If you can get sexual attention and then (or therefore) succeed as a writer - or [fill in career blank] - that means you're a writer worthy of literary respect?

What I was being told in my 20s in the close-quartered, male-ego-infused work space, was that I had to stop reacting with my emotions to sexual desire towards me. The change, in other words, had to be made in me.

If sexuality is beginning in such a skewed way: that boys expect to receive sexual pleasure and girls are expected to give it without reciprocation, is that why young women, even unintentionally, turn to getting something else in return for sex? Whether it be popularity, career success, professional attention.

I think a certain kind of sexism is so matter-of-fact, and has been for so long, that young women feel less valuable or second-tier if their gender and attractiveness or sexual desirability are not being commented on in the workplace.

That's the difference between a real journal and one that's invented for a novel. A novel journal has to be manipulated so someone reading it can have enough comprehension, which means the person writing it would've had to have a sense of a someday-audience.

Sadly, too much has changed about publishing ... not only does attractiveness matter to agents and editors, but there's no room anymore for a reclusive writer.

Everyone I know, men and women alike, would love to see the world changed so that boys and girls, men and women are valued equally for what we contribute, despite the differences in how our brains and bodies work.