Last week I reviewed Elizabeth Vaughan’s Dagger-Star, a fantasy-romance. The lead character, Red Gloves, is a female mercenary, and her love interest is basically a farmer. I enjoyed the book on a great number of levels: it possessed wit and humor; the characters had depth and dimension; the plot executed some unusual twists on the typical fantasy prophecy plot.

I also loved the somewhat unusual Alpha female to Beta male relationship.

This morning I read through the Amazon reviews, which were all over the map. Coming on the heels of skimming a discussion in a popular blog last week about men vs. women in which it quickly became obvious that some very outdated views of women still hold sway when folks think they’re talking anonymously, it left me with a few thoughts I had to put onto virtual paper.

First, a simple correction of perception. One of the opinions I saw on the book railed about the fact that Red enjoys and engages in one-night stands, and is casually sexual. To engage in a mild spoiler about her background, she was abused as a child. The reviewer thought it ridiculous that after such trauma, Red would be willing to sleep with a man at all, much less so casually. In truth, it’s not unusual for people who’ve been molested to become ‘hyper-sexual’ instead of the opposite—either can happen. From my knowledge of the subject (I’ve known multiple people from that situation and I was working on a psych degree from Harvard before we left Massachusetts, in addition to my own subsequent readings and research), I’d say the depiction was entirely believable.

Next, another reviewer said the book read as though the author had simply made her female character into a male and vice versa. I didn’t get that impression, although I can see how one might come to that conclusion. This makes the assumption that certain traits are exclusively female or male. If you have any kind of in-depth experience with the wide array of people out there in the world, I can’t see how you could seriously believe this, but as that blog discussion I mentioned proved, there are still plenty of people who do. While I’ll agree that there are traits that are more commonly female or male (or at least stereotypically female or male), I believe that’s a different issue that doesn’t preclude the depiction of, say, a strong, martial-minded female lead.

As an example of what I mean, one reviewer said that women simply don’t engage in emotionless sex—that this is strictly a male trait. I had to re-read that several times to be sure I was reading it correctly, because I was amazed someone could think that. It may be more common for men to do so, but it’s hardly an act that’s exclusive to them.

Finally, there are ways to make a character recognizably female or feminine without her having to wear pink or lace, cry at every opportunity, or get tied up in emotional knots at the drop of a hat. To my mind, Elizabeth Vaughan accomplishes this. Perhaps those who equate femininity with pink, lace, crying, etc. didn’t see it, but it seemed quite clear to me. Red had her softer side; it just wasn’t a stereotypically feminine thing, and to my mind that’s great. Many of the ways in which she was feminine or noticeably female were a part of her strong, Alpha personality, not in conflict with it. That’s only a problem if you think that females inherently can’t be strong, can’t be leaders, etc.

But then, I remember seeing a comment in that blog discussion that stated outright that men were suited to be leaders and women weren’t, so perhaps that’s what’s at issue. I wouldn’t have thought Dagger-Star to be so far ahead of its time in terms of gender depictions, but it seems that I was wrong. I hate it when I get a hard reminder that at the end of the day, a lot of men—and yes, some women—still believe all that crap about women being weaker, more foolish, unable to lead, etc.

The funny part is, romance novels often get accused of setting us back in this department, of perpetuating harmful stereotypes of weak women who need to be rescued by men. Instead, enough of today’s romances are being written by independent, strong-willed women that the opposite is coming to pass—many romance novels are now ahead of society in terms of promoting a strong, independent female image.

Special comment note: Look, the argument over men vs. women is already going on over at that other blog. If that’s what you want to talk about, go do it over there. If you want to talk about gender depictions in these kinds of books, great—as long as it stays reasonably calm and on-topic. I have neither the time nor the tolerance for yelling and name-calling, so if it happens, I’ll delete the comments and, if necessary, close comments on the post. (Go ahead, call it censoring—I don’t care.) I’m hoping my readership is small enough—and enough made up of all those cool, thoughtful book-bloggers instead of ye general internet audience—that I won’t have to worry about it.

On a separate note, I give maybe 50-50 odds on posting a review today. I think I’ve caught my husband’s cold, so I’m not getting so much done.

Not familiar with the concept of honor killings? Familiar with them but don’t know much about them or how you of all people might do something about it? Read this post by Azteclady over at Karen Knows Best; read Joss Whedon’s original 2007 post; and then pick up a copy of the book, Nothing But Red to help raise awareness and money for the cause. Heck, buy one for a friend, or a local library.

And please, do read Whedon’s post. I have nothing to add because he already said it all, far better than I could have.

It’s appointment day. This morning I went to see my GI doc. The last HIDA scan showed no gallbladder problems (which doesn’t fit with the symptoms, but that’s the weirdness of the human body for you), so in about a month I’m getting an upper endoscopy done. Wheee. I’ve always wanted someone to stick a camera down my throat. (Yes, that’s sarcasm there.)

There’s nothing like invasive tests and chronic mild pain to make you feel like you’re getting old. Mid-30s shouldn’t be old. (Ick, I’m whining! I’d better move on to another subject, quick!)

In different news, I’m finally looking at the possibility of getting a digital camera—I’d really love to liven up the cookbook reviews with some home-grown food photography so you can see what some of the yummy results look like. My tentative pick is a Canon PowerShot SD1000—it looks like it’s good quality, and capable of taking crisp, clear photos, even when food is involved. And it doesn’t cost a fortune (well, when we’re talking digital cameras). Speaking of which, yesterday’s review was of Betty Rosbottom’s Coffee cookbook. YUM!

This morning I went shopping with a neighbor.

That sounds so strange. You have to understand, I’m not the shopping type. All those stereotypes about women and shopping? The only time they apply to me is when I’m in a bookstore or a kitchenware store, or MAYBE a gardening supplies store. And even then I’d much rather order online, and I try to make my shopping trips quick, preferably right after the stores open so they won’t be crowded. (In particular I hate, HATE clothes-shopping.)

Anyway.

We have this really nice neighbor. She’s short, kind of round, and a minister. I’m not religious, but she’s the kind of religious person I can appreciate, who constantly tries to live by her morals and ‘be a good Christian,’ but NEVER pushes her religion on others. Not once have I ever felt preached to by her. She’s just a sweet, sassy lady who cares about everyone around her, the kind of old-fashioned neighbor who’ll keep an eye out for you and yours, which is a rare thing in these times. I just love her to death—she’s the kind of lady you want to make cookies for and worry over when things don’t go well.

She invited me along to a Tuesday Morning store, which I understand I’d never heard of before because they don’t have them up north where I grew up. It’s actually rather fun—they get loads of discounted and discontinued stuff that hasn’t sold somewhere else, so you can get some great deals on nice stuff. I might even have to drag my husband back there for a couple pieces of kitchenware and furniture.

But mostly, it was nice to spend some time with the neighbor. Everyone tends to lump all religious people, or all people of a given religion, or all non-religious people, into stereotyped groups, just like everything else (such as that above-mentioned ‘women love to shop, especially for clothes’ stereotype). Atheists get accused of hating God or hating Christians all the time, just like Christians get accused of always trying to impose their beliefs on others. It was nice to have the reminder that there are plenty of us who are just people, who can have religion or a lack thereof be a strong part of our lives without having it separate us from our neighbors.

Differences only separate us if we let them.

Today’s review is of J.D. Robb/Nora Roberts’s Glory in Death.

Yesterday was a D&D day. We visited friends in Virginia, brought rice pudding, ate yummy spaghetti (I think when you have kids with narrow tastes and you make lots of spaghetti, you must get awfully good at making great spaghetti), and played D&D all day.

You could tell a lot of folks had had a rough, long, or stressful week. People were unusually cranky. But rather than taking that out on their friends as I’ve seen so many people do, they let it out through their characters. Our characters yelled, pulled weapons on each other, and yes, I think we had to roll initiative several times when there was no one but the party members in the room. The group even got kicked out of a part member’s aunt’s home for a couple of days.

And then we adjourned for dinner and chatted happily around the dinner table. Or adjourned for the night and had hugs and “when are we getting together next?!” all around.

That’s when you know you have great friends—when you all can let your stresses out together through your hobbies and activities, and at the end of the night you all still love each other just as much as when you arrived in the morning.

Recently I stumbled across a great post over at Grimwell’s awesome blog called nobody rides for free. It’s basically a discussion of why WotC would charge money for their upcoming “Gleemax” service. To quote Grimwell:

When someone says “I don’t care if they cover their costs.” I hear “I don’t care enough about their product to care if they go under.” As the title of this entry says, nobody rides for free. Companies that fail to make profits quickly fail to make products — because they are closed.

So if you like a product you had damn well better care if the company that makes it is covering their costs. Businesses are not charities, and if they go out of business, that ends the product cycle. Period.

There’s more to his post (go read it!), some thought-provoking devil’s advocate replies, and great responses from Grim.

I had to respond, and then post my response here, because this is an argument I’ve come across before in other forms and I have strong feelings about it. Here’s what I said in response to his post:

This reminds me of the old argument about how tabletop company X is trying to ‘rob’ its customers by ‘forcing’ them to buy endless supplements.

Which always kind of got my blood boiling a bit (no, I was never employed by those companies, but did freelance for a while, and had a friend who was a line developer at White Wolf for a while).

First, since when are they forcing anyone to buy anything? Buy the supplements you want; ignore the rest.

And second, how the heck else are they supposed to keep their doors open and pay their staff? The money has to come from somewhere, and if it doesn’t, that game you so love goes out of print and eventually you can’t get it any more except by shelling out $100 or whatever at an ebay auction. Yeah, that’s SO much better.

Sigh.

Part of it, IMO, is that folks constantly confuse what they want to pay for something with the value of something. The value of something is a much more complex issue that’s partly how much you’re willing to pay for it, and partly how much it cost to provide, and partly how much it costs to keep in operation. When those various aspects of value don’t jibe at all, then you have a problem that causes products to sink. If we all could pay what we want to pay for things, everything in life would be free. Nice thought, but impossible goal.

Another part of it is the current attitude of entitlement that infects so many people. “I want it, therefore I’m entitled to have it” seems to be the prevalent attitude. It doesn’t matter who else is put out or has put huge amounts of time & effort into what you want—if you want it, you should get it for whatever you’re willing to shell out, right? That’s the attitude that really seems to be at the heart of the problem, and the one that makes me throw up my hands in disgust.

If you don’t think something is worth the price, don’t pay for it and don’t use it. I really think it’s that simple. If enough other people agree that it isn’t worth the price, the product will fail and you’ll be proven right. Otherwise, if you really want to use it, pay up. The only time I can see a decent argument against this is when you’re talking about vital services like power, basic food & heat, and gaming doesn’t fall into that!

To me, “I wouldn’t pay more than $5 a year for that” or “I wouldn’t pay for that service” is a perfectly valid argument. But “they shouldn’t charge for that” doesn’t make sense, because it doesn’t take into account any of the other aspects of the situation.

On an almost-related note, I’ve been using the bar code scanner I got to enter books into my LibraryThing catalog (semi-relevant because the ability to BC scan is what pushes some people over the edge into using LT’s fee-based service over other sites’ free services). I have to say, it’s a joy to use! I had some trouble at first until my husband figured out that I was trying to go too slowly. I’m used to finicky devices that you have to be slow and careful with. As it turns out, you’re supposed to whip this thing across bar codes with great speed! Wheee! I entered about a hundred or so books in last night in the maybe 30-45 minutes before I went off to an appointment, and most of that time was spent running back and forth to my bookshelves.

…a distinct lack of keeping up with everyone’s blogs and my own reviewing and such this week. I’m trying to make it to my tests on Thursday without having to rush the date to the doctor’s, and it’s taking some trial and error to figure out what I can eat without having serious problems. As it turns out I’m extremely glad I happened to have review copies of Tosca Reno’s Eat Clean Diet and Eat Clean Diet Cookbook—it’s perfect super-low-fat food, which is just right when I’m potentially having gallbladder problems. It’s also surprisingly delicious so far. Most such diet cookbooks are on the bland side for my taste, but so far these aren’t. There’s a parchment-baked fish recipe in there that’s wonderful, despite the fact that white fish isn’t my favorite. There’s also a very simple roasted salmon recipe that’s wonderful.

Along those lines, if you’re having problems with fatty food making you sick, umm, salmon is a REALLY BAD idea. You’d think that’d be obvious, of course. But there I am thinking, salmon’s all healthy, a bit will be fine, right? *groan* Thus ensued much pain and a day of mild fever. (I never claimed to be a rocket scientist, and when I’m tired I’m even worse.) Never got above 99.5 F; if it had broken 100 I probably would have been heading straight for the doctor’s. Anyway, since then I’ve been going back and forth between normal and 99.5, and eating super-low-fat food. We made oat bran bread this weekend from Whole Grain Breads and that was PERFECT.

One thing I find really surprising about all this is how much my body & brain conspire to make me do what’s right. For the most part, with a few exceptions that fool my taste buds (such as the aforementioned salmon), fatty or oily food doesn’t even sound good, much less taste good.

But, I’m also really exhausted through all of this, so I’m getting almost nothing done. I’m sleeping more than anything. I think that’s probably the most frustrating part, as I have a bunch of books I want to read & review, T-shirts to make, a project to work on, gardening I want to do. The cats worry over me, which is really cute. I wake up from a nap sleeping on my side and find one on curled up on my hip and the other on my side.

I am hoping, however, to review Michael Turback’s Mocha tomorrow. I did manage to slip one not-too-fatty last recipe in this weekend (well okay, I also sipped it really slowly and had it in several sittings) and I think we’ve made enough out of the book to review it at this point.

Anyway, none of this is meant to be whining, since gallbladder problems are common and generally not very serious (assuming that’s what’s going on, which seems likely). Partly I’m babbling out of tiredness and partly I wanted to make sure folks weren’t left thinking I’d just abandoned the various things I should be getting done.

I wonder if Comcast realizes that their catchphrase has become a sarcastic statement used to refer to an event that’s surprising (or should be, but isn’t) in an annoyingly bad way?

It’s the start of the TV season, and there was an unusual number of shows that looked potentially interesting. I set up the DVR to record by series since Comcast has finally given us that ability, and set it up for six shows. A very high number for us; usually we’re recording two to three at most.

So how many did it actually record?

Two. Yes, that’s 2. T-W-O two.

A 33% success rate is pretty foul. Particularly since some of those are recordings I’ve had set up previously, which simply stopped working randomly.

Random observations:

Insta-food sucks. I end up living off of the stuff when my husband is out of town on business, as he was last week, and it really really sucks. At least the stuff from Trader Joe’s isn’t half bad, but last week I ended up eating stuff from the regular grocery store, and it was so horrid and fat-filled that the very idea of it made me feel nauseous by the end of the week. Yes, that was despite trying to pick my insta-food fairly carefully. I know, I should cook real food, but being alone does very bad things to my motivation level.

Why Moths Hate Thomas Edison is an awesome book. Read it. It also makes a great basis for a writer’s exercise or two.

I can’t decide if it’s hilarious or just tragic when your cat barfs all over your bay window. I guess the cleanup is tragic and the memory is hilarious!

I swear I’ll write something more coherent soon.

Chaotic Selfish

Because I have a strong interest in psychology & mental illness (both through personal experience and through study—I was working on my degree in the field at Harvard before I moved away from the Boston area), and because such illness can affect pretty much all aspects of a mentally ill person’s life, it tends to come up when I discuss various issues with people. It’s a natural topic for me, like physical illness might be for a caregiver or for someone who spends much of their time battling physical illness.

Many people don’t feel comfortable discussing mental illness—particularly those who suffer from it—in large part because there are still so many misconceptions going around regarding the mentally ill. Various people have emailed me to thank me for being willing to discuss what it’s like to have a mental illness, because they feel they can’t; they know their family or friends wouldn’t understand, or they might be discriminated against or fired at work. Part of the reason I tend to be so open about my own illnesses is a desire to see this change. I want mental illness to be something that people don’t have to hide and be ashamed of.

Because I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by people who understand mental illness and those who suffer from it, I sometimes forget just how uncomprehending most people can be. Then the topic of mental illness will come up as a side note in some other conversation and I’ll get a brutal reminder of just how many mental illness myths remain in our society. So while this is hardly a comprehensive list of those myths, here are a few that tend to irk me, and my thoughts on them; I’m sure I’ll come back and add more later. I’m posting these here because I try so very hard not to hijack other people’s conversations.

Standard disclaimer: I’m not a professional. These are my own opinions. Blah, blah, etc.

1. You can recognize when someone has a mental illness. OR, It’s obvious when someone has a mental illness.

False, false, and SO very false. Even psychiatrists and psychologists often differ on whether a pattern of behavior should be classified as an illness and, if so, which one. If it were that easy there wouldn’t be a need for the damn profession. Also, symptoms are on a continuum, they aren’t either/or. Not to mention the fact that many symptoms, particularly when it comes to something like mood disorders or personality disorders, are normal behaviors taken to an abnormal extreme. Add to that the fact that many mentally ill people desperately try to hide the fact that this is what’s wrong with them, and in many cases you’ll have no idea that’s what’s going on with a person.

2. Very few people actually suffer from mental illnesses.

Wrong. The last time I heard a statistic, it stated that something like one in ten people suffer from a mood disorder alone, and mood disorders are only one variety of mental illness. I’m not sure I buy the statistic I’ve heard bantered about that one in three people suffers from some sort of mental illness, but the point is, it’s almost certainly more people than you think. Look around your circle of friends and relatives. Odds are very high several of them suffer and you don’t even know it.

3. Mentally ill people are fine when they’re on medication and you can tell when they’re off.

It isn’t that simple. It can take many tries to find the right medication, and some of those might partially work but not do the job well enough. Someone who’s normally fine on their meds might just have a particularly bad spell and suddenly their normal meds aren’t enough. Some illnesses are exacerbated by stress, and so things like deadlines, tests, breakups, family issues and so on might make things worse. Even then, a medication that works for a while might eventually stop working for whatever reason. Or it might help, but the side effects might not be tolerable. Similarly, medication that works beautifully for one person might not work well for the next. Psychiatry is a very inexact science, and there is no simple cure for mental illness.

4. Mentally ill people just use their illnesses as an excuse to avoid doing work.

Frankly, if someone wants to be lazy and use an excuse to avoid work, they’re going to find an excuse—whether or not they have mental illness to lean on in that department. There are plenty of people who have legitimate difficulties working for one reason or another due to their illnesses. Sure, many mental illnesses only sporadically act up enough to keep someone from working, but who’s going to want to hire someone who at any time could become too exhausted, distracted, weepy, or freaked out to get anything done?

Too many people don’t realize that there’s a difference between a reason and an excuse. An excuse is something you proffer to get out of blame or obligation. A reason is an understanding of why something happens that can help you to work around it, avoid a repeat of the same occurrence, or adjust your expectations. If more people would stop automatically assuming that people are using mental illness as an excuse and simply see it as a reason, then perhaps we could work together to find better ways to integrate mentally ill people into work, life, and school. Many mentally ill people would very much like to work and support themselves more than they currently do, but find it extremely difficult to do so for various reasons.

5. Mental illness is “all in your head.”

Hardly. Many mental illnesses are, in fact, genetic in origin or at least physical in cause. Studies have shown distinct differences in the brains of people with certain illnesses (even ADD/ADHD, which people like to claim all the time doesn’t exist)—unfortunately testing for these differences is too expensive to use as a diagnostic tool. Other mental illnesses that are caused by life circumstances can lead to changes in brain structure or function. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), for example, causes vast changes in the functioning of the body’s hormone release systems. It also has been shown to cause changes in the development of certain structures in the brain.

6. Psychiatrists and psychologists label people as mentally ill when they’re simply lazy or difficult.

It is true that not everyone is correctly diagnosed, and that some people are diagnosed who shouldn’t be. As I said earlier, psychiatry is an inexact science, and as in every profession there are idiots as well as great practitioners. However, what you need to realize is that one of the basic diagnostic criteria for a mental illness is that it must significantly interfere with an individual’s ability to carry on in their work, relationships, or home life in order to be considered an illness at all. A responsible and well-educated psychiatrist or psychologist will not diagnose someone with a mental illness unless the proper criteria are met. That doesn’t eliminate the possibility of mistakes, but it certainly helps.

7. People are drugged up by psychiatrists when they should just be made to buckle down and get over it.

If it were that easy to work around a mental illness we wouldn’t have so many problems with it. However, here’s an interesting tidbit for you that many people aren’t aware of. It has been shown that drugs alone are no more helpful in the treatment of mental illness overall than therapy alone. Treat someone with both together, however, and the effectiveness of treatment goes up substantially and quite noticeably. Why is this? Well, consider the problem from both directions in turn. Therapy alone isn’t enough because most mental illnesses are physical in origin; if you don’t attack the biochemical imbalances directly then you can’t do much to alter them. Drugs aren’t enough because while most mental illnesses are physical in origin, they cause a huge amount of stress and uproar in a person’s life. Therapy helps people to address these difficulties. A good therapist can also teach a person coping mechanisms for stress, reducing its impact on their treatment, and can teach various means of dealing with the practical effects of mental illness on a person’s life.

Thus, while it’s true that a person needs to make changes to his or her life (and put in some effort) to handle their illness, they can’t just “get over it.” Both medication and the educated advice of a good therapist make a huge difference in the course of an illness.

Hopefully this will give you some idea of which myths you might be unintentionally buying into without even realizing it.

Edited to add: A fantastic page I stumbled on, Ways to Insult Someone with Depression—all those things NOT to say to someone who’s depressed.

This weekend we went to the annual Maryland Renaissance Festival (for the third year in a row), and I feel that I learned some very valuable lessons there. The faint of stomach might want to skip this list.

• If you’re on nausea-inducing antibiotics, reconsider that plan to go to the renfest no matter how beautiful the weather is. (”No, I feel great, it’ll be good for me!” *shakes head sadly*)
• If you’re on said antibiotics and go to the renfest anyway, do not eat the heavy fair food such as the greasy (if quite yummy) Scotch Eggs.
• If you eat the Scotch Eggs, do not then go home and later top them off with a serving of mint chocolate ice cream just because it’s comfort food and so you mistakenly think it might settle your stomach.
• Mint chocolate chip ice cream tastes much better going down than it does coming back up.
• When all is said and done, make sure you’re at least in the middle of reviewing a most excellent whole grain bread cookbook so you’ll have something light and healthy to settle your stomach with over the rest of the week. Who knew oat bran bread could be so good?!

And on that note, here’s a review of the last of my library books. Tomorrow or Thursday I’ll post an updated list of upcoming book reviews: Robert Masello’s Bestiary.