Maybe this idea that there are ‘girl books’ and ‘boy books’ and ‘chick lit’ and ‘whatever is the guy equivalent of chick lit’ gives credit to absolutely no one, especially not the boys who will happily read stories by women, about women. As a lover of books and someone who supports readers and writers of both sexes, I would love a world in which books are freed from some of these constraints. Maybe we should do boys the favor we girls received—a reading diet featuring books by and about the opposite sex. Clearly, it must work.

— Maureen Johnson, “The Gender Coverup” (via schoollibraryjournal)

Society, at least the American, educated, technological society that I inhabit most of the time, has a problem with gender. I’m probably not best placed to identify and describe this problem, so I’ll just point to three examples. The first is explained clearly by Rebecca Solnit in 2008 Men Explain Things to Me. This piece has circumnavigated the Internet several times and each time it comes around again it has been heavily linked, liked, and retweeted. It has become the seminal work on mansplaining. My second example is the twitter hashtag #1reasonwhy. Each #1reasonwhy tweet relates one reason why there aren’t more women in the video game design industry. Third is Roy Tennant’s Library Journal piece : Fostering Female Technology Leadership in Libraries. Looking at them in reverse order, these examples explain that libraires need more women in positions of technology leadership, that women in technology fields are often treated poorly, and that men (such as myself) may not be best placed to articulate or remedy this problem. It’s the third point that gives me trouble. The first two seem well established. So let’s work backwards through these and see if we can uncover additional insight when we get back to the sticky point.

— My Silence on Gender Issues in Libraries and Technology « information. games.

I remember that quandary every time I read an essay about gender in Young Adult literature (which, since I teach it, is often). I see, in the ongoing conversation about Bella and Katniss, our culture pondering whether YA novels support the strong daughters we all want to raise. But as we debate ad nauseum whether, for example, Bella Swan is a dangerous role model for young women, we’ve neglected to ask the corresponding question: what does it tell young men when Edward Cullen and Jacob Black are the role models available to them? Are these barely-contained monsters really the best we can imagine?

— 

via the Los Angeles Review of Books - “YA and the End of Boys”

We’re sure all of our YA peeps will be buzzing about this essay, but rather than trying to show that contemporary YA is FULL of awesome young men, we’re just going to share our list of YA books full of male protagonists.

(via bookish)

ZS: Well, I think it’s an enormous power and advantage women have, this understanding of time and mortality. It’s only a shame that we often do everything we can to abandon or deny this natural advantage. I always think of the menopause: what a gift it is to women to have, in their own bodies, this piece of time-keeping which allows them to fully understand, in their bodies, that death is coming. They’re not very good managers of time, men. Men don’t have that – you see so many men heading towards their deaths in utter shock and incomprehension because right until the final moments they thought they were going to be given some kind of reprieve.

— 

From the interview with Zadie Smith by Ted Hodgkinson in Granta. (via courtneymaum)

Whoa, Zadie! Big thoughts.

More JK Rowling / Harry Potter gif sets for their joint birthday.

Though it’s not said out loud, the subtext is that library work is women’s work and therefore whatever technology is involved is just stuff clerical workers everywhere have to use. Like typewriters.

— 

Barbara Fister, “Encoded: Gender, Technology, and Libraries”

(Inside HigherEd, h/t infoneer-pulse)

mswyrr:

Writer Jim C. Hines “Striking a Pose (Women and Fantasy Covers)”

I am a male librarian, and I became a librarian because I like to find out the answers to questions. I’ve always loved learning and discovering new things and ideas. I am a huge fan of trivia games and Jeopardy. As a result, I used to I want to be an academic, but I could never choose a field. I love science and math and literature and history and social science and, and, and…. I majored in English Lit in college because that major had the least required courses, allowing me to take a lot of electives (classes in native american religion, computer science, music theory, etc.). I heard a quotation once about getting a PhD: “You learn more and more about less and less until you know everything about nothing”. This really describes how I felt in school… every class meant 100 other classes that I couldn’t take!

I realized that by becoming a librarian I could help others find answers to their questions and by association I could learn about a wide range of subjects. As a librarian, rather than studying any one field, I am able to study HOW people study— how they go about answering questions— and how best to answer different types of questions.

In today’s age, I think this unending quest for knowledge is the most important part of librarianship, much more important than simply liking books (although I too love books!). This is because books are just one medium for the imparting of knowledge. Books are a wonderfully effective media, but librarianship is really about the transmission of knowledge and information. Becoming a librarian simply because you love books is like becoming a scientist because you love microscopes or other laboratory equipment. Those are just some of the tools of the trade, not the essence of the trade itself.

— Corporatedread responds to the Annoyed Librarian’s assertion that men don’t enter the profession because it is gendered work. What do you think?

I’m calling shenanigans on this for a few different reasons, chief among them that, were I single and at a cocktail party where I met a male librarian, I would find that hot as hell. But maybe I’m weird—I am married to a male librarian, after all.

— Rainabloom responds to the Annoyed Librarian’s assertion that men don’t enter the profession because it is gendered work. What do you think?

I got into the profession because I like books and reading, and figured I could get paid for it, but that’s just me.

— Tumblr user & librarian athousandvoicestalk responds to LJ columnist the Annoyed Librarian’s assertion that men don’t enter the profession because it is gendered work. It begs the question, regardless of gender, why did you become a librarian?

Librarianship has traditionally been seen as women’s work, along with nursing and teaching school. Thus, lots of men probably avoid the profession entirely, even today, rightly thinking that answering the question “What do you do for a living?” at a cocktail party with “I’m a librarian” isn’t going to impress the ladies, or for that matter the men.

— Do Men Get Library Jobs More Easily than Women? « Annoyed Librarian (via ebookworm)