_Egalia's Daughters: A Satire of the Sexes_ by Gerd Brantenberg
is the finest example of societal sex-role reversal I've ever
come across. Unlike most sex-role reversals in fiction, this
one is actually feminist, & is so detailed & exact in its reversals
that wonderfully exposes the workings of sex-marked hierarchies
in many areas of personal & public lives. When I read it in 1986
(The Seal Press put out an edition of it in 1985), it made very
plain how most sex-role reversals are written with an anti-feminist
intention of showing how awful it is for women to have power by
basically exploiting widespread fears (among both women & men)
of the power of Mother, always so much nastier than the power
of Father. Brantenberg does not avoid the power of Mother,
but rationalizes it, making it correspond to our ideas of Father's
power, & projects onto the male characters the kind of power we
associate with Mother. Having said that, I think I want to reread
it. Sometimes its salutary to go back & get newly abraded by
the edges that get just all too dull & blunt as they recede in
one's memory.
Timmi Duchamp
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