{"id":247553,"date":"2016-06-03T09:18:54","date_gmt":"2016-06-03T09:18:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/shakespeare-is-better-than-maya-angelou\/"},"modified":"2016-06-03T09:18:54","modified_gmt":"2016-06-03T09:18:54","slug":"shakespeare-is-better-than-maya-angelou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/shakespeare-is-better-than-maya-angelou\/","title":{"rendered":"Shakespeare Is Better Than Maya Angelou"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Australia\u2019s national women\u2019s soccer team<\/a> \u2013 hotly tipped for a medal at the Rio\u00a0Olympics \u2013 has \u00a0been thrashed 7-0 by a team of under-15-year-old boys.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Students at Yale University<\/a> have petitioned their English Department for a change of curriculum. They want fewer \u201cwhite male authors\u201d and\u00a0more contributions by \u201cwomen, people of color and queer folk\u201d.<\/p>\n

Does anyone want to hazard a guess as to why I\u2019ve linked these two stories?<\/p>\n

Yes, that\u2019s right. It\u2019s because I am sexist, racist, homophobic pig.<\/p>\n

Also, because I am a shameless elitist.<\/p>\n

I actually believe that whether you\u2019re\u00a0talking\u00a0international sport or you\u2019re talking about\u00a0literature then it is quality \u2013 not how many gender or diversity boxes it ticks \u2013 that should be\u00a0the criterion\u00a0that counts.<\/p>\n

What this means, in practice, is acknowledging that Shakespeare is better than Maya Angelou, English literature is better than Nigerian literature, Pride and Prejudice\u00a0<\/em>is better than Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire<\/em>, Paradise Lost<\/em> by straight dead white male John Milton is better than anything by lesbian Poet Laureate Carole Ann Duffy (or indeed, probably, by any other lesbian poet in history, ever, including Sappho) and that all women\u2019s sport (apart from showjumping, the only one where girls can compete with boys on equal terms; and possibly women\u2019s beach volleyball) is basically a waste of\u00a0space.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t mean, as far as sport goes, that women should be discouraged from playing it. On the contrary, anything<\/em> that gets women out of the designer shoe and handbag emporia, away from internet victims\u2019 groups and onto the playing fields where they can work off the rage, bitterness, and insecurity which would otherwise be vented against men has got to be a good thing.<\/p>\n

Plus, if any of our daughters were to become a top international sporting champion (which by the sounds of it is pretty easy, if you choose something like football: you just need to shift a spherical object vaguely in the right direction with your foot, taking care to avoid any 15-year old boys) then obviously it would be fantastic news because they\u2019d probably make enough to pay for their own weddings instead of asking their impoverished, long-suffering parents to stump up.<\/p>\n

That apart, though, there really isn\u2019t much to be said\u00a0for women\u2019s sport. As a hobby, yes. But not as a thing to be taken seriously at an international level. Not even tennis where, frankly, they grunt very unattractively, the rallies go on for way too long, and the hottest looking ones almost never make it to the highest levels.<\/p>\n

Read the Whole Article<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australia\u2019s national women\u2019s soccer team \u2013 hotly tipped for a medal at the Rio\u00a0Olympics \u2013 has \u00a0been thrashed 7-0 by a team of under-15-year-old boys. Students at Yale University have petitioned their English Department for a change of curriculum. They want fewer \u201cwhite male authors\u201d and\u00a0more contributions by \u201cwomen, people of color and queer folk\u201d. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-247553","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247553\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}