• The F Word is trying to raise money for a site redesign.
• Sotheby’s are auctioning some amazing books, including a signed edition of A Christmas Carol.
• For Books’ Sake is teaming up with Ladyfest Ten! Books + Feminism = Very Happy Kirsty
• FutureBook reviews the iPad.
• The Guardian has a literary quiz on brothers and sisters in books.
• I really, really want to read Wilson by Daniel Clowes after John Self’s and Bookmunch’s reviews.
• Shameless self-promotion after my cack-handed iPhone blogging: I was profiled on normblog on Friday.

• First up, bloody hell, I’m 8th in Wikio’s Top Culture Blogs! Now, this definitely isn’t an exhaustive list of the blogs that are out there, so I’m taking this with a very large pinch of salt, but still. Nice. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
• Have you all remembered that this Sunday is the penultimate Not the TV Book Group discussion? I can’t believe it’s gone by so quickly. Join us back here then at Other Stories to talk about Jon Canter’s A Short Gentleman. I finished it last night, and I think it’s quite different to a lot of our other choices, so I’m looking forward to reading what you all have to say about it.
• This week I also – finally – finished another Orange Prize shortlistee: Black Water Rising by Attica Locke. I will write a proper post on it, but so far I haven’t actually decided what I think about it. It’s hard to tell how much my vague indifference to it was caused by the myriad things that were going on in my life over the last few weeks, or whether it was the book itself. Does that make sense?
• Anyway, whatever I think of it, I now have only three more shortlisted Orange Prize books to go. I started Lorrie Moore’s A Gate at the Stairs this morning, and I have very high hopes for it. This book has been getting rave reviews all over the place, not to mention the fact that I know several people who are positively evangelical about her writing.
• Thanks to Arrow, by the way, for the review copy of A Darker Shade of Blue by John Harvey. This is a collection of short stories by Harvey, who has been described as ‘the master of British crime’. I’ve not read anything by him before, so we’ll soon see if I agree.
• The book buying embargo took another hit, I’m sorry to report. I just couldn’t resist A Reader on Reading by Alberto Manguel after I read dgr’s post on it.
• A brief, work-related plug if I may be so bold? Do follow @OWC_Oxford on Twitter. It would make me happy.

Lastly, and I feel this deserves more than a bullet point, it is of course the UK general election today, and I hope you will all be flexing your democratic muscle and placing your vote. The Fawcett Society (of which I am a member) sent out some interesting stats last night as part of their What About Women? election campaign. They asked election candidates three questions about women’s equality, closing the gender pay gap, and providing more support for victims of rape. The headline results were:

• 2.6% of Conservative Party PPC’s contacted answered ‘yes’ to all 3 questions
• 23.9% of Labour Party PPC’s contacted answered ‘yes’ to all 3 questions
• 25.7% of Liberal Democrat PPC’s contacted answered ‘yes’ to all 3 questions
• 59.5% of Green Party PPC’s contacted answered ‘yes’ to all 3 questions

You can see all of their results here. Not all candidates replied, unsurprisingly, but of the candidates that replied with all ‘No’s, the vast majority of them were Conservative. Just another reason I didn’t vote for them this morning.

• Election Sexism Watch - Cath posts the first in what will no doubt be a depressingly long series.
• The New Humanist asks what the three main political parties have to say to atheists/humanists.
• Monique Roffey, author of The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, on the realities of a writer’s life. And she linked to my review!
• Amanda Craig on literary prizes, judging and being judged.
• What Claudia Wore – a blog about the fashionista that is Claudia Kishi. What, you never read The Babysitters Club?!
• So you didn’t read The Babysitters Club. That’s OK. Now you can catch up.
• Via OUPblog – The Book, the Scroll, and the Web.
• The Surreal World of Mervyn Peake.

Now, I’ll be frank. I’m more of a humanities girl than a scientific one, but I completely applaud those women who make their way in what is still a very ‘male’ domain. In fact – and this is what I’ll be posting about today – the Royal Society’s  list of the ten most important women in science was recently announced. The Independent then published a list of ten ‘trail blazers’ – women working in science right now. From the Independent:

Sexism remains all too prevalent in Britain’s scientific community, according to some of its leading figures, even as The Royal Society unveils a list of the 10 greatest women scientists in British history.

“If you are on high-level committees, you’ll be asked to make the tea,” said Professor Athene Donald, the deputy head of physics at Cambridge University. “Recently, on a committee, the chairman thought I was the secretary. And I’ve been in committees where we’ve been addressed as “gentlemen”, despite the fact that there are women there. It is very off-putting.”

I know I shouldn’t be surprised, but I was open-mouthed at Professor Donald’s experiences. To be that well-respected in your field, to be amongst your peers, and to still be mistaken for the secretary! I am shocked. And disgusted. And furious!

In that light, I’m glad that the lists of women in science has been released, and that it was given such wide coverage in at least one national newspaper. Women in science need all the publicity they can get. Here are the lists:

The Royal Society Top 10

1. Caroline Herschel (1750-1848)
As an assistant to her brother, a royal astronomer, Herschel discovered eight comets and catalogued star clusters. She was the first woman scientist to receive a salary and was awarded many honours.

2. Mary Somerville (1780-1872)
The Scottish scientist was only the second woman to receive recognition in the UK for her scientific experiments, which were on magnetism. Her popular renditions of the French astronomer Laplace’s book Traité de Mécanique Céleste made her famous.

3. Mary Anning (1799-1847)
The daughter of poor Dissenters, the palaeontologist made a number of important finds in Lyme Regis, including the first correctly identified ichthyosaur skeleton and the first two plesiosaur skeletons ever found. She also discovered important fish fossils.

4. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (photo right, 1836-1917)
Denied entry to medical school, Garrett Anderson instead passed the Society of Apothecaries examination to become the first English female doctor. She founded the New Hospital for Women in London and was influential in the passing of an Act permitting women to enter the medical profession in 1876.

5. Hertha Ayrton (1854-1923)
Working with her husband, Professor William Ayrton, Ayrton published several papers on the electric arc. In 1902 she became the first woman to be nominated as a fellow of the Royal Society, although as a married woman she could not accept.

6. Kathleen Lonsdale (1903-1971)
A pioneer of X-ray crystallography – the study of molecule shapes – in 1945 she and Marjory Stephenson were the first women to be admitted as fellows to the Royal Society. She was the first female professor at University College London, and the first woman to be president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

7. Elsie Widdowson (1908-2000)
Her work with Professor R A McCance revolutionised the way the world assessed nutritional values and how mammalian development was perceived. She worked on nutritional problems during the Second World War, and on treating the effects of starvation suffered by concentration camp victims.

8. Dorothy Hodgkin (1910-1994)
Hodgkin discovered the structure of penicillin and of vitamin B12. She was awarded the Nobel prize for her work, and was made a member of the Order of Merit. She devoted much of her later life to championing scientists in developing countries.

9. Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958)
Her work on the X-ray diffraction images of DNA was used to formulate Crick and Watson’s 1953 hypothesis of the structure of DNA. She led the pioneering work on the tobacco mosaic and polio viruses.

10. Anne McLaren (1927-2007)
McLaren produced the first litter of mice grown from eggs that had been developed in tissue culture and transferred to a surrogate mother, paving the way for human in vitro fertilisation.

Today’s Trail Blazers

1. Susan Greenfield Professor of pharmacology, University of Oxford
“People don’t sell science to young people, and especially to girls, as well as they might. It takes time and resources to send people into schools. Doing that sort of thing is regarded very badly in the scientific community, it is seen as ‘dumbing down’.”

2. Patricia Fara Director of studies, history and philosophy of science, Cambridge University
“Younger women believe there is no discrimination against women in science, but I think that is optimistic. Women are squeezed out of exciting research projects. It certainly isn’t a level playing field, you just have to look at the statistics. It is tough for women.”

3. Julia Higgins Professor of polymer science, Imperial College London
“Even now women in science are rather invisible. It is a cultural thing. When people talk about Newton and Darwin, we want them to remember the women who did amazing things, too.”

4. Uta Frith Emeritus professor of cognitive development, University of London
“We still have a long way to go. Women had a late start in the profession. I’m privileged to be one of the few women recognised in science, but there are so many talented women who will do great things.”

5. Sunetra Gupta Professor of theoretical epidemiology, Oxford University
“It is only since I undertook to write a children’s book on women scientists that I have come to know their lives in any detail – which is embarrassing, but also makes me realise how much of a need there is for the book.”

6. Maggie Aderin-Pocock Royal Society university research fellow and a space scientist for Astrium Ltd
“My career has been great up until now, but I’m due to give birth to my first child in three weeks time, so that might pose more of a problem. Career breaks are a problem in science, as you aren’t keeping up with the cutting-edge research.”

7. Athene Donald Deputy head, department of physics, Cambridge University
“There is an unconscious bias. The number of women science professors is only about 11 per cent. It is improving, pathetically slowly. I think the Royal Society is working really hard over the gender issue. That they put their hands up and say ‘mea culpa’ is a positive message.”

8. Helen Mason Solar physicist, Cambridge University
“Research grants have been cut and universities are suffering financially; people are being made redundant. My fear is that the young women scientists will be hit hardest by this. Indeed, I know that this is happening, and I feel powerless to stop it.”

9. Ottoline Leyser Professor of biology, University of York
“The list highlights how tremendously recent it has been that we’ve had the equality we are now enjoying, and how frustrating it is that things are not moving faster.”

10. Nancy Rothwell MRC research professor, University of Manchester
“I’m often asked how I manage in a male dominated profession. I just don’t recognise this description. I have experienced nothing but support from all my male colleagues.”

It is heartening to see that at least some of the women haven’t faced discrimination because of their gender, but it is disturbing to see just how many are conscious of it. I am also particularly interested in Maggie Aderin-Pocock’s concern about how taking maternity leave may affect her work.

Thank you, Ada Lovelace Day, for providing a world-wide opportunity to highlight the achievements of women in science. I hope that awareness can start to chip away at the inequality that women in science appear to be facing.

If anyone else is posting for Ada Lovelace Day, do let me know in the comments below. Oh, and if I may be permitted a small work-related plug, Patricia Fara will be at the Oxford Literary Festival, speaking about her latest book, at 2pm this afternoon. I’ll be there, so give me a wave!

• A new report suggests that there should be more focus on the care of rape victims.
• The F Word on women in TV/film.
• Via The Huffington Post, the ‘Little Billy’ letters and the famous people they fooled. I *really want to read it*.
• Bookslut asks: is Monster Lit worth unearthing?
• Anthony Gormley has a new installation in New York City. The Gothamist asks whether people will panic seeing human figures on the tops of buildings. Well, to my knowledge, no one’s called 999 about the fellow on top of Blackwell’s Art Shop in Oxford. (h/t OUPblog)
• Nymeth from things mean a lot writes about the appeal of the Victorians.
• Amazon.co.uk has launched author pages.

That is all. I’m in dire need of coffee.

Tweedie was, it seems, a champion of moderate feminism, by which she meant, in her own words (via Wikipedia),

“You don’t have to signal a social conscience by looking like a frump. Lace knickers won’t hasten the holocaust, you can ban the bomb in a feather boa, just as well without, and a mild interest in hemlines doesn’t necessarily disqualify you from reading DAS KAPITAL and agreeing with every word.”

In Letters from a Fainthearted Feminist, then, she sets out to make serious feminist points but also manages to laugh at the movement in a respectful way. The letters are written by Martha, aged thirty-eight, married for the second time, and stay at home mum to two teenagers and a baby. She is all for the women’s lib movement, and longs to put her political ideas into practice, but the reality of being a wife and mother constantly gets in the way. She is writing to her more radical Sister, Mary, who lives in a squat with another feminist called Mo, who is seemingly constantly off on marches and crusades, including an incident where they trash a sex shop. Jill Tweedie, in her introduction to the letters, places herself squarely in between the two (fictional, though she writes as if they aren’t) women:

“I have often been irritated by Martha’s fainthearted approach to feminism (I am not at all like that, myself) and I must say I often deplore Mary’s blinkered fundamentalism (I am not at all like that, myself). I’m sure that sensible readers will agree with me that the way ahead for women is an amalgam of the two. A faintheartedness tempered with fundamentalism. Or is a fundamental faintheartedness? You pays your money and you takes your choice. Women’s liberation is, after all, about choice.”

While there was the odd contemporary political reference I’m pretty sure sailed over my head, this managed to be both angry and very, very funny. Baring in mind these columns were written when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, it manages to be furious and hilarious about those men who thought that because they voted for her, they were fully paid up members of feminism. Mary’s husband Josh is just such a man. High up in The Department (of what, we never discover, nor does it matter), he is infuriated with Mary’s questioning of his ideal Department Wife:

“I told Josh I wanted to take the baby and go on a CND march this summer and he said no I couldn’t, it wasn’t Department policy. What is Department policy then? I said. Letting babies frizzle in their cots like Kentucky Fried Chickens? Having women and children running through the streets like so many living torches?”

Meanwhile, Irene, Josh’s Thatcher-like boss, is running for parliament.

“I tell you, that woman is the Marie Antoinette of our time, she even has a weeny thatched cotty in the Cotswolds where she goes and pats sheep. Any minute now, she’ll be saying let  them eat Textured Vegetable Protein. You’re thinking she resembles Mrs T? Matey, she makes that lady look like Marx in drag. At least Maggie has momentarily experienced childbirth even if it was two for the labour of one and into boarding school before they could call her Mother, whereas Ms Boss has done nothing more female than stick her feet in stacked heels. Why in heaven’s name should I support a person just because it wears skirts? So does King Khalid and he’s in line for no feminist prizes.”

Funny and ranty, there can be no better combination in my eyes. And while one might disagree with the odd point our Martha makes, this is a genuinely entertaining book that made me really irritate FH by chuckling out loud and insisting on reading passages out loud to him while he was attempting to watch Eastenders.

While specific details make it very much ‘of its time’, the overall sentiment of the book hasn’t dated in the slightest. The same arguments are happening both within the wider world and, it must be said, within feminism itself. What Letters of a Fainthearted Feminist does do though, and very well, is show that those who call feminism humorless couldn’t be more wrong.

This book makes up part of the Women Unbound reading challenge.

It’s fitting, though, that we should have spent all of yesterday talking about two such iconic women as Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell when today is International Women’s Day. Unlike many ‘days’, though, this is a truly global affair, with events happening all over the globe. You can see a full list on the IWD website.

Oxford is, as it does every year, celebrating International Women’s Day. The theme this year is ‘Grassroots and Glass Ceilings’, with events including an art exhibition running at The Jam Factory until Sunday 14 March, and another art show, ‘A Celebration of the Female Form: 100 Portraits of Women’ at the North Wall Art Centre until Saturday 13 March.

Today’s major event is one I wish I was able to go to: ‘Aung San Suu Kyi: Breaking the Glass Ceiling in Burma’ at Oxford Town Hall. It starts at 6.30pm with a sale of Burmese cuisine, with the main event following at 7.30pm:

A celebration in recognition and support of Aung San Suu Kyi: iconic first lady of Burma , described as  “a stunning beacon of non-violent struggles for democracy and human rights.”

Aung San Suu Kyi, a graduate of St Hugh’s College, Oxford, 1969, was elected as the Leader of the National League for Democracy in her home country Burma in 1988, and has since 1989 spent fourteen years under house arrest. In 1991 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her non-violent struggle.

The evening combines Burmese culture with politics; providing an insight into the forces that have inspired AungSan Suu Kyi’s passionate commitment to the peaceful pathway to freedom and democracy in her country.

Treat yourself to an early supper: A flavour of delicious authentic Burmese cuisine on sale from 6.30-7.30pm. Meet the people of Burma, learn about their traditions, beliefs, customs and politics through: speakers, film, costume, traditional dance and presentations: 7.30–9.30pm

Proceeds from the sale of tickets will be shared between the Oxford Burmese Benefit Fund and the Oxford International Women’s Festival. Collection during the interval for the Oxford Burmese Benefit Fund; proceeds will go directly to support relief projects in Burma.

Over the coming days there is also an event celebrating Dorothy Hodgkin, a crystallographer, ‘Creative Women, Creative Children’, and open afternoon with Redbridge Traveller’s Women’s Group, an evening of Latin American music and dance, Women Reaching Women Water Day, a joint feminist/Trade Union event about the fashion industry, and a Women in Business seminar. Phew! Something for everyone and no mistake.

Happy International Women’s Day from Other Stories, to you, wherever you are. Me, before I go out today, I’m going to get back to reading Letters from a Fainthearted Feminist by the late feminist writer Jill Tweedie.

We went to see the Scottish Parliament building. Now, we’re both very glad Scotland has its own parliament, but my that building is ugly. Inside is much nicer, though, from what little we were able to see. FH’s only criticism was a distinct lack of vegetarian food in the coffee shop (on learning that both quiches had meat in them, he was instead offered either a baked potato with tuna or a cheese and ham panini). Onwards from the Parliament, and we stumbled across the Museum of Edinburgh on Canongate, complete with a small but very moving exhibition on the Scottish suffragette movement.

More wandering followed, and we made extensive use of my Good Beer Guide iPhone app, which tells you which CAMRA-approved pubs are close to you at any given time. Special mention to the Halfway House on Fleshmarket Close and, of course, the Cafe Royal on West Register Street.

Of course, there is also the castle, which occasionally looms at you when you least expect it. We were innocently walking round a corner, looked up, and whoops, there’s that castle again.

But what all you really want to know, I’m sure, is what books I picked up while in Embra. I shant disappoint you for I managed to accrue ten in three days. They were:

• Push by Sapphire (the basis for the new film Precious, and good lord, it’s an emotional ride)
• The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (because I’m about the only person in the world who hasn’t read it)
• A Far Cry From Kensington by Muriel Spark
• A Scots Quair by Lewis Crassic Gibbon (I LOATHED Sunset Song when I read it as a late-teenager, but I want to give it another chance since it’s such a Scottish classic)
• Daughters of the House by Michele Roberts
• Death of a Murderer by Rupert Thomson
• The Road by Corman McCarthy
• Handfast: Scottish Poems for Weddings and Affirmations (hoping for wedding inspiration)
• The Canongate Burns (I didn’t have a complete Burns. I do now.)
• The Faber Book of Love Poems

Anyone read any of these? What should I be starting with?

Kira Cochrane interviewed her for The Guardian a couple of days ago:

Walter and her partner have two ­children, Clara, nine, and Arthur, one, and it was becoming a mother that partly inspired the second half of ­Living Dolls. In this section, Walter looks at the way that arguments for biological determinism have suddenly multiplied in recent years. She ­delivers a ­convincing critique of the studies that have been used to imply that children are biologically programmed to fit social stereotypes – that boys have a natural love of blue and cars and guns, and that girls have a natural love of pink and prams and dolls.

When Walter first had her daughter, she says, “I was hit by this deluge of pink. Then, at friends’ houses, you’d walk into a boy’s bedroom, and it would just be blue and navy, and full of cars and Action Men. I found that when I raised this – even with really liberal parents – they would say, ‘But boys and girls are just different. She just LOVES pink.’ Or, ‘It’s such a pity that he doesn’t play with dolls, but he just doesn’t get it.’ They would be ­saying this, sort of bemoaning it, but ­endlessly reinforcing [gender] ­stereotypes in an almost unconscious way . . . I’d hear things like, ‘Well, he wanted to do ballet, but he’d be the only boy in the class, so obviously he couldn’t do it,’ and you’d think, ‘Why obviously?’.”

But, as ever with CiF, do yourself a favour and don’t read the comments. Urgh.

1. Julia Pastrana: The Tragic Story of the Victorian Ape Woman by Christopher Hals Gylseth
Well, we’re off to a roaring start with a book I haven’t actually read yet. That said, you all know I’m a bit of a Victorian-o-phile, on top of which I’ve always been intrigued by the Victorian underworld, as it were. The freakshows and circuses and the real people involved in it. This is the biography of Julia Pastrana, the so-called “Ape Woman”, and the horrible way she was treated as a sideshow exhibit. This has reminded me how much I do actually want to read this book. Maybe I’ll pick it up next.

2. The Complete Ghost Stories by M.R. James
More Victorian goodness, and what better than the complete ghost stories of M.R. James – the master of the genre. I haven’t read every single one, but I’ve read a good number of them, and not one has disappointed. I absolutely love ghost stories.

3. The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
Yet more Victorianism, but this time a novel written in the 21st Century and set in Victorian London. I absolutely love love LOVE this novel, and it’s probably my very favourite contemporary work of fiction should I ever be pushed to give only one title. My copy is also signed by the author, which is even better. The 800+ pages of Sugar the prostitute’s story whizzed by. I also enjoyed Michel Faber’s follow-up book of short stories featuring the characters from the novel – The Apple - but not quite as much as I enjoyed this. Must re-read.

4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Confession time. I’ve never read this. Shocking, I know. Thus it reveals nothing about me other than some astonishing gaps in my reading. So there we go, public humiliation.

5. Publishing Scotland Yearbook 2009
This isn’t exactly a page-turner, but I suppose it reveals rather a lot about me. I’m Scottish and I work in Publishing. I picked this up at last year’s Edinburgh Book Festival just out interest about what’s what in Scottish publishing just now. It has lots of useful info, if you’re that way inclined.

6. My Life in Orange by Tim Guest
Ha, I’ve not read this yet either, but my reasons for buying it do say something about me. I am, as I like to say, a recovering Christian. I grew up in a religious household, and between various members of my family there must be four or five Christian denominations covered (I was brought up Methodist, although my dad is Catholic). I realised I didn’t believe in God when I was about 14 years old, right in the middle of a Methodist Youth Association rally, which was spectacular timing. However, I have a number of religious friends, and my opinion is live and let live. People can believe in whatever they want; my mother gets a huge amount of comfort from her faith, and that’s fine by me. I do, though, find people’s religious lives very interesting, and I like reading about people’s experiences even though I don’t believe in any sort of God or creator or supreme being myself. My Life in Orange is Tim Guest’s memoir about growing up in a commune that taught Eastern mysticism, chaotic therapy, and sexual freedom.

7. Whit by Iain Banks
Hooray, a book I’ve read! I’m sure you’ve all heard of Iain Banks and his sci-fi self Iain M. Banks. I love his books, and Whit is probably my second favourite after The Bridge. It doesn’t get the attention that his more famous earlier novels get, and I know some people really don’t think it’s very good, but I was rather taken by it. The novel centres around members of a Stirlingshire religious cult (see above paragraph on My Life in Orange) and what happens when one of their group renounces their faith and runs off to the bright lights of Glasgow.

8. Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
I’m a rather a feminist. Shocking I know, you had no idea I’m sure. This novel is a great piece of Utopianism from the heyday of 1970s second wave feminism. As the blurb says, “Woman on the Edge of Time is the moving story of Connie Ramos, a thirty-seven-year-old Mexican-American, unfairly incarcerated in a mental hospital, whose survival instinct is greatly tested. On a larger scale it is a Utopian epic that makes you question the system that institutionalises her.” It’s a bit of a feminist classic, this.

9. The Italian by Ann Radcliffe
It was a toss-up, at one point, whether I would follow the Victorian path or the traditional Gothic path when it came to a Masters. Although I always loved all things Victorian, I actually got my best undergraduate mark for the Romanticism module thanks to my love of the Gothic. I freakin’ love Ann Radcliffe, and this book is much better than her more famous The Mysteries of Udolpho in my opinion.

10. Poor Things by Alasdair Gray
More Scottishness, more neo-Victorianness. Alasdair Gray was a creative writing tutor at Glasgow University when I was there in the late 90s-early 00s, and I often used to see him around the English department, not to mention in the pub nearby. His most famous book is probably Lanark but Poor Things must be a close second. It’s certainly his most accessible, I think.

What strange secret made rich, beautiful, tempestuous Bella Baxter irresistible to the poor Scottish medical student Archie McCandless? Was it her mysterious origin in the home of his monstrous friend Godwin Baxter, the genius whose voice could perforate eardrums? This story of true love and scientific daring whirls the reader from the private operating-theatres of late-Victorian Glasgow through aristocratic casinos, low-life Alexandria and a Parisian bordello, reaching an interrupted climax in a Scottish church.

If you don’t enjoy Poor Things then you are, quite simply, wrong.

Have a go at this meme yourself, and while you’re at it, take a look at Simon S’s and Gaskella’s.