Subject: File: "FEMINISTSF LOG9903A" ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 18:14:19 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: Collectivist societies in SF Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit As I see it, for a society to be collectivist, major sections of that society have to be involved in very close cooperation without serious conflict for the good of that society. I don't think that simple allegiance of members (however strong) to relatively small family groups - in terms of total human/non-human numbers - classifies a society as 'collectivist'. On 27 Feb 99, at 20:42, No Name Available wrote: > This is only the first collective society in Cherryh > that comes to mind. A more complex comparison of > collectives, artificial and natural, positive > and negative, is in Serpent's Reach, with its insectlike > hives, inner societies of Azi (genetically engineered > humans), and ruling-class Family. I grant you the 'hives', but the azi societies were artificial in that the azi were sterile and of limited (and well-known) lifespan, and more importantly many were powerless chattel slaves. The great Families were not 'collectives' but families in the sense of the mediaeval Fuggers or Medicis or in more recent times the Vanderbilts or Rothschilds - none of which were remotely 'collectivist'. The _Serpent's Reach_ Families formed a ruling oligarchy with constantly shifting allegiances resulting murders and takeovers, something that eventually led to the end of the society - hardly a picture of 'collectivism'. The so-called 'Family Compact' oligarchy which ruled Upper Canada (Ontario) in the early 1800s is, I think, an excellent example of what Cherryh had in mind for the Family council in _Serpent's reach_. > Also, the social/family organization of the merchanter > ships-- one of her most recent, Finity's End, is not > one of her best but it does show the acclimatization > of one of her stock characters, a 17-year-old male jerked > out of his element, to the routine of ship life and mores. > Lots of sacrifice of ego to the collective good there, too. Sacrifice of individual ambition for the good of the *family* has long been held as an ideal in almost all societies and has formed the subject of many novels. The sacrifice Fletcher was compelled to make, was no more that that expected of all but very poor children until less than 50 years ago. Think of the Crusader families of Outremer which had the same shortages of manpower that the Neiharts suffered from and how they dealt with the problem in very much the same way. In any case, most of the merchanter ships were not crewed solely or even largely by families (for example 'Corinthian' in _Tripoint_) but by paid, often transient employees which effectively bars a 'collectivist' society. The greatest argument though that I see against the Alliance/Union human societies being collectivist is the Introduction to _Hellburner_ in which Cherry states, amongst other similar ideas, "For I do not believe in a monolithic state. Humans have throughout history been fractious and argumentative creatures to govern..." This short, but profoundly descriptive Introduction seems to me to encapsulate Cherryh's views of human societal evolution. > And the home-world collective behavior of the tribes of the Chanur > series are shown as both good and bad. Generally, Cherryh focuses > on individuals as catalysts or prime movers in societies on the > brink of change; however, collective societies or social groups are > not necessarily ruptured or indicted as a result. Cherryh in her description of the hani in the Appendix to _Chanur's venture_ actually refers to the hani "family groups" as "amphictionies" which I think excludes any possibility of a "collectivist" society. The description of the Chanur family in the same Appendix reinforces this impression. AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 16:27:45 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Caroline Couture Subject: Octavia Butler's comment on her covers. :) In-Reply-To: from "Terri" at Feb 26, 99 07:43:24 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi! I had the opportunity to heard Octavia Butler speak this last Saturday in Minneapolis. After her talk she signed books. As she was signing my copy of _Mind of My Mind_ I mentioned to her the list's conversations about her earlier covers. I asked her what she thought of the covers of her reprints (I was thinking about the current covers on the current editions of _Wildseed_, _Mind of My Mind_, _Clay's Ark_, and _Pattermaster_) She said that she "Thought of them as my collection of heads." And that they were done as an attempt to given the books a consistent "look." Another person in line asked her what books of hers she didn't like. She mentioned _Survivor_ a book I haven't read but it is apparently out of print. Apparently she doesn't think its very good and is glad that its now out of print. If you do get a chance to see Butler do; she is a very interesting and insightful speaker. She seems much more relaxed with speaking in public and interacting with her fans than the impression I had of her based on a interview years ago. Take care, Caroline ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 23:25:46 +1300 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jenny Rankine Subject: Octavia Butler MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Caroline Couture wrote about Octavia Butler - > Another person in line asked her what books of hers she didn't like. She mentioned _Survivor_ a book I haven't read but it is apparently out of print. Apparently she doesn't think its very good and is glad that its now out of print. I was interested to hear this, since Survivor is one of my favourites of hers, the one I have reread most often. I really like the way it deals with a woman's survival in a hierarchical (sp?) culture as an outsider, and her negotiation of rights in a relationship with a male which is imposed on her. I also like the way the woman's feral history gives her much better insight into alien dynamics than her missionary adopted parents's culture. Do others on the list have favourite Butler books? Jenny R ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 17:33:29 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Janice Bogstad Subject: Re: Octavia Butler In-Reply-To: <01be63cd$de471b00$0701a8c0@wks45.hrc.govt.nz> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I also like Survivor a lot. I wrote part of a dissertation chapter on it back in the early 90s - but I knew she liked it the least of all her books as she told me so at a WisCon. It puzzles me, but I think perhaps the gender stuff is too unmediated in that book for her taste. I am working on the Parable books right now, but I did like the Xenogenesis books a lot...Jan B. At 11:25 PM 3/1/99 +1300, you wrote: >Caroline Couture wrote about Octavia Butler - >> Another person in line asked her what books of hers she didn't like. She >mentioned _Survivor_ a book I haven't read but it is apparently out of >print. Apparently she doesn't think its very good and is glad that its now >out of print. > >I was interested to hear this, since Survivor is one of my favourites of >hers, the one I have reread most often. I really like the way it deals with >a woman's survival in a hierarchical (sp?) culture as an outsider, and her >negotiation of rights in a relationship with a male which is imposed on her. >I also like the way the woman's feral history gives her much better insight >into alien dynamics than her missionary adopted parents's culture. > >Do others on the list have favourite Butler books? > >Jenny R > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 17:28:32 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Olivia North Given Subject: Re: Octavia Butler In-Reply-To: <01be63cd$de471b00$0701a8c0@wks45.hrc.govt.nz> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > Do others on the list have favourite Butler books? i really loved Kindred. i stayed up so late just to finish it that i made myself late for work the next morning. i really enjoy historical fiction, so the way she was able to combine that genre with scifi just blew me away. she was in chicago last month signing books too.......i went to see her (she didn't give a talk, just signed, unfortunately .....nice lady. Olivia "Being can take the place of Having" On Mon, 1 Mar 1999, Jenny Rankine wrote: > Caroline Couture wrote about Octavia Butler - > > Another person in line asked her what books of hers she didn't like. She > mentioned _Survivor_ a book I haven't read but it is apparently out of > print. Apparently she doesn't think its very good and is glad that its now > out of print. > > I was interested to hear this, since Survivor is one of my favourites of > hers, the one I have reread most often. I really like the way it deals with > a woman's survival in a hierarchical (sp?) culture as an outsider, and her > negotiation of rights in a relationship with a male which is imposed on her. > I also like the way the woman's feral history gives her much better insight > into alien dynamics than her missionary adopted parents's culture. > > Do others on the list have favourite Butler books? > > Jenny R > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 16:05:57 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bonnie Gray Subject: Re: Octavia Butler In-Reply-To: <01be63cd$de471b00$0701a8c0@wks45.hrc.govt.nz> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I love them all :) Actually, I've never read Survivor, although I have heard of it. It's difficult to find. My favorites are Mind of My Mind, Clay's Ark, Wild Seed... and the Xenogenesis trilogy. And Bloodchild, and Parable..., and... and... and... Although not as overtly feminist as the others, my favorite may still be Clay's Ark (close tie with Mind of My Mind). I've always hoped for a sequal, though I don't think I'll get my wish. Bonnie PS: You got to talk to her! I'm so all kinds of jealous! On Mon, 1 Mar 1999, Jenny Rankine wrote: > Caroline Couture wrote about Octavia Butler - > > Another person in line asked her what books of hers she didn't like. She > mentioned _Survivor_ a book I haven't read but it is apparently out of > print. Apparently she doesn't think its very good and is glad that its now > out of print. > > snip > Do others on the list have favourite Butler books? > > Jenny R > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 20:01:27 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: John & Jessica Connor Subject: Octavia Butler MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0004_01BE641E.4A86D760" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0004_01BE641E.4A86D760 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I have never read Survivor, but Butler's Dawn (and the subsequent Adulthood Rites and Imago) is one of my favorites of all time. In fact, I'm doing my thesis on the series (plus Charnas's Motherlines, Gearhart's Wanderground, Tepper's Gate to Women's Country and Le Guin's The Dispossessed) and I am wholeheartedly enjoying every moment of close analysis of Butler's works! If anyone has not yet read Dawn, do so immediately! For me, it has been a life-inspiring piece of art... Jessica :-) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 20:58:19 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Suzanne Feldman Subject: Re: Octavia Butler MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Another obscure one of Butler's, listed as out of print by Amazon is called 'The Evening and the Morning and the Night.' Has anyone ever read it? This was the first I'd heard of it. Suze/Severna Jenny Rankine wrote: > Caroline Couture wrote about Octavia Butler - > > Another person in line asked her what books of hers she didn't like. She > mentioned _Survivor_ a book I haven't read but it is apparently out of > print. Apparently she doesn't think its very good and is glad that its now > out of print. > > I was interested to hear this, since Survivor is one of my favourites of > hers, the one I have reread most often. I really like the way it deals with > a woman's survival in a hierarchical (sp?) culture as an outsider, and her > negotiation of rights in a relationship with a male which is imposed on her. > I also like the way the woman's feral history gives her much better insight > into alien dynamics than her missionary adopted parents's culture. > > Do others on the list have favourite Butler books? > > Jenny R ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 18:31:09 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: BDG: Fisherman discussion begins Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Here it is already the beginning of March! Time to begin our discussion of Ursula Le Guin's _A Fisherman of the Inland Sea_. Of course this doesn't mean we can't still talk about Female Man, or anything else for that matter. Please continue. I'm not exactly sure the best way to proceed with discussing a collection of stories. I suppose we could begin with something generic such as which did you like the best, or the least? Any comments in particular about the long and informative introduction? It seemed to me that the later stories about the new instant transport mechanism (don't have the book here, sorry) were the meat of the this work. They had a dreamy consistency to them that she does so well. What do you think she was trying to say with the issues raised by this mechanism? Any ideas that come to mind when comparing these stories with her other works, either the earlier ones set on the same worlds, or the more recent books? Jennifer jkrauel@actioneer.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 23:47:05 -0500 Reply-To: releon@syr.edu Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Rudy Leon Organization: Syracuse University Subject: BDG: Fisherman In-Reply-To: <19990302023735776.AAA278.300@jennifer.actioneer.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Jennifer beat me to the punch, but I'm willing to be second here... This is the first collection of short stories I;ve ever read as a coherent whole (aside from anthologies like Women of Wonder and that sort), and I;ve found myself asking a number of different questions about how I should evaluate them. I should also say I am not done, having just started the story after the Shobies. So, Q1: did these stories come before her Hainish ones, Dispossessed, Left Hand... are these where the worlds get their first sketching, or are they after she's sketched them more fully in print? I'm not sure that I find them satisfactory pictures of the folks/cultures in either case, but it bugs me not to know -- like the Anarresti guy was fully hairy! Did I miss that? And she discussed Shevekian temporal physics -- I really feel the need to know what I'm supposed to know going into the books.... and Q2: I feel like when I've finished, there should be a unity to the stories, but this may be because I am so well trained to read lengthy narratives, and don't quite know what to do with these small tastes... And, so far, The Rock That Changed Things is my favorite, absolutely amazing! makes me think of my department's obsession with Derridean narrative theo-critics, and my insistence that the whole mess is just a bunch of white guys trying desperately to hide the power of diversity and maintain their own goodness and rightness, and hegemony over meaning... 'no it doesn't mean freedom, it used to mean freedom but the word doesn't exist anymore' !!! ( paraphrased ) Rudy Leon PhD student Dept. of Religion Syracuse University releon@syr.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 21:07:35 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Dave Samuelson Subject: Re: Octavia Butler MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------7257F36C16DED5F9E64589CA" --------------7257F36C16DED5F9E64589CA Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit She was on our campus recently, too, but she is a neighbor. She has addressed audiences in Black Studies, Women's Studies, and English (creative writing). I guess I was the second person to invite her to campus, well before she won her McArthur Fellowship, and I had to actually drive into L.A. to pick her up and then return her as well. We had a lovely interview and an interesting conversation both ways. She is a really neat lady, who has had to overcome major shyness but shows no defensiveness or condescension to student (and faculty) audiences. I am not an unqualified fan of her work, though I respect her, and I would put Survivor near the bottom of the list along with the original Patternmaster. Both I find too steeped in stereotyping and melodrama. The melodrama is somewhat more tolerable in Mind of My Mind and Wild Seed but Kindred is at the top of my list and clearly the most accessible to a non-sf audience. I don't know if Clay's Ark actually stands on its own, detached from knowledge of the "patternmaster" series. I'm impressed by the trilogy in principle, but never read past the first volume (other priorities intruded), nor have I read the "parables." Except for Kindred (to date), I'm more impressed and moved by some of her short stories than the novels. Bonnie Gray wrote: > I love them all :) Actually, I've never read Survivor, although > I have heard of it. It's difficult to find. > > My favorites are Mind of My Mind, Clay's Ark, Wild Seed... and > the Xenogenesis trilogy. And Bloodchild, and Parable..., and... > and... and... > > Although not as overtly feminist as the others, my favorite may still > be Clay's Ark (close tie with Mind of My Mind). I've always > hoped for a sequal, though I don't think I'll get my wish. > > Bonnie > > PS: You got to talk to her! I'm so all kinds of jealous! > > On Mon, 1 Mar 1999, Jenny Rankine wrote: > > > Caroline Couture wrote about Octavia Butler - > > > Another person in line asked her what books of hers she didn't like. She > > mentioned _Survivor_ a book I haven't read but it is apparently out of > > print. Apparently she doesn't think its very good and is glad that its now > > out of print. > > > > snip > > > Do others on the list have favourite Butler books? > > > > Jenny R > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 10:27:14 0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Petra Mayerhofer Subject: Tepper 'interview' MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT For Tepper fans (and I understand there are a lot on this list): although invited Sheri Tepper could not 'attend' the online SFF convention EOSCON II. Instead the EOSCON team collected questions and send them to Tepper who answered them. These Q and As can be looked up at http://www.e-horizon.com/eoscon2/tepper.html and you can still post questions! Apparently Tepper agreed to answer them, too. I have to own that I found most of the questions rather boring (and thus the answers are often on this level, too). Perhaps somebody on the list has an intelligent question for Tepper (I did not come up with anything). This exchange may be of interest for the list: Q: Your most recent books have focused on ecology and feminism. Are there topics and issues you have not written about that you want to, or are there issues in which you are interested but will not write about? A: I feel that ecology is the single most important issue in the world today. We will either preserve or destroy the world within the next century. Feminism is a preoccupation because I am still feeling my own female youth, a far different one from that of today's young women in the west, but one that identifies strongly with the women of certain Islamic and Asian countries. Women are still enslaved in large numbers in the world today; it is still wrong; there is still too little being done about it. I feel that we have taken the wrong philosophical track in our approach to crime and punishment, and that until we get off it, we will be unable to make necessary changes in the way we treat both victims and criminals. I have written some on this, and there is a good bit of it in The Fresco. I deplore that Tepper is apparently sort of handicapped (sounds like arthritis, but I am not sure). Petra *** Petra Mayerhofer **** mayerhofer@usf.uni-kassel.de *** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 10:47:32 -0000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: Octavia Butler MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >Another obscure one of Butler's, listed as out of print by Amazon is called 'The >Evening and the Morning and the Night.' Has anyone ever read it? This was the >first I'd heard of it. This is a ?novella (I'm not entirely sure where the line between short story and novella is drawn) and I don't think it has been published separately. There is a collection of Butler's short stories available, though to my recollection I have only seen it as a rather nice small size hardback edition put out by 4 Walls 8 Windows small press. Lesley Hall lesleyah@primex.co.uk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 08:34:16 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joe Sutliff Sanders Subject: Octavia Butler/CW In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Slight change in direction for this topic: Is anybody in our group studying with her at Clarion West this summer? Joe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 08:28:41 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Janice Bogstad Subject: Octavia Butler In-Reply-To: <010901be649a$5ff53840$742e70c3@default> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi, I just updated a bib on Butler...thought those enthusiasts out there might like to see a copy...I was especially pleased to find my early Butler articles cited correctly, for the first time, in the new SF bibliography done by Hall...(I can get a reference if anyone wants it). This was copiled from the Hall's book, my own collections, websites, listed at the bottom, and a couple of bios - also listed. If anyone has additions or corrections, I would be delighted to have them. As you will see, I have a couple of incomplete references I am tracking down right now...Jan B. A Butler Primary and Secondary Bibliography (Not Exhuastive). By Janice M. Bogstad, Ph.D Fiction: Xenogenesis Trilogy Dawn NY: Warner (1987) Adulthood Rites. NY: Warner (1988) Imago. NY: Warner (1989) Patternist Wild Seed. Garden City, NY: Doubleday (1980) Mind of My Mind. Garden City, NY: Doubleday (1977) Patternmaster. Garden City, NY: Doubleday (1976) Clay's Ark. NY: St. Martin's Press (1984) Survivor. NY: Signet (1978) Kindred. Boston: Beacon (1979) Parable of the Sower. NY: Four Walls Eight Windows, (1993) (nominated for a Nebula in 1994-95) Parable of the Talents. Seven Stories Press. 1998. "Speech Sounds" appeared in Asimov's (December 1983). Won Hugo. Republished in Bloodchild and Other Stories (1995). "Bloodchild" appeared in Asimov's (June 1984); won 1984 Nebula for best novelette; won 1985 Hugo. Republished in Bloodchild and Other Stories (1995). Bloodchild and Other Stories. (Four Walls Eight Windows: New York, London, 1995). Includes Preface, "Bloodchild" (1984); "The Evening and the Morning and the Night" (1987 / 1988); "Near of Kin" (1979); "Speech Sounds" (1983); "Crossover" (1971); Two essays: "Positive Obsession" (1989, as "Birth of a Writer"); "Furor Scribendi" (1993). Bloodchild: Novellas and Stories October 1995 Literary Criticism: Allison, Dorothy. "The Future of Female: Octavia Butler's Mother Lode." In Reading Black, Reading Feminist: A Critical Anthology, edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 471-78. New York: Meridian, 1990. Barr, Marlene S. "Octavia Butler and James Tiptree Don't Write About Zap Guns", in Barr, Lost in Space U of North Carolina, 1993. 97-107. Bogstad, Janice M. "Octavia E. Butler and Power Relationships." Janus 14 (1978-79) 28-31. Bogstad, Janice M. "Who is the Alien In The Picture: Human/Alien Physiology - Survivor by Octavia Butler." in, "Gender, Power and Reversal in Anglo-American and French Feminist Science Fiction", Ph.D. Dissertation, U of Wisconsin-Madison, 1992. 161-187. Bonner, Frances. "Differene and Desire, Slavery and Seduction: Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis," Foundation. N. 48: 50-62. Spring, 1990. Butler, Octavia. "The Birth of a Writer," Essence 20(1): 74,79,132,132. May, 1989. Currey, L.W. "Work in Progresss: Octavia E(stelle) Butler,: New York Review of Science Fiction, no. 32: 23. April, 1991. Doerksen, Teri Ann. Octavia E. Butler. Parables of Race and Difference. Into Darkenss Peering, Ed. By E. A. Leonard. Westport, CT. Greenwood Press. 1997. 21-34. Foster, Frances S. "Octavia Butler's Black Female Future Vision." Extrapolation 23 (1982): pages 37-49. Friend, Beverly. "Time Travel as a Feminist Didactic in Works by Phyllis Eisenstein, Marlys Millhiser, and Octavia Butler." Extrapolation Volume 23, Number 1 (Spring 1982): pages 50-55. Govan, Sandra Y. "Homage to Tradition: Octavia Butler Renovates the Historical Novel," Melus 13:76-96. Spring/Summer, 1986. Green, Michelle Erica. " ' There Goes the Neighborhood,' Octavia Butler's Demand For Diversity in Utopias", in ed. Jane L. Donawerth and Carol A. Kokmerten, Utopian and Science Fiction by Women: Worlds of Difference. Syracuse U. Press, 1994. Harrway, Donna. "A Cyborg Manifesto" and "The Biopolitics of Postmodern Bodies", In Harraway, Simians, Cyborgs and Women.NY. Routledge. 1991. 149-182, 203-230(esp. 225-230). Johnson, Rebecca O. "African American Feminist Science Fiction." Sojourner v. 19, n. 6 (February 1994), pages12-14. (includes interview with Octavia Butler) Levy, Michael. "Green SF and Eco Feminism." IAFA Newsletter, Spring 1989. Also in R. Collins and R. Latham, eds, Science Fiction and Fantasy book Review Annual, 1989. (Westport, CN: Meckler, 1990). "Review article of recent work by Octavia Butler, Nancy Kress, Pamela Sargent, and Sheri S. Tepper." Salvaggio, Ruth. "Octavia Butler and the Black Science Fiction Heroine." Black American Literature Forum. Volume 18, Number 2 (1984): pages 78-81. (Starmont Reader's Guide 23). Salvaggio, Ruth, M. Barr, and R. Law. Suzy McKee Charnas: Octavia Butler: Joan D. Vinge. Mercer Island, Washington: Starmont, 1986. Simmons, Judy. "Sexual Ease," Essence 19:48-49. October, 1988. Sinker, Mark. "Fear of a Black Planet: mark Sinker on an Upsurge in Black SF," Arena. N. 23:31-32, 35. Summer/Autumn, 1990. Werner, Craig. "Octavia Butler," in Werner, Craig. Black American Women Novelists. Pasadena, CA. Salen Press, 1989. P. 82-85. Wolmark, Jenny. "Chapter 2; Unpredictable Aliens" in Wolmark, Aliens and Others; Science Fiction, Feminism and Postmodernism. Iowa City, U of Iowa Press. 1994. 27-53, esp. p. 28-45. Zaki, Hoda. "Utopia, Dystopia, and Ideology in the Science Fiction of Octavia Butler." Science Fiction Studies Volume 17, Part 2 (1990): pages 239-251. Interviews/Biographies "Octavia E. Butler," in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 38, 1`986, Detroit: Gale Research, 1986. P. 61-66. "Black Women and the Science Fiction Genre: Octavia Butler Interviewd," Black Scholar 17(2): 14-18. March/April 1986. Bogstad, Janice M. "An Interview with Octavia Butler," Janus 14 (1978-79), 26-27. Fry, Joan. "An Interview with Octavia Butler." Poets & Writers v. 25, Mar/Apr 1997, p. 58-69. Johnson, Rebecca O. "African American Feminist Science Fiction." Sojourner v. 19, n. 6 (February 1994), pages 12-14. (includes interview with Octavia Butler) Kenan, Randall. "An Interview with Octavia E. Butler," Callaloo 14(2): 495-504. 1991. McCaffrey, Larry and Jim McMenamin. "An Interview With Octavia Butler," in Across the Wounded Galaxies, Interviews with Contemporary American Science Fiction Writers. U of Illinois Press, 1990. P. 54-70. Pfieffer, John. "Butler, Octavia Estelle" (critical biography). In St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers. Ed. Jay P. Pederson. St. James Press. 145-147. A Few Websites on Octavia E. Butler: http://www.Catch22.com/~espana/SFAuthors/SFB/Butler,Octavia.html http://www.wenet.net/~lquilter/femsf/authors/butler.html http://www.euro.net/mark-space/OctaviaButler.html At 10:47 AM 3/2/99 -0000, you wrote: >>Another obscure one of Butler's, listed as out of print by Amazon is called >'The >>Evening and the Morning and the Night.' Has anyone ever read it? This was >the >>first I'd heard of it. >This is a ?novella (I'm not entirely sure where the line between short story >and novella is drawn) and I don't think it has been published separately. >There is a collection of Butler's short stories available, though to my >recollection I have only seen it as a rather nice small size hardback >edition put out by 4 Walls 8 Windows small press. >Lesley Hall >lesleyah@primex.co.uk > > ________________________________________________ Dr. Janice M. Bogstad, Associate Professor Collection Development Librarian Library & Information Services, McIntyre Library University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Eau Claire, WI 54702-5010 USA email: bogstajm@uwec.edu telephone: 715-836-6032 "I HAVE NEVER REGRETTED BUYING A BOOK, BUT I HAVE OFTEN REGRETTED NOT BUYING A BOOK." _______________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 09:33:01 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: Re: Octavia Butler MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Samuelson: < and I would put Survivor near the bottom of the list along with the original Patternmaster. Both I find too steeped in stereotyping and melodrama..> Could you say more as to what you see as too stereotyped and why you judge these texts too melodramatic? <.. The melodrama is somewhat more tolerable in Mind of My Mind and Wild Seed but Kindred is at the top of my list and clearly the most accessible to a non-sf audience...> Again, what are you seeing as melodrama in the texts? Or how do you define melodrama? donna donnaneely@earthlink.net ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 07:32:36 +0000 Reply-To: mystgalaxy@ax.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Maryelizabeth Hart Organization: Mysterious Galaxy Subject: Butler MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Severna asked about "The Evening, the Morning and the Night." It was a short work, published as a stand alone by Pulphouse, IIRC, and included in the BLOODCHILD collection of a few years ago. A very affecting story, and one which touches on a lot of Butler's themes. Maryelizabeth http://www.mystgalaxy.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 10:01:56 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: Re: Octavia Butler In-Reply-To: <36DB7217.7AC91AB4@csulb.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 09:07 PM 03/01/99 -0800, Dave wrote: >I don't know if Clay's Ark actually stands on its own, detached from knowledge >of the "patternmaster" series. I'm impressed by the trilogy in principle, but >never read past the first volume (other priorities intruded), nor have I read the "parables." I can speak to this question -- while I have a copy of every book of hers that I've found, I haven't read them all yet. I did read Clay's Ark but not the other patternmaster books, and it made plenty of sense on its own. My favorites of hers are still the xenogenesis trilogy. I found the idea of cancer as a positive thing to be a fascinating idea. Not to mention how challenging it was to read a third-gender character without forcing it to be male or female. I haven't yet read her most recent books. I'm saving them up. An unread Butler book is a treasure, in my opinion. Jennifer jkrauel@actioneer.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 19:48:47 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: Bookshops in Miami/Miami Beach & Chicago Comments: cc: m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I'm coming up for what looks like my last trip to the US until the end of 1999 so I'm particularly anxious to stock up on books. I'll be at the _Investing in the Americas_ conference (28-30 March) in Miami Beach and the American Power Conference (6-7 April) in Chicago, so I'd be grateful for bookshop recommendations. I've noted the recommendations for Chicago bookshops given to Lesley Hall, but if anyone sent her private notes, I'd appreciate copies. Off-topic: Does anyone know what the Florida Keys are like at the end of March when we have a few days free? We'd thought of going to the Bahamas but without being able to scuba dive which is too dangerous for women, the Bahamas strike me as an expensive bore. AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 11:35:13 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bonnie Gray Subject: Re: Octavia Butler In-Reply-To: <36DB7217.7AC91AB4@csulb.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Actually, Clay's Ark doesn't have anything to do with the Patternmaster series. If you or someone else thinks it does, please explain to me how. It's possible I missed something in one of the Patternmaster series books. At any rate, it stands just fine on its own, although a sequal would be interesting (albeit difficult to write, as Butler would have to address an entire world striken with her mad scratching virus and a whole generation of altered children). Bonnie On Mon, 1 Mar 1999, Dave Samuelson wrote: > I am not an unqualified fan of her work, though I respect her, and I would put > Survivor near the bottom of the list along with the original Patternmaster. > Both I find too steeped in stereotyping and melodrama. The melodrama is > somewhat more tolerable in Mind of My Mind and Wild Seed but Kindred is at the > top of my list and clearly the most accessible to a non-sf audience. I don't > know if Clay's Ark actually stands on its own, detached from knowledge of the > "patternmaster" series. I'm impressed by the trilogy in principle, but never > read past the first volume (other priorities intruded), nor have I read the > "parables." Except for Kindred (to date), I'm more impressed and moved by some > of her short stories than the novels. > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 17:01:18 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jeri Wright Subject: Octavia Butler MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Caroline Couture wrote: << Another person in line asked her what books of hers she didn't like. She mentioned _Survivor_ a book I haven't read but it is apparently out of print. Apparently she doesn't think its very good and is glad that its now out of print. >> I'd heard that before, and still find it amazing. I love the book; in fact, it's my favorite of her titles. While I only found the most recent book I've read (the first "Parable" one) mildly interesting. Jeri, holding tight to two tattered, falling apart pb copies of SURVIVOR ... -- Jeri Wright destrier@richmond.infi.net ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 22:06:14 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: OT problem for young women in Thailand Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I'm just posting the beginning of a long note about this situation... anyone who wants to read the whole thing, email me and I'll send it. phoebe zozie@aol.com ------ Please Distribute Widely to All Contacts for Indigenous Causes. Stop the Abuse of the Akha people by Christian Missions!!!!!!!!!!! Akha News Service: March 1999 Thailand ******** Observers Desperately Needed In Northern Thailand to document this tragedy!!!!! ******** In village after village in Northern Thailand's Chiangrai Province the Chinese Baptist Church and other Churches are removing large numbers of girls from Akha villages in the name of protecting them from the possibility of going into prostitution. According to the Geneva Convention on Genocide it is illegal to remove a people from their group and make them a part of another group. Throughout northern Thailand, telling families that their daughters will be educated, the Chinese Baptists, and numerous other protestant and catholic groups are stripping all the girls of marriageable age from Akha villages by using the ploy that they will be educated in town at churches where the population usually is not dominantly Akha, but rather Thai or Chinese or another hill tribe group. Foreigners are being told that the girls are at high risk for going into prostitution but the net result is that there are no girls in the villages for Akha boys to marry and the villages are being torn apart in this fashion. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 23:34:20 -0500 Reply-To: Bertina Miller Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bertina Miller Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On another listserv I have received some disturbing news to me. Many of the instructors have been saying that even in their own classrooms latent sexism has occurred where the professors will defer to men over women students. I dont understand this. It hasnt been in my experience. I train people to use computers, I know I can rise above personal opinions and instruct anyone without deference at all. Has anyone else experienced that? I thought it all boils down to professionalism not latent sexism that for some reason people cant put down. Thanks for any input in advance, Bertina bmiller@medmail.mcg.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 08:21:57 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Peter Jaric Subject: Re: Octavia Butler In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bonnie Gray writes: > Actually, Clay's Ark doesn't have anything to do with the Patternmaster > series. If you or someone else thinks it does, please explain to me how. > It's possible I missed something in one of the Patternmaster series books. In one book (I think it's Patternmaster) the patternists have to fight creatures known as the clayarks. These are explained to come from the failed Clay's Ark expedition. And maybe (someone correct me if I am wrong) the clayarks are mentioned in Mind of My Mind too. (Those two books are my favourites, by the way.) I've been reading Butler's books (except for Kindred, Survivor, Bloodchild and Parable of the Talents) alternating with Orson Scott Card's Homecoming series. It's almost amazing how refreshing it feels to read a Butler book after reading Card's quite reactionary view on women in the Homecoming books (although it seems to get a little better in the last book.) -- Peter Jaric, ERA/T/KA mailto:Peter.Jaric@era-t.ericsson.se Ericsson Radio Systems http://www.csd.uu.se/~parsec/ phoneto:+46(0)84047214 Visit the HemPC page: http://hempc.tsx.org/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 08:44:34 +0000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Recent reading - February Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I haven't read that much real feminist sf/f this month, and all but one of the works were enjoyable rather than profound. Robin Hobb's books are strongly recommended. I'm surprised that no one brought up MZB's _The Ruins of Isis_ in the discussion on _The gate to momen's country_ because there seems to be compelling similarities and differences. Bradley, Marion Zimmer: _The sword of Aldones_ (****-), _Hunters of the Red Moon_ (***--), _The survivors _ (**---), _The Ruins of Isis_ (*****), _Survey Ship_ (***--), _Planet savers_ (****-), _The Bloody Sun_ (****-), _Star of danger_ (****-), _Winds of Darkover_ (*****), _Return to Darkover_ (***** a.t. _Exile's song_), _Sharra's exile_ (this is a retelling of _Sword of Aldones_), _Heritage of Hastur_ (****-). Cherryh, C J: _Skyfall_ (***--), _Port Eternity (****-) (I now have a complete collection of Cherryh's work - all in fine or better condition) Hobb, Robin: _Assassin's apprentice (****-), Royal assassin_ (*****), _Assassin's quest_ (****-), _Ship of magic_ (****-) LeGuin, Ursula: _Fisherman of the inland sea_ (*----) Maxwell, Ann: _Fire dancer_ (***--), _Dancer's luck_ (***--), _Dancer's Illusion_ (***--) Moving off topic, Steven Mithen's _The prehistory of the mind_ and Steven Pinkner's _How the mind works_ would I think be of great interest to feminists. Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 08:59:06 -0000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Carol Ann Kerry-Green Subject: Re: Octavia Butler In-Reply-To: <01be63cd$de471b00$0701a8c0@wks45.hrc.govt.nz> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Survivor is one of my favourites of Butler's and one I have re-read several times. Also, Kindred is a favourite, but my above all, all time favourite is Wild Seed. Carol Ann > I was interested to hear this, since Survivor is one of my favourites of > hers, the one I have reread most often. I really like the way it deals with > a woman's survival in a hierarchical (sp?) culture as an outsider, and her > negotiation of rights in a relationship with a male which is imposed on her. > I also like the way the woman's feral history gives her much better insight > into alien dynamics than her missionary adopted parents's culture. > > Do others on the list have favourite Butler books? > > Jenny R > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 10:52:58 -0000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: Octavia Butler MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Actually, Clay's Ark doesn't have anything to do with the Patternmaster >series. If you or someone else thinks it does, please explain to me how. >It's possible I missed something in one of the Patternmaster series books Origin story of the 'clayarks' who feature as the major menace (besides other patternmasters) in _Patternmaster_ Lesley Hall lesleyah@primex.co.uk -----Original Message----- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 16:47:57 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Ines Lassnig Subject: Re: Octavia Butler Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >> Do others on the list have favourite Butler books? While I think that Kindred is a truly fascinating, inspiring and well-crafted novel (and I was really drawn into that story), I was (therefore?) a bit disappointed by her recent Parable books. First and foremost I found the tone in the Parable books rather preachy and overtly pointing to the main arguments. Other than that, the story is quite intriguing and thought-provoking, although the connection between power in religious groups and feminist purposes might be somewhat problematic at times? Has anyone heard her interview on the Parable books on the Public Interest Series last year (by the way: my most affectionate thanks go to the most wonderful person I've met for a long time, to you Donna, who sent me the cassettes, and so much more, over to Europe!!), in which she argued (if I understood her correctly) that power was simply a legitimate short cut to "higher" purposes? I am probably going to write my doctoral thesis in part on O. Butler (I'm still in the process on deciding - there are so many interesting things out there!) and especially on her Parable books. Ines Lassnig ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 15:19:59 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Big Yellow Woman Subject: Re: Octavia Butler MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Has anyone heard her interview on the Parable books on the Public Interest > Series last year (by the way: my most affectionate thanks go to the most > wonderful person I've met for a long time, to you Donna, who sent me the > cassettes, and so much more, over to Europe!!), in which she argued (if I > understood her correctly) that power was simply a legitimate short cut to > "higher" purposes? I agree with Ines that the parable books, especially Parable of the TAlents (the newest one), were problematic. I am using these books in my PhD dissertation and would really appreciate any information on how I could get a copy of that interview (Donna?). I would happily pay for postage, tape cost, etc. Thanks! Susan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 12:30:00 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bonnie Gray Subject: Re: Octavia Butler In-Reply-To: <199903030721.IAA08224@strohs> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Yes; actually someone else just sent me that info. Sorry; I had no idea. On the other hand, now I have another Butler book to look up. Hooray! Thank you! Bonnie On Wed, 3 Mar 1999, Peter Jaric wrote: > Bonnie Gray writes: > > Actually, Clay's Ark doesn't have anything to do with the Patternmaster > > series. If you or someone else thinks it does, please explain to me how. > > It's possible I missed something in one of the Patternmaster series books. > > In one book (I think it's Patternmaster) the patternists have to fight > creatures known as the clayarks. These are explained to come from the > failed Clay's Ark expedition. And maybe (someone correct me if I am > wrong) the clayarks are mentioned in Mind of My Mind too. (Those two > books are my favourites, by the way.) > > > I've been reading Butler's books (except for Kindred, Survivor, > Bloodchild and Parable of the Talents) alternating with Orson Scott > Card's Homecoming series. It's almost amazing how refreshing it feels > to read a Butler book after reading Card's quite reactionary view on > women in the Homecoming books (although it seems to get a little > better in the last book.) > > -- > Peter Jaric, ERA/T/KA mailto:Peter.Jaric@era-t.ericsson.se > Ericsson Radio Systems http://www.csd.uu.se/~parsec/ > phoneto:+46(0)84047214 > Visit the HemPC page: http://hempc.tsx.org/ > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 14:43:37 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom Comments: To: Bertina Miller In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Well, I am still to see a classroom with a male teacher and/or fellow students where sexism were _not_ present. Especially in Computer science. The difference is usually only in the degree. The most memorable case I can remember is when a teacher told me he did not like me to ask questions in class "because I was a girl", and "it did not feel good to be questioned by a girl". And when I told the department chair -- a woman, by the way -- about that incident, she told me that the guy "probably just said it because he liked me" and that I should just stop asking questions -- or take it a sign of his attention. One interesting pattern I've noticed is that the worse is the teacher (and there are plenty of totally horrible college professors that are unable to explain why two times two is four) the more likely he is to try to show off his masculine superiority. The solution I found is to take classes with female professors only. They can also be women-hating jerks bent on sucking up to male students, but a lot less often. Marina On Tue, 2 Mar 1999, Bertina Miller wrote: > On another listserv I have received some disturbing news to me. Many of > the instructors have been saying that even in their own classrooms latent > sexism has occurred where the professors will defer to men over women > students. I dont understand this. It hasnt been in my experience. I train > people to use computers, I know I can rise above personal opinions and > instruct anyone without deference at all. Has anyone else experienced > that? I thought it all boils down to professionalism not latent sexism > that for some reason people cant put down. > > Thanks for any input in advance, > > Bertina > bmiller@medmail.mcg.edu > http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 13:18:33 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Dave Samuelson Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I imagine you realize that what you term "masculine superiority" is probably an unintended confession of insecurity. In English studies, men are still in the majority as faculty and women as students. Since we have more women and many of them are brighter than the men students, even if I felt that way I would be cutting off my nose to spite my face if I did give women as free a reign as possible in the classroom, picking their brains and helping them overcome a tendency to defer to (know-it-all) males. Sexism, racism, classism and all sorts of isms are inevitable in people's feelings (students as well as teachers) and many who carry on about one are blind to their own tendencies in another. We still have to live in a society full of people we may find strange or overbearing (or both), maybe even in a feminist utopia. If taking classes only with teachers of your own gender is not always possible, other choices are possible: diplomacy, education (in the sense of raising consciousness), legal or legalistic appeals, and outright hypocrisy (seething and holding in your resentment). Marina wrote: > Well, I am still to see a classroom with a male teacher and/or > fellow students where sexism were _not_ present. Especially in Computer > science. The difference is usually only in the degree. > > The most memorable case I can remember is when a teacher told me he did > not like me to ask questions in class "because I was a girl", and "it did > not feel good to be questioned by a girl". And when I told the department > chair -- a woman, by the way -- about that incident, she told me that the > guy "probably just said it because he liked me" and that I should just > stop asking questions -- or take it a sign of his attention. > > One interesting pattern I've noticed is that the worse is the > teacher (and there are plenty of totally horrible college professors that > are unable to explain why two times two is four) the more likely he is to > try to show off his masculine superiority. > > The solution I found is to take classes with female professors only. They > can also be women-hating jerks bent on sucking up to male students, but a > lot less often. > > Marina > > On Tue, > 2 Mar 1999, Bertina Miller wrote: > > > On another listserv I have received some disturbing news to me. Many of > > the instructors have been saying that even in their own classrooms latent > > sexism has occurred where the professors will defer to men over women > > students. I dont understand this. It hasnt been in my experience. I train > > people to use computers, I know I can rise above personal opinions and > > instruct anyone without deference at all. Has anyone else experienced > > that? I thought it all boils down to professionalism not latent sexism > > that for some reason people cant put down. > > > > Thanks for any input in advance, > > > > Bertina > > bmiller@medmail.mcg.edu > > > > http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html > > "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society > is selling at the time." > Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 18:18:00 EST 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: OT sexism in the classroom Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/3/99 1:06:22 PM Pacific Standard Time, my0203@BRONCHO.UCOK.EDU writes: << classroom with a male teacher >> The most astonishing thing to me is, Community College and University teachers do not have to have any training or education in...teaching. This is like expecting someone with a PhD. in bott fly anatomy to do successful human brain surgery and, I think, explains a lot about higher education. I do recommend you connect with the American Association of University Women at http://www.aauw.org/ They have some pretty hair-raising studies on education and gender. Also..."Women of Academe" by Nadya Aisenbg and Mona Harrington. This is a great book, it helped me a lot because, for a long time, I actually thought men were interested in education for the same reason women were and was going nuts trying to understand their behavior.... Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 15:37:11 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bonnie Gray Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I am in my seventh year of grad school in engineering. I have attended three different schools for undergrad, M.S., and Ph.D., and had a number of professors. I have only experienced blatant sexism a few times (a few times too many). I have noticed that overt sexism ("You only got in this school because you're a girl" [never mind the 3.8 GPA, or that I am well over 18 and not a "girl"]; "Maybe you girls should partner with some of the men in class instead of all grouping together. Maybe you'd understand things better and not always be in office hours") from older professors of the "old boys network". A stereotype, yes, but my experience shows it to be true. My experience with the younger men (by this I mean under 50) has been that they tend to "like" the "girls" and "show off" how bright they are. And, as Marina says, the ones that can't tell a transistor from their own thumb tend to be the worst, on both counts. Bonnie On Wed, 3 Mar 1999, Marina wrote: > > One interesting pattern I've noticed is that the worse is the > teacher (and there are plenty of totally horrible college professors that > are unable to explain why two times two is four) the more likely he is to > try to show off his masculine superiority. > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 17:03:45 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Dave Samuelson Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------DBEA9ADD70D8D6F4D5918FB4" --------------DBEA9ADD70D8D6F4D5918FB4 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Oops! I know Freud says there are no accidents, but I inadvertently left out a "not" in this message, as in "if I did not give women as free a rein [not "reign," dammit] as possible. . . ." Dave Samuelson wrote: > I imagine you realize that what you term "masculine superiority" is probably an > unintended confession of insecurity. In English studies, men are still in the > majority as faculty and women as students. Since we have more women and many > of them are brighter than the men students, even if I felt that way I would be > cutting off my nose to spite my face if I did [{NOT}] give women as free a reign > [sp.] as > possible in the classroom, picking their brains and helping them overcome a > tendency to defer to (know-it-all) males. Sexism, racism, classism and all > sorts of isms are inevitable in people's feelings (students as well as > teachers) and many who carry on about one are blind to their own tendencies in > another. We still have to live in a society full of people we may find strange > or overbearing (or both), maybe even in a feminist utopia. If taking classes > only with teachers of your own gender is not always possible, other choices are > possible: diplomacy, education (in the sense of raising consciousness), legal > or legalistic appeals, and outright hypocrisy (seething and holding in your > resentment). > > Marina wrote: > > > Well, I am still to see a classroom with a male teacher and/or > > fellow students where sexism were _not_ present. Especially in Computer > > science. The difference is usually only in the degree. > > > > The most memorable case I can remember is when a teacher told me he did > > not like me to ask questions in class "because I was a girl", and "it did > > not feel good to be questioned by a girl". And when I told the department > > chair -- a woman, by the way -- about that incident, she told me that the > > guy "probably just said it because he liked me" and that I should just > > stop asking questions -- or take it a sign of his attention. > > > > One interesting pattern I've noticed is that the worse is the > > teacher (and there are plenty of totally horrible college professors that > > are unable to explain why two times two is four) the more likely he is to > > try to show off his masculine superiority. > > > > The solution I found is to take classes with female professors only. They > > can also be women-hating jerks bent on sucking up to male students, but a > > lot less often. > > > > Marina > > > > On Tue, > > 2 Mar 1999, Bertina Miller wrote: > > > > > On another listserv I have received some disturbing news to me. Many of > > > the instructors have been saying that even in their own classrooms latent > > > sexism has occurred where the professors will defer to men over women > > > students. I dont understand this. It hasnt been in my experience. I train > > > people to use computers, I know I can rise above personal opinions and > > > instruct anyone without deference at all. Has anyone else experienced > > > that? I thought it all boils down to professionalism not latent sexism > > > that for some reason people cant put down. > > > > > > Thanks for any input in advance, > > > > > > Bertina > > > bmiller@medmail.mcg.edu > > > > > > > http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html > > > > "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society > > is selling at the time." > > Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 20:14:18 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Big Yellow Woman Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have passed up the opportunity to share this anecdote before, but since the issue has been raised again, here is one outstanding example of sexism in the classroom in my experience: I was attending a relatively conservative protestant seminary where I earned my master's degree. Toward the end of my time there I took a seminar on feminist ethics taught by a long-time ethics prof (about to retire) who, by his own admission, didn't know much about feminist ethics and was giving the course partly to learn himself. Fine. Besides the male prof there were three other men; a white/american graduate student, a white/American Seminary student, and another grad student, not american, whose English was not great and who therefore said little. The rest of the class - about 10 of us- was made up of women. After several classes in which the 3 hour conversation was generally dominated by the professor and white-male grad student #1, one night I realized that the male seminarian, who had some kind of a clue, was actually timing the long conversation between the two. This particular night even I was not as talkative as usual since I had not done the reading, and a full hour and 40 minutes passed without a single woman speaking! I finally started talking out of sheer frustration. At the break the seminary time-keeper shared the actual time-elapsed with me. Well, there's no neat punch line to this one, but it seems pretty incredible that this could happen. Shouldn't any professor try to engage more than one class member in discussion-- not to mention in a class on FEMINIST ETHICS?! AS a side note, I was the only outspoken feminist in class ( if there were any other feminists at all) and it was obvious early on that the prof didn't care for my "stridence". To his credit, he always acted very professional with me, despite the impossible-to-hide dislike. -- though I remember at our last class meeting, held at his home as a quasi-party, he yelled at me quite condescendingly for moving a peice of furniture without lifting it! A little repressed anger? Anyway. That's one of many. Susan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 03:09:40 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marianne Reddin Aldrich Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain For what it's worth, I took 3 years of classes in biology and religious studies (including 'typical old man Christian theology'). While I did occasionally encounter sexism in the source texts of the latter, I *never* experienced sexism on the part of any of my professors or TAs. Even the horrible ones were horrible evenly. And, to be totally fair, I probably got some special treatment (never deliberately accepted, mind you) because I was a bright, charming, curvy young woman in a male-dominated environment. I haven't really encountered anti-woman sexism in classes since junior high. Just my 2 cents, Marianne > >I imagine you realize that what you term "masculine superiority" is probably an >unintended confession of insecurity. In English studies, men are still in the >majority as faculty and women as students. Since we have more women and many >of them are brighter than the men students, even if I felt that way I would be >cutting off my nose to spite my face if I did give women as free a reign as >possible in the classroom, picking their brains and helping them overcome a >tendency to defer to (know-it-all) males. Sexism, racism, classism and all >sorts of isms are inevitable in people's feelings (students as well as >teachers) and many who carry on about one are blind to their own tendencies in >another. We still have to live in a society full of people we may find strange >or overbearing (or both), maybe even in a feminist utopia. If taking classes >only with teachers of your own gender is not always possible, other choices are >possible: diplomacy, education (in the sense of raising consciousness), legal >or legalistic appeals, and outright hypocrisy (seething and holding in your >resentment). > >Marina wrote: > >> Well, I am still to see a classroom with a male teacher and/or >> fellow students where sexism were _not_ present. Especially in Computer >> science. The difference is usually only in the degree. >> >> The most memorable case I can remember is when a teacher told me he did >> not like me to ask questions in class "because I was a girl", and "it did >> not feel good to be questioned by a girl". And when I told the department >> chair -- a woman, by the way -- about that incident, she told me that the >> guy "probably just said it because he liked me" and that I should just >> stop asking questions -- or take it a sign of his attention. >> >> One interesting pattern I've noticed is that the worse is the >> teacher (and there are plenty of totally horrible college professors that >> are unable to explain why two times two is four) the more likely he is to >> try to show off his masculine superiority. >> >> The solution I found is to take classes with female professors only. They >> can also be women-hating jerks bent on sucking up to male students, but a >> lot less often. >> >> Marina >> >> On Tue, >> 2 Mar 1999, Bertina Miller wrote: >> >> > On another listserv I have received some disturbing news to me. Many of >> > the instructors have been saying that even in their own classrooms latent >> > sexism has occurred where the professors will defer to men over women >> > students. I dont understand this. It hasnt been in my experience. I train >> > people to use computers, I know I can rise above personal opinions and >> > instruct anyone without deference at all. Has anyone else experienced >> > that? I thought it all boils down to professionalism not latent sexism >> > that for some reason people cant put down. >> > >> > Thanks for any input in advance, >> > >> > Bertina >> > bmiller@medmail.mcg.edu >> > >> >> http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html >> >> "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society >> is selling at the time." >> Naomi Wolf ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 23:29:43 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: John & Jessica Connor Subject: Re: Octavia Butler MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0004_01BE65CD.B7E6A640" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0004_01BE65CD.B7E6A640 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Re: "Actually, Clay's Ark doesn't have anything to do with the Patternmaster series. If you or someone else thinks it does, please explain to me how. It's possible I missed something in one of the Patternmaster series books." I took a course entirely devoted to Butler and, as it was explained to me, Clay's Ark is the prequel to the rest of the Patternist series; it's been a while so my memory may be sketchy, but apparently the problems the crash of the ship induced into the world were the very beginning phase of the total pattern that is culminated (I think) in Patternmaster. Sort of like an evolution, I guess. I had a hard time making the connection because the experiences of the characters in Clay's Ark seemed to vastly differ from those in Patternmaster (or any of the other books) but there is a fine thread if you look very closely. Does this ring a bell for anyone? Jessica ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 02:19:13 -0400 Reply-To: asaro@sff.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Catherine Asaro Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit When I was a physics professor, the department expressed hope that I might bring in more female majors. Up until that time, they had only had a few women students. Most years there were none, but every now and then they would have one. So I went in, all starry-eyed and naive, and begin applying the various things I had learned over the years about gender, teaching, and the classroom. I passed copies of the "Chilly Atmosphere" report around the department and tried to teach my classes in a manner that treated everyone equally. Well surprise. The class that started the same year I came had almost 50% female majors. It was a first, a dramatic one. I thought the department would be delighted. Right. Part of the problem, of course, is this: if it turns out that new teaching methods do make a difference, that implies previous methods had problems. Which means acknowledging those problems. I don't think that aspect of the situation endeared me to certain folks. With the wisdom of hindsight, I think I could have dealt with the situation in a more politically savvy manner. -- Best regards Catherine Asaro http://www.sff.net/people/asaro/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 09:10:51 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit After 5 years at university and innumerable courses since, I can count the times I've seen real sexism on the fingers of one hand. More often apparent "sexism" has been men showing off - by, for example, helping women move bulky objects etc. But has anyone noticed how in the first 5 minutes of the first meeting on a course, one can categorise almost everyone in the class? Even before they open their mouths, one can recognise the class "idiot" and the class "genius", the class "brown noser" who sucks up to the teacher while sneering at other students and the class "outsider" who nobody can get along with, the class "Lothario" who'll hit on *every* woman and the class "beauty" who's going to primp continuously before her coterie of admirers, the class "strident feminist" and the class "committed Christian" ... The ones I used to hate were short men because there's something about a tall woman that brings out both the poseur and the Billy Goat in them. There's something so embarrassing about watching somebody make a fool of himself just to impress one. It's even more demeaning when they don't take a gentle hint and one has to *really* humiliate them in front of their friends. But what about "sexual harrassment"? I don't mean being hit on - I think all of us have had to cope with that - but "You give me a Clinton and I'll give you an A+ for this course". I've heard of it at 5th and 6th hand, but the only firsthand case I've known involved not a male professor/female student but my boyfriend and a female professor of French. I'm sure it must be a lot more common that we think, because most women would - I think - be too ashamed to report the offer or, worse still, yielding to the pressure. AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 10:35:57 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Peter Jaric Subject: Re: Octavia Butler: Patternist books In-Reply-To: <000701be65f7$a5a60140$e304460c@johnconn> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit John & Jessica Connor writes: > I took a course entirely devoted to Butler and, as it was explained > to me, Clay's Ark is the prequel to the rest of the Patternist > series; it's been a while so my memory may be sketchy, but > apparently the problems the crash of the ship induced into the world > were the very beginning phase of the total pattern that is > culminated (I think) in Patternmaster. On the other hand, the Clay's Ark incident must have happened at the end or after Doro's breeding scheme (see Wild Seed) which also must be considered as a big requirement for the patternist society, since all patternists (as far as I have understood) are descended from Doro's people. I haven't really got the hang of the timeline of the Patternist books. Is there someone who has and wants to list the major events in a chronological order? Like, for example, did Clay's Ark crash before or after the pattern was formed by Mary? -- Peter Jaric, ERA/T/KA mailto:Peter.Jaric@era-t.ericsson.se Ericsson Radio Systems http://www.csd.uu.se/~parsec/ phoneto:+46(0)84047214 Visit the HemPC page: http://hempc.tsx.org/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 22:23:32 +1100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Julieanne Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom In-Reply-To: <19990304081051.6888.qmail@www0q.netaddress.usa.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 09:10 AM 3/4/99 MET, Anthea Hartley Stanton wrote: >After 5 years at university and innumerable courses since, I can count the >times I've seen real sexism on the fingers of one hand. More often apparent >"sexism" has been men showing off - by, for example, helping women move bulky >objects etc. > >But what about "sexual harrassment"? (snip) I have similar experiences, inside classrooms and those hours "on-the-job" so to speak, very few instances of sexual harrassment ever occurred where I was victim or witness, and most of those were minor - more on par with adolescent boy hi-jinks which may not be "appropriate" behaviours, but neither are they criminal. Indeed, in 15 years in various institutions I heard of only one 'nine-to-five' romance which developed between colleagues, and to avoid the situation of a couple having to work in a heirarchical situation their superiors negotiated acceptable transfers for one or both parties. A few years later, coffee-room gossip indicated they had ended in a bitter divorce, so it may have been wise to have them separated in the workplace? My only experience of that sort of thing, I ended up regarding as "personal" harrassment unrelated to my gender. I was working with a colleague, an African man from Ghana - I was a white single mother. Both of us were in equivalent positions with experience and qualifications and equally well-placed for an up-coming promotion, although my little B.Sc Hons degree, compared to his Ph D. might have swayed management in his favour in any event. That man gave me hell for over six months - but never in the work-place when there were witnesses. As soon as our boss (An Asian woman) left for lunch - he would start. Answering my phone calls, re-doing my work and claiming it as his own, messing my work-station while I was out, purposely confusing messages for me, questioning my judgement and recommendations endlessly forcing me on the defensive, taking over my clients, setting me up for bad performance reviews - but never, never, never did he behave in anything other than professional courtesy while others were nearby. He would follow me to my car in the car-park after work, striking up 'casual' conversations about my children for example - only to turn the conversation to things like "in my country, women never get custody of children, and so do not have to work like you do here in this country". At social functions - the man was pleasant, witty, courteous and professional, but if ever caught me alone in an elevator, a car-park, a hallway or whatever - the "harrassment" never let up. He never touched me, he never threatened me, he never 'hit' on me - it wasn't sexual at all. I was just an 'obstacle' that in his mind, was in the way of his 'getting ahead', and he saw a 'weakness' that he could exploit in his aggressive climb up the ladder. Perhaps being female, and also unmarried (without a 'man' to defend/protect me and my interests, no matter how invisible) I suppose made him more confident of the success of such tactics. I was very emotionally upset by the continued nastiness - and at one point spoke privately (or so I thought) to my boss. Basically I just wanted some advice on possible options on how to deal with it. My boss must have spoken to the man - for he then complained loudly and bitterly to all and sundry of my "racial harrassment" towards him for being black... he took it up with the local Union Delegates....and even typed up a 6-page document or *Grievance* concerning my behaviour towards him...full of total lies... but still.. and at that point I figured, I was in a no-win situation, I was damned if I did, and damned if I didn't fight the allegations - and it was also a no-win situation for my superiors, and the Union officers, who personally and privately communicated they felt I was justified in feeling "harrassed"...but could not provide any 'public' support. No witnesses, no evidence on either side... blah, blah and so forth. The only solution I could come up with was to negotiate a transfer for myself, that I was at least comfortable with. Up to that point in my 20 year long career in Universities and 'professional' workplaces, I had considered things like sexual harrassment to be a relative 'non-issue', it just never really happened where I saw it anyway... but afterwards, I started to wonder just how many other women have negotiated transfers, or other "alternatives', or found sympathetic bosses or friendly colleagues to provide a 'quiet' solution that avoids bringing it to outsider attention. Such incidents end up becoming coffee-break gossip and the stories get twisted with re-telling by people who were not involved and so forth. And the victims, just like me, are just happy to forget about it, never talk about it, put it down to "bad luck", and get on with their jobs or studies or whatever. Julieanne jalc@ozemail.com.au ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Feb 1999 07:20:57 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Pat Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990304222332.007c8510@ozemail.com.au> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Julieanne wrote: > > That man gave me hell for over six months - but never in the work-place > when there were witnesses. As soon as our boss (An Asian woman) left for > lunch - he would start. Answering my phone calls, re-doing my work and > claiming it as his own, messing my work-station while I was out, purposely > confusing messages for me, questioning my judgement and recommendations > endlessly forcing me on the defensive, taking over my clients, setting me > up for bad performance reviews - but never, never, never did he behave in > anything other than professional courtesy while others were nearby. > That's office politics. Sexism, too, but it's done by men to women, by women to women, by men to men, and (very rarely - we don't often get the chance!) women to men. > > I was very emotionally upset by the continued nastiness - and at one point > spoke privately (or so I thought) to my boss. Basically I just wanted some > advice on possible options on how to deal with it. My boss must have spoken > to the man - for he then complained loudly and bitterly to all and sundry > of my "racial harrassment" towards him for being black... he took it up > with the local Union Delegates....and even typed up a 6-page document or > *Grievance* concerning my behaviour towards him...full of total lies... but > still.. Sounds SO similar to something that's happened in MY shop! Different cast of characters. > > > Up to that point in my 20 year long career in Universities and > 'professional' workplaces, I had considered things like sexual harrassment > to be a relative 'non-issue', it just never really happened where I saw it > anyway... Aha! I work for a University, too. Patricia (Pat) Mathews mathews@unm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 09:28:46 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jocelyn & Sheryl Denton-LeSage Subject: Re: Octavia Butler MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit That is a short story included in the "Bloodchild" book. Check it out--and you might have to look outside the SF section in your bookstore. My store carries Kindred and Bloodchild in regular fiction. -----Original Message----- From: Suzanne Feldman To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Date: Monday, March 01, 1999 8:10 PM Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Octavia Butler >Another obscure one of Butler's, listed as out of print by Amazon is called 'The >Evening and the Morning and the Night.' Has anyone ever read it? This was the >first I'd heard of it. > >Suze/Severna > >Jenny Rankine wrote: > >> Caroline Couture wrote about Octavia Butler - >> > Another person in line asked her what books of hers she didn't like. She >> mentioned _Survivor_ a book I haven't read but it is apparently out of >> print. Apparently she doesn't think its very good and is glad that its now >> out of print. >> >> I was interested to hear this, since Survivor is one of my favourites of >> hers, the one I have reread most often. I really like the way it deals with >> a woman's survival in a hierarchical (sp?) culture as an outsider, and her >> negotiation of rights in a relationship with a male which is imposed on her. >> I also like the way the woman's feral history gives her much better insight >> into alien dynamics than her missionary adopted parents's culture. >> >> Do others on the list have favourite Butler books? >> >> Jenny R ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 10:04:02 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jocelyn & Sheryl Denton-LeSage Subject: Re: Octavia Butler MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_00E5_01BE6626.54969E20" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_00E5_01BE6626.54969E20 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable All right, then: y'all can possibly help me. I'm currently writing my = thesis, and in it I'm comparing Octavia Butler and Sam = Delany--specifically, their use of creation myth to give weight to their = narratives and give alternatives to current gender roles and = expectations. Her--Xenogenesis, Him--Neveryon. Problem is, my First = Reader and advisor is a Henry James specialist who just agreed to do my = thesis because our department's only SF specialist took a job out of = state, giving no notice (just went on sabbatical and stayed gone). My = advisor thinks the world of Delany but believes Butler to be transparent = and didactic, and I'm having a brainfreeze--what can I point to in = Xenogenesis that will change her mind? Not that I'm asking the list to = write the dang thing, of course--as of Monday I'm 37 pages lighter in = the briefcase and she's blue-pencilling it as we write. But if all you = in this nest of Butler fans could help me strengthen my argument I'd be = ever grateful.... Sheryl ---Original Message----- From: John & Jessica Connor To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Date: Wednesday, March 03, 1999 10:34 PM Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Octavia Butler Re: "Actually, Clay's Ark doesn't have anything to do with the = Patternmaster series. If you or someone else thinks it does, please explain to me = how. It's possible I missed something in one of the Patternmaster series = books." =20 =20 I took a course entirely devoted to Butler and, as it was explained = to me, Clay's Ark is the prequel to the rest of the Patternist series; = it's been a while so my memory may be sketchy, but apparently the = problems the crash of the ship induced into the world were the very = beginning phase of the total pattern that is culminated (I think) in = Patternmaster. Sort of like an evolution, I guess. I had a hard time = making the connection because the experiences of the characters in = Clay's Ark seemed to vastly differ from those in Patternmaster (or any = of the other books) but there is a fine thread if you look very closely. = Does this ring a bell for anyone? =20 Jessica ------=_NextPart_000_00E5_01BE6626.54969E20 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
All right, then: y'all can possibly = help=20 me.  I'm currently writing my thesis, and in it I'm comparing = Octavia=20 Butler and Sam Delany--specifically, their use of creation myth to give = weight=20 to their narratives and give alternatives to current gender roles and=20 expectations.  Her--Xenogenesis, Him--Neveryon.  Problem is, = my First=20 Reader and advisor is a Henry James specialist who just agreed to do my = thesis=20 because our department's only SF specialist took a job out of state, = giving no=20 notice (just went on sabbatical and stayed gone).  My advisor = thinks the=20 world of Delany but believes Butler to be transparent and didactic, and = I'm=20 having a brainfreeze--what can I point to in Xenogenesis that will = change her=20 mind?  Not that I'm asking the list to write the dang thing, of = course--as=20 of Monday I'm 37 pages lighter in the briefcase and she's = blue-pencilling it as=20 we write.  But if all you in this nest of Butler fans could help me = strengthen my argument I'd be ever grateful....
 
Sheryl
 
Re:  "Actually, Clay's Ark doesn't have anything to = do with=20 the Patternmaster
series. If you or someone else thinks it does, = please=20 explain to me how.
It's possible I missed something in one of the = Patternmaster series books."
 
I took a course entirely devoted to Butler and, as it was = explained to=20 me, Clay's Ark is the prequel to the rest of the Patternist series; = it's=20 been a while so my memory may be sketchy, but apparently the = problems the=20 crash of the ship induced into the world were the very beginning = phase of=20 the total pattern that is culminated (I think) in = Patternmaster.  Sort=20 of like an evolution, I guess.  I had a hard time making the = connection=20 because the experiences of the characters in Clay's Ark seemed to = vastly=20 differ from those in Patternmaster (or any of the other books) but = there is=20 a fine thread if you look very closely.  Does this ring a bell = for=20 anyone?
 
Jessica
------=_NextPart_000_00E5_01BE6626.54969E20-- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 12:53:48 EST 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: OT sexism in the classroom Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/4/99 3:49:19 AM Pacific Standard Time, asaro@sff.net writes: << Part of the problem, of course, is this: if it turns out that new teaching methods do make a difference, that implies previous methods had problems. >> I find myself wondering if it also breaks up the familiar, seventeenth century white-guy style of education where students are subjected to more information load than they can understand and are made to run a kind of brutal gauntlet. I'm in a kind of surreal situation now where I'm taking education courses where the focus is on finding teaching models that will reach all the students, while teaching in a CC where I have heard teachers complain bitterly if they think they might have to change their standard teaching style for the sake of students. Also, if the students do well and learn they get good grades...and I get accused of being to easy on them. This is even more difficult since 60-80% of my students are female, 10-15% are culturally varied and even the men in the class suffer under the an entrenched teaching model that does not see we are no longer lecturing economically elite white males who don't have to hold down jobs while they attend school and who certainly don't have families to attend. (No offense to the eewm's). There are quite a few women over 40-50 in my science classes, and the language and tone of the text books might as well be Celtish or Innuit as far as making any connection with their experiences. I guess what I feel is that the problem doesn't stop at gender. The current make-em' tough military style teaching ethos is questionable all around. There is a big difference between challenging students, and brutalizing them. Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 13:05:16 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Demetria M. Shew" Subject: (no subject) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit < Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Dave Samuelson Subject: Re: Octavia Butler MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------BDE5EFBFDDE6157AD28EF109" --------------BDE5EFBFDDE6157AD28EF109 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit One of the problems I have with e-mail is that it allows me too easily and quickly to shoot off my mouth (fingers? the image is disturbing, resurrecting a dead metaphor). I certainly did not think much about my subject or my audience before firmly inserting my foot in my mouth. Thank you (again) for challenging my assumptions. I have not read Butler's novels (except for beginning the trilogy) since a "crash course" preparing for my interview of her on campus maybe 10 years ago. My recollection is therefore fuzzy at best. In looking back at the actual texts (briefly), I think my problem stems largely from the ludicrousness (to me) of "mental battles" (the weakest part of Mind of My Mind and of LeGuin's third "Hainish novel" as well). I have teased Octavia about her dependence on telepaths and she sent me an advance copy of her prize-winning Omni short story (about care-givers?) with the note that it had none. While most fsf is "melodramatic" (unconvincingly portrayed, sentimentalized, simplistically exaggerating good and bad, asking for an unearned investment of intense emotion in characters and events), I typically make allowances for the conventions of the genre and probably lean toward the comic (ironic, detached, success-oriented) vs. the pseudo-tragic (partly because the latter is so hard to pull off and leads to the most embarrassing results when it fails). Patternmaster I found too global, too distant from human concerns except in a highly abstract way, with too little involvement in individuals for me to care and too little idea-content for me to dismiss them. As her first novel, it may have betrayed too much its apprenticeship status. Of her first five novels, Survivor leaves the least vivid memories. It looks like my main objections were actually to its displaced anthropology, comparable to the old cliché of putting a Western into space. I'll have to reread it, or enough of it, to be sure (but I don't have time right now). As for Clay's Ark, the first Butler novel I read, other posters have reinforced my memory of its embedding in the series, if not its dependence. I felt somewhat lost with my lack of its assumed background when I read it but intrigued enough to follow it up in her other books. Although my skepticism about esp/telepathy remained, I was willing to suspend it for Wild Seed and Mind of My Mind, because of their intensity, and to give it the status of metaphorical reality. donna simone wrote: > Samuelson: > < and I would put Survivor near the bottom of the list along with the > original Patternmaster. Both I find too steeped in stereotyping and > melodrama..> > > Could you say more as to what you see as too stereotyped and why you > judge these texts too melodramatic? > > <.. The melodrama is somewhat more tolerable in Mind of My Mind and > Wild Seed but Kindred is at the top of my list and clearly the > most accessible to a non-sf audience...> > > Again, what are you seeing as melodrama in the texts? Or how do you > define melodrama? > > donna > donnaneely@earthlink.net ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 10:27:16 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Dave Samuelson Subject: Re: (no subject) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Years ago when I started teaching I read a Psychology Today article typing students according to learning style. I found that useful, but only as a preliminary guide. It's important to use any typing device only as a first and very tentative template or guide, to modify immediately as new information comes in. We can't avoid typing people, but we need to see them as individuals, especially if we hope to teach them or (better) help them learn. "Demetria M. Shew" wrote: > < course, one can categorize almost everyone in the class? > > You're joking, right? The one thing I have learned, over and over, is that > people reveal themselves to you over time. The worst thing is to think > you've got-'em right away. There is nothing quite so fascinating as > watching as students share their real selves with you, and with the > class, over time. And, not to start in on one-upmanship, I spent seven > years as a student in higher education and six teaching...there's still > lots of sexism, and it goes far beyond men 'showing off'. > > < tall woman > > Again, I trust you are joking. I am a little over six feet tall, and most men > seem short to me. Sometimes I think it might be easier to be contemptuous of > shorter men, because they are less physically threatening? At any rate, I > have never seen that height improved male misogyny in any way. > > As to all of us having to put up with being 'hit on'...why should we? I see > no reason for it. > > Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 12:47:15 -0600 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: OT sexism in the classroom In-Reply-To: <6d857ae6.36dec8ac@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Demetria M. Shew wrote: > > I find myself wondering if it also breaks up the familiar, seventeenth century > white-guy style of education where students are subjected to more information > load than they can understand and are made to run a kind of brutal gauntlet. > I'm in a kind of surreal situation now where I'm taking education courses > where the focus is on finding teaching models that will reach all the > students, while teaching in a CC where I have heard teachers complain bitterly > if they think they might have to change their standard teaching style for the > sake of students. Also, if the students do well and learn they get good > grades...and I get accused of being to easy on them. This is even more > difficult since 60-80% of my students are female, 10-15% are culturally varied > and even the men in the class suffer under the an entrenched teaching model > that does not see we are no longer lecturing economically elite white males > who don't have to hold down jobs while they attend school and who certainly > don't have families to attend. (No offense to the eewm's). > There are quite a few women over 40-50 in my science classes, and the language > and tone of the text books might as well be Celtish or Innuit as far as making > any connection with their experiences. > I guess what I feel is that the problem doesn't stop at gender. The current > make-em' tough military style teaching ethos is questionable all around. > There is a big difference between challenging students, and brutalizing them. > > Madrone > I'll agree with everything you say without exception, but I'd like to add one point from the teacher's perspective, and I'm sure that this is equally true of both male and female teachers. Teaching loads have gone up tremendously in the last few decades (perhaps, in part, because more women have moved into college-level teaching and thus made it less of an elite white male field). In Community Colleges particularly (not to mention the kind of non-elite four year college where I teach) teachers are routinely being expected to handle students loads far greater than what any college-level teacher would have been expected to handle thirty or even ten years ago. Many schools are moving from a 3 class teaching load to a 4 class load, or from a four class load to a 5 class load, and at the same time they're raising class sizes. Thus, many teachers, even those most interested in trying new, non-traditional, non-patriarchal techniques, are struggling to simply get their work done. There's little if any release time. There's less support, either in terms of staffing or money, than ever before. I'm not saying that teachers shouldn't do their best to make the improvements you suggest. and I'm not excusing sexism, blind reliance on outmoded techniques, or just plain bad teaching, but a lot of us are falling down from exhaustion. After a full day of teaching overloaded classes sometimes there's barely enough energy left to crawl home and curl up in bed with the latest Esther Friesner or Terry Pratchett novel! Mike Levy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 11:13:58 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Dave Samuelson Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------272DA460719E09258A530C48" --------------272DA460719E09258A530C48 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit As someone once characterized by a grad student as a fire hydrant from which she was trying to get a drink, I have to wonder what favor we do students by letting them work down to our expectations. I don't assume and try not to let students assume that they will or should get everything I can offer. Learning does not take place mainly in the classroom and subjects do not end with the quarter or semester. People pick up what they can and will, depending on where they are in their development. It's important for me to be able to relate to where they are, so that I can provide conferences and other materials to help them "catch up" (if that's the right term) and/or extend their learning long after "finishing" the class. I also try to be ready to translate abstract concepts into simple(r) terms and find ways to couple them to what a student already knows. One way I seek to do that is by supplementing discussion Q&A with a required journal of critical response to course readings; another is by requiring oral reports which are subject to discussion by instructor and other students as well (not necessarily in the same course). It helps that (to me at least) literature study is interactive and that clear thinking and expression matter more than "right" answers. "Demetria M. Shew" wrote: > In a message dated 3/4/99 3:49:19 AM Pacific Standard Time, asaro@sff.net > writes: > > << Part of the problem, of course, is this: if it turns out that new > teaching methods do make a difference, that implies previous methods had > problems. >> > > I find myself wondering if it also breaks up the familiar, seventeenth century > white-guy style of education where students are subjected to more information > load than they can understand and are made to run a kind of brutal gauntlet. > I'm in a kind of surreal situation now where I'm taking education courses > where the focus is on finding teaching models that will reach all the > students, while teaching in a CC where I have heard teachers complain bitterly > if they think they might have to change their standard teaching style for the > sake of students. Also, if the students do well and learn they get good > grades...and I get accused of being to easy on them. This is even more > difficult since 60-80% of my students are female, 10-15% are culturally varied > and even the men in the class suffer under the an entrenched teaching model > that does not see we are no longer lecturing economically elite white males > who don't have to hold down jobs while they attend school and who certainly > don't have families to attend. (No offense to the eewm's). > There are quite a few women over 40-50 in my science classes, and the language > and tone of the text books might as well be Celtish or Innuit as far as making > any connection with their experiences. > I guess what I feel is that the problem doesn't stop at gender. The current > make-em' tough military style teaching ethos is questionable all around. > There is a big difference between challenging students, and brutalizing them. > > Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 13:16:12 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom Comments: cc: m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On 4 Mar 99, at 22:23, Julieanne wrote: > My only experience of that sort of thing, I ended up regarding as > "personal" harrassment unrelated to my gender. I was working with a > colleague, an African man from Ghana - I was a white single mother. I'd be surprised if it were *unrelated to your gender*. I've noticed that there are commonly (perhaps usually) problems "unrelated to gender" with men from traditional, male-dominated societies and Western women working together. A couple of years ago, I had to deal with a Moroccan man harrassing a young German woman in the same sort of subtle way. Fortunately I spotted it before the woman complained to me and I was able to catch him at it by using the security cameras. My answer was also subtle - I fired him as publicly as I could manage. Publicity is the only thing that this sort of person is afraid of which is why they're careful to harass only in private and also why publicity is a woman's best weapon. If I might pass on a little advice based on hardwon personal experience from the boss' side: women subjected to this type of harassment should buy a small tape recorder AS SOON AS HARASSMENT BEGINS and start recording. A US$50 recorder is worth its weight in gold because although the evidence might not be admissible in court, it'll be enough to convince the commissioner at a labour review. Keep a diary to record all incidents. Complain often and in detail *to your workmates*, being careful never to exaggerate; this sort of person usually harasses several people at the same time and, if even one other person comes forward, your harasser is "toast". Then complain FORMALLY AND IN WRITING to your boss and preferably to your Human Resources department - never complain informally because it almost always gets back to your harasser. And never allow yourself to be squeezed out quietly; if you have to go, go shouting and yelling, and see a good lawyer! AJ Anthea Hartley Stanon (ajhs@usa.net) ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 20:17:30 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom Comments: cc: m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On 4 Mar 99, at 22:23, Julieanne wrote: > Indeed, in 15 years in various institutions I heard of only one > 'nine-to-five' romance which developed between colleagues, and to > avoid the situation of a couple having to work in a heirarchical > situation their superiors negotiated acceptable transfers for one > or both parties. A few years later, coffee-room gossip indicated > they had ended in a bitter divorce, so it may have been wise to > have them separated in the workplace? My own experience has been quite different. I've found that *matched* couples form the finest type of workteam because the synergy and rapport that develop between them means the employer gets the work of 3 or 4 people for the wages of two. It's true that stresses can develop, but stress is not always (or even usually) a bad thing. I've been the senior member of such a team for nearly 10 out of the last 12 years and the advantages outweigh the disadvantages by many orders of magnitude. The difficulty lies in "matched" - most couples match about as well as a square peg and a round hole. Also of course few couples are prepared to improve the match by training themselves in complementary (work) skills. AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 22:24:50 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Robin Reid Subject: OT: Education of college teachers Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Someone noted: "The most astonishing thing to me is, Community College and University teachers do not have to have any training or education in...teaching. This is like expecting someone with a PhD. in bott fly anatomy to do successful human brain surgery and, I think, explains a lot about higher education." Have you sat in an an Education class at any time? There is NO single agreed upon way to teach everybody everything, and a lot of what gets taught in those classes, well, I don't want to offend any education people on the list. But as a teachere in higher education, I resent the stereotype expressed here. BTW, the sexist pattern of deferring to men, calling on male students etc. is found in all levels of education, in both male and female teachers (sometimes WORSE in the lower grades), and the tecahers outside collge have all had "training or eduation in teaching." And while this lack may hav been true in years past, many departments now train their graduate students in pedagogy. Some badly, it's true, but pleas don't asssume that all colleges ignore this important aspect. Robin ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 20:09:44 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: OT subject Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I've had several requests for the info about the Akha people in Thailand, and one person from the list who says my posting it was spam. Was it? My apologies. phoebe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 20:13:29 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/5/99 12:03:34 AM, you wrote: <> Amen brother! Just home, from whence I left at 6:30 am, after two back-to- back three-hour classes and a seminar. Not sure I can find either the novel or my glasses. Not sure I want to. lightly lightly phoebe ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 13:38:02 +1100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Julieanne Subject: Re: OT subject In-Reply-To: <914f5843.36df2ed8@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 08:09 PM 3/4/99 EST, Phoebe Wray wrote: >I've had several requests for the info about the Akha people in Thailand, and >one person from the list who says my posting it was spam. Was it? > No - my interpretation of spam is its basis in a 'commercial' angle. ie: its trying to sell something, like junk-mail catalogues I believe you have no need to apologise, and did the right thing in your posting, in that: 1. You clearly identified it as OT 2. It was a 'news' item, not a commercial 'spam', that is relevant to feminism - and female abduction is often used in fiction, feminist or otherwise 3. You edited the item to make it as brief as possible 4. You indicated quite clearly for people with interest to contact you off-list. Julieanne ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 18:55:55 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Keith Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Michael Marc Levy wrote: > On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Demetria M. Shew wrote: > > Big snip << > > I guess what I feel is that the problem doesn't stop at gender. The current > > make-em' tough military style teaching ethos is questionable all around. > > There is a big difference between challenging students, and brutalizing them. > > > > Madrone > > > I'll agree with everything you say without exception, but I'd like to add > one point from the teacher's perspective, and I'm sure that this is > equally true of both male and female teachers. Teaching loads have gone > up tremendously in the last few decades (perhaps, in part, because more > women have moved into college-level teaching and thus made it less of an > elite white male field). > Mike Levy > Might this not be a legacy of the Regan-administration, brainless (no objectivity here!) change to a focus on nation-wide "competetion", coupled with national funding depletions and the appointment of a questionable Secretary of Education? At the risk of over-halcyonizing the '70s, I do seem to remember, pre-Regan, that emphasis was on the development of individual students according to their capacities and talents; post-Regan, it was where your students placed on national tests most teachers seemed to agree were meaningless. Kathleen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 21:55:01 EST 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: OT sexism in the classroom Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/4/99 4:03:34 PM Pacific Standard Time, levymm@UWEC.EDU writes: << but a lot of us are falling down from exhaustion. After a full day of teaching overloaded classes >> Me, too. I have five science classes to teach next quarter. BUT...you left out low pay. Also, that many CC teachers have to teach at more than one college (concerns things like limiting teaching time so we don't get tenure) and even if they teach the equivalent of a full time load, make about 1/3 (yes, that's a one over a three) of the pay of a regular full time teacher. The big problem here is that adjuncts...or 'part time' teachers, have to teach more than a full load in order to scrape by financially. I'm also taking graduate courses in Education, which helps a lot in the classroom. Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 19:08:35 -0800 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: OT subject In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990305133802.007c8780@ozemail.com.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Also when a person intentionally "spams" someone they flood a server with hundreds of copies of the same email and send it to everyone on say, a BBS or bulletin board...this happened back in october or november where I collect my email from, a porn site used this bulletin board to send useless drivil through their server which slowed down everyone's system when they went to get their mail or to talk online etc...the owner of the BBS had to take the system offline and put in a tracer to find the source site, as soon as they found out the site name, they reported it to the server who allowed the porn folks to rent webspace from them and their account was cancelled. All in all it took about 12 days to resolve before that BBS was back to normal operations again. Whenever I search the web, I come across weird websites and I ran into one that offered a free mailbomb program, where you could literally send hundreds and hundreds of useless emails to someone with a utility program someone whipped up. Fortunately I have never been hit with one yet, and hopefully will not be. Jo Ann At 01:38 PM 3/5/99 +1100, you wrote: >At 08:09 PM 3/4/99 EST, Phoebe Wray wrote: >>I've had several requests for the info about the Akha people in Thailand, and >>one person from the list who says my posting it was spam. Was it? >> > >No - my interpretation of spam is its basis in a 'commercial' angle. >ie: its trying to sell something, like junk-mail catalogues > >I believe you have no need to apologise, and did the right thing in your >posting, in that: > >1. You clearly identified it as OT >2. It was a 'news' item, not a commercial 'spam', that is relevant to >feminism - and female abduction is often used in fiction, feminist or >otherwise >3. You edited the item to make it as brief as possible >4. You indicated quite clearly for people with interest to contact you >off-list. > > >Julieanne > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 22:06:34 EST 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: OT sexism in the classroom Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/4/99 4:42:10 PM Pacific Standard Time, dnsmlsn@CSULB.EDU writes: << As someone once characterized by a grad student as a fire hydrant from which she was trying to get a drink, >> I'm on both sides of the fence right now, taking graduate courses and trying not to be overwhelmed with the work or reduced to just grinding out assignments from sheer exhaustion while on the other hand I'm trying to teach students who have already come to me with math and science phobias. I think it is certainly necessary to challenge students, but feel that sometimes the standard expectations are not a match to the students or, sometimes, the content, and therefore change the class into more of a situation like a hamster in one of those spinning cages. We discussed the ways other countries teach a few quarters back, and as I recall the textbooks in the more successful countries (like Japan) are thinner. Students have time to really learn the subject. I also had a reference (can't find the blessed thing but can look it up if you would like) of a research study that suggests not only do students learn less if they are stressed by the amount of work (or concerns of failure), but that the way we have been teaching some subjects, like physics, actually forces students to memorize the material and has long-term debilatory effects on their cognitive abilities. I still think that what's good for K-12 is good for College and Grad School. Real effort to reach the learner. Just some thoughts. Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 04:23:27 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On 4 Mar 99, at 12:53, Demetria M. Shew wrote: > I find myself wondering if it also breaks up the > familiar, seventeenth century white-guy style of > education where students are subjected to more > information load than they can understand and are > made to run a kind of brutal gauntlet. Although the "brutal gauntlet" type of teaching is unfairly hard on the students, it does produce graduates who are self-confident, tough, resilient, innovative and resourceful. If one examines, for example, lists of the MBA courses most highly regarded in business, those with the most brutal regimes are right at the top. Of course there's an often tragic human cost - in the form of high entrance standards and swingeing dropout rates. It's much the same in other fields, especially in the sciences concerned with industry and commerce. Last month I interviewed US West Coast graduate students for employment in Europe as risk analysts and the "brutal gauntlet" students stood out head-and-shoulders above the rest. AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 00:34:01 -0500 Reply-To: releon@syr.edu Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Rudy Leon Organization: Syracuse University Subject: BDG: Fisherman In-Reply-To: <199903020448.XAA09035@mailbox.syr.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Huh. Did everyone just hate this book? Nobody even chimed in to tell me how to read short stories! What are people thinking about it? Pick a story, any story... explain churten theory, reinvent freedom, descend the south face, Halloo? Rudy Leon PhD student Dept. of Religion Syracuse University releon@syr.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 07:30:38 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom Comments: cc: m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On 4 Mar 99, at 22:06, Demetria M. Shew wrote: > I think it is certainly necessary to challenge students, but feel > that sometimes the standard expectations are not a match to the > students or, sometimes, the content, and therefore change the class > into more of a situation like a hamster in one of those spinning > cages. Surely - and I'm trying to say this with the least amount of offence - if the "standard expectations are not a match for the [particular] students" then the students concerned are not suited to the courses and should do something different? This isn't an elitist view but simply implies we all have different talents and that our talents (not just our desires) have to be taken into account when we're admitted to courses. I'm a good mathematician, but I can't write a poem to save my life; if someone were ever foolish enough to admit me to a poetry writing course, I'd deservedly fail. So perhaps the students of whom Madrone speaks, have significant talent in the arts, languages or business but little in the sciences. > We discussed the ways other countries teach a few quarters back, > and as I recall the textbooks in the more successful countries > (like Japan) are thinner. Students have time to really learn the > subject. Textbooks in Japan may be thinner, but this isn't because the Japanese need to learn less - it's because the student is expected to find out a lot more on her own account. If ever any educational system was a "brutal gauntlet", Japan's highly competitive one is. It's much the same throughout the East especially in South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan where economic success has been founded on high-quality education. AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 07:37:11 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom Comments: cc: m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On 4 Mar 99, at 18:55, Keith wrote: > At the risk of over-halcyonizing the '70s, I do seem to remember, > pre-Regan, that emphasis was on the development of individual > students according to their capacities and talents; post-Regan, it > was where your students placed on national tests most teachers > seemed to agree were meaningless. As I understand it, the reason for the Regan changes was that the previous system wasn't functioning. Children simply weren't being educated in ways that were useful in their working or out-of-school lives. Discipline in schools was breaking down, and increasing numbers of illiterates were being given high-school or even college diplomas. Unfortunately once a culture of learning is lost, it's virtually impossible to restore it so the poorly conceived Regan and later initiatives have done little more than slow the rate of decline. A problem I see with current attempts to ungrade the skills of the disadvantaged, is that what these people are being taught does little to help them get jobs. All they seem to achieve is to make the unemployed or minimum-wage workers better educated. What also worries me is that some US businesses seems to have accepted that many workers in future will be functionally illiterate and are taking steps to train illiterates to do jobs that on the surface require literacy - downgrading work and creating even more minimum-wage McJobs. The reason why I'm so interested is that a program we wrote a couple of years ago to train Third World illiterates is arousing much interest in the US; we demonstrated it in Washington in January and will be doing so in Washington, New York and Boston in the next couple of weeks. Unfortunately, although we conceived the program as a way of getting illiterates into the economy before teaching them to read, it's being used as a solution and the continuing problem of illiteracy is ignored. AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 06:08:22 +0000 Reply-To: chuard@earthlink.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Comments: Authenticated sender is From: geminiwalker Organization: Gemini Walker Ink Subject: Re: BDG: Fisherman In-Reply-To: <199903050535.AAA01528@mailbox.syr.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > Huh. Did everyone just hate this book? Nobody even chimed in to > tell me how to read short stories! What are people thinking about > it? Pick a story, any story... explain churten theory, reinvent > freedom, descend the south face, Halloo? > > > Rudy Leon > PhD student > Dept. of Religion > Syracuse University > releon@syr.edu > > Sorry, I don't have the book, an I didn't read it, that's why I didn't say anything. What I just finished was Joanna Russ's Extra Ordinary People, and I really don't have that much to say about it. It is a collection of stories, and I have to get it back to the library today. I must be missing something, because I just didn't get a whole lot out of it. I think I'm just going to have to wait until I find something I *do* get a whole lot out of. ...geminiwalker chuard@earthlink.net To learn more about me, go to: http://home.earthlink.net/~chuard updated 2/22/99 ICQ #27240345 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 06:24:53 +0000 Reply-To: chuard@earthlink.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Comments: Authenticated sender is From: geminiwalker Organization: Gemini Walker Ink Subject: OT: Hate Crime MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT This may be slightly OT, unless we want to consider the future of Hate Crime in future dystopias: Hate Crime in Alabama Police: Suspects Say Pass Prompted Murder of Gay Man By Jay Reeves The Associated Press S Y L A C A U G A, Ala., March 4 - Two men who claimed to be angry over a sexual advance by a gay acquaintance plotted his murder for two weeks, then beat him to death with an ax handle and burned the body on a pyre of old tires, police said today. Steven Eric Mullins, 25, and Charles Monroe Butler Jr., 21, were charged with murder in the slaying of Billy Jack Gaither, 39. They were jailed on $500,000 each. The charges brought by police carry a maximum of life in prison. But a grand jury could indict the men on charges punishable by death. The Feb. 19 slaying outraged Gaither's friends in this central Alabama town, along with civic leaders and gay rights organizations that kept the motive for the slaying quiet for days to help police catch the killers. Butler confessed Monday after saying he couldn't sleep, and Mullins admitted his involvement two days later while in jail on an unrelated charge, sheriff's Deputy Al Bradley said. Mullins "said God told him he needed to confess," Bradley said. Alleged Killers Knew Victim Mullins and Butler, who apparently knew Gaither from going to the same bars around town, claimed that Gaither made a pass at them, Bradley said. The two then decided on a murder plan, the deputy said. Mullins and Gaither went to pick up Butler at a nightclub, where he was participating in a pool tournament, Bradley said. The three men went to a secluded boat ramp, where Gaither was beaten and thrown in the trunk of his own car, then was taken to the trash-strewn banks of Peckerwood Creek, the deputy said. Badley said two tires were set on fire with kerosene atop a concrete platform overlooking the slow-moving, murky water. "They took him out of the trunk, took an ax handle and beat him to death. Then they put the body on the fire," he said. Gaither's burned-out car was found the next day on a country road. Friends Disbelieve Advance Friends, most of whom knew Gaither was gay, said they did not believe he would make a sexual advance on the men. "He didn't ever put anybody in [an awkward] position," said Marian Hammonds, who owns The Tavern, a nightclub Gaither visited the night of his slaying. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Alabama learned of the killing through a contact in the area and notified authorities, complying with a request to keep the killing quiet so as not to interfere in the investigation. "We wanted to make certain it was not one of those things that would be swept under the rug," said David White, the group's state coordinator. Tracey Conaty of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington, said Alabama is one of 19 states with hate-crime laws that don't cover offenses related to sexual orientation. "The message it is sending is that some hate crimes are wrong and others are not," she said. State Rep. Alvin Holmes has filed a bill that would extend Alabama's law to cover gays. Holmes said he was moved to file the bill by the slaying of 21-year-old Matthew Shepard in Wyoming. The gay college student was beaten and left tied to a fence in the cold. Gaither "was a good person. He didn't deserve this," said Donna McKee, a waitress and bartender at a bar Gaither liked in Sylacauga, about 40 miles southeast of Birmingham. "This is not the type of place where this happens," said optician George Carlton, president of the City Council. "Just because you don't like someone, you don't beat them to death." Copyright 1999 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. ...geminiwalker chuard@earthlink.net To learn more about me, go to: http://home.earthlink.net/~chuard updated 2/22/99 ICQ #27240345 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 06:47:08 +0000 Reply-To: mystgalaxy@ax.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Maryelizabeth Hart Organization: Mysterious Galaxy Subject: Re: OT: sexism in the classroom / BDG Le Guin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hooray! March is National Women's History Month in the USA! So, my daughter's class has been given a list of 35 scientists and inventors to choose from for their report. Anyone care to hazard a guess how many women are on the list? Oooh, that's right, one. Guess who gets to be the cranky mom! _________ I wonder if the coincidence of timing with FEMALE MAN in the shortest month and the strength and volume of the discussion hasn't sapped some of the energy for discussion of the Le Guin? Pax, Maryelizabeth ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 10:26:59 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jocelyn & Sheryl Denton-LeSage Subject: Re: OT: Education of college teachers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > >And while this lack may hav been true in years past, many departments now >train their graduate students in pedagogy. Some badly, it's true, but pleas >don't asssume that all colleges ignore this important aspect. > >Robin Yeah, my department requires all new English TA's to spend a semester--while teaching two sections of composition--learning history and methods associated with teaching comp. I found some of it helpful, but none of it as helpful as simply teaching. Most of the class sessions ended up being more like support groups ("my students are trying to get me to come out--should I?" "I have a 40 year old ex-Marine who won't shup up when I'm trying to talk, and who won't allow the class to stay on track--how do I handle him?"). I hear that education majors get several years of pedagogy training, but . . . the state of public education would seem to indicate that they're missing something in those programs. Of course, a lot of that comes from the other problems faced by our society--malnourished children, parents who can't or won't show concern for their kids' education, too dang much TV, kids who have to worry if their neighbor in the next desk has a gun, etc. I don't know that I have a coherent point here. I used to think that a teacher should be trained first in a subject, and then get a "bootcamp" how-to-teach course if he or she planned to work in the schools. Now I do see the need for pedagogy training, and wish it worked better than it does. Sheryl ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 11:04:52 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jocelyn & Sheryl Denton-LeSage Subject: Re: Octavia Butler MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_009B_01BE66F7.FE6C0580" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_009B_01BE66F7.FE6C0580 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Regarding the Clay's Ark/Patternmaster discussion, I am reading an = interview with Octavia Butler from Poets and Writers magazine. Here's = her quote: "I wrote them (the Patternmaster novels) completely out of = order, yes. Chronologically, Wild Seed would be the first, then Mind of = My Mind, Clay's Ark, Survivor, and Patternmaster." so there you have = it .... Sheryl ----- =20 I took a course entirely devoted to Butler and, as it was = explained to me, Clay's Ark is the prequel to the rest of the Patternist = series; it's been a while so my memory may be sketchy, but apparently = the problems the crash of the ship induced into the world were the very = beginning phase of the total pattern that is culminated (I think) in = Patternmaster. Sort of like an evolution, I guess. I had a hard time = making the connection because the experiences of the characters in = Clay's Ark seemed to vastly differ from those in Patternmaster (or any = of the other books) but there is a fine thread if you look very closely. = Does this ring a bell for anyone? =20 Jessica ------=_NextPart_000_009B_01BE66F7.FE6C0580 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Regarding the Clay's = Ark/Patternmaster=20 discussion, I am reading an interview with Octavia Butler from Poets and = Writers=20 magazine.  Here's her quote: "I wrote them (the Patternmaster = novels)=20 completely out of order, yes.  Chronologically, Wild Seed would be = the=20 first, then Mind of My Mind, Clay's Ark, Survivor, and=20 Patternmaster."     so there you have it=20 ....
 
Sheryl
-----
 
I took a course entirely devoted to Butler and, as it was = explained=20 to me, Clay's Ark is the prequel to the rest of the Patternist = series;=20 it's been a while so my memory may be sketchy, but apparently = the=20 problems the crash of the ship induced into the world were the = very=20 beginning phase of the total pattern that is culminated (I = think) in=20 Patternmaster.  Sort of like an evolution, I guess.  I = had a=20 hard time making the connection because the experiences of the=20 characters in Clay's Ark seemed to vastly differ from those in=20 Patternmaster (or any of the other books) but there is a fine = thread if=20 you look very closely.  Does this ring a bell for = anyone?
 
Jessica
------=_NextPart_000_009B_01BE66F7.FE6C0580-- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 12:23:19 EST 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: OT: Education of college teachers Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/4/99 10:31:26 PM Pacific Standard Time, Robin_Reid@TAMU- COMMERCE.EDU writes: << Have you sat in an an Education class at any time? There is NO single agreed upon way to teach everybody everything, >> I have never been so grateful as for the education classes I am now taking. The reason there is no single way to teach is because there is no single class or uniform student. I don't want to live, just standing in front of the classroom and lecturing. The teaching models give ways of reaching all kinds of learners, of finding ways (such as cooperative learning) that have been shown (with statistics, even) to improve comprehension and retention. The goal is to switch methods and blend methods in ways that are known to work. I went back to school because I could not conscience failing to reach perfectly good minds. And what about students with disabilities? I have had autistic, deaf, adult ADHD, brain damaged, English as a second language, and aged students. Did you know there's all kinds of great ways to include these people and help them learn? And I mean, really learn, get their with their non-disabled peers. It is grand fun. And what about people who are afraid of science and math? We, as a country, are 'way behind other industrial nations in math and science comprehension. I must have a dozen books now full of methods that really work and that I have used to help my students get over their anxiety. I have had female students actually pitch a little snit fit, do the equivalent of stamp their foot, and tell me women can't, just can't, learn math because their brains are different from men's. So, for the sake of my students, I thank all those education people who have been studying the ways we learn. Their tools work. Oh, and Robin, if you would like I can recommend some excellent books on education. Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 09:31:17 -0800 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: OT sexism in the classroom In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 05 Mar 99 04:23:27 +0700." <19990305032327.24509.qmail@www0j.netaddress.usa.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii >Although the "brutal gauntlet" type of teaching is unfairly hard on the > students, it does produce graduates who are self-confident, tough, resilient, > innovative and resourceful. If one examines, for example, lists of the MBA > courses most highly regarded in business, those with the most brutal regimes >are right at the top. Of course there's an often tragic human cost - in the >form of high entrance standards and swingeing dropout rates. There are two parts of this that I think are important to address, neither of which makes the original statement less true: a) "most highly regarded in business" -- couldn't this be something of a self-fulfilling prophecy? If you learn a certain *style* of business then people who're able to work within that style will do better. b) My school was a pretty good example of the firehose style of teaching, and it had exactly the effect described above. Its students are also the canonical example of socially disfunctional engineers. I loved it, and I think it did well by me; but I also saw some incredibly good students ground down into the dirt. And when I got out of school, I spent my first six working months reducing the intensity at which I worked, because although my coworkers *could* keep up with it, they didn't want to. They were no less self-confident, innovative, or resourceful. They just wanted to relate to their work in a different way. By the way, I really enjoyed _Fisherman_, but I'm moving on Saturday and everything is in boxes! Maybe on Monday I'll have a grip. jessie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 12:30:44 EST 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: OT sexism in the classroom Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/5/99 4:41:40 AM Pacific Standard Time, ajhs@USA.NET writes: << he "brutal gauntlet" students stood out head-and-shoulders above the rest. >> For what, for heavens sake? Killing chickens or something? What about discovery? What about diversity? What about a population educated in math, science, ART, literature, and politics that can govern itself as a democracy? What about cooperation as opposed to all-out warring me-first scrabbing for the 'top'? Reflection? Comprehension of the interworkings of nature and our dependence upon it? Happiness? Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 10:16:21 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joyce Jones Subject: BDG Fisherman Rudy asks someone to " explain churten theory". Sheesh, there were three stories trying to do just that and it's still completely incomprehensible to me. Probably I've seen too many Star Wars type movies. I figure you hit the hyperdrive button, there's lots of stars and spirals and great visual effects and viola, you're going faster than light. Le Guin makes it look a tad more complicated. I loved the story in which everyone has to talk the group back to reality. What's the joke about reality being just a collective hunch? Is that what she was getting at? Dancing and singing our way through churten sounds so holistic, like it's a metaphysical "one with the universe" kind of thing. Maybe witches will be able to do it when no one else can. In her introduction Le Guin says people have told her she makes Ike in "Newton's Sleep" "a feeble strawdog,, victim of my notorious bloodthirsty manhating feminist spleen." No, I don't think so. I think he's just a guy who thinks he knows what the rules are and insists on playing by them, a guy completely unable to see the big picture, the worth of all of humanity rather than just his few selected ones. He goes along very well with the obls of "The Rock That Changed Things" with their pride in philosophy and order and their inability to see the "obleness" of the nurobls or the patterns made by color. I guess these stories kind of paved the way for the churten ones by dismissing those blind soles before presenting people of vision. I liked the fact that the compilation ended with a true love story in which a man (wonder of wonders) gives up the glory of physics and scientific research in order to live life with his family and develop himself spiritually. Now there's the most outrageous idea of all. Maybe the stories as a whole are about the rhythm of life. Some like Ike and the obls don't feel it while others like Isidri and Hideo do. Which idea leads to a favorite quote from "Another Story" "Hideo," said my mother, in the terrifying way women have of passing without interval from one subject to another because they have them all present in their mind at once, "you haven't found any kind of relationship?" Churten, I guess, is finding out how to have everything all present at once. Joyce ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 13:52:34 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom In-Reply-To: <36DDA729.EA2E22D0@csulb.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 3 Mar 1999, Dave Samuelson wrote: > I imagine you realize that what you term "masculine superiority" is probably an > unintended confession of insecurity. Well, not on my part. I guess I should have put it in double quotes. "Masculine superiority" is what, in my experience, some men reserve to when they feel challenged by a woman, which may be something as small as being asked a question by a female student. Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 21:16:48 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On 5 Mar 99, at 9:31, Jessie Stickgold-Sarah wrote: > a) "most highly regarded in business" -- couldn't this be > something of a self-fulfilling prophecy? If you learn > a certain *style* of business then people who're able to > work within that style will do better. This may be true but it applies to all other scientific/technical subjects as well - and not just in the US and Europe but all over the world. The tough, "brutal gauntlet" schools in any subject are always the most highly sought after by students who, like myself, believe that unless something is really tough to get, it's probably not worth having. > b) My school was a pretty good example of the firehose style of > teaching, and it had exactly the effect described above. Its > students are also the canonical example of socially disfunctional > engineers. I loved it, and I think it did well by me ... Your last sentence says it all... But socially dysfunctional graduates would be anathema for us and many other types of business where the graduates have to work with "laymen". If an engineer, for example, remained "socially dysfunctional" six months after leaving school, I'd strongly recommend that she/he seeks professional help. My own MSc course was horrifically brutal, but 2 months later all of us were back to normal. > And when I got out of school, I spent my first six working months > reducing the intensity at which I worked, because although my > coworkers *could* keep up with it, they didn't want to. They were > no less self-confident, innovative, or resourceful. They just > wanted to relate to their work in a different way. A problem with not putting one's career first is that in most businesses, 20% of the people produce 80% of the work (and therefore 80% of the revenue). And unfortunately the 9-to-5-ers in an enterprise fall, of course, into the 80% block. Come the inevitable "restructuring / downsizing / rightsizing", it's the 9-to-5-ers who find themselves laid off. But I think both you and Madrone are forgetting that I'm a European recruiting US citizens to work in Europe. We don't need to come all that way to recruit second-rate or 9-to-5 people; there's more than enough in Europe to satisfy the biggest demand. We want the best - bright, cultured, ambitious workaholics who're prepared to slave away for a really fat salary! AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 21:20:33 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On 5 Mar 99, at 12:30, Demetria M. Shew wrote: > For what, for heavens sake? Killing chickens or something? At understanding risk analysis; at knowing the countries (economics, politics, people and culture) in which successful candidates would work; at possessing English, French and German language skills; at being able to take a few hints and research them into a polished presentation; at being self-confident, effective speakers; at being able to discuss an eclectic range of topics in US & European politics, in economics and business, and in the arts and sciences; at being at ease with people of all types; at knowing what they wanted out of life ... and a host of other things. > What about discovery? What about diversity? What about > a population educated in math, science, ART, literature, > and politics that can govern itself as a democracy? > What about cooperation as opposed to all-out warring me-first > scrabbing for the 'top'? Reflection? Comprehension of > the interworkings of nature and our dependence > upon it? Happiness? It's a myth that "brutal gauntlet" people necessarily lack these qualities and that more humanely taught students necessarily have them. In my experience, the reverse is very much the case. If you're interested, I'll let you have (privately since I think the topic is about exhausted) a brief outline of how we did the interviewing - it might be of use when you're preparing your students for job interviews. AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 14:35:06 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom In-Reply-To: <36DDEC7A.3C15@people-link.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 3 Mar 1999, Big Yellow Woman wrote: > After several classes in which the 3 hour conversation was generally > dominated by the professor and white-male grad student #1, one night I > realized that the male seminarian, who had some kind of a clue, was > actually timing the long conversation between the two. Not everyone may agree with me, but I think the only way to break a pattern like that is for _women_ to start voicing their opinion more. No matter how bad or good male teachers or students are, you cannot expect them to _make_ women talk more. In fact, I have often experienced hostility from those "silent" female students who did not think it was nice for a girl to "speak up too much", so they kept their mouths shut at all times -- and resented me for not doing the same. (Kind of like it happens on this list sometimes, he-he) With all the bad terrible experiences I had with Ph.D.-holding jerks, every time I would get into a new class, I would "stick out" all over again. I think that if you don't like to seat on the back of the bus, you've got to refuse to do it. It may not be easy, but it's the only way things are changed. We have little control over what other people feel. But we can control what _we_ put up with, as well as the way we act -- and make them accept it whether they like it or not. At least that's the way I see it. Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 13:12:14 -0800 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: OT sexism in the classroom In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi, am just gonna jump a sec hehe...I have noticed sometimes that if more than one student does speak up it leads to more students speaking up, both male and female...this has been happening most recently in my American Lit II course this quarter. I have a voice that projects when I ask a question, and I tend to sit as close up front as I can, because my eyesight is pretty bad...I notice the lack of questions when the professor in this class asks "Any questions about this chapter of The Scarlet Letter" or "Any more questions about Song Of Myself" and so forth, and sometimes one person will have a comment, but most of the time I will raise my hand, and just think of something off the wall to ask, like if I do not understand a word in the text, to some detail about a character that popped into my head and I wanted to confirm an observation, and soon as I pipe up, usually a couple more people do speak up...otherwise, he moves on to the next text and one class session we got done 35 min early because noone asked anything...he sent us on our way and from the midterm results, a lot of sad faces told me they had unanswered questions. Sometimes I will be in a class where I feel me and one other person are carrying the discussion ball, and yet I received a grade report from a prof saying I got an A- instead of an A for not speaking up in class more...but it would be a class where all you heard was my mouth in the discussion even when I didn't want to talk in class laugh can we say I can't win for losing giggle anyway, let me sneak back out of here, I need to pay bills sigh. Jo Ann At 02:35 PM 3/5/99 -0600, you wrote: >On Wed, 3 Mar 1999, Big Yellow Woman wrote: > > >> After several classes in which the 3 hour conversation was generally >> dominated by the professor and white-male grad student #1, one night I >> realized that the male seminarian, who had some kind of a clue, was >> actually timing the long conversation between the two. > >Not everyone may agree with me, but I think the only way to break a >pattern like that is for _women_ to start voicing their opinion more. >No matter how bad or good male teachers or students are, you cannot expect >them to _make_ women talk more. In fact, I have often experienced >hostility from those "silent" female students who did not think it >was nice for a girl to "speak up too much", so they kept their mouths shut >at all times -- and resented me for not doing the same. (Kind of like it >happens on this list sometimes, he-he) > >With all the bad terrible experiences I had with Ph.D.-holding jerks, >every time I would get into a new class, I would "stick out" all over >again. I think that if you don't like to seat on the back of the bus, >you've got to refuse to do it. It may not be easy, but it's the only way >things are changed. We have little control over what other people feel. >But we can control what _we_ put up with, as well as the way we act -- >and make them accept it whether they like it or not. > >At least that's the way I see it. > >Marina > >http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html > > "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society > is selling at the time." > Naomi Wolf > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 13:16:05 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bonnie Gray Subject: Re: OT: Womens History Month Comments: To: Maryelizabeth Hart In-Reply-To: <36DF7DEC.678B@ax.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The nonprofit organization "National Womens History Projects" has a catalog out with some really cool stuff in it, including books and posters about female mathematicians, scientists, engineers, and aviators. Here's their phone number if you want a catalog: 707-838-6000. I am considering purchasing the book "Help! Help! Heroines to the Rescue" and donating it to the children's section of my local library. Bonnie PS: Maryelizabeth: maybe you should order your daughters teacher a copy! :) On Fri, 5 Mar 1999, Maryelizabeth Hart wrote: > Hooray! March is National Women's History Month in the USA! So, my > daughter's class has been given a list of 35 scientists and inventors to > choose from for their report. Anyone care to hazard a guess how many > women are on the list? Oooh, that's right, one. Guess who gets to be the > cranky mom! > > _________ > > I wonder if the coincidence of timing with FEMALE MAN in the shortest > month and the strength and volume of the discussion hasn't sapped some > of the energy for discussion of the Le Guin? > > Pax, > > Maryelizabeth > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 13:17:55 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Dave Samuelson Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I hope you did not misread me. I was characterizing much male behavior as insecure and the assumption of "masculine superiority" as a bluff, similar to what many teachers of either gender make when unsure of their ground. If we (males) weren't so afraid of losing our external sexual organs, I doubt that we would fight so much and so easily to protect so much else. What does it mean literally for "masculinity" to be "threatened"? Marina wrote: > On Wed, 3 Mar 1999, Dave Samuelson wrote: > > > I imagine you realize that what you term "masculine superiority" is probably an > > unintended confession of insecurity. > > Well, not on my part. I guess I should have put it in double quotes. > "Masculine superiority" is what, in my experience, some men reserve to > when they feel challenged by a woman, which may be something as small as > being asked a question by a female student. > > Marina > > http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html > > "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society > is selling at the time." > Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 13:18:06 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Dave Samuelson Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------AF14CAD6482752FB32DE975D" --------------AF14CAD6482752FB32DE975D Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I hope you did not misread me. I was characterizing much male behavior as insecure and the assumption of "masculine superiority" as a bluff, similar to what many teachers of either gender make when unsure of their ground. If we (males) weren't so afraid of losing our external sexual organs, I doubt that we would fight so much and so easily to protect so much else. What does it mean literally for "masculinity" to be "threatened"? Marina wrote: > On Wed, 3 Mar 1999, Dave Samuelson wrote: > > > I imagine you realize that what you term "masculine superiority" is probably an > > unintended confession of insecurity. > > Well, not on my part. I guess I should have put it in double quotes. > "Masculine superiority" is what, in my experience, some men reserve to > when they feel challenged by a woman, which may be something as small as > being asked a question by a female student. > > Marina > > http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html > > "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society > is selling at the time." > Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 13:24:25 -0800 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: OT sexism in the classroom In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 05 Mar 99 21:16:48 +0700." <19990305201648.26579.qmail@www0t.netaddress.usa.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii >>I loved it, and I think it did well by me ... > >Your last sentence says it all... No, it doesn't. I was trying to make the point that even though I came out of it well, I can still see some tragic flaws. I could have added: It physically damaged me and I still have problems six years later; I almost dropped out because there was zero support besides my own friends and family; I lost fifty pounds because I would forget to eat for 36 hours, and every time I came home my parents had food in my hands within ten minutes because I looked like death warmed over. I survived, with a lot of help that didn't come from the school. I met a lot of wonderful *students*. And I learned that I don't want to live like I did at school. >But I think both you and Madrone are forgetting that I'm a European recruiting >US citizens to work in Europe. We don't need to come all that way to recruit >second-rate or 9-to-5 people; there's more than enough in Europe to satisfy >the biggest demand. We want the best - bright, cultured, ambitious workaholics >who're prepared to slave away for a really fat salary! How would I know that? And what does it matter? If "9-to-5" is equated with "second-rate", you've defined the workaholic culture as being the only good one. Again, that's self-fulfilling. You're free to say that because I work 40 hours a week I must not be doing good work; but a lot of the workaholics I know envy my job when they find out what I do and who I work with. They wish they had time to deal with their relationships properly; they want children but put them off into the indefinite future, and some never have them; they're invigorated by their work but somehow they're tired all the time. And I would also note that because women still do most of the "housework" and childcare, this style of management ("of course the 9-to-5ers will be laid off work) makes it harder for women to get up to the top. Demanding that everyone put their career first doesn't create an even playing field. You can point out that managers will screw you over if you don't work hard. That doesn't make it right; the whole thing is still circular. This is a *created* ethic, an artificial standard. You can perpetuate it. That doesn't make it objectively superior. This is getting pretty OT, so I'll stop here. jessie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 13:32:42 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Dave Samuelson Subject: Re: OT: Education of college teachers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I had no pedagogical training except via osmosis: watching my teachers to see what did and didn't work (for me). Once I got a real job I started reading up on pedagogy in English (composition and literature) and other subjects and trying things out. I'm always experimenting even now after 32 years in the saddle and I have learned a few rules of thumb: no single method or methods works for all teachers or students, no teacher of pedagogy understands more than a fraction of methods, other than those that work for him/her or are "supposed" (by someone--usually in authority) to work, support groups can do a lot of good if they focus on applications of theory and methods (not gripes) no amount of theory can substitute for knowing the material backwards and forwards and monitoring how well it is getting across (by knowing the students as individuals) The last of these is the most difficult (even sometimes impossible) to handle with large teaching loads. The fire hose (or hydrant) metaphor applies to what I make available, not to what I expect everyone to memorize or regurgitate. I actively discourage both of those kinds of responses and I should have pointed out that the student who so characterized me also recommended me to many of her classmates. Jocelyn & Sheryl Denton-LeSage wrote: > > > >And while this lack may hav been true in years past, many departments now > >train their graduate students in pedagogy. Some badly, it's true, but > pleas > >don't asssume that all colleges ignore this important aspect. > > > >Robin > > Yeah, my department requires all new English TA's to spend a semester--while > teaching two sections of composition--learning history and methods > associated with teaching comp. I found some of it helpful, but none of it > as helpful as simply teaching. Most of the class sessions ended up being > more like support groups ("my students are trying to get me to come > out--should I?" "I have a 40 year old ex-Marine who won't shup up when I'm > trying to talk, and who won't allow the class to stay on track--how do I > handle him?"). > I hear that education majors get several years of pedagogy training, but > . . . the state of public education would seem to indicate that they're > missing something in those programs. Of course, a lot of that comes from > the other problems faced by our society--malnourished children, parents who > can't or won't show concern for their kids' education, too dang much TV, > kids who have to worry if their neighbor in the next desk has a gun, etc. > I don't know that I have a coherent point here. I used to think that a > teacher should be trained first in a subject, and then get a "bootcamp" > how-to-teach course if he or she planned to work in the schools. Now I do > see the need for pedagogy training, and wish it worked better than it does. > > Sheryl ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 17:03:45 EST 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 Fisherman Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I especially liked The Rock that Changed Things.and First Contact with the Gorgonids. Both were predictable, but pleasant. I just accepted what LeGuin said in her intro re churten theory. She invented it when she needed it to get characters from one place to another. Shades of H. G. Wells! best phoebe ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 14:45:27 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: Fwd: BDG Voting Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Reminder: vote today or tomorrow! Terri's got the bad flu, so be patient if you haven't heard a confirmation right away. We will check for duplicates by email address, though, so if you're not sure go ahead and resend your votes. Details below. >The voting for the next round of BDG reading selections will >begin Feb.27th, and continue for one week, ending >Saturday March 6th at midnight EST.The four books that are >chosen will be announced Monday March 8th. A list >of the books nominated can be viewed at > > http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/Garden/4667/bdg_nom.html > >Please vote for your * FOUR * favorites among those nominated. >Send votes to me, Terri, at . >I will send you a reply that I have received your votes >within 24 hours.If you do not receive a verification, please >resend your votes. > >Remember to send your votes to , >not to the list. If you do not have access to the internet and >need a list of the nominations, let me know and I will glad to >email the list to you. > >Terri Wakefield > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 18:22:13 EST 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: OT sexism in the classroom Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/3/99 4:45:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, dnsmlsn@CSULB.EDU writes: > we have more women and many > of them are brighter than the men students, even if I felt that way I would > be > cutting off my nose to spite my face if I did give women as free a reign as > possible in the classroom, picking their brains and helping them overcome a > tendency to defer to (know-it-all) males. Dave, Did you mean to say this? Or is the word "not" supposed to be in there somewhere? (Such as right after the word "did".) Tanya ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 18:21:39 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Big Yellow Woman Subject: Re: BDG Fisherman MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Joyce Jones wrote: > "Hideo," said my mother, in the terrifying way women have of passing > without interval from one subject to another because they have them all > present in their mind at once, "you haven't found any kind of relationship?" > > Churten, I guess, is finding out how to have everything all present at once. > Beautifully put, Joyce! What was so fascinating to me about most all the stories was the issue of perception, especially how disparate perceptions cause breakdown or conflict (or oppression - The Rock that cjanged things) and how our lack of shared perception is so dangerous i.e. in DAncing to GAnam. In other words, the inability to have all things present at once is a big liability! R.e. _Dancing.._, does anyone else have an idea about the function of the opening paragraph? It is a brief ritual and converstaion between KEt and Aketa, asking whether or not "he understood." Does it take place before the four return? After Dalzul visited the first time? (I think yes). So does Dalzul understand what he has done or does he create his own kingship myth without regard to the "actual" culture out of plain egotism? Is that a result of the Churten effect or is he just suffering from human nature/limited perception that happens to be fatal? Hmmmm... Susan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 20:07:37 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Terri Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="============_-1291440036==_ma============" --============_-1291440036==_ma============ Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi Everybody! Just a reminder, voting for the next round of BDG will end Saturday, March 6th (this weekend!). Some of the nominations are very close, so be sure and get your votes in! The list of the books nominated may be viewed at http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/Garden/4667/bdg_nom.html Please vote for your * FOUR * favorites among those nominated. Send votes to me, Terri, at . I will send you a reply that I have received your votes within 24 hours.If you do not receive a verification, please resend your votes. Remember to send your votes to , not to the list. If you do not have access to the internet and need a list of the nominations, let me know and I will glad to email the list to you. Thanks Terri Wakefield --============_-1291440036==_ma============ Content-Type: text/enriched; charset="us-ascii" Hi Everybody! Just a reminder, voting for the next round of BDG will end Saturday, March 6th (this weekend!). Some of the nominations are very close, so be sure and get your votes in! The list of the books nominated may be viewed at http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/Garden/4667/bdg_nom.html Please vote for your * FOUR * favorites among those nominated. Send votes to me, Terri, at <. I will send you a reply that I have received your votes within 24 hours.If you do not receive a verification, please resend your votes. Remember to send your votes to <, not to the list. If you do not have access to the internet and need a list of the nominations, let me know and I will glad to email the list to you. Thanks Terri Wakefield --============_-1291440036==_ma============-- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 21:52:32 EST 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: OT sexism in the classroom Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/3/99 10:44:26 PM Eastern Standard Time, dnsmlsn@CSULB.EDU writes: > Oops! > > I know Freud says there are no accidents, but I inadvertently left out a " > not" in > this message, as in "if I did not give women as free a rein [not "reign," > dammit] > as possible. . . ." Dave, Sorry, that I brought this up after you had already corrected it. I was late with my e-mail and didn't realize that I was overlapping your own correction. Tanya ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 22:12:06 EST 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: OT sexism in the classroom Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/5/99 12:40:40 PM Pacific Standard Time, ajhs@USA.NET writes: << We want the best - bright, cultured, ambitious workaholics who're prepared to slave away for a really fat salary! >> As to productivity...there is an impressive amount of research that shows shorter work weeks or work days increases productivity. Both Kellogg and Hershey reduced the work day/week during the Depression in order to be able to hire more people (yes, Virginia, some businesses actually think about people). But...the people working the reduced hours had such an improved morale that the productivity went up. As a contemporary example, Medtronic Corp in Minneapolis reduced the work week to 36 hours (but did not reduce pay). Productivity went up, no additional personnel were hired, and the company came out ahead. I can send you the references on this, if you would like. There are more examples. Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 22:16:25 EST 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: OT sexism in the classroom Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/5/99 12:41:57 PM Pacific Standard Time, ajhs@USA.NET writes: << f you're interested, I'll let you have (privately since I think the topic is about exhausted) a brief outline of how we did the interviewing - it might be of use when you're preparing your students for job interviews. >> Dearest Anthea, I am sorry, but it is my most fervent hope that the students I love never have to work for a machine like your company. We can do better for each other and for ourselves. As you have seen in another post, I can send you references about companies that reduced work hours and increased productivity, and I strongly recommend you study the life and accomplishments of Milton Hershey, of the wonderful chocolate bar, and how he treated his employees. Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 20:18:33 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Dave Samuelson Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I just did the same thing, replying to you without knowing you had already seen the correction. This is another problem I (we) have with the swiftness of e-mail. "Tanya M. Bouwman-Wozencraft" wrote: > In a message dated 3/3/99 10:44:26 PM Eastern Standard Time, dnsmlsn@CSULB.EDU > writes: > > > Oops! > > > > I know Freud says there are no accidents, but I inadvertently left out a " > > not" in > > this message, as in "if I did not give women as free a rein [not "reign," > > dammit] > > as possible. . . ." > > Dave, > > Sorry, that I brought this up after you had already corrected it. I was late > with my e-mail and didn't realize that I was overlapping your own correction. > > Tanya ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 00:26:42 -0500 Reply-To: releon@syr.edu Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Rudy Leon Organization: Syracuse University Subject: [FSFFU] BDG Fisherman MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Joyce: I was just trying to mix things up, I didn't really expect a full explanation of churten theory, but I like the holistic vision a lot.... I just finished reading 'Dancing to Ganam', and it's such an amazing story! I realize that 'The Shobies' was important for setting it up, but not so enjoyable as an isolated story... Anyways, Ganam has me thinking about the ways that community and perception shape the way we apprehend and deal with reality, but it also is striking that for the story (and for LeGuin?) there is an unshakable reality that is not reshaped by our (mis)perceptions, but which continues on its own self-contained logical trajectories.... or, perhaps she's putting forth just the opposite, that coherence in perception constructs the world, and the more the perception is shared, the larger the group 'transiliencing', the tighter 'reality' is woven by that shared perception.... Once again, makes me think about postmodernism and the nature of reality and truth... It's kind of funny that I am so stuick by this story because reading this collection has left me less than impressed by LeGuin's writing - - some of the stories are just plain awkward, Shobies especially, North Face, cute but, this is LeGuin? part of the reason I made a point to read this month's selection, which I don't always do, is that I feel badly about the lack of LeGuin in my reading life, she's a player on my 'should' list....All I've read of her work is _Dispossessed_ and _Left Hand_, and I've been stuck at the end of the first narrative section of _Always Coming Home_ for the better part of a year -- I think I am too linear (or, too much an academic), to read that one, despite the fact that I really enjoyed what I read! Anyhow, that's my two bits. Rudy Leon PhD student Dept. of Religion Syracuse University releon@syr.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 19:52:14 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Keith Subject: Re: OT: sexism in the classroom / BDG Le Guin Comments: To: Maryelizabeth Hart In-Reply-To: <36DF7DEC.678B@ax.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 5 Mar 1999, Maryelizabeth Hart wrote: > Hooray! March is National Women's History Month in the USA! So, my > daughter's class has been given a list of 35 scientists and inventors to > choose from for their report. Anyone care to hazard a guess how many > women are on the list? Oooh, that's right, one. Guess who gets to be the > cranky mom! > > _________ Send her off with Mothers of Invention, by Autumn Haley! Among other Mothers listed are the inventor of the machinery to make flat bottomed paper bags, the *real* inventor of the cotton gin, and the woman who singlehandedly, resisting the Food & Drug administration and drug companies all the way, kept Thalydomide (sp?) from being sold in the U.S. Kathleen ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 20:16:48 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Dave Samuelson Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yes, I meant "not" in exactly that location, as I pointed out (embarrassed) in a later post (also correcting "reign" to "rein"). "Tanya M. Bouwman-Wozencraft" wrote: > In a message dated 3/3/99 4:45:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, dnsmlsn@CSULB.EDU > writes: > > > we have more women and many > > of them are brighter than the men students, even if I felt that way I would > > be > > cutting off my nose to spite my face if I did give women as free a reign as > > possible in the classroom, picking their brains and helping them overcome a > > tendency to defer to (know-it-all) males. > > Dave, > > Did you mean to say this? Or is the word "not" supposed to be in there > somewhere? (Such as right after the word "did".) > > Tanya ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 13:55:58 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On 5 Mar 99, at 22:16, Demetria M. Shew wrote: > Dearest Anthea, I am sorry, but it is my most fervent hope that the > students I love never have to work for a machine like your company. Since the chance is vanishingly small that any of them will, we can both heave a sigh of relief. > As you have seen in another post, I can send you references about > companies that reduced work hours and increased productivity... As with my current firm, our staff will be paid for the quality and quantity of work they do, not for the hours they put in; the harder and better they work, the more money they'll make. Again as with my current firm, after 3 years a *good* performer will be offered a directorship bringing with it a stake in the company; the others will be allowed to seek an environment more suited to their particular needs and ambitions. This is explained to all recruits *before* they sign on. There's no "concrete ceiling" for women to bash against in our small industry; the European part is about 65% women who make up about 50% of top managment. The trend in our industry is to the completely professional firm where all professionals (except those in the initial probationary period) have a stake in the managment of their company and where non- or para-professional support is derived totally from outsourcing. So a company will essentially have no employees - only "partners" and contractors. To return the compliment, I recommend you read Rifkin's (1994) _The end of work_ and Haggerty's 1998 _Emerging employment practices..._. It's been an interesting discussion but I think we've about used up our time. AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa.net) ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 13:59:14 MET Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Anthea Hartley Stanton Subject: Re: OT sexism in the classroom Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On 5 Mar 99, at 13:24, Jessie Stickgold-Sarah wrote: > I could have added: It physically damaged me and I still have > problems six years later ... Then, *in my opinion*, you made an error continuing unless, of course, the physical damage has been more than compensated for in other ways. > If "9-to-5" is equated with "second-rate", you've defined the > workaholic culture as being the only good one ... [saying] that > because I work 40 hours a week I must not be doing good work. On the contrary - everything depends on what the needs of the job are and how you fulfill them during the 40 hours. In our company, one's pay depends on the quality and quantity of work - not hours put in - so a person who merely occupies office space for 40 hours a week gets very little while someone who works well for 40 hours gets a good wage. > ... a lot of the workaholics I know envy my job when they find out > what I do and who I work with. They wish they had time to deal with > their relationships properly; they want children but put them off > into the indefinite future, and some never have them; they're > invigorated by their work but somehow they're tired all the time. I've said the same thing, admittedly usually tongue in cheek. Seriously, though, women these days are faced - as I myself was - with the choice of having children and accepting a much reduced income, or delaying reproduction until they could accept a drop in income during pregnancy and afford childcare after birth. It's a choice that my mother and her mother before her also faced. Both of them chose to go ahead regardless, I've waited until now - same problem, two different but equally valid solutions. > And I would also note that because women still do most of the > "housework" and childcare, this style of management ("of course the > 9-to-5ers will be laid off work) makes it harder for women to get > up to the top. Again this is a question of choice; I can't see how a company's management can be expected to take the rap for an employee's personal decisions. In times of crisis, they have to make decisions based on cold, hard business factors to lay off some workers because if they don't a lot more people will lose their jobs. And this isn't just a theoretical exercise for me - being a member of management doesn't make *my* pregnancy any easier, stop me puking *my* heart out every time I fly or keep *my* productivity from slumping. Nor is it going to make childcare any cheaper. But *I* chose to get pregnant and *I've* got to deal with it and its consequences. > Demanding that everyone put their career first doesn't create an > even playing field. You can point out that managers will screw you > over if you don't work hard. That doesn't make it right; the whole > thing is still circular. This is a *created* ethic, an artificial > standard. You can perpetuate it. That doesn't make it objectively > superior. No one is making any demands about putting one's career first or suggesting that "workaholism" is "objectively superior". I'm simply saying that no one - you, me or Uncle Tom Cobbleigh - can have it both ways; unfortunately circumstances compel us to choose and then face the consequences of our decisions. Thanks for a very interesting discussion. AJ Anthea Hartley Stanton (ajhs@usa,net) ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 12:16:13 EST 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: OT sexism in the classroom Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/6/99 4:56:07 AM Pacific Standard Time, ajhs@USA.NET writes: << As with my current firm, our staff will be paid for the quality and quantity of work they do, not for the hours they put in >> As a last comment...I hope you never get tired, I hope you never become ill, I hope you never age. Or, perhaps I do. The experience may explain the reasons behind the last century or so of the labor movement. Life is very short, Anthea. Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 09:56:01 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Laura Quilter Subject: nebula nominees Comments: To: feministsf@uic.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII hey y'all. ellen klages (comedienne extraordinaire, raiser of funds for the tiptree without compare) has been nominated for a nebula for her wonderful story in nicola griffith's queer-sf anthology. you can actually read the story at: http://www.exo.net/~ellenk/timegypsy.html if you're in SFWA please check it out & vote ... Laura Quilter / lquilter@igc.apc.org ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >From: Ellen Klages > >Wowie Zowie--I'm on the Nebula ballot! > >I'm not breathing or anything right now. > >If you're a SFWA member, please vote. Please vote for me (and for Karen >and/or Lisa, who are unfortunately in the same category, but fortunately in >a different category from me so that I feel no remorse in crossing my own >fingers). > >I promise to thank the Secret Feminist Cabal and to throw handfuls of >Tiptree tattoos out into the audience with wild glee and abandon. > >I'm so excited I could plotz. > >--Ellen > > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 12:54:28 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Big Yellow Woman Subject: Re: BDG Fisherman MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > R.e. the following,I apolgize if this message comes through twice, but > it seemed like it didn't make it the first time :) Susan > > > Joyce Jones wrote: > > > > > "Hideo," said my mother, in the terrifying way women have of passing > > > without interval from one subject to another because they have them all > > > present in their mind at once, "you haven't found any kind of relationship?" > > > > > > Churten, I guess, is finding out how to have everything all present at once. > > > > > > > Beautifully put, Joyce! > > What was so fascinating to me about most all the stories was the issue > > of perception, especially how disparate perceptions cause breakdown or > > conflict (or oppression - The Rock that cjanged things) and how our lack > > of shared perception is so dangerous i.e. in DAncing to GAnam. In other > > words, the inability to have all things present at once is a big > > liability! > > > > R.e. _Dancing.._, does anyone else have an idea about the function of > > the opening paragraph? It is a brief ritual and converstaion between > > KEt and Aketa, asking whether or not "he understood." Does it take place > > before the four return? After Dalzul visited the first time? (I think > > yes). So does Dalzul understand what he has done or does he create his > > own kingship myth without regard to the "actual" culture out of plain > > egotism? Is that a result of the Churten effect or is he just suffering > > from human nature/limited perception that happens to be fatal? > > > > Hmmmm... > > Susan ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 13:08:24 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Big Yellow Woman Subject: Re: BDG Fisherman MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Rudy Leon wrote: > > Anyways, Ganam has me thinking about the ways that community > and perception shape the way we apprehend and deal with reality, > but it also is striking that for the story (and for LeGuin?) there is an > unshakable reality that is not reshaped by our (mis)perceptions, > but which continues on its own self-contained logical trajectories.... > or, perhaps she's putting forth just the opposite, that coherence in > perception constructs the world, and the more the perception is > shared, the larger the group 'transiliencing', the tighter 'reality' is > woven by that shared perception.... Once again, makes me think > about postmodernism and the nature of reality and truth... Yes, I like how you put that. I think it remained a bit ambiguous whether there was an "unshakable reality" or not. It did seem like the three crewmates getting together formed a more convincing version of what the culture was "really" like versus Dalzul's ideas, but for Dalzul his own "reality" was every bit as "real" even though he didn't become king in the way he thought he would. If our existence is just a form of consciousness, perhaps after "death" he went on living out his own version of Ganam. That's a stretch beyond the story...but I am still fasinated by that opening paragraph and the question of whether Dalzul understands what's going on. Does he or dosn't he? You can't really tell for sure, and that's what I like about it. R.e. the "tighter reality" shaped by larger groups, that makes sense, but as shown in _THe Rock that Changed things_ (and postmodern theory), just because a dominant group agrees on one reality doesn't mean that it's the only one. Freedom!! Whoopee! Susan ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 11:19:19 +0000 Reply-To: mystgalaxy@ax.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Maryelizabeth Hart Organization: Mysterious Galaxy Subject: Women's History Month MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks to everyone who responded to this, both on list and off! My first step has been working from the Women's History Project web site at http://www.nwhp.org Due to spirit week, they have had shorter days and I've no chance to meet with the teacher. Plan to visit him Monday, and request the chance to either share information with him, or even spend a day with the class discussing women's contributions myself. Then again, this is the man who told her English class the first day they started studying science fiction that Ray Bradbury was the mind behind Star Trek, and seemed surprised when Holly pointed out that she knows Ray, and thought perhaps he was confusing Ray with Gene Rodenberry. :P Maryelizabeth ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 11:33:50 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joyce Jones Subject: BDG Fisherman with sexism in the classroom Anthea, being a proponent of the "brutal gauntlet" type of teaching writes: >A problem with not putting one's career first is that in most businesses, 20% >of the people produce 80% of the work (and therefore 80% of the revenue). And >unfortunately the 9-to-5-ers in an enterprise fall, of course, into the 80% >block. Come the inevitable "restructuring / downsizing / rightsizing", it's >the 9-to-5-ers who find themselves laid off. >But I think both you and Madrone are forgetting that I'm a European recruiting >US citizens to work in Europe. We don't need to come all that way to recruit >second-rate or 9-to-5 people; there's more than enough in Europe to satisfy >the biggest demand. We want the best - bright, cultured, ambitious workaholics >who're prepared to slave away for a really fat salary! To which Jessie replies: >If "9-to-5" is equated with "second-rate", you've defined the workaholic culture >as being the only good one. Again, that's self-fulfilling. You're free to say that >because I work 40 hours a week I must not be doing good work; but a lot of the >workaholics I know envy my job when they find out what I do and who I work >with. They wish they had time to deal with their relationships properly; they want >children but put them off into the indefinite future, and some never have them; >they're invigorated by their work but somehow they're tired all the time. then Madrone writes: >Dearest Anthea, I am sorry, but it is my most fervent hope that the students I >love never have to work for a machine like your company. We can do better for >each other and for ourselves. As you have seen in another post, I can send >you references about companies that reduced work hours and increased >productivity, and I strongly recommend you study the life and accomplishments >of Milton Hershey, of the wonderful chocolate bar, and how he treated his >employees. This wonderful conversation, far from being off topic, perfectly exemplifies the idea behind some of the stories in Fisherman. Anthea shows why I don't think Le Guinn is male bashing in her presentation of Ike in "Newton's Sleep". Anthea is Ike. She knows the rules, she has no problem weeding out humans who don't fit her idea of perfection, and she also has no ability to see the benefit of advancing humanity as a whole as opposed to promoting a few of the select. Next, her ideas would fit just fine in "The Rock That Changed Things": she could satisfy a few of the obls by finding ever more hard working nurobls to make their world pleasant. Of course it's wonderful for the owner of a company if he can fire a large percentage of the staff and work the remainder into the ground. He makes a lovely big profit and can ignore the fact that a) people are unable to maintain their families because they choose to devote time to those families instead of working countless hours of overtime then b) when people are put down far enough revolutions are inevitable. Eventually all those "downsized" nurobls find the colored stones and begin to throw them. Lastly Jessie and Madrone exemplified the characters in "Another Story" who have found that working driven and solitary does not ennoble the spirit; sacrificing oneself for a fat paycheck is an ultimately meaningless life. Giving back to family and community makes life worthwhile. Working together in love is what makes us human. Le Guinn says that human synergy provides the energy for advancements that can't be accomplished any other way, but not everyone has the vision necessary for that advancement. Joyce ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 11:35:57 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joyce Jones Subject: OT smart rabbit This really is off topic, but seemed to fit with some of the other off topic. Joyce >>One sunny day a rabbit came out of her hole in the ground to enjoy the >>fine weather. The day was so nice that she became careless and a fox >>snuck up behind her and caught her. >>"I am going to eat you for lunch!", said the fox. >>"Wait!", replied the rabbit, "You should at least wait a few days." >>"Oh yeah? Why should I wait?" >>"Well, I am just finishing my thesis on 'The Superiority of Rabbits over >>Foxes and Wolves.'" >>"Are you crazy? I should eat you right now! Everybody knows that a fox >>will always win over a rabbit." >>"Not really, not according to my research. If you like, you can come into >>my hole and read it for yourself. If you are not convinced, you can go >>ahead and have me for lunch." >>"You really are crazy!" But since the fox was curious and had nothing to >>lose, it went with the rabbit. The fox never came out. >>A few days later the rabbit was again taking a break from writing and >>sure enough, a wolf came out of the bushes and was ready to set upon her. >>"Wait!" yelled the rabbit, "you can't eat me right now." >>"And why might that be, my furry appetizer?" >>"I am almost finished writing my thesis on 'The Superiority of Rabbits >>over Foxes and Wolves.'" >>The wolf laughed so hard that it almost lost its grip on the rabbit. >>"Maybe I shouldn't eat you. You really are sick...in the head. You might >>have something contagious." >>"Come and read it for yourself. You can eat me afterward if you disagree >>with my conclusions." >>So the wolf went down into the rabbit's hole...and never came out. The >>rabbit finished her thesis and was out celebrating in the local lettuce >>patch. >>Another rabbit came along and asked, "What's up? You seem very happy." >>"Yup, I just finished my thesis." >>"Congratulations. What's it about?" >>"'The Superiority of Rabbits over Foxes and Wolves.'" >>"Are you sure? That doesn't sound right." >>"Oh yes. Come and read it for yourself." >>So together they went down into the rabbit's hole. As they entered, the >>friend saw the typical graduate student abode, albeit a rather messy on >>after writing a thesis. The computer with the controversial work was in >>one corner. To the right there was a pile of fox bones, to the left a >>pile of wolf bones. And in the middle was a large, well-fed lion. >> >>The moral of the story: >> >>The title of your thesis doesn't matter. >>The subject doesn't matter. >>The research doesn't matter. >>All that matters is who your advisor is. > > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 12:40:03 +1100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Julieanne Subject: Re: OT - The Whole Woman In-Reply-To: <1bc3a6b0.36e162dd@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 12:16 PM 3/6/99 EST, Demetria M. Shew wrote: >In a message dated 3/6/99 4:56:07 AM Pacific Standard Time, ajhs@USA.NET >writes: > ><< As with my current firm, our staff will be paid for the quality and >quantity > of work they do, not for the hours they put in >> > >As a last comment...I hope you never get tired, I hope you never become ill, I >hope you never age. Or, perhaps I do. The experience may explain the reasons >behind the last century or so of the labor movement. Life is very short, >Anthea. This discussion has reminded me of a newly published non-fiction feminist text entitled _The Whole Woman_ , Greer's 30-year anniversary sequel to _The Female Eunuch_. Its been released in the UK and Europe, Australasia and the Pacific - but I believe that the USA launch has been delayed until May 1999. Nonetheless, it may be of interest to readers on this list, as some of the points raised by Greer discusses in depth some of these concepts, regarding the desireability of 'equality' of women and men in the workplace, classroom or in the home. One favourite quote of mine: "If the future is men and women dwelling as images of each other in a world unchanged, it is a nightmare" Julieanne jalc@ozemail.com.au ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 22:19:28 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: OT - The Whole Woman Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/7/99 1:43:55 AM, Julieanne quoted Greer: <<"If the future is men and women dwelling as images of each other in a world unchanged, it is a nightmare">> (gulp) Amaaaazing. phoebe ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 23:30:11 -0400 Reply-To: asaro@sff.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Catherine Asaro Subject: Re: OT: Education of college teachers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Although the education of teachers has improved a great deal in the past few decades, it still has a long way to go. The study done by the American Association of University Women was a landmark, and also the earlier study with a title that I don't remember exactly, something like "The Classroom: A Chilly Atmosphere," referring to the difference in how female students were taught compared to male students. I could go on for many pages about the differences, and how they can be overcome by educators. Knowing what their teachers =should= be doing, however, doesn't in general help the students who pay the price of the inequities. It is the teachers who need to hear it. However, it does help to know, so students don't blame themselves for that chilly atmosphere. If there is onething I would like to stress, call from the hills, it is this: YOU DESERVE A GOOD EDUCATION. It seems a simple statement, one most anyone would agree with. Yet so many times I have seen the disheartening effects of that atmosphere on talented young women. So many times I have heard gifted students say, "I'm just not cut out for this" or "I like it, but I don't have what it takes." And that is what kills me, seeing that potential wasted. That is why it is so important to talk about it in forums like this, where people can share their experiences. It is a way to counteract the myths. Women ARE good at critical reasoning, math, literary analyses, abstract concepts, spatial perception, working with experimental apparatus, logic, and all the rest. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. -- Best regards Catherine Asaro http://www.sff.net/people/asaro/ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 22:29:14 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Keith Subject: Re: OT - The Whole Woman - long (quelle suprise!) In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990307124003.007b18b0@ozemail.com.au> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 7 Mar 1999, Julieanne wrote: >> in relevant part << > Nonetheless, it may be of interest to readers on this list, as some of the > points raised by Greer discusses in depth some of these concepts, regarding > the desireability of 'equality' of women and men in the workplace, > classroom or in the home. > > One favourite quote of mine: > > "If the future is men and women dwelling as images of each other in a world > unchanged, it is a nightmare" > Warning! Long bone to pick with Germaine Greer follows - Societial uplift cannot and should not be achieved by selective disenfranchisement. Women live, work, earn, purchase and are governed as citizens in a society in which men have an advantage at every level. As long as women are governed by laws nominally blind as to gender, work for wages in a market that does not discount what it sells to women based on their unequal earning power, and live in a capitalist society, even though they are expected to spend the prime earning years of their adult lives in a feudal relationship of devoir to a man, women must be included as absolute equals in all these areas. No one in the jury that recently awarded a multi-million dollar settlement to Black employees of Texaco asked that the exclusively male group of candidates under consideration prove that inclusion in White corporate ranks was a laudable goal. That exclusion economically disadvantaged Black men was sufficient proof of harm. Black men's own insistance on an absolute principle of equality, as well as increasing media and popular acceptance of this principle for Black men, has brought Black men much closer to White men in income, closer than any group of women in the U.S., including White women. Men belonging to any disenfranchised group do not claim equality by first proving that equality is desirable; why should women be subject to this impossible burden? Nothing prevents women from working to change society as well as working for inclusion in society as it is now. Kathleen ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 07:03:03 +0000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Re: OT - The Whole Woman Comments: cc: ajhs@usa.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On 7 Mar 99, at 12:40, Julieanne wrote: > Its been released in the UK and Europe, Australasia and the Pacific - but > I believe that the USA launch has been delayed until May 1999. Does anyone know of a UK (preferably London) bookshop which actually has this book in stock? I phoned around from Brussels on Monday to be told that that, although it had been scheduled for release in March, the UK launch had been delayed to nobody-knows-when (guessed dates ranged from end of March to June). I'm particularly anxious to get Greer's book before we leave for the US on Thursday week. In the meantime perhaps Julieanne could give us a brief review? I've heard that Greer's writing had lost some of that sharp cutting edge and had more than a touch of querulousness (a hint of which appears in her contribution to _Once an Australian.._). Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 06:22:16 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: Re: OT - The Whole Woman MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Not at liberty to call them to check stock, but there used to be a women's bookstore right on Charing Cross road. Sistermoon or some such. They might be carrying it. If they are still in operations? Havent visited since '96. donna ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 22:59:24 +1100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Julieanne Subject: Re: OT - The Whole Woman In-Reply-To: <8025672D.0027D460.00@nun.postmaster.co.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 07:03 AM 3/7/99 +0000, Mike Stanton wrote: > >Does anyone know of a UK (preferably London) bookshop which actually has >this book in stock? I phoned around from Brussels on Monday to be told that >that, although it had been scheduled for release in March, the UK launch >had been delayed to nobody-knows-when (guessed dates ranged from end of >March to June). I'm particularly anxious to get Greer's book before we >leave for the US on Thursday week. > I believe the book is available for immediate shipment via Amazon.uk, I am surprised however that it hasn't been launched in the UK yet - being the country of publication, and Greer's home and nationality for over 40 years. Have you spoken to the publisher? It was released in Australia nationwide through all major national chain bookstores on 26 February, in trade paper-back (highly unusual) and for minimum price (even more unusual) - published as the British edition and cover, so must have been shipped originally from the UK. I note the US edition, when it is released, will have a slightly different cover. I also note that both amazon (USA) and amazon (UK) are only shipping the hard-cover edition, at a far more expensive price than the trade paper-back available here. However, I have spoken to one of my local feminist book suppliers - who figured that on recent currency exchange rates, overseas shipping of sizeable bulk orders could be lucrative for all concerned??? LOL Despite the irony of shipping a British book, back to Britain!! LOL >In the meantime perhaps Julieanne could give us a brief review? I've heard >that Greer's writing had lost some of that sharp cutting edge and had more >than a touch of querulousness (a hint of which appears in her contribution >to _Once an Australian.._). > As for a review - I can only give my own personal opinion, which is biased somewhat, as I have admired Greer all my life, and own an entire set of her published works. IMHO _The Whole Woman_ is her best yet; but to try and distill salient points - I'm not sure how brief I can be, without taking things out of context.... It is a sequel and expansion on the _Female Eunuch_. It covers similar chapter headings for example, concerning body, sexuality, daughters, sisters, ageing, love, food, home, work and economics, patriarchal institutions, motherhood and wifehood and the fate of the family unit..(which is all I can recall at the moment:) Hence, it covers a lot of ground in its 300 or so pages. The sections on sexuality may be offensive to some readers - perhaps in some countries the language may cause some legal problems?? As for her writing style, the 'sharp cutting edge', or sarcasm is still there - but I have always found her style, her most powerful tool in communicating her message. The best way I can describe Greer's writing is as a 'Tome of Insight'. Within the angry but powerful statements which jump out and slice painfully in the solar plexus, is an enormous amount of compassion, and passion, for the betterment of women's lives world-wide, as well as a cutting and witty insight into relationships, economic or social or sexual, between the sexes. Her chapter on women and "sorrow" was one of the most harrowing I have ever read, fiction or non-fiction. Her take on the global grief expressed by millions of women concerning Princess Diana's death for example - was very interesting. At the extreme risk of taking statements out of context and having them argued against incoherently by the 'anti-Germs', Greer argues that 'women are emotional gymnasts because they have been raised on a diet of rejection'. Her ideas, or her 'brand' of feminism, hasn't changed significantly to my mind, but developed further with even more compelling arguments - although many critics seem to think otherwise. After _Sex and Destiny_ was published in 1984 - many critics seemed to think Greer had mellowed, or even recanted radical feminism altogether. I could not see it myself - but that's another book. However, Greer does make comments throughout her book, which are based on arguments she made in earlier books such as _Sex and Destiny_. For readers who are not familiar with her other works on sexuality, the family, reproduction, ageing and menopause, women of indigenous populations, eco-feminism, and so forth - some sections of this book may appear to be confusing. Anyway, to try and cut this short, this is the first time I have seen Greer strongly and openly advocate separatism. In matters of economics and work, she is mostly in agreement with socialist and anarchist feminists such as Joanna Russ. Minor differences, are arguments Greer makes to dismiss the Nuclear Family as already 'dead', and no longer relevant to social theory. The major significant difference is Greer adheres to "essentialist" feminist theory, which takes the viewpoint that women are different, biologically and psychologically to the male - ie: the female of our species has 'essential' differences to the male. In this respect, Greer has added strong theoretical support to feminists such as Mary Daly. The usual arguments all feminist writers face concerning being 'man-haters' or 'anti-male' will probably come out in force, when the 'professional' critics get their teeth into it. For me personally, (and I stress it is only my personal opinion) the greatest value of this book to feminist socio-political theory as a whole, is: 1. The attempt to heal the breach between various 'feminisms' - ie: finding common ground and resolving 'horizontal hostility' eg: between lesbian and heterosexual feminists, between 'equality' feminists and 'motherhood' feminists and so forth. 2. Its 'global focus' on women's position planet-wide, economically and socially, rather than entrenched in a Western POV. 3. An intelligent, (and well-timed at the close of the Millennium), critique of 'equality' feminism, and the gains (or lack of) that the push for 'equality' legislation over the last 30 years has achieved. regards Julieanne ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 12:05:52 -0000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: OT - The Whole Woman MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Silvermoon, women's bookshop in Charing Cross Road London, still going strong (but Sisterwrite, in Islington, the first women's bookshop in London, closed down some years ago). Also spotted a copy of _The Whole Woman_ in the Owl Bookshop Kentish Town Road NW1 yesterday while out shopping. I'd also suggest checking amazon.co.uk, who are very expeditious at supplying books within UK (24 hours delivery - beats trekking round Dillons/Waterstones/Books etc [now Borders] checking out whether they've even got a book, even for someone who works in that vicinity) Lesley Hall lesleyah@primex.co.uk -----Original Message----- From: donna simone To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Date: 07 March 1999 11:32 Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] OT - The Whole Woman >this book in stock?> > >Not at liberty to call them to check stock, but there used to be a women's bookstore right on Charing Cross road. Sistermoon or some >such. They might be carrying it. If they are still in operations? Havent visited since '96. > >donna > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 12:13:45 -0000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: OT - The Whole Woman MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I've just checked and this is in fact amazon.co.uk's 'Choice'. At their 40% discount the hardback comes at just over £10 (not inc p&p) Lesley Hall lesleyah@primex.co.uk ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 10:00:02 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joyce Jones Subject: Re: nebula nominees Laura, thanks for the great Ellen Klages story, what a pleasure. I can't vote for it but would if I could. http://www.exo.net/~ellenk/timegypsy.html Joyce ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 14:20:09 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: nebula nominees Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/7/99 6:04:10 PM, Joyce wrote: <> I second that! Delightful story. phoebe ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 19:59:49 +0000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Re: OT - The Whole Woman Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On 7 Mar 99, at 22:59, Julieanne wrote: > I believe the book is available for immediate shipment via > Amazon.uk, I am surprised however that it hasn't been > launched in the UK yet - being the country of publication, > and Greer's home and nationality for over 40 > years. Have you spoken to the publisher? No. I just phoned the big bookshops whose numbers I had in my Filofax. I don't know whether the assistants I spoke to knew their stock or whether their collection computers had been updated. These things happen more often then we realise. > As for a review - I can only give my own personal > opinion, which is biased somewhat, as I have admired > Greer all my life, and own an entire set of > her published works. IMHO _The Whole Woman_ is her > best yet; but to try and distill salient points > - I'm not sure how brief I can be, without > taking things out of context.... I was very impressed with your review and thank you for the effort you made. Hopefully, I'll able to read the book this week. As a non-feminist, I'm likely to agree with very little that she says, but I like her writing style. I notice that no one has mentioned her _Slip-shod sybils..._ which I think is not only the least contentious of her books (real meaning = "the only one I agree with") but the one which shows her style to the best advantage. Thanks again Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 20:00:56 +0000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Re: OT - The Whole Woman Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Thanks to Donna and Lesley for the bookshop suggestions. I'm going to phone our London office tomorrow, and charm someone into buying _The whole woman_ and sending it over by our daily courier. Hopefully I should have it by Tuesday, which will be convenient because on Wednesday I'm being sent to Ankara (as - I think - punishment for falling asleep during a poetry reading on Saturday). But now to the prime reason for this posting: I've also found that a VERY recent biography of Germaine Greer is available which I'm also considering buying tomorrow. It's called _Germaine Greer, Untamed Shrew_ by Christine Wallace (who I've never heard of). I can't recommend it because I haven't read it; reviews from people who *allegedly* have, describe the book either as "a warts and all portrait" or "sycophancy given form". But it might be worth reading. Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 14:36:56 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Pat Subject: Re: nebula nominees In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 7 Mar 1999, Phoebe Wray wrote: > > In a message dated 3/7/99 6:04:10 PM, Joyce wrote: > > < vote for it but would if I could. > >> > > I second that! Delightful story. > I can and I'm going to. What surprises me is that it didn't appear in ANALOG first - it's a perfect ANALOG-type story (compliment). Speaking of which - check out Jean Lamb's 1997 story "Galley Slave". There's a hero for you!!!> Patricia (Pat) Mathews mathews@unm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1999 13:09:04 +1100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Julieanne Subject: Re: OT - The Whole Woman In-Reply-To: <8025672D.006F1E2E.00@nun.postmaster.co.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 08:00 PM 3/7/99 +0000, Mike Stanton wrote: > >But now to the prime reason for this posting: I've also found that a VERY >recent biography of Germaine Greer is available which I'm also considering >buying tomorrow. It's called _Germaine Greer, Untamed Shrew_ by Christine >Wallace (who I've never heard of). I can't recommend it because I haven't >read it; reviews from people who *allegedly* have, describe the book either >as "a warts and all portrait" or "sycophancy given form". But it might be >worth reading. It's been published for over a year now, and as biographies go, is about 'average'. It tells little more than what is publicly available, warts and all, concerning Greer's life. Greer has never been secretive about her tumultous life, though she tends to decline interviews that concentrate on the 'titillating gossip' about her sexual relationships with men, or her brief marriage. Wallace's book concentrates heavily on interviews with her family, and colleagues of her Australian youth, who later publicly mentioned that they were not happy with the portrayals, and tends to paint Greer as a "confused Catholic convent schoolgirl over-reacting against the Church, and constantly running-away". The sections on Greer's life after moving to England in 1964, then aged 25, are relatively sparse and Wallace seems to have relied heavily on re-hashing news-media reports, rather than investigating thoroughly. It has received less-than-favourable reviews, despite being one of the hundred or so finalists in the Australian Age newspaper "Book of the Year" award in the non-fiction category. (Similar to the New York Times) Probably partly as the book concentrates on Greer's personal life events, and reads more like a soap-opera and barely mentions her contributions, impressive achievements and life-long career in academia or journalism. Christine Wallace is a freelance writer and salaried journalist, a graduate in Political Science working with the Press Gallery of the Australian Federal Parliament. She is not overly well-known in Australia either, except for occasional articles, and portraits of famous Australian politicians and political commentary. The book was an Australian publication, and Wallace approached Greer for endorsement, but Greer refused to authorise it in any way - saying in an interview something along the lines that: "I am still growing, still becoming, still *Be-Ing* - my life is far from over yet, and a biography of my life is inappropriate until after I've ceased to *Be*. Wallace is young and ambitious, hoping to become rich and famous, by writing about someone famous and controversial". Greer indicated that apart from insisting that all editions be clearly marked as "unauthorised", she had no intention of reading it, let alone taking the matter any further. She had better things to do with her time. To me, the book basically re-summarised 30 years or more of criticisms of Greer based on her admittedly flamboyant, or 'aggressive' personality, her "foul-mouth", her outrageous criticisms of Australian politics and culture, her supposedly "maverick anti-feminism" as she has "consistently refused to ally herself with other feminists", and 30 years of misinterpretations and misquotes from her books. However, I believe Wallace's book was received well in the USA, and Kate Millet amongst others, gave positive reviews. Which is interesting in itself - that an unauthorised biography of Greer receives more attention and marketing, than many of Greer's own works. Regarding _Slip-shod Sibyls_, it is one of her literary/sholarly works - and has been mentioned on this list before - possibly during the BDG on Bradley's _Mists of Avalon_ (?) as it deals with medieval women poets, and often cited as a text in tertiary English Lit courses, along with her original published Ph.D. thesis entitled "Ethics of Love and Marriage in Shakespeare's Comedies"; and also, _The Obstacle Race_, regarding the history of women as artists/painters. Greer's unique and infamous 'style' of ascerbic wit, is evident in all of her works, and I agree with you Mike - that even if you disagree violently and passionately with Greer's ideas - her command and skill with the use of rhetoric and language is a delight to read nonetheless. Even her non-literary, non-political works, such as the pieces she did for BBC and Discovery channel travelogues with people like Eric Idle are brilliant pieces of incisive wit and humour. Julieanne ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1999 04:49:05 +0000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Re: OT - The Whole Woman Comments: cc: ajhs@usa.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On 8 Mar 99, at 13:09, Julieanne wrote: > It's been published for over a year now, and as biographies > go, is about 'average'. It tells little more than what is publicly > available, warts and all, concerning Greer's life [snip] Thanks for your thorough review which has convinced me to save my money. I'm not interested in a *personal*, muckraking biography although I would certainly have bought a literary biography even if it had major flaws. But speaking of biographers becoming rich and famous on muckraking, I *am* going to order Andrew Morton's _Monica's story_. That's one mystery I'd love to get to the bottom of. > Regarding _Slip-shod Sibyls_, it is one of her > literary/sholarly works - and has been mentioned on > this list before - possibly during the BDG on > Bradley's _Mists of Avalon_ (?) as it deals with > medieval women poets, and often cited as a text in > tertiary English Lit courses, along with her > original published Ph.D. thesis entitled "Ethics > of Love and Marriage in Shakespeare's Comedies"; > and also, _The Obstacle Race_, regarding the > history of women as artists/painters. I myself brought it up in early October during a discussion on, amongst others, Aphra Behn and Katherine Phillips, the Restoration playwrights. Your earlier comment on "... an unauthorised biography of Greer receives more attention ... than many of Greer's own works" will, I fear, become increasingly true; Greer may become one of the unfortunate authors whose works are read only by the cognoscenti while all the general public know of her is what (general hostile) commentators say. It seems to be the fate of the "loner" author and it troubles me deepley to think that this might happend to Greer. > Greer's unique and infamous 'style' of ascerbic wit, > is evident in all of her works, and I agree with you > Mike - that even if you disagree violently > and passionately with Greer's ideas - her command > and skill with the use of rhetoric and language is > a delight to read nonetheless. Even her > non-literary, non-political works, such as the > pieces she did for BBC and Discovery channel travelogues > with people like Eric Idle are brilliant > pieces of incisive wit and humour. I'm glad you feel that she has lost none of her edge. Many years ago as a boy in Ireland I first read Alan Paton's 1948 _Cry the beloved country_ and was deeply impressed by his clear, powerful prose. Last year during my spell in South Africa, I read some newspaper articles he'd written towards the end of his life and was shocked at their rambling, polysyllabic, querulous style. I'll probably never enjoy _Cry... _ as much as I did because of the image his last works formed in my mind. Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk)