Sorry everyone for bringing this up again, but I'm intrigued.
With regards to the issue of separatism (of the sexes) in novels such as
Joanna Russ's The_Female_Man and Suzy McKee Charnas' _Motherlines_ what
does everyone think about its feminist consequences? Is it merely an
explorative and/or narrative tool or does it have wider implications?
Is it the separatism which makes these works utopic/dystopic?
I also thought the idea of 'freedom' as such, very interesting as well as
the quite prevalent use of violence in both whileaway and the free fems
tea camp and even in the raids etc of the riding women, especially seeing
it was socially sanctioned. I'd also be interested in anyone's response
to the prevalence of anti-monagamous relations in both books. To me it
was tied up in the notion of freedom again, the whole issue of being
owned but also intrigued me in the fact that in Charnas this seemed to
be accepted in the 'dystopia' of the holdfast amongst both males and
females as well as the 'utopia's' of the fems and the women. Why did they
carry this practice (talking specifically about the fems now)over if it
reminded them so much of the old ways? As well as the other contradictory
elements of their almost feudal (serf/lord slave/master) class system
etc. Was this irony supposed to illustrate a "no matter how things change
they stay the same" type analogy or that they are inherently human
characteristics that can't be helped-
I'll spare you all and stop now!
-Bridget-
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:07:33 PDT