Friday Flurry #17: Stop listening to dude-bros tell you how to be productive + controversial football thoughts

"Yes, I know I'm very good at football even though I'm a frail little woman, stop congratulating yourself for noticing, asshole" - FIFA players, probably

Welcome to Friday Flurry, my weekly round-up. These posts are a mixed bag of what I’m doing, reading and thinking about.

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Hello!

In this week’s Friday Flurry:

• Books about people writing books

• Why are all the productivity experts privileged white dudes?

• Is the commentary on the FIFA WWC borderline condescension?

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What I’m reading: Books about people writing books

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.”

― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

A couple of weeks ago, my theme for the fiction I was reading was ‘weird chicks doing weird stuff’ (a theme I am still VERY into by the way, so please send me your recommendations on this one when you can. I’ve been back on to Elena Ferrante and all her novels fit the bill.)

This week, it’s ‘books about people who write books, writing about how they write books.’ My two main reads on this front were:

• Novelist As A Vocation, by Haruki Murakami. I hoped I would enjoy it as much as I loved What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. I didn’t, but that’s not to say you won’t. There was significant cross-over/ duplication between the two books, so I think I’d just had enough of Murakami

• On Writing by Stephen King (I’m doing a re-read and finding it even better the second time.) This book is just as much memoir as it is a craft book, so even if you don’t care about writing, you might appreciate it.

I don’t know why it’s so fascinating to understand how writers work. I think there’s a temptation to assume that if you just know their routine or what kind of pencil they use, you too can be like them. But every book on writers I read just makes me realise those things are both highly personal, and completely irrelevant. So that’s annoying.

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What I’m consuming (or trying to): Advice that isn’t from white dudes

Important note: Please link your suggestions and recommendations for non-white, non-male creators! If we get enough good responses, I’ll publish a list of your suggestions.

Too much of what I consume is published by men. They’re everywhere. You can’t escape them.

In the ‘creator’ space, in particular, almost all of the productivity or life advice that has a big platform are a certain kind of man. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of it is good stuff. I love the work of Seth Godin, James Clear, Ryan Holiday, et al. But they’re all very… similar. White, middle-class men, who think they’ve found the key to hacking their way through life.

(I used to love the work of Mark Manson too, but there’s something about his recent content that’s giving too much ‘dude-bro.’ I don’t know if he changed or I did, or both, but I think we’ve broken up. Which is a big thing to say about someone who isn’t aware of my existence.)

When it comes to advice that is taken seriously, men are everywhere. And it’s weird. Why are people so keen to consume productivity advice from men… who tend to have women actually holding their lives and households together?! The people who most need change, advice and support for work-life balance are the ones doing disproportionate amount of mental and domestic labour.

(To be clear: those people are women.)

But the most popular creators on this topic provide cringey advice memes like ‘helping your wife’ or ‘being home more’ - the assumption, of course, being that when they aren’t there, things just work. That their presence is a gift, and a bonus, not a requirement. That’s extremely unhelpful to those of us trying to keep a life together while coordinating dinner, pickups, laundry and bills. Another layer of self-criticism dressed up in a macho veneer - ‘eat the frog!’, ‘hack-your-life’ et al - is the last thing we need. We’re already mean enough to ourselves about not being the perfect mother, leader, housekeeper, friend, partner, community member. More self-flagellation is not the ticket, thanks, and optimisation only goes so far.

Out of 2020’s 200 best-selling business books, only 17 were written by women. That’s equal to the number of business bestsellers written by men named John or Jon. In the New York Times current list of the 10 best-selling advice or ‘How-To’ books, just one is by a female author. We flock to male CEOs, military leaders, and professors for advice… but given that most people aren’t those things, we need to wonder why we think they’re the ones who can help us.

It reminds me of the speaking circuit, where the highest-prized speakers often fall into one of two categories:

• I almost died but didn’t - A tale of overcoming loss, disability or dysfunction that gets repeated ad nauseam and leaves us all feeling mildly guilty and useless.

• I’m really good at sport - Stories of waking at 4am every day for 8 years to train for elite sport that is somehow supposed to help a middle manager get their shit together.

You know who I want to take how-to advice from? Socially marginalised people who are doing exceptional things, while holding their lives together by a thread and still pushing for change for the rest of us. People like:

• Tori Dunlap of the Financial Feminist, who frames financial independence as an individual act of resistance against the patriarchy

• Zawn Villines of Liberating Motherhood, who speaks freely and frankly about tackling social inequity for women and mothers

• Jessica DeFino of The Unpublishable, who fires grenades at white-centric, ableist, patriarchal beauty standards and is single-handedly setting the not-good-enough industry on gire

• Angela Garbes, a Filipina woman who’s written astonishing books like Essential Labor and Like A Mother that bust cultural myths and brings new perspectives on life, work and society

• Jia Tolentino, staff writer at the New Yorker, who writes on feminism, law, climate change and society

• Anne Helen Peterson of Culture Study, who asks great questions about how we spend our time, what we buy into, and what we should care about.

But I have to actively seek those creators out. Even then, most of them are middle-class white chicks like me, swimming in privilege and safety. Given that most people who are trying to get their shit together and make something of their life are up against genuine social and economic barriers, that’s just not good enough.

I can’t imagine anyone better qualified to give success advice than someone who had to climb a giant wall of invisible shit to get there. Those are the strategies that have currency. I mean really, what’s impressive about already having every advantage handed to you on a plate at birth, and then doing something with it?

Frankly, if you’re a 40 year old middle-class white man and you’re not a millionaire, you probably did something wrong. I’m tired of hearing dudes tell me about their latest app and how they get up at 5am to journal and cold-plunge, while their sleep-deprived wife makes a coffee with a toddler on her hip. Piss off.

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What I’m thinking about: Condescending football coverage

Ugh. I’ve gone back and forth over whether to speak my views on this.

The response and support for the FIFA Womens World Cup in New Zealand and Australia has been so good. Genuinely incredible. I’ve never given much of a shit about sport in my life, and I’ve been swept away in the excitement. I’ve gone from passive-bystander to someone shouting unqualified advice at the TV to elite athletes overnight. On Wednesday night, my very-not-sporty 17 year old daughter and I had a delightful watch party in the lounge, passionately cheering and commiserating as Australia took on England in the semi-final. It’s brilliant.

But, you already know that, don’t you? How brilliant it is. How could you not? Because every single piece of commentary about the football has managed to slip in how transformative this tournament is for achieving more equality for women’s sport. Not just the media coverage, or the think-pieces, either. The commentators will often stop mid-game to mention how amazing this is for women’s sport.

I’m torn on this. It’s extremely important for us to acknowledge important historical moments and provide the social change narrative, so it sticks. I’m excited about us giving a shit about women’s sport, for the same reason I’m excited about us giving a shit about women’s anything. And, as a thinker and writer, I’m always more interested in the social and political significance and commentary around sport than the actual game itself.

But there’s a saturation point where the meta-commentary becomes more prevalent than the actual commentary, and starts to feel a bit… condescending.

I’d love to hear some of the player’s thoughts on this. Surely at a certain point it starts to feel a bit like when you get too much praise for doing something basic, and you wonder: ‘OK… did you think I was fucking useless before?’

These women are really, really good at football. So good that they’re playing at a world level. The only thing that’s changed here is other people properly noticing it, and congratulating themselves for noticing it.

Which makes you wonder… maybe we should be talking about how sorry we are for being ignorant, rather than patting ourselves on the back for noticing how good they are?

*braces for backlash*

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Well, that sums up this week’s Friday Flurry! I really appreciate your support, as I shift my focus more toward my writing work. I love writing and sharing with you, and this is a fully reader-supported effort, so please take a moment to bask in my gratitude for your subscriber status. You rock.