Erik Tsai suggests
>Does a "queer" perspective really differ from a feminist one? I think Eve
>Sedgwick and Judith Butler might say no, since their theoretical work >tends
to cross through both those perspectivs. Poppy Z. Brite's novels >may not be
feminist per se, but could we, following Cixous, call her work >*ecriture
feminine*? Could it be not so much the content of what she >writes as the way
she writes that would make her a feminist writer? This >is of course more in
the French tradition of feminist writing which goes >against American
practicality. American feminist writers tend to be very
>interested in the politics of content. French feminist writers are more
>interested in the politics of form. That may be oversimplifying the
>difference though.
Perhaps I should clarify: I actually found Brite's work tending towards
misogyny, or at least a distinct privileging of male experience (gay or not)
over female. Not just not overtly feminist.
Whatever the French theories of 'ecriture feminine' (and I'm not sure PB is
practising this), I should point out that politically and economically French
women were well in arrears of much the rest of Western Europe for quite some
time (e.g. didn't get the vote until 1945). It could be that emphasising a
cultural and separate spheres mode is/was to some extent the result of a
situation where other rights were unavailable or highly contested. I may be
wrong!
Lesley
Lesley_Hall@msn.com
----------
From: For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature on behalf
of Erik Tsao
Sent: 17 July 1997 12:08
To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU
Subject: Poppy Z. Brite
Lesley Hall wrote:
>[M]y distinct impression that she was not a feminist and was not
>writing from this perspective, a feeling reinforced by press interviews in
>which she claimed that she was 'really' a gay man (though I believe she has
>since married, something gay men are not yet generally permitted to do...). I
>suppose she could claim to be writing from a 'queer'/transgressive
>perspective? But I think this differs somewhat from feminism.
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