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16 September 2012, 9.53pm EST

More than Men Off the Leash?

Being a teetotaller, there wasn’t the option to brace myself for reading Laid Bare with something fortifying.

So I did my equivalent and downed my Sisterhood Soundtrack: Pat doing We Belong, Kate with Running up That Hill, Chrissie doing Pleasure and Pain and a bit of Cher because I’m yet to decide whether I’m a Gypsy, Tramp or Thief.

My 3-ish most formative romantic entanglements were with Him. Not author Jesse Fink of course, but 3-ish men who were each off the proverbial leash after the demise of long relationships. My head, heart, sheets and prose knows the story of What The Divorced Guy Did Next a little too well.

Even if I hadn’t, Californication is one of my favourite shows. When I’m feeling all masochistic I read Sam de Brito. This is very familiar terrain.

A slightly risqué scene from Californication

The book opens with the epiphany Fink has while straddling the face of one of Australia’s “most famous women”. Indeed, homage is paid to his “erect cock” on page one.

A feminist response to this post-split memoir would have been satisfying to write. Equally so would have been an ever-so-slightly vitriolic rebuke from a woman who’s been loved/fucked by Him. But I’ll refrain. I prefer writing to be a tad more challenging.

So aside from dousing my wounds in acid, making me vacillate between depressed and angry, nostalgic and homicidal, what else could I milk from Laid Bare?

Gender. More specifically gender as related to audience, to books.

Is there such a thing as a women’s book? How about a men’s book? Can a book itself have a gender?

I ask this and think of razors. Less about my masochism and more about marketing. The pink For Her packaging reflects marketing and the public fetishisation of choice but has absolutely nothing to do with function.

So, is it authors or in fact the marketers at publishing houses who envisage that a book’s audience will be populated by only one gender?

Do men and women really like different books? The thought makes me bristle.

Bristle, but perhaps it somewhat explains my reaction to Laid Bare. Was there really any chance I’d enjoy a book that opens with a man “finding himself” while ejaculating into some nameless faceless mouth?

So what excluded me? My genitals? My feminism? My disharmony with having fallen – more than once – for this man?

If I’m to argue that Laid Bare – with it’s grotesque vanity and copious sporting/drinking/fucking glory days anecdotes and liberal use of the C-word – is a men’s book, then what about every other book I’ve read? Were they gendered too?

The book I read prior to Laid Bare was written by a man. The book before that too. And like every other book I’ve read, neither feel very gendered.

In fact, the more I dwelt the more I realised Fink’s was the first I’ve read that felt male.

So how – reading two or so books a week – have I managed to avoid male books my whole life? Is it because I’m genitally repelled by them or is it because most books aren’t in fact gendered?

And if Fink’s was my first male book what about female books? Is it to be expected that, being a woman, I would have read more of them?

Earlier this year I read a shelf of Alice Hoffman books, back to back. Some I liked, some I loathed, each paragraph I was convinced that I was reading a female book. I felt the same reading the Jodi Picoult oeuvre.

So why does even typing such an idea conjure indigestion and guilt? Why do I feel I’ll accidentally incur the wrath of the Stella Prize folk? Why am I thinking of Jim Crow suddenly?

Can I make the claim that some books feel gendered without implying that this is in any way connected to quality, importance or worth?

Can I make the claim and still harbour my anti-essentialist views on gender, on sexuality?

Is claiming that a book feels gendered a compliment or a condemnation?

I alternated between pelvic floor clenching and teeth grinding throughout Laid Bare. I’m okay with this. Fink opens hoping we’ll have some conversations: ta daa! I’m not sure I’ve just started the one he hoped for, but then, I paid $32.99 for it; I’ve no further favours to give.

22 Comments

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Linus Bowden

management consultant

Lauren, no offence, but I'm going to be straight with you. If somebody told me that a book they were reading "feels gendered", deciding between "compliment" and "condemnation" would be the furthest thing from my mind. Rather, I'd advise you to read it again when your LSD trip is over, and this time read it without the Tequila bottle next to you. What on earth does "feel gendered" mean? Or have you discovered a publisher who prints books with hormone-injected paper? ;)

8 months ago report
1. Joe Gartner
  
  Tilter
  
  In reply to Linus Bowden
  
  I'm assuming Lauren meant that th book was written by a man with a clearly male viewpoint. I'm puzzled though That this is the first time that the author had encountered this. Unless Lauren has not been reading very widely.
  At the risk of committing a bloomism is it possible that Lauren has not read fiction widely, esp from the male canon?
  
  8 months ago report
2. Lauren Rosewarne
  
  Senior Lecturer at University of Melbourne
  
  In reply to Joe Gartner
  
  That I read the Fink should indicate that I do actually read quite widely (it’s just not always a pleasurable experience!) ;)
  
  So typing my article I was thinking a lot about Philip Roth; an author I love. Roth covers quite a lot of the same kind of material that Fink does – often every bit as explicitly - and yet I've never found Roth as inaccessible or as exclusionary to women as I think the Fink book is. In my view Laid Bare “achieves” something I haven’t experienced before.
  
  8 months ago report
3. Peter Ormonde
  
  Peter Ormonde is a Friend of The Conversation.
  
  Farmer
  
  In reply to Lauren Rosewarne
  
  Of course books are gendered .. well not the books per se ... they are just paper and cardboard, but the viewpoint, the language, the "insights" - or in the case of this little tome - the lack of them I suspect.
  
  Good books - good writing - slides us into the mind of another - give us some other's experiences and explores their reactions and responses and maybe invent some of our own. They help us understand each other. And not just across the Grand Canyon of gender, but bridging nationality and culture, rich, poor. To see through another's eyes.
  
  Sadly what we are seeing through this "work" sounds all to common - especially on the groanier sections of the interweb... words like half-formed and adolescent leap to mind. And yes perhaps that's why you recognise your earlier flames in this smouldering pile of ashes Ms R. Some blokes seem to be able to stay 15 forever.
  
  $32 bucks - you've been gyped!
  
  8 months ago report
4. Linus Bowden
  
  management consultant
  
  In reply to Joe Gartner
  
  Well if that is the case, of course books can "feel gendered". Though I would suspect that just how gendered, and in what ways, are not as much controlled by the authors or the publishing houses as they might think - or hope. After all, if NASCAR, and those idiotic drag queen shoes that girls and young women stumble about on every Friday night can be gendered, why not books? But I feel sorry for somebody who reads fiction "as a feminist", all geared up to react as though she were on a 'Reclaim the…
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  Well if that is the case, of course books can "feel gendered". Though I would suspect that just how gendered, and in what ways, are not as much controlled by the authors or the publishing houses as they might think - or hope. After all, if NASCAR, and those idiotic drag queen shoes that girls and young women stumble about on every Friday night can be gendered, why not books? But I feel sorry for somebody who reads fiction "as a feminist", all geared up to react as though she were on a 'Reclaim the Night' march. Most of the joy and stimulation of literature is being able to put your own ego in the sock drawer for a while, and try on somebody else's shoes.
  
  But the 'gendered' part of books is an unpredictable beast. For example I did not take the higher level English course in Year 12, because the set texts included Pride & Prejudice, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Persuasion, and Jane Eyre. The prospect of spending my 17th year reading those "women's books" made me ill. Though my girlfriend had little trouble in signing me up for John Donne. I suppose it was that blokey compass.
  
  Though after I'd finished uni, I shared a house with a woman who did honours in English. She persuaded me to have a go at P&P. I was about 24 then. I read it in 3 days, and could not stop raving about it. At the end of the letter Mr. Darcy writes Lizzie, explaining how despite his love for her, her family made him heave, my roomie had written "Quite"! She certainly read me well, as I was truly so engrossed, and almost needed smelling salts myself. If somebody had told me at 17 how magnificent I would find Miss Eliza Bennet's handling of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, I would have said, "you're dreamin'", let alone how much I would continue to marvel at Austen's genius in concocting such as unctuous thing as Mr. Collins!
  
  The English course I took in Year 12 read The Crucible, Things Fall Apart, Coonardoo, Macbeth, and a couple of others. I had no trouble relating to a black African dude writer's (Chinua Achebe) hero, the polygamous tribal chief Okonkwo, and his tragic suicide as a result of white colonisation. Similarly, I had no trouble with Hugh, a wheat farmer in the Kimberley's during the 1920s, who would could not deal with the real love he felt for an Aboriginal woman, and so he destroyed himself, Coonardoo, and her community. We didn't use such language in those days, but I really wanted to slap Hugh (17 year old boys did not 'slap' at my school), and actually did cry after one of the beatings he dealt Coonardoo. I think I found Katharine Susannah Prichard far less 'gendered' than Jane Austen because KSP was a Communist.
  
  OTOH, to this day, I still cannot see what is even remotely interesting about Martin Amis, but am very keen on the equally gendered Ian McEwan. Living in London in the 1990s, I devoured Bridget Jones's Diary, a delight I have never been able to share with another male as I have never met another male who has read it. At that same time, I also surprised myself by enjoying Nick Hornby. When I returned to Oz, I even read a 'novel' by Maggie Alderson, whose claim to fame is being Australia's Imelda Marcos. After attempting 3 different Patrick White novels, I concluded he had done the world a great disservice for living so long, but loved David Marr's biography, and yet have loathed nearly everything Marr wrote after that. Though a real dilemma for me is whether Naomi Wolf should have gone before Patrick White.
  
  8 months ago report
5. Lauren Rosewarne
  
  Senior Lecturer at University of Melbourne
  
  In reply to Peter Ormonde
  
  I think you hit the nail on the head with your description of "good books". I've read - and loved – lots of books which are very much written from a male perspective and about themes assumed to be primarily of interest to men. (This should be of no surprise, I quite love men and am very interested in masculinity). But I think what distinguishes those books is that while they may be about men -written from the perspective of men, concerned primarily about men yadda yadda - that in all their concentration on male themes, they can still offer something for women, still offer that let-me-take-you-by-the-hand and show you something you haven't seen/read before. And I just didn't think the Fink book did that; it focused on man stuff but not in a way that was illuminating for women, instead, excluded and – in my case – offended them.
  
  8 months ago report
6. Peter Ormonde
  
  Peter Ormonde is a Friend of The Conversation.
  
  Farmer
  
  In reply to Lauren Rosewarne
  
  Yes I think it would offend me as well - especially after shelling out $30 dollars. Adding insult to injury. Outrage upon outrage.
  
  8 months ago report
7. Linus Bowden
  
  management consultant
  
  In reply to Lauren Rosewarne
  
  Lauren another way to look at it is as a spectator sport. ;)
  
  8 months ago report
8. Lauren Rosewarne
  
  Senior Lecturer at University of Melbourne
  
  In reply to Linus Bowden
  
  A valid point. Probably not applicable to me, but sure, there'd probably be lots of people who will get something voyeuristic out of it. There's quite a few mentions of bukkake for example. Now you don't get that in every memoir!
  
  8 months ago report
9. Craig Minns
  
  Self-employed
  
  In reply to Lauren Rosewarne
  
  Lauren, could it be that this was a book that was actually illuminating, but also confronting to your particular viewpoints?
  
  We tend not to like things that tackle our preferences/prejudices head-on, perhaps.
  
  8 months ago report
10. Joe Gartner
  
  Tilter
  
  In reply to Lauren Rosewarne
  
  mmm.... I haven't read the book you are writing about but I've read plenty of Roth... I think portnoy's complaint is as good an insight into the adolescent/young adult male brain as anything I've read.
  There's plenty of aggression in male sexuality which the book you refer to perhaps panders to. Without the insight of reading it, perhaps it's as vacuous and as ineffectual as 50 shades of grey - just a fantasy to while away the time on the bus.
  
  8 months ago report
11. Lauren Rosewarne
  
  Senior Lecturer at University of Melbourne
  
  In reply to Craig Minns
  
  Sure, this, of course, was something I considered. In general, I truly don't mind being offended or perturbed about a piece of pop culture provided that there's a pay-off; provided there is something for me beyond the offence, beyond being upset and beyond disturbed. I'm not sure this book offered that.
  
  8 months ago report
12. Linus Bowden
  
  management consultant
  
  In reply to Lauren Rosewarne
  
  Lauren, I've re-read your article, and am still in the dark, so I'll just ask you straight up? What exactly is your problem with this book? While I don't know you from Adam, both your photo and your writing represent you as a jolly, vivacious, and thoughtful person. So, as you've made it quite clear you are a happy heterosexual, we don't have to um and ah around that issue. You say a "feminist response" would be "satisfying". Now, The Female Eunuch was published before I was born, so I know no…
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  Lauren, I've re-read your article, and am still in the dark, so I'll just ask you straight up? What exactly is your problem with this book? While I don't know you from Adam, both your photo and your writing represent you as a jolly, vivacious, and thoughtful person. So, as you've made it quite clear you are a happy heterosexual, we don't have to um and ah around that issue. You say a "feminist response" would be "satisfying". Now, The Female Eunuch was published before I was born, so I know no other world than a world where feminism has always been ubiquitous, but damned if I can see any connection between reading this book and some "feminist" response. Perhaps a "Lauren" response would be more accurate?
  
  But one thing I DO know that are genuine feminist responses is the delight of women enjoying their freedom to pick and choose which men can sit on their face, as well as when and where. It is also a genuine feminist response to make the decision to leave a marriage when she decides, as this dude's wife did. And I can't think of too many heterosexual feminist women who get all "offended" at the sight of the "erect cock" of the very man they have chosen to sit on their face. Imagine all those women born too early to enjoy all these freedoms. They must be turning in their graves as you clutch at your pearls with one hand, threatening to use the other to, er, er, write a satisfying note!
  
  You say you are offended coz you buy a male sport's reporter's book, and - gasp! - "it focused on man stuff"! Except earlier you painted a picture of a famous feminist woman having a wow of a time at the exact same scene, except her's involved bodily fluids. You claim "but not in a way that was illuminating for women" before rushing off an article published on a prominent academic web site sharing the many intellectual stimulli the book gave you, enjoining us one and all to share the ride. Not only has the book clearly illuminated one woman - you - but I dare say, the famous feminist libertine was even more illuminated. Perhaps he could have written about his indecision over what colour nail polish he should wear to lunch, but that book would probably have no women in it all.
  
  So, how do you conclude that all woman kind has been excluded? To the extent that a man writes a book alone in his wifeless kitchen can be said to exclude folks he does not even know exist? If you can answer that one, then we can move from K2 to Everest, and try to work out how he could possibly have "offended" you, personally.
  
  8 months ago report
13. Lauren Rosewarne
  
  Senior Lecturer at University of Melbourne
  
  In reply to Linus Bowden
  
  My objective in these blog pieces is not to tell readers why I liked or hated a piece of pop culture, rather, it is to pull out an item or two that I think makes the film or book or ad worth talking about. From the Jesse Fink book, I pulled ot the question of whether a book can have a gender. That was my only intention with the piece.
  
  You draw attention to a comment I made in the piece that I could have written a feminist response. A feminist response would have focused on the way women are presented…
  Read more
  
  My objective in these blog pieces is not to tell readers why I liked or hated a piece of pop culture, rather, it is to pull out an item or two that I think makes the film or book or ad worth talking about. From the Jesse Fink book, I pulled ot the question of whether a book can have a gender. That was my only intention with the piece.
  
  You draw attention to a comment I made in the piece that I could have written a feminist response. A feminist response would have focused on the way women are presented in the book. You’re right, get together 30 feminists together and each would have a different take - there's obviously not only one feminism - but nevertheless each would have put the portrayal of women at the forefront. Doing so in this piece however, was not my intention.
  
  As for your other points, I've written plenty about these issues before - dozens of such pieces are own my website if you're interested in perusing my thoughts on this - so there's no need for me to reproduce them all here. Suffice it to say, quite obviously I have no problems with writing or talking about sexuality. That, and I don’t own any pearls to clutch. Cheers.
  
  8 months ago report
14. Linus Bowden
  
  management consultant
  
  In reply to Lauren Rosewarne
  
  Lauren, I'm glad to hear there is more to this than I have been able to glean from the limited info I have here. So thank you, I will visit your web site. As I said, I was genuinely confused, as this one particular post just didn't seem to gel. Oh, and if I may one last little bit of confusion. Cher's on the sister soundtrack? NTTAWWT. :)
  
  8 months ago report
15. Lauren Rosewarne
  
  Senior Lecturer at University of Melbourne
  
  In reply to Linus Bowden
  
  It's on *my* sisterhood soundtrack. I highly doubt it’s one that would be endorsed by my feminist foremothers ;)
  
  8 months ago report
16. Linus Bowden
  
  management consultant
  
  In reply to Lauren Rosewarne
  
  OK, Lauren, true to my word, I visited your website, and sister, can I just say "OK, you win!" :) I am new to this site, so was not familiar with your work. I now see more clearly what your main purpose in writing this particular piece was. If anything, perhaps you could have chosen a better way to set the issue up, but hey, you were not writing a judicial decision justifying the death sentence!
  
  I must say I am one of those whose reflex to graphic and unexpected images of menstruation is 'disgust…
  Read more
  
  OK, Lauren, true to my word, I visited your website, and sister, can I just say "OK, you win!" :) I am new to this site, so was not familiar with your work. I now see more clearly what your main purpose in writing this particular piece was. If anything, perhaps you could have chosen a better way to set the issue up, but hey, you were not writing a judicial decision justifying the death sentence!
  
  I must say I am one of those whose reflex to graphic and unexpected images of menstruation is 'disgust', so it didn't long for me to agree with you "have no problems with writing or talking about sexuality"! :) Don't get me wrong, my reflex is not out of any sexist/misogynist, it is more of a piece that was discussed in another article on this site about disgust and saliva, and other bodily fluids. Menstruation is not only a bodily fluid, but it is blood - a double whammy of potential contagions! OTOH, one thing my undergrad Psychology courses convinced me was that like racism and homophobia, exposure therapy is the best medicine. So, by the time I finished reading your site, my 'disgust reflex' had calmed down quite a bit. Though, weirdly enough, when I first read The Female Eunuch as a youngster, I completely agreed with Germaine Greer that women should taste their own menstrual blood. While I am sure most of us - unless we are extreme fetishists - would resist tasting emissions from other points of entry, I immediately got the 'political' and 'liberatory' implications of Greer's advice. OK, and to be frank, by that age, I had already satisfied my own curiosity about the taste of the strange involuntary excretions that boys discover about their own bodies during puberty.
  
  I agreed almost word for word with your piece on Charlotte Dawson, but will still reach for the remote when the 'vagina' ads interrupt my TV viewing. I have always regarded TV ads for female sanitation products to be about the best advertisements for Communism ever invented. For the love of god, can we please just provide women with these products free through local outlets for the duration of their lives! And for some balance, I reach for the remote with equal speed whenever ads touting magic potions for 'erectile dysfunction' appear.
  
  8 months ago report
17. Lauren Rosewarne
  
  Senior Lecturer at University of Melbourne
  
  In reply to Linus Bowden
  
  Thanks for taking the time to do such a thorough investigation of my work - that was very diligent of you ;)
  
  Anyway, your point is taken about this article - I didn't identify that my intention was not a review and that might be not have been obvious for new readers. I'll keep that in mind for future pieces.
  
  Best wishes.
  
  8 months ago report
18. Linus Bowden
  
  management consultant
  
  In reply to Lauren Rosewarne
  
  And can I just say that one of your points that I really, really, really loved, and you really must make sure your voice heard on this is distinguishing Charlotte Dawson's claims of being "bullied" and all the rest is that unlike school kids, women riding public transport late at night or underlings in the workplace, in no way does Dawson HAVE to be up all night swilling Chardonnay and twittering from her eastern suburbs pad.
  
  I have been really appalled at how much the MSM relies on somebody…
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  And can I just say that one of your points that I really, really, really loved, and you really must make sure your voice heard on this is distinguishing Charlotte Dawson's claims of being "bullied" and all the rest is that unlike school kids, women riding public transport late at night or underlings in the workplace, in no way does Dawson HAVE to be up all night swilling Chardonnay and twittering from her eastern suburbs pad.
  
  I have been really appalled at how much the MSM relies on somebody - even better if they're a footballer - typing the words "poo poo head" on Twitter. And it really bugged me that I couldn't articulate just what it was that so annoyed me. The ABC is the worst offender. I swear, it will not surprise me if next week Jonathan Holmes opens Media Watch with a solemn tone:
  
  "And ladies and gentlemen in breaking news, we have just heard that a man who left school in Year 10 physically abused a woman in the front bar of Young and Jackson's demanding "give us another pot, will ya love. Apparently the man is known to have a Twitter account, while other sordid accounts that hetypes words on Facebook reveal just how toxic the bullying culture of Australia's organised troll gangs gas become".
  
  But Dawson's behaviour was beyond the pale. What sense of entitlement and narcissism she has!
  
  8 months ago report
Dale Bloom

Analyst

For some decades there has been literature specially designed by women for women.

"For over seven decades The Australian Women's Weekly has provided a unifying and trusted voice across generations of Australian women” from Editor-in-Chief Helen McCabe.

And it may do just that, having discovered the right formula to make women come back for more and more, with articles such as:

“Blooming cute: Flynn inherits mum's model looks”

“Kate ‘saddened' by topless photos”

“Thinking you are fat could lead to weight gain”

http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/

Such media offers women a hard earned respite from their endless oppression by men, and thankfully, such magazines have not been taken over by men.

8 months ago report
Rebecca Lubacz

Self-Employed

I can only be eternally grateful that you didn’t have a drink before you wrote. I, myself, had to be fortified, not with your very female-gendered playlist, but with a few days and an actual reread of “Laid Bare” to see how I could have misconstrued the author’s intention so profoundly.
I, too, have been part of online planets colliding – sometimes being the one left with the debris – sometimes leaving the debris. I have to say, though, my major thought in the aftermath was always “What the…
Read more

I can only be eternally grateful that you didn’t have a drink before you wrote. I, myself, had to be fortified, not with your very female-gendered playlist, but with a few days and an actual reread of “Laid Bare” to see how I could have misconstrued the author’s intention so profoundly.
I, too, have been part of online planets colliding – sometimes being the one left with the debris – sometimes leaving the debris. I have to say, though, my major thought in the aftermath was always “What the ……. Is going through that man’s mind” and “Good Lord – that was a sudden arctic front – didn’t see that one coming.” What I found with the book – on just this superficial layer of online tramping – was someone who finally put out a suggestion of what was going through those men’s heads. These men who didn’t look like seasoned players but who had in the end behaved up there with the best of them.
The opening scene – well, yes, it uses some confronting male-type vocabulary – but I always like to be told upfront what I am about to read. It is also very much the language of a certain part of the online “scene” – as the “female” language which Fink kindly translates for us during the book also is. It is a language that enables men to compartmentalise and protect their feelings. Be this good or bad. It is staccato, often vain, very genital centred and very confronting. It is there to sort the relationship girls from the bootie calls.
I have been lucky enough to have a lot of male friends – of all different personality types. Having been invited on many a boys night out – they have called me their honorary “blick” – I have witnessed this style of speech – I neither accept nor condone it – often. I find that the less “intimacy” - not just sex but emotionally and spiritually - men are receiving the more the use of this language prevails. I believe that this is exactly what Jesse Fink shows in Laid Bare. When he talks of his ex-wife – the language softens quite noticeably. And let’s not forget the elephant in the room – the guy has had a career as a shock jock.
If I can say one thing is missing in the book – it is how up-front the author was with the women before he loved/fucked them. Were they told? I was told quite often - either subtly or in no uncertain terms – that this was not going to lead to a relationship. I heard what I needed to hear at the time or thought that all these men needed was for me to love them. The book has shown me quite clearly that this was not the case – if I didn’t get the message at the time of the encounters.
Just a quick aside – if reading the book was like “dousing you wounds in acid”, made you “depressed and angry” and “…homicidal” why for the love of god did you keep reading it? I can only guess it was the rather tantraesque “pelvic floor clenching and teeth grinding”. You strike me as a strong woman who can put down a book and say “This ain’t for me”.
Okay – down to the nitty gritty of your article. The bit where you totally divert attention away from the book and any message, no matter how small, that it might have for someone other than yourself - and onto your own chosen topic for the day. Gender bias.
Firstly the cover – I straight away thought of the very “female” “Fifty Shades…..” Here I think we may both cringe together. Very similar “dark” cover, very similar marketing strategy. Maybe it is about the content???? Out there I know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Books have voices. Voices have genders. In fact, in many languages, words and objects are actually assigned a gender. Art has gender. Music has gender. It is all subjective as to what gender they have. But they have genders. And surprise – surprise – this one – obviously written by a man overflowing with testosterone at the time – has a male voice. Again – it is there in the first paragraph – and if it is not to your taste – cease and desist.
Scrolling through your article………………scrolling through………………..scrolling through……………….no mention of Fink’s obvious connection of his behaviour to the loss of his sense of family and no mention of his grappling with a disorder that affects many people.
Seems you article has a gender – or no wait – agenda - you.

8 months ago report
1. Lauren Rosewarne
  
  Senior Lecturer at University of Melbourne
  
  In reply to Rebecca Lubacz
  
  Thanks for such comprehensive feedback!
  
  Firstly, perhaps a disclaimer needs to run alongside all my blog posts: my intention is never to review; the film or the book is just a conversation starter. Fink's book sparked a conversation about whether books can have a gender; I wasn’t interested in writing an evaluation.
  
  Not for a moment do I think the Fink book was without merit - it had lots of things going for it and I think the fatherhood angle was one of them - but my intention was not to review the book nor summarise it, but simply to write about what *I* found interesting.
  
  Why did I keep reading? Because I have masochistic tendencies - I allude to this in the article. Also, I don’t think finding something offensive is – on its own – grounds to walk away.
  
  8 months ago report

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More than Men Off the Leash?

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22 Comments sorted by

Linus Bowden

Joe Gartner

Lauren Rosewarne

Peter Ormonde

Peter Ormonde is a Friend of The Conversation.

Linus Bowden

Lauren Rosewarne

Peter Ormonde

Peter Ormonde is a Friend of The Conversation.

Linus Bowden

Lauren Rosewarne

Craig Minns

Joe Gartner

Lauren Rosewarne

Linus Bowden

Lauren Rosewarne

Linus Bowden

Lauren Rosewarne

Linus Bowden

Lauren Rosewarne

Linus Bowden

Dale Bloom

Rebecca Lubacz

Lauren Rosewarne

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