Subject: File: "FEMINISTSF LOG9808A" ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Aug 1998 01:31:47 -0400 Reply-To: asaro@sff.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Catherine Asaro Subject: Re: Catherine Asaro's SF MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Anthea wrote: > I've just finish reading Catherine Asaro's "The Last Hawk" and > enjoyed it enormously. Does any one know what the other works in > the "Skolian Empire" universe are? The only names I can find are > "Pimary Inversion" and "Catch the lightning" and it seems unlikely > that there could only be 3. I'd particularly like the name of the first > few books in the series. Hi, Anthea. I'm delighted you enjoyed the book. :-) The message Rudy put up does give the books of mine that are currently available: Primary Inversion (hc and pb) Catch the Lightning (hc and pb) The Last Hawk (hc) The paperback for THE LAST HAWK is coming out in November this year. The next book set in the Skolian universe is THE RADIANT SEAS, which should also be available in November of this year, as a hc. The cover is currently up at my web site, and I will be putting up chapters for it in a month or two. That is at: http://www.sff.net/people/asaro/ The cover story of the December 1998 ANALOG (which also comes out in November) is a Skolian universe novella. Also, the April 1994 ANALOG has a novelette set in the Skolian universe. The novelette is called "Light and Shadow" and is probably available from the pulisher of ANALOG. They have a site for inquiries at: http://www.sfsite.com/analog/ Thanks for your interest. :-) Best regards Catherine http://www.sff.net/people/asaro/ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Aug 1998 10:25:22 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Edward James Subject: Re: Gattaca In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980729121636.007b62d0@ozemail.com.au> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 29 Jul 1998, Julieanne wrote: > To me, _Gattaca_ was celebrating a de-humanising of existence, by > 'defining' people by their genes. To me, _Gattaca_ was a critique of the current dehumanising of existence, which 'defining' people by their work and their ability to do work. Surely it is meant ot be read as a dystopia, not as a utopia? Edward James ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Aug 1998 06:06:30 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Todd Mason Subject: Re: baltimore worldcon membership for sale-last call Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit sorry I never responded after the first response...I've been juggling finances. Good luck selling at the con (I imagine that being untough...I hope. Damn, missing the first nearby wcon since moving away from Boston area just in time for the '79 event). Ah, well. Todd Mason. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Aug 1998 06:16:47 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Todd Mason Subject: an example of sleepy attempted private response. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-08-01 06:07:58 EDT, you write: << orry I never responded after the first response...I've been juggling finances. Good luck selling at the con (I imagine that being untough...I hope. Damn, missing the first nearby wcon since moving away from Boston area just in time for the '79 event). Ah, well. Todd Mason. >> Sorry you all got this one. Send me your bills. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Aug 1998 15:20:31 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Tanya M. Bouwman-Wozencraft" Subject: Re: Reproductive Technologies [some off-topic, some Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Julieanne wrote: >I vaguely remember it - also, as a teenager, I recall reading "heisenberg principle" ? ( I am getting vague - Heinlein or Herbert?) - where the population were genetically engineered, some were immortal, but always sterile, of the remainder - most were sterile - some were fertile, and the story surrounded a fertile couple, who had somehow conceived a fertile-immortal embryo:)< Close! The title is "Heisenberg's Eyes". It was written by Frank Herbert sometime around 1966. (I only know this because I just read part of the story in an old Galaxy magazine that I have.) Tanya ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Aug 1998 21:02:42 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Heather MacLean Subject: _Waking the Moon_, Elizabeth Hand Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" So... I'm way late on this one (pub. in 1995), but what an excellent read! Reminded me a little of Charles de Lint in its easy mix of contemporary culture and magic. What intrigues me, though, are your impressions of this book as feminist or not. Considering the anti-heroine says all the "right" things against the patriarchy... Considering the protagonist, the "I" (supposedly eliciting reader-identification) is the invisible one in the book, and doesn't come alive till she finds a male lover... Considering the strongest characters--besides the anti (?)-heroine--are young men, and that the "saviors of the world," the Benandanti, are a group of old, controlling men... Opinions, comments anyone? I did love the equally easy and casual incorporation of gay/lez/bi/trans in the book--what a relief to read those interactions as natural and normal and *accepted*, for once... Heather =) __________________________________________ "Output of your job hmaclean: > Reality is only a question of language. Unknown command - "REALITY". Try HELP." -------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Aug 1998 15:49:20 -0400 Reply-To: ligeia@concentric.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lilith Organization: Sanity Assassins, Inc. Subject: new site for C.R.O.N.E.S. Comments: To: "Melnjo@aol.com" , "Kmfriello@aol.com" , "Demetria M. Shew" , Catweasel , "Janice E. Dawley" , eva , Jo Ann Rangel , Rudy Leon , Todd Mason , Julieanne MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello everyone: This is to announce that C.R.O.N.E.S., the Joanna Russ discussion forum site, has a new home and a new URL: http://www.breakingset.org We (Donna Simone and I) hope that the new domain will have solved the connecting problems that people with AOL accounts have been having. As always, if there are still problems with linking to the site, please feel free to contact either myself or Donna. thanks and happy posting! Lilith -- I dare you -- to be real; To touch -- to touch the flickering flame.... ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Aug 1998 14:27:56 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sharon Anderson Subject: Waking the Moon Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Seldom have I felt so tormented over a book, for most of the reasons Heather expressed. The single exception (and this may be what finally tipped the scales for me) was the idea that the male monks "save the world." Nope. Not quite. The male monks do their damndest to save the satus quo. There's a difference. Sharon L. Anderson ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Aug 1998 20:51:58 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Pat Subject: Waking the Moon MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I came away with two areas of huge annoyance. One: the amount of killing our villainess was doing was pitiful compared to all the wars considered an unfortunaqte side effect of patriarchy. Second: stripping ot of its war-of-the-sexes trappings, wer'e left with the incredibly tired old schtick of "Archaeologist digs in forbidden ruins and finds a nasty relic that turns him/her into a serial killer." And ritually killing young members of the opposite sex is a known pathology the FBI is extremely familiar with. Though the only female serial killer on modern record seems to have been driven more by self-defense & vengeance (did ANYBODY but me note she killed men she said had abused her?) than anything else. Patricia (Pat) Mathews mathews@unm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 00:02:20 -0400 Reply-To: ligeia@concentric.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lilith Organization: Sanity Assassins, Inc. Subject: Re: Waking the Moon MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I loved "Waking the Moon" and was simultaneously disappointed in it. What I loved was the descriptive writing, the narrator, some of the the characters, like Annie and Big Baby Joe.... What I didn't love: The plot, such as it was. It started out good, and had some promising _scenes_, like the scene of the discovery of the Lunula, the scene where Magda Kurtz is destroyed, the scenes of occult goings on, the invocation of the demon-angel creature...but it all added up to nothing much other than the usual men-save-the-world-from-the-dangerous-female plot. The handling of the main male antagonist (the professor) was a particular irritant. It was as if she could not make up her mind whether he was totally evil or just misguided...The whole treatment of the Benandanti (the mostly male group that "ran the world") was not so much ambiguous as schizophrenics. You could almost hear the author thinking "but I don't want to say anything bad about men! All men aren't bad!" And I was disappointed that the matriarchal motif (the goddess coming back, all that) led up to nothing more than the defeat of a cannibal, Kali-like goddess-of-destruction, with the heroine safely impregnated with the hero's child. In all, the book had the tone of "I was going somewhere else with this but I thought it would be too controversial so I tacked on a safe, conventional denouement." Oh well. Lilith -- I dare you -- to be real; To touch -- to touch the flickering flame.... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 09:21:58 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: BDG: Alien Influences discussion begins Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I think I can safely say that this month's discussion book, Kristine Kathyrn Rusch's Alien Influences, is just about as different from Mists of Avalon as you're likely to find on our reading list. While I enjoyed reading Alien Influences, I felt vaguely dissatisfied with it, and I'm looking forward to the more articulate opinions on this list to help me understand why. Here are some questions to get us started: 1. One of the reviews, listed on the bibliography that Kathleen put together, stated the main theme of this book was the search for freedom. It seemed to me more to be about the boundary between "us" and "other". Do you agree or disagree? What do you think that Rusch was trying to tell us about the "other" in this book? 2. Was this a feminist work? Why or why not? (that ought to keep us going for awhile.) I certainly couldn't tell. 3. Did you believe in the end that it would be possible for John to find happiness or a normal life? Did you believe in the characters overall? Don't feel limited to these questions -- I'm sure you will come up with other observations about the characters, the plot twists, the themes, comparisons with other books by this author or others. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 09:39:48 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Maryelizabeth Hart Subject: BDG: ALIEN INFLUENCES Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" What, no discussion on ALIEN INFLUENCES yet? Does that mean everyone is as behind in reading it as I am? :) Maryelizabeth Mysterious Galaxy 619-268-4747 3904 Convoy St, #107 800-811-4747 San Diego, CA 92111 619-268-4775 FAX http://www.mystgalaxy.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 09:51:36 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: BDG: another question about Alien Influences Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" This one from Kathleen Friello, who won't be able to participate much this month: What is the author's aim in portraying all things human (particularly human agencies and institutions) not "influenced by aliens" so negatively? Is it an intentional commentary on humanity in reality or this constructed future, or just an aggregate of plot-movers? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 13:17:21 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Demetria M. Shew" Subject: Re: BDG: ALIEN INFLUENCES Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I just finished Beyond the Pale, which I think I got from this list. Just thought I'd pass on a piece of historical trivia: The building where the Triangle Shirtwaist fire occured burned a second time, fifty years later. One person who escaped the first fire as a girl escaped the second as an old woman. Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 12:53:51 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Daniel Byrne Subject: Re: BDG: another question about Alien Influences MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------27636849C4F5C7A587E7722E" --------------27636849C4F5C7A587E7722E Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Kathleen Friello's question: > > What is the author's aim in portraying all things human (particularly human > agencies and institutions) not "influenced by aliens" so negatively? Is it an > intentional commentary on humanity in reality or this constructed future, or > just an aggregate of plot-movers? I think these are a couple of interesting questions. I'll begin with my overall impression of the book, which addresses the second question. I read this book just having finished off four books by Tepper. I know it's unfair to compare anyone to Tepper and, God knows, I have never written a sf novel myself. It is easy to criticize from such a position. I enjoyed Alien Influences, and I couldn't put it down once I started, but it didn't have enough plot unity for my taste. Problems result from the fact (her admission) that the first section of the book was written separately from consequent sections. It is a novella that grew up. Thus, we have the wind spirit appearing in a later part of the book -- a figure of great consequence to the outcome of the story -- without having had any clue to its existence in the first part. I was reminded of something I read in Peter Ackroyd's wonderful biography of Charles Dickens. Many Dickens "novels" were originally written serially, often over a long time period. Dickens often didn't know in advance where the plot was going, and he spent a lot of time thinking about how he was going to pull things together for the next or final episode. (Little Dorrit is the example I remember best, and there is a long paragraph describing how her role and the plot changed over time which I will quote for anyone who's interested.) The genius of Dickens is that he was able to pull it off so well, with everything wrapped satisfactorily at the end. I'm sure Rusch is a much nicer person that Dickens (I was horrified by him as a human being), but Rusch does not pull it off so well. Alien Influences is a bit fragmented. Way seems to lead on to way. Parts do not add up sufficiently to make a whole. Another piece of evidence of serial writing is that information is repeated in different sections. Places or things Rusch described in an early part of the book are sometimes redescribed later in almost the same words. I remember thinking, "I already read this." After reading Alien Influences I glanced at an online critique that said something about Rusch "writing too fast." Perhaps the repetition is an example of writing too fast, not going back and cutting out extraneous stuff? The aliens: I was intrigued that the aliens were not absolutely good or absolutely evil. The dancers had cultural characteristics that I thought were admirable, and other cultural characteristics that clashed with what I believe is "proper" panhuman behavior. At the same time, several of the humans were sufficiently complicated and thoughtful to be realistic. I think we in the west are finally emerging from a period of naive and unquestioning admiration of indigenous or native peoples, e.g. the often unspoken (and incorrect) belief that all Native Americans are "natural conservationists." Non-western peoples are (of course) just as morally and ethnically complicated and various as western peoples (think about the Ibo in Achebe's Things Fall Apart). The "correctness" or morality of dancer cultural practices is ambiguous (especially in John's mind), and reflects a positive change in (real life) folks' awareness of cross-cultural and intracultural moral dilemmas. Dancers and wind spirits are not pure and wonderful Vulcans. Well, I didn't really answer the first part of Friello's question. But I think I should shut up now. I already feel guilty about writing so much and being so critical of a book I really did enjoy reading, despite its flaws. Candice Bradley Appleton WI --------------27636849C4F5C7A587E7722E Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Kathleen Friello's question:

What is the author's aim in portraying all things human (particularly human
agencies and institutions) not "influenced by aliens" so negatively? Is it an
intentional commentary on humanity in reality or this constructed future, or
just an aggregate of plot-movers?

I think these are a couple of interesting questions.   I'll begin with my overall impression of the book, which addresses the second question.

I read this book just having finished off four books by Tepper.   I know it's unfair to compare anyone to Tepper and, God knows, I have never written a sf novel myself.   It is easy to criticize from such a position.

I enjoyed Alien Influences, and I couldn't put it down once I started, but it didn't have enough plot unity for my taste.  Problems result from the fact (her admission) that the first section of the book was written separately from consequent sections.  It is a novella that grew up.  Thus, we have the wind spirit appearing in a later part of the book -- a figure of great consequence to the outcome of the story -- without having had any clue to its existence in the first part.  

I was reminded of something I read in Peter Ackroyd's wonderful biography of Charles Dickens.  Many Dickens "novels" were originally written serially, often over a long time period.   Dickens often didn't know in advance where the plot was going, and he spent a lot of time thinking about how he was going to pull things together for the next or final episode.   (Little Dorrit is the example I remember best, and there is a long paragraph describing how her role and the plot changed over time which I will quote for anyone who's interested.)

The genius of Dickens is that he was able to pull it off so well, with everything wrapped satisfactorily at the end.   I'm sure Rusch is a much nicer person that Dickens (I was horrified by him as a human being), but Rusch does not pull it off so well.  Alien Influences is a bit fragmented.   Way seems to lead on to way.   Parts do not add up sufficiently to make a whole.

Another piece of evidence of serial writing is that information is repeated in different sections.  Places or things Rusch described in an early part of the book are sometimes redescribed later in almost the same words.    I remember thinking, "I already read this."    After reading Alien Influences I glanced at an online critique that said something about Rusch "writing too fast."  Perhaps the repetition is an example of writing too fast, not going back and cutting out extraneous stuff?

The aliens:  I was intrigued that the aliens were not absolutely good or absolutely evil.   The dancers had cultural characteristics that I thought were admirable, and other cultural characteristics that clashed with what I believe is "proper" panhuman behavior.    At the same time, several of the humans were sufficiently complicated and thoughtful to be realistic.   I think we in the west are finally emerging from a period of naive and unquestioning admiration of indigenous or native peoples, e.g. the often unspoken (and incorrect) belief that all Native Americans are "natural conservationists."     Non-western peoples are (of course) just as morally and ethnically complicated and various as western peoples (think about the Ibo in Achebe's Things Fall Apart).    The "correctness" or morality of dancer cultural practices is ambiguous (especially in John's mind), and reflects a positive change in (real life) folks' awareness of cross-cultural and intracultural moral dilemmas.   Dancers and wind spirits are not pure and wonderful Vulcans.    

Well, I didn't really answer the first part of Friello's question.  But I think I should shut up now.   I already feel guilty about writing so much and being so critical of a book I really did enjoy reading, despite its flaws.

Candice Bradley
Appleton WI --------------27636849C4F5C7A587E7722E-- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 16:56:53 -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: Waking the Moon MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Any way to find out whether the publisher had anything to do with that conventional denouement? Just asking, I believe such things have happened before! Nina Lilith wrote: > In all, the book had the tone of "I was going somewhere else with this > but I thought it would be too controversial so I tacked on a safe, > conventional denouement." > > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 17:22:38 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Debra Euler Subject: Re: Waking the Moon -Reply Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Nina wrote: >>Any way to find out whether the publisher had anything to do with that conventional denouement? Just asking, I believe such things have happened before! Gosh, I never though of that before! After all, wasn't Waking the Moon published by HarperCollins, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, whom everyone knows is a mad power-hungry media magnate out for complete control of the world's media, in order to advance some evil agenda of his own. Or maybe I've got him confused with Dr. Evil from Austin Powers. Debra ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 21:18:16 -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: Waking the Moon -Reply MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit No insult to DAW intended, Debra. But I still think it was a valid question...and I do hope asking questions is allowed here. Nina Debra Euler wrote: > Nina wrote: > >>Any way to find out whether the publisher had anything to do with > that conventional denouement? Just asking, I believe such things > have happened before! > > Gosh, I never though of that before! After all, wasn't Waking the > Moon published by HarperCollins, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, > whom everyone knows is a mad power-hungry media magnate out for > complete control of the world's media, in order to advance some evil > agenda of his own. > > Or maybe I've got him confused with Dr. Evil from Austin Powers. > > Debra ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 03:41:51 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Catweasel Subject: Re: Waking the Moon -Reply In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit It was 03/08/98 22:22:38 GMT when, as I was going about my lawful occasions, I observed Debra Euler , hereinafter referred to as the accused, writing on a Bristol monitor: > ...owned by Rupert Murdoch, > whom everyone knows is a mad power-hungry media magnate out for > complete control of the world's media, in order to advance some evil > agenda of his own. > > Or maybe I've got him confused with Dr. Evil from Austin Powers. What! You mean they aren't one and the same? NOW I'm worried. Trust me, I'm a doctor. Catweasel http://www.catweasel.org Don't bother pressing that key, there is no esc. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 08:58:42 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Yvonne Rowse Subject: Re: BDG: Alien Influences discussion begins MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi I hadn't read any KKR before. I was sucked into the book and couldn't put it down, loved it, and yet... The boundary between us and other. Yes. But if someone had asked me for a quick precis I would have suggested the book was about injustice and powerlessness. All through the book I was filled with rage and fear for the children. It took me back to the emotions I felt as a child when no-one would *listen*. I thought this was handled excellently. I liked the multiple views so that we had some sort of idea of the characters' motivations and that no-one was unbelievably evil but having had the insight to move the plot along I would have liked to know how some of the characters evolved or at least how they were thinking at the end. I was impressed by the aliens and that John learned about them later in the book. As has been said, it is very easy for aliens to either be evil or absolutely good. I liked it that they made mistakes, that they were found to be less a refuge than the children thought. Why were there eight children? So that there'd be lots of places to go whilst searching? I can't remember their names other than John, Allan and Beth and I only finished the book day before yesterday. Sketched or blank. I felt that the last chapter was all very superficial. The book had been holding me tight, there was lots left to resolve then in a couple of pages it was all wrapped up and they all lived happily ever after. I felt like there should've been another couple of stairs there, jolted and unsatisfied. I know the wrapping up is always a difficult part, it's so easy to be twee and cliched but this was the fastest wrap I've come across in a good book. Altogether I thought this was a very good book. It felt very much like she was skating across the surface of a lot of real lives ( like someone who glides fast and gracefully, not like me clinging to the side of the rink and tottering ;-)) and inevitably missing such a lot. It was frustrating because her characters were so facinating. Oh well. Better go feed the kids. Yvonne To subscibe to the Taking Children Seriously list, send an e-mail to listserv@listserv.aol.com containing; SUBSCRIBE TCS-DIGEST your-first-name your-last-name. TCS information; http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~tcs/index.html ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 02:05:00 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joyce Jones Subject: BDG Alien Influences This was the first of our group discussion books that I haven't cared much for over all. Unlike the others, I have no trouble putting it down. In fact I have about 30 pages left which I will force myself to read tonight. There are some great individual ideas, but as others have noted, it doesn't pull together. The idea of inter species prostitution was pretty unique. Having just watched PBS's POV documentary Sacrifice about Burmese girls forced into prostitution in Thailand I liked the alternate idea the book presented, that Beth was good at her job because she hungered so for touch. The whole book could have focused on her and would have been much better, I think. Having women casually in positions of power was good. Having a man as the main character didn't make the book any less feminist, it just added to my difficulty in relating to the story. I liked that the characters, human and alien alike, were so well rounded---no black or whites, lots of reasons for their actions. And the variety of aliens was like fleshing out the Star Wars bar scene. I liked that the references to child abuse weren't too graphic but still effective in showing the lasting damage on children. How good it would be if Salt Juice were always the cause of such egocentric behavior on the part of adults, no salt juice, no abuse. I guess it was supposed to be kind of like cocaine. I did rather enjoy the adults singing themselves off to work like happy little dwarfs. Oh, and I liked the smells, a scent painting--I believe I'd like to have one of those. I hated the idea that everyone involved with the prison system was so stupid. They had everything to learn from letting the kids interact. I can't believe a system capable of intergalactic diplomacy could just throw away the opportunity. Even if fear or scapegoating were the cause, which I couldn't buy, keeping Latona Etanl locked up all those years seemed to me unlikely ( I know don't give me Russian Gulags and the Black Panthers. Again intergalactic diplomacy just doesn't jibe with such incompetence.) Forbidding her from any work on the Dancers, come on, surly some higher ups would have wanted to know what she could figure out, if only for self protection. For a while I thought it was going to be a rip off of my favorite Orson Scott Card book, Speaker For the Dead; but alas, even though that book was written by a man it was one I couldn't put down. It grabbed the reader and kept her through the whole story. Why was it again we picked this as our monthly book? OK, no more complaining. I'm going to go finish it now so I can get to one of the Tepper books I bought over the weekend. If I don't ever get a copy of Shadow Man, I'll just find something else and enjoy the chat. Joyce ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 03:53:31 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sharon Anderson Subject: BDG Alien Influences Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" O....kay! I've been chomping at te bit, waiting for the date for this one. Is it feminist? Well, the protagonist is male. Not even, as far as I can tell, a person of color. A white male. The minor protagonist is male. The villain is female. The other major females in the story: one of the eight, who is a victim; the lawyer, who is a dupe; security head, who is another villain; anthropologist, who is another victim.... Do I need to go on? Is there any question whether this is feminist? Or, has the definition of feminist been changed while my back was turned? Sharon L. Anderson ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 10:28:10 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Debra Euler Subject: Re: (was Waking the Moon) --publishing Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Nina wrote: >>No insult to DAW intended, Debra. But I still think it was a valid question...and I do hope asking questions is allowed here. I didn't think you intended an insult--it's just that I really wish some of the members of this list would get over their conspiracy theories about feminism and genre publishing. If feminist SF and fantasy books sold well, there would be lots of them published. I wish they did sell, but they don't. If y'all want to change that, buy more feminist-themed books. It's true, things are a bit more complicated than that--if there aren't any books on the shelves, people can't buy them, but stores are leery of giving up their precious shelf space to books they think won't sell. And rightly so, as they deserve to make a profit, as do publishers. And it's not even that publishers are constantly are rejecting feminist-themed novels, because, possibly contrary to popular suspicion, there aren't lots of good, femininst-themed genre novels languishing in slush piles. Not here, anyway, because in my three years here, I've never seen one. I've seen loads of bad, unpublishable novels, but none that was rejected due to theme--maybe they're all at Tor. If WAKING THE MOON did originally have a less conventional ending, it's possible that the editor suggested a new one to make the book more commercial. That's not censorship, that's editing, and if the author strenously objected, it would not have gone through. Debra ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 16:33:31 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Yvonne Rowse Subject: book shops MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit At long last I visited 'Paper Moon' women's bookshop when I was in London. I looked round a bit then asked where the SF section was. There wasn't one. There is very little feminist SF apparently. I was feeling too jaded (hungover) to persue the matter further at the time. Oh well. Back to 'Andromeda' (Birmingham, UK) where there *is* quite a bit of feminist SF among the standard stuff, thank goodness. Yvonne ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 09:26:39 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: BDG Character gender/feminism In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 03:53 AM 08/04/98 -0800, Sharon L. Anderson wrote: > > Is it feminist? > Well, the protagonist is male. Not even, as far as I can tell, a >person of color. A white male. > The minor protagonist is male. > The villain is female. > The other major females in the story: one of the eight, who is a >victim; the lawyer, who is a dupe; security head, who is another villain; >anthropologist, who is another victim.... > Do I need to go on? > Is there any question whether this is feminist? > Or, has the definition of feminist been changed while my back was >turned? > >Sharon L. Anderson > Ah, yes, I had these same reactions. Although it was less clear to me that they were white - although the general culture sure seemed like today's mainstream white culture. But then I played the little game of "what if" I switched the characters' genders... and it really didn't seem to matter for any of them. So why make all the main characters male? And what is the definition of feminist? Jennifer jkrauel@actioneer.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 13:19:45 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mark Schebel Subject: Re: BDG Character gender/feminism In-Reply-To: <19980804163929334.AAB228@jennifer.actioneer.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 4 Aug 1998, Jennifer Krauel wrote: > At 03:53 AM 08/04/98 -0800, Sharon L. Anderson wrote: > > > > Is it feminist? > > Well, the protagonist is male. Not even, as far as I can tell, a > >person of color. A white male. > > The minor protagonist is male. > > The villain is female. > > The other major females in the story: one of the eight, who is a > >victim; the lawyer, who is a dupe; security head, who is another villain; > >anthropologist, who is another victim.... > > Do I need to go on? > > Is there any question whether this is feminist? > > Or, has the definition of feminist been changed while my back was > >turned? > > > >Sharon L. Anderson > > > > Ah, yes, I had these same reactions. Although it was less clear to me > that they were white - although the general culture sure seemed like > today's mainstream white culture. > > But then I played the little game of "what if" I switched the characters' > genders... and it really didn't seem to matter for any of them. So why > make all the main characters male? > > And what is the definition of feminist? > > Jennifer > jkrauel@actioneer.com > Furthermore, what is the definition of "a person of color." I don't mean this in an atagonistic sense, but I have never been able to get a precise definition of "black" or "white"; nor should I expect to. So when people talk of protaginist characters and their "race", my first reaction is "so what". I have always like octavia butler for this reason; in the works I've read by her, she does not label her character as "black", but rather describes the look of the person. Personally, that is all I care about as I have some difficulties with pigeonholing people into races. And from saying that I don't mean to sound "utopian", rather I mean to sound realistic. In a day in age where many popel have a concoction of "races" in their blood, I find these kinds of categorisations pretty useless. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if an author comes out and distintcly says "this character is white/black/hispanic, whatever", I lose a little bit of interest. I would rather the author describe the look of the character, or not at all--let the reader decide. As for culture, why connect it with a specific look of people; I had an acquaintance a few years back that was born and raised (until about age 12) in africa. He was quite connected to the culture of his country, etc... But when he applied for a scholarship for african-americans, he was denied...why? HJe was "white". I believe in changing language to suit our needs and to get rid of prejudices (language drives much of our thought), but I have little tolerance for inaccurate changes in language. someone stop me before I go on. ; ) -mark --------------------------- http://scratch.hellyeah.com wage@hellyeah.com put your soul in ascii ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 17:48:47 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: book shops Across the road from Silver Moon, Murder One has an extensive sf dept in the basement (and Forbidden Planet is about 10 mins walk away in New Oxford St). Last time I was there the second-hand section included what looked like someone's disposed-of collection of feminist sf from fairly obscure presses! and they usually have at least odd copies of works from the non-mainstream publishers. Their crime dept usually has a much livelier selection than 'Silver Moon' as well (and much better than the recently opened crime specialist bookshop in Covent Garden) Lesley Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com ---------- From: For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature on behalf of Yvonne Rowse Sent: 04 August 1998 16:33 To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Subject: [*FSFFU*] book shops At long last I visited 'Paper Moon' women's bookshop when I was in London. I looked round a bit then asked where the SF section was. There wasn't one. There is very little feminist SF apparently. I was feeling too jaded (hungover) to persue the matter further at the time. Oh well. Back to 'Andromeda' (Birmingham, UK) where there *is* quite a bit of feminist SF among the standard stuff, thank goodness. Yvonne ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 11:24:32 -0700 Reply-To: Karen Brighton Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Karen Brighton Subject: Re: BDG: Alien Influences discussion begins In-Reply-To: <19980803163408316.AAA238@jennifer.actioneer.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hi all, this may be my first post to the list. I've been lurking for a few weeks, I've been enjoying (and learning from) the posts and am so grateful to have all these recommendations for reading. 2 years ago I had a baby and my time for reading became greatly reduced, for the first year all I could manage was a short story here or there. Now that he's older, and i feel like an "old hand" at mothering, I'm able to read novels again. While reading Alien Influences I kept asking myself, what makes this a feminist novel? The lead character was not a woman (I kept waiting for a strong woman to appear). The plot didn't deal with gender issues. What was it? It seems to me that the piece that made this a feminist novel was that the Dancer 8 were all victims of child abuse and neglect, and no authority was questioning the underlying reasons for their actions. No one asked *why* they were so desperate to grow up. Karen ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 12:57:40 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jessie Stickgold-Sarah Subject: Re: BDG Character gender/feminism In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 04 Aug 98 09:26:39 PDT." <19980804163929334.AAB228@jennifer.actioneer.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain > Is it feminist? > Well, the protagonist is male. Not even, as far as I can tell, a >person of color. A white male. > The minor protagonist is male. > The villain is female. > The other major females in the story: one of the eight, who is a >victim; the lawyer, who is a dupe; security head, who is another villain; >anthropologist, who is another victim.... Also, pretty much everyone who survives is male. Beth is a prostitute who kills herself; the art gallery owner goes crazy; the hotel manager (?) gets fired; Latona Etanl is silenced for ten years and when released is bitter and broken... I did like the casual usage of women in positions of power (the governor, for instance, whose secretary was male) but frankly, at this point I don't think that's very revolutionary. I tend to describe feminist novels as those which explore feminist issues, such as gender roles, sexuality, subversion of traditional sex stereotypes, alternate family structures, etc etc etc. In these sad times just making all the important characters in any given book female is probably enough to be included, since it really is a subversion of traditional stereotypes; but I didn't think that Alien Influences really managed it. I assume someone thought this book was feminist, since it was nominated, and I'd like to hear why. (I'd also note that I thought it was an interesting book in and of itself, although I had a lot of trouble with the sectioning: it was clear to me that the book was written in parts, and that really threw me off.) >when people >talk of protaginist characters and their "race", my first reaction is "so >what". In the US (I don't know about other countries) if race isn't spoken, it's assumed to be white. Similarly if gender isn't announced it's assumed to be male (barring traditionally female occupations like secretaries and nuns and nurses), and if religion -- or lack thereof -- isn't described it's assumed to be Christian. So to not say anything is to reinforce whatever people already assume. Of course it's true that sometimes a person of one race is a member of a different culture. But that doesn't mean there's no connection between races and culture. I know about styles of dancing that my non-Jewish friends don't know about. My black friends still usually have to go to different stores to buy hair products. An Indian woman who lived in a group house with me in college brought cooking implements I'd never seen in my life. These are all very trivial examples. My point is that it is very tempting for any member of the dominant culture to say, "This fictional culture is neutral." But when you're outside of that dominant culture it's easy to see that all the food described is European, or all the clothing is British, or all the music is American. For instance, having been to Jewish, Christian, Pagan, and non-religious wedding ceremonies, I can recognize the traditional monotheistic wedding from a mile away, even when the author clearly thought it was a neutral, "non-denominational" ceremony. jessie ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 15:25:01 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: N Clowder Subject: BDG: Belated post on Mists of Avalon Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" BDG: MISTS OF AVALON Sorry to be so late with this. I've enjoyed reading everyone else's posts... I don't know if it was the influence of the book discussion group, but I spent a lot of energy wondering what Bradley was about. What was her intention in writing this book? What is her personal take on the goddess religion? Why did she characterize the main players the way she did? The only thing I feel fairly certain of is that she does not like Christianity. I am amazed that a book that speaks so harshly of the Christian religion was a best seller in this country. It is not feminists or goddess-worshippers who drive books onto the best seller list. Does the "general reading public" not care about Christianity-bashing? Did they feel that the folks of Avalon got their comeuppance in the end? What did they see in the book? Several people in the BDG suggested that it was the book's soap-opera-ish qualities that made it widely appealing and I'm inclined to agree that that must be a part of its success. It wasn't until I was quite close to the end that I drew a conclusion about Bradley's motives that felt remotely satisfying. I think she posed herself two questions. First, how did it come about that Christianity supplanted the goddess religion on the isle of Britain? Why did the Mother's religion fall? She makes a reasonable presumption that this change in the balance of power also corresponded to a change in the power-balance between men and women. The second question is, what did the reign of Arthur look like from the women's point of view? What was their role in it? (Does the historical record suggest that Arthur's reign either coincided with, or even precipitated, the change in either of these balances: Christianity vs. the indigenous British religion; and men vs. women? I don't know.) Mists is a marriage of the two questions. An interest in both questions presupposes a sensitivity to women's history and women's point of view. I find it difficult to comprehend such an interest as uninspired by a feminist perspective, but I suppose it's possible that that was the case. Both questions, of course, can be answered from a non-feminist perspective. And there is no reason to think that an accurate, believable, truthful depiction of how these changes came about should be satisfying to feminists, that is, that it should fulfill our personal fantasies or our desire to see the goddess religion in a positive light. Mists explains the fall of the Mother's religion much as many historical events are explained: as the combined result of social forces and personal failing. We know, as readers, that the patriarchal conquest depicted in the book was (is?) a juggernaut that would sweep all else before it. Just as a matter of storytelling, how can Bradley make the inevitable outcome a matter of suspense? She shows us those points in time where the balance might have been swayed and history changed. She shows us not necessarily powerful people but people in the right place at the right time who could have changed the course of history. I knew all along what the ending would be, but damned if I didn't keep hoping that Viviane or Morgaine would pull it off and Bradley's book turn out to be an alternate history, one in which the goddess religion survives. I felt this way even on a re-reading! This surely is a credit to Bradley's talents as a storyteller. Bradley's sense of history, her sweep, her big vision, her powerful use of symbolism, and the inherent value and enduring interest of the central questions tackled by the book - these things go a long way toward making Mists a formidable and engaging work of fiction. I think where many of us in the BDG have found the work dissatisfying is in her answer to the question, why did the women of Avalon fail? Just what was the nature of their personal failing? Bradley's success with her characters is in depicting vivid, real people rather than bigger-than-life, mythological figures. They are interesting people, sharply drawn. But they are also characters at the service of the historical role (as well as the plot-role) they must play in the novel. Gwenhwyfar is admirably drawn to suit the role of the woman-behind-the-throne, finding a refuge from powerlessness in piousness and passive-aggressively revenging herself on the men who have made her what she is by wielding her piousness as power. But it is painful to spend 500 pages with this crimped spirit. Bradley shows me Morgaine as a young woman drafted to horrendous responsibility in a difficult time. Morgaine's abdication of power out of personal hurt is entirely understandable. The tragedy of her later attempts to reclaim that power and her awareness that she has accepted her responsibility too late - this is moving and believable. But the portrait of Morgaine as strong, noble, and tragic is almost lost beneath the deadening detail of her day-to-day vacillations. And of course, there is the ever-lasting, unrelieved, and predictable turmoil of everyone's sexual frustrations. For the most part, the personal failings which "led to" the fall of the goddess religion were sexual in nature. That's believable. I've asked myself why I kept expecting Morgaine to be "better" than this - to show more depth, to have a more complex set of personal failings. And also why I expected her to be able to rise above them more often than she did. Would I have had this expectation of her if I had encountered her in a mainstream novel, or in a fantasy which didn't place her in such a monumental role? I sense a certain mis-communication between myself, as reader, and Bradley - and I think I see it in some of the other posts to this list. I expect to find heroes in a fantasy. I want to find heroes among the priestesses of the Great Mother. I expect, in a fantasy confrontation between good and bad (and that's how I read the conflict of Christianity and the Mother's religion), to be set down at the end with some nugget of satisfaction in my hands, some sense that good has triumphed over evil. Bradley's book is more complex than this. To some extent it is historical, however little we know about the time, and she has an historical agenda to which she adheres. But something, for me, is not comfortable in this author-reader dialogue. I almost wonder if she didn't set out to some extent to confound my preconceptions about the nature of fantasy. I liked the characters and found them interesting (especially Gwenhwyfar, on this re-read), but they disappointed me for their failure to grow. Morgaine achieved some change of perspective after the failure of all her efforts, when she accepted that Avalon would indeed go into the mists. She seemed to find some peace with that and with herself. But, for me, that was the only growth I felt in any of these people. (At least, it's the only growth that I can remember, now that I'm done.) Arthur's betrayal of Avalon, his slow slide into denial of his oath and his responsibility (in order to keep domestic peace, no less!), was a well-drawn character change. I found it quite believable, but it was hardly growth. It's hard to spend 500 pages with people who are continually disappointed and sexually frustrated without seeing any of them get any kind of reward for their suffering - such as personal growth. It's arguably realistic, but Mists dished out a heavy dose of this realism. This is certainly not why I like to read fiction, especially fantasy. I think I would have trouble with these characters in any context, but against the august backdrop of Arthurian England and the tragedy of religious conquest, they are doubly disappointing. I honestly think if the book had been about a third shorter, if Bradley had used a more sparing hand with her detail, if she'd let these people keep just a LITTLE of the glamour of the mythic hero about them instead of showing them in interminable indecision and frustration - that Mists would be a better book. I think much of my strong reaction to Mists stems from the fact that I want or expect something from Bradley that she doesn't give. (This is my problem, not Bradley's. I recall having it in Firebrand and Forest House as well.) Thendara House was one of my first encounters with lesbians in fiction, let alone science fiction. As a lesbian, that was a wonderful experience for me. Bradley is clearly drawn to strong female figures, historical ones as well as ones she creates herself. She'll kick the establishment in the balls from time to time (as she does with Christianity in Mists.) I keep wanting her to be my spokeswoman. I keep expecting her to show me that she and I have a world-view in common, not just a liking for strong female characters. But that's not the way it is. And I want to know why. I've speculated endlessly about Bradley's character and her personal life, trying to understand why Mists isn't the book I want it to be. This isn't my usual reaction to a work of fiction. If she wasn't such a talented writer, if she didn't keep throwing me tidbits that mean so much to me, if she didn't ask interesting questions (regardless of how she answers them) - I think I'd quit reading her out of frustration. There's a lot more to say - Mists is a rich book. Thanks everyone for your posts and especially for the interesting discussion of sexuality in the book. Nell clowder@mail.utexas.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 16:31:52 -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: (was Waking the Moon) --publishing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit That's exactly what I meant to say, Debra! Obviously it lost a great deal in the translation from my brain to my typing fingers. Thanks for clarifying. (No, I don't think there's any "conspiracy" to keep good feminist literature from being printed. But if you really feel that way about the slush pile, why does DAW still have one? Again, just asking. If you never find an unsolicited manuscript that's well written, original, and commercially viable, why is DAW one of the few SF publishers that still looks at such submissions?) Nina Debra Euler wrote: > If WAKING THE MOON did originally have a less conventional ending, > it's possible that the editor suggested a new one to make the book > more commercial. That's not censorship, that's editing, and if the > author strenously objected, it would not have gone through. > > Debra ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 16:50:25 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Debra Euler Subject: Re: (was Waking the Moon) --publishing -Reply Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Nina wrote: >>But if you really feel that way about the slush pile, why does DAW still have one? Again, just asking. If you never find an unsolicited manuscript that's well written, original, and commercially viable, why is DAW one of the few SF publishers that still looks at such submissions? Something I ask myself on a frequent basis, especially as I stare at the growing pile of boxes and Jiffy bags. Seriously though, I didn't say that we *never* find anything in the slush pile, I was referring to a lack of feminist-themed fiction found there, in my experience. We keep a slush pile because we've found some of our best authors in there--Tad Williams, Mickey Zucker Reichert, and Sean Russell, to name just a few. If we can find a Tad Williams every ten years or so, it's worth keeping a slush pile. Debra ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 14:05:46 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jessie Stickgold-Sarah Subject: Re: BDG Character gender/feminism Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Since other people commented on the issue of race and cultural depictions, I thought this discussion was still appropriate for the list (Mark agreed that I could forward this mail). jessie ------- Forwarded Message Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 16:33:55 -0500 (EST) From: Mark Schebel To: Jessie Stickgold-Sarah Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Character gender/feminism > these sad times just making all the important characters in any given book > female is probably enough to be included, since it really is a subversion of > traditional stereotypes; but I didn't think that Alien Influences really > managed it. > > I assume someone thought this book was feminist, since it was nominated, and > I'd like to hear why. (I'd also note that I thought it was an interesting book > in and of itself, although I had a lot of trouble with the sectioning: it was > clear to me that the book was written in parts, and that really threw me off.) > > >when people > >talk of protaginist characters and their "race", my first reaction is "so > >what". > > In the US (I don't know about other countries) if race isn't spoken, it's > assumed to be white. Similarly if gender isn't announced it's assumed to be > male (barring traditionally female occupations like secretaries and nuns and > nurses), and if religion -- or lack thereof -- isn't described it's assumed to > be Christian. So to not say anything is to reinforce whatever people already > assume. > > Of course it's true that sometimes a person of one race is a member of a > different culture. But that doesn't mean there's no connection between races > and culture. I know about styles of dancing that my non-Jewish friends don't > know about. My black friends still usually have to go to different stores to > buy hair products. An Indian woman who lived in a group house with me in > college brought cooking implements I'd never seen in my life. These are all > very trivial examples. My point is that it is very tempting for any member of > the dominant culture to say, "This fictional culture is neutral." But when > you're outside of that dominant culture it's easy to see that all the food > described is European, or all the clothing is British, or all the music is > American. For instance, having been to Jewish, Christian, Pagan, and > non-religious wedding ceremonies, I can recognize the traditional monotheistic > wedding from a mile away, even when the author clearly thought it was a > neutral, "non-denominational" ceremony. > > jessie > Your points are very well taken, but what I was (kind of) trying to say had to do with Race. Saying that food is described as European or British is talking about nationality rather than race. But that's really not the issue I meant to bring up. I guess what I was trying to say had to do with writers and how they deal with "race" issues. Honestly, I am turned off from a book when someone simplifies such an issue into a character...that is why I love octavia butler...she is able to introduce non-traditional characters without directly describing the race of her characters. She even does the same thing with gender (e.g. in BloodChild, she lets the reader make many of the connections about gender). In a larger issue, I'm questioning what one means when they say "black". Take two people--both have one "black" parent and one "white" parent. ONe of these people is quite light...the other is quite dark. So, we call one "white" and one "black". This is the kind of thing that makes me raise my eyebrows. I personally have some cherokee in my blood (from quite a while ago)...so what would I be. Well, I'm probably called "white" because of the way I look. Not to say that the connection between the way someone looks and how they are treated does not exist---it exists to a disgustingly large extent. But for me, I think that realising a person has dark skin rather than saying they are black is part of the solution to some problems between people. So, it all comes down to basic discrimination on looks--which is pretty damned uncool. : ) - -mark (who likes to ramble on and on) schebel - --------------------------- http://scratch.hellyeah.com wage@hellyeah.com put your soul in ascii ------- End of Forwarded Message ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 18:30:23 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: ME Hunter Subject: Re: BDG Character gender/feminism In-Reply-To: <9808042105.AA00908@shoebox-greetings.pa.dec.com> (message from Jessie Stickgold-Sarah on Tue, 4 Aug 1998 14:05:46 -0700) Mark Schebel wrote: >But for me, I think that realising a person has dark skin rather than >saying they are black is part of the solution to some problems between >people. So, it all comes down to basic discrimination on looks--which is >pretty damned uncool. : ) Actually, I think that it's cultural identity, more than appearance. There's a Chicano comic who does a hysterical routine about how his uncle hides from Immigration by pretending to be Indian...the guy imitates him, changing his posture slightly and taking on an Indian accent and y'know, he would conveince me, if I cared. I call this the "Lena Horne Effect." When I was a youngster, my parents took me to see the movie version of The Wiz. Afterwards they asked what I thought and I said I thought it was kind of weird that the Good Witch was played by a white woman, when all the other characters are black. My parents were much amused and explained to me that Lena Horne is black. I was dubious. I was startled to find out the Mariah Carey is considered black, for another example. So it's not just looks, although I agree with your other points, Mark. E. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 15:58:52 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Rebecca Springer Subject: Re: Waking the Moon -Reply MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii WAKING THE MOON was published before my time at Harper, but I can say with all certainty that NO, the ending was not changed at Rupert Murdoch's request. If was anything like her next book, the manuscript was delivered six months late and we barely had time to copyedit it, much less rewrite it to be more acceptable to the patriarchy. Rebecca Springer *** rebecca.springer@harpercollins.com libraryhead@yahoo.com *** ---Debra Euler wrote: > > Nina wrote: > >>Any way to find out whether the publisher had anything to do with > that conventional denouement? Just asking, I believe such things > have happened before! > > Gosh, I never though of that before! After all, wasn't Waking the > Moon published by HarperCollins, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, > whom everyone knows is a mad power-hungry media magnate out for > complete control of the world's media, in order to advance some evil > agenda of his own. > > Or maybe I've got him confused with Dr. Evil from Austin Powers. > > Debra > _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 09:30:55 +1000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Julieanne Subject: Re: BDG: Alien Influences discussion begins Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Date: Wed, 05 Aug 1998 09:23:07 +1000 >To: Karen Brighton >From: Julieanne >Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Alien Influences discussion begins >In-Reply-To: >References: <19980803163408316.AAA238@jennifer.actioneer.com> > > >At 11:24 AM 8/4/98 -0700, Karen wrote: > >>While reading Alien Influences I kept asking myself, what makes this a >>feminist novel? The lead character was not a woman (I kept waiting for a >>strong woman to appear). The plot didn't deal with gender issues. What was >>it? It seems to me that the piece that made this a feminist novel was >>that the Dancer 8 were all victims of child abuse and neglect, and no >>authority was questioning the underlying reasons for their actions. No one >>asked *why* they were so desperate to grow up. > > >I have to agree with you Karen, instead of male value systems vs female value systems - we have child vs adult in _Alien Influences_. Right from the first pages, we are told that Justin was told by an ex-patriot of Bountiful that he 'couldn't wait to get his adult status, so he could leave Bountiful'. >All the way through, I also kept thinking nobody ever asked why the children were so desperate to "grow up" - same as nobody ever asks why women want 'equality' with men in today's workplaces and institutions. > >I have also read many of KKR's books, and _Alien Influences_ is probably not her best, but her writing is always *subtle* - asking the reader to ask questions, but never proposes solutions. I also like the way she presents, what is an essentially 'masculine value system' society, with women as more or less 'equals' - >To me, that asks the question - if women were just 'equal' to men, would we end up with an essentially 'male' society - with some of the people of that society, having female bodies? > >Instead of women being the powerless "Other" in such a society, would children then take over that role? > > >Julieanne ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 09:31:41 +1000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Julieanne Subject: Re: BDG: Alien Influences discussion begins Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >At 11:24 AM 8/4/98 -0700, Karen wrote: > >>While reading Alien Influences I kept asking myself, what makes this a >>feminist novel? The lead character was not a woman (I kept waiting for a >>strong woman to appear). The plot didn't deal with gender issues. What was >>it? It seems to me that the piece that made this a feminist novel was >>that the Dancer 8 were all victims of child abuse and neglect, and no >>authority was questioning the underlying reasons for their actions. No one >>asked *why* they were so desperate to grow up. > > >I have to agree with you Karen, instead of male value systems vs female value systems - we have child vs adult in _Alien Influences_. Right from the first pages, we are told that Justin was told by an ex-patriot of Bountiful that he 'couldn't wait to get his adult status, so he could leave Bountiful'. >All the way through, I also kept thinking nobody ever asked why the children were so desperate to "grow up" - same as nobody ever asks why women want 'equality' with men in today's workplaces and institutions. > >I have also read many of KKR's books, and _Alien Influences_ is probably not her best, but her writing is always *subtle* - asking the reader to ask questions, but never proposes solutions. I also like the way she presents, what is an essentially 'masculine value system' society, with women as more or less 'equals' - >To me, that asks the question - if women were just 'equal' to men, would we end up with an essentially 'male' society - with some of the people of that society, having female bodies? > >Instead of women being the powerless "Other" in such a society, would children then take over that role? > > >Julieanne ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 20:38:09 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Tanya M. Bouwman-Wozencraft" Subject: Re: BDG: Alien Influences discussion begins Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-08-04 19:39:14 EDT, Jullieanne writes: << Instead of women being the powerless "Other" in such a society, would children then take over that role? > >> In my opinion, children are already in that role. Here in MA, a judge recently ruled that children's testimony in a well-known daycare abuse trial was so "tainted" that not one of the children could testify in a retrial today--several years after the incident-- not just excluding those whose "testimony" was obtained by what is now considered to be "questionable" practices. In the courts in Oklahoma, they have sent children back to into abusive homes to die so many times that they now have a law named after one of the children (Ryan Luke) which is supposed to keep that from happening again; however, my best friend, who is a family counselor, a few months ago told me two horrifying stories of children who are in extreme physical danger in their homes whom she had reported to DHS and ended by saying, "They won't do a damn thing." She was right, as of my last conversation with her, those kids were still in their dangerous situations getting beaten up by the people who are supposed to be their protectors. My personal hopes are that as feminism grows awareness of how we, as a society, mistreat our children will grow. I find it frightening to think that we could raise up ourselves (as women) to equality and not see the abuse and neglect being given to our children. I haven't read this book, by the way, but am getting very interested in it by the discussions. Tanya ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 21:15:10 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Debra Subject: Re: Waking the Moon -Reply MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Rebecca Springer wrote: >>WAKING THE MOON was published before my time at Harper, but I can say with all certainty that NO, the ending was not changed at Rupert Murdoch's request. If was anything like her next book, the manuscript was delivered six months late and we barely had time to copyedit it, much less rewrite it to be more acceptable to the patriarchy. Only six months late! Sheer luxury! Just kidding. It seems to me sometimes that we're typesetting the beginning of a book while the ending is still being written. It makes inserting subtle editorial subliminal messages very difficult. :-) Debra ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 18:31:47 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: Re: Waking the Moon -Reply In-Reply-To: <004501bdc00e$7f8f1300$72c4accf@993110h> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Rebecca Springer wrote: >>>WAKING THE MOON was published before my time at Harper, but I can say >with all certainty that NO, the ending was not changed at Rupert >Murdoch's request. If was anything like her next book, the manuscript >was delivered six months late and we barely had time to copyedit it, >much less rewrite it to be more acceptable to the patriarchy. > This made me laugh out loud. I think we are being a little bit arrogant to think that the powers that be would be threatened by a mere book, especially something as peculiar as feminist SF. Now, from all the testimonials to the power of Mists of Avalon, you could argue that they *should* feel threatened, but I doubt that they are. By the way, thanks for all the great opinions on what bothered you about Waking the Moon. I really didn't like that book, and now I know why. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 23:28:28 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: Re: BDG Character gender/feminism MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >Furthermore, what is the definition of "a person of color." A person of color...... > In a day in age where many popel have a concoction of "races" >in their blood, I find these kinds of categorisations pretty useless. would probably never say something like this. >I guess what I'm trying to say is that if an author comes out and >distintcly says "this character is white/black/hispanic, whatever", I lose >a little bit of interest. I would rather the author describe the look of >the character, or not at all--let the reader decide.> This is about your personal assessment of bad writing. It is distinctly different from racism. Though racism probably precipitates a considerable amount of bad writing. > As for culture, why connect it with a specific look of people;> Because most times it rightfully is. The concepts are interwoven. Separable and inseparable both. >I believe in changing language to suit our needs and to get rid of > prejudices (language drives much of our thought), but I have little > tolerance for inaccurate changes in language. > Oh, that it were so simple. >someone stop me before I go on. ; )>>-mark *shrug* donna donnaneely@earthlink.net ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 23:41:11 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: Re: BDG Character gender/feminism MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mark said: >In a larger issue, I'm questioning what one means when they say "black". >Take two people--both have one "black" parent and one "white" parent. ONe >of these people is quite light...the other is quite dark. So, we call one >"white" and one "black". This is the kind of thing that makes me raise my >eyebrows. I personally have some cherokee in my blood (from quite a while >ago)...so what would I be. Well, I'm probably called "white" because of >the way I look.> Why a raised eyebrow? There are two issues: what one calls one self and what one gets called by others. They can be different. If you identify as Native American because of your ancestry then you are. What other people identify you as may at times differ. We all live with the consequences of these differences every day. > Not to say that the connection between the way someone >looks and how they are treated does not exist---it exists to a >disgustingly large extent. But for me, I think that realising a person >has dark skin rather than saying they are black is part of the solution to >some problems between people. > You done this in your own life? How has it impacted your social circumstances? >So, it all comes down to basic >discrimination on looks--which is pretty damned uncool. : )> Yep'er. donna ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 13:56:37 +1000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Julieanne Subject: Re: BDG Character gender/feminism In-Reply-To: <9808041957.AA00865@shoebox-greetings.pa.dec.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 12:57 PM 8/4/98 -0700, Jessie wrote: >I assume someone thought this book was feminist, since it was nominated, and >I'd like to hear why. (I'd also note that I thought it was an interesting book >in and of itself, although I had a lot of trouble with the sectioning: it was >clear to me that the book was written in parts, and that really threw me off.) > Since I nominated the book (and didnt expect it to be supported, actually:) I suppose I should answer. For me, the book's power and its "feminism" lies not in what is "Present" - but in what is "Absent". This I find in nearly all of Rusch's work - I often use the word *bizarre* or *disturbing* in describing her works, because there is often an 'Absence' of any discussion, or characters, or conflict situations or events, which deal with an issue, but the issue is presented, and often strongly - as sub-text, or "off-stage" from the narrative, so to speak. The abuse of the children in _Alien Influences_ is presented 'off-stage', and is peripheral, hidden, almost *invisible* - as much of women's lives and experiences are 'invisible'. As much of the lives of people of non-white races and cultures are also 'invisible'. And presenting children, as a group, in this 'invisible' part of the culture, highlights this - children should be "seen and not heard". But as readers we do hear them, as sub-text, like a distant cry in the background - not loudly, nor slamming us from every page of the book - but just enough to make some readers ask "Why did no-one ask why the children wanted to grow up so desperately?" Many readers, like many adults, do not "hear" these invisible cries of the children, or examine them. In the book, as in life - they fly by briefly on the pages and we do not "hear" them. Those characters who do try, are also 'silenced' one way or another in the book, or try to do the 'right thing' the 'wrong way'. The care and nurture of the young, often seen as part of the feminine sphere of *influence*, is "Absent" - it is also Absent in many *feminist* novels - it is 'off-stage', if present at all. Even the title of the book, holds a hidden clue to this theme - the children's aberrant behaviour was often considered by the adults to be a result of the "Alien Influence" - not a result of the lack of "influence" their human parents and other adults in positions of power, showed not just before the murders, but afterwards as well. The children were *punished* for most of their lives, by being separated from each other, by being 'shunned' *for their own good*.... and for the "good of the community" lest they be a 'bad influence' on the community. In other words, they were given 'life-sentences' by being treated as children for the rest of their lives. Much as women make up the majority of patients in psychiatric hospitals, and are effectively silenced and forced into a child-like dependency on an "adult community". Julieanne ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 14:25:37 +1000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Julieanne Subject: Re: BDG Character gender/feminism In-Reply-To: <006001bdc022$e469c540$a5ae2499@default> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:41 PM 8/4/98 -0400, you wrote: >Mark said: >>In a larger issue, I'm questioning what one means when they say "black". >>Take two people--both have one "black" parent and one "white" parent. ONe >>of these people is quite light...the other is quite dark. So, we call one >>"white" and one "black". This is the kind of thing that makes me raise my >>eyebrows. I personally have some cherokee in my blood (from quite a while >>ago)...so what would I be. Well, I'm probably called "white" because of >>the way I look.> > >Why a raised eyebrow? There are two issues: what one calls one self and what one gets called by others. They can be different. One example of this occurred in Australia during the 1960's - 1980's. The native Australian Aboriginal population were not counted in national population censuses until after they were granted "citizenship" in 1967. However - the national census statistics always showed a very small number of Aboriginal peoples until the 1981 and 1986 censuses when the population numbers appeared to quadruple. When this huge change in numbers was investigated, it was found that for many years Aboriginal people had been identifying themselves on censuses as Indian, Pakistani, Fijian, Pacific Islander, white, anything other than Aboriginal. With the rise in Aboriginal pride throughout the 1970's - many more Aboriginal people took pride in their ancestry. In other words, they "came out of the closet". I myself am from an incredibly mixed ancestry - my father was French-Canadian, his mother was southern-Italian, and his grandmother was full-blood Amerindian.(Algonquin tribe if anyone is interested) My mother was English-born, but her father was a Spanish sailor. This has left me with a skin-colour which tans very darkly in summer. I also grew up in an isolated rural area around Aboriginal Reserves, (like Amerindian Reservations) - my colouring and accent, and playing with the Aboriginal children, often led me to be mistaken for Aboriginal. My father's accent however, would often have him mistaken for being American, rather than Canadian - and yet when I moved to the city to live, I lived in an urban area mostly populated by Greeks and was often mistaken for a Greek, by other Greeks:)). I gave my first child a popular Jewish name, and often at children's playgroups and parties, Jewish mothers would assume I was Jewish as well and start chatting away to me in Hebrew:) I've never been sure what to identify myself as - Any suggestions? probably why I like science-fiction and all that identification as being 'Terran'.. Julieanne ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 22:23:30 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jessie Stickgold-Sarah Subject: race definitions >In a larger issue, I'm questioning what one means when they say "black". >Take two people--both have one "black" parent and one "white" parent. ONe >of these people is quite light...the other is quite dark. So, we call one >"white" and one "black". This is the kind of thing that makes me raise my >eyebrows. What "we" call this person is far less important than what she calls herself, isn't it? And if she believes that "black" is an appropriate cultural identifier, who are we to say she can't? "Hispanic" (or in some places I believe the preferred term is latina/o) refers not only to a racial identity but to a culture, a collection of countries of origin, etc. "Chinese" or "Korean" (for instance) refer to nationality as well as ethnicity. These are all meaningful terms, and many people adopt them because they are indicators of a community. It's bad writing to say "Stacy is a black woman;" but that's just bad writing. For Stacy to say, in dialogue, "I am a black woman," is to give her an identity, a cultural affiliation, a character that perhaps other black women will more closely identify with. >But for me, I think that realising a person >has dark skin rather than saying they are black is part of the solution to >some problems between people. I would say that this will just give the dominant culture the ability to pretend everyone else is just the same. Saying "X is black" doesn't only mean that X has dark skin. If all we know is that she has dark skin, well, she might be of African descent, or Indian, or possibly Mexican. To her, it will undoubtedy make a difference; and if the writer is good, we can learn that she has dark skin and then learn from clues where her dark skin comes from. If the writer isn't good, or simply doesn't know any non-white people, we'll end up with a white person with dark skin. Just as some writers seem to write female characters who act either (a) like men or (b) the way men traditionally want women to act. One of my friends from high school has one white parent and one black parent and is very light skinned and dislikes being taken for white. She also dislikes being discriminated against because of her non-whiteness, but should we make *her* give up the name and identity she's chosen? For what, your comfort? I agree wholeheartedly that no one should stereotype another based on race; but that doesn't mean that people shouldn't lay claim to their own racial identity. I think that you may simplify too much. I think that most non-white people who aren't embarrassed of their non-whiteness would tell you so. jessie ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 08:45:23 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Edward James Subject: Re: BDG Alien Influences In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 4 Aug 1998, Sharon Anderson wrote: > O....kay! I've been chomping at te bit, waiting for the date for this one. > > Is it feminist? > Well, the protagonist is male. Not even, as far as I can tell, a > person of color. A white male. > The minor protagonist is male. > The villain is female. The burden of this arguemnt is that for a book to be feminist there has to be a female protagonist and a male villain. Is this _really_ what people think on this list? Isn't this _incredibly_ limiting for an author? Edward James ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 08:50:28 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: ALIEN INFLUENCES In-Reply-To: <2c985d0.35c5f0a2@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I loved this book. I just got it yesterday and I read it all by midnight. It is not particularly feminist, but IMHO it makes a step in that direction. It has quite a few well-defined female characters, even though they all turn out to be either weak or evil. But I enjoyed the book nevertheless. At the beginning, it reminded me of Ross MacDonald's detective novels, which I liked a lot when I was a teenager. Plus, the storyline itself was absolutely fascinating. To tell the truth, I kind of expected those originally dead kids turn out to be forgotten in the freezer of the morgue and came back to life by the end. That would probably be too Hollywood, but I thought that would be nice, after all they went through. I liked the book because it was so sober, and realistic, and life-like. The children desperately trying to save their lives. Adults freaking out and acting like complete morons about it. The good old fairy tale that "people should accept you for what you are" exposed as the idealistic crap it has always been. One of the best parts, IMHO, was that those aliens turned out to be just as selfish and manipulative as humans, instead of the innocent creatures "living in peace with nature" present in most sf books. A lot of sf writers seem to think that if people never bothered to invent a wheel, it somehow makes them kinder, wiser, and morally superior to the cultures with technology. I was glad Rusch did not fall for that. I found the structure of the plot interesting, too. It seems to be made out of a number of short stories, each of which could exist by itself and be quite ordinary. But combined together, they form a complex storyline that takes a surprising turn every time you start thinking it's all over and trying to figure out what could be in the remaining dozens of pages. This book could definitely use at least one strong positive female character. However, the author at least avoided the traditional model where all women are either mothers or sex objects. I'd rather have them be evil or victims, but holding offices and making decisions. Besides, the male characters except John were not any better, so the book, IMHO, was fair to both genders. And John seems easy to identify with (at least to me), even though he's a guy. My favorite character of all was bodeangenie. I think it was the only one with a bit of sense in its head. In general, the main reason I liked the Alien Influences, I think that it was very honest and realistic in depicting the human nature, or to be more exact, the nature of sentient species. For what it is. Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 09:32:08 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: BDG: another question about Alien Influences In-Reply-To: <19980803170329027.AAA227@jennifer.actioneer.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > What is the author's aim in portraying all things human (particularly human > agencies and institutions) not "influenced by aliens" so negatively? Is it an > intentional commentary on humanity in reality or this constructed future, or > just an aggregate of plot-movers? I don't think it was negative. It was just like in real life. It was actually a lot nicer than in real life, at least in my experience. If she meant it as a commentary on humanity, it was a pretty damn truthful one. IMHO, Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 10:32:44 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: Let's stay on-topic please (more or less BDG related) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'm going to play list police here, before this goes too far. By all means let's discuss things like race and culture, but keep them tied to the book under discussion (Alien Influences) or some other aspect of SF or fantasy. That shouldn't be *too* hard to do. As a self-identified "white" person, I believe I bear responsibility for educating myself and promoting awareness of issues of social injustice, such as race etc. I'm always look for constructive ways to do this. Let's talk about the culture(s) portrayed in Alien Influences and how they might be used to foster this discussion. How would you compare the "dominant" culture in AI to the "dominant" e.g. western or US-based culture today? What specific examples can you cite from the book to support this? How might some of the "alien" cultures, or the colonial cultures such as Bountiful, be used to illustrate other race or class-based cultures today? Again, use examples from the book. Jennifer jkrauel@actioneer.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 17:51:19 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: BDG Alien Influences On Tue, 4 Aug 1998, Sharon Anderson wrote: > O....kay! I've been chomping at te bit, waiting for the date for this one. > > Is it feminist? > Well, the protagonist is male. Not even, as far as I can tell, a > person of color. A white male. > The minor protagonist is male. > The villain is female. and Edward James responded >The burden of this arguemnt is that for a book to be feminist there has to >be a female protagonist and a male villain. Is this _really_ what people >think on this list? Isn't this _incredibly_ limiting for an author? No more limiting, when you think about it, than buying in to an old old set of stereotypes, such as male hero vs evil female villain. It's a while since I read AI (I think I lent my copy to someone) and can't really recall much about it, except that I didn't much like it. But I certainly wouldn't have thought of it as a particularly 'feminist' work, possibly because it didn't really think through (as I think someone already pointed out) the way certain narrative positions of hero/victim/villain etc were gendered. It's not enough to have 'strong women' as characters (which is, of course, something different from 'strong women characters), or women in positions of power normally gendered male: it's what you do with them. As I may have mentioned before, writing women characters as dominatrix amazons/machiavellian manipulators instead of insipid/persecuted virgins is still buying into the old binary distinctions. Lesley Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 17:09:29 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: BDG Alien Influences In-Reply-To: <001b01bdbf86$f65488e0$5c8dfbd0@default> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 4 Aug 1998, Joyce Jones wrote: > I hated the idea that everyone involved with the prison system was so > stupid. They had everything to learn from letting the kids interact. I > can't believe a system capable of intergalactic diplomacy could just throw > away the opportunity. IMHO, they were not stupid. They were just scared out of their wits. Which seems to be a common thing with authorities, and not only them. For example, the real-life reaction of adults towards the children who went on a shooting spree in US during the past year has not been much different. With all the present-day enlightenment about the child psychology, the main response to those events seems to be the increased severity of legal actions against weapons in high schools, and the demands to try the children as adults (which in best case will put them away for life). As a result of the policy of "zero tolerance", kids get kicked out of schools for having an inch-long knife in their lockers. No one seems to wonder where those expelled teenagers will go. And why they felt like arming themselves when going to school at the first place. Apparently, most people seem to see children with any potential to violence as some evil, dangerous animals, and would try to put them away at any cost, rather than try to understand them. Just like in the book. To protect the society. Just imagine what would have happened if those elementary school shooters -- or some other kids -- would have been cutting out their friends' hearts and lungs instead. After hanging out, say, with immirgrants (for the lack of other kind of aliens around) for a while. In a place with some shady big-bucks chemical plant around... Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 01:01:13 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Todd Mason Subject: Re: ethnicity: Julieanne. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-08-05 02:21:02 EDT, you write: << I've never been sure what to identify myself as - Any suggestions? probably why I like science-fiction and all that identification as being 'Terran'.. Julieanne >> Well, Julieanne, as a Italian-English-Cherokee-French (Canadian)-Irish-German- Mohawk-American, I'll call you "Terran," "Australian," "Cosmopolitan," "mongrel" (or my favorite, "Mud Person"), "human," or Cousin. You name it. Most of these national/cultural labels are even more incomplete and misleading than other labels tend to be (what does it mean to be, say, Quebecois?), but can be evocative (same question). So, I'd raise an eyebrow at anyone who insists that "white" or "black" are obvious divisions all the time, or particularly the only important ones. Why were our ancestors so "exogamous," is another question that comes to mind...and does the same discontent that leads to finding unusual mates also lead to looking for interesting/different possible futures? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 23:08:10 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sharon Anderson Subject: BDG: Alien Influences Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Edward James quoted the first part of what I had said: Is it feminist? > Well, the protagonist is male. Not even, as far as I can tell, a > person of color. A white male. > The minor protagonist is male. > The villain is female. Then he asked: The burden of this arguemnt is that for a book to be feminist there has to be a female protagonist and a male villain. Is this _really_ what people think on this list? Isn't this _incredibly_ limiting for an author? My dear boy, if you are going to make this argument, don't forget the rest of what I said. You can't just arbitrarily use half of it. I also pointed out that: 1) the main female character is a victim, who is cruelly used, and commits one heroic act, then immediately commits suicide, because she sees no way out (what I failed to point out, but somebody else did it for me, is that this "heroic" act would result in someone losing a job/career. The person who commits the act knows this, and makes certain that another woman -- not a man, but a woman --gets the blame and loses the career) 2) of the minor female characters in the book: the security chief is a villain the lawyer is stupid, a dupe, and a villain because of this the anthropologist is blamed, goes to prison, loses her career, and is silenced Now. Where, O where is there one -- just ONE -- positive role model who is female? Someone those of us with XX chromosomes can aspire to? Someone we can say "I wanna be HER!" I am not talking about the spear carriers here. They were pretty evenly divided according to gender. So what? I am saying that once again, we have an action story where the boy gets all the glory, saves the genie, defeats the villain, and proves himself a man. The secondary male gets to work through his angst, prove himself virtuous in the end, and also, therefore a man. And the girl gets to kill herself in despair of ever being rescued. THIS is feminist? Ah-nold, your public awaits. Sharon L. Anderson ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 14:28:38 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Edward James Subject: Re: BDG: Alien Influences In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 5 Aug 1998, Sharon Anderson wrote: > My dear boy, if you are going to make this argument, don't forget the rest > of what I said. My dear girl, I wasn't arguing about that particular book: which is a book that I did not much enjoy when I first read it, several years ago, and which I have not re-read. I was just asking a general question about what makes a book feminist or anti-feminist. DOES it require a female hero and a male villain, which was the implication of your original opening statement? And you haven't answered that question yet...! But your latest remarks imply that a feminist book HAS to have female characters that can serve as role models. Can't a book (and here I am speaking totally in the abstract, with no particular books in mind) espouse a feminist philosophy without describing any female role models? Edward James .............................................................................. Professor Edward James, Dept of History, Faculty of Letters and Social Sciences, University of Reading, Whiteknights, READING RG6 6AA, UK http://www.rdg.ac.uk/~lhsjamse/home.htm Editor, FOUNDATION: THE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION Director of Studies, MA in Science Fiction: Histories, Texts, Media .............................................................................. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 09:57:36 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: BDG: Alien Influences Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit This topic keeps coming up, so perhaps there isn't a fast and hard definition. But it would seem a book ought to involve: women as persons, defined by their beings and actions, important to the plot and the resolution of the book; and some examination of the perceived historical imbalance of role/achievement/value between men and women societies have perpetuated. This does not have to be the plot, just a part of what happens. That's a bit fast and dirty. But I think we are sinking into a quicksand of semantics. best phoebe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 09:15:49 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: NESchaadt Subject: Female role models In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I can think of one from 1960's television, Emma Peel. Nancy Schaadt who thought Mrs. Peel was *the* coolest chick. Sharon Anderson wrote: > Now. Where, O where is there one -- just ONE -- positive role >model who is female? Someone those of us with XX chromosomes can aspire >to? Someone we can say "I wanna be HER!" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 11:05:29 +0100 Reply-To: terriergraphics@cybertours.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Terri Wakefield Organization: Terrier Graphic Design Subject: Re: Female role models MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NESchaadt wrote: > > I can think of one from 1960's television, Emma Peel. > Nancy Schaadt > who thought Mrs. Peel was *the* coolest chick. > > Sharon Anderson wrote: Yes, Emma Peel was incredibly cool!! Also the character played by Angela Lansbury in "Murder She Wrote" . And all the female leads in the Agatha Christie roles which have made it to TV and films are strong females, and they don't even happen to be young and pretty! Terri ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 09:52:19 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: BDG: Alien Influences In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Edward James wrote: > Can't a book (and here I am speaking totally in the > abstract, with no particular books in mind) espouse a feminist philosophy > without describing any female role models? I personally think it can, even though female role models could help. As I mentioned before, John was easy to identify with. He was more of a person than simply a guy. I guess one's perception of the book would depend a on how much one gets irritated with the abundance of female villains. If you see it as a mysogenistic pattern (as Sharon maybe does), you won't be able to enjoy the book. It's just a question of sensitivity to a certain issue, in my opinion. Which can be understandable. As for me, female villains in AI did not bother me remotely as much as the female "heroes" in Mists of Avalon did. In Alien Influences, they are simply humans, who are never perfect, and none of their imperfections has anything to do with their gender. What I mean is this: 1) The woman attorney lost the case because of the personal trauma. The same as the male psychologist messed up his mission at the colony because he had never gotten over his past mistakes. His and her cases were similar and there were little indication that her failure was caused by her gender. Therefore, I did not see it as directed against women in general, as it would be in a truly mysogenistic book. Besides, the second male psychologist who was supposed to defend the children together with Dania, failed just as miserably. Her weakness is shown as part of general human nature -- women professionals are not any worse than men, but not any better, either. Which is true. 2) The governor who's trying to capture John in the second half of the book is acting as a typical authority figure. Once again, nothing in her "evil" behavior shows its roots in her gender. She's a beaurocrat trying hard to catch a criminal to protect her position in the office, covering it up with the words of "protecting the community". That's what public officials do, regardless of gender. She even seems more professional than the first governor, twenty years earlier, who freaks out about the kids just because the scene of their meeting reminded him of his first kill on the job. 3) The trader, or whoever she was, that hired John to find the genie was a disturbed person who spend her life trying to prove that she could not be captured and used -- by capturing and using others. In a way, she was a strong person, even though a seriously messed up one. She was evil, but for a reason, which for a change, was not her unhappy personal life as it usually happens with female villains. Plus, she was not even presented to be a "slut" as Margause was in the Mists of Avalon, in order to prove her "evilness". I think that all the "negative" female characters in Alien Influences promote the idea of gender equality a lot more than the "positive" characters in books like the Mists. In the former case they are humans in imperfect world, just like men are. In the latter, they are some weird irrational creatures, ambivalent about everything from their sexuality to what is good and bad, with a nagging inferiority complex mixed with patronizing. There were some things in AI that I did not particularly like. For instance, there have been four girls among the eight children. The only one whose fate was traced directly was Beth -- the one who became a prostitute. It was not really clear to me why John did so well in prison and had such a good job after, while everyone else was in such misery. Especially Beth, who seemed to be the smartest and most responsible one. After all, it would not hurt to show the lives of others, including the one who at least owned a business, be it just a city landfill. Besides, I wonder why Beth had to become an interspecies hooker in the first place -- to tittilate male readers? I bet she could have made just as a good bounty hunter as John. However, I suspect that in that case, the book would become something very different. In my understanding, KKR followed certain conventions (including the irritating ones) on purpose, to express her main point without spreading out on other issues. The way I feel, it's an adult-bashing book rather than anything else (and I wish there were more of those!). The whole point is the society's general indiffirence towards and the fear of the children and their "mysterious" behaivior. The society consisting of both men and women, having equal status and being equally responsible for the state of things. Which in my opinion makes Alien Influences -- with all its negative female chartacters -- a lot more feminist that the Mists of Avalon was. Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 10:57:52 -0400 Reply-To: ligeia@concentric.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lilith Organization: Sanity Assassins, Inc. Subject: Re: [*FSFFSU*] BDG: Alien Influences MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Edward James said: > Can't a book (and here I am speaking totally in the > abstract, with no particular books in mind) espouse a feminist philosophy > without describing any female role models? > > Edward James > In all due respect, I don't see how. Lilith -- I dare you -- to be real; To touch -- to touch the flickering flame.... ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 09:59:52 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: BDG: Alien Influences/Definition of a feminist book In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Phoebe Wray wrote: > This topic keeps coming up, so perhaps there isn't a fast and hard definition. > But it would seem a book ought to involve: women as persons, defined by their > beings and actions, important to the plot and the resolution of the book; and > some examination of the perceived historical imbalance of > role/achievement/value between men and women societies have perpetuated. This > does not have to be the plot, just a part of what happens. IMHO, presentation of an environment where goodness/badness of the person is not tied to gender differences can be added to this definition. After all, feminism means different things for different people. And for each one, there would be several different kinds of books seen as feminist. Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 08:16:59 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joyce Jones Subject: Treatment of child cirminals Marina writes: "Just imagine what would have happened if those elementary school shooters -- or some other kids -- would have been cutting out their friends' hearts and lungs instead. After hanging out, say, with immirgrants (for the lack of other kind of aliens around) for a while. In a place with some shady big-bucks chemical plant around..." We would have them in such intensive psychotherapy an entire new methodology of treatment could develop just from their case. They would never be left alone, they'd have the most famous lawyers jockeying to defend them, they'd be giving TV interviews and writing books and probably their lawyers would find a way for them to make millions. There'd be an instant movie of the week on TV then a bigger budget theatrical release, Johnny Depp would be involved somehow. Or at least that's how I see it. Joyce ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 10:29:54 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: Treatment of child cirminals In-Reply-To: <001301bdc14d$426faee0$808dfbd0@default> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII You are probably right, Joyce. But why it's not happenning with the child shooters? Marina On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Joyce Jones wrote: > Marina writes: >> >> "Just imagine what would have happened if those elementary school >> shooters -- or some other kids -- would have been cutting out their friends' >> hearts and lungs instead. After hanging out, say, with immirgrants (for >> the lack of other kind of aliens around) for a while. In a place with >> some shady big-bucks chemical plant around..." > > We would have them in such intensive psychotherapy an entire new methodology > of treatment could develop just from their case. They would never be left > alone, they'd have the most famous lawyers jockeying to defend them, they'd > be giving TV interviews and writing books and probably their lawyers would > find a way for them to make millions. There'd be an instant movie of the > week on TV then a bigger budget theatrical release, Johnny Depp would be > involved somehow. Or at least that's how I see it. > Joyce > http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 12:20:30 -0300 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Patricia Monk Subject: Re: Female role models In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19980806091549.006d4e58@mailhost.waymark.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Perhaps we would get on faster if we looked at ALL female characters and said "I could do better than that!" - in other words become proactive about our capacity instead of reactive. ************************************************************** Dr Patricia Monk patmonk@is.dal.ca Department of English Dalhousie University HALIFAX Nova Scotia B3H 2S3 ignorance is curable * stupidity is forever ************************************************************** On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, NESchaadt wrote: > I can think of one from 1960's television, Emma Peel. > Nancy Schaadt > who thought Mrs. Peel was *the* coolest chick. > > Sharon Anderson wrote: > > Now. Where, O where is there one -- just ONE -- positive role > >model who is female? Someone those of us with XX chromosomes can aspire > >to? Someone we can say "I wanna be HER!" > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 09:23:38 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jo Ann Rangel Subject: Re: BDG: Alien Influences Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" . Can't a book (and here I am speaking totally in the >abstract, with no particular books in mind) espouse a feminist philosophy >without describing any female role models? > This thought intrigued me yes. If we go with this thought, and take it to its natural conclusion, then I would have to see that this possibility would lean toward a Utopian view of the universe yes? Where (am speaking abstractly here so if it totally does not make sense it isnt you it is my writing this down as I think that is the trouble hehe) just as say a world created in a novel shows a universe where several varieties of one sex are existing in their immediate universe, so a philosophical view demonstrated in an untraditional way, ie having feminism without females involved, is indeed possible...now to the other side of this thought. The philosophy was in place to be a part of a certain group of people in taking such steps within their own world to make their world more Utopian, as in the group called women. Take away the group the philosophy was created for/from, and is it still a feminist POV? The problem may get into definitions and semantics, one person seeing a philosophy as feminist may be another view as utopian... And I was unable to get a copy of this book we are discussing now in time to jump in, so my question is was it chosen for nomination on its feminist nature or its utopian nature? The two categories seem to cross paths at various intervals, not to mention that the name of Laura Q's bibliography list website has feminist and utopia in the same title... And now am going to melt back into the shadow and observe the discussion from my perch 8) Jo Ann ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 11:54:30 -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: Treatment of child cirminals In-Reply-To: <001301bdc14d$426faee0$808dfbd0@default> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Joyce Jones wrote: > Marina writes: > > "Just imagine what would have happened if those elementary school > shooters -- or some other kids -- would have been cutting out their friends' > hearts and lungs instead. After hanging out, say, with immirgrants (for > the lack of other kind of aliens around) for a while. In a place with > some shady big-bucks chemical plant around..." > > We would have them in such intensive psychotherapy an entire new methodology > of treatment could develop just from their case. They would never be left > alone, they'd have the most famous lawyers jockeying to defend them, they'd > be giving TV interviews and writing books and probably their lawyers would > find a way for them to make millions. There'd be an instant movie of the > week on TV then a bigger budget theatrical release, Johnny Depp would be > involved somehow. Or at least that's how I see it. > Joyce > Actually such children and adults do exist in small numbers and, after high publicity trials and headline news stories that satiate the public lust for the gross and disgusting, we tend to stick them in institutions where they're warehoused on a permanent basis. Nothing much is done in the way of therapy because we don't have any form of therapy that works on such people to any real extent and, even if we did, no one could afford to pay for it. Sad but true, they're just too badly damaged to fix at a price society is willing to pay (or often at any price). This is the current situation for, say, the kids convicted of vampirism who were all over the TV networks last year, as it was for Jeffrey Dahmer or Ed Geen, to cite Wisconsin's own home grown monsters. My wife is employed at an intitution which deals with the more mild cases of this sort. Children who have been abused, kept in closets, etc. Most have criminal records involving rape, prostitution, etc. Many are schizophrenic or have fetal alcohol syndrome. There are a few junior league murderers. Her institution has one of the best "recovery" rates in the country and yet most of the kids she deals with will be back in institutions within a few years, and a significant number will never get out of institutions. Basically we as a society are just a lot better at damaging children than at fixing them. Mike Levy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 18:06:49 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Edward James Subject: Re: [*FSFFSU*] BDG: Alien Influences Comments: To: Lilith In-Reply-To: <35C9C470.5096CF4B@concentric.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Lilith wrote: > Edward James said: > > > Can't a book (and here I am speaking totally in the > > abstract, with no particular books in mind) espouse a feminist philosophy > > without describing any female role models? > > > In all due respect, I don't see how. > > Lilith > I am reminded somewhat of Brian Aldiss, who once said that it was impossible to write a science fiction book that didn't involve huyman beings. "Who would want to read a book about intelligent molluscs?" he said. And, of course, John Brunner went off and wrote _The Crucible of Time_, a very fine sf novel, about intelligent molluscs. My point: in science fiction _everything_ _ought_ to be possible... Edward J. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 10:10:29 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jessie Stickgold-Sarah Subject: Re: BDG Alien Influences In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 05 Aug 98 17:51:19 GMT." Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain >The burden of this arguemnt is that for a book to be feminist there has to >be a female protagonist and a male villain. Is this _really_ what people >think on this list? Isn't this _incredibly_ limiting for an author? I would say that *in the absence of anything specifically addressing feminist issues* a book must at least break away from traditional male/female roles enough to make the reader think a little bit. Otherwise, what is feminist about the book? As others have noted (don't have the names offhand) one can read Alien Influences from a feminist perspective, make analogies between the invisible lives of the children and the invisible lives of women; but I would say that unless the book makes some of those analogies for you, it wouldn't be feminist. I know that many people would draw the line elsewhere, so this is just my take on it. (I know feminists who would say that child abuse *is* a feminist issue and so nothing else is needed, for instance. From that perspective, this is a feminist book.) So although there are women in power in AI, they seemed to me to occupy exactly the roles of men. What I mean by this is that I believe that feminism's total success would entail many, many changes to current power structures and hierarchies, in the legal system, in the ways in which business entities relate to each other, etc etc etc, and I didn't see any of those changes. No one seemed to have children or families; academia was just as cut-throat and isolating as many people find it now; one-upmanship was the order of the day; and so on. This is also in part what I meant when I talked about "neutral" cultures -- it wasn't hard to read this culture as neutral, but when I thought about it, it seemed to be very American. I forgot to bring the book with me today, but consider for instance the scene in the first section where Justin is looking at the houses, square blocks in neat years with white picket fences and roses and tulips or something -- he thinks that the colonials are trying very hard to make it look like Earth, but in fact this is traditional American suburban tract housing. That really jumped out at me when I read it. Also almost everyone seemed to have traditional American names; the people who don't are all outsiders in some way (I'm thinking of Latona Etanl). jessie ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 14:14:07 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Barbara R. Hume" Subject: Re: BDG: another question about Alien Influences Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-08-03 14:15:44 EDT, you write: << After reading Alien Influences I glanced at an online critique that said something about Rusch "writing too fast." Perhaps the repetition is an example of writing too fast, not going back and cutting out extraneous stuff? >> Kris said that the reason Pocket Books hires to her write Star Trek novels is that they need someone who can "crank out a book in six weeks" and that if the book comes up short she can just "stick in another try-fail cycle." To me, that's just creating a product for the purpose of cash flow, not writing a story from the heart. But the fact is that publishers know that some names, such as hers, sell books, and with that as a given, they see no need for editing a book or working with the writer to create a quality book. It will make money for the publisher, so who cares if it's any good? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 18:10:01 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: BDG: Alien Influences >Can't a book (and here I am speaking totally in the abstract, with no >particular books in mind) espouse a feminist philosophy without describing >any female role models? Dear Edward Yes, of course (this is a kind of question for which there was that special preposition in Latin which I have forgotten, for questions expecting the answer yes, isn't it?). It's possible to write about men/furry androgynous aliens/whatever in such a way as to critique existing conventions of gender (someone I think already cited the first 3 (??) sections of Suzy McKee Charnas's 'A Walk to the End of the World'). In my own field of history, several feminist scholars (me included) have moved from focussing simply on the history of women to looking at the construction of masculinity and how gender is enacted within social institutions. Further to my earlier comments on the gendering of narrative positions: there is a long literary tradition of women in fictional texts who have power and agency being positioned as villains (or at least, not the heroine) - unless they're deploying their agency on behalf of others. It makes me uncomfortable when this tradition continues to be unthinkingly used by 1990s women writers. Lesley ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 14:32:03 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Barbara R. Hume" Subject: Re: BDG: Belated post on Mists of Avalon Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-08-04 16:22:32 EDT, you write: << The only thing I feel fairly certain of is that she does not like Christianity. I am amazed that a book that speaks so harshly of the Christian religion was a best seller in this country. It is not feminists or goddess-worshippers who drive books onto the best seller list. Does the "general reading public" not care about Christianity-bashing? >> I see the Christianity she depicts in the book as a fantasy religion that exists in her fantasy world. It has nothing to do with the Christianity I believe in and practice. During the Dark Ages, it was twisted into a structure for imposing male power, but people always subvert what could have been good into something to serve their own interests. Even accepting her attack on this made-up Christianity as a straw-man argument, though, I couldn't take the side of the goddess religion, because it took more from its followers than it gave. barbara ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 15:03:02 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Barbara R. Hume" Subject: Re: ethnicity: Julieanne. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-08-06 01:19:32 EDT, you write: << does it mean to be, say, Quebecois?), but can be evocative (same question). So, I'd raise an eyebrow at anyone who insists that "white" or "black" are obvious divisions all the time, or particularly the only important ones. >> Has anyone ever read an SF book that posits a future in which the races have intermingled so much that the physical differences have homogenized out? Seems like an interesting idea. Of course, the characters would exhibit prejudice towards each other based on other criteria. . . . barbara ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 15:10:33 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Barbara R. Hume" Subject: Re: Female role models Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-08-06 11:30:48 EDT, you write: << Perhaps we would get on faster if we looked at ALL female characters and said "I could do better than that!" - in other words become proactive about our capacity instead of reactive. >> This is the best suggestion I've seen all day! barbara ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 14:24:23 CDT Reply-To: a-quick@carthage.edu Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Angela Quick Subject: ...no subject... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Has anyone ever read an SF book that posits a future in which the races have intermingled so much that the physical differences have homogenized out? Seems like an interesting idea. Of course, the characters would exhibit prejudice towards each other based on other criteria. . . . It's not really SF, but in Starhawk's book The Fifth Sacred Thing, prisoners are described as identifying each other as "asian" or "black" or "hispanic" based on behaviors and shared cultures, not appearance. Some other interesting ideas on race and identity in this book, too. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 15:36:34 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: Re: BDG: Alien Influences MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hmmmmm, >> Edward James said: >> > Can't a book (and here I am speaking totally in the >> > abstract, with no particular books in mind) espouse a feminist philosophy >> > without describing any female role models? Lilith said: >> In all due respect, I don't see how.>> Edward replied: >I am reminded somewhat of Brian Aldiss, who once said that it was >impossible to write a science fiction book that didn't involve huyman >beings. "Who would want to read a book about intelligent molluscs?" he >said. And, of course, John Brunner went off and wrote _The Crucible of >Time_, a very fine sf novel, about intelligent molluscs. My point: in >science fiction _everything_ _ought_ to be possible... No one here would disagree Edward, however, on a list given to discussion of feminist SF/F, it is valid to ask "Where is the meat?" Constructed paradigm though it may be, that is the one this audience/list has chosen to exercise. Besides, aren't you really saying, "Okay, fine. The writers will write feminist world's, but doggone do they still have to have women in the stories?" Unless or until you provide examples of feminist SF books with no female characters of note, then it is also valid for Lilith to suggest that it does not appear to be possible. I would also suggest that someone stating that this question is limiting is analogous to the strategies of 'how to suppress women's writing'. It is saying that asking for what we want to see as female readers is "limiting"? Much like writing about female experience has always been seen as marginal writing. (the other) donna donnaneely@earthlink.net ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 15:06:19 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: BDG Alien Influences In-Reply-To: <9808061710.AA05038@shoebox-greetings.pa.dec.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Jessie Stickgold-Sarah wrote: > So although there are women in power in AI, they seemed to me to occupy > exactly the roles of men. What I mean by this is that I believe that > feminism's total success would entail many, many changes to current power > structures and hierarchies, in the legal system, in the ways in which business > entities relate to each other, etc etc etc, and I didn't see any of those > changes. No one seemed to have children or families; academia was just as > cut-throat and isolating as many people find it now; one-upmanship was the > order of the day; and so on. To me, it seems like the Marxist idea that once poor people get in power, they won't be greedy or oppressive. Reality of Soviet Union showed that human nature always stays the same, despite reversal of gender or class relationship. I don't see any reason why in feminist world, women will act differently from men. Honestly, I don't see why they should. The fact that AI shows the world the way it is, is in my opinion one of the book's strongest features. Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 14:05:36 -0700 Reply-To: Sandy.Candioglos@intel.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sandy Candioglos Subject: Re: ethnicity: Julieanne. In-Reply-To: <8a327bea.35c9fde7@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit One of Piers Anthony's books talks about a future where everyone is a relatively uniform light-brown color. Ring of something or something like that. As I recall (It's been years since I read it while in Jr Hi), it's told from the POV of a few kids who are "different", and they eventually find out they're being bred and kept like zoo specimins because they exhibit distinct racial qualities. Or am I confusing a couple of different books? Hmmm.. -Sandy > -----Original Message----- > From: Barbara R. Hume [mailto:Lurima@AOL.COM] > Sent: Thursday, August 06, 1998 12:03 PM > To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] ethnicity: Julieanne. > > Has anyone ever read an SF book that posits a future in which > the races have > intermingled so much that the physical differences have > homogenized out? Seems > like an interesting idea. Of course, the characters would > exhibit prejudice > towards each other based on other criteria. . . . > > barbara > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 17:08:36 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joel VanLaven Subject: Re: [*FSFFSU*] BDG: Alien Influences Comments: To: Lilith In-Reply-To: <35C9C470.5096CF4B@concentric.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Lilith wrote: > Edward James said: > > Can't a book (and here I am speaking totally in the > > abstract, with no particular books in mind) espouse a feminist philosophy > > without describing any female role models? > > > > Edward James > > In all due respect, I don't see how. I can certainly see how. A) A book about how to be a feminist man might not have any "close" female role models, only figures at a distance, perhaps something like in "Four ways to Forgiveness". B) A book with a different gender set-up might be feminist despite not having any women (or men?) In fact, is "Enemy Mine" feminist? It does not have any major female characters (right?) How about "Halfway Human" (with Tedla). If Tedla's story had been written without having a strong woman listening to it (perhaps a man?) would it have been feminist? C) How about a book that warns about the dangers of certain male things? Perhaps a dystopian book based on China with no Women at all and only Men with artifical reproduction. It seems like such a thing has been done. Similarly, "Frankenstien" comes to mind as possibly being a feminist warning about our trying to control reproduction. D) Obviously all sorts of transferrals are possible, even siwtching the positions of men and women. (as was attempted in one star Trek episode) E) I'm not sure where this falls but how about "... at the Goose and Hound ..." (I forget the title) by Karen Joy Fowler? There is a female main character but I don't exactly see her as a role model. How about (also by Karen Joy Fowler) "The view from Venus, a Case Study" (or something like that) I dodn't see any of the women in that story as particularly role-models. I'm sure that there are a number of other possibilities but these came to mind so I figured I'd put them out there. I suppose some of these stories might be arguably unable to exist in book length but they do point the way. -- Joel VanLaven ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 16:29:38 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: N Clowder Subject: Re: BDG: Belated post on Mists of Avalon Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Barbara's comment certainly helps me to understand how a Christian could read Mists and not go through the ceiling. And she's right that the goddess religion doesn't come off looking much better. Now I wonder if Bradley is a-religious - or- simply painted both religions as she saw them in the context of the historical time/plot of the book - or- I'm trying to infer way too much about the author from her text. Thanks, Nell clowder@mail.utexas.edu At 02:32 PM 8/6/98 EDT, you wrote: >In a message dated 98-08-04 16:22:32 EDT, you write: > ><< > The only thing I feel fairly certain of is that she does not like > Christianity. I am amazed that a book that speaks so harshly of the > Christian religion was a best seller in this country. It is not feminists > or goddess-worshippers who drive books onto the best seller list. Does the > "general reading public" not care about Christianity-bashing? >> > >I see the Christianity she depicts in the book as a fantasy religion that >exists in her fantasy world. It has nothing to do with the Christianity I >believe in and practice. During the Dark Ages, it was twisted into a structure >for imposing male power, but people always subvert what could have been good >into something to serve their own interests. Even accepting her attack on this >made-up Christianity as a straw-man argument, though, I couldn't take the side >of the goddess religion, because it took more from its followers than it gave. > >barbara > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 17:46:23 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: BDG: Belated post on Mists of Avalon Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 8/6/98 9:29:26 PM, you wrote: << Now I wonder if Bradley is a-religious - or- simply painted both religions as she saw them in the context of the historical time/plot of the book - or- I'm trying to infer way too much about the author from her text.>> Several people have brought up the question of MZB's (or other authors) beliefs... curious point. I write points of view that are not my own all the time. I think most writers do. Surely what one writes is based on SOMETHING -- personal memory or the great mist -- but characters have minds of their own, in a sense, and they believe as they will. The writer shapes and informs, but does not necessarily hold dear to her heart what the characters say and do. This smacks of the sort of controversy that attaches to professional actors who take on lesbian/gay roles and then are immediately thought to be homosexual. MOA ain't autobiography. best phoebe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 18:14:02 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Frances Green Subject: Re: BDG: Belated post on Mists of Avalon MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sorry: this is one of those infuriatingly vague things, but I seem to recall reading an interview some years back in which MZB stated that she was a Christian. Apologies to all if this is a false memory. But I remember being surprised, having just read MOA! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 18:19:16 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: Re: BDG: Alien Influences MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I say again.... >> In all due respect, I don't see how.>> >I can certainly see how.> > >A) ,>B) >C) >D) >E) ..... >-- Joel VanLaven Feminist male SF "theorist" to feminist female readers/writers: "We love your ideas, but we still dont want _you_." I have seen this maneuver before time and again and frankly it s***ks. And no, I wont play nice on this one. donna again. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 18:35:47 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Allen Briggs Subject: Re: BDG: Alien Influences Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > >> In all due respect, I don't see how.>> > >I can certainly see how.> > >A) ,>B) >C) >D) >E) ..... > >-- Joel VanLaven > Feminist male SF "theorist" to feminist female readers/writers: "We > love your ideas, but we still dont want _you_." I think I missed a step. Someone asked if it was possible to have a feminist text without X (I think X transmutated a couple of times, but basically without "woman" in some aspect). Joel (and others) answered affirmatively in what I thought was relatively objective terms. I didn't see any desire for it to be that way. Implied or otherwise. Perhaps my viewpoint is questionable because of my anatomy, but I thought that's what "we" were trying to escape. I didn't read AI, but I did get jumped a week or two ago for implying that there wasn't anything feminist about Gattaca because of the dearth (sp?) of female characterization (and presence) in the movie. Your statement that I quoted above is definitely offensive. I don't question that. I question whether or not that's really what we're seeing here. Pax, -allen -- Allen Briggs - briggs@ninthwonder.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 19:11:47 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Elaine Kushmaul Subject: Goodbye Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit sign off ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 20:11:10 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Todd Mason Subject: Re: ethnicity Hume Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-08-06 15:19:11 EDT, you write: << Has anyone ever read an SF book that posits a future in which the races have intermingled so much that the physical differences have homogenized out? --I think I must have, but the only example that comes to mind is not- quite--Ursula Le Guin's THE LATHE OF HEAVEN (in two issues of AMAZING 1971, book form 1971), wherein one of the guided dreamer's dreams results in everyone being gray...thus, an anti-homogenization (at least by force) vision. Seems like an interesting idea. Of course, the characters would exhibit prejudice towards each other based on other criteria. . . . barbara >> Yes, they surely would. Unless we're talking stuff on the STAR TREK level, wherein everyone's (or at least everyone human is) much advanced beyond such pettiness, yet still feel comfortable addressing each other as if in a Horatio Hornblower story. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 17:19:28 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: Re: BDG Alien Influences In-Reply-To: <9808061710.AA05038@shoebox-greetings.pa.dec.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thank you, Jessie, for illustrating how to tie in discussions of such potentially inflammatory and tangent-generating subjects (e.g. what is feminism, race, culture) with the book discussion in a clear way. This is what I was requesting with my "stick to the topic" email. Great job! I can't believe the white picket fence image slipped by me, but you're absolutely right about that one. It's as if Rusch, generally rather subtle as someone else pointed out, meant to bludgeon us with this analogy. At 10:10 AM 08/06/98 -0700, you wrote: ... many lines gratuitously excised >>So although there are women in power in AI, they seemed to me to occupy >exactly the roles of men. What I mean by this is that I believe that >feminism's total success would entail many, many changes to current power >structures and hierarchies, in the legal system, in the ways in which business >entities relate to each other, etc etc etc, and I didn't see any of those >changes. No one seemed to have children or families; academia was just as >cut-throat and isolating as many people find it now; one-upmanship was the >order of the day; and so on. > >This is also in part what I meant when I talked about "neutral" cultures -- it >wasn't hard to read this culture as neutral, but when I thought about it, it >seemed to be very American. I forgot to bring the book with me today, but >consider for instance the scene in the first section where Justin is looking >at the houses, square blocks in neat years with white picket fences and roses >and tulips or something -- he thinks that the colonials are trying very hard >to make it look like Earth, but in fact this is traditional American suburban >tract housing. That really jumped out at me when I read it. Also almost >everyone seemed to have traditional American names; the people who don't are >all outsiders in some way (I'm thinking of Latona Etanl). > >jessie > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 19:58:21 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: M Schebel Subject: Fem. requirements MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII In response to the question of whether or not a feminist SF peice must have women in the story: IN the Women of Wonder anthology (classic years), there is a story called "When I was Miss Dow" by Sonya Dorman Hess. IN this story, an alien (no sex definition, but all of these aliens act like "men"). One of them is assigned to take on a female terran body..."it" must then go to earth. The rest of the story is pretty much dedicated (it's been a while since I've read it) to how this alien is treated (as a human female). Technically, thee aren't any "women" in the story. Anyways, besides example, it is possible to have a feminist SF piece (in my opinion) without women...kind of a lesson-by-example thing. It is also possible to have a mysoginist peice with no men...you could have a story about a group of women who are raised in a mysoginistic society and how they see themselves, etc... And by my suggestion that a feminist SF peice does not "have" to have women characters DOES NOT BY ANY MEANS imply that I don't want to see women in SF. I take this discussion as a writer and as someone looking at ALL of the possibilities when creating gender-centered themes and characters. -mark --I am a buddhist. In case of accident, call a llama-- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 17:48:36 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: Re: Fem. requirements In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 07:58 PM 08/06/98 -0500, mark wrote: >IN the Women of Wonder anthology (classic years), there is a story called >"When I was Miss Dow" by Sonya Dorman Hess. IN this story, an alien (no >sex definition, but all of these aliens act like "men"). One of them is >assigned to take on a female terran body..."it" must then go to earth. >The rest of the story is pretty much dedicated (it's been a while since >I've read it) to how this alien is treated (as a human female). >Technically, thee aren't any "women" in the story. This sounds a lot like the TV show "Third Rock from the Sun" now playing, at least in the US. One of the four main "alien" characters is a woman, who alternates between really getting into the female stereotypes and needing to kick some butt periodically. It works for me because the actors are all very funny and sometimes the material is too. I think, though, that even though the aliens underneath are neutral or male-seeming, the very premise of describing that being's experience as a woman surely makes it feminist and I don't think that is substantially different from having a "through and through" female character. And goodness knows, none of the characters in Alien Influences push this envelope at all. Even the genie is traditional neutral/male. I'm thinking that Alien Influences is our equivalent of light summer reading. The fsffu equivalent of, say, Danielle Steel. Although we're doing a good job of turning it into something to debate. Jennifer jkrauel@actioneer.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 11:06:01 +1000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Julieanne Subject: Re: BDG Alien Influences In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 03:06 PM 8/6/98 -0500, Marina wrote: Amongst other things - > >The fact that AI shows the world the way it is, is in my opinion one of >the book's strongest features. I agree Marina - it is not a utopian feminist 'vision' - but a painting of reality. Just because most of the characters cannot or will not 'rise' above their oppression and become 'positive role-models' does not mean it is not feminist. The reality for women, (and people of colour, lower social-class etc) is that most of them cannot or will not be able to. I thought the idea, that only one of the eight children achieved anything, was also painting reality. Only three had their stories drawn in the novel - the rest fell off back-stage. That is reality for most people on this planet. Despite preferring utopian visions, and fantasies of strong, powerful women characters overcoming the odds etc, there are many depressing and tragic feminist dystopias as well in sci-fi/fantasy fiction - eg: Atwood's _Handmaid's Tale_ - which can be enjoyed as 'feminist' works. I think that Rusch has painted yet a different style - a vision of today's reality extrapolated into the future - where women do gain 'equality' eventually - but on men's terms, and in accordance with patriarchal and capitalist value-systems of seeing children as 'property' and 'dispensable'. Instead of women as a class being the victims, it is the children who are the victims in such a vision. As a reader, I like fantasies and fun too, I like to read about women characters who are strong and powerful - but I acknowledge, that this is not possible in real-life. I have known a number of mainstream women readers who have told me, they don't like 'feminist' fiction because it reminds them too much of their own failures, by presenting impossibly strong, powerful female characters. I believe it was Joanna Russ in the _Female Man_ (correct me, if I'm wrong?) who describes in one section that has always amused me - something along the lines of "Somewhere on this planet, is a woman with 5 wonderful kids, a brilliant medical career, a gorgeous husband or lovers or something, and she drives a Porsche (or something like that). And I want to shoot the bitch!" :))) This also may explain, at least in part, why many women prefer writers such as MZB or Anne McCaffrey. Also, several who were mothers indicated that too many feminist visions exclude children altogether, and/or paint mothers caring for infants and children, as somehow less worthy an occupation to be focussed on, sometimes it's a *duty*, sometimes shared with men, or even left to men while women run the world - but it is rarely presented as a delightful/fun/powerful/joyous/positive way for women to spend a large chunk of their lives. For mothers who do see children as a huge positive influence in their own lives, What is there for them to identify with, in feminist visions of worlds without children? Thus, the Super-Woman Amazon Images presented in feminist fiction also have a down-side for many women. Julieanne ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 21:45:19 -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: intermingled... In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 02:24 PM 8/6/98 CDT, you wrote: >Has anyone ever read an SF book that posits a future in which the races >have intermingled so much that the physical differences have >homogenized out? Seems like an interesting idea. Of course, the characters >would exhibit prejudice towards each other based on other criteria. . . . I am reading _Dazzle of Day_ right now, and in the 175 years on the ship, the various peoples seem to be intermarried pretty completely (it helps that regardless of nationality, they are all Quaker...). Would 7 generations be enough, d'ya think? Rudy Leon Ph.D. candidate Department of Religion Syracuse University releon@syr.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 21:53:16 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: Utterly OT: Apology to List Members MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To the list and specifically to Allen, Joel, Edward, Mark and Todd. I want to publicly apologize for my flippant and insensitive comments. I have violated my own crucial rules about good communications: to try to say things I would be willing to say in person and to try to say things from a loving heart. I wanted to give a go at making my points with these two rules in mind. But I find I am more than little disappointed with myself. I am having trouble mustering the belief in one self necessary for public expositions. I am receiving my own acutely painful object lesson in how hours of good works can be washed away with one or two horrid gestures. I am very sorry for my display of mean spiritedness. There isn't ever any _valid_ excuse. donna donnaneely@earthlink.net ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 22:32:58 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anne Vespry Subject: Re: ethnicity: Julieanne. In-Reply-To: <8a327bea.35c9fde7@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Barbara R. Hume wrote: > Has anyone ever read an SF book that posits a future in which the races have > intermingled so much that the physical differences have homogenized out? Seems > like an interesting idea. Of course, the characters would exhibit prejudice > towards each other based on other criteria. . . . Joe Haldeman's _The Forever War_. One of the sub-plots of this novel is the various developments in social engineering that take place over several thousand years of human evolution. By the end of the novel, most folk are a uniform light tan colour... among other things... an excellent and thought provoking read that I don't want to spoil. I will say, though, that in keeping with recent discussion other sub plots include a romance and a look at possible ways of dealing with overpopulation. Anne Anne Vespry ******* http://www.vex.net/~maverick After Stonewall Bookshop ***** never forget avespry(at) *** only dead fish ollisdotuottawadotca * swim WITH the stream ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 23:23:27 -0400 Reply-To: ligeia@concentric.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lilith Organization: Sanity Assassins, Inc. Subject: Re: [*FSFFSU*] BDG: Alien Influences MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hmm. When I sent off my post, it was very late, so I couldn't come up with the reasons I was vaguely dissatisfied with the statement: > > Edward James said: > > > > Can't a book (and here I am speaking totally in the > > > abstract, with no particular books in mind) espouse a feminist philosophy > > > without describing any female role models? > > > All I could think of at the time was to say: > > In all due respect, I don't see how. I'll get more in depth in a moment but first:Joel VanLaven wrote: > I can certainly see how. > > A) A book about how to be a feminist man might not have any "close" female > role models, only figures at a distance, perhaps something like in > "Four ways to Forgiveness". Actually, didn't at least one of the stories in "Four Ways" have a female protagonist, who rose from a lifetime of servitude as a slave to that of a revolutionary, and then to (I believe -- it has been a long time since I have read it) a life of either a worker or an intellectual or something....whatever, I remember that was not exactly a "figure at a distance." > B) A book with a different gender set-up might be feminist despite not > having any women (or men?) In fact, is "Enemy Mine" feminist? It does > not have any major female characters (right?) > How about "Halfway Human" (with Tedla). If Tedla's story had been > written without having a strong woman listening to it (perhaps a man?) > would it have been feminist? All I know of "Enemy mine" is the movie -- I haven't read the book, so I can't say. But if it has no major female characters, then I don't see how it could be described as "feminist" -- maybe "humanist", or something like that. I still haven't read "Halfway Human" so I can't really comment on it. > C) How about a book that warns about the dangers of certain male things? > Perhaps a dystopian book based on China with no Women at all and only > Men with artifical reproduction. It seems like such a thing has been > done. What "male things" would these be? Wouldn't the missing women still be there, as subtext? (What they have "lost." Or got "rid of.") This would not exactly be having female role models, but it seems to me that such a work would be more for the "men's movement" crowd -- there wouldn't seem to be anything there for any woman looking for feminist fiction, but maybe for someone looking for anti-man fiction. (To be "anti-man" is not necessarily to be "feminist.") > Similarly, "Frankenstien" comes to mind as possibly being a > feminist warning about our trying to control reproduction. I think that we characterise this work as "feminist" because a woman wrote it, even though there aren't any strong female roles in the book -- I don't think of it as a feminist work in itself, but I do consider it an example of how women could write strong _stories_ with serious themes, not the insipid pablum they were always accused of penning right up into this century. (Norman Mailer's ideas on the subject, such as I was not able to avoid, come to mind, as well as more recent articles in some magazine, but I forget which one.) > D) Obviously all sorts of transferrals are possible, even siwtching the > positions of men and women. (as was attempted in one star Trek episode) "Star Trek" did occasionally try, in its own feeble way, to make a stab at lauding feminist thought. But I also remember for every episode showing a woman lawyer or officer other person of prominence, there were three showing women as scantily-clad sex objects, frail victims of alien monsters, or playboy-bunny types lusting after the Captain -- and the episode involving gender-switching was based around a character who could not accept her "femine limits" (her gender barred her from attaining the position of captain -- which shows just how impossible people in 1968-69 thought it that women could be qualified to be in positions of authority! They couldn't even make captain's rank 300 years in the future!) I haven't read any of the stories by Karen Joy Fowler, so I can't comment on them. But to get to the idea that feminist books could lack "female role models" -- I think the problem with this is the whole idea of "role models" themselves. To some people it is enough that a woman be shown in a position that was formerly occupied by males to be thought of as a feminist role model. One question: was Margaret Thatcher a feminist role model? (Okay, no fair -- she was real, not fiction.) But if all the female characters in a book are unsympathetic or peripheral or victims, and _most_ but _not_ all the male characters are unsympathetic or peripheral (or victims), and most importantly the hero of the book is one of the symapthetic males....well, I am not sure where the "feminism" comes into it. (I don't mean this to say that the work in question is necessarily bad, or patriarchal.) Lilith -- I dare you -- to be real; To touch -- to touch the flickering flame.... ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 16:08:42 +1200 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jenny Subject: role models MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Just de-lurking for a bit. My definition of the feminism in a book focuses on the book's treatment of structural features of societies and how they impact on gender, rather than how many characters are women and whether they are "role models". My suggestion for a book which is feminist but has no female main characters is Ethan of Athos by Bujold about an all-male society, which is premised on feminist analysis. I read feminist books for the inspiring ideas, and because they usually have strong female protagonists doing things which aren't "traditional" for women in 20th century industrial countries. However, I also read non-feminist books which have strong female protagonists. I prefer to use the word "examples" rather than "role models", because it's less loaded with claptrap. "Role models" is too tied in with liberal assumptions that feminism is about individual female achievement. Part of this ideology is that the lack of examples of women in non-traditional or power positions is the main reason women aren't getting into them now. I strongly disagree with that - it is persistent harassment, discrimination and violence which has kept women in New Zealand universities out of engineering, for example, not the lack of "role models". Jenny R ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 02:03:09 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Demetria M. Shew" Subject: Re: [*FSFFSU*] BDG: Alien Influences Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 8/6/98 10:38:30 AM Pacific Daylight Time, E.F.James@READING.AC.UK writes: << Can't a book (and here I am speaking totally in the > > abstract, with no particular books in mind) espouse a feminist philosophy > > without describing any female role models? > > >> I guess the problem I have with this is that I am old enough to remember when all the pronouns in novels were he/him. I was in my twenties before I found a story with a lot of she/her pronouns and an intelligent active female character. For me, part of feminist philosophy must be inclusion and I cannot see how I could feel included in a book with no female 'role models'. I don't know how to express how confining and bruising it was to have only strong male characters in stories. You could certainly have non-females espousing feminist philosophy to a degree, but I would not feel engaged in it anymore than I feel engaged when humanity is referred to as Man. Anymore, I think, than any man would feel wholly engaged if humanity was referred to as Woman. My 2 cents. Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 23:15:08 PDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Karen Kirschling Subject: Re: ethnicity Content-Type: text/plain barbara hume wrote: >Has anyone ever read an SF book that posits a future in which the races have >intermingled so much that the physical differences have homogenized out? if i recall, in one of the alternate realities dreamed by george orr in ursula leguin's THE LATHE OF HEAVEN, racial/color difference has been eliminated and everyone has grey skin. k.k. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 06:49:45 PDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Rachel Massey Subject: Hello Content-Type: text/plain I would just like to say hello to everyone on this mailing list. I'm new to the list, so I thought that I would make my presence felt. I am a student in Adelaide, South Australia, and am involved in politics. Oh by the way, I am somewhat of a Le Guin fan. I'm not yet aware of the general etiquette of this list, so I thought it would be polite to introduce myself. That's all I think. Cheers ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 07:36:51 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Maryelizabeth Hart Subject: Kris Rusch's writing speed Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 14:14:07 EDT >From: "Barbara R. Hume" >Subject: Re: BDG: another question about Alien Influences > >In a message dated 98-08-03 14:15:44 EDT, you write: > ><< After reading Alien Influences I glanced at > an online critique that said something about Rusch "writing too fast." >Perhaps > the repetition is an example of writing too fast, not going back and cutting >out > extraneous stuff? > >> >Kris said that the reason Pocket Books hires to her write Star Trek novels is >that they need someone who can "crank out a book in six weeks" and that if the >book comes up short she can just "stick in another try-fail cycle." To me, >that's just creating a product for the purpose of cash flow, not writing a >story from the heart. But the fact is that publishers know that some names, >such as hers, sell books, and with that as a given, they see no need for >editing a book or working with the writer to create a quality book. It will >make money for the publisher, so who cares if it's any good? This seems to me to be an unfair generalization whereby the underlying idea seems to be that quantity cannot by its nature equal quality. Perhaps I am misreading this. But in my experience, the logic is flawed for two reasons. First, just because Kris (and husband Dean) have a pragmatic approach to writing which allows them to go through the mechanics quickly doesn't mean that they are any less artists than someone who takes years and years to produce a work. And she still wants to take pride in work which appears with her name on it. And Star Trek books, by their very nature, are not likely to sell more copies just because a certain writer's name is on them, with the possible exception of Peter David or Judy and Gar Reeves-Stevens. My $.02. Maryelizabeth Mysterious Galaxy 619-268-4747 3904 Convoy St, #107 800-811-4747 San Diego, CA 92111 619-268-4775 FAX http://www.mystgalaxy.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 07:38:48 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Maryelizabeth Hart Subject: SF featuring loss of race Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Has anyone ever read an SF book that posits a future in which the races have >intermingled so much that the physical differences have homogenized out? Seems >like an interesting idea. Of course, the characters would exhibit prejudice >towards each other based on other criteria. . . . > >barbara The only example springing to mind is in Ursula Le Guin's LATHE OF HEAVEN. Maryelizabeth Mysterious Galaxy 619-268-4747 3904 Convoy St, #107 800-811-4747 San Diego, CA 92111 619-268-4775 FAX http://www.mystgalaxy.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 07:46:13 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Maryelizabeth Hart Subject: Feminist fiction without female role models Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Maybe I lack the academic distance to deal with this sort of question, but I don't see how this can be possible. Seems like saying, "how about an "Oregon-ist book in which we will not show any positive role models from Oregon?" My response, I confess, is along the lines of "huh?" as the mind boggles. Maryelizabeth Mysterious Galaxy 619-268-4747 3904 Convoy St, #107 800-811-4747 San Diego, CA 92111 619-268-4775 FAX http://www.mystgalaxy.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 11:19:47 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joel VanLaven Subject: [*FSFFSU*] BDG: Alien Influences (non-female feminist books) Comments: To: Lilith In-Reply-To: <35CA732F.265B6535@concentric.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII A) I love books with female main characters (most feministst sf falls in this category). Even non-feminist books. I find that I can and do identify with the main character even when female. I go out of my way to read such books. I want these books, much as Donna and whatever group of women she refers to want them. B) It is easy to say "I am feminist so the books I like and want to read are feminist books. All others are not." However, there are more kinds of feminists than just me and my kind. Even among female feminists there is a lot of variation in philosophy and even more so (I assume) in taste in books. Taking all those people into consideration will definitely include books that I don't like, that don't meet the needs feminism meets for me. For instance, "The Fifth Sacred Thing" was so alien to me in its new-age mystism that I was unable to read much of it. It in no ways meets my needs in a book of logical coherence, pragmatism, and clarity. So I got nothing out of it, nothing at all. Does that mean it is not feminist? No. Similarly I posit (based on posts here :) the existence of people who need a female role model in the books they read. These people might not get anything out of a feminist book without female role models (or may simply assign the female gender to non-gendered role-models). (I define role-model here as someone with which to identify) C) The reality of books and the human experience is so vast that practically anything is possible. I am a logican, I have a mathematical bent for precision where possible. I am also acutely interested in the possibilities. So, I naturally point toward definitions and constraints that are as acurately inclusive as possible. Just about all fire-fighters are still men. I have never met a female fire-fighter. Shall we define Fire-fighter as Fire-Man again? I think not. Fire-Fighter is a much more acurate description of the concept and possibilities. D) It is fine to define a hueristic non-definition that describes how to spot a feminist book on the order of "If it has non-traditional strong female role-models it is most likely feminist, and if it doesn't it probably isn't" In fact, I agree with that statement. However, "almost all" is NOT all. E) I have a feeling that many people on this list feel that I am not a feminist, that I cannot be a feminist. However eloquently, forcefully, persistently, and so on I argue for my inclusion I am male. In fact, the more I agrue the more I am being male and patriarchical, monopolizing the discussion at the expense of the women here and the more offensive I am. Primarily for this reason I have been silent. I understand and agree with many of these agruments. And yet, feminism is one of my most fundamental beliefs. I am in many ways feminist before anything else. I cannot help but feeling pained at the my exlucsion and dismissal by the group I most identify with, respect, and desire to be part of. I have been feminist for nearly as long as I can remember. I feel to a large extent that I am an outsider, an other among feminists and non-feminists alike. My male and female friends and my colleagues alike all have to handle a feminist man. I have been excluded from groups for my male-ness and for my feminism. I have had run-ins with my boss over feminist issues. I don't claim to know what it is like to be a woman in out patriarchal society. I am sure that I have had my share of male priveledge. However, I do feel that I have some idea, some notion of what it is to be an outsider, even what it is to be an outsider solely based on something as silly as what kind of genitalia I have. Now, on to better explain myself (Sorry about the bullets but I have a hard time with traditional written structure and have found that I can use bullets as an organizational crutch to pare down my inter-connected thoughts down to a manageable sizes.) On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Lilith wrote: (by the way, thank you for honestly engaging my comments. I should have pointed out in my first post that I assumed no ill feeling on your part and was (and am) not responding in anger but in an assumption, anticipation, and appreciation of honest, meaningful discourse) > Actually, didn't at least one of the stories in "Four Ways" have a female > protagonist, who rose from a lifetime of servitude as a slave to that of a > revolutionary, and then to (I believe -- it has been a long time since I > have read it) a life of either a worker or an intellectual or > something....whatever, I remember that was not exactly a "figure at a > distance." Yes, one did. (and I remember two others as having strong female characters as well) In fact, I am only talking about the last? story in the book that focuses on the the male feminist. Sorry for the confusion. > All I know of "Enemy mine" is the movie -- I haven't read the book, so I can't > say. But if it has no major female characters, then I don't see how it could be > described as "feminist" -- maybe "humanist", or something like that. > > I still haven't read "Halfway Human" so I can't really comment on it. What about "Left hand of Darkness"? There were no female role-models in that book right? I thought it was generally considered to be feminist (though I know of the debate there) Anyway, it deals with non-gendered characters. > What "male things" would these be? Wouldn't the missing women still be > there, as subtext? (What they have "lost." Or got "rid of.") This would > not exactly be having female role models, but it seems to me that such a > work would be more for the "men's movement" crowd -- there wouldn't seem > to be anything there for any woman looking for feminist fiction, but > maybe for someone looking for anti-man fiction. (To be "anti-man" is not > necessarily to be "feminist.") Of course there would be a subtext about women. That is the point. It is possible to have a subtext without any actual female role-models. > > Similarly, "Frankenstien" comes to mind as possibly being a > > feminist warning about our trying to control reproduction. > > I think that we characterise this work as "feminist" because a woman wrote > it, even though there aren't any strong female roles in the book -- I > don't think of it as a feminist work in itself, but I do consider it an > example of how women could write strong _stories_ with serious themes, > not the insipid pablum they were always accused of penning right up into > this century. (Norman Mailer's ideas on the subject, such as I was not > able to avoid, come to mind, as well as more recent articles in some > magazine, but I forget which one.) Fair enough, though I have heard this feminist interpretation of Frankenstien so often that I assume it has some truth and general acceptance (i.e. the men shouldn't take over reproduction) > > D) Obviously all sorts of transferrals are possible, even siwtching the > > positions of men and women. (as was attempted in one star Trek episode) > > "Star Trek" did occasionally try, in its own feeble way, to make a stab at > lauding feminist thought. But I also remember for every episode showing a > woman lawyer or officer other person of prominence, there were three > showing women as scantily-clad sex objects, frail victims of alien > monsters, or playboy-bunny types lusting after the Captain -- and the > episode involving gender-switching was based around a character who > could not accept her "femine limits" (her gender barred her from > attaining the position of captain -- which shows just how impossible > people in 1968-69 thought it that women could be qualified to be in > positions of authority! They couldn't even make captain's rank 300 years > in the future!) Of course. I am referring to an attempt in STNG (one of the early episodes) In which the crew goes to a planet with larger, stronger, master women and smaller, servile, secondary men. The idea was to make the whole thing seem ridiculous and arbitary (and the women weren't portrayed as role-models in my mind) Sort of like that recent movie that switched "black" and "white". > But to get to the idea that feminist books could lack "female role models" > -- I think the problem with this is the whole idea of "role models" > themselves. To some people it is enough that a woman be shown in a > position that was formerly occupied by males to be thought of as a > feminist role model. One question: was Margaret Thatcher a feminist role > model? (Okay, no fair -- she was real, not fiction.) But if all the > female characters in a book are unsympathetic or peripheral or victims, > and _most_ but _not_ all the male characters are unsympathetic or > peripheral (or victims), and most importantly the hero of the book is > one of the symapthetic males....well, I am not sure where the "feminism" > comes into it. (I don't mean this to say that the work in question is > necessarily bad, or patriarchal.) Certainly. Negative portrayals of women and positive portrayals of men very well might disqualify a book from being feminist. I am not arguing for the feminism of this or that particular book, only trying to keep us (and you) from limiting ourselves. -- Joel VanLaven ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 12:15:59 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joel VanLaven Subject: Re: BDG: Alien Influences (no female feminism) In-Reply-To: <011001bdc188$4081bfc0$d9ae2499@default> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, donna simone wrote: > I say again.... > > >> In all due respect, I don't see how.>> > >I can certainly see how.> > > > >A) ,>B) >C) >D) >E) ..... > >-- Joel VanLaven > > Feminist male SF "theorist" to feminist female readers/writers: "We love > your ideas, but we still dont want _you_." Actually I was feeling and thinking more on the order of: One feminist SF "theorist"/reader to another feminist SF "theorist"/reader: I disagree with your idea, but want _you_. In fact, I saw this as a challenge. I felt like I was being told it is fine and well to theorize, give me some examples, something to ponder so that I might reconsider. I felt like I was trying to answer a question, help another in their quest for expansion. (just as many here have helped me) > I have seen this maneuver before time and again and frankly it s***ks. I am sure you have seen THAT maneuver but rest assured no such manuever was attempted, intended, or even considered. Perhaps the manuever that happened was a flop, a communication failure, but it was not a dismissal in any way. I am truly sorry if it seemed that way. -- Joel VanLaven ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 09:34:09 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Keith Subject: Re: intermingled... In-Reply-To: <3.0.4.32.19980806214519.006c15e4@mailbox.syr.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Rudy Leon wrote: > At 02:24 PM 8/6/98 CDT, you wrote: >Has anyone ever read an SF book that posits a future in which the races >have intermingled so much that the physical differences have >homogenized out? Seems like an interesting idea. Of course, the characters >would exhibit prejudice towards each other based on other criteria. . . . > There is the alien in Joanna Russ's "No Second Inquisition". Her appearance is described as "At close view, her face looked as if every race in the world had been mixed and only the worst of each kept..." This thought on the part of the teenage female narrator is followed by the alien saying "You are not pretty, yes?". The alien's height is noted throughout the story, but usually negatively, in reference to its singularity - she is assumed to be a "freak" from the circus. But the alien, in one of her rare speeches out from under cover, says to a man: "Shall I tell you what we circus people think?...Of all of you...All who aren't in the circus. All who can't do what we can do, who aren't the biggest or the best, who can't kill a man barehanded or learn a new language in six weeks or slit a man's jugular at fifteen yards with nothing but a pocketknife or climb the Green County National Bank from the first story to the sixth with no equipment. I can do all that" What I thought was so powerful in this story was that two equally strong points of view defined reality - the girl's because hers was that of the culture in which the story took place; the alien's, because she was a visitor from a culture in which hers was the dominant group. There is no object defined by an overwhelming dominant group, whose very definition of themselves cannot help addressing other's definition of them. There were two autonomous groups. At least as far as race is concerned. The interaction of the definition of female is different still. The girl's sex is a mark of inferiority in her own culture, and to some extent, accepted by the girl as such. Kathleen ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 11:59:08 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Laura Quilter Subject: Re: intermingled... In-Reply-To: <3.0.4.32.19980806214519.006c15e4@mailbox.syr.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ursula le guin has done some interesting stuff. (1) THE LATHE OF HEAVEN (book and then a pbs movie) has a number of possible worlds created including one in which there are no distinctive races (2) in one of her recent books - FOUR WAYS TO FORGIVENESS, maybe? - she has a race that keeps slaves. the two races are somehow supposed to look alike; at least they think so; but an outsider (one of the Ekumen i think) comments that the two that are supposedly so different are not really distinguishable to others. i.e. minute differences are heightened for social control i'm trying to think if octavia butler, in the XENOGENESIS trilogy, dealt with that. it was so long ago that i read it that i don't remember. but the human species is blending with another species, and race was unimportant. it caused some ruckus in the beginning of the first book as i recall but then humans turned their focus away from human race. sheri tepper's THE GATE TO WOMEN'S COUNTRY has breeding program that certainly worked against queers & violent men. don't remember if it was set up for race as well. i know there are other books i've read - more far future books - which set that up as a premise. but don't remember titles right now. i certainly know that the idea has been TALKED about a lot. i personally think it's not a pleasant idea. i love that we have many different skin tones, many types of hair, many heights, eye colors, body shapes. we should love and honor our diversity not seek to eliminate it. justice and avoidance of oppression are not going to happen because we eliminate some arbitrary categories of difference on which we presently base some injustices; but rather because we eliminate the systems of hierarchies which perpetuate injustices based on all manner of arbitrary categories. as rudy said, if we eliminate race, another distinction will quickly assume importance to people who want to foster oppressions ... On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Rudy Leon wrote: > Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 21:45:19 -0400 > From: Rudy Leon > To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] intermingled... > > At 02:24 PM 8/6/98 CDT, you wrote: > >Has anyone ever read an SF book that posits a future in which the races > >have intermingled so much that the physical differences have > >homogenized out? Seems like an interesting idea. Of course, the characters > >would exhibit prejudice towards each other based on other criteria. . . . > > I am reading _Dazzle of Day_ right now, and in the 175 years on the ship, > the various peoples seem to be intermarried pretty completely (it helps > that regardless of nationality, they are all Quaker...). Would 7 > generations be enough, d'ya think? > > > Rudy Leon > Ph.D. candidate > Department of Religion > Syracuse University > releon@syr.edu > Laura Quilter / lquilter@igc.apc.org ** No More Sig Files! ** No More Witty Slogans! Save Bandwidth! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 13:22:31 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jessie Stickgold-Sarah Subject: Re: BDG Alien Influences In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 06 Aug 98 15:06:19 CDT." Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain >To me, it seems like the Marxist idea that once poor people get in power, >they won't be greedy or oppressive. Reality of Soviet Union showed that >human nature always stays the same, despite reversal of gender or class >relationship. I didn't say "if women were in power it would be like this" -- I said that to me, feminism involved challenging power structures and hierarchies. Doesn't have to be natural to be better, or to be effective. It's probably not "natural" for people to get exactly one vote on subjects which matter to them, and accept the results if they lose, but in the US that's the way we behave. Sure, there are flaws in the system and people try to go around it all the time, but in general the population believes that you just have to live that way. We aren't better people. We've just been effectively taught that that is the Right Thing. (Please, don't point out the failings of the American democratic system. All I mean is that although it might be "natural" for the losers to kill the winners or force them out of power, it doesn't happen.) Similarly, I think that (for instance) the traditional American family structure is very isolating. I feel that people do a lot better in large, extended families, where relationships are more fluid and also more variable. (And my mother will tell you that every teenager should be sent to live with an aunt/uncle or close family friend from the age of 13 to when they leave for college. I'm pretty sure this isn't only about me.) As I've been thinking about this in relationship to AI it occurs to me that perhaps the portrayal of the world as wholly isolating and mean-spirited may be intentional, in support of the themes of abandonment and isolation of the children. This doesn't necessarily shout out "feminist" to me, but it makes it more interesting. jessie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 13:29:10 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jessie Stickgold-Sarah Subject: Re: ethnicity: Julieanne. In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 06 Aug 98 14:05:36 PDT." Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii >One of Piers Anthony's books talks about a future where everyone is a >relatively uniform light-brown color. Ring of something or something like >that. As I recall (It's been years since I read it while in Jr Hi), it's >told from the POV of a few kids who are "different", and they eventually >find out they're being bred and kept like zoo specimins because they exhibit >distinct racial qualities. > >Or am I confusing a couple of different books? Hmmm.. I think you are. I'm not familiar with the Piers Anthony, but I once read a kid's book about a boy living in a society where everyone was the same color. Being the exact average brown was very important, so much so that people would spraypaint themselves if they were much darker or lighter. The boy, if I recall correctly, is white, and at a very early age is set up for an arranged marriage with a girl he's never met. Turns out they are the "white" pair, one of several pairs of children being used as breeding stock to breed back to diversity. It's not quite so horrible as this sounds (and in the end I think the kids refuse anyway), although the plot *is* as weak as it sounds. It was interesting, at least when I was ten. jessie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 16:29:27 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: BDG: Alien Influences (no female feminism) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 8/7/98 4:25:55 PM, sundry people wrote: <<> >> In all due respect, I don't see how.>> > >I can certainly see how.>>> Reminds me of something Philip Slater, the ecophilosopher wrote one time...commenting on what he thought of people living underground if we foul up the planet too much to live ON it... he said. "Well, yes, and I could learn to fart 'Annie Laurie' through a keyhole. But why would I WANT to." in the spirit of a light heart makes good company and good thinking.... phoebe ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 14:19:42 -0700 Reply-To: Sandy.Candioglos@intel.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sandy Candioglos Subject: Re: ethnicity: Julieanne. In-Reply-To: <9808072029.AA08676@shoebox-greetings.pa.dec.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks, yeah, I just did some research, and I remembered the cover, so I went to amazon and looked, and the book I was thinking of (and that I think you're talking about) is "Race Against Time" by Piers Anthony. As I said, I think I read it in Jr. Hi; it does qualify as a book that looks at humans as one race. -Sandy > -----Original Message----- > From: Jessie Stickgold-Sarah [mailto:jss@PA.DEC.COM] > Sent: Friday, August 07, 1998 1:29 PM > To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] ethnicity: Julieanne. > > > >One of Piers Anthony's books talks about a future where everyone is a > >relatively uniform light-brown color. Ring of something or > something like > >that. As I recall (It's been years since I read it while in > Jr Hi), it's > >told from the POV of a few kids who are "different", and > they eventually > >find out they're being bred and kept like zoo specimins > because they exhibit > >distinct racial qualities. > > > >Or am I confusing a couple of different books? Hmmm.. > > I think you are. I'm not familiar with the Piers Anthony, but > I once read a > kid's book about a boy living in a society where everyone was > the same color. > Being the exact average brown was very important, so much so > that people would > spraypaint themselves if they were much darker or lighter. > The boy, if I > recall correctly, is white, and at a very early age is set up > for an arranged > marriage with a girl he's never met. Turns out they are the > "white" pair, one > of several pairs of children being used as breeding stock to > breed back to > diversity. It's not quite so horrible as this sounds (and in > the end I think > the kids refuse anyway), although the plot *is* as weak as it > sounds. It was > interesting, at least when I was ten. > > jessie >