By Ellen Scott
As John Waters once said: ‘If you go home with somebody and they don’t have books, don’t f*** ’em.’
Truer words have never been spoken.
But personally, I’d like to add an addendum to that rule: if they don’t have any books written by women, don’t f*** ’em either.
In an age in which there is so much brilliant literature written by women, it’s unforgivable for anyone to exclusively be reading men.
(Picture: Sophie Davidson for Birdsong)
Which is a massive bloody shame.
Fashion brand Birdsong wants to change things.
(Picture: Sophie Davidson for Birdsong)
They’ve just launched a campaign to get more men reading more books by women, creating a handy reading list for all men who only read books written by other dudes.
Boys With Books was inspired by a situation anyone who’s ever been on a dating app has likely experienced: seeing man after man listing off the same male authors as their favourites. ‘The lack of female authors was astounding,‘ wrote Sophie Davidson for Birdsong’s blog. ‘The lack of diversity amazed me.’
Picture: Sophie Davidson for Birdsong
‘Obviously I have no idea what else these men have read, maybe 90% of the other books they read are by women, but I doubt it. ‘It just seems that the books that are classed as ~respected literature worth showing off about having read on a dating site~ are mainly by white male authors.
‘For all I know they haven’t even read them, they’ve just read the bio for ‘Infinite Jest’ and had a quick scroll through David Foster Wallace’s Wikipedia page (I’m sorry to say I’m beginning to think that’s a thing people actually do.)
Picture: Sophie Davidson for Birdsong
‘Books, along with film (consistently lacking in diversity) and art, (in which women were pretty much written out of history,) are perhaps the best way to explore different experiences to our own.
‘If a high percentage of the population isn’t attempting to experience how the rest live then it seems like an increasingly difficult task to create equality.’
True that.
So, with that in mind, Birdsong created an alternative reading list for all men who’ve been struggling to get into literature written by women.
Oh, and all the photographs accompanying the campaign show men wearing Birdsong t-shirts and tops hand-painted by migrant mothers in Tower Hamlets for a living wage. Which is nice.
Birdsong’s founder, Sophie Slater, told metro.co.uk: ‘As a women, or for any cultural “minority”, you’re always forced to step into the shoes of male characters as they are the prevailing “default being”.
Picture: Sophie Davidson for Birdsong
‘To add to what Sophie Davidson said in our blog, a huge part of developing empathy is to take that imaginative leap into someone else’s reality.
‘How can we expect young men and boys to empathise with women if they’ve never immersed themselves for a few hours in a women’s perspective? ‘A book is the perfect way to do that.’
Picture: Sophie Davidson for Birdsong
The shift can start small – with all of us recommending books by women to men, and men making the effort to diversify their reading lists.
But hopefully, one day, it’ll grow bigger. Because I’m tired of hearing about students heading to university to be greeted with reading lists predominantly made up of books by men.
‘I think schools should be doing more to promote diversity across all their curriculum,’ says Sophie Slater. ‘I worked with an amazing girl called Jessy once who campaigned to get more women composers on the A Level music course, so public pressure definitely works.
Picture: Sophie Davidson for Birdsong
‘In lower schools where there’s less restraint on curriculum, teachers could do more to encourage children to read about characters from different backgrounds to them. ‘Maybe even get kids to do a world book day character swap with each other.’
See? It’s simple. If we want to change the world, it can start with a book. A book written by a woman.
Source: Metro.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment