Please help choose a name for a new group dedicated to female authors

I have been looking for volunteers to admin a new group dedicated to female authors, a group without any restrictions on posting and with a neutral name.

If you would be interested in such a group, please make suggestions for the name and comment on the proposals. (If you'd like to be the creator-admin of the group, even better! Step right up!)

For instance, combining the only two suggestions made before gives us "Reading books by women". A bit colourless, but I don't know that that is necessarily a minus. Anodyne can be good! One peppier alternative might be "Women you should read", but I'm not sure whether "shoulds", especially in a group name, are a good idea.

Anyway, I'll put that one on the list and edit as more suggestions come up.

1. Reading Books By Women

2. Women You Should Read

3. Spotlight On Female Authors

4. Spotlight On Women Authors

I wish Lola well with her new group (btw, anyone can start one and set it up however she wants by clicking Groups and selecting "Start a new group" on the group page).

But I suggest that those interested in a new group write send her a message offlist about her new venture.

I'm sure there's room for many groups on LT, but this thread isn't about books by women, and I feel we've had enough distractions from the group's main purpose.

>2 nohrt4me2:

Anyone who doesn't want to discuss a new group is very welcome to ignore this thread (Ignore Topic above thread) and thus avoid "distraction".

Among others, there are people who were interested in modifying the settings of THIS group, and probably others who might be interested in both groups (as I am, for instance).

If your group is going to have a materially different focus than Girlybooks, enlighten us, as those members here have with the Virago, Orange Prize, and groups with other women's literature focal points.

However, if you're simply trying to reboot Girlybooks under a different name and posting policies, then what you're doing strikes me as spam and sour grapes.

>4 nohrt4me2:

I'm very disappointed. I've been giving you credit because I respect and like you--I have told you so in the past, in public, remember?--AND recently in private. I realise how difficult it is to judge people properly in this medium. I'm sorry if I strike you, after all this time, as a "spammer" and someone likely to indulge in sour grapes.

Our past interactions and my expressions of sympathy aside, this means that you paid no attention whatsoever to what I said--three or four or five times, in multiple threads--about my concerns about the way this group filters participation, or that you didn't take them seriously at all.

I will not repeat them.

I will only say that it is because of these concerns I wish there were another option, and there are some--few, but there are some--others who have signalled they might be interested in such a group.

The focus of that group, whether I or someone else creates it, would be female authors. In that much it would be similar to Girlybooks.

But, the settings would be different. According to the fears expressed here, it will likely sink under the onslaught of misogynistic trolls. I'm a scientist--I say, let's do this experiment and see what happens.

If you are afraid of competition, you needn't be. This is a large, active, well-established, well-loved group people are used to and like just as it is. *I* don't intend to leave it. I doubt a new group could put a dent, let alone replace it.

The point was made that it was precisely thanks to the combination of name, joining request and eventual dominance of female voices, that it evolved this special, unique ecology.

Well, I'd simply like (also) a non-special group. There is absolutely no reason why both couldn't exist--in fact, if it falls to me to create the new group, I'll definitely link to this one and all other groups with similar interests.

As I said, a few others, IN HERE, signalled they might be interested in such a group as well.

This is why I'm asking for suggestions here.

>1 LolaWalser:

Although I am willing to remove the "post to join" mechanism, if people want to keep it, I don't think it is a big deal. I suspect if men feel reluctant to join, that is not the reason. Therefore I don't feel a new group would be significantly different. All the best, however.

>6 krazy4katz:

It's not first and foremost about the men. There are women who dislike being called "girly" (speaking!) and are misled by the name of this group.

But there is a huge difference between a group that develops a particular audience in the context where everyone is equally encouraged/not discouraged to post, and one in which everyone isn't equally encouraged to post.

Therefore I don't feel a new group would be significantly different.

Remains to be seen.

I haven't jumped into any of this hub-bub, but I do want to speak out that--despite being a member of this group for years--I find the name horrific. It still makes me cringe every. single. time."Girly" to me is not fluff and pink, but instead leering perverts, having to go with my dad to the mechanics where the garage walls were plastered with nude centrefold spreads (aka girly magazines), and inappropriate attention from men. That is my lived experience of the word "girly". It makes my skin crawl, and no, I don't want to reclaim it. So I agree with the people who complain that it sounds like romance novels and vapid chick lit, and that it's also infantile, but to me it's that and more.

Hope it doesn't seem rude, but I'll join this group briefly in order to make a post, then I'll "un-join."

>7 LolaWalser:
There are women who dislike being called "girly"

I'd always wondered about that but it wasn't really my place to say so. But now someone has said it.

>8 Nickelini:
Yes. When I first saw this name, it conjured up images of quaint cheesecake porn. But then I discovered it was something else.

>9 krolik:

Oh, it's come up before, and not only on this occasion. And on this occasion, for my part, I've said it more than once, for instance:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/175480#4718757

I had a suggestion made about the group name: Spotlight on female authors.

My comment: personally, I think "woman" (or women) is better than "female" in a group's name. Perhaps this would be a good phrase for the group description, though?

Adding to the list in >1 LolaWalser:.

I've been a, mostly lurking, member of this group for two or three years and found some of the discussion interesting and useful and some not. I took the name to be a joke - there are lots of groups with jokey names - and hadn't really noticed that it was a join to post group. It seems a shame that the atmosphere has deteriorated over what is, to me, obviously not to some, a trivial detail.

Time to cross it off my list of groups, I think.

I feel like people who recognize a difference between "female" and "woman" will note the distinction and believe it is deliberate, whereas people who do not think of them as different (or who have never given it much thought) wouldn't think anything of it being one or the other. From that perspective, I prefer "female."

I'm terrible at naming things; I like the idea of a straightforward name that is inclusive and descriptive, but it'd be great if someone clever could breathe a little creativity into it :)

>12 kgriffith:

To my ears, "female" sounds too... animalistic. Perhaps because I'm dealing often with situations in which sexing animals is important. It's okay as an adjective, but I bristle when it's applied as a noun to women ("you females"... "The female said...")

How does the transgender perspective reflect on this? Does one transition into a woman or "a female"?

Among people I've known, one, both, or neither has been entirely dependent on the individual trans* person's identity. I don't know if Kate Bornstein or Ivan Coyote would be offended by either female or woman, or by both or neither... but we could always ask. :)

Setting aside the occasional situation where an author's preference would best be established through research, I don't think using "women" is problematic.

>11 CDVicarage:: Do what you like, of course, but this is a tempest in a teapot and will soon settle. I enjoy this group as is. Some threads I enjoy, some not so much, but that is life.

I don't appreciate the group discussions being held hostage. Form your own group? Fine. I am tired of the drama over an imagined slight.

>12 kgriffith: I like the idea of a straightforward name that is inclusive and descriptive

Like @GlitterFemme, I am terrible at naming things. But I can see why another group might be useful, and when it is created I will join it and post to both.

>16 southernbooklady:

Glad you think it could be useful and I hope that turns out to be true!

Well, folks, I'm just going to go ahead and create a group tonight with a provisional name and description and then whoever wants is welcome to make suggestions and discuss permanent name and description there, i.e. in that group. So, please, all of you who are interested, if you don't like the provisional name and description or think of better ones, don't think we're stuck with the first version, have your say and we'll collect top votes.

I'll make it from my other account because I dearly hope a better candidate for admin will show up eventually and replace me, so I want to mark my distance from it in advance. The reason for this is that I know of only one mode of group "hosting", and that's "do nothing at all". This may or may not be good enough--it's certainly not good enough for animating and keeping the chat up.

Link coming up tonight.

Here it is:

https://www.librarything.com/groups/readingbooksbywomen

All are welcome!