First of all, this isn’t about his books. I’ve only read one of them, a long time ago, and so can’t speak to them. Books speak for themselves, and readers, writers, everybody gets to interpret them individually and on their own merits.
This is about patterns and systemic sexism and how Andrew…
I’m so confused. What interview did you guys read? I feel like this is the white and gold vs. blue and black thing again.
I know Andrew Smith, I can’t believe this is even an issue. I’ve met his wife and daughter; I have met women authors who count him as a friend. I do not believe any of these women would actually put up with someone as sexist as claimed. I do not believe this sensitive and kind person who has been rudely shoved off the internet today deserves this kind of scrutiny into something he said which, I think, does not mean what you think it means.
I have been sitting here for an hour trying to read bad things into the interview. What does “I’m trying to be better though” mean when it comes after the sentence “I consider myself completely ignorant to all things woman and female.” As a woman with a father, a brother, a husband, isn’t the latter something I’ve assumed to be true, and the former something I wish each of those men in my life would do? For the record, as a woman, I really feel like if there was a line forming for “does not understand women”, I would jump in that line right the hell now.
The final paragraph of the Vice interview read “A lot of THE ALEX CROW is really about the failure of male societies.” Read in context, read it out of context. What does it mean? Does it mean something to you that it doesn’t mean to me?
I’m trying to understand why this is a thing. I love Andrew, and I feel sick to my stomach that other authors for whom I had some respect decided it was ok to vilify him on the Internet in such a public and, to me, nonsensical fashion.
Well said Alethea. I so hate bullies
