Women are (still!) described by appearance, men by virtue
Hi friend!
Something is happening to Norway, the language used in books perpetuates gender stereotypes and being a good listener is nearly impossible: This edition needs to be a quickie, so I put together a list of articles and podcasts which I found noteworthy lately. Let's dive in:
⭐️ This phenomenal storytelling about climate change in Norway made waves in my Twitter bubble last week: A Norwegian journalist and a photographer travelled around Norway for twelve months to document how global warming impacts the country and its people. They did not expect to find this much evidence. A gloomy must read/watch.
📚 Scientists from the University of Copenhagen fed 3,5 million books to a bot in order to analyze whether men and women are described differently in literature. Their results are not surprising, but daunting. Two findings I found most telling:
"It found that “beautiful,” “gorgeous,” and “sexy” were the three most frequent adjectives used to describe women in literature. However, the most commonly used adjectives to describe men were “righteous,” “rational,” and “brave.”
In literature, men are much more likely to be described by words that refer to their behaviour or skill set, while women are more often than not reduced to their appearance. Even worse:
"They found that in most cases, negative verbs associated with body and appearance were used five times more often for women than they were for men."
Ugh. As I said, none of this is surprising. But language does not only reflect patriarchal societal structures, it also shapes them. And as long as we don't play closer attention to how we talk about women, we will never close the gender gap.
I stumbled across this study in a previous edition of TNW's ByteMe newsletter. A publication which I have recommend before but cannot recommend enough for snarky, feminist tech news.
🙉 Real listening is an art which is nearly impossible to master – says psychotherapist Gillian Rowe. It's almost impossible, because in order to truly listen we have to get out of our own heads, put or ego aside and stop waiting for "our turn" to tell a story. This Guardian piece explores how we can nevertheless become better listeners and I thought it was very insightful.
🇺🇸 As you have probably noticed, the USA are knee deep into the Democratic Primaries – which is basically an election circus that travels from state to state, collecting votes from delegates to determine the Democratic presidential candidate. Initially, 29 candidates signed up to become Trumps contender, now there are eight left.
One of them is Pete Buttigieg, who does not only have a funny name, but he's also gay, fluent in Norwegian, the major of a midsize city in Indiana – and only 38. Aaand he still has the underdog chance of winning the race. Almost a year ago, I read this fascinating New York Magazine portrait about him, titled "Wonder Boy". Author Olivia Nuzzi doesn't just tell you how to pronounce his name, but also shows a life which has been strategically planned since Middle School. It kind of reminded me of the Netflix series The Politician, minus the singing.
🎧 I have two new podcast obsessions as of late. The first one is a bit nerdy. It's called "In Writing" and its concept is that journalist Hattie Crisell visits authors in their home or studies and chats with them about, you guessed it, writing. I particularly enjoyed the episodes with Holly Bourne and Elizabeth Day.
The second podcast I have really gotten into is the BBC Woman's Hour, hosted by Jane Garvey and Jenni Murray. I really like the variety of topics in each episode as much as the two hosts' snappy reporting. A recent episode, for example, covered the psychology of wellness, debated a judge who obviously had no idea what "consent" is and featured an interview with author Emma Jane Unsworth.
🎵 February to April is peak concert season for me, and this weekend I went to a show which is already a very strong contestor for my top three concert highlights of 2020 – and I don't say this lightly. I went to see Georgia, a one-woman-hurricane from the UK. She plays the drums, sings and is basically the 2020 Robyn, but much more energetic. She's still on tour, I highly recommend buying a ticket and putting on your dancing shoes.
Alright, I hope you could take away something from this rather random potpourri of recommendations. What did you enjoy last week?
Have a lovely week,
Anna