Hi,
Two works that have always struck me as having interesting feminist
implications (although that was not their intent) and that deal with Vonda
N. McIntyre's original request are E.A.S. Butterworth's _The Tree At The
Navel Of The Earth_ (Berlin 1970) which deals with the branches and fruit
of the Tree of Life as it appears in the art and myths of Greece while
tracing with great detail its origin in ancient Asia (contains an original
take on Lilith), truly a fascinating work of scholarship. The other is
E.A.S. Butterworth's (_Some Traces of the Pre-Olympian World In Greek
Literature and Myth_ Berlin 1966) in which Butterworth studies the
alterations to the greek language (particularly gender endings) undertaken
by Plato and the Academy that rewrote the matrilineal history of Greece and
gave it a more politically correct (as Plato saw it) patriarchal tone.
On The Barbie side of things a while back on WTN (Women's Television
Network) I saw a 1991 documentary by the BBC called "Boobs in Toyland"
which is a very witty history of Barbie and fills in the gaps in one's
knowledge of Barbie. It also has some amusing "home" animation. It is
insighful, indirectly, on the co-founder of Mattel Ruth Handler who named
the doll after her daughter Barbie. After leaving the company in 1974 she
went on to found _Nearly Me_ which makes plastic breasts for women who have
had a mastectomy. A whole life spent dealing with plastic dreams.
Minor weird factoids: (1)Apparently Barbie made more money than Madonna in
1990 (the year of the documentary and a very big year for Madonna); (2)
Ruth Handler argued for the 'bulge' in Ken's pants as well (which grew over
the years).
A short story with a Barbie SF twist is "The Barbie Murders" by John Varley
who often deals with shifting sexual identities, as he does in this work.
jmj at jjamieson@odyssey.on.ca
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