I wrote:
>The idea that the "power" to conceive and bear children necessarily
>creates an imbalance between the sexes is not very convincing to me.
At 05:27 PM 7/19/97 -0400, Anne V Stuecker wrote:
>If I'm remembering the book correctly, the purpose of the brooder was to
>allow men and women to perform whatever tasks they chose without any
>tasks being specifically applied to one sex.
As Luciente explains after the tour of the brooder:
"It was part of women's long revolution. When we were breaking all the old
hierarchies. Finally there was that one thing we had to give up too, the
only power we ever had, in return for no more power for anyone. The
original production: the power to give birth. Cause as long as we were
biologically enchained, we'd never be equal. And males never would be
humanized to be loving and tender. So we all became mothers." (page 105 of
the Fawcett paperback).
That is all the explanation the book ever gives for the brooders. But with
that one snippet, Piercy raises many fascinating questions:
1) What does it mean to be "biologically enchained"? Some, such as St.
Augustine, would argue that having a body at all (with its attendant lusts)
means that we are enchained.
2) If equality means erasing differences between people, why isn't everyone
in Mattapoisett exactly the same?
3) What does Piercy mean by the word "power"?
4) Is it really impossible for men to be loving and tender while women have
the ability to bear children?
There are more I can think of, but those are the most obvious questions. I
want to stress here that I really loved the book and agree with Joan Haran
that "its flaws are as stimulating to debate as its successes." I also just
bought a copy of _He, She & It" and will be interested to compare the two.
-- Janice
-----
Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT
http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm
Listening to: Feed Your Head, Volume 2; The Best of Márta Sebestyén
"...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
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