I mean, she does her fair share of bullying mockery -- of Marxists, readers of romantasy, fans of Sally Rooney, people who think hip hop lyrics reward close study, and so on. She started all that well before the lit bros came out of the woodwork (as they always inevitably do). Are these the mirror hatreds of polarized online trolls? Certainly the quality and regularity of her Instagram posts suggest she is far less naive about social media than her remarks here suggest. Sorry to take the bait -- I mean it is positioned AS bait, "we expect no pushback" ha ha ha it's all such a laugh.
It feels irresponsible to let Liza share a one-sided narrative while she's keeping her original article locked behind a paywall. People who weren't present to her "meltdown" have no way to assess whether her response was appropriate or not.
I read the original article: it wasn't. And this victim narrative is eye roll worthy when it comes from someone who films instagram content making fun of caricatured-boogeymen "Marxist English Majors" as supposed "satire".
Ten years ago, I lost my academic job because a fragile man attacked an op-ed I wrote. Since I ended up getting punished anyway, my biggest regret is that I did not call out this man’s behavior in public when he made an overtly sexist comment during a professional meeting. I hope you are more successful than I was at fending off the bros. https://amybrunvand.substack.com/p/the-container-and-the-content?r=3aadnk&utm_medium=ios
First off: This is why I love ROL: They genuinely care about publishing conflicting, diverse opinions. This I love. So thanks ROL for that. Second, thank you, Liza, for mentioning me and the Lit Bro Phenomenon. I do think there’s a problem with “Lit Bros.” Many seem to misunderstand this and think it’s absurd that someone like me, with nearly 3K subs, cares what guys with 200, 500 subscribers do. I would say it’s about much more than that; it’s about the universal search for belonging, inclusion and acceptance.
It sucks feeling like you’re an outsider on Substack, which is supposed to be for the outsiders. I always felt rejected by the trad writing world, and now I feel it here, too. It does remind one of elementary school, high school, etc. Social prestige, cliques, cool kids, circle-jerking each other and proclaiming one another The Next Raymond Carver.
But who cares, right? It is what it is. I have my own audience. I’m an adult. What can you do. I write about it because I can, and because it’s an interesting social phenomenon that I pick up on.
Re Liza: To start I’ll say this, as I’ve said about LL every time: I agree with some of what she writes, disagree with some. Her stuff can be controversial, for sure. Some of her claims I personally have pushed back on.
That said: Overall I think she’s a really smart, often quite interesting writer. She has, for sure, gained a bigger audience and impressively quickly. (She also has like 54K followers on Instagram.) I understand why people would have strong opinions on her. That said: Quite a few of the comments I saw after her initial post were fucking nasty, man. Just mean. Ad-hominems left and right.
I can’t comment decisively either way as to the gender topic. Certainly I’ve heard a lot of women make this claim. It does surprise me a bit that Libes, of all people, would make this particular claim given her abhorrence of identity politics. And yet: Perhaps she is right. I honestly don’t know. I am a man. I’ve never been a woman. What Libes does is fairly unique, as she says. Men can be assholes, for sure. Then again: I have taken plenty of flack from both women and men, and often. I see men kicking other men in the metaphorical teeth on Substack and online generally all the time. If you’re an independent free-thinker, as Libes is and I am, you’re going to get some flack. Comes with the territory.
Libes herself is, as she admitted, very opinionated, and often controversial. So again, I get the backlash in that sense. But I have to agree with her when she says that most of the comments don’t address her actual claims. Many of them are a thinly veiled version of: Fuck you. As a free- and independent thinker myself who clearly doesn’t fit in with The Lit Bros, I empathize with Libes. Unlike me she didn’t try to fit in or be accepted by them; she doesn’t care either way and didn’t even know they existed until now.
I think the bigger debate here might be: Who is Substack for? When I joined several years ago it felt very open, democratic, free and fun. It was like the new age digital wild west, an escape from traditional publishing and an opportunity to maybe, just maybe, break out. But as time has gone on, and the platform has become more popular and grown massively, certain trends, fads and patterns have developed. Celebrities. The woke writers; the anti-woke writers; the “How to Grow on Substack” writers; the tech, finance, sports bros; the trad-publishing professionals; the Hot Takes crowd; the feminists; the incels; and the Lit Bros.
I get it. Human nature. Is what it is.
One thing I love about the platform is that the founders truly do believe in free speech. Loud minorities of lefties have tried several times now to silence certain voices because they claim Substack has a “Nazi problem,” which is absurd. (There are a few, but they are absolutely a tiny minority and who the fuck reads these assholes?) Substack welcomes diverse opinions, contrarian takes, hard disagreement, etc. Never once have I felt like I can’t write what I want here.
Yet Substack does feel, to me, in various ways, to be culturally becoming more exclusive. I think a lot of it has to do with the inherent nature of power. People start out small and innocent, but then over time individuals band together and form natural groups. Those groups grow and solidify, unintentionally becoming exclusive in various ways. Before you know it: We’re back to the way it was before Substack, and it seemed to me that Substack was originally a haven for the individuals and outsiders.
Is some of this my own insecurity, unrealistic expectations, fears, need to belong, desperation, even, for literary inclusion, etc? Of course. But I don’t think my overall claim is inaccurate.
Anyway. I could go on and on. I’m grateful for smart, diverse voices on here, regardless of what side you stand on. I do think ad-hominems are always a self-tell, and always unhelpful. And I saw a lot of that regarding Liza.
I'm not terminally online enough to know all the ins and outs of what happened, but let me add this here for Liza and everyone reading: much of mainstream publishing and far more of small press publishing is dominated by women. They are editors and published writers at a higher clip than men. Only on Substack do men maybe have a slight over representation. Furthermore, to cite people like Harold Bloom, who no one reads all that seriously anymore, as the authoritative voice on great literature is not only wrong, but shows an ignorance of respected female literary voices with strong perspectives like Susan Sontag, Anne Carson, Mary Ruefle, Claudia Rankine, Joyelle McSweeney, Roxanne Gay, etc. These are writers who are mostly contemporary, all alive save for Sontag. I don't what know Liza's ideas are that got her attacked, but whatever they are, they don't seem particularly informed by what has been happening in literature for the past 3 or 4 decades.
Exactly. And Libes complains about that (as do I) quite a bit. Note that one has to be ideologically Left in order to get an agent (or so go the rumors); in other words, women are the problem, not the "lit bros" who, by the way, are being shunned by the Mean Girls of the Literary Establishment.
It's funny -- in my experience, men are the most open to an opinionated woman with ideas. It's WOMEN who aren't amenable to that. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
This isn't my point. Sure there are mean girls just as there are douchey lit bros. My point is that she seems to roundly dismiss the majority of female writers today and therefore isn't in a position to really speak about how women are generally not given space for their opinions. They definitely are. If anything she should hedge her argument as being about the culture of Substack, which is where her perceived bullying happened, rather than take her experience as somehow indicative of the literary culture at large, which she ignores/dismisses out of convenience at best and out of a cynical attempt at agitprop at worst.
"There are, indeed, many people in our society who profit off of bringing others down."
The irony here is that this is literally Liza's entire MO. The bulk of her dubious fame has come from attacking the publishing industry and published authors. Thats what she's known for, not the quality of her fiction.
Bullies gotta bully and victims gotta victim? Hardly....
If you choose to bully, be prepared to get back what you dish out no matter the gender. When you take the high road with a bully, they simply escalate (think Trump). Studies show that the only way to stop a bully is to stand your ground and refuse to let them get away with it, so..... before you start that process, ask yourself if you're okay with someone else finishing it.
I think the story is that these loser guys are on Substack because they can have their own corner of literature where a woman cannot have the same kind of opinions that mean that they are not getting published and did not take the time to realize that they may agree with Libes on a number of things.
I am an internet friend of Liza's and know her fairly well. I saw all this happen first-hand. It started because an obscure male substacker made a snide, petty little joke about her. She doesn't know him, has never met him and had never heard of him before. But out of nowhere he took a shot at her, and he and his friend started a vicious hate chain bashing her non-stop. They immediately deleted their posts or in the case of the former substacker, tried to play the victim himself. before this happened, Liza had been going through months of intense bullying as she has talked about openly in past Instagram posts. Most of it from I've seen comes from men. Liza's article she wrote in response was NOT cringe nor was it too emotional, aggressive or confrontational. Liza did the only thing she could do in that situation, stood up to her bullies. Had she "taken the high road" (or letting them off easy in other words) as everyone criticized her for not doing, they would've kept on doing it. To those who critique how she wrote that piece, please keep in mind you don't know what Liza went through in private with all this bullying it deeply affected her and when she wrote that article, she was coming from a place of feeling hurt and great distress. Can you imagine what it must have been like being in her shoes during that time? Being made fun of, ridiculed and having nasty things said about you for no reason over and over again. NOT legitimate, substantive criticism but just pure hate and vitriol behind your back. Her actual ideas were never addressed. If the guy mentioned above didn't want to be called out, he could've done one of two things: 1) Kept his opinion to himself or 2) Wrote a civil and thoughtful response to one of her articles and had a polite, intellectual conversation with Liza.
All these people criticizing HOW she responded are missing the point and are not taking the context of the situation into account. 1) Turnabout is fair play, if these guys were going to mock and insult her, she has the right to self-defense. Her comments on their appearance were criticized. Considering the things they said about her, I'd say they got off easy. 2) She was rightly VERY upset with the way she was being treated for no reason. You also had his friends and admirers as well as third parties who had no involvement in the whole situation, going after her, either out of blind loyalty to him or because they didn't know what they were talking about or have all the facts. Liza was accused of "playing the victim" or "being sensitive to criticism." She wasn't playing the victim; she was the wronged party in this situation. As to the second charge, Liza is not at all sensitive to or against constructive criticism or disagreement. But that's not what this was. I was appalled and had never seen anything like it on Substack before. Her article in response was NOT a meltdown or a temper tantrum! It was a strong response to far beyond strong criticism that was nasty, unwarranted and crossed the line. Did gender play a role in this whole affair? I believe it did. Had Liza been a man, I don't think she would've been attacked, chastised or critiqued for responding in kind and defending herself.
These "lit bros" and their friends and allies, need to back off and leave her alone! If she were a man, she would've been praised for standing up for herself. But because she is a woman, she's accused of being too emotional and not rational in her response. Furthermore, regardless of gender, people who tried to police the tone of her response don't have empathy for her and don't bother to stop to think how'd they'd handle it if an internet mob attacked them. How good of a mood would you be in? How would you feel? Isn't it natural in that situation one would want to defend yourself, your reputation and your work? Returning to gender, Liza is no radical feminist and does NOT see herself as oppressed because she is a woman nor does she see America or the West as a patriarchy. But like all women regardless of political views, she does experience sexism. Is sexism in the western world nowhere near as bad as it used to be? Yes. But to some extent, it is still around. Liza has faced it before, and this was just another instance of it. The men AND women who attacked Liza were 100% in the wrong and need to examine their own hearts and think about how they would feel if this had happened to them or someone they love and think about why their reaction was so different when men wrote the exact same piece which they have numerous times. Why is Liza being chastised even by other women, simply for expressing how she felt and putting these bullies in their place? Why is she being derided as fragile, cringe, having "gone too far", or "having a meltdown." Liza is my internet friend and I'm shocked at how she was treated! Why aren't women allowed to be assertive, not be agreeable and fight back? I would like to thank the Republic of Letters for letting her share her story with the public!
Being a radical feminist isn’t necessarily bad. I just added that disclaimer because Liza is more conservative-leaning. I think that label has acquired negative stigma over the years. But feminism isn’t at its core a bad thing. It is still largely a man’s world and we still need it for sure.
“It is still largely a man’s world” is a pretty reductive take. Are you talking about the West or the world in general? Because if it’s global, third-world countries, then yes, they’re a man’s world. If it’s just the West, I’m sorry but no; they either egalitarian or (in more left-leaning countries) female-led.
Feminism, as defined as advocating for the rights of women, is a valid concept, but the way it has developed in the West has rightfully been called “radical”, since it has become anti-male propaganda, which is why we see the rise of incels and the manosphere. Again, a little more nuance is needed.
I've seen women on here say unkind things about you too, although they may not have had the courage to say them to your face.
You may sometimes get pushback because you're a woman, but I tend to think the more important reason is that you're just not crazy enough. What I really want to see is Moravagine start a Substack. Now there's a crazy woman.
I think women sometimes have a certain preciousness in their writing. It could probably be gotten rid of, or possibly used to your advantage, but what doesn't work is to pretend it isn't there. If a man wrote like that, I think he'd get a pretty chilly reception (from men and women). I doubt you'd get nearly the same following writing under a male name, but I could be mistaken.
Do you understand that there is a difference between intellectual disagreement and unkind things that are not content-related? “Women have a certain preciousness” is just icky sexism, bro.
Amy, I find it fascinating that your comment on this post is just you complaining about your own problem, and calling the guy who criticized you ten years ago "fragile." At least I can stay on topic. And if you were a little less fragile, a decade might have been enough for you to get over it.
Nevertheless, I respect your service as a librarian and wish you the best.
At the risk of virtue signaling, sorry you went through all that. Nice to meet your work, though.
I wish we had lit bros more that were more like finance bros -- a little annoying at times but fundamentally competent and economically productive. If young men could do accomplish competency and marketability by publicly taking reading and writing seriously, we'd have a much stronger culture, even if it was made up of guys named Chad wearing vests with Thomas Pynchon's name and logo.
Literary culture eats its own. As the world and the stakes shrink, people somehow become more vicious. What we need now is to support each other in the acts of writing and reading. Because while we tear down our own, they are dating ChatGPT.
We should probably also give up on "cringe" in the pejorative. Some of my favorite writers and stories and artists are "cringe." Wes Anderson? Come on, he's cringe. Salinger? Cringe. F. Scott Fitzgerald? Sublime one day, cringe the next. Hemingway, too, and if you told him, he'd want to fight you over it and that would be cringe.
Stop worrying about it so much. Your analysis here fails more than it succeeds. Lots of ppl are anti elitist for whatever reasons. Just double down or make a funnier post. You're not supposed to personalize being in a play or drama piece.
Roughly half or more writers on literature or cultural critics ythat Ii’ve enjoyed over 40-50 years with very strong opinions are women, not unstable, not defensive, and even ones with ideas I don’t like that much (well, uh Paglia, Butler) are strong intellectuals.
I speak from three decades of reading essayists, probably 40 -60 strong ones a year.
But then there’s Fran Leibowitz, who is always like reading emerald-cut emeralds .
I mean, she does her fair share of bullying mockery -- of Marxists, readers of romantasy, fans of Sally Rooney, people who think hip hop lyrics reward close study, and so on. She started all that well before the lit bros came out of the woodwork (as they always inevitably do). Are these the mirror hatreds of polarized online trolls? Certainly the quality and regularity of her Instagram posts suggest she is far less naive about social media than her remarks here suggest. Sorry to take the bait -- I mean it is positioned AS bait, "we expect no pushback" ha ha ha it's all such a laugh.
They should be ashamed of the publication they’ve become
Liza Libes, a woman, is doing identity politics now? Welcome to the resistance comrade
It feels irresponsible to let Liza share a one-sided narrative while she's keeping her original article locked behind a paywall. People who weren't present to her "meltdown" have no way to assess whether her response was appropriate or not.
I read the original article: it wasn't. And this victim narrative is eye roll worthy when it comes from someone who films instagram content making fun of caricatured-boogeymen "Marxist English Majors" as supposed "satire".
This essay has no context, the link is to the writer's newsletter, not the essay that apparently caused a kerfuffle.
She deleted many (critical) comments on it and then locked the post for paying subscribers only. I'd be very surprised if she ever reopened it.
Ah, thanks for that info. Although it means this essay is one hand clapping. Not much I can take from it.
Ten years ago, I lost my academic job because a fragile man attacked an op-ed I wrote. Since I ended up getting punished anyway, my biggest regret is that I did not call out this man’s behavior in public when he made an overtly sexist comment during a professional meeting. I hope you are more successful than I was at fending off the bros. https://amybrunvand.substack.com/p/the-container-and-the-content?r=3aadnk&utm_medium=ios
First off: This is why I love ROL: They genuinely care about publishing conflicting, diverse opinions. This I love. So thanks ROL for that. Second, thank you, Liza, for mentioning me and the Lit Bro Phenomenon. I do think there’s a problem with “Lit Bros.” Many seem to misunderstand this and think it’s absurd that someone like me, with nearly 3K subs, cares what guys with 200, 500 subscribers do. I would say it’s about much more than that; it’s about the universal search for belonging, inclusion and acceptance.
It sucks feeling like you’re an outsider on Substack, which is supposed to be for the outsiders. I always felt rejected by the trad writing world, and now I feel it here, too. It does remind one of elementary school, high school, etc. Social prestige, cliques, cool kids, circle-jerking each other and proclaiming one another The Next Raymond Carver.
But who cares, right? It is what it is. I have my own audience. I’m an adult. What can you do. I write about it because I can, and because it’s an interesting social phenomenon that I pick up on.
Re Liza: To start I’ll say this, as I’ve said about LL every time: I agree with some of what she writes, disagree with some. Her stuff can be controversial, for sure. Some of her claims I personally have pushed back on.
That said: Overall I think she’s a really smart, often quite interesting writer. She has, for sure, gained a bigger audience and impressively quickly. (She also has like 54K followers on Instagram.) I understand why people would have strong opinions on her. That said: Quite a few of the comments I saw after her initial post were fucking nasty, man. Just mean. Ad-hominems left and right.
I can’t comment decisively either way as to the gender topic. Certainly I’ve heard a lot of women make this claim. It does surprise me a bit that Libes, of all people, would make this particular claim given her abhorrence of identity politics. And yet: Perhaps she is right. I honestly don’t know. I am a man. I’ve never been a woman. What Libes does is fairly unique, as she says. Men can be assholes, for sure. Then again: I have taken plenty of flack from both women and men, and often. I see men kicking other men in the metaphorical teeth on Substack and online generally all the time. If you’re an independent free-thinker, as Libes is and I am, you’re going to get some flack. Comes with the territory.
Libes herself is, as she admitted, very opinionated, and often controversial. So again, I get the backlash in that sense. But I have to agree with her when she says that most of the comments don’t address her actual claims. Many of them are a thinly veiled version of: Fuck you. As a free- and independent thinker myself who clearly doesn’t fit in with The Lit Bros, I empathize with Libes. Unlike me she didn’t try to fit in or be accepted by them; she doesn’t care either way and didn’t even know they existed until now.
I think the bigger debate here might be: Who is Substack for? When I joined several years ago it felt very open, democratic, free and fun. It was like the new age digital wild west, an escape from traditional publishing and an opportunity to maybe, just maybe, break out. But as time has gone on, and the platform has become more popular and grown massively, certain trends, fads and patterns have developed. Celebrities. The woke writers; the anti-woke writers; the “How to Grow on Substack” writers; the tech, finance, sports bros; the trad-publishing professionals; the Hot Takes crowd; the feminists; the incels; and the Lit Bros.
I get it. Human nature. Is what it is.
One thing I love about the platform is that the founders truly do believe in free speech. Loud minorities of lefties have tried several times now to silence certain voices because they claim Substack has a “Nazi problem,” which is absurd. (There are a few, but they are absolutely a tiny minority and who the fuck reads these assholes?) Substack welcomes diverse opinions, contrarian takes, hard disagreement, etc. Never once have I felt like I can’t write what I want here.
Yet Substack does feel, to me, in various ways, to be culturally becoming more exclusive. I think a lot of it has to do with the inherent nature of power. People start out small and innocent, but then over time individuals band together and form natural groups. Those groups grow and solidify, unintentionally becoming exclusive in various ways. Before you know it: We’re back to the way it was before Substack, and it seemed to me that Substack was originally a haven for the individuals and outsiders.
Is some of this my own insecurity, unrealistic expectations, fears, need to belong, desperation, even, for literary inclusion, etc? Of course. But I don’t think my overall claim is inaccurate.
Anyway. I could go on and on. I’m grateful for smart, diverse voices on here, regardless of what side you stand on. I do think ad-hominems are always a self-tell, and always unhelpful. And I saw a lot of that regarding Liza.
Happy writing.
Here’s my Lit Bro piece since it has been doing the rounds (one of my most popular essays): https://michaelmohr.substack.com/p/against-lit-bros-and-substack-elitism
I'm not terminally online enough to know all the ins and outs of what happened, but let me add this here for Liza and everyone reading: much of mainstream publishing and far more of small press publishing is dominated by women. They are editors and published writers at a higher clip than men. Only on Substack do men maybe have a slight over representation. Furthermore, to cite people like Harold Bloom, who no one reads all that seriously anymore, as the authoritative voice on great literature is not only wrong, but shows an ignorance of respected female literary voices with strong perspectives like Susan Sontag, Anne Carson, Mary Ruefle, Claudia Rankine, Joyelle McSweeney, Roxanne Gay, etc. These are writers who are mostly contemporary, all alive save for Sontag. I don't what know Liza's ideas are that got her attacked, but whatever they are, they don't seem particularly informed by what has been happening in literature for the past 3 or 4 decades.
Exactly. And Libes complains about that (as do I) quite a bit. Note that one has to be ideologically Left in order to get an agent (or so go the rumors); in other words, women are the problem, not the "lit bros" who, by the way, are being shunned by the Mean Girls of the Literary Establishment.
It's funny -- in my experience, men are the most open to an opinionated woman with ideas. It's WOMEN who aren't amenable to that. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
PS. ROXANNE GAY IS AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL.
This isn't my point. Sure there are mean girls just as there are douchey lit bros. My point is that she seems to roundly dismiss the majority of female writers today and therefore isn't in a position to really speak about how women are generally not given space for their opinions. They definitely are. If anything she should hedge her argument as being about the culture of Substack, which is where her perceived bullying happened, rather than take her experience as somehow indicative of the literary culture at large, which she ignores/dismisses out of convenience at best and out of a cynical attempt at agitprop at worst.
"There are, indeed, many people in our society who profit off of bringing others down."
The irony here is that this is literally Liza's entire MO. The bulk of her dubious fame has come from attacking the publishing industry and published authors. Thats what she's known for, not the quality of her fiction.
Bullies gotta bully and victims gotta victim? Hardly....
If you choose to bully, be prepared to get back what you dish out no matter the gender. When you take the high road with a bully, they simply escalate (think Trump). Studies show that the only way to stop a bully is to stand your ground and refuse to let them get away with it, so..... before you start that process, ask yourself if you're okay with someone else finishing it.
I think the story is that these loser guys are on Substack because they can have their own corner of literature where a woman cannot have the same kind of opinions that mean that they are not getting published and did not take the time to realize that they may agree with Libes on a number of things.
I am an internet friend of Liza's and know her fairly well. I saw all this happen first-hand. It started because an obscure male substacker made a snide, petty little joke about her. She doesn't know him, has never met him and had never heard of him before. But out of nowhere he took a shot at her, and he and his friend started a vicious hate chain bashing her non-stop. They immediately deleted their posts or in the case of the former substacker, tried to play the victim himself. before this happened, Liza had been going through months of intense bullying as she has talked about openly in past Instagram posts. Most of it from I've seen comes from men. Liza's article she wrote in response was NOT cringe nor was it too emotional, aggressive or confrontational. Liza did the only thing she could do in that situation, stood up to her bullies. Had she "taken the high road" (or letting them off easy in other words) as everyone criticized her for not doing, they would've kept on doing it. To those who critique how she wrote that piece, please keep in mind you don't know what Liza went through in private with all this bullying it deeply affected her and when she wrote that article, she was coming from a place of feeling hurt and great distress. Can you imagine what it must have been like being in her shoes during that time? Being made fun of, ridiculed and having nasty things said about you for no reason over and over again. NOT legitimate, substantive criticism but just pure hate and vitriol behind your back. Her actual ideas were never addressed. If the guy mentioned above didn't want to be called out, he could've done one of two things: 1) Kept his opinion to himself or 2) Wrote a civil and thoughtful response to one of her articles and had a polite, intellectual conversation with Liza.
All these people criticizing HOW she responded are missing the point and are not taking the context of the situation into account. 1) Turnabout is fair play, if these guys were going to mock and insult her, she has the right to self-defense. Her comments on their appearance were criticized. Considering the things they said about her, I'd say they got off easy. 2) She was rightly VERY upset with the way she was being treated for no reason. You also had his friends and admirers as well as third parties who had no involvement in the whole situation, going after her, either out of blind loyalty to him or because they didn't know what they were talking about or have all the facts. Liza was accused of "playing the victim" or "being sensitive to criticism." She wasn't playing the victim; she was the wronged party in this situation. As to the second charge, Liza is not at all sensitive to or against constructive criticism or disagreement. But that's not what this was. I was appalled and had never seen anything like it on Substack before. Her article in response was NOT a meltdown or a temper tantrum! It was a strong response to far beyond strong criticism that was nasty, unwarranted and crossed the line. Did gender play a role in this whole affair? I believe it did. Had Liza been a man, I don't think she would've been attacked, chastised or critiqued for responding in kind and defending herself.
These "lit bros" and their friends and allies, need to back off and leave her alone! If she were a man, she would've been praised for standing up for herself. But because she is a woman, she's accused of being too emotional and not rational in her response. Furthermore, regardless of gender, people who tried to police the tone of her response don't have empathy for her and don't bother to stop to think how'd they'd handle it if an internet mob attacked them. How good of a mood would you be in? How would you feel? Isn't it natural in that situation one would want to defend yourself, your reputation and your work? Returning to gender, Liza is no radical feminist and does NOT see herself as oppressed because she is a woman nor does she see America or the West as a patriarchy. But like all women regardless of political views, she does experience sexism. Is sexism in the western world nowhere near as bad as it used to be? Yes. But to some extent, it is still around. Liza has faced it before, and this was just another instance of it. The men AND women who attacked Liza were 100% in the wrong and need to examine their own hearts and think about how they would feel if this had happened to them or someone they love and think about why their reaction was so different when men wrote the exact same piece which they have numerous times. Why is Liza being chastised even by other women, simply for expressing how she felt and putting these bullies in their place? Why is she being derided as fragile, cringe, having "gone too far", or "having a meltdown." Liza is my internet friend and I'm shocked at how she was treated! Why aren't women allowed to be assertive, not be agreeable and fight back? I would like to thank the Republic of Letters for letting her share her story with the public!
Damn bro you married to her or some shit? 😵💫
What's wrong with being a radical feminist, why the disclaimer?
Being a radical feminist isn’t necessarily bad. I just added that disclaimer because Liza is more conservative-leaning. I think that label has acquired negative stigma over the years. But feminism isn’t at its core a bad thing. It is still largely a man’s world and we still need it for sure.
Thanks for the clarification. I'm not familiar with her work or political leanings.
I've always thought the addition of 'radical' is redundant. 😁
“It is still largely a man’s world” is a pretty reductive take. Are you talking about the West or the world in general? Because if it’s global, third-world countries, then yes, they’re a man’s world. If it’s just the West, I’m sorry but no; they either egalitarian or (in more left-leaning countries) female-led.
Feminism, as defined as advocating for the rights of women, is a valid concept, but the way it has developed in the West has rightfully been called “radical”, since it has become anti-male propaganda, which is why we see the rise of incels and the manosphere. Again, a little more nuance is needed.
I've seen women on here say unkind things about you too, although they may not have had the courage to say them to your face.
You may sometimes get pushback because you're a woman, but I tend to think the more important reason is that you're just not crazy enough. What I really want to see is Moravagine start a Substack. Now there's a crazy woman.
I think women sometimes have a certain preciousness in their writing. It could probably be gotten rid of, or possibly used to your advantage, but what doesn't work is to pretend it isn't there. If a man wrote like that, I think he'd get a pretty chilly reception (from men and women). I doubt you'd get nearly the same following writing under a male name, but I could be mistaken.
Do you understand that there is a difference between intellectual disagreement and unkind things that are not content-related? “Women have a certain preciousness” is just icky sexism, bro.
Amy, I find it fascinating that your comment on this post is just you complaining about your own problem, and calling the guy who criticized you ten years ago "fragile." At least I can stay on topic. And if you were a little less fragile, a decade might have been enough for you to get over it.
Nevertheless, I respect your service as a librarian and wish you the best.
I find it fascinating that you are so fragile you typed that comment.
Do you? What do you mean by it?
You mean toe the party line. A tow line is what you use on a boat. I hope you aren’t in the English Dept.
At the risk of virtue signaling, sorry you went through all that. Nice to meet your work, though.
I wish we had lit bros more that were more like finance bros -- a little annoying at times but fundamentally competent and economically productive. If young men could do accomplish competency and marketability by publicly taking reading and writing seriously, we'd have a much stronger culture, even if it was made up of guys named Chad wearing vests with Thomas Pynchon's name and logo.
Literary culture eats its own. As the world and the stakes shrink, people somehow become more vicious. What we need now is to support each other in the acts of writing and reading. Because while we tear down our own, they are dating ChatGPT.
We should probably also give up on "cringe" in the pejorative. Some of my favorite writers and stories and artists are "cringe." Wes Anderson? Come on, he's cringe. Salinger? Cringe. F. Scott Fitzgerald? Sublime one day, cringe the next. Hemingway, too, and if you told him, he'd want to fight you over it and that would be cringe.
Wanting writers to act more like guys in finance is certainly a take.
Bit of a joke.
Stop worrying about it so much. Your analysis here fails more than it succeeds. Lots of ppl are anti elitist for whatever reasons. Just double down or make a funnier post. You're not supposed to personalize being in a play or drama piece.
Roughly half or more writers on literature or cultural critics ythat Ii’ve enjoyed over 40-50 years with very strong opinions are women, not unstable, not defensive, and even ones with ideas I don’t like that much (well, uh Paglia, Butler) are strong intellectuals.
I speak from three decades of reading essayists, probably 40 -60 strong ones a year.
But then there’s Fran Leibowitz, who is always like reading emerald-cut emeralds .
Andrew Sullivan would never have a meltdown or be hysterical. Impossible. Every post he has written is the calm voice of reason.
At every place the Dish has been hosted, for that matter.