In 1962, when “A Wrinkle in Time,” after 26 rejections, was acquired by John Farrar at Farrar, Straus & Giroux, science fiction by women and aimed at female readers was a rarity. The genre was thought to be down-market and not up to the standards of children’s literature — the stuff of pulp and comic books for errant schoolboys. Even today, girls and grown women are not generally fans. Half of 18- to 24-year-old men say that science fiction is their favorite type of book, compared with only one-fourth of young women…. “A Wrinkle in Time,” the first in a trilogy that was later extended to include two [...]

Grossly talented indie-rock shredder Marnie Stern has a song on her forthcoming record called "Female Guitar Players Are the New Black." This title has the double-edged benefit of being true as well as wry-since it preempts (one hopes) a lot of lazy "think pieces" on the subject.

Still, even for underground kids who grew up swooning over the plodding-on-purpose instrumental technique of mid-90's Kill Rock Stars bands, there is now an undeniable pleasure in seeing women give off true, hot-shit guitar grind. (For more of this, watch Marissa Paternoster of the Screaming Females rip through "Bell" here.) So while people are keeping score on this level, we [...]

In the wake of our re-realization yesterday that the executive class of Apple is an all-male revue, there are (at least) two interesting woman-related discussions going on up in the Internet. One involves manplaining. The other has to do with how men treat women when they write about things. And they are sooo related. Let us begin with Awl pal and comedian Julie Klausner, who is meeting lots of concern from men about how the people in her book will be represented. Um, Julie asks: what about me?

Did you know that there's a program in New York City to offer safe rides home to women, the gays and various gender-non-conforming people? It's true! You can get a safe ride home from midnight to 3 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights in 45 neighborhoods in New York City. Also, you can now buy tickets for their October benefit to support that volunteer effort.

There's this insane Times article about how Lifetime is for women and Spike is for men? So many things about it are suspect. (Including the line that Lifetime "recently started a separate, movies-only channel." The Lifetime Movie Network actually began in 1998?) And then: "It's a tough call as to which is the more cynical ploy: brazenly playing to a female audience that probably could stand to lose a few pounds or shamelessly playing to a male audience that likes to fantasize about women more gorgeous than actually exist in real life." So Lifetime's damned if it puts normal-looking women on TV and damned if it doesn't, I [...]

Here's a long look at some of the studies and expert testimony behind the Prop 8 ruling. (Unsurprisingly, the science suggests that gay marrieds have disagreements about tidiness and money, just like straight marrieds, so therefore, I guess we're all the same.) This is funny somewhat because we're still working on the idea that men and women are even similar or equal-including in the brain. In a review of Delusions of Gender, a look at neuroscience (and neurosexism!), the Times makes a reference to the paper's own publication, in 1915, of a letter by neurologist Dr. Charles L. Dana. His contention was that women's "upper spinal [...]

Wow, Cintra Wilson's discussion of which variety of expensive objects one might put in and around one's vagina today in the New York Times is kind of amazing.