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cimorenelast night and this morning i read two works of radical feminist dystopic science fiction from the 1970s (walk to the end of the world and motherlines, by suzy mckee charnas). "Imagine the worst and then read Suzy McKee Charnas' Walk to the End of the World. The horror of its 1974 post-Apocalyptic, radical feminist vision will surely exceed your wildest expectations," says one review.
the radical feminist perspective forces them to be highly homosexual and homosocial, and that riveted my attention and got me thinking about those things again.
in charnas's text the male and female societies are both completely homosocial; homosexuality is a natural consequence of that, since members of the other gender are seen as unfit for emotional attachment. the homosociality is completely explicit there, inherent in the universe charnas creates
, in a way it isn't in slash. but slash is also much concerned with the homosocial (as a consequence of its concern with the homosexual), though often in a less explicit manner. in a meta way, gender division and the homosocial are overwhelming participants in slash--here we are, a group of women in our cosy, almost entirely homosocial society, writing porn/romance with the male homosexual/-social as the focus. regardless of our reasons for doing that, gender is problematised.
that might have been more rambly than i intended to be. my point was this:
the radical feminist perspective
on homosociality focuses on the alienation of male from female. in fact, that's arguably the entire basis of homosociality--men in ancient greece had meaningful relationships only with other men because only other men were their equals (according to aristotle, women had more in common with animals than with men). but slash fandom identifies female with male through the homosocial and the homosexual, often projecting homosocial relationships/dynamics within fandom onto the characters.
out in the wilds of profic there's a widespread debate over whether men are capable of writing convincing female characters (or protagonists, or points of view) and vice versa. i'd guess that the more popular view nowadays is that it is possible for men to write women and vice versa, but that it takes talent, or skill, or work, or insight, or a special touch; but that view hasn't won; people will still fight with you over it. that debate has, of course, penetrated slash fandom too.
but actually, what slash fandom intrinsically does is ignore that argument and focus on queerness/desire instead. even in stories with no "coming-out" element--stories in which the sexuality of the principals is never questioned or never mentioned--sexuality, romance, desire, is the special of the day. and every day is the same special. we might debate in the background whether our characters have been girlified and whether that's acceptable or desirable and how a character should go about acting like a real guy, anyway; but we're going right along anyway in our society whose whole existence is founded on the presupposition that through queerness (homosociality/homosexuality), through desire, we're perfectly qualified to write and understand the experience of male homosexual desire, male homosocial love. men aren't aliens or a different social class, they're analogies. they're us.
and it seems to me, thinking about it, that this fannish queer homosociality is so fundamentally different from the homosociality of the greeks and romans as to almost require a completely different word, that they're almost diametrically opposed. slash fandom might glorify the homosocial. but even if we say for the sake of argument that slash fandom actually universally considers homosociality superior to heterosociality, that identification across the gender gap changes it completely. it's not just a side-effect of our taste in porn that doesn't happen to have been a side-effect of the romans'. i see it as mutually exclusive with the class-stratification/radical feminist model of the homosocial, at the most basic level.
ultimately, charnas shows the negative male-like traits in the female societies being grappled with, possibly overcome, by the women's own natures. more than that: her ultra-female society of riders was designed and built from the ground up by women without the slightest participation of men throughout its history, and she makes it completely fundamentally different and rather superior in that particular in-touch-with-the-earth way. there's some compare and contrast floating around, sure, because the similarities to male society are flaws in the female, and the differences are rather exciting. but analogy or identification with the alien is impossible. the unbridgeable gap, the alienness of the sexes, is the foundation of classical homosocialism.
i think there's another post in here about the gap of alienness between the genders in fannish queer homosocialism too, possibly focusing on the exaltation of likeness with reference to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
isilya's fandom homosociality essay "where your treasure is, there also your heart will be" and to her particularly well-chosen quote from "oblivion" by shalott. maybe i'll want to spend a few hours writing it some other day.
the radical feminist perspective forces them to be highly homosexual and homosocial, and that riveted my attention and got me thinking about those things again.
in charnas's text the male and female societies are both completely homosocial; homosexuality is a natural consequence of that, since members of the other gender are seen as unfit for emotional attachment. the homosociality is completely explicit there, inherent in the universe charnas creates
"Walk to the End of the World is a post-apocalyptic dystopia, based on the idea that a small group made it through the apocalypse in a shelter and in the process developed a philosophy of extreme sexism and racism. The non-white races are (to the best of their knowledge) wiped out, so the racism is mainly theoretical, but women, or fems as they're called, are kept as slaves and for breeding purposes and believed to be completely subhuman. While there's a faint plot, it's mostly an excuse to explore the world and culture, which is a catalog of the worst that one could imagine coming out of extreme misogyny." [from here] "In Motherlines, her sequel to Walk to the End of the World, Charnas faces head-on the question ducked by most revolutionaries and social visionaries: what about the baggage that all of us raised in imperfect times will almost certainly carry into the halcyon future? The Riding Women of the Motherlines tribes are unscarred by oppression; the Free Fems are shaped by their horrific experiences as slaves." [from here]
, in a way it isn't in slash. but slash is also much concerned with the homosocial (as a consequence of its concern with the homosexual), though often in a less explicit manner. in a meta way, gender division and the homosocial are overwhelming participants in slash--here we are, a group of women in our cosy, almost entirely homosocial society, writing porn/romance with the male homosexual/-social as the focus. regardless of our reasons for doing that, gender is problematised.
that might have been more rambly than i intended to be. my point was this:
the radical feminist perspective
[allow me to take a little background here directly from my lecture notes from introductory political science and sociology. obviously, only the most vague and general superficial glance at it, disclaim, disclaim.] the radical feminist tradition is associated with marxism because it's a conflict-based view of human society which sees gender as the most meaningful social class and the systematic and violent oppression of women as the driving force in history. one of the defining characteristics of the conflict-based understanding of society is the belief that the only way to bring about social change is revolution, as opposed to gradual change and measures like affirmative action. i'm not sure how many radical feminists actually wanted to separate women entirely from male society, but the trend did exist--and it clearly influenced charnas. as the first linked review said, "Charnas proposes that [brutal] savagery is intrinsic to men and thus all male relationships. The take home message is that women can escape brutalization by men only when avoiding men entirely."
on homosociality focuses on the alienation of male from female. in fact, that's arguably the entire basis of homosociality--men in ancient greece had meaningful relationships only with other men because only other men were their equals (according to aristotle, women had more in common with animals than with men). but slash fandom identifies female with male through the homosocial and the homosexual, often projecting homosocial relationships/dynamics within fandom onto the characters.
out in the wilds of profic there's a widespread debate over whether men are capable of writing convincing female characters (or protagonists, or points of view) and vice versa. i'd guess that the more popular view nowadays is that it is possible for men to write women and vice versa, but that it takes talent, or skill, or work, or insight, or a special touch; but that view hasn't won; people will still fight with you over it. that debate has, of course, penetrated slash fandom too.
but actually, what slash fandom intrinsically does is ignore that argument and focus on queerness/desire instead. even in stories with no "coming-out" element--stories in which the sexuality of the principals is never questioned or never mentioned--sexuality, romance, desire, is the special of the day. and every day is the same special. we might debate in the background whether our characters have been girlified and whether that's acceptable or desirable and how a character should go about acting like a real guy, anyway; but we're going right along anyway in our society whose whole existence is founded on the presupposition that through queerness (homosociality/homosexuality), through desire, we're perfectly qualified to write and understand the experience of male homosexual desire, male homosocial love. men aren't aliens or a different social class, they're analogies. they're us.
and it seems to me, thinking about it, that this fannish queer homosociality is so fundamentally different from the homosociality of the greeks and romans as to almost require a completely different word, that they're almost diametrically opposed. slash fandom might glorify the homosocial. but even if we say for the sake of argument that slash fandom actually universally considers homosociality superior to heterosociality, that identification across the gender gap changes it completely. it's not just a side-effect of our taste in porn that doesn't happen to have been a side-effect of the romans'. i see it as mutually exclusive with the class-stratification/radical feminist model of the homosocial, at the most basic level.
ultimately, charnas shows the negative male-like traits in the female societies being grappled with, possibly overcome, by the women's own natures. more than that: her ultra-female society of riders was designed and built from the ground up by women without the slightest participation of men throughout its history, and she makes it completely fundamentally different and rather superior in that particular in-touch-with-the-earth way. there's some compare and contrast floating around, sure, because the similarities to male society are flaws in the female, and the differences are rather exciting. but analogy or identification with the alien is impossible. the unbridgeable gap, the alienness of the sexes, is the foundation of classical homosocialism.
i think there's another post in here about the gap of alienness between the genders in fannish queer homosocialism too, possibly focusing on the exaltation of likeness with reference to
isilya's fandom homosociality essay "where your treasure is, there also your heart will be" and to her particularly well-chosen quote from "oblivion" by shalott. maybe i'll want to spend a few hours writing it some other day.
(no subject)
Date: 14 May 2009 06:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14 May 2009 07:58 pm (UTC)No, I don't think one of the women in f/f is "the woman", and I'm expected to identify with her rather than the other woman. I do think that women are seen as gendered and men are seen as default and not gendered in our male-dominated cultures. And it's rare for me to experience female characters, especially in North American shows and movies, as being people first and foremost, their gender second. Fic can round out characters, but can only ever supplement, not replace canon for me as a reader, unless a writer is exceptionally talented.
Like someone said in a post I read today about mammothfail, it's a matter of picking which tiresome stereotypical portrayal to go with, rather than writing people as people.
In my everyday life I feel extremely constrained by the unconscious expectations people around me have of me because of my gender, so I'm allergic to anything reinforcing gender roles for women in fandom, which is my safe and happy place. I acknowledge that I am hyper-sensitive, but maintain that I am not being hysterical and fantastic ^_~
(no subject)
Date: 14 May 2009 08:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14 May 2009 08:42 pm (UTC)I enjoyed the movie, but did get annoyed with Andy several times, though I don't remember why any more. I mostly just remember the hotness that is Miranda Priestly.
I'm not sure if I read more about women, but I feel as if I do, since I like both m/m romances and strong female characters, and tend to buy books written by women. I mainly read speculative fiction and classics, with some humor, mystery and historical thrillers thrown in. For school I have to read a lot of rather masculine fiction, and I get very tired of it.
Have you read The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield? A bibliophile used-bookseller who practically lives in her dad's bookstore is hired by an elderly recluse to tell her life's story. The elderly writer finds herself unable to tell a tale without embroidering it, so she needs someone who can get to the facts. Of course she immediately begins spinning an exciting, riveting and humorous tale which probably isn't all true, and the interviewer has to start doing some independent research. The novel is particularly entertaining if you love 18th and 19th century novels the way I do.
(no subject)
Date: 14 May 2009 09:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 14 May 2009 08:49 pm (UTC)Edited to add: whoops. Still need to learn dw tags