"FEMINISTSF LOG9709E" ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 03:21:42 -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: LOL (laughing out loud) re: Daniel Boone MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii -- [ From: David Christenson * EMC.Ver #2.5.3 ] -- > (I don't think the Daniel Boone theme song referred to his coonskin cap, but I > could be mistaken; however, Disney merchandised the hell out of it in the > mid-1950s or thereabouts. "From the coonskin cap on the top of Ol' Dan To the tip of his rawhide shoe-oo, The rippin'est roarin'est fightin'ist man The frontier ever knew... Daniel Boone was a man Was a biiiiiiig man And he fought for America to make all America free - What a boon, what a doer, what a dream comin' truer was he..." Or something like that. (No wonder the old racist Manifest Destiny version of history has such a hold over the imagination - I remembered this ditty for 30+ years....) But the Disney coonskin cap thing was a Davy Crockett merchandising push, more toward the late '50s. I wore one myself as a toddler. -- David Christenson - ldqt79a@prodigy.com "Yet, throughout the book there exists the whole gamut of strange facts which we ourselves had been aware of for years, all carefully mustered to support a theory doomed by every process of logic to be forever incomprehensible." - Ray Palmer ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 10:01:40 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: L Garforth Subject: Re: all male societies In-Reply-To: <199709252117.RAA141537@pilot09.cl.msu.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 25 Sep 1997, Carrie A Preston wrote: > > > > >>I am a frequent viewer of the list, but a rare contributor. I have a > > >>student doing a project on science fiction who is examining alternate > > >>forms of reproduction. We have several examples of all female societies > > >>solving reproduction in interesting ways, but can uncover only one all > > >>male society in utopian sf where reproduction is a major issue. This is > > >>in the book _Ethan of Athos_ by Lois M. Bujold. Other suggestions of > > >>books that we might consider would be welcome. > You might want to look at a book of themed sf short stories by the British writer Brian Stableford. It's called _Sexual Chemistry:Sardonic Tales of the Genetic Revolution_ and is an attempt to deal fictionally with the potential consequence of recent advances (?) in genetics research. Two stories in particular seem useful: 'BEdside Conversations', in which a man becomes pregnant with his own twin brother, much to his mother's disgust; and 'The Magic Bullet', in which a male scientist discovers a method of reproduction via the cloning of eggs. He attempts to take his 'secret' to the grave - it ends rather ambiguously with him confiding in his female research assistant - will she do anything with the information? Hope these are helpful, Lisa ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 10:23:30 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: L Garforth Subject: Re: What do women want? Power? In-Reply-To: <19970928083232.25126@puma.macbsd.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 28 Sep 1997, Allen Briggs wrote: > Janice Dawley: > > [...] what exactly is power? [...] > > "power over", the means to coerce others into doing what you > > want (which was a bad thing). But my own idea of power is "power to", the > > means of doing things for yourself. > > This sounds exactly like what I remember from Starhawk's _Dreaming the > Dark_, except she calls them "power over" and "power from within." I > have tried to apply this in identifying uses and meanings of "power" > since reading that (I should go back and re-read since I don't remember > anything but this from the book). Although Piercy's utopia doesn't have convenient terms for these two > types of power, both are addressed in _Woman on the Edge of Time_. All that stuff about 'inknowing', the rite of passage in the wilderness (Innocente learns to relate to herself and her immediate environment before she can truly be thought 'socialised') - the whole social structure of Mattapoisett is an imaginative exercise in creating a framework wherein personal power can be enhanced while guarding against hierarchical power relationships ('power over'). Lisa ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 10:29:41 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: L Garforth Subject: Re: all male societies In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.16.19970924161057.2977f1aa@academic.truman.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 24 Sep 1997, Martha Bartter wrote: > At 01:43 9/24/97 -0700, you wrote: > >>I am a frequent viewer of the list, but a rare contributor. I have a > >>student doing a project on science fiction who is examining alternate > >>forms of reproduction. We have several examples of all female societies > >>solving reproduction in interesting ways, but can uncover only one all > >>male society in utopian sf where reproduction is a major issue. This is > >>in the book _Ethan of Athos_ by Lois M. Bujold. Other suggestions of > >>books that we might consider would be welcome. > >> Sorry about the earlier post on the Stableford - sloppy first reading of your message. It is an interesting, if not *that* good book, though, and its gender attitudes are worth wondering about (him being a bloke, and a 'scientist' (a biologist, I think). Sorry! Lisa ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 07:51:13 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "George Elgin, Suzette Haden Elgin" Subject: What do women want? Power? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Maybe I can make a tentative suggestion about the kind of power that women (at least some women) want, with an example from Navajo. In Navajo, beauty is not something that is "out there" to be perceived by the human being, it is something that is co-created by the perceiver and the thing perceived. To walk in beauty is not something that happens to you, it is something you *do* and it is something you do cooperatively and in association with the beautiful. That, to my mind, is power. Suzette ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 07:16:57 -0900 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Pat Subject: Re: Friday In-Reply-To: <970928213520_1530228222@emout17.mail.aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 28 Sep 1997, Nicole Youngman wrote: > << > The thing here is that she is human as opposed to being some sort > of android. >> > > So are we defining human in strictly biological terms? Seems like that kind > of definition would defeat the purpose of an awful lot of literature. > We're not talking "an awful lot of literature" here. We're talking Friday's own pathology. Likewise a 19th century working class woman might define real success as being confined to kitchen and drawing room like a real lady. What counts is where the character is coming from. > >>"With a 14.4 modem it's not netsurfing.It's webcrawling." > > Tell me about it...;-) > > Nicole > Patricia (Pat) Mathews mathews@unm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 07:25:31 -0900 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Pat Subject: Re: What do women want? Power? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 29 Sep 1997, L Garforth wrote: > > Although Piercy's utopia doesn't have convenient terms for these two > > types of power, both are addressed in _Woman on the Edge of Time_. All > that stuff about 'inknowing', the rite of passage in the wilderness > (Innocente learns to relate to herself and her immediate environment > before she can truly be thought 'socialised') - the whole social structure > of Mattapoisett is an imaginative exercise in creating a framework wherein > personal power can be enhanced while guarding against hierarchical power > relationships ('power over'). > Both French and Spanish have separate terms for the two kinds of power. One is the classic "power over" and the other is "ability to."> Patricia (Pat) Mathews mathews@unm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 09:01:59 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sean Johnston Subject: Re: Friday In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >On Sun, 28 Sep 1997, Nicole Youngman wrote: > >> << >> The thing here is that she is human as opposed to being some sort >> of android. >> >> >> So are we defining human in strictly biological terms? Seems like that kind >> of definition would defeat the purpose of an awful lot of literature. >> > We're not talking "an awful lot of literature" here. We're talking >Friday's own pathology. Likewise a 19th century working class woman might >define real success as being confined to kitchen and drawing room like a >real lady. What counts is where the character is coming from. > > Except that they might not consider that confining but their own space. -Sean ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 20:59:53 -0400 Reply-To: lguerra@ibm.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: luz guerra Subject: Re: Friday MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Pat wrote: > > On Sun, 28 Sep 1997, Nicole Youngman wrote: > > > << > > The thing here is that she is human as opposed to being some sort > > of android. >> > > > > So are we defining human in strictly biological terms? Seems like that kind > > of definition would defeat the purpose of an awful lot of literature. > > > We're not talking "an awful lot of literature" here. We're talking > Friday's own pathology. Likewise a 19th century working class woman might > define real success as being confined to kitchen and drawing room like a > real lady. What counts is where the character is coming from. > lg: Perhaps in the 19th century working class women might have had their own agendas and didn't necessarily aspire to be 'real ladies' (although they may well have aspired to the access to certain 'privileges'--freedom hunger, forced prostitution, etc.--those 'real ladies' had). Christine Stansell's City of Women: Sex and Class in NY 1789-1860 is a wonderful piece of historical research/retelling that examines just that.... Stansell documents the evolution of the creation of the 'private sphere' of kitchen and drawing room of the privileged classes that was then imposed by the 'ladies' onto poor and working-class women, as the 'ladies' created new roles for themselves (social worker/philanthropist/teacher/do-gooder) by justifying these as an extension of their domain: care of children & spouse in kitchen and drawing room to care of (childlike) poor working women who should be remade in the image of 'ladies'. luz ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 10:15:00 -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: What do women want? Power? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Although Orson Scott Card often seems to have definite ideas about "a woman's place is in the home", I just read a book of his called "The Call of Earth" which had a female-ruled (and generally quite positive, though by no means utopian) city called Basilica, which was under threat by internal and eternal (male driven) war. Male power comes from those men who respect the leader's specific attributes of military strength, but female power comes from the woman's particular position in the community. There is one quite striking scene where the "raveler" who can view the connections between people, sees the city's leader Rasa, connected to the social web of the city by powerful cords, so when Rasa resists the various invasions, she speaks with the community behind her and hence with considerable power. Its not difficult to see essentialism lurking under this though.... Tanya ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 15:16:03 BST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: farah mendlesohn Subject: Re: What do women want? Power? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Tue, 30 Sep 1997 07:25:31 -0900 Pat wrote: > > Both French and Spanish have separate terms for the two kinds of power. > One is the classic "power over" and the other is "ability to."> > > Patricia (Pat) Mathews > mathews@unm.edu So do we: its the difference between power and authority. Farah ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 14:53:57 BST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: farah mendlesohn Subject: Re: Friday MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Sun, 28 Sep 1997 13:00:23 -0400 Nicole Youngman wrote: > From: Nicole Youngman > Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 13:00:23 -0400 > Subject: Re: Friday > To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > > << Thus subverting the actual demand that women place their maternal capacity > at the service of > a man. >> > > She could have done the same thing by aborting the fetus--but she goes > through with it, accepting what's been done to her, and decides that the act > of childbirth is what makes her human. That, I think, is the problem. > > Nicole it is for her because it is what has been denied to her. I too feel ambivalent about the story but in its own way I think it is feminist. It *is* about choice. Farah ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 14:59:13 BST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: farah mendlesohn Subject: Re: Friday MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Sun, 28 Sep 1997 21:38:14 -0400 Nicole Youngman wrote: > > << > The thing here is that she is human as opposed to being some sort > of android. >> > > So are we defining human in strictly biological terms? Seems like that kind > of definition would defeat the purpose of an awful lot of literature. > > Nicole Note: *Heinlein* does not define Friday as human because she bears a child. His definition of human has more to do with mental ability and education (an alarming notion in itself). From the beginning, many others see Friday as human and some do not but her fertility is never the issue in the outside world. It is Friday who sees herself as subhuman because of her infertility, and her ability to carry a child is only the very last stage of her growing faith in her humanity. Farah ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 14:52:54 BST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: farah mendlesohn Subject: Re: relative strength MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Sun, 28 Sep 1997 09:32:54 -0500 Sean Johnston wrote: > From: Sean Johnston > Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 09:32:54 -0500 > Subject: Re: Friday > To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > > >On Fri, 26 Sep 1997 20:58:40 -0400 Nalo Hopkinson wrote: > > > >> From: Nalo Hopkinson > >> Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 20:58:40 -0400 > >> Subject: Re: Friday > >> To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > >> > >> On Fri, 26 Sep 1997, Sean Johnston wrote: > >> > >> > EEEYOWWCH! Perhaps the childbirth thing is why women tend > >> > to have higher pain thresholds than men. Anybody know if this > >> > (about pain thresholds) is true or false? > >> > >> NH: I believe it's true, in the same way that the 'men are bigger and > >> stronger than women' thing is true. Don't know if it's linked to > >> childbirth or not. Could be linked to menstrual cramps too, for that > >> matter. If it's linked to anything at all. > >> > >> -nalo > > > > > >Its about stamina rather than pain thresholds as such. The strength gap > >between men and women starts to close when the test is stamina rather > >than speed or agility. > > > >Farah > > Okay. So it sounds like women have more strength than power, since power > is usually seen as explosive, short-lived. At least, that's how I see it. > > -Sean A related thought - many women (including me) comment on how much fuss men get when they get colds or other illnesses, but having nursed one or two in recent years I have come to wonder if men genuinely *do* get iller? Is it possible that men, not as strong at birth remember, may have weaker immune systems? I don't know much about this but a woman's immune system has to work for two, and cope with the invasion of foreign flesh (the foetus). I know that there are all sorts of mechanisms that make this possible, but could it help in fending off illnesses? Farah ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 11:15:56 -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: LOL (laughing out loud) re: Daniel Boone In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Nalo Hopkinson corrected: >Okay, so it was swamp *fox,* not swamp *hog.* Hey, it makes a big difference. Francis Marion was a hero of our Revolution, and an important early guerilla fighter. "Swamp Hog" sounds like a high school team. Neil Rest ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 11:16:13 -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: Heinlein, and I Will Fear No Evil In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.16.19970926183851.435fd74c@academic.truman.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Heinlein wrote some novels just about everyone agrees are awful. Heinlein wrote some novels a lot of people think are awful. However, _Time Enough For Love_ is in a special class because he was, literally, dying while he wrote it. It may not have been a whole lot better if he'd been unimpaired while writing it, but I, for one, think it would have been significantly different. Neil Rest ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 10:23:22 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Neil Rest Subject: Dismal Status of Women in China was Re: Good news, realtime In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 01:47:39 -0400 From: CND-Global Editors Subject: CND-Global, September 29, 1997 (GL97-134) To: CHINA-NN@LISTSERV.UTA.EDU +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ C h i n a N e w s D i g e s t +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ (Global News, No. GL97-134) Monday, September 29, 1997 =========================================================================== CND is a community-based free news/info service provided by volunteers. Views expressed are those of the contributor or the original author. Due to lack of staff, facts are not verified and readers' discretion is advised. All CND publications are copyrighted. Redistribution is hereby permitted provided that it is not for profit and with proper acknowledgement to CND. See trailer of this package for more information about CND and its services. =========================================================================== ISSN 1024-9117 Table of Contents # of Lines =========================================================================== 1. News Brief (9 Items) ................................................ 253 2. Sports News (1 Item) ................................................. 31 3. Market Watch ......................................................... 21 4. News from Taiwan (5 Items) ........................................... 25 =========================================================================== ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. News Brief (9 Items) ................................................ 253 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ____ ____ ____ (5) WHO Conference Presents Dismal Report on Status of Women in China [CND, 09/28/97] A paper presented at the World Health Organization (WHO) Western Pacific Conference portrayed a damning picture of the status of women, and the treatment of female children, in China. The paper claimed that some 50 million Chinese females were considered missing, believed to be the victims of selective abortion, infanticide, or neglect. The birth rate of males vs. females is becoming significantly abnormal, with 117 males now born alive for each 100 successful female births. The paper, as summarized in a report from the AFP English Wire, went on to state that the maltreatment of surviving female children in China extended well beyond infancy. Although the survival rate of female children traditionally exceeds that of males throughout East Asia, the mortality rate of female children under 5 years of age in China now greatly exceeds that of males. In many cases males were treated and nourished better, were more likely to receive quality medical care, and when sick were taken to doctors earlier than were females. Males were also more likely to receive schooling, and had a substantially higher literacy rate than did females. The paper decried such discriminatory practices, stating that "these inhibit the assertive capacity of women in all aspects of life, affect their ability to institute changes and hamper their access to health-related information. Sex-role stereotyping starts at a very early age and contributes to girls and women being accorded lower status in many areas of life." (Phil STEPHENS, Guochen WAN) ____ ____ ____ +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Executive Editor of This Issue: Tongbin LI | | CND-Global Coordinator: Jian-Min LI (AU) | | CND-Global Source Team: Guochen WAN, Ray ZHANG, Charles MOK | | CND Writer Coordinator: Weijun LIU | | CND Writer Team: Terry Thompson, Greg GAO, ZHAO Hua, Weihe GUAN, | | Xiayi KE (UK), Dong LIU (CA), Weijun LIU, Bing WEN (CA), Linda WU,| | Ray ZHANG, Haosheng ZHOU (CA), Qiujing Bu, Jingdong Xu, | | Fabian FANG, Kewen ZHANG, Fang WU, Bo XIONG, Phil Stephens | | CND Mailing Lists Maintainers: Weihe GUAN, Haosheng ZHOU (CA) | | CND Reader Technical Consultant: Ming Yang XU (AU) | | CND Manager: Bo XIONG | | Team members are in the U.S.A. unless indicated otherwise: | | AU - Australia, CA - Canada, UK - United Kingdom | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | China News Digest (CND) offers the following services: | | (1) Global News (Every Other Day) (2) US Regional News | | (3) Canada Regional News (4) Europe & Pacific Regional News | | (5) HXWZ (Weekly Chinese Magazine) (6) InfoBase | | CND back issues, database and related information are available via: | | http://www.cnd.org [IP: 206.135.33.5] ftp://ftp.cnd.org [IP:149.159.2.6]| | For readers in Canada: ftp://canada.cnd.org/pub/cnd/ [IP:142.132.12.100]| | To subscribe or get information, mail requests to: CND-INFO@CND.ORG | | To contribute news, e-mail: CND-EDITOR@CND.ORG | | Postal Address: CND, P.O. Box 10111, Gaithersburg, MD 20898-0111, U.S.A.| +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 10:46:37 -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: Good news, realtime In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Michael Marc Levy replied to me: >> > More likely, they're just selling them to the rich, eccentric, barbarian >> > American market. They sell organs from convicted criminals, too. >Neil, I assume you meant this remark ironically and with no real intent >to hurt anyone, but you need to be careful when making pronouncements on a >subject as touchy as adoption. Many good and decent people are involved >in the entirely legitimate practice of overseas adoption. I was speaking with venom aforethought -- about the government of China, which grudgingly exports unwanted infants for hard currency rather than just killing them. It is weak understatement to say the infants themselves are better off here than in the midden heaps of their home villages. (I may have mentioned in another post that one of the on-line sources of practical information for interested people is Marie and Kirby Bartlett-Sloan, local [Chicago] fans, friends of mine, and parents of two lovely little Chinese girls.) Neil Rest ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 11:57:24 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Susan Armstrong Subject: fads Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > Just about every boy in America wanted a coonskin cap because >Davey Crockett wore one. > >Mike Levy "Daveeeeeeeeey! Daaaaaay-vey Crockett! King of his own backyard!" OK, so that's not quite the way the title song went... Having personally known a number of raccoons (still in their skins, that is), I'll just say, "No comment." -- Susan Susan Armstrong * Vancouver, Canada * anariska@mortimer.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 18:49:28 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: relative strength On Sun, 28 Sep 1997 09:32:54 -0500 Sean Johnston wrote: > From: Sean Johnston > Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 09:32:54 -0500 > Subject: Re: Friday > To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > > >On Fri, 26 Sep 1997 20:58:40 -0400 Nalo Hopkinson wrote: > > > >> From: Nalo Hopkinson > >> Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 20:58:40 -0400 > >> Subject: Re: Friday > >> To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > >> > >> On Fri, 26 Sep 1997, Sean Johnston wrote: > >> > >> > EEEYOWWCH! Perhaps the childbirth thing is why women tend to have > >> > higher pain thresholds than men. Anybody know if this (about pain > >> > thresholds) is true or false? > >> > >> NH: I believe it's true, in the same way that the 'men are bigger and > >> stronger than women' thing is true. Don't know if it's linked to > >> childbirth or not. Could be linked to menstrual cramps too, for that > >> matter. If it's linked to anything at all. > >> > >> -nalo > > > > > >Its about stamina rather than pain thresholds as such. The strength gap > >between men and > >women starts to close when the test is stamina rather than speed or agility. > > > >Farah > > Okay. So it sounds like women have more strength than power, since power > is usually seen as explosive, short-lived. At least, that's how I see it. > > -Sean >A related thought - many women (including me) comment on how much >fuss men get when >they get colds or other illnesses, but having nursed one or two in recent >years I have come to >wonder if men genuinely *do* get iller? Is it possible that men, not as >strong at birth >remember, may have weaker immune systems? I don't know much about >this but a woman's >immune system has to work for two, and cope with the invasion of foreign >flesh (the foetus). I >know that there are all sorts of mechanisms that make this possible, but >could it help in >fending off illnesses? >Farah It may be relevant to remark that infant mortality of boy babies is higher than that of girl babies. in fact more males are born but more die, leaving adult gender proportions with a slight imbalance towards women (51/2%, I believe). Also, there seem to me to be far more relatively common or well-known genetic problems (from minor eg colour-blindness, to haemophilia) which manifest more often in the male: carried on the x chromosome but not nullified by the y, but in the female needs 2 x chromosomes from carrier parents to manifest. Though--on the immune system thing--if women have stronger more resistant immune systems why don't their bodies reject the foetus (as at least partly alien tissue) more often? (though miscarriages apparently happen in some 25% of all conceptions). ?When god made man she was only practising? Lesley Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 16:45:43 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Penelope Gibbs Organization: UGA College of Vet. Med Subject: Sex and immunity Women do have an increased immunity due to a higher estrogen level in the blood and tissues. When women become pregnant, the further increase in the estrogen level boosts the immune response, allegedly to help protect the fetus. Also, though I do not have accurate statistics on the subject, the increased immune response in women also make us more susceptble to autoimmune diseases, i.e. Lupus and Hodgkins Disease. Something else to consider; sometimes it can be the immune response itself that actually "causes disease". Allergies, for example, are the result of an overactive immune response to a non-pathogen (i.e. dust mites). Additionally, it is theorized that a "self-targeted" immune response is responsible for Multiple Sclerosis (sp?), and that it can result from long-term exposure to certain common allergens. Now, do men really get "sicker" than women. As a scientist and casual observer, it appears as though this is subject to change from individual to individual, and not necessarily gender. Case point: my lover and I are both females; however, even if we "share" the same virus, she inevitably becomes "sicker" than I. I often blame it on a lack of stamina on her part, but it is possible that our immune responses are quite different, despite being the same sex. The reason the fetus is not rejected is because of the placental barrier. The components of the immune system necessary for the rejection response are not capable of crossing the placental barrier. This protects both the fetus and the mother from rejection of the fetus or anaphylactic shock. Now, I cannot tie this in with science fiction or fantasy, but some list members seemed curious. Penny > >A related thought - many women (including me) comment on how much >fuss men > get when > >they get colds or other illnesses, but having nursed one or two in recent > >years I have come to > >wonder if men genuinely *do* get iller? Is it possible that men, not as > >strong at birth > >remember, may have weaker immune systems? I don't know much about >this but a > woman's > >immune system has to work for two, and cope with the invasion of foreign > >flesh (the foetus). I > >know that there are all sorts of mechanisms that make this possible, but > >could it help in > >fending off illnesses? > > >Farah > > It may be relevant to remark that infant mortality of boy babies is higher > than that of girl babies. in fact more males are born but more die, leaving > adult gender proportions with a slight imbalance towards women (51/2%, I > believe). Also, there seem to me to be far more relatively common or > well-known genetic problems (from minor eg colour-blindness, to haemophilia) > which manifest more often in the male: carried on the x chromosome but not > nullified by the y, but in the female needs 2 x chromosomes from carrier > parents to manifest. > Though--on the immune system thing--if women have stronger more resistant > immune systems why don't their bodies reject the foetus (as at least partly > alien tissue) more often? (though miscarriages apparently happen in some 25% > of all conceptions). > ?When god made man she was only practising? > Lesley > Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com > --QAA13586.875564923/dns1.uga.edu-- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 17:31:47 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Rudy Leon Subject: women and nature... In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi all. I wanted to ask y'all about the connections between women and nature in feminist SF. In my class, we have read _Herland_, _Wanderground_, _Walk to the End of the World_, and _Motherlines_ to date. We start _Woman on the Edge of Time_ on Wednesday. I really want to open the possibility that these connections are not always and 100 per cent essentializing, but my students keep coming up with amazing and creative ways to prove every option is essentializing or in some way a reinscription of patriarchy and femininity. I have been trying to work towards the concept of differing valuation of nature, and women, and community, and diversity... as undermining the commodification which upholds the sytematic oppressions of our culture, but I can't seem to get past/through all of their objections in a satisfying way. Any thoughts or suggestions any one might have on this would be greatly appreciated. Rudy Leon Syracuse University releon@syr.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 13:10:06 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Laura Wigod Subject: Re: What do women want? Power? In-Reply-To: <199709270424.AAA21784@mail.gwi.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Reading the posts about women in Heinlein and Dune made me think that many >people (men?) seem to assume that women in general want the same kinds of >power that men usually seem to want, visible power, power over others, power >as an end in itself. That they try to get power over others by stealth >because they're not strong enough to get it by force. I think of the >powerful women in sf and find some who do this, like the women behind the >Gate to Women's Country, and others who don't, like the old woman of Remnant >Population who only wants to be left alone to cultivate her garden. > >Must a strong female character always want power? Or do circumstances >thrust the need for it upon her? I'm way behind on my email and this discussion and am reading them in order, so I hope I don't run across a later message addressing my question, but..... In the tradition of many goddess-centered spiritual systems, power is seen as coming from _within_ and shouldn't be used _over_ others. I see many, many "powerful" women who display their power in this manner, acting as role models and leaders, but never displaying "power" the way it is set up in our patriarchal society. So. Does anyone know of any SF where a woman is put into a "powerful" position, as defined by patriarchal standards, but who still manages to exert her "power" in the female way I've just described? Now THAT would be delicious! I don't think it's any progress for women to get into positions of power only to wield it over others the way a man would (Ex: Margaret Thatcher). Laura ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 18:01:05 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Nina M. Osier" Subject: Re: Friday MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit And if nuturing a fetus to term could make an android "human," then would it make an artificial womb (another venerable SF device!) human as well? Point about Data is well taken, though (although I'm splitting a gasket picturing him pregnant - excuse me, it was a LONG Monday). Nina Osier Nicole Youngman wrote: > << > The thing here is that she is human as opposed to being some > sort > of android. >> > > So are we defining human in strictly biological terms? Seems like that > kind > of definition would defeat the purpose of an awful lot of literature. > > >>"With a 14.4 modem it's not netsurfing.It's webcrawling." > > Tell me about it...;-) > > Nicole ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 15:44:27 -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: LOL (laughing out loud) re: Daniel Boone Comments: To: Neil Rest In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19970929111556.006c1550@tezcat.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 29 Sep 1997, Neil Rest wrote: > Nalo Hopkinson corrected: > > >Okay, so it was swamp *fox,* not swamp *hog.* > > Hey, it makes a big difference. NH: Which is why I took the time to publicly correct my mistake. -nalo "In the suburbs, no-one can hear you scream." -David ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 17:46:49 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: patricia johnston Subject: Re: fads In-Reply-To: <18572434301771@mortimer.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:57 AM 9/29/97 -0700, you wrote: Hi, When I was a kid my brother (younger than me) had a Davey Crockett hat. I was the "tom-boy" of the street, and wore his hat whenever I could. I can still hear my brother crying to my mother,,,,,"she`s wearing MY hat again". Being a tom-boy in my era was sort of frowned on. All the other little girls in my neighbourhood were doing little "twirly-girly" things,,,,like playing with their dollies, and learning how to bake cookies with their mothers. I was out with the boys,,,climbing trees,,,making forts,,,,and playing tackle football. I still cannot bake a cookie, but would not trade my tom-boy adventures. Patricia. >> Just about every boy in America wanted a coonskin cap because >>Davey Crockett wore one. >> >>Mike Levy > >"Daveeeeeeeeey! Daaaaaay-vey Crockett! >King of his own backyard!" > >OK, so that's not quite the way the title song went... > >Having personally known a number of raccoons (still in their skins, that >is), I'll just say, "No comment." > >-- Susan > >Susan Armstrong * Vancouver, Canada * anariska@mortimer.com > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Sep 1997 22:40:57 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Ann Wheeler Subject: Re: Heinlein, and I Will Fear No Evil In a message dated 97-09-29 13:11:39 EDT, Neil Rest writes: << However, _Time Enough For Love_ is in a special class because he was, literally, dying while he wrote it. It may not have been a whole lot better if he'd been unimpaired while writing it, but I, for one, think it would have been significantly different. >> True enough. But I've always thought that the books writers write when they're not at the top of their form are very revealing about the way that they see the world, possibly more revealing than their better books.... And *Time Enough for Love* made me see the way Heinlein saw women--if that tangled syntax makes sense--more clearly than I ever had before, and I could never read his books again. At least not until now-- I have actually bought a new copy of *A Moon is a Harsh Mistress*, which was always my favorite, and I'm going to be interested to see how I react to it now, fifteen years or so since the last time I read Heinlein. Ann ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 00:09:58 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Tonya Browning Subject: Re: fads Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" RE: Fads Since we're on the subject of fads, I just want to put a plug in for Connie Willis' SF book _Bellwether_, now out in paperback. Fads are the primary research topic for the heroine. Like Willis' _Remake_, the book is part satire, part science and mostly amusing. She combines chaos theory, scientific discovery, fads and romance for a good short (extended novella-length) read. Tonya Tonya Browning The University of Texas at Austin tonyab@mail.utexas.edu http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~tonya @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ We need the power of modern critical theories of how meaning and bodies get made, not in order to deny meaning and bodies, but in order to live in meanings and bodies that have a chance for the future. --Donna Haraway. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 00:58:34 -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: fads In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, Tonya Browning wrote: > RE: Fads > Since we're on the subject of fads, I just want to put a plug in for Connie > Willis' SF book _Bellwether_, now out in paperback. Fads are the primary > research topic for the heroine. Like Willis' _Remake_, the book is part > satire, part science and mostly amusing. She combines chaos theory, > scientific discovery, fads and romance for a good short (extended > novella-length) read. > > Tonya > I just saw Bellweather on a list of books that were censored in 1996. does anyone know any of the details? Mike Levy ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 11:18:28 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: L Garforth Subject: Re: women and nature... In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19970929173147.006bc2cc@mailbox.syr.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 29 Sep 1997, Rudy Leon wrote: > Hi all. I wanted to ask y'all about the connections between women and > nature in feminist SF. In my class, we have read _Herland_, > _Wanderground_, _Walk to the End of the World_, and _Motherlines_ to date. > We start _Woman on the Edge of Time_ on Wednesday. I really want to open > the possibility that these connections are not always and 100 per cent > essentializing, but my students keep coming up with amazing and creative > ways to prove every option is essentializing or in some way a reinscription > of patriarchy and femininity. Oh, you caught me at such a good time on this one - I'm just e-mailing for displacement activity to avoid drafting a paper on a very similar topic. This counts as constructive displacement, I suppose. I started work on green sf utopias before it really clicked that most (although *certainly* not all) are feminist ones, and moreover feminist ones produced in a particular social, historical and cultural context. Then I had to deal with my own problems with ecofeminism - precisely its essentialising tendencies. Hoping not to offend anyone, elisions between 'women' and 'nature' frequently make my skin crawl; I feel physically upset by this kind of thinking's inability to make sense in my life, which I very consciously experience as highly culturally mediated. In particular, I find the expression 'earth rape' and its like extremely problematic, whatever your views on the question of anthropocentrism. IE I think I know where your students are coming from. I'm currently playing with two possibilities to help me find a way around this. The first is to try and understand the feminist utopias you mention (with the obvious exception of _Herlan_) as coming out of a very particular social, historical and cultural context, and to see them as making connections between feminist and ecological*politics* rather than between women and nature per se. I've been reading Moylan's _Demand the Impossible_ on this, and although his prose style and jumbled critical theory can be a problem, I think he essentially (groan) has the right approach. The second, and related, point, actually came out of a couple of earlier comments on the newsgroups - I can't remember names, but this is in the way of a citation - to the effect that it might be wise to treat the woman/nature connection being offered by some feminist utopias and also some ecofem theory as working on a symbolic or formal level, rather than as in some way trying to represent a 'real' relation. This opens out possible analyses to asking _why_ the positing of a connection between feminity and some essence of nature is being made - what is it trying to make us think or do? My own feeling is that it works often to draw attention to >interlocking relationships of domination, and their relationship to hegemonic economic systems. Both these points are perhaps best illustrated by WOTET (well, they are for me anyway, cos it's the one I know best), particularly in Piercy's very explicit focus not on the eternal and essential relationship between women and nature, but rather on the very specific histories of activist politics opposing the systems that devalue both. I guess this is what you're getting at below: I have been trying to work towards the concept of differing valuation of > nature, and women, and community, and diversity... as undermining the > commodification which upholds the sytematic oppressions of our culture, but > I can't seem to get past/through all of their objections in a satisfying > way. > > Any thoughts or suggestions any one might have on this would be greatly > appreciated. > Sorry this is so long and garbled; as you can see, I haven't quite got my brain round it yet. I have a few references with interesting (ish) takes on this problem which I'll happily let you have (including a particularly awful paper by Krishan Kumar called 'Primitivism in Feminist Utopias' which accuses the novels of a wholesale anti=technological bias on the back of his imputation of an essentialist woman/nature relationship). Equally, I'd be interested to know what secondary literature you've been using with your students. Hoping this helps, doubting it will, Lisa ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 07:49:12 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Janice M Bogstad Subject: Re: fads Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" This sequence of messages has struck a responsive chord - I grew up in Wisconsin on a farm in the 50s and Davie Crockett was VERY popular - I was fortunate to grow up with two younger sisters and we not only played davie crockett but also peter pan, indian life, explorer and, later on, Lawrence of Arabia. (we even read Seven Pillars of Wisdom one long hot summer - and what an eye-opener THAT was. But then we also had been reading science fiction from as our earliest reading - ever heard of Janice in Tomorrowland? That preceded heinlein and Norton for me. The question is - were we really tomboys as we didnt' really play with boys - but we also didn't play with barbie dolls, EVER, or with twirly things and frills - I spent grade school in bluejeans and flannel shirts, as did many of us - and I wouldn't trade it for anything, especially since what went along with it was a night sky dark enough so that we could easily study the stars... thats why things like Heinlein's Starman Jones and Norton's Starman's son made such an impact on my future..... so - what exactly is a Tom Boy? (I couldn't hit a baseball or play football but was six foot one by 9th grade and built treehouses well into high school....) sigh....I cant' wait to move back to a farm and have a horse and dog again (and, of course, still travel all over the world as comic relief....). SF as limited as it was encouraged me to pursue the adventures I craved (and still do), to develop my mind like the girl AND BOY in Have Space Suit, WIll Travel, and test myself mentally and physically. Maybe being in the country did that too, or maybe it was being a 'tomboy'... At 17:46 9/29/97 -0700, you wrote: >At 11:57 AM 9/29/97 -0700, you wrote: > >Hi, When I was a kid my brother (younger than me) had a Davey Crockett hat. >I was the "tom-boy" of the street, and wore his hat whenever I could. I can >still hear my brother crying to my mother,,,,,"she`s wearing MY hat again". >Being a tom-boy in my era was sort of frowned on. All the other little >girls in my neighbourhood were doing little "twirly-girly" things,,,,like >playing with their dollies, and learning how to bake cookies with their >mothers. I was out with the boys,,,climbing trees,,,making forts,,,,and >playing tackle football. I still cannot bake a cookie, but would not trade >my tom-boy adventures. >Patricia. > >>> Just about every boy in America wanted a coonskin cap because >>>Davey Crockett wore one. >>> >>>Mike Levy >> >>"Daveeeeeeeeey! Daaaaaay-vey Crockett! >>King of his own backyard!" >> >>OK, so that's not quite the way the title song went... >> >>Having personally known a number of raccoons (still in their skins, that >>is), I'll just say, "No comment." >> >>-- Susan >> >>Susan Armstrong * Vancouver, Canada * anariska@mortimer.com >> >> > > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Dr. Janice M. Bogstad, Associate Professor Collection Development Librarian Library & Information Services, McIntyre Library University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Eau Claire, WI 54702-5010 USA email: bogstajm@uwec.edu telephone: 715-836-6032 "I HAVE NEVER REGRETTED BUYING A BOOK, BUT I HAVE OFTEN REGRETTED NOT BUYING A BOOK." +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 09:03:07 -0400 Reply-To: Tanya Wood Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Tanya Wood Subject: Re: women and nature... In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19970929173147.006bc2cc@mailbox.syr.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Rudy, Just read your interesting post. I definitely think that the women and nature connection does tend to be essentializing but I wonder if one could usefully see it as a political strategy in order to defend women as women (and the traditional body/nature relationship) given that we are situated in a patriarchical system where women are binarised as inferior. To take the terms of inferiority and transform them into terms of superiority is a classic form of reaction to oppression. I'm thinking of Diana Fuss's _Essentially Speaking_ here, where she suggests that essentialism should be interogated everytime it is encountered, but that one should be open to possibilities that it is being used strategically and contingently rather than absolutely. Mind you, a book like The Wonderground seems to work in absolutes, but WOTET may not. And _Herland_ might be an interesting case here. Tanya. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 07:19:18 -0900 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Pat Subject: Re: all male societies In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sat, 27 Sep 1997, Michael Marc Levy wrote: > > Has anyone mentioned Philip Wylie's 1951 novel The Disappearance, in > which men and women suddenly find themselves in different, gender > segregated alternate universes? > I remember reading that when it was new. The men got into a state of constant warfare very quickly; the women fumbled and bumbled a lot and then got into running gear more or less. I remember being furious when the heroine, Paula, decided she must slow down - there was something unhealthy about her insistence on being a hero. Now, in middle age, I understand it. His thesis was that women are competent given the chance; men need women the way a reactor needs damping rods, and it was a valuable lesson for all concerned. This from the raging misogynist of his other books! It's well worth looking up, but his other stuff is now worthwhile only to historians.> Patricia (Pat) Mathews mathews@unm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 08:49:33 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: MaryKay Bird-Guilliams Subject: Re: women and nature... Comments: To: Tanya Wood In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Pardon my ignorance, but I have been reading these posts hoping someone will define essentializing. Is this seen as a common fallacy in literary trends? I have read Sexual Personae by Camille Paglia, as well as tons of SF literature, she definitly theorizes that western male civilization equates women with nature - by definition: scary. Is that what you mean? Mary K. Bird-Guilliams marykbg@wichita.lib.ks.us Reference Librarian Wichita Public Library ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Sep 1997 07:59:33 -0900 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Pat Subject: Re: women and nature... In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19970929173147.006bc2cc@mailbox.syr.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII With that set of texts I hope you don't forget THE FURIES. Never mind patriarchy etc - what it reminded me most of was the aftermath of the French Revolution. But then, MOTHERLINES is about alavery, among other things. Patricia (Pat) Mathews mathews@unm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 09:24:07 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Edrie J Sobstyl Subject: Re: fads In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19970929174649.006965a0@deepcove.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Y'know, I still had my Crockett hat until about a year and a half ago, when my 5th move in 3 years was making it necessary to shed all non-essential medium-sized dry goods. I'd like to say that it was a relic of a tomboy's misspent youth, but fact is, I didn't even acquire it until I was 24! :) edrie On Mon, 29 Sep 1997 17:46:49 -0700 patricia johnston wrote: > At 11:57 AM 9/29/97 -0700, you wrote: > > Hi, When I was a kid my brother (younger than me) had a Davey Crockett hat. > I was the "tom-boy" of the street, and wore his hat whenever I could. I can > still hear my brother crying to my mother,,,,,"she`s wearing MY hat again". > Being a tom-boy in my era was sort of frowned on. All the other little > girls in my neighbourhood were doing little "twirly-girly" things,,,,like > playing with their dollies, and learning how to bake cookies with their > mothers. I was out with the boys,,,climbing trees,,,making forts,,,,and > playing tackle football. I still cannot bake a cookie, but would not trade > my tom-boy adventures. > Patricia. > > >> Just about every boy in America wanted a coonskin cap because > >>Davey Crockett wore one. > >> > >>Mike Levy > > > >"Daveeeeeeeeey! Daaaaaay-vey Crockett! > >King of his own backyard!" > > > >OK, so that's not quite the way the title song went... > > > >Having personally known a number of raccoons (still in their skins, that > >is), I'll just say, "No comment." > > > >-- Susan > > > >Susan Armstrong * Vancouver, Canada * anariska@mortimer.com > > > > Edrie Sobstyl School of Arts and Humanities University of Texas at Dallas P.O. Box 830688 Richardson Tx 75083-0688 (972) 883-2365 (972) 883-2989 (fax) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 10:37:06 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Rudy Leon Subject: Re: women and nature... In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Although my first reaction was a resounding *no* (I never want to agree with Paglia!), I think it is, in fact, exactly what *I* at least meant. Culturally, *we* (and yes, i know how problematic that is) see women as having some intrinsic connection with nature, or as somehow being more closely related to nature than men. Frequently this cultural position stands on the biological fact that women give birth and lactate, and are therefore more of animalistic than men. Essentialism in this way is just another form of biologic determinism. It bercomes especially probelematic in Fem SF becasue we frequntly see women authors making the same connections, for supposedly different reasons--for example Herland shows a colony of Mothers who live in a garden of perfect balance, who do everything ina *natural* way because of their emphasis on maternity (a natural thing, even though in thsi story it is supernatural or at least a biological glitch). In Motherlines, the riding women attempt to live in a balance with nature, and appear to have made a decision to stop technology at a certain level--this show up in the granary episode. Wanderground is absolutely rife with it. The complicating factor in this, especially for my class, is the interlocking oppressions /degredations of patriarchy (gods I am really beginning to hate that word)--race, class, sexuality, and the environment. My class sees the conflation of all this as another way of reinscribing patriarchy, of saying women as natural caretakers (essentializing) must clean house on a global scale as well, and they won't let me say that patriarchy if a systemic of oppression through commodification adn that the ability to/ease of commodification is the core problem. They may be right; we are likely unable to see ways in which we still participate in and perpetrate that system--hence the bogey on essentializing. coming down off the soap box, but truly grateful for an opportunity to clarify my thoughts without interruption! At 08:49 AM 9/30/97 -0500, you wrote: >Pardon my ignorance, but I have been reading these posts hoping someone >will define essentializing. Is this seen as a common fallacy in literary >trends? I have read Sexual Personae by Camille Paglia, as well as tons of >SF literature, she definitly theorizes that western male civilization >equates women with nature - by definition: scary. Is that what you mean? > >Mary K. Bird-Guilliams marykbg@wichita.lib.ks.us >Reference Librarian >Wichita Public Library > > Rudy Leon Syracuse University releon@syr.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 10:38:14 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Rudy Leon Subject: Re: women and nature... In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" we left the Furies off because of time constraints, and also because the class is a Religion course and Furies is harder for that purpose. At 07:59 AM 9/28/97 -0900, you wrote: >With that set of texts I hope you don't forget THE FURIES. Never mind >patriarchy etc - what it reminded me most of was the aftermath of the >French Revolution. But then, MOTHERLINES is about alavery, among other >things. > >Patricia (Pat) Mathews >mathews@unm.edu > > Rudy Leon Syracuse University releon@syr.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 10:04:50 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Janice M Bogstad Subject: Re: women and nature... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi again, folks. I want to recommend a short book on this subject by Diana Fuss - it was invaluable in writing my thesis (Gender, power and reversal in anglo-am and french feminist sf), and in contrasting theories of 'gender' - it is called Essentially Speaking: Feminism, Nature and Difference. It's not very long, but the useful contrast she made was between Essentialist theorys (women's essence defines her gender) and Constructivist theories (women's gender has been constructed in social settings) You might want to know this book exists/check it out (or I can send anyone who is interested the bit from my thesis - which is also available thorugh UMI and in a few libraries) which addresses this issue for science fiction..Jan Bogstad At 08:49 9/30/97 -0500, you wrote: >Pardon my ignorance, but I have been reading these posts hoping someone >will define essentializing. Is this seen as a common fallacy in literary >trends? I have read Sexual Personae by Camille Paglia, as well as tons of >SF literature, she definitly theorizes that western male civilization >equates women with nature - by definition: scary. Is that what you mean? > >Mary K. Bird-Guilliams marykbg@wichita.lib.ks.us >Reference Librarian >Wichita Public Library > > +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Dr. Janice M. Bogstad, Associate Professor Collection Development Librarian Library & Information Services, McIntyre Library University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Eau Claire, WI 54702-5010 USA email: bogstajm@uwec.edu telephone: 715-836-6032 "I HAVE NEVER REGRETTED BUYING A BOOK, BUT I HAVE OFTEN REGRETTED NOT BUYING A BOOK." +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 10:38:11 -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: fads In-Reply-To: <2.2.16.19970930075005.2a3fb054@uwec.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, Janice M Bogstad wrote: > The question is - were we really tomboys as we didnt' really > play with boys - but we also didn't play with barbie dolls, EVER, > or with twirly things and frills - I spent grade school in bluejeans > and flannel shirts, as did many of us - and I wouldn't trade it > for anything, especially since what went along with it was > a night sky dark enough so that we could easily study the stars... > thats why things like Heinlein's Starman Jones and Norton's > Starman's son made such an impact on my future..... > so - what exactly is a Tom Boy? (I couldn't hit a baseball > or play football but was six foot one by 9th grade and built > treehouses well into high school....) Hi Jan, Second hand testimony, but both my wife, Sandra Lindow, and other female friends who grew up on Midwestern American farms in the late forties, fifties, and early sixties tend to report that they experienced relatively little gender differentiation (far less than they would have in an urban environment) until they hit puberty, at which time things changed radically, with that change generally enforced upon them by both Mom and Dad, as well as the community. Why this occurred, I don't know, but I'm guessing that it had to do with the fact that rural women (and girls) were expected to do physical labor outside the home itself, something not generally expected of middle class, urban women (and girls). Mike Levy ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 12:31:45 -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: fads MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii -- [ From: David Christenson * EMC.Ver #2.5.3 ] -- > Daniel Boone was a man, yes a big man, > And he fought for America to make all Americans free. All Americans except the Shawnee Indians, of course. -- David Christenson - ldqt79a@prodigy.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 12:21:23 -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: pheromones In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:07 9/27/97 -0700, you wrote: >lg: I'm reading Uhura's Song by Janet Kagen (recommended by someone on >this list, thanks from an unashamed Trekkie). The Sivoans -- a >feline-like race -- have a highly developed (or maybe a less >underdeveloped) sense of smell that allows them to read emotions and >other things. What I imagine reading pheromones might be like.... > >luz > > Janet Kagan also wrote my all-time favorite alien contact story, Hellspark. It's been OOP for a very long time, I'm afraid, but if you can find a copy, do so. It has more technical stuff on language, communication, culture etc. embodied (painlessly) in it than many textbooks. And it's a good story, too. Martha Bartter Truman State University ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 16:47:15 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Laur, Erin M." Subject: Re: women and nature... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I was a bit surprised at my initial reading of the posts on women and nature. I had always perceived of the connection between women and nature as being highly positive. A friend of mine is extremely into nature, feeling that she draws strength and power from natural elements, particularly the moon. I myself also love nature, although I've never felt as great an "attachment" as she does. On the other hand, the other main idea this topic brought to my mind is the plethora of mythological stories where women being pursued by gods were transformed into elements of nature, such as trees, in an effort to protect them. So is this feminine power or just another method of keeping them captive? Seems to be the latter to me. So now I'm rather confused about women and nature. Maybe I should go lie outside in the sun and see if that helps to inspire me : ). -Erin ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ `` "So give me your hands, if we be friends `` `` And Robin shall restore ammends." `` `` `` `` Erin M. Laur `` `` laur@roo.susqu.edu `` ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 17:31:34 -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: women and nature... In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 08:49 AM 9/30/97 -0500, Mary K. Bird-Guilliams wrote: >Pardon my ignorance, but I have been reading these posts hoping someone >will define essentializing. Is this seen as a common fallacy in literary >trends? I have read Sexual Personae by Camille Paglia, as well as tons of >SF literature, she definitly theorizes that western male civilization >equates women with nature - by definition: scary. Is that what you mean? "Woman is to man as nature is to culture." It's not only a western concept. There are many cultures around the globe which maintain the same thing. The Sambia, for example, hold that women need no help to reach maturity, since they are closer to nature, but in order to become men boys must consume their male elders' semen, as well as go through a traumatic initiation ceremony to wrest them from the influence of women. A couple of references that occurred to me immediately while thinking of this in a western context were that scene in *Monty Python's Holy Grail* when a noble exclaims about a possible bride, "She's got VAST TRACTS OF LAND!" with a clear double-entendre re: her physical body as well as her holdings of land. I also thought of several reviews of the movie *The English Patient* which described the opening shots of the desert as being like the "sensuous curves of a woman's body" (something which had simply not occurred to me while watching the same movie). These recurrent metaphorical constructs of "woman" are not clear-cut at all, however. If women are "natural" why does it take so much time and so many products to bring the average woman's appearance into agreement with the societal standards of attractiveness? I suppose this could be merely another devaluation of nature -- that is, women are natural and that's not okay, so they must wear makeup. Who knows? It seems like a doomed effort to search for consistency here, because most conceptions of what is or isn't natural are fraught with faulty assumptions and/or circular reasoning. (One of my favorite examples of circular reasoning is an ad on, I think, the Nature Channel, for a program of bloody hunting footage, which ended with the announcer intoning dramatically, "Tune in and find out WHY we call them ANIMALS." It makes me laugh inwardly whenever I think of it.) Needless to say, I think any claim that women are close to nature is meaningless. However, I can see that there is a valid, somewhat empowering, strategy behind goddess worship. I just happen to prefer strategies that eliminate dualities rather than enforcing them. This is part of the reason I really did not enjoy *Waking the Moon*. Of course, that book was much concerned with the "dark side" of goddess worship, but Angelica's Othiym sect seemed to be cartoonishly over-involved in a power struggle with the male-identified Benandanti sect. At least at the end there was some hint of an alternative in the Adonis character's brief reappearance (an androgynous figure). -- Janice ----- Janice E. Dawley ............. Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm Listening to: Radiohead - OK Computer "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." - Lily Tomlin ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 17:40:41 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nicole Youngman Subject: Bellwether << Since we're on the subject of fads, I just want to put a plug in for Connie Willis' SF book _Bellwether_, now out in paperback. >> An excellent book. Some of the plot was a bit predictable, but the characters were (as always) wonderful. Nicole ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 17:41:41 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nicole Youngman Subject: women & nature & essentialism, oh my! Hey folks-- Absolutely no offense intended to anyone here, but the argument that any connection between women & nature should be avoided because it's "essentialist" just annoys the heck out of me. We're ALL connected to nature regardless of sex or gender or anything else--we're built out of bits and pieces of the earth like everything else. Patriarchal society, however, has denied and belittled this connection, and has tacked it on to women exclusively as a way of doing so. And when we try to get away from the connection, we're falling into the same dichotomy: since women are associated with nature and men with culture, culture must be better, and we need to cast off those old essentialist bonds so we can be free of them like men supposedly are. Only problem is, we're denying an important part of our humanity in doing so, and going along with the idea that humans are somehow over and above the rest of nature. Reclaiming and celebrating these connections can be a source of strength and power for women AND men. Nicole ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 17:51:14 -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: women and nature... << This is part of the reason I really did not enjoy *Waking the Moon*. Of course, that book was much concerned with the "dark side" of goddess worship, >> I read the 1st couple of chapters of the book and gave up. Not that it wasn't well-written, but I had a hard time caring much about any of the characters. Maybe I'll try again later. Nicole ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 18:21:00 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Nina M. Osier" Subject: Re: Heinlein, and I Will Fear No Evil MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit My own thought on why later Heinlein novels are what they are, is pretty simple: all the same themes are right there in his earlier work, they're just presented as hints and discreet "off-camera activities." The social climate of the 40's, 50's, and even to some extent the 60's simply wouldn't allow him to write about these themes as bluntly (frankly? whatever word works for you here!) as he did at the end of his life, by which time mores had become much more relaxed. So although I frankly do not care for such works as "Friday," "I Will Fear No Evil," and "Time Enough for Love" (incest isn't my thing, thank you very much), looking back at his earlier books indicates to me that in his later ones he finally was free to write just about anything he wanted to write without having his publisher shoot him down - and he proceeded to do exactly that. The only reason he was milder earlier on was that he had to be, that's how it looks to me. (My bookcases bulge with his work, by the way. His attitude toward women has fried me ever since "Podkayne of Mars," his politics annoy me nearly as much - but his imagination is unequaled, and that's why I read SF!) Nina Osier Ann Wheeler wrote: > In a message dated 97-09-29 13:11:39 EDT, Neil Rest writes: > > << However, _Time Enough > For Love_ is in a special class because he was, literally, dying > while he > wrote it. It may not have been a whole lot better if he'd been > unimpaired > while writing it, but I, for one, think it would have been > significantly > different. >> > > True enough. But I've always thought that the books writers write > when > they're not at the top of their form are very revealing about the way > that > they see the world, possibly more revealing than their better > books.... And > *Time Enough for Love* made me see the way Heinlein saw women--if that > > tangled syntax makes sense--more clearly than I ever had before, and I > could > never read his books again. At least not until now-- I have > actually > bought a new copy of *A Moon is a Harsh Mistress*, which was always my > > favorite, and I'm going to be interested to see how I react to it now, > > fifteen years or so since the last time I read Heinlein. > > Ann ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 18:45:28 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Eleanor Arnason Subject: Re: LOL (laughing out loud) re: Daniel Boone David is right. Eleanor A. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 20:16:22 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Laur, Erin M." Subject: Re: women and nature... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > These recurrent metaphorical constructs of "woman" are not clear-cut >at all, however. If women are "natural" why does it take so much time and >so many products to bring the average woman's appearance into agreement >with the societal standards of attractiveness? I suppose this could be >merely another devaluation of nature -- that is, women are natural and >that's not okay, so they must wear makeup. Who knows? Even more ironic is the fact that the new "natural look for women", a look which requires even more tedious hours in front of a mirror and hard-earned money into Revlon and Maybelline's pockets than the "unnatural" look, came in part from the women's liberation movements which tried to argue that women should be happy with the way they look. We all agreed, but we still wanted to fit the standard concept of beauty so now we have to make ourselves up without looking made up! On the same note, does anyone else find it interesting that the media is full of positive, heavily masculine commericals where a man shaves his facial hair while an adoring son or lustful wife/girlfriend/etc looks on, but no ads where a man or daughter admiringly watches a woman shave her legs or pluck her eyebrows? Why do woman have to beautify themselves in secret? ***************************************** So give me your hands, if we be friends And Robin shall restore ammends. Erin M. Laur laur@roo.susqu.edu ****************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 20:15:09 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Rudy Leon Subject: Re: women & nature & essentialism, oh my! In-Reply-To: <970930174014_-228530141@emout03.mail.aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Nicole, the problem comes in when culture and maleness are rejected, and nature and femaleness are reified. Its the same equation, just the opposite side. or at least that is one argument. i agree with you that connections with nature are extremely important (dare i say essential?) to the impending *revolution*, but my wariness lies in creating a mirror image of the current system and calling good because God is wearing a womb under that old flowing autocratic robe... This thread came out of my classes understandings of the cnnections between women and nature based on some fairly old and fairly simplistic readings of gender (10970's feminism) from early second wave feminism. The Wanderground and Herland are exceptionally problematic examples of this. My concerns extend beyond those books to an attempt to envisiona utopia which really and fully eradicates the roots of systematic oppression, so the question is important--dandelions grow back if you don't get all the root--and all I'm saying here is not that dandelions are necesarily bad, but if thay are what youre trying to get rid of, then they're a weed. At 05:41 PM 9/30/97 -0400, you wrote: >Hey folks-- > >Absolutely no offense intended to anyone here, but the argument that any >connection between women & nature should be avoided because it's >"essentialist" just annoys the heck out of me. We're ALL connected to nature >regardless of sex or gender or anything else--we're built out of bits and >pieces of the earth like everything else. Patriarchal society, however, has >denied and belittled this connection, and has tacked it on to women >exclusively as a way of doing so. And when we try to get away from the >connection, we're falling into the same dichotomy: since women are associated >with nature and men with culture, culture must be better, and we need to cast >off those old essentialist bonds so we can be free of them like men >supposedly are. Only problem is, we're denying an important part of our >humanity in doing so, and going along with the idea that humans are somehow >over and above the rest of nature. Reclaiming and celebrating these >connections can be a source of strength and power for women AND men. > >Nicole > > Rudy Leon Syracuse University releon@syr.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 22:13:00 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Ann Wheeler Subject: bewitched by Heinlein and Daniel Boone In reading the recent threads on Friday and I Will Fear No Evil and Daniel Boone (I haven't heard or thought of that theme song in thirty years, and now it won't go away--what a boon, what a doer, what a dream-come truer indeed), I've been reflecting on the books and television shows I loved as a young girl--with Heinlein's books high on the list--and the reasons that I avoid some of them now. When I was reading Heinlein at 11 and 12 and 13, I did love the adventure; they seemed like such exciting, hopeful books and I wanted to go live in them. I felt the same way about Daniel Boone, whose red-haired wife (Rebecca?) I remember as being just as brave and daring as he was. Now I suspect that if I went back and watched episodes of that show, I would find that memory to be inaccurate--and ruined. There's a female character in Heinlein's *the moon is a harsh mistress* --she has the name of a western state?--who I wanted to grow up to be. Unless I could manage to be Samantha Stevens, the nose-twitching housewife, who seemed so wonderfully powerful to me at the time. (Does *Bewitched* count as science fiction?) Talk about disillusionment! When I watched episodes of that show as an adult, I found out that the whole message was that she should hide and give up her power in order to be married to (an entirely unremarkable) man, who was very threatened by said power. Yech! Well, I have found that my true role model should probably have been Endora, so I have been able to redeem *Bewitched* for myself. (Touching on another recent thread, I also loved Mary Poppins; first Julie Andrews' version, which I can't watch now and then P.L. Travers books, which I can still read.) So there are all of these female characters out of fiction who were so important to me as I was growing up--and I was entirely "misreading" them in ways that were, I think, much more constructive for me than my current, adult perceptions of them, which I think are more accurate. No doubt I was also identifying across genders with the male protagonists in Heinlein a good bit, and swallowing some of the cultural messages about how to be female embedded in Samantha Stevens' housekeeping. But I was also transforming these stories into the stories that I needed and wanted, and my versions were very important to me. That moment as a late adolescent when I read *I Will Fear No Evil* and suddenly saw all of those wonderful Heinlein books as telling a different story than I thought they were was a very unhappy one. Sorry for the long post. When I de-lurk, I seem to do it quite thoroughly. Ann Wheeler ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 20:32:21 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Pat Subject: Re: women & nature & essentialism, oh my! In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19970930201509.006afe2c@mailbox.syr.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII If you really want to dig up the roots of the patriarchy, you have to look forst at the roots of war. Simplistic but very telling is Marvin Harris' "Pigs, Cows, Wars, & Witches," or several of his other books. He has several sections on the connections between women's status and war and it's not as obvious as you think. Matrilineal cultures can be very warlike - but the menfolk do their fighting far from home. Also Barbara Ehrenreich's BLOOD RITES, just recently read. Both agree that with small arms so prevalent, women need not be prey any longer, unless they are totally convinced that guns are un-feminine or un-feminist. Patricia (Pat) Mathews mathews @unm.edu "With a 14.4 modem it's not netsurfing.It's webcrawling." "Wanted, one ghost. Experience and good character required. Ability to ing tenor an advantage. Apply Paris Opera before New Years, 1882." ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 23:17:43 -0400 Reply-To: rubenst6@pilot.msu.edu Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Erin Rubenstein Organization: Michigan State University Subject: Pheremones MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hey gang, Sorry, I'm trying to catch back up on the list... Stopped checking for a few days and am all of a sudden WAY behind. I just want to clear up the pheremone bit. Humans DO have pheremones... They are sensitive to and release them, undoubtedly. In fact there was a neat experiment where they released some in a movie theatre and found that in the 'pheremone' theatre there was more 'hanky panky' going on than in the non theatre. It was by no means conclusive, just suggestive. As for it's actual role in human interacton and the human experience. probably really mild to non-existant. But they are there and we are sensitive to them. Thing is I may not react to one that someone else does. It's not a love poition #9 or anything, it's really complex. Someone else commented that it may be vestigial in humans because we don't need it anymore. You might want to be careful with that logic. Evolution doesn't work like that, that would be giving it human qualities... Specifically fore-thought. Evolution is just chance, we don't lose something because we don't use it. There has to be pressure to not have it, some distinct advantage to being pheremone free. It won't atrophy without use or anything like that. Ok, this is my first posting and I have one question... I've noticed a lot of comments on writers not creating societies and things that portray females as equals or their societal role is less than flattering. Like _Dune_ and other books. I have to question if it is fair to assume the author has the same agenda as we do on this listserve. Inaccurate portrayal and token women are always bad, but sometimes feminism may not be in the authors agenda. For example, in _Dune_ Frank Herbert created a very intiricate society with the Bene Gesserit. They may not have been an ideal embodiment of women or a paradigm of equality, but that wouldn't have suited his purposes at all. I don't think that his female characters (at least not in the scope hinted earlier) worked to undermine the female position. The Fremen were definately not egalitarian, granted. But for what he was trying to express they shouldn't have been. I guess I'm curious where to draw the line between non-feminine and just plain anti-female. It's a gray area that I think deserves being re-evaluated. Sincerely, Erin Rubenstein ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 23:01:33 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: MARINA YERESHENKO Subject: Tomboys In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Since somebody mentioned tomboys. When I was a kid, it always puzzled me that girls were supposed to be "nice" (long hair, dresses, dolls, playing house, crying when offended) or "tomboys"(jeans and boyish haircuts, playing with boys only, fighting back when mistreated). I could never place myself in either of this groups. I liked dresses, make-up, long hair, and stuff, but at the same time I liked climbing trees, blowing up gunpowder from stolen ammo of grandfather's shotgun, making bonfires, and my dream was taking a karate class. I did not want to be a tomboy, a boy in general, or even look like one. But I wanted to be strong do all the interesting things boys did. Girls stuff, like dolls and "tea parties" were making me sick. Once, at the age of five, my grandfather took me and my cousin (a boy two years older) to a supermarket to buy toys. He bought my cousin a toy gun, and refused to buy me the same thing, because "girls do not play with guns." I bet he remembered that day for a long, long time. Because his normally "nicest" grandkid who never did anything but sitting somewhere in a corner with a book, refused to take that for an explanation. "WHY girls cannot play with guns?" Grandad said something like "Just because", and offered to buy me a beautiful expensive doll instead of the cheap orange plastic handgun. When I refused, and he tried to take me away, I went kicking, and screaming, and holding to the counter, until he gave up and bought me exactly the same gun as my cousin's. My grandfather was simply angry, but my seven-year-old cousin was truly astonished. All the way home he kept telling me, "I can't believe you wanted that gun so much. You are a nice, quiet girl, you never play with boys, why did you want it?" In high school, it was easier to explain myself. I was identified as a nerd for "knowing too much", and as a resident weirdo, for always having my own separate ways. But when I was nine, a girl could be only either "nice" or "tough" and I did not like either. I'm just wondering, does it seem natural to everyone, that a girl "cannot" be a "little lady" and capable of breaking a brick in half with her hand at the same time? Marina "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society happens to be selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 23:48:44 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sean Johnston Subject: Re: Tomboys In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > >I'm just wondering, does it seem natural to everyone, that a girl "cannot" >be a "little lady" and capable of breaking a brick in half with her hand at >the same time? > >Marina Marina, No, it doesn't if you take out the "little" (connotes a nine-year-old). -Sean