"FEMINISTSF LOG9707C" ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 14 Jul 1997 23:04:10 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Denise Borgen Subject: Re: Mars In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII As an ex-librarian turned computer support engineer, I think in many cases libra1rians could be thought of as underpaid clerks. On Mon, 14 Jul 1997, Brigid Venables. wrote: > > At 1:17 AM 7/12/97, Pat York wrote: > > > > >Hmm, if engineering becomes a woman-dominated field will the pay go > > >down? (g) > > > It happened in the field of librarianship! We've had to re-invent > ourselves as "information managers" (or information scientists) lest we > be thought of as overpaid clerks. > > Brigid Venables. > ~ Denise M. Borgen ~ If man is only a little lower ~ ~ borgen@eskimo.com ~ than the angels, then the ~ ~ ~ angels should reform ~ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 02:14:18 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nicola Griffith Subject: Re: An Exchange of Hostages Lesley, no, in my opinion you're not missing a thing. This book falls into so many cliches it's frightening. Well, actually what's frightening is that so many reviewers believe it is something new. Nicola Nicola Griffith http://www.america.net/~daves/ng/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 02:39:01 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anny Middon Subject: Re: James Morrow: Only Begotten Daughter In a message dated 97-07-11 10:28:15 EDT, groppi@HCS.HARVARD.EDU (Susan Marie Groppi) writes: > One of my favorite quotes from the book: > > "Look at us... the all-American family. Who'd ever know it's a hermit, a > bastard, a dyke, and a deity?" One of the reasons I like Morrow is that his work abounds with good quotes. I liked the one above. Also: "...it's time we stopped having lower standards for God than we do for the postal service." Anny AnnyMiddon@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 02:39:01 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anny Middon Subject: Re: James Morrow: Only Begotten Daughter In a message dated 97-07-11 10:22:04 EDT, bernip@ix.netcom.com (Berni Phillips) writes: > I enjoyed _Only Begotten Daughter_, but his > point of having the title character being female seems only to tweak the > noses of those who are so sure Jesus in His second coming will again be > male. I have no idea what Morrow's intent was in having the main character be female. Does it matter? If a female character is in a position that is typically thought of as being somehow the purview of the male, doesn't the work become feminist, even if presenting a feminist viewpoint was not the writer's objective? > OBD has some good stuff in it, like the scene where Julie visits > her half-brother (the big JC) in hell, finding him dispensing water to > the hotly damned, totally unaware that a whole religion has grown up > around Him. I liked that part a lot, too. > Overall, I felt the book fell apart in the middle, as if > Morrow just had this great idea and didn't know what to do once he'd > written the set-up, and never really recovered. I don't agree. I thought the middle was the strongest part, and was disappointed in the climax and denouement. Anny AnnyMiddon@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 02:39:07 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anny Middon Subject: Re: Birth Control Books In a message dated 97-07-13 07:40:11 EDT, Lesley_Hall@MSN.COM (Lesley Hall) writes: > Large families (pre mid-C19th) were largely not a matter of choice, though > there is fairly strong evidence that, in certain cultures--C18th France in > particular--family sizes were being restricted for economic reasons (across > the board, class-wise, so that inheritances would not be split up). It's my understanding that small families haven't always been a matter of choice, either. (My source for this is an educational "tour" kind of thing I took in Alice Springs a few years ago; since this is not the most reliable of sources, I'd greatly appreciate any corrections.) In times in which women live in semi-starved condition, they often are not fertile. If body weight falls below a certain level. menstruation ceases and the woman will not be able to conceive. (I believe this happens to anorexics.) In the aboriginal group covered in the tour, in the past it had been typical for a woman who married at age 13 (a common age for marriage) and lived to post-menopausal years to have only three or four children. And of course, not all would live to adulthood. On a related note, the birth of twins was considered to be the result of an evil spirit disrupting the normal way of things. One of the infants would be killed. Although unthinkable to most of us today, this policy actually had a practical basis -- it was unlikely that two infants could be supported, primarily because the mother was so poorly nourished that it was catch-and-go whether she could produce enough milk to keep even one baby alive. To put this firmly on-topic, has any sf been written that utilizes the inability of undernourished women to conceive? Anny AnnyMiddon@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 03:10:04 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Holly Yasui Subject: Re: Mars/social justice In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Kym wrote: >> > Although it's exciting that a woman/women are invloved in the Mars expedition ... it's important to look critically at the expedition istelf, and at space "exploration" in general. To me, it is very much a problem that billions of dollars are being spent on this, while at the same time, there are more & more people living out in the streets ... >> > Martha responded: >> >Very true. But where do you think all those billions of dollars get spent? >> >Some, at least, go to salaries -- keeping people employed -- (including >> >the janitors who clean the buildings and the truckers who bring in the >> >raw materials)... Robin responded: >The fact is that not all the money spent on the project ends up in the >hands of workers, and not even the same proportion as if the money was >spent in other industries. The space industry is expensive-materials >heavy, and labour costs create fewer high-paying jobs, which are >traditional 'good jobs' in any event, high-tech/education science jobs >which overwhelmingly go to men who are already most able to survive in the >modern economy. I agree with Kym and Robin ... to me, feminism IS a class issue because women, as a class are underpaid, undervalued, and exploited. To wit, the thread in this list about male/female engineers, librarians, computer pioneers ... To me, one of the most important aspects of feminist sf utopias is an egalitarian vision that distributes resources and responsibilities among men and women equally. LeGuin's *Dispossesed* and Starhawk's *Fifth Sacred Thing* come to mind. Though specialized professions are developed according to the individual's interests and abilities, so-called shit jobs (or low-paying jobs, such as janitors and truck drivers) are everyone's responsibility. The scarcity or abundance of resources affects everyone more-or-less equally, so men and women work together as true equals to improve the conditions of their community. I agree with Kym that "feminism is about equality for all people, not just for a few privileged women who get ahead in a formerly 'male' profession." I disagree with Laura that "Feminism is definitely _not_ about equality for all people. Feminism is about equality for women, so, as abhorrent as a character such as Thatcher is, it's still progress for womankind!" I don't think it's progress for womankind when women become like the worst masculists on earth. 'Honorary men' like Thatcher simply prove the masculist view: that a gal can get ahead if she's just as ruthlessly competitive and aggressive as the rest of the boys in the club. What interests me about feminist sf -- and feminist men -- is that they embody an alternative kind of equality based on mutual respect and cooperation. This has ramifications not only with regard to gender but also class, race, sexual preference, disabilities, etc. I too am concerned about "a continuation of the colonizing mentality and activity that resulted in the theft of land and genocide of the native peoples of the Americas." I find it interesting that "first contact" masculist sf usually has some kind of mindless War of the Worlds confrontation in which the aliens are simply the dreaded "Other" (the only good alien is a dead alien). Whereas the feminist version (especially Butler) conveys complex possibilities that value the alien's (Other's) individual personality and culture. I agree with Martha, that "cutting the space program won't do it. That money won't go to public welfare." Setting the space program against public welfare is fighting over crumbs. We've got to change our national and cultural priorities. I think that socially-conscious feminism can play an important role. Poverty in the U.S. is disproportionate by not only gender but also by race and other types of "otherness." As Laura and Nicole point out, the actual amount of cash needed to alleviate much suffering is miniscule compared to what we spend on weapons. Which is, by the way, historically the major impetus for technological innovation. Hey, I'd rather see a woman on Mars than a new weapon of mass destruction any day, even if she is white and middle-class (-; just kidding!!!:-) Sorry, this subject really pushes my buttons. OK, I'll get off my soapbox too and go back to lurking and making the book-exchange page. Holly Yasui ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 03:16:46 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Holly Yasui Subject: book exchange/shopping In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Marina Yereshenko, Kate Bolin, and others who are having problems finding books: Send me your requests and a price range (e.g. exchange, i.e. free) so that I can put them on the book-exchange/shopping-service page. List what you have to trade if you want to exchange. Also, if anyone besides Neil has books to sell/exchange, or favorite or useful book-aquisition websites, let me know. Any more book scout volunteers? Australia and Canada, we need you. Please send to my personal e-mail: hollyy@sprynet.com NOT to the list, there's too much traffic here. This can really work, you know, if we have "mutual respect and cooperation." (just making fun of myself here). Holly ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 10:25:25 +0000 Reply-To: k.willshaw@chester.ac.uk Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: k.willshaw@CHESTER.AC.UK Subject: Contact movie in the UK Hi When I was quite a lot younger I read the book "Contact" by Carl Sagan and it was one of those books that really made a difference to the way I looked at myself. This was because the main character, Elly, was a woman physicist. This inspired me in an awful lot of ways and I am now doing a Phd in a science subject because I felt that I can believe in my abilities and intelligence. Anyway to get to the point of this message, does anyone know if Contact has a release date in the UK because I cant bear the thought that I am not going to be able to see this adaptation of one of the best books I remember reading as an impressionable teenager! yours waiting with bated breath to see this movie Kate ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 06:34:25 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Erik Tsao Subject: transgressive sci-fi/fantasy/horror Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" By "transgressive," I mean something that breaks the limits and taboos of middle-class mores and imagination (explicit gay sex scenes, for instance). The term, as I use it, comes from the mid-twentieth century French philosopher Georges Bataille. He uses it to refer to certain experiences which break us out of our sense of subjectivity. The clearest statement of this idea is in his book, _Erotism: Death and Sensuality_ (City Lights Press). Michel Foucault took up this theme in his "Preface to Transgression." Erik Erik Tsao Graduate Student Department of English Wayne State University Detroit, MI ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 04:47:40 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Maryelizabeth Hart Subject: Re: Librarians' salaries Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Marsha commented: >I'd just like to interject that NOTHING to do with books/ >literature pays, in comparison to other sectors' salaries. > >When I managed a bookstore, my daughter received >free hot lunch at school. > >When I was a textbook editor, she was eligible for >reduced price lunches. > >My first two library director positions were in small >libraries, paying considerably less than $20,000/year. > >And George R.R. Martin told me that even after his >first two books were published, and he was in WHO'S >WHO, he was on foodstamps. > >We're not involved with literature for money, we do what >we do because it pleasures us to do so. > Yeah, what she said. If I wasn't in a two income house, I wouldn't make enough as a bookstore owner and self-employed staff member to pay for my son's daycare. let alone anything else. All right, who's going to write a clever short story with those in the book biz being highly respected and HIGHLY PAID?!?! 'Cause it'd have to be SF or fantasy... Maryelizabeth Mysterious Galaxy 619-268-4747 3904 Convoy St, #107 800-811-4747 San Diego, CA 92111 619-268-4775 FAX http://www.mystgalaxy.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 09:43:03 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: CMUNSON Subject: Re: Mars/social justice Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit As much as I am interested in SF, and utopian feminist fiction, and Babylon 5, I have serious reservations about the manned (staffed?) space program. I like things like satellites and the recent Mars probe, but I seriously question sending people into space when we can't solve our problems down here. BTW, I think you all should become familiar with the controversy surrounding the upcoming Cassini Mission--if that fails lots of people could die. Anyway, if you look at the NASA budget by itself it doesn't look like much, so we have to ask ourselves How are they doing all these space things on a pittance? The answer? Military spending. While NASA's line in the budget may not look big, it benefits indirectly from the huge miltary/industrial complex. It uses some facilities that are military, or were developed by the military. It employs pilots who were trained in the military. It benefits from research conducted in universities which are heavily funded by the military, especially in the areas of science (maybe the reason why our libraries are so underfunded is that they produce little of use to the military). All I am saying is follow the money trail. Space programs require heavy capital expenditures, which are only really possible in industrialized countries. The space program may have developed velcro for those $150 Nikes, but it ain't providing housing for the homeless in my neighborhood. True, our real targets should be set on the military, but I want to point out that the space program is very intertwined with the military. Chuck0 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 10:31:13 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Robin Gordon Subject: Re: Contact movie WARNING SPOILERS!!!! In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Contains Spoilers: only read if you have seen the movie!! I totally agree with laura, love that jodie foster but she is way too pokey (my word for think people, being big and well padded myself). While overall I liked the movie I have a couple major quibbles with it. I agree that the portrayal of the religious figure as a non-denominational, open-minded, intelligent, sympathetic figure was refreshing, even for a dyed in the wool atheist like myself. But too much of the science v. religion dialogue was too cliche. And in the end when she's confronted by the question whether she expects people to take what she says on faith, it was like "OK PEOPLE THIS IS IRONIC PAY ATTENTION, WASN'T THAT IRONIC?" subtlety is a virtue after all. Also: why didn't the brilliant scientist Elly ask about the length of the recording? And why couldn't they have sent someone else? Why didn't they even try? Robin Gordon -------------------------------------- "I am the wall with the womanly swagger." Judy Grahn ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 12:12:10 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Lori A. Campbell" Subject: Re: feminist cyberpunk and the awful Tulane University Library In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 14 Jul 1997, Kate Bolin wrote: > Well, I started hunting. And I'm beginning to realize that the Howard > Tilton Memorial Library of Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana is > HOPELESSLY out of date. > I found one book on the list of possible authors. Joan Slonczewski. I > don't remember the name of the book off the top of my head (since I just > write down the call number). One book. > The library's great for finding old books (I found a 1928 edition of "The > Golden Bough"), but anything published after 1990 that wasn't published in > the South....forget it. > Please use the Interlibrary Loan facilities at your library. You can get any book this way at usually no cost. Lori ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 13:12:45 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: DAVID CHRISTENSON Subject: Re: Mars/social justice MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii -- [ From: David Christenson * EMC.Ver #2.5.3 ] -- I'm of divided mind about this question. I subscribe to the ideals of space exploration - surely its to the benefit of all peoples to expand knowledge and open up our options as a species. But I believe the space program in its current incarnation will accomplish those ideals only incidentally. NASA seems to have its roots firmly in the alliance of military, politicians and industry that made the Cold War so profitable for the economic elite (and which also keeps the Cold War going today, absurdly) . It's difficult to see the immediate benefits of NASA space programs, except for spinoff improvements to consumer products - and aren't these really benefits to industry? For me, it's even more difficult to imagine that the players in this scenario - NASA, its contractors, the politicians who support it - have much interest in the long-term benefit of lower-income folks such as myself. And I'm concerned that the main thrust of NASA's programs in the long term will be exploitive - mining, commercial use of near-space, etc. Yes , capitalism is a great motive for exploration. But historically this kind of exploration and settlement has been as destructive as it has been constructive, wasting opportunities in quests for specific resources for immediate markets. (An earthly example: How much more productive and sustainable would the Great Plains be if we had studied and tended the region's abundant original resources instead of "terraforming" them to European standards?) I wouldn't play this as a NASA vs. welfare issue. I see it as a rethinking issue. Approaching space exploration with the worst possible motives (military advantage and profit) seems like a terrible way to lay the groundwork for our possible future. -- David Christenson - ldqt79a@prodigy.com "The most merciful thing in the world is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." - H.P. Lovecraft ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 12:31:29 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Lori A. Campbell" Subject: Re: Mars Comments: To: CMUNSON In-Reply-To: <0007C4D6.1205@aaas.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 14 Jul 1997, CMUNSON wrote: > Surprise, I'm not technically a librarian any more. I'm a > webmaster/computer specialist for an association that didn't hire me > for my librarian background, but is finding that experience helpful > enough to send me to ALA. I jumped from my profession because the > salaries didn't pay enough to live on, not to mention getting ahead. > Lots of Former Librarians out there. If I could figure out something else to do, or be accepted in a job doing something else, I would happily move on to another field. Sure can't go back to school again - am still paying off my student loan to get my library degree. I'm fed up with the whole thing. Lori> ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 13:36:15 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nicole Youngman Subject: Re: Librarians' salaries << If I wasn't in a two income house, I wouldn't make enough as a bookstore owner and self-employed staff member to pay for my son's daycare. let alone anything else. >> Me too, me too!! Thank goodness for spouses with real jobs--he's a social worker & so will never be unemployed. ;-) But of course I'm a grad student who only works part-time in one of the big chain bookstores (oh, okay, the initials are B&N), but considering what I've seen the mgrs go through, I do *not* want their job!! Also--all this talk about feminist sf in French (Canadian?) has gotten me thoroughly intrigued. I majored in French as an undergrad, and many years later my grasp of the language isn't so great anymore, but if some kind soul could give some recommendations of where to start & how to get it I'd love to try to read some. Nicole ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 13:39:00 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nicole Youngman Subject: Re: Librarians' salaries << All right, who's going to write a clever short story with those in the book biz being highly respected and HIGHLY PAID?!?! 'Cause it'd have to be SF or fantasy... >> Hmm...maybe we could put an anthology together. _Chicks With Big Books_ or _Ladies of the Library_, perhaps? ;-) Nicole ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 12:41:52 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Lori A. Campbell" Subject: Re: Librarians' salaries (formerly, Mars -Reply) In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 14 Jul 1997, Marsha Valance wrote: > > We're not involved with literature for money, we do what > we do because it pleasures us to do so. The only problem is, with me being involved in dog rescue (which gives me great satisfaction also), that I have 25 dogs to take care of. Dog food, vet bills......it ain't cheap - not to mention other things required for survival. Lori > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 13:48:00 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nicole Youngman Subject: Re: Contact movie WARNING SPOILERS!!!! << But too much of the science v. religion dialogue was too cliche. >> That's true--but it's a dialogue that's going on all the time, and I think a lot of people need to see it presented that way, worked into a good story. I live in the Deep South, and it was gratifying to me to see that the theater was *packed* (it was also kind of nice to think that the two Beavis & Butthead types next to me who were alternately having burping contests and discussing how many light-years away such-and-such was were being presented with a female scientist figure like it was no big deal!)--I hope it got some folks thinking. I think that to people like us who are accustomed to reading SF with a critical eye, the arguments seem pretty routine, but to most folks they probably aren't. Hmm, I seem to be de-lurking with a vegenance today... Nicole ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 17:41:50 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: Birth Control Books Anny Middon comments: >It's my understanding that small families haven't always been a matter of >choice, either. [snip] In times in which women live in semi-starved >condition, they often are not fertile. If body weight falls below a certain >level. menstruation ceases and the woman will not be able to conceive I quite agree! There are lots of reasons for involuntary infertility, including sexually transmitted diseases (which I'm inclined to attribute some of those small French families to, given the practically routine assumption in the society that all men went to brothels), under-nutrition, and sexual ignorance. There is a good book by Janet Farrell Brodie on Contraception and Abortion in C19th America which details all sorts of hygienic practices women were following which might have reduced their chances of conceiving even though they weren't deliberately practising contraception, and also, why women practising what they thought was the safe period found it worked, even though it was nothing like what we now know to be the time of ovulation. Given half a chance, I can go on and on about birth control, fertility, etc; so I was trying not to in my previous posting... Can't think offhand of any sf/fantasy about infertility caused by malnutrition--I have a faint idea there is something somewhere about an STD which is a contraceptive--anyone have any ideas? Lesley Lesley_Hall@msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 20:30:54 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Beth Widmaier Subject: birth control books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I just joined this listserv last week and have yet to join the conversation--I've been lurking back and enjoying all the intelligent conversation. Because I am new, I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned Susan Squier's book _Babies in Bottles: Twentieth-Century Visions of Reproductive Technology_ (1994). This book looks at images of reproductive technology in twentieth-centruy culture, considering the writings of Julian Huxley, JBS Haldane, Charlotte, Haldane, Aldous Huxley, and Naomi Mitchison, and weaving in the history of reproductive technology and its popular representations. The premise of the book is laid out in the introduction: "If we spend a little time teasing out the implications of these images of babies in bottles, we can see that they all enact the fantasy of the womb as a see-through container for the previously invisible fetus, but they differ in the meanings they attach to it." This book might be of interest to those out there interested in how science fiction, science writing, and fiction have reflected issues of reproductive technology. Although not strictly related to the issue of birth control (or the lack thereof), it is intricately tied to the notion of birth itself and woman's role in that process, and it is an excellent scholarly work that credits SF as a cultural force. Let me also take this space to introduce myself. I am a graduate student in English (twentieth century American fiction and feminist theory) at the Pennsylvania State University. When I was younger I read a lot of science fiction, and I wrote my undergraduate honors thesis on Feminist Utopias (mostly twentieth century, such as Atwood, Piercy, Le Guin, Brantenberg, Carter, etc, but with a little background all the way back to Margaret Cavendish). I am still interested in Feminist SF and read what I can, although I don't have as much time to read the fun stuff as I used to. I have started compiling a list of "must reads" from the listserv, and will soon need to drop out of graduate school to keep up with it! Beth Widmaier ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 14:48:46 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: SMCharnas Subject: Re: Mars Comments: To: 9309629n@Magpie.Magill.UniSA.edu.au Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 4:42 PM 7/14/97, 9309629n@Magpie.Magill.UniSA.edu.au wrote: >> At 1:17 AM 7/12/97, Pat York wrote: >> >> >Hmm, if engineering becomes a woman-dominated field will the pay go >> >down? (g) >> >It happened in the field of librarianship! We've had to re-invent >ourselves as "information managers" (or information scientists) lest we >be thought of as overpaid clerks. Brigid, Alas, it does not surprise me; I'm sure there are other examples as well . . . Suzy ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 14:48:59 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: SMCharnas Subject: Re: Mars Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 12:39 PM 7/14/97, Laura Wigod wrote: >Feminism is about equality for women, so, as abhorrent as a character such >as Thatcher is, it's still progress for womankind! (sigh) I realize it's >difficult to acknowledge that women are as capable of all the -isms as any >man, but that's the way it is! Yes -- the idea, I thought, was that women should be able to be just as big a jerk as a man and get the same kind of rewards out of it that that man would. Suzy ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 14:48:51 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: SMCharnas Subject: Re: Birth Control Books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:41 AM 7/14/97, Laura Wigod wrote: >I've always wanted a large family, largely >(haha), I believe, because of the horrificly abusive nightmarish violent >childhood I had. One of the (many) things that got me through it was >fantasizing about the kind of parent _I_ was going to be, and, which, I can >say, most happily, I now am. (snip) >Anyway, I just wanted to point out that the decision to have more children >goes beyond social, cultural and economic reasons and encompasses the >deeply personal. Agreed, of course; but I have to add that the deeply personal reasons can also be negative in both cause and effect (obviously not the case for you, thank gods). I am thinking of a young woman I know who grew up with an emotionally and pyschologically abusive and manipulative mother, and who for many years moaned about her "baby-lust", which she herself understood to be an expression of a desire similar to yours, to give some kids the great childhood that she had been deprived of. However, it was quite clear to virtually everyone around her (although not to her in any respect) that she had come out of her own childhood experience with such a fear-driven drive to control everything and everyone around her that it seemed virtually certain that instead -- if she had children -- she would duplicate, more or less, the miserable situation in which she had grown up, this time as the mom instead of the kid. Fortunately, various economic and personal factors have since brought her around to deciding that she hasn't the resources to bear and raise a child, and she has thrown off this obsession and plunged instead into her career, with results that delight her and make all who know her proud and pleased on her behalf. In other words, as I guess everyone who thinks at all knows by now, This Field Is Mined; Always Proceed With Caution! You found a path. Others who set out with similar intent can wreck themselves and those they love. Of course, it's perfectly possible that we were all wrong, and that if she had had a baby after all the experience would have led her to grow out of the worst of the ruts that her own bad experience had left in her soul. Suzy ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 09:54:07 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Neil Rest Subject: Re: horror/fantasy/sci-fi course In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >> Have any of you has taught science fiction, fantasy or horror >>fiction of a "transgressive" nature before? What was the response you got >>from your students? I look forward to reading your responses. > What do you mean by "transgressive"? The current, idiomatic usage seems to mean "titillating to Twenty-Somethings," the age cohort whose adolescence was steeped in the Sex = Death ( = Blood) message of the first decade of AIDS. For sf's notions of "transgressive", c.f. _Dangerous Visions_. Neil Rest ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 13:22:46 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Neil Rest Subject: Re: Mars/social justice In-Reply-To: <0007CBEB.1205@aaas.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" CMUNSON wrote: >BTW, I think you all should become familiar with the controversy >surrounding the upcoming Cassini Mission--if that fails lots of people >could die. Huh? >While NASA's line in the budget may not look big, it benefits indirectly >from the huge miltary/industrial complex. Then why start by picking on NASA? >All I am saying is follow the money trail. Space programs require heavy >capital expenditures, which are only really possible in industrialized >countries. "follow the money" usually involves hard numbers. With all due respect, all you provide is hand-waving. >The space program may have developed velcro for those $150 Nikes, but it >ain't providing housing for the homeless in my neighborhood. Just about everyone knows that neither velcro nor idioticly priced gym shoes have nothing to do with the space program. I, for one, find the low quality of your bluster and rhetoric borders on insulting. Neil Rest ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 13:30:52 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Neil Rest Subject: Re: Mars/social justice In-Reply-To: <199707151712.NAA118226@mime3.prodigy.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" DAVID CHRISTENSON wrote: >I'm of divided mind about this question. I subscribe to the ideals of >space exploration - surely its to the benefit of all peoples to expand >knowledge and open up our options as a species. But I believe the space >program in its current incarnation will accomplish those ideals only >incidentally. > >NASA seems to have its roots firmly in the alliance of military, >politicians and industry that made the Cold War so profitable for the >economic elite (and which also keeps the Cold War going today, absurdly) >. It's difficult to see the immediate benefits of NASA space programs, >except for spinoff improvements to consumer products - and aren't these >really benefits to industry? For me, it's even more difficult to imagine >that the players in this scenario - NASA, its contractors, the >politicians who support it - have much interest in the long-term benefit >of lower-income folks such as myself. > >And I'm concerned that the main thrust of NASA's programs in the long >term will be exploitive - mining, commercial use of near-space, etc. Yes >, capitalism is a great motive for exploration. But historically this >kind of exploration and settlement has been as destructive as it has >been constructive, wasting opportunities in quests for specific >resources for immediate markets. (An earthly example: How much more >productive and sustainable would the Great Plains be if we had studied >and tended the region's abundant original resources instead of >"terraforming" them to European standards?) > >I wouldn't play this as a NASA vs. welfare issue. I see it as a >rethinking issue. Approaching space exploration with the worst possible >motives (military advantage and profit) seems like a terrible way to lay >the groundwork for our possible future. >-- >David Christenson - ldqt79a@prodigy.com > >"The most merciful thing in the world is the inability of the human mind >to correlate all its contents." - H.P. Lovecraft > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 17:31:00 CST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Gabrielle Bate Subject: Re: Librarians' salaries >Also--all this talk about feminist sf in French (Canadian?) has gotten me >thoroughly intrigued. I majored in French as an undergrad, and many years >later my grasp of the language isn't so great anymore, but if some kind soul >could give some recommendations of where to start & how to get it I'd love to >try to read some. > >Nicole As I've said before, I'm very fond of Elisabeth Vonarburg's work, especially _Chroniques du pays des meres_. It's published by Quebec/Amerique. Also take a look at www.alire.com. Alire is a new publisher in Quebec. And if you have titles in mind there's Schoenhof's Foreign Books in Cambridge, MA (www.schoenhofs.com). They don't have much sf at all, apparently it doesn't sell, but they will special order. There's also a magazine called Solaris that has a web page. Gabby Bate bate@facstaff.wisc.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 17:34:43 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: joanna goltzman Subject: sex scenes Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Erik Tsao wrote: "The only one who I got a mixed response on was Poppy Z. Brite. And that had more to do with the students having problems with some very explicit gay love scenes. My response was to take that to another level and ask them if the vividness of Brite's language in describing the love-making scenes was what really disturbed them. Or did it have to do with the fact that this was gay sex that was being so vividly represented. Most of them denied that the latter was the problem. But I had a feeling that this was what really bothered them." I also was bothered by the sex scenes in some of the feminist sf books I've been reading until I realized that those scenes are more about societal issues than about relationships between specific individuals. Such scenes experiment with and challenge gender roles, societal norms, and taboos. I often find that sex scenes in novels from other genres are just boring. Feminist SF sex scenes are anything but boring because there's so much going on in them besides sex. Joanna ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 18:50:18 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: MARINA YERESHENKO Subject: Re: Birth Control Books In-Reply-To: <970715023907_-1493524419@emout11.mail.aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Anny, I'm afraid that the "natural birth control" (i.e. that semi-starved women are not fertile) is overestimated. In the place I came from (Tajikistan, in Asia) majority of women (especially in remote villages) have babies as often as every nine months, since they are married and until the menapause (that is if they live through it). First reason is that Muslim religion prohibits birth control. Second, a couple would not even try to use it,if they do not have a son yet. Girls are not considered worth anything, so if a family has eight daughters, the woman will still be forced to have babies until she has a boy. The infant mortality is one of the highest in the world, so only 7-8 children survive, but that's enough to keep the family at such poverty level, that the only food they can afford is bread and tea -- for years. Which does not seem to prevent more pregnancies. What I am saying, it would probably save a lot of lives, if women would not have children until they are well-nourished, but unfortunately, it's not the case. Of course, this is not a scientific fact, just something I had a chance to witness for the first 20 years of my life. Marina P.S. Another thing - children in that society are considered the best blessing of ones' life, and the only one (unlike money) available to everyone. It is important to a point that if a woman cannot have children, her husband is very likely to kick her out. And people who are not married (and therefore, cannot have children) are considered having wasted their life. On Tue, 15 Jul 1997, Anny Middon wrote: > In a message dated 97-07-13 07:40:11 EDT, Lesley_Hall@MSN.COM (Lesley Hall) > writes: > > It's my understanding that small families haven't always been a matter of > choice, either. (My source for this is an educational "tour" kind of thing I > took in Alice Springs a few years ago; since this is not the most reliable of > sources, I'd greatly appreciate any corrections.) > > In times in which women live in semi-starved condition, they often are not > fertile. If body weight falls below a certain level. menstruation ceases and > the woman will not be able to conceive. (I believe this happens to > anorexics.) In the aboriginal group covered in the tour, in the past it had > been typical for a woman who married at age 13 (a common age for marriage) > and lived to post-menopausal years to have only three or four children. And > of course, not all would live to adulthood. > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 19:54:18 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nalo Hopkinson Subject: Re: Birth Control Books In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Haven't been paying a whole lot of attention; got back from Readercon to 126 posts, and am trying to clear them. So you'll understand if this response seems a bit off base, but Nancy Kress's next novel starts from the premise of children being extremely scarce due to falling sperm counts in men. Heard Nancy read from it in Toronto a few weeks ago. She lamented a little that the research on which she based the promise is being proved to be not quite accurate, but the novel's written now. I think it's due out next year. -nalo "Straight she's fantastical, they all do cry." -Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, "Nature's Pictures," 1656 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 20:58:55 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: Mars/social justice In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19970715132246.006fc668@tezcat.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 01:22 PM 7/15/97 -0500, Neil Rest wrote: >CMUNSON wrote: >>While NASA's line in the budget may not look big, it benefits indirectly >>from the huge miltary/industrial complex. > >Then why start by picking on NASA? > >>All I am saying is follow the money trail. Space programs require heavy >>capital expenditures, which are only really possible in industrialized >>countries. > >"follow the money" usually involves hard numbers. With all due respect, >all you provide is hand-waving. > >>The space program may have developed velcro for those $150 Nikes, but it >>ain't providing housing for the homeless in my neighborhood. > >Just about everyone knows that neither velcro nor idioticly priced gym >shoes have nothing to do with the space program. I, for one, find the low >quality of your bluster and rhetoric borders on insulting. > >Neil Rest Having a bad day, Neil? As Chuck explained at the end of his message: >our real targets should be set on the military, but I want to point out that >the space program is very intertwined with the military. This seems like a reasonable assertion to me. The reason he's "picking on NASA" rather than the military is that someone had already broached the topic. I also have my doubts about the wisdom of the space program. It's true that there are many things we can learn from it, but it seems unlikely to me that the returns are going to approach the investment. Other investments (such as quality education) have a much higher cost to benefit ratio for society as a whole, so it seems that we ought to redirect our spending accordingly. Paul Feyerabend, an outspoken critic of the scientific establishment, said (in _Science in a Free Society_) re: the US moon trip of 1969: "Of course, our well-conditioned materialistic contemporaries are liable to burst with excitement over events such as the moonshots, the double helix, non-equilibrium thermodynamics. But let us look at the matter from a different point of view, and it becomes a ridiculous exercise in futility. It needed billions of dollars, thousands of well-trained assistants, years of hard work to enable some inarticulate and rather limited contemporary to perform a few graceless hops in a place nobody in his right mind would think of visiting - a dried out, airless, hot stone." He overstates it a bit, but in essence I have to agree with him. Regarding high tech in general, I just finished _Woman on the Edge of Time_, and thought that one of the less convincing aspects of the future utopia was the casual presence of gadgets like the "kenner." I suppose by that time humans may have found better ways of making logic chips & the like, but as it stands now the manufacture of semiconductors is anything but environmentally friendly. How would it fit in to their society? (I say this fully aware that my life would be radically different without my computer, which allows me to do great things like participate in this list.) For the most part, I really liked the book. Mattapoisett approximates my own ideals of gender, sexuality, social fabric. I didn't quite know what to make of the ending, though. Was it implied that by killing the doctors Connie was helping to pave the way for Mattapoisett? I suppose at the least it prevented the experimental brain surgery from being carried out... As Luciente says, "We all fight when we're back to the wall... or to tear down a wall." Perhaps if everyone learned how to direct anger appropriately, things would change for the better. Those who have read the book, what do you think? -- Janice ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm Listening to: Loop Guru, Duniya; Shonen Knife, Brand New Knife "...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 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 17:58:46 +0100 Reply-To: bernip@ix.netcom.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Berni Phillips Organization: The Huntingdon Library Subject: Re: Librarians' salaries MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Nicole Youngman wrote: > > << All right, who's going to write a clever short story with those in the > book > biz being highly respected and HIGHLY PAID?!?! 'Cause it'd have to be SF or > fantasy... > >> > > Hmm...maybe we could put an anthology together. _Chicks With Big Books_ or > _Ladies of the Library_, perhaps? ;-) > > Nicole _Babes with Books_, definitely. (Maybe Esther Friesner would consider it. I hear she's doing a second Chicks in Chainmail anthology.) Facetiously yours, Berni Phillips ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 20:40:53 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anne V Stuecker Subject: Re: Contact movie writes: >Now Jodie Foster is not Octavia Butler... Octavia Butler acts? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 21:05:43 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Laura Quilter Subject: another quick comment from moderator Comments: To: feministsf@uic.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII oh yeah. and when a topic has veered substantially from the original thread it is very helpful to change the subject line to something like: new topic (was re: old topic) happy chatting to all ... list-mistress LQ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 21:03:28 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Laura Quilter Subject: mars & librarian's salaries Comments: To: feministsf@uic.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII gentle reminder from moderator: although the discussions of mars, the space program, and librarian's woefully inadequate salaries are fascinating (especially the salary discussion, to me, a librarian) - they are not immediately relevant to the discussion at hand ... Laura Quilter / lauramd@uic.edu Electronic Services Librarian University of Illinois at Chicago ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 21:09:28 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: MARINA YERESHENKO Subject: Re: Master i Margarita Comments: To: Nalo Hopkinson In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Nalo, Sorry it took me so long. My mail program crashed and I was just able to recover last week messages. Confusion about who wrote _1984_ is no big deal. Nichego strashnogo :) . I read another story by Orwell, I believe it's original title was something like _Pigs Barn_. It was good, but a little straightforward. More politics than fiction. Marina On Mon, 7 Jul 1997, Nalo Hopkinson wrote: > On Mon, 7 Jul 1997, MARINA YERESHENKO wrote: > > > > > Nalo, > > > > title while translating the book. I never read _1984_, though. Isn't it > > by George Orwell? > > NH: Damn, yeah, it is. I don't even have the excuse of advancing age, > not really. > > -nalo > > > "Straight she's fantastical, they all do cry." > -Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, > "Nature's Pictures," 1656 > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 20:00:07 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: SMCharnas Subject: Re: Birth Control Books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 2:39 AM 7/15/97, Anny Middon wrote: >To put this firmly on-topic, has any sf been written that utilizes the >inability of undernourished women to conceive? Well, drat, I probably *should* have in WALK TO THE END OF THE WORLD -- although unless I had gone on to "explain" that this factor had led to the propagation of women who had a higher tolerance for undernourishment and so could still conceive, I would have had to have junked the whole story, since most likely there wouldn't have been any Holdfast people! Does anybody know if the Ik people, who were written about years ago as living in conditions as close to total starvation as exist anywhere, still do exist, and if so how they have coped with/gotten around/managed to keep their numbers up in spite of being starved all the time, if indeed they have? The book was a sensation, and then nothing was ever heard again about these victims of a government program that had uprooted them from their lands and forcibly settled them someplace else where they literally could not produce any food for themselves (at least that's how I remember the story -- it was years ago now, a true horror story). Suzy ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 22:51:07 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Ann Wheeler Subject: Contact movie (minor spoilers) and the portrayal of women I've just seen _Contact_, and I would be interested in hearing how other people react to the female characters in the film. While I think that there's much to like about Ellie, the Jodie Foster character, I wish that she had some contact with other women at some point in the film. There are some group shots in the control that show other female scientists, and there is the African-American woman who seems to be in on the important political decisions. However, the people with whom Ellie has real relationships--her friends, her colleagues, her rivals, her lover--all seem to be men. During her childhood, her father is her major influence; she never knows her mother (who dies in childbirth, I think?) If I'm remembering correctly, the child at the end who asks the question about extra-terrestrial life is a boy. I was pleased with the portrayal of Ellie as a woman whose life is dominated by a passion that is not romantic, and I found the final shot when she is alone in the desert unexpectedly moving (and I wanted to cheer because she wasn't shown in the arms of Palmer Joss, having lost the aliens but gotten the man). But I also think that perhaps in some ways she represents very much a masculine fantasy of what an independent woman's life might be like: she is unmarried; she works; she certainly manages her life competently; but all the important people in her life are men. (Maybe, though, this would be realistic for the portrayal of the professional life of a woman working in her field today? I don't know.) I've also been interested by some of the fragments of television reviews that I've heard. I haven't paid close attention to them, but it seems to me that I've heard at least two describe her as an isolated woman who hides from her personal pain in her work. I can see some evidence for this point of view in the film, but on the whole I don't see the film emphasizing her isolation (although she is frequently shown alone, but I think that's different). Indeed (given that all her relationships are with men), she seems to me to have a number of enduring friendships. Do the reviewers just not know what to say about a female character in a movie whose story is not a love story? (or--as my teen-aged students, male and female, often tell me, am I just being over-sensitive?) Ann Wheeler ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 09:06:36 +0100 Reply-To: joanharan@dial.pipex.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joan Haran Subject: Re: Woman on the Edge of Time, was re:Mars/social justice MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Janice wrote: > Regarding high tech in general, I just finished _Woman on the Edge of > Time_, and thought that one of the less convincing aspects of the future > utopia was the casual presence of gadgets like the "kenner." I suppose by > that time humans may have found better ways of making logic chips & the > like, but as it stands now the manufacture of semiconductors is anything > but environmentally friendly. How would it fit in to their society? I must confess, the "kenners" were something I didn't think very clearly about. I was too focussed on how the "brooder" might fit into their society, and the idea that to be equal women had to give up the _power_ to give birth naturally. Now that we all know about how IVF works, I would question whether the brooder would fit. "Harvesting" the raw materials required to create babies outside the womb does not seem to me to be the choice that would be made by radicals wresting the control of science from the oppressors. What do you think, Janice? > > For the most part, I really liked the book. Mattapoisett approximates my > own ideals of gender, sexuality, social fabric. I didn't quite know what to > make of the ending, though. Was it implied that by killing the doctors > Connie was helping to pave the way for Mattapoisett? I also think it is a wonderful book and that Mattapoisett has a lot to recommend it. I think its flaws are as stimulating to debate as its successes. I think you are right about the ending. I believe that Piercy is stressing that direct action is required to change the status quo - not just theorising - and that we can't leave all the power to act in the hands of those we disagree with. We have to take personal responsibility for change. Having read Woman on the Edge of Time, it's very interesting to then read He, She and It (Body of Glass in the UK where I'm based) and compare Piercy's two different visions of the future. Joan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 08:45:04 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Martha Bartter Subject: Re: Master i Margarita In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 21:09 7/15/97 -0500, you wrote: >Nalo, >Sorry it took me so long. My mail program crashed and I was just able to >recover last week messages. > >Confusion about who wrote _1984_ is no big deal. Nichego strashnogo :) . >I read another story by Orwell, I believe it's original title was >something like _Pigs Barn_. It was good, but a little straightforward. >More politics than fiction. > >Marina > _Animal Farm_ -- and you are correct; politics was Orwell's big subject. (Base of _1984_ as well, I think.) Martha Bartter Truman State University ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 08:48:59 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Martha Bartter Subject: Re: Birth Control Books In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 20:00 7/15/97 -0700, you wrote: >At 2:39 AM 7/15/97, Anny Middon wrote: > >>To put this firmly on-topic, has any sf been written that utilizes the >>inability of undernourished women to conceive? > >Well, drat, I probably *should* have in WALK TO THE END OF THE WORLD -- >although unless I had gone on to "explain" that this factor had led to >the propagation of women who had a higher tolerance for undernourishment >and so could still conceive, I would have had to have junked the whole >story, since most likely there wouldn't have been any Holdfast people! > >Does anybody know if the Ik people, who were written about years ago as >living in conditions as close to total starvation as exist anywhere, >still do exist, and if so how they have coped with/gotten around/managed >to keep their numbers up in spite of being starved all the time, if indeed >they have? The book was a sensation, and then nothing was ever heard >again about these victims of a government program that had uprooted them >from their lands and forcibly settled them someplace else where they >literally could not produce any food for themselves (at least that's how >I remember the story -- it was years ago now, a true horror story). > >Suzy > The last I heard about that, someone had pretty well proved that the whole scandal had been either invented or exaggerated -- that no group actually like the Ik had even existed. (But that could be counter- propaganda.) Anyone have a recent take on this? Martha Bartter Truman State University ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 09:55:52 -0400 Reply-To: Tanya Wood Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Tanya Wood Subject: Re: Contact movie (minor spoilers) and the portrayal of women In-Reply-To: <970715225004_424837456@emout13.mail.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I saw "Contact" last night- the space travel scenes were fabulous, the tropical island paradise vividly surreal, and the scientific teamwork going beyond the traditional single scientist as hero cliche. I also thought the appalling Drummond was a cutting critique of what can really go on with academic advisors, and that this male "voice of authority" kept on being heeded while Ellie's own voice was marginalised by the powers that be. In terms of her relationships, in many senses she seemed to be a Susan Calvin figure in a buldingsroman where she learns that other (male) people are all that really matters in the end (although women may be useful for getting directions to a dress store). I thought Ann Hampton's comments very perceptive on the lack of women in Ellie's life. What I'd like to take issue with is the romantic aspect of the movie, which, alongside the change in Ellie's perception of religious people (from lunatic and hostile to warm and supportive), seemed to me to be sentimental, and a "soft sell" to a cinema audience that wouldn't find a Susan Calvin (or a very probably queer Jodie Foster) sympathetic. The protective arm of the strong but tender male character as Ellie stumbles out of the halls of the inquiry seemed a walking cliche and an indication that Ellie alone is not quite up to the demands of public life. And I also don't think that Ellie was alone in the final shot in the desert. As the sandy rocks trail away from her hand, on her wedding finger is what seemed to me to be clearly a ring. Moral: here a happy ending as traditional (and cliched) as it is annoying in that it strongly suggests that marriage is still the proper kind of closure for women. But apart from these points, I loved the movie. The relationship with Palmer could also be read from another perspective: that, for once, it is a man providing emotional support from the finges of the movie. This is usually the position occupied by a female supporting character (who would admitedly have substantially less public power than Palmer did). And thanks to Mike Levy for providing me with his diss. information. Tanya. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 10:14:41 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Re: Contact movie (minor spoilers) and the portrayal of women Comments: To: Tanya Wood In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 16 Jul 1997, Tanya Wood wrote: In terms of her > relationships, in many senses she seemed to be a Susan Calvin figure in a > buldingsroman where she learns that other (male) people are all that > really matters in the end (although women may be useful for getting > directions to a dress store). I thought Ann Hampton's comments very > perceptive on the lack of women in Ellie's life. > > Tanya. > I pretty much agree with Tanya's and other's analysis of male-female power relationships in Contact, but with one suggestion. The black, female presidential assistant, played by Angela Bassett, is considerably more than just a good source of information on where to buy a nice dress. She has considerable power and uses it as needed, for example when Drummond (Drumlin? whatever) is trying to completely take over the project and she, pretty much by executive fiat, states that Ellie will continue to have day to day control over operations. I wonder how much of Ellie's isolation from female co-workers is simply the usual male-authored cliche on Sagan's part and how much of it is the way things still are (or were when Sagan wrote the book in the late 1980s) for women working in the hard sciences. Anyone here have the kind of background to comment on this from first hand experience? Mike ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 12:24:03 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Erik Tsao Subject: sexuality in feminist sf (was sex scenes) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" On Tuesday, July 15, 1997: Joanna Goltzmann wrote: "I also was bothered by the sex scenes in some of the feminist sf books I've been reading until I realized that those scenes are more about societal issues than about relationships between specific individuals. Such scenes experiment with and challenge gender rolse, societal norms, and taboos.... Feminist SF sex scenes are anything but boing because there's so much going on in them besides sex." My reply: Exactly! This is what I tried to get across to my students. But like most undergraduates today, my students are unsophisticated readers they could only focus on instances in the novel which shocked them. In fact there were only two students who didn't have a real problem with the novel. They were older and more open-minded than some of the other students. I taught Samuel Delany's _Tales from Nerveryon_ last year in a freshman composition class. The odd thing is that the students didn't seem to complain about the presence of a homosexual relationship between Gorgik and Small Sarg. It was the women who were most open to reading and discussing these issues. The male students seemed to be somewhat discomforted by the reading material. On the other hand, a colleague of mine really focused on sexuality and feminism in her class and received a huge amount of resistance from her students. Here's an interesting question. Would this have something to do with the differences in gender between myself and my colleague? Do students tend to respect male teachers and their idiosyncratic interests more than female teachers and their interests? Erik Erik Tsao Graduate Student Department of English Wayne State University Detroit, MI ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 13:56:48 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Neil Rest Subject: Re: sexuality in feminist sf (was sex scenes) In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Erik Tsao asked: >I taught Samuel Delany's _Tales from Nerveryon_ last year in a freshman >composition class. The odd thing is that the students didn't seem to >complain about the presence of a homosexual relationship between Gorgik and >Small Sarg. It was the women who were most open to reading and discussing >these issues. The male students seemed to be somewhat discomforted by the >reading material. On the other hand, a colleague of mine really focused on >sexuality and feminism in her class and received a huge amount of >resistance from her students. Here's an interesting question. Would this >have something to do with the differences in gender between myself and my >colleague? Do students tend to respect male teachers and their >idiosyncratic interests more than female teachers and their interests? Insufficient data: as critical thinking contiues to be eliminated, a potentially important part of your qestion is the ages of the people involved. A "generation gap" hypothesis relating to less and less intellectual capability might account for your data at least as well as a "gender" hypothesis. Neil Rest ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 18:57:20 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: sex scenes While Joanna's comment >Feminist SF sex scenes are anything but boring because there's so >much going on in them besides sex. is worth saying, I'm not sure how far this connects to Poppy Z Brite. I'm probably not really in a position to comment as I completely bogged down in (I think it was) her first novel and couldn't finish it (and can't remember the title), but my distinct impression that she was not a feminist and was not writing from this perspective, a feeling reinforced by press interviews in which she claimed that she was 'really' a gay man (though I believe she has since married, something gay men are not yet generally permitted to do...). I suppose she could claim to be writing from a 'queer'/transgressive perspective? But I think this differs somewhat from feminism. Lesley Lesley_Hall@msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 16:30:52 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Heather MacLean Subject: Joke: The Future vs. Star Trek Comments: To: iafa-l@ebbs.english.vt.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Ok, it's definitely not written from a feminist point-of-view--but it's still hilarious... Life Will Not Be Like Star Trek ------------------------------- ......................................................... Written by Scott Adams, published in "The Dilbert Future" by HarperBusiness. Copyright United Media, 1997. Please keep this notice with the text if you forward it by e-mail. ......................................................... There are so many Star Trek(tm) spin-offs that it is easy to fool yourself into thinking that the Star Trek vision is an accurate vision of the future. Sadly, Star Trek does not take into account the stupidity, selfishness, and horniness of the average human being. Allow me to describe some of the more obvious errors in the Star Trek vision. Medical Technology ------------------ On Star Trek, the doctors have hand-held devices that instantly close any openings in the skin. Imagine that sort of device in the hands of your unscrupulous friends. They would sneak up behind you and seal your ass shut as a practical joke. The devices would be sold in novelty stores instead of medical outlets. All things considered, I'm happy that it's not easy to close other people's orifices. Transporter ----------- It would be great to be able to beam your molecules across space and then reassemble them. The only problem is that you have to trust your co-worker to operate the transporter. These are the same people who won't add paper to the photocopier or make a new pot of coffee after taking the last drop. I don't think they'll be double-checking the transporter coordinates. They'll be accidentally beaming people into walls, pets, and furniture. People will spend all their time apologizing for having inanimate objects protruding from parts of their bodies. 'Pay no attention to the knickknacks; I got beamed into a hutch yesterday.' If I could beam things from one place to another, I'd never leave the house. I'd sit in a big comfy chair and just start beaming groceries, stereo equipment, cheerleaders, and anything else I wanted right into my house. I'm fairly certain I would abuse this power. If anybody came to arrest me, I'd beam them into space. If I wanted some paintings for my walls, I'd beam the contents of the Louvre over to my place, pick out the good stuff, and beam the rest into my neighbor's garage. If I were watching the news on television and didn't like what I heard, I would beam the anchorman into my living room during the commercial break, give him a vicious wedgie, and beam him back before anybody noticed. I'd never worry about 'keeping up with the Joneses,' because as soon as they got something nice, it would disappear right out of their hands. My neighbors would have to use milk crates for furniture. And that's only after I had all the milk crates I would ever need for the rest of my life. There's only one thing that could keep me from spending all my time wreaking havoc with the transporter: the holodeck. Holodeck -------- For those of you who only watched the 'old' Star Trek, the holodeck can create simulated worlds that look and feel just like the real thing. The characters on Star Trek use the holodeck for recreation during breaks from work. This is somewhat unrealistic. If I had a holodeck, I'd close the door and never come out until I died of exhaustion. It would be hard to convince me I should be anywhere but in the holodeck, getting my oil massage from Cindy Crawford and her simulated twin sister. Holodecks would be very addicting. If there weren't enough holodecks to go around, I'd get the names of all the people who had reservations ahead of me and beam them into concrete walls. I'd feel tense about it, but that's exactly why I'd need a massage. I'm afraid the holodeck will be society's last invention. Sex with Aliens --------------- According to Star Trek, there are many alien races populated with creatures who would like to have sex with humans. This would open up a lot of anatomical possibilities, but imagine the confusion. It's hard enough to have sex with human beings, much less humanoids. One wrong move and you're suddenly transported naked to the Gamma Quadrant to stand trial for who-knows-what. This could only add to performance anxiety. You would never be quite sure what moves would be sensual and what moves would be a galactic-sized mistake. Me Trying to Have Sex with an Alien ----------------------------------- Me: May I touch that? Alien: That is not an erogenous zone. It is a separate corporeal being that has been attached to my body for six hundred years. Me: It's cute. I wonder if it would let me have sex with it. Alien: That's exactly what I said six hundred years ago. The best part about having sex with aliens, according to the Star Trek model, is that the alien always dies a tragic death soon afterward. I don't have to tell you how many problems that would solve. Realistically, the future won't be that convenient. Phasers ------- I would love to have a device that would stun people into unconsciousness without killing them. I would use it ten times a day. If I got bad service at the convenience store, I'd zap the clerk. If somebody with big hair sat in front of me at the theater, zap! On Star Trek, there are no penalties for stunning people with phasers. It happens all the time. All you have to do is claim you were possessed by an alien entity. Apparently, that is viewed as a credible defense in the Star Trek future. Imagine real criminals in a world where the 'alien possession' defense is credible. Criminal: Yes, officer, I did steal that vehicle, and I did kill the occupants, but I was possessed by an evil alien entity. Officer: Well, okay. Move along. I wish I had a phaser right now. My neighbor's dog likes to stand under my bedroom window on the other side of the fence and bark for hours at a time. My neighbor has employed the bold defense that he believes it might be another neighbor's dog, despite the fact that I am standing there looking at him barking only twenty feet away. In a situation like this, a phaser is really the best approach. I could squeeze off a clean shot through the willow tree. A phaser doesn't make much noise, so it wouldn't disturb anyone. Then the unhappy little dog and I could both get some sleep. If the neighbor complains, I'll explain that the phaser was fired by the other neighbor's dog, a known troublemaker who is said to be invisible. And if that doesn't work, a photon torpedo is clearly indicated. Cyborgs ------- Given the choice, I would rather be a cyborg instead of 100 percent human. I like the thought of technology becoming part of my body. As a human, I am constantly running to the toolbox in my garage to get a tool to deal with some new household malfunction. If I were a cyborg, I might have an electric drill on my arm, plus a metric socket set. That would save a lot of trips. From what I've seen, the cyborg concept is a modular design, so you can add whatever tools you think you'd use most. I'd love to see cross-hairs appear in my viewfinder every time I looked at someone. It would make me feel menacing, and I'd like that. I'd program myself so that anytime I saw a car salesman, a little message would appear in my viewfinder that said 'Target Locked On.' It would also be great to have my computer built into my skull. That way I could surf the Net during useless periods of life, such as when people talk to me. All I'd have to do is initiate a head-nodding subroutine during boring conversations and I could amuse myself in my head all day long. I think that if anyone could become a cyborg, there would be a huge rush of people getting in line for the conversion. Kids would like it for the look. Adults would like it for its utility. Cyborg technology has something for everyone. So, unlike Star Trek, I can imagine everyone wanting to be a cyborg. The only downside I can see is that when the human part dies and you're at the funeral, the cyborg part will try to claw its way out of the casket and slay all the mourners. But that risk can be minimized by saying you have an important business meeting, so you can't make it to the service. Shields ------- I wish I had an invisible force field. I'd use it all the time, especially around people who spit when they talk or get too close to my personal space. In fact, I'd probably need a shield quite a bit if I also had a phaser to play with. I wouldn't need a big shield system like the one they use to protect the Enterprise, maybe just a belt-clip device for personal use. I could insult dangerous people without fear of retribution. Whatever crumbs of personality I now have would be completely unnecessary in the future. On the plus side, it would make shopping much more fun. Shopping with Shields Up ------------------------ Me: Ring this up for me, you unpleasant cretin. Saleswoman: I oughta slug you! Me: Try it. My shields are up. Saleswoman: Damn! Me: There's nothing you can do to harm me. Saleswoman: I guess you're right. Would you like to open a charge account? Our interest rates are very reasonable. Me: Nice try. Long-Range Sensors ------------------ If people had long-range sensors, they would rarely use them to scan for new signs of life. I think they would use them to avoid work. You could run a continuous scan for your boss and then quickly transport yourself out of the area when he came near. If your manager died in his office, you would know minutes before the authorities discovered him, and that means extra break time. Vulcan Death Grip ----------------- Before all you Trekkies write to correct me, I know there is no such thing as a Vulcan Death Grip even in Star Trek. But I wish there were. That would have come in handy many times. It would be easy to make the Vulcan Death Grip look like an accident. 'I was just straightening his collar and he collapsed.' I think the only thing that keeps most people from randomly killing other citizens is the bloody mess it makes and the high likelihood of getting caught. With the Vulcan Death Grip, it would be clean and virtually undetectable. Everybody would be killing people left and right. You wouldn't be able to have a decent conversation at the office over the sound of dead co-workers hitting the carpet. The most common sounds in corporate America would be, 'I'm sorry I couldn't give you a bigger raise, but . . . erk!' And that's why the future won't be like Star Trek. hmaclean@kent.edu http://kent.edu/~hmaclean/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 20:05:09 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nicole Youngman Subject: Re: Librarians' salaries << _Babes with Books_, definitely. (Maybe Esther Friesner would consider it. I hear she's doing a second Chicks in Chainmail anthology.) >> Oh goody. I loved the first one!! I had to chuckle, too, reflecting that Friesner has more than earned her feminist credentials with _Psalms of Herod_ & _Sword of Mary_. Nicole ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 17:27:01 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Maryelizabeth Hart Subject: Poppy Z. Brite Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I believe Poppy has actually claimed to be "a gay man trapped in a woman's body." Draw your own conclusions... I have only read her first book, for rather odd reasons. I read the final 2/3 sitting in a hospital emergency room trying to find out what had brought my husband to his knees in agony, and thence. Therefore, there is this inexcapable association between Poppy's works and his pain and hospital smells. Maryelizabeth Mysterious Galaxy 619-268-4747 3904 Convoy St, #107 800-811-4747 San Diego, CA 92111 619-268-4775 FAX http://www.mystgalaxy.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 21:59:04 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nalo Hopkinson Subject: Re: Master i Margarita Comments: To: MARINA YERESHENKO In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NH: _Animal Farm_ is, I believe, the Orwell title to which you're referring. I read it as a pre-teen, and missed the political implications because I was too young to understand them. However, I did grasp most of the moral implications of the novel, and very much enjoyed it. I was a much more flexible reader as a child. Paka, -nalo On Tue, 15 Jul 1997, MARINA YERESHENKO wrote: > Nalo, > Sorry it took me so long. My mail program crashed and I was just able to > recover last week messages. > > Confusion about who wrote _1984_ is no big deal. Nichego strashnogo :) . > I read another story by Orwell, I believe it's original title was > something like _Pigs Barn_. It was good, but a little straightforward. > More politics than fiction. > > Marina > > On Mon, 7 Jul 1997, Nalo Hopkinson wrote: > > > On Mon, 7 Jul 1997, MARINA YERESHENKO wrote: > > > > > > > > Nalo, > > > > > > title while translating the book. I never read _1984_, though. Isn't it > > > by George Orwell? > > > > NH: Damn, yeah, it is. I don't even have the excuse of advancing age, > > not really. > > > > -nalo > > > > > > "Straight she's fantastical, they all do cry." > > -Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, > > "Nature's Pictures," 1656 > > > > > "Straight she's fantastical, they all do cry." -Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, "Nature's Pictures," 1656 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 23:47:15 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Re: sexuality in feminist sf (was sex scenes) In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > > I taught Samuel Delany's _Tales from Nerveryon_ last year in a freshman > composition class. The odd thing is that the students didn't seem to > complain about the presence of a homosexual relationship between Gorgik and > Small Sarg. It was the women who were most open to reading and discussing > these issues. The male students seemed to be somewhat discomforted by the > reading material. On the other hand, a colleague of mine really focused on > sexuality and feminism in her class and received a huge amount of > resistance from her students. Here's an interesting question. Would this > have something to do with the differences in gender between myself and my > colleague? Do students tend to respect male teachers and their > idiosyncratic interests more than female teachers and their interests? > > Erik > Erik, I'm going to hazard a guess, based on my own experience, that you got away with discussing Delany's gay stories without too much resistance, in part, because your male students were so uncomfortable that they couldn't bring themselves to say anything. I also know from experience that it can be easier for a male teacher than a female teacher to get away with discussing feminist and gender-related topics in class, at least when it comes to dealing with less advanced students. I share the teaching of children's literature classes in my department with another colleague. My female colleague and I developed our syllabus together and we both deal with such controversial topics as gender roles, same-sex marriages, kids deciding that they're gay, sex education, child abuse, and incest, and their presentation in books for children. Because we developed the syllabus together, I know that my colleague and I are pretty much in agreement on these topics. Neither of us is notably more radical in our thinking than the other, despite the fact that Virginia is an out lesbian whereas I'm hetrosexual. Yet, when it comes to class discussion (and also teacher evaluation forms), Virginia gets a lot more resistance than I do. Partly, I expect, it's the whole gender-based respect thing (female teachers often have to work harder to gain their students' respect than do male teachers), but it also has to do with the students not knowing quite what to make of a male teacher talking a feminist line. Because my colleague fits their stereotyped idea of a radical feminist, she's easier to argue with. Mike Levy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 00:01:29 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Re: Poppy Z. Brite-- In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The only Poppy Z. Brite which I've ever read was her most recent novel, Exquisite Corpse, which I unfortunately had to finish because I was being paid to review it by a major magazine on a short deadline with no time to hand the book over to someone else. Damn it, though, the book very nearly made me throw up. I know that Brite is considered a really hot writer and I know that she's talented, and I know that she's particularly popular in the gay horror-fiction reading community, so perhaps I'm being small minded, but yuck! retch! (Having written the above paragraph I then went on to briefly describe some of the action in the novel, which involves SIMULTANEOUS torture, murder, necrophilia and cannibalism, but decided to censor myself for fear of sending some more tender minded soul into hysterics or a quick trip to the bathroom, hand clenched over mouth.) And I generally like horror fiction! Mike Levy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 10:08:37 +0000 Reply-To: k.willshaw@chester.ac.uk Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: k.willshaw@CHESTER.AC.UK Subject: Contact movie in the UK Hi When I was quite a lot younger I read the book "Contact" by Carl Sagan and it was one of those books that really made a difference to the way I looked at myself. This was because the main character, Ellie, was a woman physicist. This inspired me in an awful lot of ways and I am now doing a Phd in a science subject because I felt that I could believe in my abilities and intelligence and in some ways this book helped. Anyway to get to the point of this message, does anyone know if Contact has a release date in the UK because I cant bear the thought that I am not going to be able to see this adaptation of one of the best books I remember reading as an impressionable teenager! yours waiting with bated breath to see this movie Kate PS this is my first attempt at writing to a net discussion group, having been lurking for a few days so please excuse the style! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 06:08:31 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Erik Tsao Subject: Poppy Z. Brite Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Lesley Hall wrote: >[M]y distinct impression that she was not a feminist and was not >writing from this perspective, a feeling reinforced by press interviews in >which she claimed that she was 'really' a gay man (though I believe she has >since married, something gay men are not yet generally permitted to do...). I >suppose she could claim to be writing from a 'queer'/transgressive >perspective? But I think this differs somewhat from feminism. Does a "queer" perspective really differ from a feminist one? I think Eve Sedgwick and Judith Butler might say no, since their theoretical work tends to cross through both those perspectivs. Poppy Z. Brite's novels may not be feminist per se, but could we, following Cixous, call her work *ecriture feminine*? Could it be not so much the content of what she writes as the way she writes that would make her a feminist writer? This is of course more in the French tradition of feminist writing which goes against American practicality. American feminist writers tend to be very interested in the politics of content. French feminist writers are more interested in the politics of form. That may be oversimplifying the difference though. Erik Erik Tsao Graduate Student Department of English Wayne State University Detroit, MI ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 06:24:48 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Erik Tsao Subject: sexuality in feminist sf Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Mike Levy wrote: > [W]hen it comes to class discussion (and also teacher evaluation forms), >Virginia gets a lot more resistance than I do. Partly, I expect, it's the >whole gender-based respect thing (female teachers often have to work harder >to gain their students' respect than do male teachers), but it also has to >do with the students not knowing quite what to make of a male teacher talking >a feminist line. Because my colleague fits their stereotyped idea of a >radical feminist, she's easier to argue with. It's funny. I get the sense that students actually are more receptive to feminist theory/criticism when it's a man who is teaching it to them. I don't know if that's true or not in all cases, but definitely when I've taught essays and stories written from a feminist perspective, the students tend to be more receptive to it than when my women colleagues have attempted to teach the same material. Maybe it's because they never realized that men could be feminists, and as you said it's easier to argue with someone who might, more obviously, fit the stereotype of a radical feminist. Erik Erik Tsao Graduate Student Department of English Wayne State University Detroit, MI "The naked Senses sometimes see too little -- but then _always_ they see too much." --Edgar Allan Poe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 09:33:30 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Tanya Wood Subject: Re: Contact movie (minor spoilers) and the portrayal of women In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 16 Jul 1997, Michael Marc Levy wrote: > > > I pretty much agree with Tanya's and other's analysis of male-female > power relationships in Contact, but with one suggestion. > The black, female presidential assistant, played by Angela Bassett, is > considerably more than just a good source of information on where to buy > a nice dress. She has considerable power and uses it as needed, for > example when Drummond (Drumlin? whatever) is trying to completely take > over the project and she, pretty much by executive fiat, states that > Ellie will continue to have day to day control over operations. I half agree here: yes, the Angela Basset character clearly does have alot power dealing with realpolitik rather than idealism. However when she makes Ellie the operations controller (with Drummond having overall administrative control) it is clear that this is a sop thrown to Ellie in exchange for her silence. Shortly afterwards Palmer comments that Ellie has been more or less given walking orders, and when Ellie looks puzzled, he adds something like "or you are at least being handed your hat".Ellie is on the out and out, and the support of the Bassett character is strictly provisonal, if not illusionary. The only suggestion that they might really share anything in common, comes in the dress scene. Apart from this, I don't think there is really any female networking going on here. The divison between politics and science that the movie postulates is too wide. > I wonder how much of Ellie's isolation from female co-workers is simply the > usual male-authored cliche on Sagan's part and how much of it is the way > things still are (or were when Sagan wrote the book in the late 1980s) > for women working in the hard sciences. Anyone here have the kind of > background to comment on this from first hand experience? > > Mike I'm sure that Sagan's depiction of Ellie's all male scientific team is realistic in terms of when Sagan wrote the novel (and probably even now) but the complete lack of women in Ellie's life (not that she precisely has one) is worthly of note: no female freinds, no relatives, nada. Tanya. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 08:45:02 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Kate Bolin Subject: Re: Poppy Z. Brite-- In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I have trouble considering Poppy Z. Brite a feminist author. All female characters in her books are overshadowed by the men, who are usually androgynous and can pass for women. I've read all her books ("Lost Souls", "Drawing Blood", "Wormwood", and "Exquisite Corpse"), and I've come to the conclusion that she is basically a hack. And not a very good one at that. When I first read "Lost Souls", I liked it. She can do wonderful descriptions of the South, which I suppose is her one saving grace. I then read "Drawing Blood" which I also liked. "Wormwood", her short story collection, is also good. Then I read "Exquisite Corpse". And that was just plain BAD. It wasn't the gore that got me, it was the writing, the plot, the sheer brainlessness of it. Living in New Orleans, and leaning towards the subculture known as "Gothic", I also saw that Brite was, essentially, stealing her ideas from a variety of sources. The climatic torture scene in "Exquisite Corpse" was stolen, almost image by image, from the bootleg Nine Inch Nails video for the "Broken" ep. Maybe it's because she's living in New Orleans...maybe it's because she wrote about vampires...Poppy Z. Brite is slipping into Anne Rice mode. It doesn't matter how bad it is, people will buy it and consider it wonderful. Kate Bolin who just woke up and shouldn't be discussing horror writers right now ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I'm already in the gutter....next stop, it's the drain..." Alien Sex Fiend "I Walk The Line" Kate Bolin http://studentweb.tulane.edu/~kbolin Founder of Delenn Deserves Better!! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 16:29:59 +0100 Reply-To: L Garforth Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: L Garforth Subject: Re: Mars In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > there is also the question of the > environment. The planet is under constant attack, for example, by large > corporations & the politicians that support them. It disturbs me that the > water & air continue to be polluted, the rainforests are being decimated, > toxic & nuclear waste threaten many communities ( I was in Eastern Europe > during the Chernobyl disaster - it was pretty terrifying), cancer has > reached epidemic proporations (especially breast cancer) etc. while we > spend billions in space. What are the effects of the space program on the > Earth's environment? What are the effects of environmental destruction on > our bodies, right here on earth? > I don't really have an opinion one way or another on the rights and wrongs of space exploration, but I suppose my position is quite close to what you outline above. Since this is a lit group, could I mention a novel by Catherine Bush _Minus Time_ that juxtaposes precisely these two issues? I guess it's sf, insofar as it seems to be a near future thing and concerns woman-in-space. It's a while since I read it, but as I remember, mother is involved in space program whilst daughter back on earth grows increasingly concerned about/active in environmental protest/industrial sabotage. I don't _think_ Bush ever explicitly discusses the potentially contradictory relationship between human societies' (and individuals') desires to explore (colonise?) other worlds and our pathetic inability to even treat our own right. I suppose rather that the structure of the novel is intended to problematise the connection. I wasn't sure what to make of it at the time - anyone else seen it? I should maybe say hello, being new to this (and in fact all!) groups? I'm not exclusively an sf reader, but I do dabble, and I do love feminst utopian/dystopian sf. I'm a research graduate at Univ. York England looking at how utopian and science fiction writing addresses environmental issues in creating future worlds. My feeling is that utopian and science fiction do better work in offering us sustainable futures than do academic/activist/policy environmentalist discourses. It seems to me (at a fairly early stage of work) that the most fleshed out and compelling green futures come out of feminist work - I'm thinking mainly of _Woman on the Edge of Time_ and Tikva in _Body of Glass_ here. Any suggestions for further reading welcome - although given the wide range of contributions to this list, I suspect I've missed loads already? Lisa ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 09:18:57 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: SMCharnas Subject: Re: Birth Control Books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 8:48 AM 7/16/97, Martha Bartter wrote: >The last I heard about that, someone had pretty well proved that the >whole scandal had been either invented or exaggerated -- that no group >actually like the Ik had even existed. Good God -- not another Tasaday Incident! This century is miserably rich in fancy public baloney. Anybody notice, for example, that the corpses of the newly-slain dead in Timsoara during the Bosnian War a couple of years ago were in fact a neat row of ancient, yellowed cadavers hauled out of the local medical school and morgue for the occasion? I *thought* they looked awfully odd at the time, later found confirmation in an article in, I think, the Manchester Guardian. Oy. This isn't the Information Age. It's the Age of Fakes. Suzy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 09:19:00 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: SMCharnas Subject: Re: Contact movie (minor spoilers) and the portrayal of women Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 10:51 PM 7/15/97, Ann Wheeler wrote: >I've just seen _Contact_, and I would be interested in hearing how other >people react to the female characters in the film. While I think that >there's much to like about Ellie, the Jodie Foster character, I wish that she >had some contact with other women at some point in the film. See, there's this problem, as it is perceived: IF you actually have a major female character with the normal complement of female friends, relations, enemies, colleagues, etc., THEN she is going to complain mightily to those very female cohorts about the crap she is being force-fed by the men in power; well, what the hell *else* are they going to talk about, if they're supposed to be close to her and she's having all this trouble? This intru- sion of the real world necessarily throws the whole story off course. It becomes centered on that conflict instead of on the Great Project. (See also altering Readercon programming, which is actually not another story but the same one, of course). So it's "easier" to *show* the sexist crap happening to a woman with no significant female others in her life, and letting the omitted discussion go on among women in the audience afterward, where it won't distract and disturb men who want to see stuff about alien contact, pop. science, and Big Ideas (except feminism, socialism, etc.). Suzy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 09:26:03 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Laura Wigod Subject: Re: Mars In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >At 12:39 PM 7/14/97, Laura Wigod wrote: > >>Feminism is about equality for women, so, as abhorrent as a character such >>as Thatcher is, it's still progress for womankind! (sigh) I realize it's >>difficult to acknowledge that women are as capable of all the -isms as any >>man, but that's the way it is! > >Yes -- the idea, I thought, was that women should be able to be just as >big a jerk as a man and get the same kind of rewards out of it that that >man would. > >Suzy Haha! Irony noted...... This will sound a little twisted, but.......shortly after OJ Simpson murdered Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman, that woman (whose name now escaped me - Susan Mitchell?) on the East Coast (whose state now escapes me - North Carolina?) murdered her two children. Naturally, I was HORRIFIED, as anyone should be, but, in another part of my brain, I thought the timing was perfect. After the Simpson/Goldman murders, there was a lot of anti-male energy floating around - lots of articles about domestic violence and men who kill and athletes who are violent, etc. I thought the murder of those two children was a nice reminder that violence is not the sole domain of men and that women are equally capable of such vile acts. Laura ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 10:20:34 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: SMCharnas Subject: Re: Poppy Z. Brite-- Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 12:01 AM 7/17/97, Michael Marc Levy wrote: >(Having written the above paragraph I then went on to briefly describe >some of the action in the novel, which involves SIMULTANEOUS torture, >murder, necrophilia and cannibalism, but decided to censor myself for fear >of sending some more tender minded soul into hysterics or a quick trip to >the bathroom, hand clenched over mouth.) > >And I generally like horror fiction! R.L.Stine for "grown-ups". Suzy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 10:20:31 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: SMCharnas Subject: Re: sexuality in feminist sf (was sex scenes) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:47 PM 7/16/97, Michael Marc Levy wrote: >Yet, when it comes to class discussion (and also teacher evaluation forms), >Virginia gets a lot more resistance than I do. Partly, I expect, it's the >whole gender-based respect thing (female teachers often have to work harder >to gain their students' respect than do male teachers), Female teachers are often seen as a surrogate MOM, to be resisted, mocked, undermined, etc. at any and every opportunity (UNLESS a female teacher is really good at what she does and overwhelms this knee-jerk kid-attitude, although it is never possible to accomplish this with all the kids in a given class; somebody will always be proof against even your very best). Male teachers are seen as that (usually) distant and thus romanticized authority figure, DAD, and if they do not make themselves utterly ridicu- lous from the get-go have a somewhat better chance of being obeyed, if not respected (or, sometimes, even loved for their resemblance to certain bumbling tv DADs whom kids are taught to regard as lovable. There are few lovabel MOMs on tv, mostly silly, dangerous, horrible, or sick-and-dying pathetic ones). And no kids freely and comfortably discuss any aspects of sex with their parents or surrogates thereof. All this is full-of-holes-and-exceptions (thank gods) generalization derived from several years teach jr. high school in the mid-sixties (I loved doing it, too, and I miss those times. Suzy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 13:39:51 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nalo Hopkinson Subject: Re: Mars Comments: To: L Garforth In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Good to see Catherine Bush's work entering the dialogue here, not only because she's a fellow Torontonian, but also because she received a writing grant from Toronto Arts Council to work on that project. Slightly before my time, I think, but I'm the Lit. Grants Officer for Toronto Arts Council, so I take an interest. (But have you read the novel, they ask? Sadly, sheepishly, no.) -nalo "Straight she's fantastical, they all do cry." -Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, "Nature's Pictures," 1656 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 13:46:18 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nicola Griffith Subject: Re: Poppy Z. Brite It must also be remembered, of course, that feminism is always relative: Brite might really be struggling hard with what to her *are* feminist issues, even though some of us might regard them as pre-101 stuff, the alphabet we had to understand before we could even read, never mind take advanced courses. Having said that, I loathe her work. Ugh, indeed. Nicola Nicola Griffith http://www.america.net/~daves/ng/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 13:47:06 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nalo Hopkinson Subject: Re: Birth Control Books In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 17 Jul 1997, SMCharnas wrote: > At 8:48 AM 7/16/97, Martha Bartter wrote: > > >The last I heard about that, someone had pretty well proved that the > >whole scandal had been either invented or exaggerated -- that no group > >actually like the Ik had even existed. > > Good God -- not another Tasaday Incident! This century is miserably > rich in fancy public baloney. Oy. This isn't the > Information Age. It's the Age of Fakes. NH: At Readercon this weekend past, Chip Delany predicted on a panel that one big issue for this age will be Disinformation. I had a shock recently too, when I was substantially into the writing of a novel whose premise had to do with bootlegging of human body parts in third world countries. Thought I'd done my research--everything from tv documentaries through journal articles and web-surfing. Then I began to find claims that a lot of the information was bogus. Found enough information both confirming and disproving the 'facts' that finally I had no clue whom to believe. I had to abandon the premise altogether and recobble my novel out of the remaining bits. Brr. -nalo "Straight she's fantastical, they all do cry." -Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, "Nature's Pictures," 1656 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 14:23:28 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nicole Youngman Subject: FW: WOC Alert 7/16/97 - CBS commentary I'll beg forgiveness for posting something decidedly off-topic, but I happened to see this commentary and was thoroughly annoyed. Now I know why!! Nicole << Last week, the so-called Independent Women's Forum scored a triple win with prominent attacks on feminism generally, and the National Organization for Women (NOW) in particular, in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the CBS Sunday Evening News. In each case, feminists were attacked for being out of touch and not representative of most women. Their case in point? NOW's opposition to the Promise Keepers. "Women want their men to keep their promises," said these cheerleaders for the right. Carefully left out of the discussion was the Promise Keepers' links to Pat Robertson and the Christian Coalition, the fact that Promise Keepers rallies are training grounds for men to "take back their rightful place as head of the families, ... and make their wives submit to their leadership," and their virulent and hateful homophobia. At least The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal labeled the opinion as such, and gave the source of the opinions. But at no time did CBS identify the IWF's Laura Ingraham as anything more than a "commentator." The video accompanying the piece featured women interviewed -- not about the NOW stand against the Promise Keepers -- about the word feminism and whether men should keep their promises. And the perky blonde Ingraham could easily be mistaken for a telejournalist (as least in looks -- she is neither old nor unattractive and is properly deferential to men -- just the kind the guys in the front office like). It boggles the mind that CBS thinks it is appropriate to have Ingraham as a commentator, let alone fail to mention her bias. She sprang full blown as a media star, a creation of the right wing. And she strikes us as relevant to most women and their families as a singing pig -- the singing pig's novelty wears off once you realize that she sings off key and gets the words wrong! CBS has an obligation to let its viewers know that Ingraham represents only herself and her right wing masters. If CBS insists on carrying her novelty act -- "Look! A woman against women's rights!" -- they must inform the public of her political agenda. ACTION: Let CBS know how you feel about their attempt to validate the right wing by carrying Laura Ingraham's commentary without identifying her bias. Email CBS at <> and call your local CBS affiliate. Only you can stop the backlash! Please Post Widely! Women Leaders Online/Women Organizing for Change PO Box 11019, Washington DC 20008 Voice: 202-861-4730 Fax: 202-364-3018 E-mail: wlo@wlo.org Web: http://wlo.org To subscribe, mailto:listserv@listserv.aol.com with the message: subscribe WOC firstname lastname To unsubscribe, mailto:listserv@listserv.aol.com with the message: unsubscribe WOC To change your address, unsubscribe from your old address and subscribe from your new address. >> --------------------- Forwarded message: From: robinred@msn.com (Robin Rothrock) Sender: owner-netbytes@mailer.hotrock.com Reply-to: netbytes@mailer.hotrock.com To: netbytes@mailer.hotrock.com (Netbytes) Date: 97-07-17 02:32:08 EDT WOC Alert 7/16/97 - Congress to Poor Worldwide: Just Say No; CBS Says 'Welcome Home' to the Stepford Wives As Congress considers the FY 1998 Appropriations Bill, there is a move (inspired by the Christian Coalition and Concerned Women for America) to institute a global gag rule -- denying poor women the right to be told anything about abortion by their health care workers -- and, just it case that doesn't work, to totally slash all funds for international family planning. Can't you just hear their logic? It's as if they are saying, "If you can't afford birth control or more children, just say no to sex -- control yourselves, you brazen hussies!" Of course, we suspect that the need for an even cheaper labor pool for the global economy may be as important a reason as their blatant hatred of poor women. But whatever the reasons, we cannot let the House and Senate get away with this outrage. Even with international family planning available now, there is still a shocking maternal death rate -- one women dies every 3 minutes from illegal abortion. And we know that restrictions on birth control and lack of knowledge of safe, legal abortion will drive that death rate up astronomically. ACTION: Email your Member of Congress <> and your Senators <