Men versus Women: Literary Edition

These are some thoughts that had been floating around for a while; maybe Women's History Month is a good time to express them. 

I would say it all started back in 2012 when I read The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan, published in 2005.

It was a really good book anyway, but one thing that stuck out was a book he mentioned that has just been published the previous year: 

Whose Names Are Unknown by Sanora Babb was originally slated for publication in 1939.

Babb worked for the Farm Security Administration, part of the New Deal. She had published some short pieces and as she interviewed the farmers and took notes, she began to have a book in mind. She wrote it and Random House agreed to publish it, then backed out due to the appearance of a new, very similar book, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. 

Her book did not get published until 2004. 

Babb's boss, Tom Collins, gave Steinbeck Babb's notes.

I am not saying that either Collins or Steinbeck knew that Babb was writing a book and were trying to undercut her that way. I am saying that they took no thought of letting her know or giving her credit. Steinbeck dedicated his book to his wife and to Collins, but made no mention of Babb.

That incident alone is one story. It's a common and frustrating story, and it relates to a lot of things, but that's not exactly what this blog post is about.

For reference, I read The Grapes of Wrath in 2010 and Whose Names Are Unknown in 2018. 

(Two points I will make from that is that it taking me six years to get to a book I want to read is not at all surprising and that I truly appreciate Goodreads for letting me check these dates.)

Shortly after the first inauguration of the worst president ever, I started catching up with books that seemed like they might be relevant. The spreadsheet column where I track the ones I have read is now at line 105 (I swear when I started it was only about 20 books). There have also been offshoots for specific areas... I don't know when that will be done.  

I can say that one of the original books was The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, which I read that April (right between Catch-22 and The Handmaid's Tale.). How capitalism can corrupt and require government regulation seemed pertinent.

Jurgis reminded me a lot of Tom Joad. Part of their "heroism" involves casting off others. In Tom's case it is that he needs to flee criminal prosecution, whereas Jurgis -- previously so sure that his strength would be enough for anything -- loses his wife and children to death and other family to vice, though the level of attachment can seem questionable. 

The similarities weren't overpowering until I read another work by Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men, in 2024.

I know having to kill Lenny hurt George, but there were still people willing to work for the dream. He didn't have to give up on it all. 

The big difference in Whose Names Are Unknown is that no one goes off on their own. Yes, they have faced persecution in their attempts to build a better life, but they are committed to working together, forming new bonds and strengthening them. They are a team.

They may not be able to solve capitalism on their own, but they have better odds of surviving it by working together.

If more people would band together, we could see real progress. 

Foolish pride and competition gets in the way, then machismo allows the fools to think they're heroic as they set themselves and others up for failure.

Babb did meet Steinbeck once. He did not thank her for her notes. It is possible that he didn't want to tip her off that he was using them for a book, but it is completely plausible that he just didn't see the need. The dedication was to Collins, "who lived it." Collins didn't live it; he supervised people observing it. 

Babb was even from Oklahoma! 

There is a long history of men using the work of women and taking the credit, often while abusing the women.

In another Steinbeck work, East of Eden, there is one incredibly evil woman and one delightful girl whose father was disappointed that she wasn't a boy. There is a horrific rape, but those men then become very caring fathers to Lee. 

Curley's wife doesn't even get a name. 

I don't think Steinbeck was a bad man, but much like structural racism there is a structure that supports misogyny. Women are expected to serve and be at men's disposal. As much as we should have progressed past it by now, there remain deep problems.

Unsurprisingly, those problems hold back men, too. Racism has a negative impact on white people. 

Are we ready to deal with it?

The racism

I wrote a whole draft yesterday, then realized I'd opened up another can of worms. I guess that one will go up next week.

I was making the point that in general people were being very understanding of Davidson. One notable exception was Jamie Foxx. 

https://parade.com/news/jamie-foxx-questions-john-davidsons-tourettes-defense-bafta-awards  

In a series of three brief Instagram posts, Foxx indicated his belief that Davidson meant the slur and that it was intentional.

There were replies that argued and tried to correct Foxx, but also some that agreed. 

I thought I would make a brief point about how coprolalia can't be controlled so you can't say it was intentional, but there was this nagging inability to dismiss that it was meant.

Getting back to that SNL sketch, celebrities only saying terrible things on record when they are drunk does not mean that they don't really mean it or think it; they simply know that there is a penalty for saying it that allows their sober versions to keep it in check.

One of the interesting things that came up in the initial discussion is that the UK has a much smaller Black population than the US, meaning they are not used to getting so much flack on the racism. The rollout of improved (but still lacking) apologies may have been due to push back that they were not prepared for.

Black people make up about 15% of the population in the United States versus less than 4% in the UK. The caveat I have to put with that is that I have also seen -- but do not really know -- that mixed race is generally counted as a separate category there, whereas the US had our one drop rule. It's not that we don't have issues with colorism, but there may be greater solidarity in the United States, beyond just bigger numbers.

(Though the reaction of many English people to Megan Markle could make you question whether mixed race really gets any preference.)  

Something else I have seen people say is that other countries are more racist than the US but they don't talk about it so it works differently. As we are already way too racist here, that is not an encouraging thought.

Remember, with structural racism is that there is so much supporting the racism that it can act on an unconscious level. That's why you have to actively talk and think about and pay attention to it to actually overcome racism. 

A lot of people fail to even try.

When some people are forced to think about it by circumstances there is angry reaction instead of introspection. 

This results in things like mentioning racism being called the real racism, or people saying how Obama divided us because once he was elected they were making monkey and watermelon jokes before he was even in office, and then were criticized for that.

That is my very roundabout way of saying that while I truly believe that Davidson's outbursts were not intentional -- which matters -- that does not guarantee that he did not mean those outbursts, even if not consciously.

That's not about blaming him either, but there is a context to everything. 

If we really want to care about each other and make things better, we need to pay attention to those contexts.  

De-centering

"I am and always have been deeply mortified if anyone considers my involuntary tics to be intentional or to carry any meaning... I have spent my life trying to support and empower the Tourette’s community and to teach empathy, kindness and understanding from others and I will continue to do so. I chose to leave the auditorium early into the ceremony as I was aware of the distress my tics were causing.” 

This is the most common iteration of posted of John Davidson's initial statement on his outburst at the BAFTAs. There is a later one that we will get to. As the ellipses indicate it was longer, but I what I read did not add a lot, and that one is harder to find.

There are two things I notice in this statement, but they are part of the same issue.

The first is that it is focused on his mortification, not the mortification caused to others. Therefore, it makes sense that he talks about teaching "empathy, kindness and understanding FROM others" (emphasis mine) rather than teaching empathy for others.

He is centering himself. It's a common failing, and it's easy to do when you think of your problems as unique to yourself. There are other people who have their own issues. That is true on a general level -- everyone has things that are hard for them; everyone has bad days -- but also, there are other marginalized groups.

That's why it is so important to have an intersectional understanding of the world. There are things about you, but not everything is about you.

That leads us to one of the bits of humor I am going to go into. 

https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/tv/news/snl-tourette-sketch-connor-bafta-b2930312.html 

Tourette's Action has condemned the Saturday Night Live sketch as misrepresenting tics and setting them back. 

I watched the sketch; it was not making fun of Tourette Syndrome. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkKb3K8cxss 

It's making fun of celebrities and the excuses they make for their bad behavior. Previous excuses have been alcohol or depression or misunderstanding, but the sketch implies they have something new to try.

This is reasonable based on all of the white people who were just so happy to see a legitimate use for saying the N-word, but the humor is also predicated on the fact that none of those excuses fly. If racism comes out when you're drunk, it's there when you're sober too -- you are just able to pretend better.

Crucially, most of the issues the sketch portrayed celebrities trying to excuse were based on marginalization: racism, misogyny, antisemitism, transphobia. (There might be some misogyny in Arnie Hammer's cannibalism deal, but he just might be the outlier there.)

If you remember that your problems are not the only problems, you can react differently to that. You might even notice how your defenders are acting and take a moment to condemn both racism and the resurgence in use of the R-word. 

But that takes thinking of other people.

It should be amazing and appalling how far so many people went to avoid thinking about and empathizing with the Black people who were verbally assaulted.  

Instead it has been appallingly normal. 

Only nine tasks left!

Today's post is not about the BAFTAs.

I am still working on getting all of my thoughts there to build in a logical order. I am also wondering whether blogging six days a week is really practical for me, largely because of school.

This is a school update.

I am currently working on my capstone, the last step of my Master's degree.

My capstone project involves gaps in the training for Licensed Clinical Social Workers on working with clients who have Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. (Say that five times fast!)

I recently turned in the first of ten assignments over three classes toward this end. They all build upon each other, so you can't suddenly change course in the middle. I have felt some pressure over that, possibly at levels not consistent with logic.

I called it an assignment, but they are classified as performance assessments and one menu lists them as tasks. "Task" sounds like something much simpler on one level, but then on another level like part of a magical quest that will get your wish fulfilled. 

"Tasks" it is.

After I turned in this one, I immediately started doubting that it was specific enough. You use one section of it to start off the second task and some of the other parts of that seemed to require more complexity. 

I was hoping when I logged in Monday the evaluation would be done. It wasn't.

I started panicking and wrote to the instructor (who is not necessarily the person who evaluates it) going over what my concerns were and what I would have said if it were more specific and was I at least on the right track?

That was fairly late at night, so I wasn't expecting an answer until later today. However, I logged in early and saw that I had passed.

It was a little anticlimactic.

To be fair, the way I wrote it followed what I believed that task's rubric was asking for; I got nervous because I started looking at the next task.

Part of why I spent so long agonizing over the first task was because of how they all connect. Initially I was going to target LCSW students, probably at University of Kansas, and there was a good reason for that. However, there was going to be a human subjects component. Would I need to get approval through their guidelines? What it that took a long time? What if it went past June?

I am aware I am doing this to myself.

I am trying to strike a balance between focusing on the matter at hand while still paying some attention to what is coming, and trying not to freak out.

To showing up every day and dealing with my emotions, I must now add that additional element of not freaking out about the things that aren't happening yet.

I just need to do it all nine more times before June 30th! 

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/02/school-update.html   

February quotes for Black History Month

Last year I commemorated the history months with articles, but I got off to a disorganized start and so I did not immediately start blogging them.

Saying I am more organized this year sounds like a stretch, but I decided to use quotes this year instead. Another woman I follow on Twitter is doing prompts, where there is a person for you to look up, rather than just giving you the information. Will it work? I don't know, but I do think it's good to change things up.

One nice thing this time is that as I found more than 28 quotes that I wanted to use, I just made sure to clear out the men and the women could start out Women's History Month in March.

Looking ahead for the whole year, I am not avoiding duplicates. Many of these people have said multiple good things. Some of them are poets, so that may not be a coincidence, but there are also comedians and scientists, actors and activists.

I changed things around to remember Jesse Jackson when he died, but there was never any doubt about which quote would start out the month. 

2/1 “To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time. ” ― James Baldwin

2/2 “The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing”. -- Toni Morrison 

2/3 "If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it." -- Zora Neale Hurston 

2/4 "You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. Please remember that your difficulties do not define you. They simply strengthen your ability to overcome." -- Maya Angelou 

2/5 "If a man is not faithful to his own individuality, he cannot be loyal to anything." -- Claude McKay

2/6 "It is strange how in some things honest people can be dishonest without the slightest compunction." -- James Weldon Johnson

2/7 “Feeling good is not frivolous. It is freedom.”  -- adrienne maree brown

2/8 "I'm so tired of waiting, aren't you, for the world to become good and beautiful and kind?" -- Langston Hughes

2/9 "The truth is... everything counts. Everything. Everything we do and everything we say. Everything helps or hurts; everything adds to or takes away from someone else." -- Countee Cullen

2/10 "We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond." -- Gwendolyn Brooks

2/11 "We are reminded that, in the fleeting time we have on this Earth, what matters is not wealth, or status, or power, or fame, but rather how well we have loved and what small part we have played in making the lives of other people better." -- Barack Obama

2/12 "I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence." -- Frederick Douglass

2/13 "She knows who she is, because she knows who she isn't." -- Nikki Giovanni

2/14 "Love is man's natural endowment, but he doesn't know how to use it. He refuses to recognize the power of love because of his love of power." -- Dick Gregory

2/15 "I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in." -- George Washington Carver

2/16 "When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don't really have to do anything, you just let them talk." -- Barack Obama

2/17 “Leaders must be tough enough to fight, tender enough to cry, human enough to make mistakes, humble enough to admit them, strong enough to absorb the pain, and resilient enough to bounce back and keep on moving.” – Jesse Jackson

2/18 "To bring about change, you must not be afraid to take the first step. We will fail when we fail to try." -- Rosa Parks

2/19 "A lie is profanity. A lie is the worst thing in the world. Art is the ability to tell the truth." -- Richard Pryor

2/20 "I have wandered many roads that I have never traveled; touched many things that my eyes have never seen. It is through stories that life is made, and through stories that life is saved." -- James Avery

2/21 "I knew then and I know now, when it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it." -- Claudette Colvin

2/22 "Don't follow the path. Go where there is no path and begin the trail. When you start a new trail equipped with courage, strength and conviction, the only thing that can stop you is you!" -- Ruby Bridges

2/23 "If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there's shouting after you, keep going. Don't ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going." -- Harriet Tubman

2/24 "Stop letting people who do so little for you control so much of your mind, feelings and emotions." -- Will Smith

2/25 "Life is a hard battle anyway. If we laugh and sing a little as we fight the good fight of freedom, it makes it all go easier. I will not allow my life's light to be determined by the darkness around me." -- Sojourner Truth

2/26 "Presumption should never make us neglect that which appears easy to us, nor despair make us lose courage at the sight of difficulties." -- Benjamin Banneker

2/27 "We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity." -- Malcolm X

2/28 “Nothing is more important than stopping fascism, because fascism will stop us all.” – Fred Hampton

Not credible

Here's one other ground rule: I will be writing out "the N-word" and "the R-word" rather than spelling it out. 

I try to be conscious about language use. Actually, in the first post I refer to a slur directed at Alan Cumming that related to his sexual orientation. It starts with an f, but "the F-word" is already taken. I have also seen people complain about "slur" because it refers to speech impediments... there are times when it feels like you can't get it right; you can only try to be less wrong.

Anyway, regarding the N-word, one fun thing we have here in the United States is that there are a lot of white people who really resent not being able to say it. I don't know if there is that same issue in other countries, or how much it gets used in England. 

Here, there are people who really want to use that word. Technically they can, but they know that there will be judgment, so let's say that's what they are really trying to escape.

I'd like to point out that Lee Atwater's notorious "Southern strategy" interview was from 1981 and he references 1968 as the year after which you can't just say the N-word anymore; that seems like plenty of time to get over it. Instead, people for whose entire lifetime it has been stigmatized speech still resent not getting to say it.

A lot of the reactions I am going to write about come back to that. While they are portraying themselves as worried about the rights of people with disabilities like Tourette Syndrome, it seems more like delight at finding a defensible use of the word.

There are a few things that make me question their sincerity. 

One is the spinning of elaborate fantasies. 

The wildest one was if a kid told the Make A Wish Foundation that his dying wish was to say the N-word; should they refuse that poor kid?

Look, if a child wants to say it that much, he's probably been raised in a home where getting permission is not going to be an issue. If he wants to say it on television or in Harlem with an armed bodyguard -- something where there would be assistance needed -- then yes, the correct answer is a resounding "No!" Focus on getting your soul right, kid.

While that one was unusually ludicrous, there were elements of fantasy in many of the defenses. The big thing was (along with BUT HE COULDN'T HELP IT) saying if John Davidson's outburst meant he deserved all of these awful things to happen to him, with examples, like being beaten or never being able to be out in public. Some were fairly graphic.

I know I haven't read every single post, but I was not seeing many threats against him. (There will be more on the response in a future post.)  

I would find that weird, but I have seen similar people develop strangely elaborate fantasies of rape and murder to justify revenge killings. I find it plausible that maintaining certain attitudes requires some disconnection from reality, but that means you are the ones fantasizing about him getting beaten, not the people who are mad about what happened. 

I would wonder if I missed more actual threats against Davidson, but these replies were coming to people who made very reasonable statements. When they responded that they weren't calling for anything like that, the trolls responded that some people were. At least one recipient of the arguments recommended they go yell at the people making threats, but my gut feeling is that those posts don't really exist. That's speculation, I know.

All of that aside, the biggest reason that I feel these posters were coming more from a position of defending racism than attacking ableism was their perpetual use of the R-word.

It was embraced so quickly with this Trump presidency; horrible people missed it more than I had ever guessed.

In this context, it was used largely to criticize people who questioned whether the BAFTA situation could have been handled better. "WHY CAN'T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT HE CAN'T HELP IT? ARE YOU R---?" 

But it was often a declaration rather than a question.

So yes, that word that was used for any disability -- Down Syndrome, Autism, Cerebral Palsy -- so that you could just write people off and disrespect them, without any understanding of their abilities or how to accommodate them, you now are flagrantly using to defend the use of a racial slur?

I do not find your statements credible. 

At all. 

You are celebrating finding an apparent loophole for racism. 

There is no plausible deniability. You will still be rightfully judged.

We see you. 

Focus on getting your souls right. 

Ground Rules

Ah, my first tangent came earlier than expected.

It can be a delicate balance when to conceal and when to name and shame. I want to get my philosophy out there before we go farther.

In the case of Briahna Joy Gray, it would be easy to shame her because I don't like her. That would not be a good way of doing things.

In her case, she is a public figure. While I didn't see many people discussing the food discourse off of Twitter (or I would have linked to an article), there were many participants in the discussion on Twitter. Not naming her when her comments were so integral would have felt false.

(Other philosophical point for me: as much as Musk has tarnished the things that were great about Twitter, where a new, worse, vanity-driven name would make sense, I am still not calling it "X".) 

I did reference usernames for people who made good points and for people whose posts were integral to the genesis of the discussion.

That can be one of the tricky areas. People who post thoughtful, good responses might benefit from being referenced. It might also attract trolls to them, which is worse if they are not well-established.

I try to make good choices, and I am not always sure whether I am doing right.

In the case of Twitter discussions, there are posts to reference, assuming I can find them. When I am talking about people I know, it becomes different. 

A good example here might be from the "Catching up with former friends" posts. As I went into the case studies, I called them "A", "B", and "C", which were not their initials. 

None of them are famous. While they may be making some bad and even ridiculous choices, I don't wish them harm, so giving their names would feel wrong.  

People who know us may guess from the details, but one thing I have learned over time is that a lot of us are not that unique. I would write about one unnamed person and get guesses about two others through private messages. 

Speaking of Albert, I started with not naming him, but then I did because it was so obvious and had drawn so much attention that there was no point. That he was dead may mean there was less damage that could be done, but there is at least one other dead person whom I do not name. 

That does lead to one other thing: if I am writing about something people do rather than that a person did, I have multiple examples.

The posts related to Albert resulted in a lot of direct messages, including some people wondering if I meant them about something. 

That's fine; I like interacting with people. I only mention it because if I am writing about a generality, I mean it that way. 

If it feels like it applies to you, that may be something to reflect on, and you can certainly ask, but even if you are part of the group you are not being singled out.

Funny, recent story about that. Ari Fleischer recently went off on Barack Obama's remarks at Jesse Jackson's funeral because of him calling Republicans "bigots." 

He didn't. Obama condemned bigotry and racism so Fleischer felt attacked. This is what we call "A hit dog hollers."

Why is this important? Getting into the BAFTAs, there are names that there is no point taking out, as they are in all the articles. 

As this will be more about the responses -- most of which are coming from run-of-the-mill racists with no great following -- it may be best not to identify them. As there is not great variety in their responses, this is probably most practical.

If there are times when specific wording is important, I might quote the text of the tweet without giving the name or linking to it. That would probably be searchable, though often the search results are next to useless, especially when you are looking up something racist because it is so common.

Should individuals be shamed for their racism? Does it help? 

When that AITA account stopped tweeting, I started getting my fix of appalling behavior from Ask_Aubrey, whom I followed to Instagram because she left Twitter too (Musk has been such a disaster for that site.):

https://www.instagram.com/ask_aubry/ 

When she is posting the appalling tweets or direct messages or what have you, she usually blocks out the name, I think with exceptions when the person is more notorious. I have seen replies questioning that, wanting to see, I assume so they can attack.

If that would help, great, but that's not likely.

I do not anticipate naming a lot of ignorant, racist people in the next few posts, but circumstances can vary.

I will try and do what is best for knowledge and caring, even if that is not always clear.

That's all I can promise. 

Related posts: 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/02/decanting-olives.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/08/catching-up-with-former-friends.html 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/12/my-facebook-post-blows-up-series.html