Subject: File: "FEMINISTSF-LIT LOG0203C" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 22:10:38 -0800 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Lee Anne Phillips Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 09:57 PM 3/14/02 -0500, Rose Reith wrote: >>of argument the eugenics would work). I'm not even convinced there is no sex >>between the servitor men and the women, anymore than I am convinced that >>there is no sex between women (expressions of 'horror' at homosexuality >>notwithstanding. >Thank-you, you've said this far better than I seem to be able to >articulate. This is far more like what I got from the book. There >will still be male - female relationships, but the men of their >future will be men who have goals and interests that are far more >compatible with the women's goals - safety, health, education etc. It seems clear that one of the reasons that Joshua felt jealousy was that, if there is in fact, heterosexual love, it would necessarily have to be closeted, since seeing servitors and women in a compromising situation would destroy the basis of the society. Not everyone is in on the secret, so heterosexual love between servitors and women would be, in this version of the world, "the love that dare not speak its name." That being the case, Joshua might well have felt like a lesbian might feel seeing her girlfriend being squired around by a male "date" for social reasons. Even though she might know that there was "nothing going on," the fact that the "boyfriend" was privileged with societal approval, the hearty congratulations of all, and the pleasure of sharing a special moment might well give rise to jealousy not specifically sexual, but perhaps more like envy. I well remember, and with considerable bitterness, being shunted aside when my first real girlfriend "had" to go to a Rainbow Girls dance. So I got to see the dress, help her get dressed, and then drive home alone while she went off to the dance with some guy. It was not a pleasant feeling. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 22:27:02 -0800 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Lee Anne Phillips Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 09:57 PM 3/14/02 -0500, Rose Reith wrote: > Chances >are without great passions they will not have great art. That seems unlikely, since anguish is a far more potent source of art than love. As Richard Eder once said, "Art grows out of what you can't recover from." ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 03:44:38 -0500 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC In-Reply-To: <177.51eed0e.29c2e24c@cs.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 8:59:06 PM on 3/14/02, Rose Reith wrote: >Stavia really seems to love Corrig at the end there, and yet in order to >have those children she would have had to particippate in carnival for >intercourse for intercourse's sake in order to justify the pregnancies to >the outside world - the other women in women's country who believe that that >is how it happens. And at 12:36 AM on 3/15/02 -0500, Joy Martin replied: >Yes, it seems like this is where her new self will be rubbing up against >Women's Countries traditions. But it may be she could fake an >assignation, especially since she's one of the councill who knows what's going >on. Still, what about other women who have the same feelings but aren't in >the know on the secret? The new Stavia is all about playing roles, though, isn't she? The first chapter is one extended meditation on how she has split herself into "actor Stavia" and "observer Stavia" because there are things she must do as a woman and a Council member that her innocent child self would find impossible. In this light I find it highly unlikely that she would ever fake an assignation. Just as her mother met up with Michael every carnival, playing the part of his devoted lover while secretly despising him, I see Stavia doing her duty and paying what she sees as an unpleasant but necessary price for the Council's long-term plan. Joy again: >Another thing that didn't really convince me was when they tell Stavia >they've decided to let her in on the secret (in so many words) 'because she's >been through so much' (or something to that effect). Well, no actually, it's >because Tepper wants us, the readers to know. The more I think about this >eugenics twist, the less I like it. Not just because of arguments about its >ethical or scientific validity, but because of the way it resolves the plot. >It feels forced . But it does give people a lot to argue about.:>) I don't agree about that particular scene. It makes sense to me that Morgot would explain the eugenics plan at this point because Stavia has shown that she is bright and responsible but that she does not respect the letter of the law; perhaps an understanding of its spirit and underpinnings will bring her into line. (And it does. Of course, the death threat probably helps too.) There was another scene I found clumsy in the extreme, however: Morgot and Joshua's ambush of Michael and his cronies. The amount of exposition spouted at these guys who had mere minutes to live not only verged on cliche, it completely undermined the pacifist message of the book, in a way that the similar scene in chapter 10 did not. In the earlier incident, Morgot and Joshua were truly acting in self-defense and finished off their attackers with grim efficiency. None of this gloating over how stupid the greedy murdering men are, how they are no one's fathers, etc. It just seemed gratuitous and nasty. Intentional on Tepper's part? An indication of the failings of this would-be utopia? Or an unfortunate lapse? I'm not sure, but it really rubbed me the wrong way. ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/ Listening to: Tool -- Lateralus "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 05:29:36 -0500 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Dave Belden Subject: Re: Illicit Passage Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC In-Reply-To: <20020314035009.XXOB9959.priv-edtnes12-hme0.telusplanet.net@[161.184.53.161]> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm glad I wasn't alone in this after all. I didn't mean exactly that she 'became a saint' as that Nunn wrote about her in rather the same way that people have written about saints. I wondered if that was in her mind as she wrote. Dave Latest publication: article on globalization on www.opendemocracy.net > -----Original Message----- > From: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC > [mailto:feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU]On Behalf Of Angela Barclay > Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2002 4:00 PM > To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU > Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Illicit Passage > > > I think your notion that Gillie became a saint (or martyr) is a distinct > possibility. It struck me that Gillie *Wardale's* entire raison > d'etre was > the war and when it appeared she had (virtually singlehandely) won it, she > needed to move on- to another life, or another world. > > Angela, who is definately still interested > ---------- > >From: Diane > > > >Dave and Janice (and anyone else still interested), > > > >I really like Dave's idea of Gillie as a secular saint. And in your > >email you make a very good case for it! I have to admit that it > >never would've occured to me that one could think of her in that > >way. But the points you make made me think, yeah! I can see > >that! People are made saints after they have died and they must > >have performed a certain number of miracles. > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 09:22:33 EST Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Joy Martin Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: feministsf-lit@uic.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/15/02 2:36:38 AM Central Standard Time, jdawley@BELLATLANTIC.NET writes: << The new Stavia is all about playing roles, though, isn't she? The first chapter is one extended meditation on how she has split herself into "actor Stavia" and "observer Stavia" because there are things she must do as a woman and a Council member that her innocent child self would find impossible. In this light I find it highly unlikely that she would ever fake an assignation. Just as her mother met up with Michael every carnival, playing the part of his devoted lover while secretly despising him, I see Stavia doing her duty and paying what she sees as an unpleasant but necessary price for the Council's long-term plan. >> I agree she may do this. But once you are playing at the whole thing, it's just as conceivable that she would 'play at' having an assignation. Her actor self was there to step in when she didn't quite know how to deal with something, but felt she must. Often because she didn't quite understand why it was being asked of her. But now she knows exactly why, and the whole point is to maintain the subterfuge, not at any cost, just at whatever necessary cost. It wouldn't be necessary for her to actually have intercourse with a warrior, because she already knows the secret. She could just fake it, and still preserve the secret. Really, I have to laugh, because it's like Tepper is creating a society where some of the common subterfuges of women vis a vis men, like faking orgasm, is writ large, so that in Women's Country they go through this elaborate subterfuge to fake reproduction . Of course, it's always been difficult to determine who the father of a child is (until recently, proof was impossible). You always know the mother (well, until recently, only technology has taken us to the point where we might not know who the genetic mother of a child is), but the father - well, lots of fathers may have wondered who the 'true' father of their chidren were. One of the reasons men have gone to such lengths to try to ascertain paternity by controlling women's whereabouts- chastity, virginity, etcetc. Well, this is one of the jokes of Womens Country,perhaps. [As an aside, added later: It's all this faking it that sticks in my feminist craw; although I read this as a postapocalyptic story, rather than a feminist utopia, as I've said before. Women's Country is trying to get to a feminist utopia though and lots of this discussion has been, basically,about whether we think it'll accomplish those goals,and if it's the right way or the only way or the best way or even a possible way to go about it.] These warriors are awfully trusting and/or conceited in that respect, don't you think? They accept , apparently, that all these boys are indeed their sons. First time in human history men have been so accepting of such facts. This brings to mind another point in the history of Women's Country I'd like to revisit. I need to go back and reread the section. But the history was that early on, the women were warriors, and then they left it to the men, and went inside the walls. Or some women were warriors. I should probably reread it before I talk about it, but, that whole scenario is unlikely. It's the set up for Teppers story, of course, and close examination or exposition of that would have - well, it would have been another story. She can tell whatever story she wants, but like so much in Gate, Tepper is like a magician, getting us to focus our attention only in certain areas, so that we will accept some of the plot twists she pulls out of her hat. Egad! I think that's a good analogy - and perhaps why the play's the thing as well. Hmmm, this calls for further mulling.:>) Joy Martin "Absolute attention is prayer" -Simone Weil ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 09:22:31 EST Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Joy Martin Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: feministsf-lit@uic.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/15/02 2:36:38 AM Central Standard Time, jdawley@BELLATLANTIC.NET writes: << There was another scene I found clumsy in the extreme, however: Morgot and Joshua's ambush of Michael and his cronies. >>Yes,this also has a bit of deux ex machina, by the writer, in it. I kind of reverse my sentiments from yours, I guess; I find this scene less unconvincing (I think because I can see Margot wanting to get the last word in, esp. after having to assignate with Michael all those years), and the spilling of the beans to Stavia as more unconvincing (because I think they didn't have to tell her the whole truth, but Tepper wants us to know it). But it's very possible that on another rereading, my sense of which was more unconvincing would change. Joy Martin "Absolute attention is prayer" -Simone Weil ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 06:29:15 -0800 Reply-To: publicity@mystgalaxy.com Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Maryelizabeth Hart Organization: Mysterious Galaxy Subject: GTWC / THE THIRD TWIN Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Joy said in part: > But that's partly because I think you > create > new people by creating different social and power stuctures, not by > genetics. > Or, genetics seems extremely iffy to me, because of the complexity of > humans; > you don't really know what you are selecting for, and so, it is > simplistic. > which is part of the idea being explored in a less satisfying way in the thriller I'm currently reading, THE THIRD TWIN, about a group of post-Vietnam white supremacists who try to create a secret race of super soldiers -- but their creations are too aggressive to live in normal society -- mostly. I'm not nearly as fond of Ken Follet and his writing as I am of Tepper, but it's interesting to read this in contrast to GATE. Maryelizabeth -- ******************************************************************* Mysterious Galaxy Books Local Phone: 858.268.4747 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd, Suite 302 Fax: 858.268.4775 San Diego, CA 92111 Long Distance/Orders: 1.800.811.4747 http://www.mystgalaxy.com General Email: mgbooks@mystgalaxy.com ******************************************************************* ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 10:21:14 EST Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Joy Martin Subject: Re: GTWC / THE THIRD TWIN Comments: To: publicity@mystgalaxy.com Comments: cc: feministsf-lit@uic.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/15/02 8:30:31 AM Central Standard Time, publicity@MYSTGALAXY.COM writes: << it's interesting to read this in contrast to GATE. >> yes, kind of the flip side of the same approach, from a patriarchal (not to mention racist) point of view Joy Martin "Absolute attention is prayer" -Simone Weil ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 20:37:48 -0000 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Heather Stark Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit great passions = great anguish... so both can be true aagh, Heather p.s. really just looking for an excuse to post more than a forbidden 'wow great discussion' note...;-) -----Original Message----- From: Lee Anne Phillips To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Date: Friday, March 15, 2002 6:45 AM Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] Gate to Women's Country >At 09:57 PM 3/14/02 -0500, Rose Reith wrote: >> Chances >>are without great passions they will not have great art. > >That seems unlikely, since anguish is a far more potent >source of art than love. As Richard Eder once said, >"Art grows out of what you can't recover from." ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 16:32:36 -0500 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC In-Reply-To: <173.5184fd3.29c35da9@cs.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 2:36:38 AM 3/15/02 CST, I wrote: ><< The new Stavia is all about playing roles, though, isn't she? The first > chapter is one extended meditation on how she has split herself into "actor > Stavia" and "observer Stavia" because there are things she must do as a > woman and a Council member that her innocent child self would find > impossible. In this light I find it highly unlikely that she would ever > fake an assignation. Just as her mother met up with Michael every carnival, > playing the part of his devoted lover while secretly despising him, I see > Stavia doing her duty and paying what she sees as an unpleasant but > necessary price for the Council's long-term plan. >> And at 09:22 AM 3/15/02 -0500, Joy Martin replied: >I agree she may do this. But once you are playing at the whole thing, it's >just as conceivable that she would 'play at' having an assignation. Her actor >self was there to step in when she didn't quite know how to deal with >something, but felt she must. Often because she didn't quite understand why >it was being asked of her. But now she knows exactly why, and the whole point >is to maintain the subterfuge, not at any cost, just at whatever necessary >cost. It wouldn't be necessary for her to actually have intercourse with a >warrior, because she already knows the secret. She could just fake it, and >still preserve the secret. Fake it how, though? The man must believe that he has actually had sex with her. If they haven't done the deed she has to convince him that they really did but he was too drunk to remember, that it was too dark for him to know who she was, etc. If this happened every carnival it would really stretch believability. On the other hand, the book does say that warriors were occasionally presented with sons they didn't remember fathering, and they just took the women's word on it. So maybe you are right. But I still think it wouldn't fit the book's theme of grim duty and responsibility. Look at Morgot. She could have faked her assignations with Michael, but she didn't. Why not? >These warriors are awfully trusting and/or conceited in that respect, don't >you think? They accept, apparently, that all these boys are indeed their >sons. First time in human history men have been so accepting of such facts. Well, according to the book's premise, the men who elect to remain in the garrisons are defective in general -- impulsive, selfish, arrogant, and ironically not even very good fighters compared to the Councilwomen and the "special" servitors. How surprising is it that they are stupid, too? But seriously, why wouldn't they accept fatherhood in this case? It's not as if they are providing for their sons economically or are in any way responsible for them. Rather than being the breadwinners who must support their families, the men of the garrisons are entirely dependent on the food and other necessities that the towns provide them. More sons for the garrison just mean more expense for the women, not for the men. >This brings to mind another point in the history of Women's Country I'd like >to revisit. I need to go back and reread the section. But the history was >that early on, the women were warriors, and then they left it to the men, and >went inside the walls. Or some women were warriors. I should probably reread >it before I talk about it, but, that whole scenario is unlikely. It's the set >up for Teppers story, of course, and close examination or exposition of that >would have - well, it would have been another story. Why is it any more unlikely than the other story elements? You've confused me. (BTW, in case you want to look it up, it's in the expository lump I complained of earlier, when Morgot is talking to Michael in chapter 34.) I thought it was a reasonable explanation of how the society was set up in its early days. The women had already planned their male testing ground (the garrison), but didn't yet have a big enough population to begin the selective culling. Once they had enough men, the interim staff of women in the garrison were phased out and the men were phased in. Makes sense to me (in a twisted way). In fact, it reminds me of the situation in Mangolia in *Illicit Passage*. That began as a legitimate mining operation, but by the end of the war was doing double duty as a concentration camp. Chilling, indeed. ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/ Listening to: Tool -- Lateralus "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 15:18:07 -0500 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Rose Reith Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC In-Reply-To: <173.5184fd3.29c35da9@cs.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >This brings to mind another point in the history of Women's Country I'd like >to revisit. I need to go back and reread the section. But the history was >that early on, the women were warriors, and then they left it to the men, and >went inside the walls. Or some women were warriors. You are right, it's in the same section as the explanation to Michael, Patras and Stephon. So it's be about page 301 I believe. There were women who acted the role of warrior early on so that the boys would be acclimated to warrior life. That part bothered me - if there were so few men, and it seems the few men who were left actually supported the women's gaols, which it sounded like to me - (Martha Eve's daughter's goals), then why didn't they just raise the boys to accept a different way of life. If you grow up accepting women and men as equals won't you be a different kind of person. From that perspective why would you need to remind boys that there could be a patriarchal way and then force them to struggle and die through a change away from that patriarchal way. Did they really need to be sure that that was what the men wanted. From that point of view I think I like Charnas better. At the end of her Holdfast books the children, male and female, are being raised to have new values, and I don't think the women (fems ) are going to recreate a mock patriarchy for the boys to eventually disown. Rose >I should probably reread >it before I talk about it, but, that whole scenario is unlikely. It's the set >up for Teppers story, of course, and close examination or exposition of that >would have - well, it would have been another story. She can tell whatever >story she wants, but like so much in Gate, Tepper is like a magician, getting >us to focus our attention only in certain areas, so that we will accept some >of the plot twists she pulls out of her hat. Egad! I think that's a good >analogy - and perhaps why the play's the thing as well. Hmmm, this calls for >further mulling.:>) > >Joy Martin > >"Absolute attention is prayer" -Simone Weil -- 'As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.' Virginia Woolf ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 21:22:09 -0500 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC In-Reply-To: <16d.a4b81e2.29c2e249@cs.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit At 12:36 AM 3/15/02 -0500, Joy Martin wrote: >One thing that keeps niggling at me is the line where one character says to >another, "it's SUPPOSED to be a comedy", chiding the other (I think it was >Stavia being chided) for taking it so seriously. No, the opposite. It is Stavia speaking to Corrig at the beginning of Chapter 5. He exclaims his disbelief and she replies, "Well it is, Corrig. The audience laughs." I took this as another indicator of how clueless most of the women are about the realities of Women's Country. The play is like a roman à clef for the Council members, a production that has a surface meaning (emphasized by ridiculous costuming, e.g. the giant penis Achilles wears) for the majority of the population, and a hidden meaning for those who are aware of the eugenics plan and the behind-the-scenes negotiations that result in so many warrior deaths. The tragedy of this play for the Councilwomen and the servitors is, I believe, that they see they have in many respects reversed roles. The women are now in control and the men are the chattel. But it is also a reminder that women, in the time of the Trojan war, were given no option to step through a gate into "men's country". It has struck me that in this book the psychic servitors play the role of Cassandra -- except that they are believed. I am not sure that is a good thing. In chapter 34, Corrig tells Stavia not only that they will remain together, but what the names of their two children will be. What is the point of such specificity? Does the future have to be nailed down? What if Stavia wanted to name one of them something else? Oh well, there's no use resisting prophecy... might as well take his word for it. The impression I come away with is of a beleaguered, unhappy crew working to bring about a static future they have already mapped out. I guess that future is one they find worthy, but without the uncertainties of real life it seems... scripted. And airless. Almost like Hades. Hm. ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/ Listening to: Tool -- Lateralus "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 21:22:25 EST Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: feministsf-lit@uic.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit When I read Gate first I found in stunning. As I thought about it, and reread it, it falls apart for me. I wound up not sympathizing with anyone except the deluded girls. There is so much betrayal and so little heart in the book. The logic doesn't work. Perhaps when it was first written , the heavy-handed approach was necessary. I think it's an important book, but one that, finally, suffers from its own excesses and faulty logic. It depressed me to reread it. In re-thinking the play within the book, I wonder if it points to Tepper's own ambivalence. Iphegenia is a victim, a sacrifice, a woman betrayed, and to make her a central image is to say that all women are stuck in those roles. The women have made a web from which there is no escape. Fascinating, like watching something melt. Best, phoebe w ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 11:51:05 +0800 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Sherlyn Quek Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed At Fri, 15 Mar 2002 21:22:09 -0500 Janice E Dawley wrote: >No, the opposite. It is Stavia speaking to Corrig at the beginning of >Chapter 5. He exclaims his disbelief and she replies, "Well it is, Corrig. >The audience laughs." Actually, it's both. :) In a flashback during Chapter 6, Myra is shown chiding Stavia for taking the play too seriously : "You seem to keep forgetting this is a comedy." It's generally regarded as a satire by most of the population. Myra actually recalls what an instructor told her: its a "commentary on particular attitudes of preconvulsion society." I find it interesting that Stavia seems to have switched roles in the present as compared to the past - in the past she found the play un-comedic because of the part about the baby being thrown off the wall. What does that say about her character's growth? >I took this as another indicator of how clueless most >of the women are about the realities of Women's Country. The play is like a >roman à clef for the Council members, a production that has a surface >meaning (emphasized by ridiculous costuming, e.g. the giant penis Achilles >wears) for the majority of the population, and a hidden meaning for those >who are aware of the eugenics plan and the behind-the-scenes negotiations >that result in so many warrior deaths. The tragedy of this play for the >Councilwomen and the servitors is, I believe, that they see they have in >many respects reversed roles. The women are now in control and the men are >the chattel. But it is also a reminder that women, in the time of the >Trojan war, were given no option to step through a gate into "men's >country". >It has struck me that in this book the psychic servitors play the role of >Cassandra -- except that they are believed. The impression I come away with >is of a beleaguered, unhappy crew working to bring about a static future >they have already mapped out. I >guess that future is one they find worthy, >but without the >uncertainties of real life it seems... scripted. And >airless. Almost like Hades. Hm. Frankly, I find the whole relation of the play to the book somewhat ambigious. It's obvious from the start that the play was meant to be a parody of the original male-dominated Illiad, with themes of men's cruelty and pride resulting in destruction for the women and children. It's a reminder to the most of the women about how much they have it better here in Women's Country. For most of the book I read it as an indictment of men in general. But the twist at the end completely changes my perception of the play. The Councilwomen have literally become the men who "throw the baby off the wall" by engineering deaths among the garrisons, by ensuring that the warriors have no sons, etc. How does that fit into the idea that Women's Country is a place where the women are free from choices that make them dead or damned? I mean, the Councilwomen are still the Damned Few, still reponsible for the death of other women's sons. And of course, the majority of the women are shown to have had no choice or even knowledge about the father of their children. Cassandra's role seems to be that of the psychics: both the servitors as well as the twins. Acutally, their words were mostly unheeded by the people who needed them the most: Stavia disregards their warnings and naturally winds up in hot soup in the Holylands. On the other hand, they are taken seriously by the wise few, the Councilwomen aka as represented by Morgot. So how is Hades Women's Country? Babies are still "thrown off the wall" .. only this time by women instead of men ... Iphigenia says it's a place where "all burdens are taken away". It rings patently untrue: the "burden" of maintaining the secret and directing the future of the race is still on the Council women's shoulders ... Perhaps the only difference about the women in charge is that they heed the Cassandras' warnings and take it to heart. A dumb question about the line "time enough to learn the way to Hell and back again." in Chapter 33. Back again to what? Back again to Hell or back again to the living? Is the Hell mentioned referring to Women's Country? Anyone care to explain this to me? A simple question with an obvious answer, I'm sure, but I'm a little too zonked out today to understand it. :P - Iris The Crackly Chip _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 22:47:57 -0500 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Rose Reith Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20020315180445.0201b0b0@mailbox.bellatlantic.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="============_-1195871609==_ma============" --============_-1195871609==_ma============ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" ; format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable This discussion of it being a comedy also goes on between Stavia and Myra when Myra is cueing Stavia in the Iphigenia role as a youngster - maybe 11 years old or so. There's also the discussion of Iphigenia being played by a gorl named Michy who is "fat," so there is the whole "fat ghost" commentary, along with the description of the baby as a doll that seemed somewhat reminiscent of Raggedy Andy, and the women, Hecuba and her daughter "all tarted up like river gypsies". Myra says the story is a commentary on certain attitudes of preconvulsion societies and that its supposed to be a comedy. Achilles with the big dong... Stavia is not amused because she says she feels the play in ways she doesn't understand it. It's in chapter 6... page 37 >At 12:36 AM 3/15/02 -0500, Joy Martin wrote: >>One thing that keeps niggling at me is the line where one character says t= o >>another, "it's SUPPOSED to be a comedy", chiding the other (I think it was >>Stavia being chided) for taking it so seriously. > >No, the opposite. It is Stavia speaking to Corrig at the beginning of >Chapter 5. He exclaims his disbelief and she replies, "Well it is, Corrig. >The audience laughs." I took this as another indicator of how clueless most >of the women are about the realities of Women's Country. The play is like a >roman =E0 clef for the Council members, a production that has a surface >meaning (emphasized by ridiculous costuming, e.g. the giant penis Achilles >wears) for the majority of the population, and a hidden meaning for those >who are aware of the eugenics plan and the behind-the-scenes negotiations >that result in so many warrior deaths. The tragedy of this play for the >Councilwomen and the servitors is, I believe, that they see they have in >many respects reversed roles. The women are now in control and the men are >the chattel. But it is also a reminder that women, in the time of the >Trojan war, were given no option to step through a gate into "men's country= ". > >It has struck me that in this book the psychic servitors play the role of >Cassandra -- except that they are believed. I am not sure that is a good >thing. In chapter 34, Corrig tells Stavia not only that they will remain >together, but what the names of their two children will be. What is the >point of such specificity? Does the future have to be nailed down? What if >Stavia wanted to name one of them something else? Oh well, there's no use >resisting prophecy... might as well take his word for it. > >The impression I come away with is of a beleaguered, unhappy crew working >to bring about a static future they have already mapped out. I guess that >future is one they find worthy, but without the uncertainties of real life >it seems... scripted. And airless. Almost like Hades. Hm. > >----- >Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT >http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/ >Listening to: Tool -- Lateralus >"...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; >the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and >servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas -- 'As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.' Virginia Woolf --============_-1195871609==_ma============ Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Re: [*FSF-L*] Gate to Women's Country

This discussion of it being a comedy also goes on between Stavia and Myra when Myra is cueing Stavia in the Iphigenia role as a youngster  - maybe 11 years old or so. There's also the discussion of Iphigenia being played by a gorl named Michy who is "fat," so there is the whole "fat ghost" commentary, along with the description of the baby as a doll that seemed somewhat reminiscent of Raggedy Andy, and the women, Hecuba and her daughter "all tarted up like river gypsies".  Myra says the story is a commentary on certain attitudes of  preconvulsion societies and that its supposed to be a comedy. Achilles with the big dong...   Stavia is not amused because she says she feels the play in ways she doesn't understand it. 
It's in  chapter 6... page 37

At 12:36 AM 3/15/02 -0500, Joy Martin wrote:
One thing that keeps niggling at me is the line where one character says to
another, "it's SUPPOSED to be a comedy", chiding the other (I think it was
Stavia being chided) for taking it so seriously.

No, the opposite. It is Stavia speaking to Corrig at the beginning of
Chapter 5. He exclaims his disbelief and she replies, "Well it is, Corrig.
The audience laughs." I took this as another indicator of how clueless most
of the women are about the realities of Women's Country. The play is like a
roman =E0 clef for the Council members, a production that has a surface
meaning (emphasized by ridiculous costuming, e.g. the giant penis Achilles
wears) for the majority of the population, and a hidden meaning for those
who are aware of the eugenics plan and the behind-the-scenes negotiations
that result in so many warrior deaths. The tragedy of this play for the
Councilwomen and the servitors is, I believe, that they see they have in
many respects reversed roles. The women are now in control and the men are
the chattel. But it is also a reminder that women, in the time of the
Trojan war, were given no option to step through a gate into "men's country".

It has struck me that in this book the psychic servitors play the role of
Cassandra -- except that they are believed. I am not sure that is a good
thing. In chapter 34, Corrig tells Stavia not only that they will remain
together, but what the names of their two children will be. What is the
point of such specificity? Does the future have to be nailed down? What if
Stavia wanted to name one of them something else? Oh well, there's no use
resisting prophecy... might as well take his word for it.

The impression I come away with is of a beleaguered, unhappy crew working
to bring about a static future they have already mapped out. I guess that
future is one they find worthy, but without the uncertainties of real life
it seems... scripted. And airless. Almost like Hades. Hm.

-----
Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT
http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/
Listening to: Tool -- Lateralus
"...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected;
the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and
servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas

--
'As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.'
 Virginia Woolf
--============_-1195871609==_ma============-- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 23:23:39 -0500 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Thanks to Sherlyn and Rose for pointing out the exchange in Chapter 6 (and sorry, Joy). However, I still maintain that the play is not a comedy. A satire, maybe, but not a funny one. All the evidence Myra cites in her conversation with Stavia is superficial -- costumes and camp -- and is not there on the printed page. It sounds to me as if the Council members play it this way expressly to distract women like Myra from the play's underlying meaning while leaving the clues in there for the more discerning. But maybe I am getting carried away in my extrapolation... ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/ Listening to: Tool -- Lateralus "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 12:34:40 +0800 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Sherlyn Quek Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed I agree that the play is probably not meant to be read as a comedy by the readers. More of a tragedy, actually, especially since Joshua and Stavia cry at the end of the play/novel. The Council Women do seem to promote its surface comedic aspects to the majority of the women (recall the bit about Myra remembering what an instructor telling her it's a "commentary on preconvulsion attitudes") and leave the hidden message for the more sensitive members to discover. It's interesting that Stavia found it uncomfortable as a child yet says it's a comedy when she's grown up. Corrig's remarks about how he finds the women's view of it as a comedy difficult to understand are fairly intriguing as well. - Iris The Crackly Chip From: "Janice E. Dawley" Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 23:23:39 -0500 >Thanks to Sherlyn and Rose for pointing out the exchange in Chapter 6 (and >sorry, Joy). However, I still maintain that the play is not a comedy. A >satire, maybe, but not a funny one. All the evidence Myra cites in her >conversation with Stavia is superficial -- costumes and camp -- and is not >there on the printed page. It sounds to me as if the Council members play >it this way expressly to distract women like Myra from the play's >underlying meaning while leaving the clues in there for the more >discerning. But maybe I am getting carried away in my extrapolation... _________________________________________________________________ Join the world^Òs largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 23:57:27 EST Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Joy Martin Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: feministsf-lit@uic.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Just some assorted responses to various points. In a message dated 3/15/02 8:14:12 PM Central Standard Time, jdawley@BELLATLANTIC.NET writes: << No, the opposite. It is Stavia speaking to Corrig at the beginning of Chapter 5. He exclaims his disbelief and she replies, >> Actually the line I was remembering was the beginning of Chapter 6, with Myra telling her younger sister Stavia 'you seem to keep forgetting this is a comedy'. She goes on to describe the way the characters are dressed, that it's a satire on 'the attitudes of preconvulsion society.' n a message dated 3/15/02 3:26:10 PM Central Standard Time, jdawley@BELLATLANTIC.NET writes: << But seriously, why wouldn't they accept fatherhood in this case? >> Well, why does anyone, particularly men, want their 'own' kids, rather than someone else's? Not everyone cares about that passing on of the line kind of thing, but a great deal of time and effort have been spent on making sure the kid you raise is your own kid. And esp. sons. (I don't think it's all to do with the cost or economics of raising them.) It is a bit wierd in Women's Country's garrison though, because really, there is no particular property these men own. I mean, the desire to 'own' your offspring and the desire to pass on your property usually go hand in hand. In Teppers setting, property as such and inheritance as such don't much exist, not in the form where accumulating property is a major goal. Even for the women, who apparently (it's unclear) own their houses and their farms, property as such doesn't seem to be much of an issue. In a message dated 3/15/02 3:26:10 PM Central Standard Time, jdawley@BELLATLANTIC.NET writes: << Once they had enough men, the interim staff of women in the garrison were phased out and the men were phased in >> Why retreat into the town ? Why, as Rosa said in her recent post, go to all the trouble of setting up a huge male/female dichotomy? I looked back over the passage, and Margot says at first they didn't have enough men, so women put on men's clothes (women couldn't wear their own clothes even!), 'because the men couldn't be spared' (???- from what ? reproduction?) and they took the boys into the garrison with them. When there were 'enough' men , the women went back into the town and left the garrison to the men. The reason is Martha Evesdaughters belief that to prevent war, aggression had to be bred out of men; that genetics causes war. So they couldn't just set up a different kind of society, they had to set up a system for 'breeding' aggression out of men. It makes sense from their pacifist perspective (maybe, if you accept the analysis of what causes war), but it doesn't make sense from a feminist perspective. It makes sense if you believe what they believe. It doesn't make sense to me, believing what I believe. In a message dated 3/15/02 3:26:10 PM Central Standard Time, jdawley@BELLATLANTIC.NET writes: << Morgot. She could have faked her assignations with Michael, but she didn't. Why not? >> I'm not saying Stavia would fake her assignations, just that she could. I'm sure there were lots of ways. As for why she might, while Morgot didn't- the short version would be, she isn't Margot. The longer version would include all the ways she is different from Morgot, and that her society might be challenged in the future. n a message dated 3/15/02 8:14:12 PM Central Standard Time, jdawley@BELLATLANTIC.NET writes: << The impression I come away with is of a beleaguered, unhappy crew working to bring about a static future they have already mapped out. I guess that future is one they find worthy, but without the uncertainties of real life it seems... scripted >> I think they are working toward what they see as a war free future. It's unlikely that it will be static, esp. in their case, because they are betting on a process that isn't likely to work as expected. But the stage we are looking at does give that impression, at least in Marthatown. Joy Martin "Absolute attention is prayer" -Simone Weil ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 00:10:52 EST Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Joy Martin Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: feministsf-lit@uic.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/15/02 10:16:22 PM Central Standard Time, jdawley@BELLATLANTIC.NET writes: << Thanks to Sherlyn and Rose for pointing out the exchange in Chapter 6 (and sorry, Joy). However, I still maintain that the play is not a comedy. >> By the time I sent my latest post, here are several messages making it - at least about this - unnecessary. Just can't keep up with you all!:>)) What interested me in that passage was that the play direction was so different from the play's written script. The play serves multiple purposes, and not just for the Council vs the common folk, but for the writer vis a vis the reader as well. Or so I hypothesize at the moment. It's a very interesting device, at any rate, and getting more interesting by the moment. Joy Martin "Absolute attention is prayer" -Simone Weil ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 08:54:46 -0000 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Heather Stark Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Phoebe Wray Date: Saturday, March 16, 2002 2:22 AM wrote: >When I read Gate first I found in stunning. As I thought about it, and reread >it, it falls apart for me..... >Perhaps when it was first written , the heavy-handed >approach was necessary. I think it's an important book, but one that, >finally, suffers from its own excesses and faulty logic. It depressed me to >reread it. Yes. What is portrayed is, to me, almost entirely distopian. So for me the world reads as an example of 'an alternative way of organising things - but one that sucks big time'. However, it's one of those situations where I'm never really sure whether that reading is what the author meant or not. Suspect it may not be. The book seems very, er, Atwood. Not, to my mind, a compliment, as it implies a lack of joie de vivre. cheers, Heather ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 11:03:47 -0500 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Rose Reith Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20020315231036.0201d5e0@mailbox.bellatlantic.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Hi Janice, I wasn't disagreeing with you. I too think that that was just part of the plan. The play is definitely not a comedy. I think that exchange was to show that Myra was one of the oblivious women, and that it was possible for a mother like Morgot to have two very different daughters, one who got it and one who didn't. I suppose it is possible that there is also meant to be some sort of damning of Myra as unsuitable for W. C. because her father was found to be unsuitable for the plans for W. C. , while Stavia is obviously Joshua's daughter and thus is more discerning even when she is younger and unaware of all the intrigue going on, even in her own home. Myra is portrayed as seeeing none of it, while Stavia senses it but doesn't get it - things like Morgot and Joshua exchanging the "my dear, not in front of the children glances, and the way she senses that her mother has certain stock answers prepared for them when they ask certain questions, etc. I definitely agree that the costumes and camp were designed as a distraction for those who weren't supposed to get it. I never managed to get through all of Illicit Passage, but it just struck me from what I read of all those conversations on the list that if some woman like Gillie had been born in Women's Country everything would have blown up around that Council. Or maybe she would have been the one to found W. C.? As I said, I just couldn't reach a point where I wanted to keep reading, so I haven't finished it yet. Rose >Thanks to Sherlyn and Rose for pointing out the exchange in Chapter 6 (and >sorry, Joy). However, I still maintain that the play is not a comedy. A >satire, maybe, but not a funny one. All the evidence Myra cites in her >conversation with Stavia is superficial -- costumes and camp -- and is not >there on the printed page. It sounds to me as if the Council members play >it this way expressly to distract women like Myra from the play's >underlying meaning while leaving the clues in there for the more >discerning. But maybe I am getting carried away in my extrapolation... > >----- >Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT >http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/ >Listening to: Tool -- Lateralus >"...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; >the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and >servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas -- 'As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.' Virginia Woolf ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 11:10:47 -0500 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Rose Reith Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" ; format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >I agree that the play is probably not meant to be read as a comedy by the >readers. More of a tragedy, actually, especially since Joshua and Stavia cry >at the end of the play/novel. The Council Women do seem to promote its >surface comedic aspects to the majority of the women (recall the bit about >Myra remembering what an instructor telling her it's a "commentary on >preconvulsion attitudes") and leave the hidden message for the more >sensitive members to discover. It's interesting that Stavia found it >uncomfortable as a child yet says it's a comedy when she's grown up. >Corrig's remarks about how he finds the women's view of it as a comedy >difficult to understand are fairly intriguing as well. I didn't quite take her seriously when she told Corrig it was supposed to be a comedy. I think there she might have been parroting Myras's once upon a time comments to her, because all the rest of the way through every time she discussed the play with someone she mentions how she never saw all the ways it reminded her of events in her own life. I suppose that could be read to mean that her own life is a tragedy, which was actually the point that Joy or Janice made in earlier messages. I hadn't really seen it totally as a tragedy because her relationship with Corrig seems to be a positive one. >- Iris > The Crackly Chip > > >From: "Janice E. Dawley" >Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 23:23:39 -0500 > >>Thanks to Sherlyn and Rose for pointing out the exchange in Chapter 6 (and >>sorry, Joy). However, I still maintain that the play is not a comedy. A >>satire, maybe, but not a funny one. All the evidence Myra cites in her >>conversation with Stavia is superficial -- costumes and camp -- and is not >>there on the printed page. It sounds to me as if the Council members play >>it this way expressly to distract women like Myra from the play's >>underlying meaning while leaving the clues in there for the more >>discerning. But maybe I am getting carried away in my extrapolation... > >_________________________________________________________________ >Join the world^Òs largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. >http://www.hotmail.com -- 'As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.' Virginia Woolf ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 11:31:34 EST Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Joy Martin Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: feministsf-lit@uic.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/16/02 10:17:04 AM Central Standard Time, rreith@RACORES.COM writes: << I hadn't really seen it totally as a tragedy because her relationship with Corrig seems to be a positive one. >> Well, yes, I think so too. This has been a rather circuitous discussion (and I do mean, discussion, thinking out loud , which also means conclusions morph a bit as it goes along). Joy Martin "Absolute attention is prayer" -Simone Weil ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 11:38:59 -0500 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Rose Reith Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC In-Reply-To: <97.246d91cd.29c42ab7@cs.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" At 11:57 PM -0500 3/15/02, Joy Martin wrote: >It is a bit wierd in Women's Country's garrison though, because really, there >is no particular property these men own. I mean, the desire to 'own' your >offspring and the desire to pass on your property usually go hand in hand. In >Teppers setting, property as such and inheritance as such don't much exist, >not in the form where accumulating property is a major goal. Even for the >women, who apparently (it's unclear) own their houses and their farms, >property as such doesn't seem to be much of an issue. Another way I looked at the whole send the boys off to the garrison thing was as a way of distributing child care differently from the past, (again, another effort toward figuring out a feminist alternative, since who does the work that women usually do is one of the key points toward feminist change) and a way to make the men share that burden. Also, it got the boys away from the girls during the years when boys can be difficult to handle, made the men responsible for caring for them, although it seems from one of Chernon's comments that the men didn't do much caring, and it was really the older boys taking care of the younger boys ( the "I'm on sleeper in duty with the eights", comment I think it was that he made). This leaves the women caring for the girls and the men caring for the boys. The men can't complain that the women are turning the boys into sissies. And by the time the boys who are willing to come back do come back they are old enough to take care of themselves, they are already pretty much self selected to stay out of trouble, they become and asset to W. C., and they are not likely to be dangerous toward any of the women or girls. > >In a message dated 3/15/02 3:26:10 PM Central Standard Time, >jdawley@BELLATLANTIC.NET writes: > ><< Once they had enough men, the interim staff of women in > the garrison were phased out and the men were phased in >> Joy replied: >Why retreat into the town ? Why, as Rosa said in her recent post, go to all >the trouble of setting up a huge male/female dichotomy? I looked back over >the passage, and Margot says at first they didn't have enough men, so women >put on men's clothes (women couldn't wear their own clothes even!), 'because >the men couldn't be spared' (???- from what ? reproduction?) and they took >the boys into the garrison with them. When there were 'enough' men , the >women went back into the town and left the garrison to the men. The reason >is Martha Evesdaughters belief that to prevent war, aggression had to be >bred out of men; that genetics causes war. So they couldn't just set up a >different kind of society, they had to set up a system for 'breeding' >aggression out of men. It makes sense from their pacifist perspective (maybe, >if you accept the analysis of what causes war), but it doesn't make sense >from a feminist perspective. It makes sense if you believe what they believe. >It doesn't make sense to me, believing what I believe. I like how you said this. For me it does sort of work, so I can buy into her idea that they might be able to breed out the desire to make war. I am not sure I like it, since I don't imagine most of my male relatives would be ones who would choose to return, but I will admit that I did have problems with the fact that it got set up that way when they had other choices at that early point in their history. I guess that Tepper was just in the mood to try a different thought experiment than one in whcih those who survive the war are already changed for the better because of the devastating experiences. She obviously feels that cataclysm alone is not going to bring about that change - look at the Holylanders she creates. > >n a message dated 3/15/02 8:14:12 PM Central Standard Time, >jdawley@BELLATLANTIC.NET writes: > ><< The impression I come away with is of a beleaguered, unhappy crew working > to bring about a static future they have already mapped out. I guess that > future is one they find worthy, but without the uncertainties of real life > it seems... scripted >> Joy replied: >I think they are working toward what they see as a war free future. It's >unlikely that it will be static, esp. in their case, because they are betting >on a process that isn't likely to work as expected. But the stage we are >looking at does give that impression, at least in Marthatown. Tepper certainly gives evidence that it's working as well as can be expected. That whole section after Casimur dies when the group that returns to W. C. ( Habby and Corrig and others) and they talk about how many boys are missing from the ranks of warriors in each year, and how at one time they lost less than 5 boys in a hundred to W.C. , but that now they were losing 20 out of the hundred boys over the years between 15 and 25. (Chapter 14). At least for her purposes she is making it seem as if the women are eventually going to win the campaign. -- 'As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.' Virginia Woolf ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 11:45:19 -0500 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Rose Reith Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC In-Reply-To: <10.1b921a09.29c4cd66@cs.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Well I am certainly enjoying this circuitous discussion. It's making me think. I just have a lot of trouble with typing as fast as I think. I have several unfinished messages because I lost the train of thought as I was typing, or I didn't quite have it worked out as well as I should have and couldn't get it down in electron words. It sure is a lot easier to discuss in a classroom setting orally rather than in writing. Rose >In a message dated 3/16/02 10:17:04 AM Central Standard Time, >rreith@RACORES.COM writes: > ><< I hadn't really seen it totally as a tragedy > because her relationship with Corrig seems to be a positive one. >> >Well, yes, I think so too. This has been a rather circuitous discussion (and >I do mean, discussion, thinking out loud , which also means conclusions morph >a bit as it goes along). > >Joy Martin > >"Absolute attention is prayer" -Simone Weil -- 'As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.' Virginia Woolf ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 09:42:46 -0800 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Laura Quilter Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=X-UNKNOWN Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I took comedy not as in the "Three's Company" or even "As You Like It" sense, but as in tragic comedy ... the comedy is in the irony. On Sat, 16 Mar 2002, Rose Reith wrote: > >I agree that the play is probably not meant to be read as a comedy by the > >readers. More of a tragedy, actually, especially since Joshua and Stavia cry > >at the end of the play/novel. The Council Women do seem to promote its > >surface comedic aspects to the majority of the women (recall the bit about > >Myra remembering what an instructor telling her it's a "commentary on > >preconvulsion attitudes") and leave the hidden message for the more > >sensitive members to discover. It's interesting that Stavia found it > >uncomfortable as a child yet says it's a comedy when she's grown up. > >Corrig's remarks about how he finds the women's view of it as a comedy > >difficult to understand are fairly intriguing as well. > > I didn't quite take her seriously when she told Corrig it was > supposed to be a comedy. I think there she might have been parroting > Myras's once upon a time comments to her, because all the rest of the > way through every time she discussed the play with someone she > mentions how she never saw all the ways it reminded her of events in > her own life. I suppose that could be read to mean that her own life > is a tragedy, which was actually the point that Joy or Janice made in > earlier messages. I hadn't really seen it totally as a tragedy > because her relationship with Corrig seems to be a positive one. > > > > > > >- Iris > > The Crackly Chip > > > > > >From: "Janice E. Dawley" > >Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 23:23:39 -0500 > > > >>Thanks to Sherlyn and Rose for pointing out the exchange in Chapter 6 (and > >>sorry, Joy). However, I still maintain that the play is not a comedy. A > >>satire, maybe, but not a funny one. All the evidence Myra cites in her > >>conversation with Stavia is superficial -- costumes and camp -- and is not > >>there on the printed page. It sounds to me as if the Council members play > >>it this way expressly to distract women like Myra from the play's > >>underlying meaning while leaving the clues in there for the more > >>discerning. But maybe I am getting carried away in my extrapolation... > > > >_________________________________________________________________ > >Join the world^Òs largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. > >http://www.hotmail.com > > -- > 'As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.' > Virginia Woolf > Laura Quilter / lquilter@exo.net ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 12:42:44 -0500 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Rose Reith Subject: Re: BDG: Gate Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20020308105410.00a6d910@www.leeanne.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" At 1:03 PM -0800 3/8/02, Lee Anne Phillips wrote: >We're left with a system of selective breeding in which >the great majority of women are treated like cows in a herd, >in which a few "bulls" and "alpha cows" rule while the "steers," >the impotent (or at least infertile) male warriors are led to >slaughter. After much thought, this cozy arrangement >has pierced me to the heart with its denial of love, of >the deep tenderness possible in both men and women, >and of our common humanity. I think that Morgot and Joshua, and Stavia and Corrig, do have that deep tenderness between them as couples. Certainly the way they act with each other and the way Joshua acts so fatherly toward Stavia and even Myra, who is not really his daughter, shows that he cares about the females with whom he lives. I think what Tepper is trying to get at is more of a common humanity where men as well as women actually care about all of their offspring, something very different from Michael's comment in the book in which he says that warriors don't have daughters... they may beget girls, but their only value is in how they can be used, whereas there is that warrior saying that a woman earns her life by bearing sons for a warrior. >The real effect of this >breeding program, this inane tinkering with the very >basis of our human lives, is quite likely to be ruin for >us all. We don't understand it. We don't understand >life at all, and our arrogance and ignorance are as >>capable of destroying us with DNA as with atomic bombs. I'm not sure that breeding for a less violent human is going to change our DNA that much. The DNA of those who continue will also be human DNA. And I suppose even that sort of argument could be partially refuted by Tepper's offering of the Holylanders as the opposite extreme. One of the things I wondered about was if Joshua was possibly the sperm donor for Myra's child, her little Marky. At first I thought that was possible because of her complaints about the baby's coloring changing to look more like Stavia's - the hazel eyes etc. and by extension Joshua. Then I recalled that Marcus was one of the warriors who was with Dawid at Stavia's ritual rejection, thus implying that he did not elect to return home through the Gate. So were Myra's "warrior" genes too powerful over Joshua's "servitor" genes? Or, was that whole section on resemblances just filler? I have to admit that for the purposes of following the story, it seems to me that Tepper showed a great deal of skill in writing this book. I don't believe there is too much in the way of filler. Everything that is included seems to have a purpose, so it seems odd that there'd be something like that that makes it seem like a sort of loose end. Unless she intended to show that the war like tendencies are much stronger and thus the women's plans are truly justified? > >>> And there is a crypto-racism inherent in her scheme, since it would >>> be easy to demonstrate that young African-American males are >>> responsible for a disproportionate share of violent crime and might >>> therefore have to be culled even more drastically. I don;t recall any mention at all of people of color in the book, but I don;t think young Arfican Americans would be any more prone to choosing to stay in the garrison than young white males. I think the garrison would be equally challenging and equally enticing to all boys. There really wouldn't be any distinction made over them, since from the age of 5 forward they would be in the garrison with the rest of the guys. > >> But this isn't addressed in the book, and it seems to me that each case >> was decided individually, by the boy himself, rather than by society at >> large or based on any demographic...unless you mean something different >> by "culled" than "decides to stay in the men's camps rather than come >> back into the city with the women"... exactly. > >By culled, I mean that the men they want to kill are sent, >like Uriah, into the thick of battle and are so destroyed. >In our present society, young African-American men >are often denied the sources of pride and achievement >that make them feel good about themselves. They often >hang out with other, similarly-situated young men, and >fall into the same traps of crime and violence. In the >Gate world, these men would be sent into the thick of >battle and eliminated. Only if they had chosen to stay in the garrison. Then they would fight for glory and honor (according to patriarchal tradition) along side their white, native american, and asian brethren as far as I can extrapolate from Tepper's writing. Unlike Charnas and others who made a point of including people of color in their visions of these post-apocalyptic futures, Tepper doesn't make a point of including people based on racial lines. Or she just wanted to envision a white future. (Which sounds / looks terrible in writing, and may be another reason why I fear for the plain/drabness of this future) -- 'As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.' Virginia Woolf ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 12:53:45 -0500 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Rose Reith Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" ; format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit That's a good point too. Maybe closer to the truth of what Tepper was aiming for. >I took comedy not as in the "Three's Company" or even "As You Like It" >sense, but as in tragic comedy ... the comedy is in the irony. > >On Sat, 16 Mar 2002, Rose Reith wrote: > >> >I agree that the play is probably not meant to be read as a comedy by the >> >readers. More of a tragedy, actually, especially since Joshua and >>Stavia cry >> >at the end of the play/novel. The Council Women do seem to promote its >> >surface comedic aspects to the majority of the women (recall the bit about >> >Myra remembering what an instructor telling her it's a "commentary on >> >preconvulsion attitudes") and leave the hidden message for the more >> >sensitive members to discover. It's interesting that Stavia found it >> >uncomfortable as a child yet says it's a comedy when she's grown up. >> >Corrig's remarks about how he finds the women's view of it as a comedy >> >difficult to understand are fairly intriguing as well. >> >> I didn't quite take her seriously when she told Corrig it was >> supposed to be a comedy. I think there she might have been parroting >> Myras's once upon a time comments to her, because all the rest of the >> way through every time she discussed the play with someone she >> mentions how she never saw all the ways it reminded her of events in >> her own life. I suppose that could be read to mean that her own life >> is a tragedy, which was actually the point that Joy or Janice made in >> earlier messages. I hadn't really seen it totally as a tragedy >> because her relationship with Corrig seems to be a positive one. >> >> >> >> >> >> >- Iris >> > The Crackly Chip >> > >> > >> >From: "Janice E. Dawley" >> >Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 23:23:39 -0500 >> > >> >>Thanks to Sherlyn and Rose for pointing out the exchange in Chapter 6 (and >> >>sorry, Joy). However, I still maintain that the play is not a comedy. A >> >>satire, maybe, but not a funny one. All the evidence Myra cites in her >> >>conversation with Stavia is superficial -- costumes and camp -- and is not >> >>there on the printed page. It sounds to me as if the Council members play >> >>it this way expressly to distract women like Myra from the play's >> >>underlying meaning while leaving the clues in there for the more >> >>discerning. But maybe I am getting carried away in my extrapolation... >> > >> >_________________________________________________________________ >> >Join the worldís largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. >> >http://www.hotmail.com >> >> -- >> 'As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.' >> Virginia Woolf >> > >Laura Quilter / lquilter@exo.net -- 'As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.' Virginia Woolf ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 13:31:22 -0500 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 09:42 AM 3/16/02 -0800, Laura Quilter wrote: >I took comedy not as in the "Three's Company" or even "As You Like It" >sense, but as in tragic comedy ... the comedy is in the irony. Maybe you could explain this thought a little more, Laura? I still don't see how the presence of irony indicates comedy. Stavia, Joshua and Corrig never find it funny or uplifting. The only people laughing at it are the women like Myra who are reacting to its surface. Her descriptions of its trappings do make it sound almost like an episode of "Three's Company"! ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/ Listening to: Tool -- Lateralus "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 13:43:32 EST Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Joy Martin Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: feministsf-lit@uic.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/16/02 11:06:34 AM Central Standard Time, rreith@RACORES.COM writes: << She obviously feels that cataclysm alone is not going to bring about that change - look at the Holylanders she creates. >> Yes, that's one of her contrasts, and she definitely sees the eugenics as working. As you say , it's an interesting thoughtexperiment, and makes us think, athough I don't agree that the eugenics will work as proposed. But I think the book is very well done, as far as it goes, although I disagree with much of its premises. Joy Martin "Absolute attention is prayer" -Simone Weil ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 13:43:33 EST Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Joy Martin Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: feministsf-lit@uic.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/16/02 11:42:21 AM Central Standard Time, lquilter@EXPLORATORIUM.EDU writes: << I took comedy not as in the "Three's Company" or even "As You Like It" sense, but as in tragic comedy ... the comedy is in the irony. >> Yes, tragicomedy, or, if you don't laugh, you cry....there's always an edge to either, or a little bit of each in the other (yinyang if you like). Joy Martin "Absolute attention is prayer" -Simone Weil ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 10:54:23 -0800 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Laura Quilter Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20020316132244.0246cb60@mailbox.bellatlantic.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Well, I suppose it depends on one's definition of humor. I think it is not uncommon, however, to find a sort of humor in irony. I would go so far as to say that even the surface laughter & the surface comedy of the play is ironic, and therefore humorous. People are laughing, even though it's really tragic -- they are fooled by the comedy which masks the tragedy. There's a certain grim amusement to be had in people mistaking tragedy for comedy. It's not light comedy. On Sat, 16 Mar 2002, Janice E. Dawley wrote: > At 09:42 AM 3/16/02 -0800, Laura Quilter wrote: > >I took comedy not as in the "Three's Company" or even "As You Like It" > >sense, but as in tragic comedy ... the comedy is in the irony. > > Maybe you could explain this thought a little more, Laura? I still don't > see how the presence of irony indicates comedy. Stavia, Joshua and Corrig > never find it funny or uplifting. The only people laughing at it are the > women like Myra who are reacting to its surface. Her descriptions of its > trappings do make it sound almost like an episode of "Three's Company"! > > ----- > Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT > http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/ > Listening to: Tool -- Lateralus > "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; > the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and > servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas > Laura Quilter / lquilter@exo.net ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 11:27:38 -0800 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Laura Quilter Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC In-Reply-To: <181.52b9b9b.29c4ec54@cs.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > In a message dated 3/16/02 11:06:34 AM Central Standard Time, > rreith@RACORES.COM writes: > > << She obviously feels that cataclysm alone is not going to bring about > that change - look at the Holylanders she creates. >> > Yes, that's one of her contrasts, and she definitely sees the eugenics as > working. As you say , it's an interesting thoughtexperiment, and makes us > think, athough I don't agree that the eugenics will work as proposed. But I > think the book is very well done, as far as it goes, although I disagree with > much of its premises. "Thought experiment" is how I've always imagined GTWC, and how I've tolerated some of its flaws. My sense is that Tepper plays with, and half-believes, some of the ideas: a certain biological determinism and that violence is genetic. So she thought, let's pretend violence is genetic, and create a novel in which people are trying to breed out the violence ... how would that work? I too disagree with the premise -- but I'm glad there are books out there that play with it. So that people who *do* believe the premise have something to work with to see the consequences of those beliefs, and so that people who *don't* believe the premise can point out the inconsistencies & problems (for instance, the wave-of-the-hand elimination of homosexuality). (Re: homosexuality, my opinion is that she didn't want to deal with it in the novel, because she felt it would distract from the plot & issues she wanted to pursue. So she eliminated it with a wave-of-the-hand. That's arrogance and an uncritical homophobia, but I don't think it's an intentional homophobia, as I've heard argued in the past. I think her work around same-sex attraction has gotten somewhat more sophisticated over the years.) I say that I think she half-believes it, based on nothing more than a general feeling I get from her various books, and from hearing her speak at Wiscon a few years back, and from reading a few interviews. Nothing concrete. I would hope that she doesn't *wholly* believe it. I think of GTWC as Tepper's first book that is really explicitly addressing feminism in a very out way. The Marianne books, the Revenants, her other books all look at women, include a sort of proto-feminism, and include some of the horror elements that show up again and again. But GTWC (published 1989) reads to me as if Tepper had recently started reading a lot of 1970s/1980s feminist theory, and was playing with it in her writing, and the output was GTWC. The works after GTWC all seem to have a more explicitly feminist feel to me, as if Tepper was more conscious of gender issues in the work. So I see GTWC as the initial wrestling, and then an evolution of feminist thought over time. BEAUTY (published 1991), for instance, takes the analysis a little further, and seems to engage not just "patriarchal male violence" (a popular 1970s theme) but also capitalism. BEAUTY also looks at religion in a way that seems to me just a little bit more theoretical than in GTWC -- not just the patriarchal religions that show up again and again in Tepper's work, but the role of religion more broadly. And, BEAUTY deals more with environmentalism. The work after GTWC and BEAUTY all seems to take feminism & environmentalism as a baseline, and doesn't deal with them as expressly as these two works did. I think that's why, after all these years, these are still my favorite of her two works. Maybe that's my take on it, since GTWC was the first Tepper I read -- when I went to the bookstore looking thru the sf section for anything that seemed to relate to women I found GTWC. Here's Tepper's publishing history in brief. I'm curious if others have read her mysteries, or followed her work, and could comment on the development of her feminism over time, and the role of GTWC in that development? True Game series (3 trilogies) 1983 (first novel published) - 1986 THE REVENANTS (1984) (seems very close to horror) Marianne trilogy: 1985 - 1989 BLOOD HERITAGE and THE BONES (1986-1987) (outright horror novels) STILL LIFE (1987/1988); horror under the name E. E. Horlak NORTH SHORE and SOUTH SHORE (1987) (fantasy but close to horror) AFTER LONG SILENCE (1987) * seems like the beginning of her stand-alone large novels GATE TO WOMEN'S COUNTRY (1988) GRASS (1989) RAISING THE STONES (1990) BEAUTY (1991) SIDESHOW (1992) (comprising a loose trilogy with GRASS & RAISING) A PLAGUE OF ANGELS (1993) SHADOW'S END 1994 GIBBON'S DECLINE AND FALL 1996 FAMILY TREE 1997 SIX MOON DANCE 1998 SINGER FROM THE SEA 1999 THE FRESCO 2000 THE VISITOR (forthcoming 2002) mysteries as A. J. Orde, starting in 1989, through 1997 at least mysteries as B. J. Olpiphant, starting 1990, thru 1997 at least On Sat, 16 Mar 2002, Joy Martin wrote: > > Joy Martin > > "Absolute attention is prayer" -Simone Weil > Laura Quilter / lquilter@exo.net ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 15:31:01 -0500 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Rose Reith Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" At 11:27 AM -0800 3/16/02, Laura Quilter wrote: >I too disagree with the premise -- but I'm glad there are books out there >that play with it. So that people who *do* believe the premise have >something to work with to see the consequences of those beliefs, and so >that people who *don't* believe the premise can point out the >inconsistencies & problems (for instance, the wave-of-the-hand elimination >of homosexuality). (Re: homosexuality, my opinion is that she didn't want >to deal with it in the novel, because she felt it would distract from the >plot & issues she wanted to pursue. So she eliminated it with a >wave-of-the-hand. That's arrogance and an uncritical homophobia, but I >don't think it's an intentional homophobia, as I've heard argued in the >past. I think her work around same-sex attraction has gotten somewhat >more sophisticated over the years.) I agree with you, and I think that's the same thing she did by not including anyone of color. She didn't want to go into that discussion too, so she left it out completely. It certainly makes her book easier to use in doing a comparison. It's easy to see what she had to say about certain things and she's not ambiguous about others so there is no question about what she was including in that particular "thought experiment" At 11:27 AM -0800 3/16/02, Laura Quilter wrote: >I say that I think she half-believes it, based on nothing more than a >general feeling I get from her various books, and from hearing her speak >at Wiscon a few years back, and from reading a few interviews. Nothing >concrete. I would hope that she doesn't *wholly* believe it. I wonder about that. I wish I had been at that Wiscon. I wonder how much of her opinion has been formed by her work in the planned parenthood arena, which I believe I read about in a biographical entry on her somewhere. I know that the environment is a big issue for her. That's in an interview that can be read in LOCUS on line. It indicates that she is really adamant about her belief that mankind is ruining the earth and killing off other species in a really dangerous way. At 11:27 AM -0800 3/16/02, Laura Quilter wrote: >I think of GTWC as Tepper's first book that is really explicitly >addressing feminism in a very out way. The Marianne books, the Revenants, >her other books all look at women, include a sort of proto-feminism, and >include some of the horror elements that show up again and again. But >GTWC (published 1989) reads to me as if Tepper had recently started >reading a lot of 1970s/1980s feminist theory, and was playing with it in >her writing, and the output was GTWC. Seems true given the 70's/80's feminist stuff I read to be able to write my thesis. Her book really fits some of that stuff almost point by point. The medical care, the safety factors, the male predisposition to violent behavior, the rejection of patriarchy, the distribution of the child rearing, and making the technological careers all women's work... The only thing she doesn't include that most of the other authors who wrote the same kinds of stories did, are the relationships among the women. All I can figure is that deep down she is an old fashioned Catholic or Mainline Protestant who truely believes that alternative lifestyles are not acceptable. I know an awful lot of people who believe that also, despite the fact that they all seem to know people who are gay. I guess Tepper just wouldn't want to include it in her vision of the future. I did think that whole section about the HENRAMs was offensive, since she combines talk of homosexuality / lesbianism with abusive behavior of a warrior toward young boys in the garrison. If you read that section multiple times it is clear that Stavia isn't really saying the two things are the same, but on first reading it, and actually several more after that, I really thoguht she was trying to equate being gay with being a child abuser, and that really bothered me. At 11:27 AM -0800 3/16/02, Laura Quilter wrote: > The works after GTWC all seem to >have a more explicitly feminist feel to me, as if Tepper was more >conscious of gender issues in the work. So I see GTWC as the initial >wrestling, and then an evolution of feminist thought over time. BEAUTY >(published 1991), for instance, takes the analysis a little further, and >seems to engage not just "patriarchal male violence" (a popular 1970s >theme) but also capitalism. BEAUTY also looks at religion in a way that >seems to me just a little bit more theoretical than in GTWC -- not just >the patriarchal religions that show up again and again in Tepper's work, >but the role of religion more broadly. And, BEAUTY deals more with >environmentalism. Sadly I cannot recall too much about Beauty. I know I read it, and I have also read Family Tree, which I greatly enjoyed and would say that it has lots of environmental commentary. I have been trying not to read any more Tepper until I get the thesis totally finished so that I won't be influenced by any of her later works, or get mixed up about what happens in them... Rose -- 'As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.' Virginia Woolf ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 12:51:38 -0800 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Laura Quilter Subject: theses & dissertations Comments: To: feministsf-lit@uic.edu, feministsf@uic.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII hi. it seems like a lot of list members have written papers, theses, dissertations, on various aspects of feminist sf. i would love to make some of this research that people have already done available to others. we'd put it on the www.feministsf.org website, fully attributed, and linked to any other website or email address that people have. alternatively, if you have your material already posted, or don't want it posted but would be willing to send copies of it on request, i'd love to get the citations (your name, title, why you wrote it (dissertation, class paper), date, brief synopsis, works & authors cited). finally even if you don't want to share your work, but it is a dissertation or a thesis, *please* send me the citation (and the above information). i'll add it to the criticism database. thanks a lot. laura quilter feministsf webmaster / listmistress ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 16:36:07 EST Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Joy Martin Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: feministsf-lit@uic.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yes, I think I've read them all from Gate on, more or less as they were issued. Thanks for the listing and the comments on the development of her work. I do enjoy Tepper. It's just been a long time since I read Gate, until this reread. We've all changed, too, not just Tepper.As it should be. Joy Martin "Absolute attention is prayer" -Simone Weil ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 15:20:47 -0800 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: lquilter Subject: want to play with list archives ? Comments: To: feministsf@uic.edu, feministsf-lit@uic.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII hi, this is the web/list mistress speaking. i've got complete sets of the list archives. i want to do several things with them: (1) go through the large archive files and break them down into weekly archives, and go through the files and clean them up -- delete attachments, organize line length, make some URLs hyperlinks (2) most fun of all, go through the indexes and pull out all the messages on particular topics. authors, books, generic topics (such as, "Black Women," "women and war," "sexism in the Hugos" etc.). Probably, anyone could do this on topics of their choice. But you would need to look at *all* the archives for *both* lists -- that's feministsf since March 1997, and feministsf-lit since April 1999. So you would need a mail program that can read *.mbx files, and you would need to be pretty comfortable with ftp. If you're interested, please send me an email. If you're not interested in working, but have a topic that you would love to have indexed, send me an email about that, too. Laura Quilter / lquilter@feministsf.org ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2002 12:24:38 +1100 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Julieanne Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC , feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" When I first read GTWC, I found it wonderful - as it was one of the first I read that had the women actually "doing something" even if it was something I didn't agree with. I also read it at the same time, as Pamela Sergeants "The Shore of Women" - and I can't recall which was published first but they did come out close together, and I do remember thinking at the time that they must have influenced each other. Sergeant's work also had the post-holocaust women's walled city-state, technically advanced more or less, but with some differences - the boys were memory-wiped at age 5 and returned to their fathers who lived primitively in the wilds outside the walls. Men were somehow told to come to some rooms on the outside of the walls, where they were drugged and exposed to pornography and their semen milked mechanically for reproduction. Heterosexuality was never practised, as in the Holdfast chronicles - each to their own in terms of sexuality. Women who did not fully comply with the city-states rules were punished by exile into the wilds with the men, and the story follows one young woman who is exiled. With Tepper's later works however, I often see variations upon this theme started in GTWC of "women doing something". I have read most of her works, but many one after the other and I feel that I must have over-dosed on Tepper as after that I started to get annoyed with the constant semi-horror theme as applied to women, but that's a minor matter - except inasmuch as the women, or sometimes individual protagonist, only takes action AFTER the horror has done its deed. And many feminist writers I feel use this scenario, where women only take action after some triggering event, the holocaust or whatever. As in Joanna Russ's Female Man, where one of the alternate future women admits that they actively took the lives of men in order to build Whileaway - but it was only after great horror that the women took such drastic action. Similarly in the Wanderground, where the women separated, but only after the big-bang so to speak. Even in Mary Daly's 'Quintessence' its like saying we have to wait until men have totally messed things up before we can "do anything" to restructure society. There is also often a contrasting plot element demonstrating what happens if we don't "do something" - as in Tepper's Holylanders. The other common alternative is that it happens more or less by accident, as in Nicola Griffith's Ammonite. Its like we all assume women cannot change the world on their own initiative - they have to be pushed, goaded under extreme external pressures or accidentally dropped into it. In GTWC I also felt that the women's actions were very much like mother cleaning up the world after little Johnny has broken all the toys, and this theme of "cleaning up" after the men is a common theme of Tepper's and others. Just for a change, I'd like to read a plausible feminist story of women taking action on their own collective initiative before being forced to it, being proactive before the event instead of just reacting afterwards in circumstances of 'needs must'. In addition to the hand-waving dismissal of homosexuality, my other annoyance with Tepper, is my feeling that Tepper has some ambivalence towards the mother-daughter relationship. Or it may be some ambivalence towards just young women in general, or all women-women friendships/bonding. In GTWC there is the Morgot-Stavia mostly healthy relationship in contrast to the Morgot-Myra relationship. In later books, the Morgot-Myra type of relationship is the more common, where the daughter figure is presented as closer to the father-figure, (whether positive or negative - they are "Daddy's girls" etc) and nearly all her women protagonists have a strong focus on the mother-son relationship in contrast. But even in GTWC, Morgot is still ambivalent towards Stavia, and is on at least one occasion admonished by Joshua for her harsh judgement of Stavia. Most of the affection & bonding is father-daughter in style - even Corrig's behaviour towards Stavia is very "fatherly" and wise etc. There was a very strong focus on the grief of mothers over their sons for example, it comes up several times - and yet I got the feeling that when Myra left it was shrugged off by Morgot, and even when Stavia is nearly killed, Morgot is almost cold and clinical. Again it is the servitors, Joshua and Corrig (and Septemius) who provide nearly all the affection and support for Stavia afterwards. Although there didn't seem to be one iota of sympathy for Myra, (we readers are also meant to find her unpleasant to have around, along with Beneda), even Chernon is treated more sympathetically, to the point where his family grieve deeply over his childhood actions and keep hoping he will change and return, and Stavia accepts Chernon's rape and even unpleasant nasty companionship with far more equanimity and for far longer than anybody will tolerate Myra's whining & surliness. In addition to my annoyance over her rejection of lesbianism, I dislike Tepper's treatment of prostitution in her novels even more so - possibly because unlike the lesbianism which is largely absent, prostitution is largely present and often presented as the women's 'own choice' with no analysis. I wasn't aware of Tepper's Catholic background until someone mentioned it here on the list - and her rejection of female bonding now makes much more sense to me, (and I should have twigged with Grass & Sideshow) - not just in her rejection of lesbianism, but also in rejection of the value of Mother-Daughter (or female-female relationships of any kind) and her focus on Mother-Son/Father-Daughter, and by extension of women in general 'mothering' men and society in general. Her women protagonists are often variations upon the image of Mary - where the Mother-Son relationship is paramount, just her 'Mary' characters take different approaches to the "creation" of her Sons, or "Jesus" characters. In GTWC, 'Mary' is 'creating' Jesus through genetic manipulation over generations. Through creating the Son, she also creates the Father - the "right" kind of Father for our daughters to love. In Family Tree, the Marys are the animals and Jesus is finally created after 1,000 years or so of silent penance by humanity, and strict breeding restrictions (but as always, men have their "needs" for sexual outlet, and so women are encouraged or given to men for sexual access without reproduction) - its telling that the first human to speak is a relatively subservient and gentle male who, like Jesus, (the "new Man') will lead his people to their new lives. In Six Moon Dance, the Marys attempted to create their Jesus by removing girls at birth and whisking them away off-planet, in order to make females scarce and therefore socially valuable with high status - but again, the women were only valuable in their role as mothers. I was upset when this "secret" comes out at the end of Six Moon Dance, because the woman who arrives in "judgement" of the planet accepts this complete rejection of mother-daughter relationships as completely OK, simply because the girls aren't actually killed. Women who aren't mothers are given short shrift by Tepper - as in the gypsies in GTWC, these women don't matter much to those in Women's Country except for their ability to pass on disease - whereas great sympathy is extended to the Holylander women. The gypsies are seen as having made their 'own choice' - but I wonder how much of this 'choice' may have stemmed from feelings of rejection from their mothers totally obsessed with their sons to the exclusion of their daughters. To Tepper women are still only born to be sacrificed for the greater glory of God the Father, the Son and Holy Ghost - but her Vision of God/Father/Son is a much gentler, sweeter and a nicer version of masculinity - hence a vision much more worthy of female sacrifice I guess. There is still the Madonna/Whore split in Tepper's visions - her Madonna may have flaws, makes mistakes, and sometimes makes harsh decisions and even espouses the occasional use of violence when absolutely necessary - but her love for the Son/Father is still the ultimate objective. Julieanne ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 19:16:11 -0800 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Margaret McBride Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii >In re-thinking the play within the book, I wonder if it points to Tepper's >own ambivalence. Iphegenia is a victim, a sacrifice, a woman betrayed, and to >make her a central image is to say that all women are stuck in those roles. >phoebe w >At a conference one time when the topic of the play came up in a discussion, Tepper said we should pay attention to the name of the play. It isn't Trojan Women any more; it is Iphegenia at Illium and in reality Iphegenia never makes it to Troy except as a ghost. Her death and the lies told to bring her to her death and after her death are what enable the war to happen at all to kill the Trojans, enslave the women, etc. I took that statement to mean that extreme measures, Machivellian ones, were legitimate on the part of the women because the other choices were so awful. Look at Morgot's statement to the 11-year old Stavia: we women make horrible decisons because we think the other choices are even worse(paraphrasing). I find the decision problematic in the extreme (as has been said, why don't they do more with socialization especially in the beginning when the number of men was few); however, given the setup in the book (aggression is genetic in humans--compare with some of Octavia Butler's works), their solution after having seen the human race nearly wiped out does make sense: socialization will not work; we must change the species. I will again say that a number of things about the book bother me as have already been discussed but I have some more positive reactions too: I appreciate that Tepper problematizes the Machivellian actions more than she does in most of her later, other books--she gives us Myra as an example of someone who could have been happy and contributed to society if the structure had not been so rigid, she has the council women admitting that they doubt they will go to heaven if such a place exists, etc. My other most positive reaction is for style. I think the use of the 2 timeperiods each one running chronologically interspersed with the play also in sequence is remarkably well done. Go back and reread the first chapter after knowing the whole plot--the clues, bits and pieces that will surface later are incredibly well set up. Did you notice that the doorknob of the gate (the one the servitors use and the mothers use when saying goodbye to the 15-year old sons) is a pomegranate? I take that as a reference of the way into Hades. etc. 3rd, I have taught it with freshmen in college for several years and it always gets lots of thoughtful discussion as it has this month here. For example, one student the most recent time saw the book as a kind of satire on the impossibility of "superwomen having it all" of the time period written unless extreme changes were made in the ways men and women related to each other. I'm not sure I buy that but it as well as all kinds of other interesting ideas were brought up in the class of 19-20 year olds. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 22:14:53 -0500 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Rose Reith Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC In-Reply-To: <3.0.6.32.20020317122438.00dcaa40@pop.ozemail.com.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" At 12:24 PM +1100 3/17/02, Julieanne wrote: >I wasn't aware of Tepper's Catholic background until someone mentioned it >here on the list - and her rejection of female bonding now makes much more >sense to me, (and I should have twigged with Grass & Sideshow) - not just >in her rejection of lesbianism, but also in rejection of the value of >Mother-Daughter (or female-female relationships of any kind) and her focus >on Mother-Son/Father-Daughter, and by extension of women in general >>'mothering' men and society in general. I hope your info as to Tepper having a Catholic background didn't come from my earlier post. It was purely speculation on my part. Simply an assumption that coming from a Catholic or Mainline Protestant background might be an explanation for her avoidance of gay and lesbian relationships. I apologize if you read it elsewhere on the list and I am just jumping in and assuming it was my post, but I did want to clarify that I have no proof that she's Catholic or whatever. I'd almost say she wouldn't be because of her work with a planned parenthood sort of organization for which she wrote pamphlets etc. for years before she became a novelist. -- 'As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the whole world.' Virginia Woolf ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 19:28:39 -0800 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Margaret McBride Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii A dumb question about the line "time enough to learn the way to Hell and >back again." in Chapter 33. Back again to what? Back again to Hell or back >again to the living? Is the Hell mentioned referring to Women's Country? >- Iris I too have always found the ending confusing although I assume it is meant to have that kind of poetic ambiguity. Look at the bit about "coming into harbor"--good analogy but then it's a barren harbor and the water to bring it back to life is in a sieve. I have decided that the whole ending is meant to be positive (after all a few drops can be on a sieve) but in a very dour, time-consuming way. That is, they have committed themselves to horrible actions, that by all moral standards are terrible in killing their own sons and lovers and lieing to them and the other women; but they believe in the long run (maybe very long) these actions will give a better life to the human race and other women especially. One other support for my reading of the ending--Joshua weeps. Joshua in the Old Testament is the one who brings the Israelites into the Promised Land after 40 years of wandering. This Joshua is the symbol of promise (a servitor, father, etc.) but he is also weeping for them all--the pain of the women and servitors for lieing, causing deaths, etc. and the betrayal of the men and other women. > >_________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2002 11:46:55 +0800 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Sherlyn Quek Subject: Re: Gate to Women's Country Comments: To: feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed I still can't figure out that line. Like most of the book, the meaning is fairly ambigious. "Time enough to learn the way to Hell and back again." Is she saying that Dawid (and by extension all the other warrior-sons) had enough time to learn about Women's Country(Hell)and decide to go back, or in this case, not go back to WC)? And as such, deserves his fate? I wonder if that makes sense. Still feeling rather slow today. :P Also, I find the idea that sinking to their (aka the mens')level of violence (although in a different, more subtly manipulative way) in order to prevent such violence from the men fairly ironic ... but I suppose I agree that they seem to justify it through the idea that they're "doing it for the good of humankind" while the men apparently fight for stupid reasons. Your previous post mentioned the pomegranate on the door/gate as a referene of the way into Hell. How? I would like to know more about that. It sounds familiar but I can't seem to recall the reference. - Iris The Crumbly Biscuit >From: Margaret McBride >I too have always found the ending confusing although I assume it is meant >to have that kind of poetic ambiguity. Look at the bit about "coming into >harbor"--good analogy but then it's a barren harbor and the water to bring >it back to life is in a sieve. I have decided that the whole ending is >meant to be positive (after all a few drops can be on a sieve) but in a >very dour, time-consuming way. That is, they have committed themselves to >horrible actions, that by all moral standards are terrible in killing their >own sons and lovers and lieing to them and the other women; but they >believe in the long run (maybe very long) these actions will give a better >life to the human race and other women especially. One other support for >my reading of the ending--Joshua weeps. Joshua in the Old Testament is the >one who brings the Israelites into the Promised Land after 40 years of >wandering. This Joshua is the symbol of promise (a servitor, father, etc.) >but he is also weeping for them all--the pain of the women and servitors >for lieing, causing deaths, etc. and the betrayal of the men and other >women. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 19:52:15 -0800 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: lquilter Subject: old tepper comments Comments: To: feministsf-lit@uic.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII i scanned thru the list archives & pulled up some of the old tepper discussions. they are listed now at www.feministsf.org/femsf/listserv/bytopic/tepper.txt it's not at all a complete list of all the discussions on tepper from the list, but it does have some, probably most, of it. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 21:20:17 -0800 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Lee Anne Phillips Subject: Re: BDG: Gate Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC , feministsf-lit@UIC.EDU In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 12:42 PM 3/16/02 -0500, Rose Reith wrote: >At 1:03 PM -0800 3/8/02, Lee Anne Phillips wrote: >>slaughter. After much thought, this cozy arrangement >>has pierced me to the heart with its denial of love, of >>the deep tenderness possible in both men and women, >>and of our common humanity. > >I think that Morgot and Joshua, and Stavia and Corrig, do have that >deep tenderness between them as couples. Certainly the way they act >with each other and the way Joshua acts so fatherly toward Stavia and >even Myra, who is not really his daughter, shows that he cares about >the females with whom he lives. I think what Tepper is trying to get I didn't get that, but I may have been so turned off by rest of the society by then I might not have noticed it. The other way of looking at it might be that these men are acting as perfect "servitors" as well, since the only time they can demonstrate this "affection" is when they are alone. The same might be said of any sex worker. >>The real effect of this >>breeding program, this inane tinkering with the very >>basis of our human lives, is quite likely to be ruin for >>us all. We don't understand it. We don't understand >>life at all, and our arrogance and ignorance are as >>>capable of destroying us with DNA as with atomic bombs. > >I'm not sure that breeding for a less violent human is going to >change our DNA that much. The DNA of those who continue will also be >human DNA. And I suppose even that sort of argument could be >partially refuted by Tepper's offering of the Holylanders as the >opposite extreme. Yes, it would be human DNA, but every human gene codes for multiple characteristics, as many or twenty or even more. And they are not necessarily linked in any direct way. Not that we know anything much about what traits are overlaid on the few genes for which we know only one characteristic. So, as an imaginary example, let's suppose that the same gene (or set of genes) that code for human aggressiveness also code for normal resolution of Patent Ductus Arteriosus, the opening by means of which the fetus avoids passing blood through the lungs while the lungs are non-functional. In that case, reduction of aggression might mean an increase in potentially fatal heart defects. While this defect can be repaired surgically, if the gene became widespread, any scenario in which medical knowledge or access is reduced becomes a bottleneck beyond which humanity may not survive. >>>> And there is a crypto-racism inherent in her scheme, since it would >>>> be easy to demonstrate that young African-American males are >>>> responsible for a disproportionate share of violent crime and might >>>> therefore have to be culled even more drastically. > >I don;t recall any mention at all of people of color in the book, but >I don;t think young Arfican Americans would be any more prone to >choosing to stay in the garrison than young white males. I think the >garrison would be equally challenging and equally enticing to all >boys. There really wouldn't be any distinction made over them, since >from the age of 5 forward they would be in the garrison with the rest >of the guys. But in fact, at this point in "history," there are no Black, Hispanic, Asian, or any other non-white males. Surely their absence is curious, since the post-apocalypse world is presumably selected randomly. The fact that there are no persons of color left implies that some sort of non-random selection has taken place already. While it's true that she doesn't mention this, Tepper can't be let off the hook by the mere idea that she didn't want to address this issue. If you want to avoid race, one has to posit an alien culture. If one deals with humanity on this earth, the absence of "others" implies murder and genocide. >>By culled, I mean that the men they want to kill are sent, >>like Uriah, into the thick of battle and are so destroyed. > >Only if they had chosen to stay in the garrison. Then presumably, all the males of color *have* stayed in the garrison, failed to father any children, and their genetic heritage is completely expunged from the future. And the only males who survive the garrison and enter the gate to women's country are evidently white. Oh, my. Funny how that all worked out, isn't it? ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 17 Mar 2002 09:12:21 -0500 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Rose Reith Subject: Re: BDG: Gate Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20020316195520.009fa8d0@www.leeanne.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Ok, I'll grant you the "funny how that all worked out", but still there really is no proof that there are no people of color. There don't seem to be any in Marthatown, but we really don't get that good a picture of the rest of the population of Marthatown or the other towns. Just because the people they specifically talk about are not described as being of some other race doesn't mean they are not there. There are actually very few people described in that much detail in the novels. Morgot's family is described, Sylvia, Beneda and Chernon are described ( I'm assuming - I actually don't recall specifics.) Barten is described, right down to that "cutest little bottom". And the other people we meet specifically as fairly important characters all appear to be white - Septimus Bird and his family, etc. However the rest of the town could be all multi-racial - it really doesn't say. I am not really trying to defend Tepper, though I acknowlwdge that it certainly seems as if I am, but she doesn't write anything about watching a sea of only white faces march off to war when the garrison leaves to fight Susantown etc. nor does she specifically say that all the women watching them go are white either. However, not mentioning it does seem to imply that means that it probably isn't there. So, were the founders of Women's Country from one of those gated communities in California ( I have always assumed that GTWC is set in a post apocalyptic Northern California - the ocean in the west, the locations of the ruined land to the south and east - implying that at least one of the bombs