From LISTSERV@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Thu Apr 15 13:58:30 1999 Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 15:26:33 -0500 From: "L-Soft list server at University of Illinois at Chicago (1.8c)" To: lquilter@HOOKED.NET Subject: File: "FEMINISTSF LOG9903E" ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 12:57:03 -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: Gender Bias on Campus-3/28 NY Times Editorial Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Friends, Keept this one filed for when your students crack that one about how the sexes are treated equally now. Joe > >> From the New York Times >> March 28, 1999 >> Editorial >> Gender Bias on the Campus >> >> >> The American Association of University Professors last month reported >that >> the gap in salaries between male and female faculty members of the same >rank >> actually worsened from 1975 to 1998, even though the proportion of women >> teaching at universities and colleges grew over that period. Women are >> moving into academia in greater numbers, but they seem to be less valued >> and more likely to be relegated to lesser-paying jobs in lower-ranking >> institutions. >> >> Some of the salary differences can be explained by seniority, academic >> disciplines and life-style choices among women encumbered with family >> responsibilities. But even allowing for those factors, subtle patterns of >> gender bias continue to play a significant role. >> >> Hard evidence of this phenomenon is found in a new report on women >> on the science faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, >> which boasts one of the most prestigious faculties in the world. Women >> on other campuses and in other professions have called attention to >> gender bias and the glass ceiling. But the M.I.T. study is unusual >because >> it examines tenured women who have excelled in the male-dominated >> sciences, and whose collective experiences with bias cannot be explained >> away by special circumstances. >> >> When the study began in 1994 in response to discrimination concerns, >> there were only 15 tenured women compared with 194 men on the science >> faculty, a ratio that has shown little improvement in recent years. >Detailed >> data collected by a special committee found gender disparities in >> distribution of research grants, laboratory space, awards, appointments >to >> faculty committees and teaching assignments. The committee concluded that >> old-fashioned assumptions and gender stereotyping worked to marginalize >the >> women, undervalue their achievements and exclude them from positions of >> power, even when there seemed to be no ill intentions. >> >> No woman has ever served as head or associate head of a science >department >> at M.I.T. >> >> More powerful than the statistical data are the perceptions of the women >> interviewed. These gifted scientists believed early on that the problem >of >> gender discrimination had been solved in previous decades. They believed >> rewards would be based solely on merit, without reference to gender. Only >> gradually did they realize that the playing field was not level, and that >> slight disadvantages accumulated over time had created great differences >> between their careers and those of their male colleagues. The report >grimly >> notes that this pattern seems to repeat itself over generations. >> >> M.I.T. is certainly not alone in this problem. But it has confronted >this >> reality boldly and is taking steps to correct the inequities and improve >> hiring practices. Beyond that, the study has significant social value >> because it documents with unusual clarity how pervasive and destructive >> discrimination can be even when there is no blatant harassment or >intimidation. >> >> Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company >> ^^^^^^^ >> APPALNET@lsv.uky.edu >> comes from Silicon Holler, >> http://www.appalnet.org >> via Darlene Wilson dgwils0@pop.uky.edu >> ^^^^^^^ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 14:16:09 -0500 Reply-To: kamholse@fuse.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sally Kamholtz Subject: Re: Where does Feminist sf Begin? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit And don't forget Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Or the Modern Prometheus! Sally Kamholtz ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 13:43:35 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: Where does Feminist sf Begin? Comments: To: Sally Kamholtz In-Reply-To: <36FFD179.28BC376E@fuse.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 29 Mar 1999, Sally Kamholtz wrote: > And don't forget Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Or the Modern Prometheus! > Sally Kamholtz What about Mary Shelley's mother, Mary Walstoncraft? Didn't she write some kind of feminist utopia, or am I confusing her with someone else? Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 16:43:54 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: Where does Feminist sf Begin? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/29/99 11:49:43 AM Pacific Standard Time, my0203@BRONCHO.UCOK.EDU writes: << Mary Walstoncraft? >> She wrote several feminist works, including one that I think was called "The Rights of Women". It has been awhile since I read it, but remember it as really great stuff. Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 14:33:12 -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: The Changeover In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 27 Mar 99 16:18:16 GMT." <199903272116.NAA09785@gull.prod.itd.earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Margaret Mahy has also written several other YA novels, all of which stand up pretty well to an adult reading. Sadly, several of them appear to be out of stock, but I found them (years ago) at a library. I liked _The Tricksters_ a lot, but I remember some others: _The Catalogue of the Universe_, _Memory_ was another. It looks like she also wrote a bajillion kids books, which I've never read. I loved _The Changeover_ most, though. And I read it when I was the same age as the characters, too. jessie ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 15:26:22 -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: Where does Feminist sf Begin? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------5135A17EEC603928B3CC11AD" --------------5135A17EEC603928B3CC11AD Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit You may have to stretch the context considerably to call Mary Wollstonecraft a utopian writer (let alone sf or fantasy), since her most important tract is essentially non-fiction and looks so eminently sensible (if long-winded) today. Should we not count V Woolf ("Shakespeare's Sister," Orlando) a founding mother (stepmother, aunt)? "Demetria M. Shew" wrote: > In a message dated 3/29/99 11:49:43 AM Pacific Standard Time, > my0203@BRONCHO.UCOK.EDU writes: > > << Mary Walstoncraft? >> > > She wrote several feminist works, including one that I think was called "The > Rights of Women". It has been awhile since I read it, but remember it as > really great stuff. > > Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 18:55:56 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: Where does Feminist sf Begin? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/29/99 3:25:50 PM Pacific Standard Time, dnsmlsn@CSULB.EDU writes: << since her most important tract is essentially non-fiction >> She was writing a work of fiction when she died (due to botched forced removal of the placenta with piercing and infection of uterus). Most of the work still exists, but I read it so long ago I don't remember it...still, she was a feminist and writer and no doubt would have done more if not murdered by her doctor... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 16:37:56 -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: Where does Feminist sf Begin? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------D8A9FE8734C2A681F7F85548" --------------D8A9FE8734C2A681F7F85548 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I knew about the tragedy of her life, but not about the fiction. If it was never completed or published, its place in feminist sf would have to be minimal, but her place among feminists is legendary. Have you ever read Frances Sherwood's novel of her life, Vindication? Her landmark work, Vindication of the Rights of Women, along with the only novel by her husband, William Godwin (Caleb Johnson?), both have obvious influences on the life and works of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, so we can probably give Mary W an honorary membership. My other point, not to be flippant, was that anyone arguing for the rights of women in the 1790s had to be writing something akin to what we now call science fiction or utopian literature. "Demetria M. Shew" wrote: > In a message dated 3/29/99 3:25:50 PM Pacific Standard Time, dnsmlsn@CSULB.EDU > writes: > > << since her most important tract is > essentially non-fiction >> > > She was writing a work of fiction when she died (due to botched forced removal > of the placenta with piercing and infection of uterus). Most of the work > still exists, but I read it so long ago I don't remember it...still, she was > a feminist and writer and no doubt would have done more if not murdered by her > doctor... --------------D8A9FE8734C2A681F7F85548 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I knew about the tragedy of her life, but not about the fiction.  If it was never completed or published, its place in feminist sf would have to be minimal, but her place among feminists is legendary.  Have you ever read Frances Sherwood's novel of her life, Vindication?  Her landmark work, Vindication of the Rights of Women, along with the only novel by her husband, William Godwin (Caleb Johnson?), both have obvious influences on the life and works of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, so we can probably give Mary W an honorary membership.  My other point, not to be flippant, was that anyone arguing for the rights of women in the 1790s had to be writing something akin to what we now call science fiction or utopian literature.

"Demetria M. Shew" wrote:

In a message dated 3/29/99 3:25:50 PM Pacific Standard Time, dnsmlsn@CSULB.EDU
writes:

<< since her most important tract is
 essentially non-fiction  >>

She was writing a work of fiction when she died (due to botched forced removal
of the placenta with piercing and infection of uterus).  Most of the work
still exists, but I read it so long ago I don't remember it...still,  she was
a feminist and writer and no doubt would have done more if not murdered by her
doctor...

--------------D8A9FE8734C2A681F7F85548-- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 17:20:22 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Cera Kruger Subject: Re: The Changeover In-Reply-To: from Stacey Holbrook at "Mar 27, 99 09:21:50 am" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Stacey Holbrook writes: > On Sat, 27 Mar 1999, geminiwalker wrote: > > > I just finished reading Margaret Mahy's "Changeover," and while > > I'm not sure it classifies at feminist science fiction officially, it > > seems pretty feminist to me. It's a young adult read, but I enjoyed > > Thanks for the recommendation. I am always trying to find good YA books to > share with my daughter. It's one of my all-time favourite books; I read it during high-school, and have been rereading it regularly sense then. I also highly recommend _The Tricksters_ by Mahy, although it's been so long since I've read it (I can't find a copy of my own) that I honestly can't say how feminist it is or isn't. It also features a young girl as the protagonist... one of the things I very much liked about it when I first read it (again in high school) was that she was sentimental, romantic, and silly while also being _very_ smart and strong. A large part of the book is her journey from thinking she wants to be a ravished romance heroine to discovering her own real gifts. -- Cera -- Cera Kruger -++- diony@idiom.com -+- http://www.requiem.com -++- SFLAaE/BS "And it's alright if you hate that way / hate me cause I'm different / hate me cause I'm gay / Truth of the matter come around one day / so it's alright." -- Emily Saliers (Indigo Girls' _Shaming of the Sun_) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 21:28:01 -0500 Reply-To: kamholse@fuse.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sally Kamholtz Subject: Re: Where does Feminist sf Begin? Comments: To: Marina MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hey, Marina--good to see you back. The only Mary Wollstonecraft that comes to mind is her manifesto, A Vindication of the Rights of Women. Sally Kamholtz Marina wrote: > On Mon, 29 Mar 1999, Sally Kamholtz wrote: > > > And don't forget Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Or the Modern Prometheus! > > Sally Kamholtz > > What about Mary Shelley's mother, Mary Walstoncraft? Didn't she write > some kind of feminist utopia, or am I confusing her with someone else? > > Marina > > http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html > > "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society > is selling at the time." > Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 22:28:48 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Bertina Miller Subject: Re: Where does Feminist sf Begin? In-Reply-To: <9baf4816.36fff41a@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Exactly, the preeminant prototype for feminism and equal rights was Mary Walstonecraft, Mary Shelley's mother. She also was very radical in her decision not to marry the man who fathered her child. Bertina bmiller@medmail.mcg.edu On Mon, 29 Mar 1999, Demetria M. Shew wrote: > In a message dated 3/29/99 11:49:43 AM Pacific Standard Time, > my0203@BRONCHO.UCOK.EDU writes: > > << Mary Walstoncraft? >> > > She wrote several feminist works, including one that I think was called "The > Rights of Women". It has been awhile since I read it, but remember it as > really great stuff. > > Madrone > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 22:17:47 -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: ICFA Reprise MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Gee, Donna, I want some! I glimpsed at the website and didn't see a location for the conference. Where the heck does this thing happen? And, call me dense, but I have not been able to decipher what LOL means after all this time. Help! Thanks, Susan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 22:28:31 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Stephanie R." Subject: Re: Where does Feminist sf Begin? Comments: To: kamholse@fuse.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit She did write a novel called Maria: The Wrongs of Woman. Stephanie ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 22:20:19 -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: Where does Feminist sf Begin? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Michael Marc Levy wrote: > In practical terms, however, Feminist SF as a recognizable modern > literary movement pretty clearly stems from Russ, LeGuin, and, less > explicitly perhaps, Kate Wilhelm. (IMO, of course). > thanks for the concise info. Don't you consider Doris Lessing important too? Susan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 23:30:28 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: BDG: A Fisherman of the Inland Sea Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'm a little tardy with this, but I thought I'd make a stab at *A Fisherman of the Inland Sea* before the month is over... I agree with some other people that this collection of stories is not very strong overall, at least for Le Guin. I found "The First Contact with the Gorgonids" shallow and nasty rather than darkly humorous. "The Ascent of the North Face" seemed pointless, though it's possible that I didn't fully get it. (Small people climbing up the side of a suburban house as if it were Mount Everest, right?) I appreciated the central idea of "The Rock That Changed Things" -- that a narrow, fixed view of reality can reinforce itself so strongly that it prevents one from physically seeing anything else -- an idea that is developed more fully in some of the other stories in the collection. However, I found the story itself to be too obvious and heavy-handed for me to enjoy it. I liked the way "The Kerastion" sketched out a culture in a few pages of spare prose -- it's more impressive for being an "unimproved" workshop story -- though I can't read much more into it than an exercise in imagining strangeness (in this case, a society that views permanent works of art as desecrations of the Mother). The remaining four stories strike me very much as a thematic group concerning individual perspective and the creation of meaning and story. In "Newton's Sleep" the character of Ike represents the danger of mechanical, hyper-rational thinking. He believes in simple facts, freedom from superstition, to the point that he seems to disapprove even of metaphor: "The light in Vermont quadrant was just the right number of degrees off vertical, Susan said -- 'It's either late morning or early afternoon, there's always time to get things done.' That was juggling a bit with reality, but not dangerously, Ike thought, and said nothing." (p.27) There's Ike, standing watch at the gates of Truth! Le Guin has said, in an interview with Larry McCaffery, "I'm rather afraid of purity in any guise. Purity doesn't seem quite human. I'd rather have things a little dirty and messy." Purity is sterility, purity can kill. I once heard the Nazi death camps described as "an incredibly efficient, spic-and-span hell". The future of Earth as described in "Newton's Sleep" can be imagined as the logical end result of self-selected enclaves repeatedly redrawing the lines and denying responsibility for what is going on "out there", denying knowledge of the other. An attitude that is carried with the few escapees to Spes, where some want to remove even the reminders of their old, dirty home. The story is rather obvious, it's true. But it has meat, and I like the connections it draws between various symptoms of an underlying cause. Le Guin describes the last three stories as "metafictions, story about story". As in "The Rock That Changed Things", perspective has a profound effect on what is called Truth. To me, the narrative function of the churten (aside from instantaneous travel) was to increase the effects of pre-existing thought patterns on perception. So in "The Shobies' Story", when the crew churten to a previously unvisited planet, their experiences differ wildly. Perhaps stress makes it worse? Stylistically the story is a mess and its ending may seem to advocate the power of "groupthink" over individual perception. But it's important to remember that the Shobies never decide upon a single, "correct" story. They "agree to disagree" about some elements of their experience (like who went down in the lander to the planet's surface); it's the weaving of the story, even with its contradictory elements, that brings them home. "Dancing to Ganam" shows what might happen when a powerfully charismatic person unbalances a crew. Interestingly, Forest and Riel break with him early on, fairly clearly because they are women (cute how Le Guin left out any mention of their sex until halfway through the story, eh?), and Dalzul and Shan are men. It's a theme that's sounded many times in the collection: women are more in tune with base reality than men are. Shan, who has been bewitched by Dalzul's illusions, begins to wake up. By the end of the story, Dalzul is all alone in his view of reality. But Aketa says that he believes Dalzul "knew what he was doing." Meaning what? That Dalzul knew he was going to die and chose his death? Perhaps that his ritual death was the inexorable last word of his life's sentence? "Another Story" is the emotional heart of the collection for me. It is longer and takes more time developing characters and settings. Superficially, it's plot is much simpler: boy leaves home; boy is emotionally crippled; magically he is given the chance to do it all over again; he returns home to his true love. But along the way we learn about the fascinating four-way marriages of O, about "thick-planning" (I love that term); about the history of churten research; and about "The Fisherman of the Inland Sea", whose story is inverted by Hideo. Rather than returning unchanged to a land where his descendants are all dead, he returns ten years older to an unchanged farm. Le Guin is very good at describing moments of lonely, utter despair. The center of this story for me is the night when Hideo is in his room at Ran'n after returning from his visit home. He tries to sleep but can't stop thinking how meaningless his life is. He begins to cry helplessly and can only bring himself out of it by imagining that he will call Isidri in the morning. But when the night has passed, he does not call her. He still denies his need for balance. Pamela Bedore asked, "I wonder how much influence Jung and post-Jungian theorists have had on her writing over the past decade or so..." I think the answer is a lot. Both Hideo and Ike are characters who have walled off parts of their own minds out of fear, and both suffer because of it. In her essay "The Child and the Shadow", Le Guin quoted Jung: " 'Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.' " She goes on to say, "The less you look at it, in other words, the stronger it grows, until it can become a menace, an intolerable load, a threat within the soul." (p.59) Hideo and Ike get another chance; Dalzul does not (nor does he want one). Whew! This message is gigantic! I think I had better send it now. I would love to read further comments on the book -- any takers? ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/ Listening to: Hooverphonic -- A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 21:13:53 -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: Where does Feminist sf Begin? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------BEC730B278E1E9CC34F1C87D" --------------BEC730B278E1E9CC34F1C87D Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lessing is a curious case. What influence she had on ingroup sfuf seems to have come late, after she began the Canopus quintet (which many fans and writers [not I] claim to find unreadable). Utopianism figures strongly earlier in her career, as well, in The Four-Gated City, the Sufi fables (Memoirs of a Survivor and Briefing for a Descent into Hell), and a few short stories (maybe the Laingian madness from which Anna recovers in The Golden Notebook?). Her relationship with feminism is also problematic: she was loudly rejected by feminists in her early period as not feminist enough (her women still seemed to need men). Communists rejected her as a turncoat and white Rhodesians saw her as a traitor to her "race"; there is a thriving Lessing industry in academe today, but much of the literary establishment deprecates her as faddish, facile, and stylistically leaden. Still she still keeps chugging along, getting noticed everywhere, whatever her "acceptance" level in various groups. I think she may be the most important living writer in English (male or female), but in the "creation" of the Feminist SF movement, however, I can't rank her very high. Big Yellow Woman wrote: > Michael Marc Levy wrote: > > > In practical terms, however, Feminist SF as a recognizable modern > > literary movement pretty clearly stems from Russ, LeGuin, and, less > > explicitly perhaps, Kate Wilhelm. (IMO, of course). > > > thanks for the concise info. Don't you consider Doris Lessing important > too? > > Susan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 21:08:46 -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: Where does Feminist sf Begin? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lessing is a curious case. What influence she had on ingroup sfuf seems to have come late, after she began the Canopus quintet (which many fans and writers [not I] claim to find unreadable). Utopianism figures strongly earlier in her career, as well, in The Four-Gated City, the Sufi fables (Memoirs of a Survivor and Briefing for a Descent into Hell), and a few short stories (maybe the Laingian madness from which Anna recovers in The Golden Notebook?). Her relationship with feminism is also problematic: she was loudly rejected by feminists in her early period as not feminist enough (her women still seemed to need men). Communists have rejected her as a turncoat, white Rhodesians (Zambians?) as a traitor to her race, and though there is a thriving Lessing industry in academe today, much of the academic literary establishment has looked down on her as faddish, facile, and stylistically leaden. But she still keeps chugging along, getting noticed everywhere, whatever her "acceptance" level in various groups. I think she may be the most important living writer in English, but what do I know? Big Yellow Woman wrote: > Michael Marc Levy wrote: > > > In practical terms, however, Feminist SF as a recognizable modern > > literary movement pretty clearly stems from Russ, LeGuin, and, less > > explicitly perhaps, Kate Wilhelm. (IMO, of course). > > > thanks for the concise info. Don't you consider Doris Lessing important > too? > > Susan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 00:04:21 -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: Where does Feminist sf Begin? In-Reply-To: <37005103.27BE@people-link.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 29 Mar 1999, Big Yellow Woman wrote: > Michael Marc Levy wrote: > > > In practical terms, however, Feminist SF as a recognizable modern > > literary movement pretty clearly stems from Russ, LeGuin, and, less > > explicitly perhaps, Kate Wilhelm. (IMO, of course). > > > thanks for the concise info. Don't you consider Doris Lessing important > too? > > Susan > Lessing can be a wonderful writer, particularly in such borderline sf works as The Four Gated City and The Fifth Child (although I have to admit that I find her Canopus in Argos series almost unreadable). The Four Gated City came out the same year as The Left Hand of Darkness and may have influenced some feminist sf writers. On the whole, however, it isn't really clear how much influence Lessing had on the genre. Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time (1976), an excerpt from which actually appeared in an SF anthology edited by Vonda McIntyre called Aurora a number of years before the novel appeared (I think) was probably much more influential. And there were other female SF writers doing more or less feminist work in the 50s and 60s as well, most notably the now almost forgotten Margaret St. Clair (aka Idris Seabright), Carol Emshwiller, and Sonya Dorman. Mike Levy ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 06:06:39 -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: Where does Feminist sf Begin? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Samuelson writes: Hmmmm, I dont recall this "loud rejection" by feminists? Lessing was a mainstay in my women's studies classes in the 70's. I believe she remains in use today in reviews of womens lit. from a feminist perspective. Do you have a review(s) or critic(s) in particular to which you refer? I cannot say I am in any great rush to draw a clear or wide divide between mid to late 20th century feminist writers and the feminist _SF_ writers of the same period. I see it is a cross fertilization actually. Feminism and SF tropes/ideas were affecting simultaneouly all genres and kinds of writing IMO. donna donnaneely@earthlink.net ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 06:14:30 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: Entirely Off Topic Inquiry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I will sit in the corner for posting this right after I do. Help wanted: Could anyone recommend a theoretical text on the genre of the autobiography? Preferably one that also compares the "autobiography" with the "journal". Or perhaps two separate texts if naught else. Have a friend in Austria who is writing on 18thC. American memoirs and was asking for a recommended text. Thanks, donna donnaneely@earthlink.net ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 08:10:17 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Stephanie R." Subject: Re: Where does Feminist sf Begin? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Since we're talking about more modern writers, what about Angela Carter? Tiger M ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 08:21:29 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: Where does Feminist sf Begin? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Mary Wollstonecraft wrote two "novels" -- actually short, apparently at least partly autobiographical and not entirely satisying. Mary, A Fiction (1787) and The Wrongs of Women (1798). Despite their shortcomings, they are interesting to read, posing as they do a thesis that the place of women in society is a debilitating, mind-numbing trap which warps the sensitivities and sensibilities of women. Of interest, perhaps to this list is that Wollstoncraft's heroines, if they can be called that, turn to fiction for escape and enlightenment. Oxford published both short works in one slim volume as a part of their World's Classics series. best phoebe Phoebe Wray zozie@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 15:17:01 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: Where does Feminist sf Begin? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mary Wollstonecraft: wrote two novels: one of which has affiliations to the Gothic novel. If one counts the Gothic as an ancestor to s-f (via Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley). In which case there's a case to be made for Mrs Radcliffe? On C20th sf/utopian etc writers Vera Brittain's _Halcyon_, a utopian speculation on the future of women, and Charlotte Haldane's dystopian _A Man's World_, precede (I think) Woolf's Orlando. But there were earlier C19th feminist speculative fictions, rather obscure, of which I don't have details immediately to hand Lesley Hall lesleyah@primex.co.uk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 06:39:58 PST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Daniel Krashin Subject: Doris Lessing (Was:Where does Feminist sf Begin?) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain >From: Dave Samuelson >Subject: Re: Where does Feminist sf Begin? >Lessing is a curious case [...snip] >[T]here is a thriving Lessing >industry in academe today, but much of the literary establishment >deprecates >her as faddish, facile, and stylistically leaden. Still she still >keeps >chugging along, getting noticed everywhere, whatever her "acceptance" >level >in various groups. > >I think she may be the most important living writer in English (male >or female)[...] Umm, may I ask why? I've read a bit of her work, and I thought her "space fiction" was didactic and lousy as SF. Her mainstream fiction was more enjoyable. _The Golden Notebook_ seemed more proto-feminist than feminist to me somehow; the part that sticks in my mind is where the protagonist complains that there are no real men in England any more, they are all "homosexuals and half-homosexuals." Tell me -- what am I missing? Danny Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 15:35:10 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: Entirely Off Topic Inquiry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit There is a good volume of essays by Liz Stanley, 'The auto/biographical I: the theory and practice of feminist auto/biography' Manchester University Press, 1992 You might also want to consider Carolyn Heilbrun's 'Writing A Woman's Life', which was published in the UK by The Women's Press. Lesley Hall lesleyah@primex.co.uk ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 06:52:50 PST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Daniel Krashin Subject: Doris Lessing Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain >From: Dave Samuelson >Lessing is a curious case [...] >I think she may be the most important living writer in English (male >or female)[...] Umm, may I ask why? I've read a bit of her work, and I thought her "space fiction" was didactic and lousy as SF. Her mainstream fiction was more enjoyable. _The Golden Notebook_ seemed more proto-feminist than feminist to me somehow; the part that sticks in my mind is where the protagonist complains that there are no real men in England any more, they are all "homosexuals and half-homosexuals." Tell me -- what am I missing? Danny Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 01:08:29 +1000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Julieanne Subject: OT: Info: Nevada Midwife Arrested Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" For information of FSFFU list-members, maybe not sci-fi, but feminist, .... weren't the 'witch-hunts' finished with centuries ago??? >Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 09:45:48 -0500 >From: Alice & Emroy Skenandore >To: "cyber-fem@hsphsun2.harvard.edu" >Subject: cyber-fem: Nevada Midwife Arrested > >Dear Listmates and friends of Midwifery; > I am forwarding this message to you at Margie's request. I hope that >many of you are moved to write letters in Kellies behalf. I am writing >to the LV Review Journal via e-mail and I hope to help. >Love, >Alice Skenandore >-------------- >From: "Marjorie Dacko, CM" >To: midwives@lists.alaska.net >Subject: Nevada Midwife Arrested > >Dear Midwife Friends and Midwife Supporters, > >A Las Vegas, Nevada, DEM, Kellie Sparkman, an experienced midwife with >over 400 births, was arrested yesterday (3/26/99). Midwifery is legal >in the state of Nevada, so the arrest wasn't for any of the "normal" >midwifery arrest charges, such as practising medicine without a >license........in Kellie's case, she was arrested for Felony Child >Endangerment, which carries a possible penalty of 2-10 years in prison. > >Her arrest comes as the result of a birth in January where the baby was >born with meconium in the fluid, the baby required suctioning, but was >breathing unassisted and was pink. Over the following 1 1/2 hours the >baby began to have some mild breathing difficulties, so the decision >was made to take the baby in, by car. > >Unfortunately they took the baby to an unfriendly hospital because it >was the closest with a NICU. Kellie and the parents were met with a >hostile staff and were accused of child endangerment because they >delayed transport and choose to use a car instead of calling 911. The baby >arrived at the hospital in good condition, and remained in good >condition and was discharged home, with no problems, a few days later. >The parents, a Mexican couple (the majority of Kellie's clients are >Hispanic) have no bad feelings towards Kellie, and in fact love their >birth. > >It's unclear exactly who contacted the Children's Protective Agency, >but the detective interviewed on the TV said "doctor".....her quote was >something like, "When a doctor contacts us to report a case of child >endangerment, we take it seriously." > >The police arrived at her door yesterday morning, while her husband was >showering and took her away before he could get out and get dressed. >He posted bond before noon and yet they detained her in jail until >evening. The TV news showed Kellie emerging from the jail house with >her husband, her children and her clinging to each other and >crying................If simply attending a birth at home can be >grounds for "child endangerment", any of us on this list could be >next!!! > >Her hearing will be April 26. > >I repeat.......the baby is fine, the parents are supportive of >Kellie.......midwifery is legal in Nevada......this is nothing but >harassment, spawned on by doctors who want midwifery to disappear. > >Ironically, while Kellie's baby was in the hospital, a hospital born >baby with meconium aspiration was so seriously ill it was transported to >a California hospital where it died!! > >The newspaper story can be found at http://www.lvrj.com >Click on Headlines. This newspaper does have email contact......I >suggest we flood them with letters!!! Following is their address and >guidelines for letters to the editor: > >*****The Review-Journal welcomes letters to the editor. >Only letters that include a legible signature, return address and >telephone number will be considered. Shorter, concise letters will be >given preference. Names will not be withheld for any reason. All >letters used in the printed edition are subject to editing. > >Letters should be addressed to "Letters to the Editor" and sent via any >of the following three methods: >FAX -- 383-4676 >Mail -- P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, Nev. 89125 >e-mail -- letters@lvrj.com > >NOTE: When sending a letter by e-mail, please do not send letters as >attachments to e-mail messages. Send the letter as part of an e-mail >message. Signatures are not required on e-mail letters. > >Brought to you by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. >Nevada's largest daily newspaper. ****** > > >I am no longer subscribed to the fendsende list, would someone please >forward my letter to that list please.......and please forward this >letter to others........the more people who know about this, the >better!! Please, write a letter to the editor now! > >Yours in Unity! >Love, >Margie Dacko >Nevada > > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 08:33:50 -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: Where does Feminist sf Begin? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------5B34EB4F5AC13BF35C1C7D13" --------------5B34EB4F5AC13BF35C1C7D13 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit donna simone wrote: > Samuelson writes: > problematic: she was loudly rejected by feminists in her early period as > not feminist enough (her women still seemed to need men).> > > Hmmmm, I dont recall this "loud rejection" by feminists? Lessing was a > mainstay in my women's studies classes in the 70's. I believe she > remains in use today in reviews of womens lit. from a feminist > perspective. Do you have a review(s) or critic(s) in particular to which > you refer? Samuelson responds: I'm afraid I don't, just (possibly faulty) memory from looking her up in those days after The Golden Notebook blew me away. I think it was refreshed a few years ago when I read a book of essays concerning her reception worldwide, but I can't find it in my bibliographies. It's possible I'm recalling her own rejection of feminism as special-interest pleading and her resentment at having British critics (male) read GN as a feminist lament. I also recall feminist students in some of my classes rejecting her as too timid. Later students called GN "dated," since conditions had "progressed" so much since then. > Samuelson writes > female), but in the "creation" of the Feminist SF movement, however, I > can't rank her very high.> > donna simone wrote: > I cannot say I am in any great rush to draw a clear or wide divide > between mid to late 20th century feminist writers and the feminist _SF_ > writers of the same period. I see it is a cross fertilization actually. > Feminism and SF tropes/ideas were affecting simultaneouly all genres and > kinds of writing IMO. Samuelson responds: Maybe I'm suffering from tunnel vision, but the original question concerned Lessing's place in the establishment of feminist sf. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 09:00:49 -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: Doris Lessing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------F0314E01D4B56BD2A4A53A57" --------------F0314E01D4B56BD2A4A53A57 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Daniel Krashin wrote: > >From: Dave Samuelson > > >Lessing is a curious case [...] >I think she may be the most important > living writer in English (male > >or female)[...] > > Umm, may I ask why? I've read a bit of her work, and I thought her > "space fiction" was didactic and lousy as SF. Her mainstream fiction > was more enjoyable. _The Golden Notebook_ seemed more proto-feminist > than feminist to me somehow; the part that sticks in my mind is where > the protagonist complains that there are no real men in England any > more, they are all "homosexuals and half-homosexuals." > > Tell me -- what am I missing? > Tastes differ, obviously. I found the Canopus series labored but rewarding at times (especially The Sirian Experiments and The Making of the Representative for Planet Eight); I don't share the Lessing industry's taste for it, but neither do I share the SF community's rejection of it. I deliberately didn't wear my SF reading hat when I read it, but I also don't reject didacticism out of hand; SF which is not strictly escapist adventure always has an important didactic element. Utopian scholar Kenneth Roemer may have hit the right note calling it "an interesting experiment" in utopian writing. Lessing was IMHO the first major novelist since Woolf to take women seriously as thinkers and writers. GN was a major milestone between Modernism and Postmodernism. "Children of Violence" (her first "quintet") is a large-scale female Bildungsroman (her term); I think the utopian elements of the last volume fail, but the African volumes mercilessly dissect the colonial experience. Artistically more satisfying (after GN) may be some of the short stories (both African and English), The Summer Before the Dark and Memoirs of a Survivor, but I also found The Good Terrorist harrowing. I find Briefing for a Descent into Hell another interesting failure, The Fifth Child a less interesting one (nobody succeeds all the time). I haven't read the two most recent novels, the "Jane Somers" novels, or the autobiographies. Her style may be only "serviceable," but at its best it's a transparent medium for dizzying introspection. I usually find her take on life fascinating, in its realistic and non-realistic weave of politics, psychology, and social speculation. Calling GN "protofeminist," however, may be another way of saying that feminism per se is not DL's calling card. --------------F0314E01D4B56BD2A4A53A57 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Daniel Krashin wrote:
>From:    Dave Samuelson <dnsmlsn@CSULB.EDU>

>Lessing is a curious case [...] >I think she may be the most important living writer in English (male
>or female)[...]

Umm, may I ask why?  I've read a bit of her work, and I thought her "space fiction" was didactic and lousy as SF.  Her mainstream fiction was more enjoyable.  _The Golden Notebook_ seemed more proto-feminist than feminist to me somehow; the part that sticks in my mind is where the protagonist complains that there are no real men in England any more, they are all "homosexuals and half-homosexuals."

Tell me -- what am I missing?
 

Tastes differ, obviously.  I found the Canopus series labored but rewarding at times (especially The Sirian Experiments and The Making of the Representative for Planet Eight); I don't share the Lessing industry's taste for it, but neither do I share the SF community's rejection of it.  I deliberately didn't wear my SF reading hat when I read it, but I also don't reject didacticism out of hand; SF which is not strictly escapist adventure always has an important didactic element.   Utopian scholar Kenneth Roemer may have hit the right note calling it "an interesting experiment" in utopian writing.

Lessing was IMHO the first major novelist since Woolf to take women seriously as thinkers and writers.  GN was a major milestone between Modernism and Postmodernism.  "Children of Violence" (her first "quintet") is a large-scale female Bildungsroman (her term); I think the utopian elements of the last volume fail, but the African volumes mercilessly dissect the colonial experience.  Artistically more satisfying (after GN) may be some of the short stories (both African and English), The Summer Before the Dark and Memoirs of a Survivor, but I also found The Good Terrorist harrowing.  I find Briefing for a Descent into Hell another interesting failure, The Fifth Child a less interesting one (nobody succeeds all the time).  I haven't read the two most recent novels, the "Jane Somers" novels, or the autobiographies.

Her style may be only "serviceable," but at its best it's a transparent medium for dizzying introspection.  I usually find her take on life fascinating, in its realistic and non-realistic weave of politics, psychology, and social speculation.  Calling GN "protofeminist," however, may be another way of saying that feminism per se is not DL's calling card.
 
 
 
 
 
 
  --------------F0314E01D4B56BD2A4A53A57-- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 11:53:04 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Caroline Couture Subject: Re: Doris Lessing In-Reply-To: <19990330145250.15770.qmail@hotmail.com> from "Daniel Krashin" at Mar 30, 99 06:52:50 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Danny sez: > Tell me -- what am I missing? > And isn't it also true that Lessing doesn't welcome being called a "SF writer?" I think that this is also true of PD James; she doesn't consider _The Children of Man_ to be SF either. I think that if they don't want to be a part of the club we shouldn't make 'em. :) Caroline ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 02:42:37 +0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: cathy Subject: UNSUBSCRIBE In-Reply-To: <199903231819.TAA03006@cserv.usf.uni-kassel.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" As of now, I have nothing useful to contribute so I thought it best to unsubscribe.....really sorry. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 13:40:02 -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: A Fisherman of the Inland Sea MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Janice wrote: But Aketa says that he > believes Dalzul "knew what he was doing." Meaning what? That Dalzul knew he > was going to die and chose his death? Perhaps that his ritual death was the > inexorable last word of his life's sentence? I keep wondering what Leguin meant by that--and I love that she doesn't solve it for the reader. In her > essay "The Child and the Shadow", Le Guin quoted Jung: " 'Everyone carries > a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, > the blacker and denser it is.' " She goes on to say, "The less you look at > it, in other words, the stronger it grows, until it can become a menace, an > intolerable load, a threat within the soul." (p.59) Janice, please, please, can you tell me where to find this essay? Thank you so much for your "gigantic" post! I wish I could do the same, but am finishing one chapter and about to start another--on Leguin :) Think spring, Susan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 13:48:20 -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: Doris Lessing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I just noticed that Ursula Leguin reviews the first three books of Lessing's Canopus series in _Dancing at the Edge of the World_ if anyone is interested. My 2cents: Marriages between Zones Three, Four and Five (the second of the series) is not a difficult read and is completely worthwhile. Susan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 14:06:31 -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: doris lessing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit oops, sorry, I sent that last message a moment too soon. Leguin reviews the first, second, and *fifth* in the Lessing series (as if this were worth a second post, but how I hate imprecision!) To whet your curiosity, from LeGuin'g review of _THe Sentimental Agents_: Doris Lessing's _Canopus in Argos_ series has had some queer reviews. Some academic critics, unwilling to recognize experiment in content rather than form, dismiss her greatest experimental venture as "mere science fiction," not to be taken seriously. But among science fiction readers and reviewers, where books might have been greeted with intelligent interest, the attitude seems to be: Lessing is not One of Us, therefore we will not take her seriously.Some feminist critics denounce her from departing from the single issue of feminism. And then there are her adorers, for whom she can do no wrong. None of these reviewers does her novels justice. Neither will I. I am much too angry with her. But perhaps this review will move a reader to begin or continue the series, of which _The Sentimental Agents_ is the fifth book--and that's what I'm after. Doris Lessing deserves to be read! How many novelists are there writing now who can make you really angry? How many refuse triviality, self-limitation, and the safe line, whether it panders to the know-it-all snob or the know-nothing slob? How many novelists take any risks at all? If you are thirsty for the dry taste of courage, try Lessing. (276) Back to work! Susan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 14:59:04 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: BDG: A Fisherman of the Inland Sea MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Big Yellow Woman wrote: > Janice, please, please, can you tell me where to find ["The > Child and the Shadow"]? Sorry, I included the page number but forgot to include the book's name! I was referring to the 1993 trade paper edition of *The Language of the Night*, her first collection of essays, with editorial commentary by Susan Wood. -- Janice E. Dawley ............. Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/ Listening to: Hooverphonic -- A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." - Lily Tomlin ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 17:40:53 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: Where does Feminist sf Begin? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/29/99 4:48:26 PM Eastern Standard Time, DMadrone@AOL.COM writes: > In a message dated 3/29/99 11:49:43 AM Pacific Standard Time, > my0203@BRONCHO.UCOK.EDU writes: > > << Mary Walstoncraft? >> > > She wrote several feminist works, including one that I think was called "The > Rights of Women". It has been awhile since I read it, but remember it as > really great stuff. > > Madrone > Actually, it is called, "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman". It was written as a response/addition to a pamphlet by Talleyrand (a French revolutionary) called (if memory serves) "A Vindication of the Rights of Man". Mary Wollstonecraft had believed Talleyrand to be using the term "Man" to refer to "Mankind" and was very disappointed to find that the rights of women were not changed by the French revolution, and that Talleyrand in fact was not using "Man" to refer to "Mankind" but to "Man". And I agree it is very well done. Tanya ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 20:04:58 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Keith Subject: Re: Doris Lessing In-Reply-To: <37010341.EE43D4D5@csulb.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 30 Mar 1999, Dave Samuelson wrote: > Daniel Krashin wrote: > >> snip << > > I think the > utopian elements of the last volume fail, but the African volumes > mercilessly dissect the colonial experience. > I think this is why I finally realized that Lessing was not a feminist, and was not suprised when she did not want to be categorized as one. The polemics in her fiction are against racial inequity, not sexual inequity. Although the novels, especially the Children of Violence series and the Golden Notebook, meticulously record sexual inequity, it is resolutely unexamined. If there were a specific word meaning a passionate advocate of the equality of human beings regardless of the amount of melanin in their skin, that word would describe Lessing. Not feminist. She writes so well, though, it almost doesn't matter. Many of Ursula K. LeGuin's early short stories don't have a feminist perspective, but they were so darned good, it would be a shame if they were rewritten to lug in something the author didn't see or feel at the time. Kathleen ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 21:15:17 -0800 Reply-To: wgriffin@csulb.edu Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Wendy Griffin Organization: Women's Studies Subject: Re: Where does Feminist sf Begin? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit So far no one has mentioned Christine de Pizan. Her 15th century "Book of the City of Ladies" (the title may be slightly different) surely is both feminist and utopian. Wendy Griffin Phoebe Wray wrote: > Mary Wollstonecraft wrote two "novels" -- actually short, apparently at least > partly autobiographical and not entirely satisying. Mary, A Fiction (1787) > and The Wrongs of Women (1798). Despite their shortcomings, they are > interesting to read, posing as they do a thesis that the place of women in > society is a debilitating, mind-numbing trap which warps the sensitivities and > sensibilities of women. Of interest, perhaps to this list is that > Wollstoncraft's heroines, if they can be called that, turn to fiction for > escape and enlightenment. > > Oxford published both short works in one slim volume as a part of their > World's Classics series. > > best > phoebe > > Phoebe Wray > zozie@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 01:12:53 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Heather MacLean Subject: Re: Feminist SF vs. Utopia (was "Where does Feminist sf Begin?") Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Feminist SF is not the same as utopia. There are "tons" of women who wrote of imagined places and societies for themselves; the collection _Utopian and Science Fiction by Women_, ed. by Donawerth & Kolmerten (Syracuse UP, 1994) contains several very good articles talking about many, many women and their fictions. But if we speak of "SF" as a genre defined by a cause-and-effect (not affect) approach to structuring a textual world that contains at least one technological or scientific difference from the reader's contemporary world significant enough to cause cognitive dissonance, then utopia doesn't really count when it only involves a societal restructuring. Wollstonecraft Shelley's _Frankenstein_ -does- impute that kind of difference, within those parameters (largely taken from Darko Suvin's definition of SF, which I've found the most rigorously defensible so far). Many women before her wrote utopias, including the Provencal poets of Southern France in the 12 & 1300's... Cheers, Heather =) At 09:15 PM 3/30/99 -0800, you wrote: >So far no one has mentioned Christine de Pizan. Her 15th century "Book of the >City of Ladies" (the title may be slightly different) surely is both feminist and >utopian. > Wendy Griffin > .. http://www.zipcon.net/~hlm ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 02:21:59 -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: Doris Lessing I read the Golden Notebook, that was enough for me. I foolishly thought that anyone believing in the equality of all people would only naturally be a feminist. Then I got to the part where she expresses complete disgust with the smell of a menstruating woman stating that she always feared people could smell her menstruating no matter how clean she tried to keep herself. She would pour pots and pots of water over herself whenever she went to the bathroom trying to eradicate the smell, but she always felt it was still there. However, how she loved her smell after she had just had sex with a man, it was delicious. Any woman expressing such revulsion at her normal female bodily functions certainly couldn't describe herself as a feminist. I'm glad she recognizes that she is not. I rather think of her as an anti-womanist and have not had any desire to read anything else she writes. Susan commends Lessing for being an author gutsy enough to risk making her reader "really angry." I love Joanna Russ, and she can make me really angry, however I feel we're both angry about the same things. An author who can make me really angry by stating that I am a lesser being because of my sex or race or personhood in general is not one I feel any further need to let into my life. The old adage of "so many books, so little time" comes to mind. I'd rather spend my time on authors who speak to me as a full person. Joyce ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 02:27:52 -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: Info: Nevada Midwife Arrested Regarding the persecution of midwives, Julieanne asks' "weren't the 'witch-hunts' finished with centuries ago???" No, alas they weren't. I think our discussion of feminism has established that the fight continues. If women and women's professions were recognized as complete and honorable, there would be no further need for feminism. Joyce ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 06:59:49 +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: OT: Info: Nevada Midwife Arrested In-Reply-To: <001601be7b61$22b9d200$164b2599@default> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > Regarding the persecution of midwives, Julieanne asks' > > "weren't the 'witch-hunts' finished with centuries ago???" > > No, alas they weren't. I think our discussion of feminism has established > that the fight continues. If women and women's professions were recognized > as complete and honorable, there would be no further need for feminism. > > Joyce > > Just to see the latest on the Burning Times, check this out: http://www.malaspina.com/burning/ ...geminiwalker chuard@earthlink.net To learn more about me, go to: http://home.earthlink.net/~chuard updated 3/25/99 ICQ #27240345 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 08:17:26 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: Feminist SF vs. Utopia (was "Where does Feminist sf Begin?") Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/31/99 7:13:38 AM, Heather wrote: <> If any on the list haven't read Frankenstein or want to do so again, it is on the 'net at gopher://ccat.sas.upenn.edu:3333/11/Fiction/Frankenstein best phoebe Phoebe Wray zozie@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 10:25:36 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: Feminist SF vs. Utopia (was "Where does Feminist sf ... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/30/99 11:13:38 PM Pacific Standard Time, h.maclean@ZIPCON.NET writes: << at least one technological or scientific difference >> Actually, female utopias that show women in different roles do this as all the 'science' of the 1300-early 1900's defined women as differing from males in many factors, including intelligence. Anything that imputed intelligence, physical or emotional strength, decision and problem solving abilities would have contradicted common knowledge and caused considerable dissonance. This also would have gone against established religious ideas. Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 11:05:42 EST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: bradbury query ... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Help! Can't remember the name of the Bradbury story about the hunter of dinosaurs who stepped off the track and crushed a flower(?) butterfly(?) then returned to his future world and everything was changed. Someone borrowed my Bradbury... Can someone help? thanks phoebe Phoebe Wray zozie@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 10:14:48 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jane Franklin Subject: Re: Doris Lessing (Was:Where does Feminist sf Begin?) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit It's odd but, in my experience, men don't seem to like Doris Lessing a whole heck of a lot. I adore her, and am perpetually trying to get my friends to read her so that we can talk about her, but so far none of my male friends have bitten. They try, and they give up in disgust. Usually try the Golden Notebook. When asked why, one memorably responded that "women aren't like that". Now, since these are after all my friends and are warm and cuddly and non-sexist, I don't think they dislike Lessing out of some masculinist plot. So what's the scoop? Some thoughts: In "The Scent of a Woman's Ink," which ran in Harper's last year (author, oddly named Frances Prose) the writer observed that common metaphors in women's writing (house, food, madness) are not generally perceived as larger metaphors by men, who have been brought up (like women) to see ships, battlefields, universities etc. as metaphors for the world. Now, Doris Lessing's really important books are the Children of Violence series and the Golden Notebook, which parallel each other a bit. Both deal in great detail with one or two women's emotional lives, also in great detail with the personal side of major political movements, also with madness. Children of Violence is, I think, the more sophisticated of the two, especially in regards to gender relations. It's funny that men tend not to like Lessing, since she always seems me to be the woman writer who writes most "like a man", with the most typically "male" ambitions and the least "woman-like" prose style. Notice that I put all these in quotes to indicate ambiguity. If you read interviews with her, she is greatly concerned for technical excellence, for her place in the canon, and with taking on the great writing traditions of the past. She characterizes GN as a "bildingsroman" (misspelled) which places it in line with the work of people like Goethe. She is very self-willed--look at her writing about communism and the left--those are things that most leftists think and don't say, or that most say only after they've become poster children for the right. She is a little like a good Camille Paglia. That said, I don't really think of her as a feminist. She's a "me-ist" and only where she is personally held down because of her gender will she kick. She always seems to me to be more concerned with describing sexism than ending it, so to speak. She's a woman and she writes about being a woman, and since there's sexism, she writes about that. I've always gotten the impression that my male friends don't like her for the same reasons that women don't like, say, Norman Mailer--Lessing embodies a certain kind of being female that men don't want to believe in. Not because her women are particularly powerful, or man-hating, or fat-hairy-legged-dykes (catch Lessing writing a lesbian character) but because her women characters _aren't fooled by men_. They see and analyze what goes on around them, and then they continue to live with men, while seeing and condemning what happens. And that's scary. As long as the women who aren't fooled run off to some lesbo commune, that's ok. And as long as the other women are fooled, that's ok too. But the thought that someone is around you all the time and not fooled, that's scary. It's funny that someone remarked that Lessing had a leaden prose style. While one can argue prose style til the cows come home, she's generally praised for how she writes about Africa and insanity, to name but two subjects. As far as Angela Carter, she's a lot like Lessing. It constantly strikes me as eccentric and humorous that these two women, neither of whom are really interested in the fate of women as a group but both of whom are interested in their own successes and both of whom write about women, are constantly accused of being rampaging feminists. Evidently, women are so uninteresting that one has to have a fully evolved ideological program to even consider writing about them. That said, I have a very large library of both, although Lessing has evolved toward a kind of New Age fascism as she ages--that would be her sf, which is all a pornography of totalitarianism. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 10:47:57 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jane Franklin Subject: Re: Doris Lessing (Was:Where does Feminist sf Begin?) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Forgive, oh forgive the snippiness of my last post, and also forgive that I seemed to imply that no men anywhere liked Lessing. I'm not really mean, I'm just drawn that way. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 09:30:09 +0000 Reply-To: mystgalaxy@ax.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Maryelizabeth Hart Organization: Mysterious Galaxy Subject: something way OT but positive! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > VIBRATORS OKAY IN ALABAMA > > A federal judge has struck down the Alabama law that banned the sale > of vibrators. > The law had been enacted last year - it barred the sale of items > designed to enhance sexual pleasure, including vibrators and certain > kinds of condoms. It also banned strip clubs. > The judge ruled the state had failed to prove the devices were > obscene. > -- *********************************************************************** Mysterious Galaxy Local Phone: 619.268.4747 3904 Convoy Street, #107 Fax: 619.268.4775 San Diego, CA 9211 Long Distance/Orders: 1.800.811.4747 http://www.mystgalaxy.com Email: mgbooks@ax.com *********************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 10:41:58 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Liz Bennefeld Organization: The Written Word Subject: Re: bradbury query ... In-Reply-To: <90a85caa.370247d6@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT A Sound of Thunder (Doubleday, 1952). Available at: http://www.sba.muohio.edu/snavelwb/images/thunder.htm On 31 Mar 99, at 11:05, Phoebe Wray wrote: > Help! Can't remember the name of the Bradbury story about the hunter of > dinosaurs who stepped off the track and crushed a flower(?) butterfly(?) > then returned to his future world and everything was changed. > > Someone borrowed my Bradbury... Can someone help? > > thanks > > phoebe > > Phoebe Wray > zozie@aol.com -- Elizabeth Wicker Bennefeld http://home.att.net/~TheWrittenWord/ http://home.att.net/~PatchworkProse/ http://home.att.net/~WickerWorks/ http://www.sff.net/people/Bennefeld/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 09:39:15 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Candioglos, Sandy" Subject: Re: something way OT but positive! Comments: To: "mystgalaxy@ax.com" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" If there's anyone on this list living in Alabama, because of this controversy, Good Vibrations (http://www.goodvibes.com - great toy shop, by the way!) is giving a discount (I think it was 10%) to any order from any Alabama zip code either through the end of April or May; I can't find details on the web site, but it was in their spring newsletter. -Sandy -----Original Message----- From: Maryelizabeth Hart [mailto:mystgalaxy@ax.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 1999 1:30 AM To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Subject: [*FSFFU*] something way OT but positive! > > VIBRATORS OKAY IN ALABAMA > > A federal judge has struck down the Alabama law that banned the sale > of vibrators. > The law had been enacted last year - it barred the sale of items > designed to enhance sexual pleasure, including vibrators and certain > kinds of condoms. It also banned strip clubs. > The judge ruled the state had failed to prove the devices were > obscene. > -- *********************************************************************** Mysterious Galaxy Local Phone: 619.268.4747 3904 Convoy Street, #107 Fax: 619.268.4775 San Diego, CA 9211 Long Distance/Orders: 1.800.811.4747 http://www.mystgalaxy.com Email: mgbooks@ax.com *********************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 11:22:45 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jane Franklin Subject: Re: Doris Lessing I know I'm over-posting on this subject... To clarify (GN is a pretty hefty book, it took several readings for me to get things straight in terms of plot) The woman who makes this remark is a character in a novel that one of the other women is writing. (I believe) The writer-woman is a political woman, very intellectual. Her character, this anti-smell woman, is a kind of lesser, more twinky version of herself. She is at the mercy of her male connections and does not place herself in a larger political framework. I think she reflects some of the writer-woman's anxieties about herself. I don't think Lessing means her to reflect a "correct" or authorial position. In fact, I don't think that the little remark in GN about how "all men in Britain are homosexuals or half-homosexuals" is meant to reflect Lessing's viewpoint either (althouth I don't think Lessing is very pro-queer) If you notice, it's the thought of a woman at a very bad time in her life; her central problem is that she can't really resolve how she relates to men, her neediness, her dependance. (and I suspect how she relates to authority like the CP too) At the end of the novel she does NOT end up in a relationship, she does not evaluate a man from the "effeminate/not-effeminate" end of things. I think both these distasteful remarks are meant to indicate how immature and non-independant these women are. Lessing is not as directly didactic in her really great work as in her more experimental stuff. Although this should not be taken to imply that didacticism can never produce great art. Lessing's right-wing-drift has robbed her of the broad vision which produced her best stuff, that's all. Without, to qualify that, making her a bad writer. She is tops. To go merrily along, hey, she's sure not to some people's taste. I don't think that little smell remark really indicates her position exactly, but she's no radical feminist and therefore, unless you really like her on her literary merits, yeah, the "so many books, so little time" principle applies. Although she sure has the left nailed, speaking as someone who will be going to an anti-airstrike demo in a matter of hours. >>> Joyce Jones 03/31 4:21 AM >>> I read the Golden Notebook, that was enough for me. I foolishly thought that anyone believing in the equality of all people would only naturally be a feminist. Then I got to the part where she expresses complete disgust with the smell of a menstruating woman stating that she always feared people could smell her menstruating no matter how clean she tried to keep herself. She would pour pots and pots of water over herself whenever she went to the bathroom trying to eradicate the smell, but she always felt it was still there. However, how she loved her smell after she had just had sex with a man, it was delicious. Any woman expressing such revulsion at her normal female bodily functions certainly couldn't describe herself as a feminist. I'm glad she recognizes that she is not. I rather think of her as an anti-womanist and have not had any desire to read anything else she writes. Susan commends Lessing for being an author gutsy enough to risk making her reader "really angry." I love Joanna Russ, and she can make me really angry, however I feel we're both angry about the same things. An author who can make me really angry by stating that I am a lesser being because of my sex or race or personhood in general is not one I feel any further need to let into my life. The old adage of "so many books, so little time" comes to mind. I'd rather spend my time on authors who speak to me as a full person. Joyce ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 02:24:03 +0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: cathy Subject: How to unsubscribe..... In-Reply-To: <211a8498.37022066@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Really sorry to interrupt your interesting group discussions, i'm just going to ask how do i unsubscribe from this mailing list? I'm going to take my board exams three months from now and I thought it best to concentrate on my studying. really, really sorry for disturbing you guys...it has been an enlightening experience though...about the earliest sf feminist influence I can remember is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein...then the next sf book i read was c.j. cherryh's morgaine cycle....i wonder if she ever wrote anything after "exile's gate?" I really would have liked to continue this discussion as there are no, i repeat no one i can talk to here about sf and stuff. Hard to be living on an island...there's no one around to talk to, i'm about the only sf/fantasy female fanatic around here. Hope to see talk with you again after my board exams...wish me luck! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 18:20:05 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: Doris Lessing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >that anyone believing in the equality of all people would only naturally be >a feminist. Then I got to the part where she expresses complete disgust >with the smell of a menstruating woman stating that she always feared people >could smell her menstruating no matter how clean she tried to keep herself. >She would pour pots and pots of water over herself whenever she went to the >bathroom trying to eradicate the smell, but she always felt it was still >there. However, how she loved her smell after she had just had sex with a >man, it was delicious. Any woman expressing such revulsion at her normal >female bodily functions certainly couldn't describe herself as a feminist. >I'm glad she recognizes that she is not. Is this Lessing or is this one of her characters? Is she not describing, or attempting to, the way women feel about their bodies in a society which denigrates them (something which surely comes across v clearly in the _GN_)? Does recognising that such feelings exist (however deplorable) make any woman NOT a feminist? How is DL presenting women as 'lesser beings' rather than individuals finding themselves in situations about which, at the time of writing, there were few ways of articulating women's discomfort and unhappiness? DL places women's experience at the centre of the _GN_, the _Children of Violence_ sequence and in many of her short stories. Lesley Hall lesleyah@primex.co.uk ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 13:27:08 -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: Re: Doris Lessing (Was:Where does Feminist sf Begin?) In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 10:47 AM 3/31/99 -0600, you wrote: >Forgive, oh forgive the snippiness of my last post, and also forgive that I >seemed to imply that no men anywhere liked Lessing. I'm not really mean, >I'm just drawn that way. LOL! By the way, I just read Lessing's story in the Playboy collection, and it was the only one I couldn't bring myself to finish. Interestingly, and perhaps as a contrary sign to the stereotype we're drawing, I stopped reading the story because it was too dry and had very little to do with human feelings/relationships/passions. Joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 13:33:20 -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: Re: How to unsubscribe..... In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990401022403.0079b900@pop.cebu.pworld.net.ph> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 02:24 AM 4/1/99 +0800, you wrote: >Really sorry to interrupt your interesting group discussions, i'm just >going to ask how do i unsubscribe from this mailing list? I just sent this information directly to Cathy, but I'll post it again here because every few months a bunch of people have to sign off, some of them have lost the original welcome letter telling them how to do so, and a small number of them will get quite angry that the listbot hasn't intuited their needs. Therefore, if you're thinking of unsubscribing and have forgotten how, here are the instructions: To unsubscribe, mail a message to: listserv@listserv.uic.edu and in the body of the message type: unsubscribe feministsf That's it! Good luck on your exams, Cathy! Joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 13:34:59 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: bradbury query ... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Thanks Elizabeth! phoebe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 10:53:16 -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: Doris Lessing / Golden Notebook Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I read The Golden Notebook about two years ago, and I saw the main female characters as being essentially tragic figures: desperately trying to figure out who they were and how to deal with their lives, pinned down by the pressures around them, not even sure how to phrase the question. I didn't think any of those characters were prescriptive. In the copy I have, there is a foreword in which she says that she wanted to show "what it was like" before everyone forgets. That doesn't seem to give a lot of room for writing women the way you think they should be, the way they could be at their fullest, etc. For me, one of the most striking (and depressing) moments is when the main character sleeps with someone because she can't come up with any reason not to. I've seen this in several novels about roughly the same time period (Marge Piercy's _Vida_ comes to mind), featuring women who are a little bit adrift. As though many of the old rules are gone (like "no sex outside of marriage") and none of the new rules have come in; and the women in these books have not yet figured out how to set their own rules. In fact, a great deal of _The Golden Notebook_ seems to be about figuring out how to set one's own rules. (With the caveat that, as I say, I last read it a couple of years ago.) I haven't read anything else by Lessing, but GN certainly made me think. jessie ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 14:43:57 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: something way OT but positive! Comments: To: Maryelizabeth Hart In-Reply-To: <3701EB21.3827@ax.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On a similar note -- I've heard that Oklahoma State Legislature has recently proposed a change to the legal definition of rape, to include the cases when the person is "too intoxicated to consent". I still wonder how a law like that could be passed by the good-ole-boy elite of the former fraternity rapists (which in my humble opinion, constitutes the majority of local and state governments) but it did. Or so I hope (I must admit that I really try not to pay attention to the local news -- it's too depressing). But even the fact that it was proposed here really surprised me. Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 15:24:35 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Heather MacLean Subject: Re: Feminist SF vs. Utopia (Intelligence as techno) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 10:25 AM 3/31/99 EST, Madrone wrote: >h.maclean@ZIPCON.NET writes: > ><< at least one > technological or scientific difference >> > >Actually, female utopias that show women in different roles do this as all the >'science' of the 1300-early 1900's defined women as differing from males in >many factors, including intelligence. Anything that imputed intelligence, >physical or emotional strength, decision and problem solving abilities would >have contradicted common knowledge and caused considerable dissonance. This >also would have gone against established religious ideas. I disagree in that women have had and led literary salons, participated in great intellectual debates, etc (I'm referring to France primarily, since that's my academic background--I'm not sure what the deal was in the rest of Europe, and terribly ignorant of other ethnical histories in this category, for which I most humbly apologize). It is only quite recently (1900's, early 20th) that women were -so- repressed as to be popularly conceived of as brainless in "scientific" (pop science, really--and I'm not sure that counts for genre differentiation--reading was not a "popular" passtime in the 12th century) terms. "Science" only really started taking off from the branch of philosophy during the 19th century, and that might be when it started to be posited that women were inherently (scientifically) lesser than men, and thus fulfill your argument as concerns utopias (which is really the point here--I don't want to get side-tracked onto other issues)--but not earlier. So you might have a point for late 18th-20th utopias, but I still feel it's a stretch as far as genre discussions are concerned... and religion doesn't enter into it at all, I don't think. Again, I'm very much restricting my discussion to the genre difference between utopias and SF, please remember--I'm not disputing popular conceptions of women, etc. Heather http://www.zipcon.net/~hlm ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 15:26:32 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Heather MacLean Subject: Re: How to unsubscribe..... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 02:24 AM 4/1/99 +0800, you wrote: >Really sorry to interrupt your interesting group discussions, i'm just >going to ask how do i unsubscribe from this mailing list? I'm going to You may leave the list at any time by sending a "SIGNOFF FEMINISTSF" command to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU. http://www.zipcon.net/~hlm ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 17:01:19 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: Feminist SF vs. Utopia (Intelligence as techno) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/31/99 1:25:21 PM Pacific Standard Time, h.maclean@ZIPCON.NET writes: << and that might be when it started to be posited that women were inherently (scientifically) lesser than men, >> Actually, Newton, sometimes thought of as the father of science (calculus, optics, etc.), lived in the 1700;s and Galileo, the father of Mechanics, lived in the 1600's. Not to mention Aristotle whose famous phrase, sexum infirmum (the infirm, or weaker, sex) haunts us still. Women in those centuries were considered driven by their wombs (hence, hysteria), weak of intellect, and simply incubators of a sperm that carried the baby within it. For Mary to write about women and women's lives, to posit women as intelligent or capable as men, was somewhat similar to a story about clams that talk. It wasn't until the late 1900's that feminism began to shake things up, with women demanding to enter schools (there are still some cartoons in existence from those times that show what idiots women were considered to be), and it wasn't until the early 1970's when quotas were broken and women (who generally have better grades) were able to enter the sciences in any number, that research was begun that questioned the biological superiority of males. The original college quotas limited the entry of women to a few students, to protect the number of male students. I remember this because it was still in effect in some schools when I was in college, and was often excused by humphering that the men needed to have good salaries and that women would only marry anyway. I still feel that if the science of the day states something (i.e., we can't travel faster than light) and a story is based on the characters traveling faster than light, then it is SF IMHO. And if the science of the day (by my reckoning, 300BC to recent present) says women are dumb, then any story that has female characters that aren't dumb is SF not only because it challenges science, or looks at current scientific knowledge from a different viewpoint, but because it does cause major discomfort and encourages readers (who are brave enough) to suffer a broader view of life. Madrone (This is of course European History only) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 16:24:26 -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: Minicon In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hope to see some of you at Minicon in Minneapolis this weekend. There won't be a lot of feminist programming, but Octavia Butler is the guest of honor and and such feminist writers as Eleanor Arnason and Peg Kerr usually show up. Jeanne Gommoll and Debbie Notkin from Wiscon will also be in attendance. And then there's always the Lady Poetesses from Hell. Mike Levy Michael M. Levy levym@uwstout.edu Department of English levymm@uwec.edu University of Wisconsin-Stout off. ph: 715-834-6533 Menomonie, WI 54751 hm. ph: 715-834-6533 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 14:44:10 -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: Doris Lessing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------75507CB4CDD886EE01A07AAF" --------------75507CB4CDD886EE01A07AAF Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit It never fails to amaze me that otherwise intelligent readers can simply equate the musings of a character in literature with a blanket statement by the author about all readers. Anna Wulf is not a picture of mental health in this book, before or after her acknowledged bout of madness. I see her "sexual" (?) obsessions as part of her disturbed mental makeup, which in other situations makes her particularly able to look sideways at the casual and obsessive assumptions of others. Even if it were proved that Lessing in fact hated her own menstrual smell, I would still separate the book and the character from the author. What I know about Lessing shows her to be a pretty cantankerous individual but few writers (and neither do I) fit my ideal image of "what a person ought to be." Everybody tends to assume that "eye level" means her/his own. Is feminism equally dependent on the eye of the observer? Does it mean only what each individual woman herself believes, with no allowances for what others do and believe? I'm reminded of the long-term furor over Molly Bloom in Ulysses. Whether she is or is not a "real woman" seems to depend on the prejudices of an era and of each observer in it. Or how many moviegoers and even some published critics tend to equate individual characters in cinema with all men/women, whites/blacks, Arabs/Jews, Asians/Latinos. Art may feature broad and even universal themes, but characters can't be universally acceptable and convincingly idiosyncratic. Should writers use "focus groups" to find out what all readers find acceptable? Joyce Jones wrote: > I read the Golden Notebook, that was enough for me. I foolishly thought > that anyone believing in the equality of all people would only naturally be > a feminist. Then I got to the part where she expresses complete disgust > with the smell of a menstruating woman stating that she always feared people > could smell her menstruating no matter how clean she tried to keep herself. > She would pour pots and pots of water over herself whenever she went to the > bathroom trying to eradicate the smell, but she always felt it was still > there. However, how she loved her smell after she had just had sex with a > man, it was delicious. Any woman expressing such revulsion at her normal > female bodily functions certainly couldn't describe herself as a feminist. > I'm glad she recognizes that she is not. I rather think of her as an > anti-womanist and have not had any desire to read anything else she writes. > > Susan commends Lessing for being an author gutsy enough to risk making her > reader "really angry." I love Joanna Russ, and she can make me really > angry, however I feel we're both angry about the same things. An author who > can make me really angry by stating that I am a lesser being because of my > sex or race or personhood in general is not one I feel any further need to > let into my life. The old adage of "so many books, so little time" comes to > mind. I'd rather spend my time on authors who speak to me as a full person. > > Joyce ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 17:16:37 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Heather MacLean Subject: Re: Feminist SF vs. Utopia (Intelligence as techno) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Madrone-- Good remarks, and I understand your point about Aristotle--though that's still philosophy, and not the cause-and-effect (hypothesis, test, theory) thinking that Suvin refers to as "scientific" in his definition of SF. Again: utopia and SF differ. If a utopic story were specifically to address the implications of women's equality as part of the plot, part of the -reality- in the heavy sense of the word, then that might become SF (I'm not familiar enough with the early literature to be able to assess that point with any semblance of expertise, however--none of the stuff I can think of, though, does that). After all, there must be a reason one thing is called a utopia, and another, SF... At 05:01 PM 3/31/99 EST, you wrote: > For Mary to >write about women and women's lives, to posit women as intelligent or capable >as men, was somewhat similar to a story about clams that talk. > A story about clams that talk might be fantasy, utopia, surrealism, or SF, depending on many of the plot and structural elements, though, don't you see? > >I still feel that if the science of the day states something (i.e., we can't >travel faster than light) and a story is based on the characters traveling >faster than light, then it is SF IMHO. And if the science of the day (by my >reckoning, 300BC to recent present) says women are dumb, then any story that >has female characters that aren't dumb is SF not only because it challenges >science, or looks at current scientific knowledge from a different viewpoint, >but because it does cause major discomfort and encourages readers (who are >brave enough) to suffer a broader view of life. > I will grant you cognitive dissonance, but not that it is SF, unless the intelligence parity is addressed as part of the reality of the textual world. I'm being reeeeeeeel picky on purpose, because I'm interested in debating the difference between utopias and SF, not how women were treated through the ages. Again--I'm talking genre definition, here, not conceptions of reality. Heather =) .. http://www.zipcon.net/~hlm ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 19:29:25 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: Doris Lessing / Golden Notebook Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/31/99 6:54:46 PM, you wrote: <> I think the operative phrase is "...she can't come up with any reason not to." In that intermediate place and state of flux that Lessing (in my mind) writes very acutely about, a "reason" was needed, for both parties, but especially for the woman because she was the one trying to make an appropriate choice. I think what you have said in this paragraph defines the problem very nicely. Not just setting one's own rules -- that in itself at some points in recent decades was traumatic -- but bogged down on every side by rules already set. best phoebe Phoebe Wray zozie@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 03:34:11 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Seren Subject: Re: BDG: A Fisherman of the Inland Sea (fwd) Content-Type: text "Janice E. Dawley" at Mar 29, 99 11:30:28 pm > I'm a little tardy with this, but I thought I'd make a stab at *A Fisherman > of the Inland Sea* before the month is over... > Hmmm....well I'm a couple of hours late, I'm afraid... > I liked the way "The Kerastion" sketched > out a culture in a few pages of spare prose -- it's more impressive for > being an "unimproved" workshop story -- though I can't read much more into > it than an exercise in imagining strangeness (in this case, a society that > views permanent works of art as desecrations of the Mother). > I really like Le Guin's short sketches. She manages to get across so much information with so few words, but it doesn't *seem* crowded. > "Dancing to Ganam" shows what might happen when a powerfully charismatic > person unbalances a crew. Interestingly, Forest and Riel break with him > early on, fairly clearly because they are women (cute how Le Guin left out > any mention of their sex until halfway through the story, eh?), and Dalzul > and Shan are men. > It's a theme that's sounded many times in the collection: > women are more in tune with base reality than men are. Oh. I didn't read it that way at all - to me, it seemed clear that Forest and Riel were also seeing what they wanted to see, to an extent - they are aware of this possibility - Riel says at one point "And we may be inventing just as much of this as Dalzul. How can we be sure?", but to me the point was that, just as we *don't know* who really went down in the lander in _The Shobies' Story_, we don't know exactly what's happening here. Doesn't it strike you as rather a coincidence that Riel and Forest find that most of Ganam's women form polyandrous marriages, and a good many form lesbian group marriages? But they haven't found anything similar for men - I wonder if Shan would, if he'd been looking. Dalzul is out of step with all three of them, but that doesn't make them *right*, just because he's not. but then, this is just *my* version of reality...:) Le Guin is very good at getting you to doubt everything - maybe this is one of the things I find most SFnal about her stuff. > "Another Story" is the emotional heart of the collection for me. It is > longer and takes more time developing characters and settings. > Me too. I would happily have bought the book for this story alone. > Pamela Bedore asked, "I wonder how much influence Jung and post-Jungian > theorists have had on her writing over the past decade or so..." I think > the answer is a lot. Both Hideo and Ike are characters who have walled off > parts of their own minds out of fear, and both suffer because of it. In her > essay "The Child and the Shadow", Le Guin quoted Jung: " 'Everyone carries > a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, > the blacker and denser it is.' " She goes on to say, "The less you look at > it, in other words, the stronger it grows, until it can become a menace, an > intolerable load, a threat within the soul." (p.59) Hideo and Ike get > another chance; Dalzul does not (nor does he want one). > Sounds like Ged in _A Wizard of Earthsea_.... Thank you, Janice - I really enjoyed reading & responding to that post. seren ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 23:19:23 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: Feminist SF vs. Utopia (Intelligence as techno) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 3/31/99 3:17:30 PM Pacific Standard Time, h.maclean@ZIPCON.NET writes: << "scientific" >> OK, I'm confused. When there was no technology or science that would allow space travel, H.G. Wells (I hope I have this right) wrote a story about travel to the moon. His science was preposterous, and the talking 'ants' on the moon itself impossible. Still...I believe this is considered to be SF. Also poor Paul French, a name taken by Isaac Asimov, when he wrote about plant life on Venus (science ALL wrong). A reminder (as per religion): when Giordano Bruno wrote about planets around the stars and life on the planets in the 1700 (a work as worthy of the title of SF as Wells'), he was executed for heresy. I'm just suggesting that for a very long time, intelligent women were considered as impossible as talking ants and as preposterous as space flight. Trust me on this one. Does the person you refer to who is defining SF include ability of SF to provide the reader with new points of view, and perhaps even paradigms? If the science is speculative at the time of writing and turns out to be wrong (as per Isaac Asimov) does that then remove the work from the list? Actually, I much prefer ---ACH! I can't believe this, I have forgotten her name...the wonderful SF writer who did a short story where women were able to communicate with aliens because male humans had always seemed alien to them.... Madrone, too tired to think...