Dear Tanya (and everyone else),
About Molly (from Neuromancer). I considered her to be a very sexist
construct. In Neuromancer, I got the impression that power was not
physical but intellectual/electronic. So, Molly's physical "prowess"
wasn't really all that important. Also, she was the most sexualized
character in the book. The sex with Molly and Case was going on the
entire book. I guess I just have a "dirty picture" view of Molly. She
seemed like some sort of male fantasy, a little non-traditional fantasy,
but a sex-object none the less. I am sure that I could have read it
differently, but I think the sex-object was at least in there.
I have GOT to read _The Female Man_. I feel so left out. Before all of
these testimonials it was the title that turned me off. It was an older
book at the library and seemed like it might be about women becoming
like men. Without other insight from friends and so on the cover IS the
only way to judge a book (before you read it). It seems I misjudged.
I am more than uneasy about only "turning on" feminist analysis for works
by women. Just to make it clear, I think there are several works by men
deserving of consideration as feminist (and even queer-feminist) and
works by women that are patriarchal and/or sexist. In this case, I would
say that _Trouble and Her Friends_ should be considered queer-feminist for
at least these reasons:
1) the protagonists are women who are smart, "intrinsically powerful,"
complex, and "identifiable with" (I run out of words easily).
2) the issues that they deal with include sexism and homophobia
(demonstrated rather than simply named)
3) these same issues of sexism and homophobia are part of (or
indicitave of) larger disturbing societal problems that are demonstrated
in the background and linked to the protagonists and their specific
problems in complex ways.
All of this is only my own reading and opinion of course :)
In a way, you could say that the book is feminist simply because a woman
wrote it. After all, it wasn't that long ago that it would never have
been published. Also, there is an expectation that only a book by
a woman can properly address what it means to be a woman. However, I
don't give much weight to that anymore.
-- Joel VanLaven
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:14 PDT