jack: (happy/hannukah)
In the last post, I suggested a hierarchy of being pro-X.

1. Thinking that X.
2. Thinking that X needs campaigning for.
3. Actively doing something about that
4. That being a defining feature of yourself
5. Thinking that X is one of few most important issues in society.

It seems many people felt (5) was extremely wrong, I'm not quite sure how to phrase it differently. There's a continuum from thinking X is true/good and I'm an X-ist, to X is overwhelmingly important. Almost any cause has extremists, and they have to go somewhere on the scale, and they go in (5), but (5) also includes people who justifiably believe in the overwhelming importance of X.

Agh. Look behind you, a distracting Richard Dawkins! )
jack: (Default)
Unsurprisingly, I think a lot of it comes down to definition of terms. Identifying as a feminist feels like a big deal, because it's often used in a heated way. But saying you made two related decisions:

1. "I have decided that some problems that affect women are important to me, and something I will do things about"
2. "I have decided that attitude is described by the word feminist"

Are two decisions that are hard to criticise.

Read more... )

footnotes )
jack: (Default)
First

First, I expect everyone to agree Cryptonomicon is a very mathmo book :) It diverges from accepted good practice in lots and lots of ways, dumping vast swathes of information on the reader, leaping from event to event with little linkage, and not really being consistent. But despite and because of that I love it.

There's one place where I'm caught in the middle though, and aspect of this. Several friends dislike the portrayal of women in Cryptonomicon. Several other friends couldn't see a problem.

I would say that (to me) it seems written from a male perspective. All of the main characters are men, and the few women featured (Kia, Amy, Charlene, Beryl) or mentioned (various wives, prostitutes) are not really characters in their own right, but exist only to show how the main characters interact with them and think about them.

(The nearest to an exception is Amy, who is cool. But you can't really say anything about who she is, other than what Randy thinks she is.)

Is this a problem?

There is a problem

The portrayal is more tricky. It's *funny*, perhaps because it throws away a lot of social convention. ("Waterhouse did some penis work of his own, got the clap, had it cured. They were like three-year olds who shove pencils in their ears, discover that it hurts, and stop doing it.")

But probably could be described as objectifying because no women are really characters. Eg. Waterhouse and Mary, he falls in love with her without really knowing her at all.

Someone convincingly described Amy as Randy's fantasy. "Fit exotic adventurous virgin besotted with him." And indeed I got the distinct idea I would be an idiot for doing anything other than serviley agreeing.

There isn't a problem

The absence of female characters is hardly unusual, all books can't have everything.

All it is is an accurate portrayal. No-one can live inside anyone else's head. The main characters are men and we get their ideas. All the main characters make sweeping and not especially derogatory generalisations against groups of all sorts, which is something that people do.

They're simply doing the same thing here. No-one said they were *right*, merely interesting to read about.

And Amy's (and Charlene's and Mary's) disproportionate besottedness might seem fake and disproportionate to us, looking out of Randy's head, but love affairs always do. *Everyone* says "I couldn't believe I was so lucky he/she liked me so much."
jack: (Default)
Something Katy linked to reminded me of this test (Are there two female characters who talk about something other than a man?), and the stories I've written actually don't do very well at all.

Graveyard Shift, Recursive Herbology, and any fanfiction.

OK, this doesn't really count because I'm using Pratchett's characters, and the interesting ones are Carrot, Vimes and the Patrician. If I were writing about the Witches, there would be nothing but female/female conversations, but I have three male characters. It's not my fault :)

Slash, including Mablung/Damrod and the Good Southron.

Again, somewhat handicapped, but a couple of female characters have been the viewpoint.

For instance Alaheda, while the MDaGS never quite made it to the final revision, had a clear image in my mind, and while she fancied M/D, that didn't matter to who she was. Her main drive was her brother, who she was overshadowed by in Southron culture, who could as well have been a sister if the Southron prejudices were against something other than women. An original character with, you know, character. This is good.

Maurice Saldini, Gothique Investigature.

Dinah is Maurice's friend. A priest, generally wise, calm, and tolerant. I liked her very much, but in retrospect, she is defined not as an individual character but as the character Maurice needed to be friends with. People reading early drafts said they barely noticed her at all. (NB: This was written before I met Angel :))

A bit part is a member of her choir whose missingness, and extremity of religion, drives the plot, with whom Dinah has a relationship, though it barely shows.

The only other major character is the rat narrator, who I thought of as male, in true buddy movie tradition, but from a human perspective it doesn't really matter, but I suddenly realise I'm not sure if I ever refer to him other than "it" and "I"?

Flewt and Gerald

Again we see the problem that my main characters are always men. But this is what I can write, nothing else works.

There are nine councillors of the City of Diamonds, with whom I played musical genders. The two most prominent are men, because their position in the plot had become fixed, but for the others it didn't matter, and several came to life when I switched them female-to-male or vice-versa.

And, in Eisvale, a lesbian couple. Ice started as a small character provided for Gerald to talk to, but took on a life of her own and stole two chapters of the story. Her estrangement from Seaflake, and relationships with the other Magi of Eisvale define her, though she quickly develops a wry friendship with Gerald.

Cissy

The story explores Cissy's personality, his platonic relationship with Natalie, and how those are affected by meeting Sean and the Boss, so Cissy, Natalie and the boss's genders and interpersonal relationships are fixed, and Cissy is definitely male.

Sean is the viewpoint. Actually, it would change the dynamic with Cissy a bit, but Sean *could* be female, and he is friends with Cissy.

Usgietha is a bit part female, but she and Natalie never meet because of the plot, and because a lot of the story is driven by Cissy, so we see interactions with him more.

Conclusion

I have a tendency to make characters, major and minor, male by default, counteracted by a reflex to ask "Could this character be different?", and find it difficult to switch later, or to invent female main characters.

But then, all my characters are male geeks with a laconic humour and tendency to perpetrate gratuitously gothic phraseology, because they're all exactly like me! :) I think that is the root cause, I'm still having lots of fun exploring variations on the theme, and haven't really had any really different characters.
jack: (Default)
Feminism means:
"Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes." (The dictionary definiton.)
People who think women are still mostly opressed, who most people think are loonies.
Comments:



ETA:

5 people ticked both
1 person ticked the second
9 people ticked the first

Comments:
"It means the first. feminist, on the other hand, is usually the second."
"You can't spell oppressed! And there are ways in which women are still oppressed. And indeed men are also constrained by gender stereotypes. Woman's hour this morning was talking about the patriachy being a cause of men's shorter life expectancy"

I need to rephrase the second, perhaps.
jack: (Default)
http://www.kcrg.com/article.aspx?art_id=97850&cat_id=123

In summary, an american high-school football stadium's visitor's locker room is completely pink. Now it's a tradition, the idea being it's offputting to opposing teams.

However, a female professor says this is degrading to women. Isn't there something backwards about that?
jack: (Default)
The Darth advert was good. All the others were funny once, and then annoying when you have to watch them again (though still good, but annoying).

I don't normally post feminist rants. I'm used to tbe background level of bad assumptions, most people I interect with are so non-bigoted it hurts (except against chavs), the law's moved on, probably the most important tasks are painfully larting individual misogynists in positions of power, and raising the next generation right.

But sometimes, I just happen to get annoyed. Has the woman in the orange adverts said *anything*, *ever*?

Active Recent Entries