>> -- Joel VanLaven
>>
>
>I agree with Joel (who seems to have a fabulous memory to me). I remember
>Jessica saying something to Chani like "they call us concubines now but
>history, history will call us wives". That is women are only valauable
>insofar
>as they are legitimate adjuncts to Dukes and Emperors.
Be careful of saying "only" in this context, since that's not the case.
Otherwise all the B.G.s would be adjuncts to Dukes and Emperors.
In terms of being a
>feminist organisation, the Bene
>Gesserit don't cut it:
Who said they were?
they distribute their members to whatever royal
>family seems likely to produce the mystical male figure, regardless of any
>personal horrors they cause. So we have women as sites
>of reproduction, and pawns becuase of it, yet again. And their power is
>achieved through traditional methods
>like feminine wiles). And the "Kawitz Haderach" (?) has the power
>to see into both male and female pasts: a male can subsume the female,
>but the opposite is just not possible.
And who wanted the Kwisatz Haderach in the first place? This genetic
manipulation was a plan of the Bene Gesserits. The women who were sites of
reproduction knew this and agreed to it. Look what happened to Jessica
when she deviated from what the Reverend Mothers wanted: she got bitched
out big-time. Simply-put, the B.G. were seeking power and, according to
the prophecy, that power would come in the form of a man who could "go
where we cannot". What the B.G. wanted to do was control that man, and
they came very close to doing so. You can say it's sexist that the B.G.
couldn't control that man, but neither could the Tleilaxu or the Harkonnens
or the Emperor or the Fremen or the Mentats. Heck, even the Guild couldn't
control him. The only ones that had some measure of control over Paul, and
that only in that he would listen to them, were Chani and, perhaps, Jessica.
Sounds very familiar to me. Women
>are not powerless in Dune, but I don't think that having a woman with
>power is neccesarily the real criteria that should be used to
>measure feminism (I drag out the Margaret Thatcher example yet again).
>HOW that power is used is more vital.
>
Seconded.
>Tanya.
-Sean
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