STDs) is erotic.

I wonder who is reporting these posts.

Hello reporters if you have something to say then why not post and tell us what it is.

www.standard.co.uk/culture/books/detransition-transgender-torrey-peters-b700163.html

I don't know whether the extract is representative of the rest of the book, but here is a review.

Without reading the whole book, it's impossible to know what literary merit it has. However, reading the reviews and extracts it certainly seems unapologetically misogynistic. I'd love to hear the judges explain why they think it isn't.

It seems very far from the female experience.

From the review "He’s [the detransitionied character] impregnated his boss, Katrina, but isn’t ready for fatherhood, “the one affront to his gender that he still couldn’t stomach”. Could they reinvent parenting and raise this baby as a trio?".

Personally, I think the thing that defines the difference between the male and female experience is the ability to walk away from pregnancy. Nothing more male than having a choice.

These are the women who put this book on the longlist.

When idols have feet of clay doesn't come close.

It’s a good review because it makes me want to read it. But it doesn’t seem to me, from that review, that it’s a novel about the female experience - it’s a novel about the trans experience. Which is fine, of course, as the Women’s Prize only requires that the writer be a woman to enter - female writers are free to write as male characters about being a man, or trans characters about being trans (well, as long as they can bear the reactions). And this writer presumably qualifies for the Women’s Prize according to the rules. It’s just the writing and subject feels deeply uncomfortable and it’s inclusion very much done for controversy and ‘relevance’. Would a novel with a male character expressing such misogyny be chosen? Maybe, I guess, but not for the same reasons - you’d understand the author was making a point using the character to behave that way. They wouldn’t be supposed to be relatable.

It’s all just very disappointing.

@StellaAndCrow

The Mermaid of Black Conch, by Monique Roffey, didn't make the longlist despite many hoping it would. It is only 99p on Kindle at the moment

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B086MDPKNC/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1&tag=mumsnetforu03-21

"March 1976: St Constance, a tiny Caribbean village on the island of Black Conch, at the start of the rainy season. A fisherman sings to himself in his pirogue, waiting for a catch but attracts a sea-dweller he doesn't expect. Aycayia, a beautiful young woman cursed by jealous wives to live as a mermaid, has been swimming the Caribbean Sea for centuries. And she is entranced by this man David and his song."

Ooh thanks! Just gone and bought it!

Deleted because of a tongue in cheek summarisation of a fictional character?

Best not describe Pennywise as being a bit of a rascal then.

Or that Hannibal Lecter deserves an honourable mention for having questionable eating habits.

We all know deep down that Pennywise is a cnut of a clown and Hannibal is murderous.

I wonder if brave and stunning was a little bit off the mark too?

it’s a novel about the trans experience

Agree - but if those extracts had been in JK Rowling’s last book (as opposed to what was in her actual book which didn’t include a trans character), I think they would have been described as transphobic.

I think reviewers/judges have accepted them as not transphobic because the author is trans - the perspective matters.

However, if you then use the same argument to say that this is not misogyny, the logic starts to fall apart. The judges are saying that it is a female perspective, but I don’t think that stands up to any level of scrutiny.

Maybe there should be a special prize for pornified trash literature open to all sentient or semi-sentient beings. In that case the excerpts shown on here would make the books highly eligible for the shortlist.

*I think reviewers/judges have accepted them as not transphobic because the author is trans - the perspective matters.

However, if you then use the same argument to say that this is not misogyny, the logic starts to fall apart. The judges are saying that it is a female perspective, but I don’t think that stands up to any level of scrutiny.*

Absolutely