One of the questions that comes to my mind is how the power does or
doesn't shift depending on disruptions in the balance of sexes in the
population. In most fiction, it seems that either way, the men retain
control - If there are too many women, the men have harems, if there are
too many men, they fight over the women. Even The Gate to Women's
Country had an example of this old order in the Holylander family that
kidnapped Stavia. Although The White Plague posits that a shortage of
eomen will give women the power to pick and choose, that too contains
pockets (granted its in Catholic Ireland, during the plauge itself)
where one man holds a group of young women "for their own safety!" No
wonder so many authors have thought that killing off the men was the
only solution! (I did live through the Sixties and Seventies).
Still resolving my own anger,
Susan Courtney
Michelle Bernard wrote:
>
> Okay, so I've tried to sit and think about about this
> My first (but maybe not best) reaction to the reason for sepratism is
> the time-frame the book was written. I don't know how good an answer
> this is (late '60s, early '70s) but sometimes those of use who didn't
> live through times (I'm only 25 and all my experience of feminist lib
> during the '70s is vicarious and at least half academic) can't judge the
> anger at the status quo. I get angry thinking about the problems then,
> and sometimes it does seem (even now) that seperatism would be a
> solution. It's just not going to happen. SO, the miraculous or
> catastrophic ways to eliminate the other sex provide a way of working
> out a vastly different cultural influence.
> As to why there don't "seem" to be all-male separatist u/distopias, I
> don't think it's solely biology. The men towards the end of Walk to the
> End of the World wanted to eliminate women for the most part, and other
> books work out (non-sep) means for artificial wombs, etc. One part
> might be the prevalent male homophobia covered up by a "boys' club"
> atmosphere. I would say it is technically easier for women to procreate
> without men, but modern and SF technology often seems to work more
> towards procreation without women. Besides, often in novels males in
> the plot are separated from women (military, technology escapades) OR it
> is much easier to envision a world (like the Holdfast) where men
> dominate women and have no reason to eliminate them (esp immediately).
> Freedom is something very interesting, especially where freedom of
> person conflicts with society. I think one way this is more easily
> expressed is through the prevalence of non-monogamous relationships
> between women. From being "owned" by one (or many) men into
> self-direction... it seems that one of the first ways (possibly) women
> would express rebellion would be to try to eliminate this possessiveness
> in sex/caring relationships. But again, it takes some time to get there
> (witness the Free Fems' system still harem-like while the Riding Women
> try hard for the opposite). I think (as on Whileaway) that promoting a
> family of women so that even birth-mother doesn't have possession of a
> child (unlike the patriarchal father).
> I do want to emphasize this though
> >"being free might mean the same as "being the master" if their only terms of
> reference were those of the" master. I would say that is one of the
> things to be fought against when becoming "free" as freedom would mean
> different things. That's a way of looking at the differences between
> the Js in the Female-Man and the methods of achieving separatism. Jael
> said that Whileaway was started on a war, which would of necessity be
> denied. Violence responses to violence begets Jael's world. Okay, this
> is getting confused, but I hope you see what I'm trying to say. As for
> why the violence exists, it would take a while to breed out the need for
> violent action from an angry people who never were able to express that
> agression physically. The Holdfast fems certainly were conditioned
> against it.
> As for a peaceful separatism... I think some of the most peaceful ways
> that it sep could be achieved is via catastrophe. Are "masters" going
> to (as a group) willingly give up control? One thing that comes to mind
> is Piercy's _He, She, and It_ with the women in the Black Zone. They
> took a created situation (assuming they did not create it themselves)
> and separated themselves. Only by those convenient deadly to mostly
> males pandemics is it otherwise going to happen, and if the women create
> this... it's also warlike (IMO), even if an act of desperation.
> Some other things to think about are the works that ostensibly have
> women and men existing together (these two are very different, and i'm
> not sure I like the implications of Sargent's) Tepper's _Gate to Women's
> Country_ and Sargent's _Shore of Women_. Men aren't entirely eliminated
> (used for procreation) but it was also a man-made catastrophe/war that
> caused a situation women took advantage of. Slonziewsky (can't ever get
> her name correct) does an interesting thing with _Door into Ocean_ but I
> can't remember why there are no males.
> Okay, so after typing forever, I'm going to hope you will comment back!
> misha
> >bernardm@colorado.edu
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:07:35 PDT