Feminist Science Fiction

[Fried Egg]

Taking away a basis on which individuals can make decisions is a policy of control it seems to me.

If I choose not to employ somebody because they are a woman, I am not controlling them, I am only refusing to enter into a particular arrangement with them. If arrangements between two individuals aren't mutually desired, they can't be considered free.

I don't want to come across as somebody who thinks it is a good thing to discriminate against women. I only argue that anti discrimination policies are essentially authoritarian in nature (however benevolent their aim).

 

[iansales]

If I block access to something for someone, that's controlling access to it. But I think we're arguing semantics here

The point remains that the left is more socially liberal than the right, and feminism increases that liberalness.

 

[Nerds_feather]

Taking away a basis on which individuals can make decisions is a policy of control it seems to me.

If I choose not to employ somebody because they are a woman, I am not controlling them, I am only refusing to enter into a particular arrangement with them. If arrangements between two individuals aren't mutually desired, they can't be considered free.

I don't want to come across as somebody who thinks it is a good thing to discriminate against women. I only argue that anti discrimination policies are essentially authoritarian in nature (however benevolent their aim).

How is that different from, say, an employer telling his or her employees that they can't come to work naked? What if they want to? Or how about the state telling citizens they are not allowed to murder anyone, even if they want to?

By extension of your argument, any rule or law would be considered "authoritarian." Doesn't that sort of render the term meaningless?

 

[Ursa major]

How is that different from, say, an employer telling his or her employees that they can't come to work naked? What if they want to? Or how about the state telling citizens they are not allowed to murder anyone, even if they want to?

To veer away even further from the thread topic.

In the first case, the employee is saying**: I don't care if my colleagues and/or customers (whichever is relevant to the business) want to see my scrawny butt. In the second case, the citizen is saying: I want to take a life even though the person whose life I'm taking doesn't wish me to. (Rights do not exist in a vacuum: one person's rights do not necessarily trump another's, which is why we need rules and mechanisms to balance them.)

Arguments like these end up in the vicinity of their own scrawny butts and tend to resolve nothing.


** - Bear in mind () that if the employee works from home, without a video link and with no requirement to meet anyone in their own home, they can work in the nude, if for no other reason than no-one else would know.

 

[Nerds_feather]

To veer away even further from the thread topic.

In the first case, the employee is saying**: I don't care if my colleagues and/or customers (whichever is relevant to the business) want to see my scrawny butt. In the second case, the citizen is saying: I want to take a life even though the person whose life I'm taking doesn't wish me to. (Rights do not exist in a vacuum: one person's rights do not necessarily trump another's, which is why we need rules and mechanisms to balance them.)

Arguments like these end up in the vicinity of their own scrawny butts and tend to resolve nothing.


** - Bear in mind () that if the employee works from home, without a video link and with no requirement to meet anyone in their own home, they can work in the nude, if for no other reason than no-one else would know.

Not exactly clear what your point is here, since I'm not actually arguing that any of these things would be fine and dandy. Of course rights don't exist in a vacuum, but that includes the "right" to not hire someone based on race, gender, sexual preference, etc. By doing so, you're taking away someone else's "right" to be treated fairly regardless of their personal circumstances. Anti-discrimination laws and regulations are premised on the basis that equal treatment trumps the "right" to hire based on circumstances outside the boundaries of the job at hand.

Similarly, public decency laws and regulations are premised on the basis that public standards of behavior trump individual rights to act otherwise outside a private setting. Homicide laws are premised on the basis that the right not to be murdered trumps the "right" to kill. Etc.

In all cases, the state is "taking away the basis on which individuals can make decisions." Is that wrong? No. I chose these examples to demonstrate how normal and usual that is in most spheres of life, and that if you stretch the term "authoritarian" to cover anti-discrimination laws/regulations, then you pretty much have to cover any and all domains of social life in which there are rules.

 

[Ursa major]

Not exactly clear what your point is here, since I'm not actually arguing that any of these things would be fine and dandy.

I didn't suggest (and did not believe) that you were suggesting such a thing -- I apologise if my post came across like that -- only pointing out that your examples in that post, though correctly suggesting that there were competing rights, omitted some of those whose rights would be affected (customers/colleagues in the first, potential victims in the second), an absence which might have persuaded the less particular amongst those who want to assert their own rights to say that there was a simple balance in these examples, to the extent that going one way or the other was just about arbitrary (which simply isn't true).

This meant that they weren't particularly pertinent to Fried Egg's example and Ian's response to it. However, this is:

Of course rights don't exist in a vacuum, but that includes the "right" to not hire someone based on race, gender, sexual preference, etc. By doing so, you're taking away someone else's "right" to be treated fairly regardless of their personal circumstances. Anti-discrimination laws and regulations are premised on the basis that equal treatment trumps the "right" to hire based on circumstances outside the boundaries of the job at hand.

This is pertinent; as you say, there's a balance of rights and the state has finally decided (after millennia of not doing so) that a citizen's right to be treated equally in terms of what they are (as opposed to what they have done, are doing or could do) should trump the personal preferences of an employer. (Actually, it doesn't quite do this: if two candidates for a job are equally suitable for it, other factors - not necessarily to do with race/gender/sexual preference/culture/religion - will obviously come into play. I suppose if a large company always chose to employ candidates of a certain profile, a case could be brought against them; and if the country went in for positive discrimination or quotas - things I personally have a problem with - that would also play a part.)

Similarly, public decency laws and regulations are premised on the basis that public standards of behavior trump individual rights to act otherwise outside a private setting.

I suppose this is a numbers game: even in timid Old Blighty, we have public areas where nudity is allowed. And if nudity was desired by a majority, presumably there would be places where you would have to keep your clothes on.

Homicide laws are premised on the basis that the right not to be murdered trumps the "right" to kill.

And it should: it's a matter of random preference for the murderer; it's and existential matter for the victim.

In all cases, the state is "taking away the basis on which individuals can make decisions." Is that wrong? No. I chose these examples to demonstrate how normal and usual that is in most spheres of life, and that if you stretch the term "authoritarian" to cover anti-discrimination laws/regulations, then you pretty much have to cover any and all domains of social life in which there are rules.

I agree with this, which is why I mentioned rules in my post.

 

[Fried Egg]

First off, apologies for contributing to the derailment of this thread.

If I block access to something for someone, that's controlling access to it.

Even if that thing is yourself or something you legitimately own? Because, let's not forget, we are not questioning property rights in this discussion. It is not the fact that someone can deny someone else access to something they own that is the problem or the justification for anti discrimination laws. It is only making decisions for the "wrong" reasons that they are trying to address.

If I don't own something, the right to control who has access to it, the question of sexual (or any other kind of) discrimination doesn't come up. If you consider property rights a barrier to freedom, then it doesn't matter why someone is denied access.

Anti discrimination laws are not about increasing freedom or liberalising society. They are about trying to make it more fair.

 

[Montero]

Historically in the west we have a Christian derived patriarchal society - so going back to my re-enactment roots - UK 17th century political theory (and I emphasise theory) was that women looked to the chief man in their life (husband/father/oldest brother) the chief man looked up to the next man above him in the social order (boss/landowner/baron etc), and on up to the King who looked up to God.
Then we had a civil war because the country got fed up with a King who would only listen to God (see the Divine Right of Kings) and thought he could ignore Parliament.
Then over the following centuries we had greater political equality for men,trailed by rights for women. There was also a gradual development of greater religious tolerance (can't remember the dates relative to everything else) but roughly first off non-conformist Protestants were allowed to form their own churches. Then at some later point Catholics and Jews were allowed to stand for Parliament.
So moves towards universal franchise for men (happened in a number of stages), followed by universal franchise for women. Married women's property act was late Victorian if I remember correctly which was another important milestone.
The changes in the law as it applied to women, was part of a general movement of equality across society. (Anyone feel like arguing we should no longer have equal votes for all men whatever their financial status, or that religious freedom should be reversed?)

Social perception of women's role in society is a different thing from their legal status. I'd recommend "The Working Lives of Women in the 17th Century" by Alice Clark as a bit of an eye opener. She studied a lot of guild records and estate records to see what women actually did. Her conclusion was that women had greater economic weight and importance in the 17th century than during the industrial revolution (even though their status was less in law). When we still had a craft/farm/estate economy, then

Craft - women were either trained in a craft in their own right and ran a separate business alongside their husband's (if she was of a different craft) and her training was her dowry OR they were a valuable pair of hands in the husband's business. The family was raised by husband and wife together - the kids either playing near their parents or working alongside them.

Farm - farm wife - pretty much like now plus usually ran the dairy and did/supervised all the salting of the meat.

Estate - wife often ran the estate while the husband went to Court and did the politics. One formidable example was Lady Derby of Lathom House who also very effectively ran a garrison during the Civil War from the estate and it was a severe thorn in the Parliamentary side. (To the point that while most castles were "slighted" - the top of the walls taken off, Lathom House was levelled and no-one quite knows the exact site....)

Then along came the industrial revolution and work was separated from where you lived. Once there were children in the family then it was harder for the woman to go out and earn, her financial status dropped. There was also gentrification - for some reason it became fashionable that women should be ornamental, not practical and that attitude spread.

So all the complaints about women, especially married women, shouldn't go out to work is really a Victorian invention. Go back to a Medieval society and a woman who stayed in the house and minded the children and didn't contribute to earning money for the family would be seen as peculiar.


And one final, not historical point - roughly speaking, women are as able as men (with exception of jobs requiring extreme physical strength) - so if women were made to stay at home, the pool of potential employees would be halved. That would have a whopping effect on the economy.

And on a different tack - right wing may be seen as more controlling, but Labour brought in a vast slew of new laws and regulations during their long term (many of which I've heard there was no money to enforce) and the current government has been dismantling some of it.


Added - @Tyler - you mention the birth rate dropping as one knock on effect of feminism. Are you saying that is a bad thing? If so, why?

 

[iansales]

Anti discrimination laws are not about increasing freedom or liberalising society. They are about trying to make it more fair.

Making things more fair is increasing freedom for those being discriminated against. It was only in 1997 that the UK made it illegal for companies to fire someone because they are transsexual. It was only in 2004, transsexuals were given the right to change their gender legally. Their freedoms have increased, society is more fair. A liberal society is a tolerant society; a libertarian society is one where people are free to do whatever they want and sod everyone else.

So, feminism (a desperate attempt to pull the tread back on track...) is also about increasing the freedoms of women - giving them the freedoms men have enjoyed throughout history, which women have not.

 

[iansales]

And on a different tack - right wing may be seen as more controlling, but Labour brought in a vast slew of new laws and regulations during their long term (many of which I've heard there was no money to enforce) and the current government has been dismantling some of it.

First, Labour had shifted to centre right in the 1990s and could hardly be called left wing. Second, those laws the tories want to "dismantle" are ones Labour put into place to protect people - especially in the workplace. Also, many regulations were introduced by the EU, which means they had to put into law in all member-states.

 

[Fried Egg]

Ian, while I can accept that a society in which people don't discriminate on the basis of gender is more fair, I cannot accept that a society that allows one party to force another into an arrangement with them against their wishes is more free, even if it is for silly or "wrong" reasons that they don't wish to. It's non consensual, therefore less free.

A liberal society is a tolerant society; a libertarian society is one where people are free to do whatever they want and sod everyone else.

I think it would be more accurate to say that a "liberal" society balances fairness and freedom where as a "libertarian" society allows freedom to trump fairness.

 

[iansales]

I think it would be more accurate to say that a "liberal" society balances fairness and freedom where as a "libertarian" society allows freedom to trump fairness.

Possibly. But the ability to harm others is not a "freedom". Any "freedom" which is predicated on a lack of that self-same "freedom" for others is a perversion of the word.

But this is all semantics, and completely off-topic. Are you saying you think feminism is a bad idea?

 

[Fried Egg]

Possibly. But the ability to harm others is not a "freedom". Any "freedom" which is predicated on a lack of that self-same "freedom" for others is a perversion of the word.

Exactly, which is why granting freedom for some to force others to enter into arrangements against their will is not really a freedom.

Conversely, if you grant that someone owns something, which entitles them to control who has access to it, then it is not "harming" others if they deny them access. You're not questioning that, since you're only saying they mustn't deny access on the basis of sexual discrimination.

Are you saying you think feminism is a bad idea?

As a social movement, it is a good idea. But I am not so sure about some of the policies that have arisen out of this movement, despite the best of intentions.

 

[iansales]

This thread is about feminism. You've successfully derailed it for most of the day. Please can we get it back on track?

 

[Southern Geologist]

Getting back to feminism--sort of--I think that one of the most prominent reasons for misconceptions about feminism coming from my generation (the Internet Generation, let's call it) arises from the popularity of gender feminism among certain corners of the internet. Unfortunate as it is, to the average internet dwelling guy Rebecca Watson, PZ Myers, and Ophelia Benson are the face of feminism because they're very loud and have a very dedicated audience, but they are not about equality or even for having reasonable arguments on the subject of feminism. There is no room for dissent: Any male who disagrees with anything they say is a misogynist and any female who does is a gender traitor.

That said, I do have an interest in the non-authoritarian* stripes of feminism (one of these days, when I get off my lazy ass, I will be starting a multi-person blog with several seasoned feminist writers on board to help balance out the image of feminism and contribute some good writing to the cause) and my planned WiP progress will involve some feminist themes. I'm not sure I could label it as feminist science fiction honestly, because the feminism is not the point of the novel**, but I will be addressing issues such as sexism in the future, roles/jobs that men and women hold, will have a (male) main character that is intolerant of sexism, and will (hopefully) have some well-drawn female characters that are present as individuals with their own mind and not there simply because the story line says "insert girl here."


*Please note that this is not a pot-shot at gender laws in the work place or anything of that nature. It's about those who wish to suppress dissent by brow-beating anyone who tries to have a discussion with them into submission with unfounded accusations of bigotry.

**This brings up a question, am I using a definition of feminist science fiction that is too strict? Does it qualify if it incorporates feminist themes or only if the point of the work is to advocate for feminism? Victoria, Ian, any thoughts on this?

 

[Nerds_feather]

It's hard to talk about "feminism" as if it were a monolithic ideology. It's more a common orientation towards women's advocacy. What does "women's advocacy" mean? Depends on which feminists you ask. Some are militant, yes. Some are inherently hostile to anything even remotely male, yes. But that's the fringe--the vast majority are not and do not. Most just want women to be on equal footing to men, and that's usually not the case, even in the most enlightened settings.

Besides, many central tenets of feminism are now widely accepted in Western societies, so much that their origin within the feminist movement has been forgotten and they are considered, erroneously, as "inherent Western values." You see this a lot in discourses on Islam, where differences in gender relations between your average Euro/N. American society and your average Middle East/South Asian society are cast as a contrast of such "inherent values," despite the fact that it wasn't so long ago that women couldn't vote, had extremely limited employment options and second-class legal status in the US, Britain and other Western countries. Rather than gender equality, or what passes for gender equality, being an "inherent Western value," it is a value that has evolved--and continues to evolve--in large part because of the hard work of feminists and their sympathizers.

In SF/F, feminism--at least to me--signifies the attempt to get more women writers noticed (which they weren't always) and to get better, more accurate, fairer and less objectifying portrayals of women in SF/F generally, whether written by women or men. Sure there are more radical understandings of what feminism should be or do, but this is the basic, shared premise, and I'd bet its something a lot of us on here share as well, whether we realize it or not.

 

[Southern Geologist]

It's hard to talk about "feminism" as if it were a monolithic ideology. It's more a common orientation towards women's advocacy. What does "women's advocacy" mean? Depends on which feminists you ask. Some are militant, yes. Some are inherently hostile to anything even remotely male, yes. But that's the fringe--the vast majority are not and do not. Most just want women to be on equal footing to men, and that's usually not the case, even in the most enlightened settings.

Completely agreed for the most part, but as I said, on the internet the fringe tend to have the biggest mouths and the biggest following and this results in misconceptions about feminism. PZ Myers is a great example of this. I don't know of many bloggers that have as many readers as him, much less have active regulars that generate hundreds of responses to virtually every post and the man--and his horde of commenters--are not up for reasonable debates on issues related to feminism under any circumstances.

Besides, many central tenets of feminism are now widely accepted in Western societies, so much that their origin within the feminist movement has been forgotten and they are considered, erroneously, as "inherent Western values." You see this a lot in discourses on Islam, where differences in gender relations between your average Euro/N. American society and your average Middle East/South Asian society are cast as a contrast of such "inherent values," despite the fact that it wasn't so long ago that women couldn't vote, had extremely limited employment options and second-class legal status in the US, Britain and other Western countries. Rather than gender equality, or what passes for gender equality, being an "inherent Western value," it is a value that has evolved--and continues to evolve--in large part because of the hard work of feminists and their sympathizers.

A damn fine point that is often overlooked. You have my appreciation for bringing this up.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

This brings up a question, am I using a definition of feminist science fiction that is too strict? Does it qualify if it incorporates feminist themes or only if the point of the work is to advocate for feminism? Victoria, Ian, any thoughts on this?

I would say that any work of speculative fiction which deals with issues relevant to feminism, unless it is overtly anti-feminist, would qualify for discussion. There are overtly feminist works, such as The Female Man, and there are works which raise more questions than they answer (such as many of the works of John Varley, where the characters change sex often and casually and don't think much about it.)

 

[Southern Geologist]

I would say that any work of speculative fiction which deals with issues relevant to feminism, unless it is overtly anti-feminist, would qualify for discussion. There are overtly feminist works, such as The Female Man, and there are works which raise more questions than they answer (such as many of the works of John Varley, where the characters change sex often and casually and don't think much about it.)

Thanks for the reply. This is your topic so I figured that you could set a loose set of rules for what constitutes feminist science fiction. It seems to me that the feminist themes in my future WiP would theoretically classify it in this area but common sense dictates to me that I get it written and get some opinions before I make any firm declarations in that area.

To help get this topic back on track, do you have say, three favorite books that you would label as feminist science fiction?

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

To help get this topic back on track, do you have say, three favorite books that you would label as feminist science fiction?

I would say that the great classic in this sub-genre is The Female Man by Joanna Russ. It manages to be an angry, forceful polemic and also a brilliant work of literature.

Beyond that my choices would be less certain. (I am also sure there are important works I have not read.) I might select The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood and (in the less polemic way I have talked about) The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin (although some feminists were not pleased by the fact that her sexually ambiguous aliens were always called "he.")

Among modern shorter works, I would pick "The Women Men Don't See" by "James Tiptree, Jr." (Alice Sheldon); "When It Changed" by Joanna Russ; and "Wives" by Lisa Tuttle. Special mention must go to the early feminist horror story "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.