Re: RARA-AVIS: Hard-Boiled Women Authors and Genre Boundaries

Words from the Monastery (jackechs@erols.com)
Sun, 09 Aug 1998 12:42:22 -0400 At 11:04 AM 8/9/98 , james.doherty@gsa.gov wrote:

> It seems, from recent posts, that a lot of you have the idea that
> "hard-boiled" is an exclusively male province. Maybe my definition of
> hard-boiled is a little broad, but I think it would encompass any
> crime fiction that has a tough-minded and colloquial attitude. That
> would include stories featuring PIs, law enforcers, journalists,
> spies, or professional crooks. And a woman, writing from a
> tough-minded and colloquial viewpoint is as worthy of the title of
> "hard-boiled" as a man. Hence, Grafton, Paretsky, Cornwall, Brackett,
> and others that haven't been mentioned like Dolores Hitchens (both on
> her own and in collaboration with her cop-husband Bert), Dorothy
> Uhnak, Anne Wingate (under her many names), etc. Maybe they're not as
> tough as Mickey Spillane, but they still write from a tough-minded
> and colloquial viewpoint. To say they don't and then dismiss them is
> short-sighted - Jim Doherty

I don't see how not including women as "hard-boiled" dismisses them in the
least. Hard-boiled is not some pinnacle of success to reach in order to be
considered a good writer ... it's sub-genre period. Men and women are not
alike no matter how much we preach equality ... we are not only physically
different, but psychologically different as well ... it's not a sign of
inferiority that we are different ... we're just not the same. There's
nothing wrong with a subgenre which presents a male point of view and
another which presents a feminine one. We really need to get off this PC
bullshit and get onto celebrating the differences instead of trying to
broaden the definitions to the point of generality at best. No one was
created equal and no one ever will be. Thank God ... what boring world
that'd be.

----
volente Deo,

Anthony
jackechs@erols.com or ICQ #3717510
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/4640/

"Estimated number of calls made to Californian Al Nino
since last year by people asking, "Why are you doing
this?" 100" -- Harper's Index, June 1998
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