[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

I can't see how a website which does not list certain authors because of their sex does anything to remedy the discrimination suffered by people who are long dead.

It helps remedy the discrimination suffered by women now, today--who are encouraged/required by publishers to put their initials on books because *women are not authors*, or are not "respectable" authors, because the public doesn't think women have written/can write books of comparable quality to men.

It says, "here are thousands of books written by people who've been traditionally excluded from much of publishing." It tells young women that they might become respected authors. It encourages them to fight for the right to use--and be respected for using--their full names.

It can't do that if the female authors are buried under an avalanche of male authors, as is common in most book listings, because of the oppression that's been going on for thousands of years.

If it's a good book, I don't care if it was written by a man or a woman or a particularly talented kangaroo.

I do. I care if it was written by a racist or homophobe, if the author is a child abuser or a murderer, if the proceeds of the book are going to fund religious oppression.

There are plenty of good books available; I don't need to waste my time on the ones that are supporting practices I find vile. And while I don't disdain male authors as a category, I do sometimes want to know--what have various oppressed groups of people written? When they do get published, what do they write about? What common themes do they have, that literary studies have overlooked because of the overwhelming tendency to focus on books of the dominant majority groups?

I want book selections of only women authors. Of only authors of color. Of only queer authors. Of only non-Christian authors. Of only disabled authors. If I read anything but English, I'd want non-English author collections.

Insisting that it's discriminatory to make those collections says that we have a level playing field, that everyone is treated equally, and so the collections are special treatments, rather than an attempt to uncover what's been hidden and suppressed.

I feel that singling out books by women sends the message "women need special treatment because they can't compete on their own"

Women ARE NOT ALLOWED to compete equally on their own. They are told from infancy that they're not as smart or capable as men, in a thousand ways; overcoming that constant message needs reminders that they *can* succeed, that other women have done so before them.

(can't I just send them a check for the royalties they'd get, and then go read a good book with a clear conscience?),

Only if you believe the stories and perspectives of women, people of color, queer people etc. are identical to the ones of straight white men. Otherwise, you're missing out. A lot.

Present discrimination does not reverse past discrimination; it validates it.

Discrimination against female authors is not a thing of the past. Reminding readers, and potential authors, that we have a rich collection of female-written literature is not feeding discrimination. And that reminder can't be made by trying to focus on a tiny percentage in a huge mixed collection.

Either it's right to decide which books should be in a library because of the sex of the authors, or it isn't. It can't be wrong only some of the time.

Yes, it can--because *the sexes are not treated equally.* Because the concept "in an ideal, totally-equal society, it would be discrimination," is irrelevant; we don't have, and have never seen in human history, such a society.

It is wrong to shove someone off the sidewalk--unless they're about to be hit by a bicycle. Whether an action is fair or not depends on circumstances, not categories. "Discrimination" is creating an imbalance, not working to fix one, and highlighting and working against imbalances in publishing is not discriminatory.

This is not fighting ancient discrimination; it's fighting ongoing, current discrimination, in part by pointing out how it's been successfully fought in the past.