On Fri, 18 Apr 1997 11:05:35 -0500 Michael Marc Levy wrote:
> >>Question: does anyone know of any feminist utopian works that
don't
> >>portray men or male institutions as "the problem"?
>
> On Fri, 18 Apr 1997, Kate Williams wrote:
>
> > Octavia Butler is my answer to Judith. Now who else can I read
while I'm
> > waiting for her new book to come out?
>
> It seems to me that almost by definition it is the role of utopian and
> dystopian literature to react against the world as it currently is.
Utopian
> works simply emphasize how things can get better, whereas
dystopian works
> emphasize how things can get worse. Thus, since western
civilization is
> largely a result of male-dominated institutions and since a
significant
> percentage of the problems in western civilization are the result of
> male violence, it would be hard to imagine a feminist work that
wasn't
> reacting against them.
>
> Butler is less explicitly anti-male (or anti-male institutions) than
some
> feminist sf writers, but the critique of male institutions is still
> there. In Xenogenesis, Parable of the Sower, and most of Butler's
other
> books violence usually comes from males, most often, though not
always,
> white males. In Suzy McKee Charnas's Motherlines and The
Furies women
> show themselves to be capable of violence too, but mostly due to
their
> willingness to copy male methods.
>
> Perhaps the best (from a male perspective!) that can be hoped for
is that
> the author of a feminist utopia or dystopia will portray some men as
> having overcome their conditioning and/or testosterone poisoning,
as for
> example in Woman on the Edge of Time, The Female Man, and
Gate to Women's
> Country, and Butler's books, all of which show a minority of men
who are
> decent human beings.
>
> Mike Levy
Samuel Delany's Triton is utopian, feminist and not anti-men, but as
Mike says, the reality is that they *are* the problem. Even those
women who make it to positions of power tend to do so by taking on
male values, so it changes little.
Farah
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