BABYL OPTIONS: Version: 5 Labels: Note: This is the header of an rmail file. Note: If you are seeing it in rmail, Note: it means the file has no messages in it.  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA14825; Thu, 27 Jun 96 03:55:16 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA18764 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 02:55:11 -0500 Message-Id: <199606270755.CAA18764@sea.cs.wisc.edu> Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 02:55:09 CDT Reply-To: listproc@cs.wisc.edu Sender: listproc@cs.wisc.edu From: "ListProcessor v7.10" To: eliz@ai.mit.edu Subject: SUBSCRIBE FEM-SF Elizabeth Willey X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 02:55:09 CDT Reply-To: listproc@cs.wisc.edu Sender: listproc@cs.wisc.edu From: "ListProcessor v7.10" To: eliz@ai.mit.edu Subject: SUBSCRIBE FEM-SF Elizabeth Willey X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Dear user, your request SUBSCRIBE FEM-SF Elizabeth Willey has been successfully processed. Welcome to list FEM-SF (fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu). The system has recorded your address as eliz@ai.mit.edu and it is required that you send your postings from that address, unless the list does not require subscription for posting. The list's owners are swartz wiscon bill.humphries@msn.fullfeed.com artbrau@aol.com . You should contact them if there are any problems. You can reach the owners either directly or by sending a message to FEM-SF-request@cs.wisc.edu. Please do not send unsubscribe requests or other commands to this list; instead direct them to: listproc@cs.wisc.edu The system has assigned you an initial password: 835862109 You may (and probably should) change it by sending the following request to listproc@cs.wisc.edu: set FEM-SF password 835862109 WARNING: You should NOT use your login password as this is not a secure mechanism. This password is to be used when connecting to this server over Internet for interactive processing of requests (send a 'help live' request for more information) or when when you wish to change the address you are subscribed with. In this case, issue the following request to listproc@cs.wisc.edu: set FEM-SF address 835862109 To get more information on how to use this service, please send the command HELP in a line by itself in a mail message to listproc@cs.wisc.edu. To signoff from the list, email to listproc@cs.wisc.edu with the following request: signoff FEM-SF or unsubscribe FEM-SF NOTE: PLEASE DO NOT DELETE THIS MESSAGE! YOU WILL LIKELY NEED IT FOR FUTURE REFERENCE, AND SAVING IT SHOULD REDUCE FUTURE FRUSTRATION! -- Welcome to the FEM-SF community. The 'real' introduction document is still under construction. Here's a short version: Messages for the list should be addressed to: fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu If you need assistance, send mail to: fem-sf-request@cs.wisc.edu To leave the list, send a message with the body text SIGNOFF fem-sf to listproc@cs.wisc.edu Cheers, Bill Humphries List Coordinator  1,, Return-Path: Received: from emout09.mail.aol.com (emout09.mx.aol.com) by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA14837; Thu, 27 Jun 96 03:55:50 EDT Received: by emout09.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA01374; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 03:55:45 -0400 Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 03:55:45 -0400 From: ArtBrau@aol.com Message-Id: <960627035541_143982724@emout09.mail.aol.com> To: eliz@ai.mit.edu, raydavis@best.com Subject: FEM-SF list *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 03:55:45 -0400 From: ArtBrau@aol.com To: eliz@ai.mit.edu, raydavis@best.com Subject: FEM-SF list Elizabeth Willey and Ray Davis- Welcome to the FEM-SF list. Justine Larbalestier nominated you. I hope you enjoy reading this list and hope you will participate in it... Here are a few details about the nuts and bolts of the FEM-SF list: 1) FEM-SF Needles and Thread 2) How do I send mail to the fem-sf list? 3) How do I deal with fem-sf administrivia? 4) Do I need to do anything right after I join? 5) What's my password? How do I change it? 6) Why am I getting back a copy of the mail I send the list? 7) Do I have to make my email address public? 8) Can I change the email address to which my mail is sent? 9) What should I do if I go on vacation? 10) What should I do if I'm getting too much mail? 11) How do I find out the email addresses of fem-sf subscribers? 12) Can I retrieve old messages? 13) How can I learn more about what I can do? 14) How do I quit the fem-sf list? 1) FEM-SF Needles and Thread The fem-sf list was created soon after the 1995 Oakland Potlatch, at which Nancy Springer and Ursula K. Le Guin won Tiptree awards at the fourth annual Tiptree ceremony. Energetic conversation on the subject of feminist sf swirled through the con, and two nice guys -- Bill Humphries and Tom Becker -- offered to set up an electronic forum in which that conversation might continue. The electronic discussion list you have just joined is a forum in which people supportive of feminist sf can discuss the genre and related topics with others who share their interest. You can expect a range of opinions to be expressed here, although you won't find debates such as "women's rights: pro and con" here. Subject matter has ranged from book reviews and book lists to political and anthropological discussions related to gender issues. Members are encouraged to send in thought-provoking comments. The more members who merely listen and lurk, the less lively the discussion list becomes. You may propose the names of friends you think might be interested in this list. If no other member objects to the addition of this new name to the list, the administrator will contact them and notify the computer of the new member so that they can begin receiving mail from the fem-sf list. That's all you need to join the discussion. As for the answers to your technical questions about how the list works, read on.... 2) How do I send mail to the fem-sf list? To send something you've written to the fem-sf list, you should send it in an email message to "fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu." To respond to something someone else sends to the list, you can use the "Reply" feature in your email program (if you have one). Remember that replies go to the entire list. If you want to make a personal reply to a list posting, you should explicitly send mail to the author of that posting. However, If you are an AOL subscriber like me, the "Reply" function automatically creates a new letter form to the person, not the list. So you have to type the fem-sf list address into the address field if you want the messages sent to to the list. 3) How do I deal with fem-sf administrivia? If you'd like to deal with a person, you can send questions about fem-sf administrivia to "owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu". Currently, the list's owner is Jeanne Gomoll of Madison; her email address is "ArtBrau@aol.com". You can send her questions directly, if you're having problems. You can also deal with administrivia yourself, by sending mail directly to the listproc program at "listproc@cs.wisc.edu" from the mail account to which your fem-sf mail is currently being sent. This program ignores the "Subject" of your mail, and expects to see one or more "listproc commands" in the body of your email. These commands were written by a programmer more concerned with writing listproc than with making them easy to understand. So, it's best to deal with these commands using the "by rote" part of your brain, unless you have an unhealthy interest in strange and simple grammars. Individual commands are explained in the rest of the pieces of this section of the FAQ. 4) Do I need to do anything right after I join? When you first join the fem-sf list, you get set up with the default settings for the list. These should be adequate for you, although you might want to change your password to something easier to remember than the random number you're sent with your welcome message. 5) What's my password? How do I change it? By default, your fem-sf password is a random number generated for you by the listproc program. If you don't remember it, you can send the following command to listproc: query fem-sf You'll get back a list of all your current fem-sf "settings"; among them will be your password. Make sure you send this message from the account to which your fem-sf mail is sent! Otherwise, the request will be rejected. To change your password, send the following command to listproc: set fem-sf password You should type this just as it's shown here, except, you should replace the "" with whatever your password is now, and "" with whatever you'd like it to be. For example, if your original password was "8488991" and if you'd like to change it to "ILikeSF", you could send off the following command: set fem-sf password 8488991 ILikeSF 6) Why am I getting back a copy of the mail I send the list? Some people like getting a copy of the mail they send to the list, as an acknowledgement that their mail actually "worked". Other people, particularly people who pay for each message they get, don't want this luxury. To turn this feature off, send this command to listproc: set fem-sf mail noack To turn this feature back on, send this command to listproc: set fem-sf mail ack 7) Do I have to make my email address public? If you're only interested in reading the things posted to the list, you can keep your email address private by sending the following command to listproc: set fem-sf conceal yes This will remove your name from the list of subscribers sent to members of the list who ask "who's on the list?" If you send mail to the list, it will always be distributed to the rest of the members of the list with your email address on it. So, if you decide to contribute to the list, you will not be able to keep your email address private. If you want to make it public again, you can send this command to listproc: set fem-sf conceal no That way, your name and email address will once again appear in the subscriber list. 8) Can I change the email address to which my mail is sent? Yes, you can do this automagically. Send listproc this command: set fem-sf address You should replace "" with your password, and "" with the address to which you'd like your mail sent. For instance, suppose my password is "ILikeSF" and I want my fem-sf mail sent to my new AOL account. I would send listproc this command: set fem-sf address ILikeSF SFReader@aol.com 9) What should I do if I go on vacation? If you go on vacation, and if the list suddenly gets busy, you can experience a problem called a full mailbox. What that means is, whoever provides you with email service has a disk somewhere on which your mail is temporarily stored until you read it. That disk only has a fixed amount of space available for your mail. If it fills up, the owner of the fem-sf list will start getting lots of "bounce messages", one for each piece of mail rejected by your provider. She'll probably have to suspend or delete your entry in fem-sf, and when you get back, some of your mail from fem-sf could be lost. The alternative to this is to turn off your fem-sf email while you're away. When you leave for vacation, send the following command to listproc: set fem-sf mail postpone All the mail posted to the group will be saved for you by the listproc program, and none of it will actually be sent. When you get back, you can reset your entry by sending this command to listproc: set fem-sf mail ack At this point, all the mail that's been held for you will be sent to you in one big gulp, and you can read it at your leisure. 10) What should I do if I'm getting too much mail? One option available to you is to subscribe to the fem-sf list in "digest" form. What that means is, instead of getting all the fem-sf mail as it's posted to the list, you'll get it once a week, very early Saturday morning, in one long posting. If you'd prefer dealing with the list that way, send this command to listproc: set fem-sf mail digest 11) How do I find out the email addresses of fem-sf subscribers? If you are a member of the fem-sf list, you can get a list of all the names and email addresses of the other members by sending this command to listproc: recipients fem-sf 12) Can I retrieve old messages? Yes, you can. The list's archives are stored in log files, inconveniently named "log1", "log2", and so forth. Archives for March of 1995, the first four weeks of the list's existence, are stored in files "log1" through "log4". Files "log5" through "log9" contain mail for the twelve days between March 27 and April 8, 1995. Thereafter, there is one log file a week, each created at midnight Saturday morning and containing the mail sent during the preceeding seven days. The file stored on April 15, 1995 was "log10"; the file stored on June 24, 1995 was "log20"; the file stored on September 2 will be "log30". To retrieve one of these log files, send this command to listproc: get fem-sf where "" is replaced by the name of an existing log file. Only subscribers can retrieve these files. 13) How can I learn more about what I can do? To get more information about listproc, send this command to listproc: help Postscript documentation and help cards are also available. To get a list of the files that are available, send this command to listproc: index doc To get a particular file (here, the user manual), send this command to listproc: get doc userman.ps Be warned! These postscript files are large! 14) How do I quit the fem-sf list? If you want to quit the list, send the following command to listproc: unsubscribe fem-sf You will no longer get fem-sf mail, and you will no longer be able to post to the fem-sf list.  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA15227; Thu, 27 Jun 96 04:16:50 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id DAA18895; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 03:16:22 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA18649 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 02:53:51 -0500 Received: from emout13.mail.aol.com (emout13.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.39]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA21825 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 02:53:50 -0500 Received: by emout13.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA18427 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 03:53:42 -0400 Message-Id: <960627035340_143982510@emout13.mail.aol.com> Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 03:53:42 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ArtBrau@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Blue Mars X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 03:53:42 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ArtBrau@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Blue Mars X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Tom Becker wrote: > I'd like to recommend _Blue Mars_, by Kim Stanley Robinson, for > consideration for the Tiptree Award. I think it's a long shot to win > the award, but it's an excellent book, and it is directly concerned > with issues of feminism and gender roles. The reviews I've read > haven't mentioned the feminist aspects of _Blue Mars_, so let me > expand on this a little further. _Blue Mars_ is, above all, a > utopian novel. Robinson makes it very clear it is a feminist utopia. I love Robinson's Mars series and just finished BLUE MARS this evening. Though I liked GREEN MARS the best of the three books, I enjoyed the last of the trilogy quite a bit, too. It seems to me that Robinson is doing what more and more SF writers are doing who are interested in political issues: he is using his fiction not only to show us a new world, but also to explore real ways that we might actually build those worlds or at least get there... Robinson's view of utopia as the process of striving for improvement (rather than the accomplishment of perfection) fascinates me. It seems to me that there are some really interesting comparisons that can be made on this theme between his Pacific Rim trilogy and the Mars trilogy. I also like his complex images of people struggling with issues of power and community, But I do have a problem with calling the society of BLUE MARS a feminist utopia. It's true that Robinson seems to want us to accept it as one. He says several times that patriarchy is dead on Mars, even though it seems to linger on Earth. Several of his characters say that men no longer abuse women on Mars (though, again, they're a little behind the times on Earth). The thing is, that even though he kept TELLING me that patriarchy had been replaced by a feminist sensibility on Mars, he SHOWED us very little of that change. (Many women raise children without telling anyone who the fathers are. There is a matriarchal community--Dorsa Brevia--which is culturally influential. But the details seemed superficial to me.) As I read, I really believed that people who had witnessed and participated in the terraforming of a whole planet would have a very different sensibility toward ecology and the land. The revolutions and conflicts between people on these issues felt dynamic and complex and REAL to me. In comparison, the apparently concurrent revolution that supposedly killed off the patriarchy seemed not at all rooted in the events of Robinson's story. The patriarchy has died, it seems, because Robinson's characters say it has. And in spite of this death, there don't seem to be any healthy female protagonists in this book. I wish that he had developed one of the Dorsa Brevia women, supposedly unwarped by patriarcharchy. I wish he'd developed the character Charlotte as he developed the Jackie's daughter (and Maia's descendant) Zo, who was as deeply wounded as Maia ever was... > There is a discussion of earlier conflicts between Earth and Mars > puts the Earth-based metanationals in the context of patriarchy and > explains how that is outmoded and dangerous. The Martian political > leadership is presented as predominantly female and that is > discussed in a matter of fact but positive way. Robinson focused on a few women who had political power in Martian society, which was great. (I especially liked the portrait of Nadia at the constitution congress. And of course there was Jackie and Maia, too.) But I didn't get the sense at all that "leadership was predominantly female." We simply got more information about the women political leaders than the male leaders. When Jackie fell out of power within the Free Mars party, several men gained power, but Robinson stopped telling us about that group. > One of the most > important martian cultural groups is a matriarchy. There's an > interesting scene towards the end of the book that shows the newer > generations of martian children becoming more adrogynous with more > equal stature and musculature. That was interesting. I especially liked how the viewpoint character kept trying to argue that they could tell the difference between the male and females, but then kept getting confused. Finally, in this very political book, > the key political issue, immigration from Earth, is analyzed as > being essentially a social problem of assimilating immigrants from > Earth's patriarchal cultures into the much more free and open > martian society. But here again, Robinson TELLS us that this is the crux of the conflict between Mars and Earth, through one of his characters. But we don't actually get to see a conflict that results from the friction between essential Martian culture and essential Earth culture. So, you might ask, where are the gays? Well, > there's one short passage that makes it clear that Mars is a Gay > Friendly Planet, but that's all. You mean the passage which describes men strolling down the street arm-in-arm and the women hand-in-hand? I also thought he was making some comment about non-heterosexuality with the references to the partnership of the two female and one male biologists (from the First One Hundred--was it Vlad and Ursula and --?). But he never talked about that menage a trois: apparently no one knew what the relationship was exactly between the three of them. > Stan has come out as a feminist, > but he still has a ways to go. I hope _Blue Mars_ is just a starting > point. I'll agree with that and second your suggestion that it might be an interesting book for the Tiptree judges to read, even though I am less enthusiastic about its feminist elements. Jeanne  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA15235; Thu, 27 Jun 96 04:16:58 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id DAA18906; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 03:16:30 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA18826 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 02:55:32 -0500 Received: from emout19.mail.aol.com (emout19.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.45]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA21846 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 02:55:30 -0500 Received: by emout19.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA07438 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 03:56:31 -0400 Message-Id: <960627035629_143982907@emout19.mail.aol.com> Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 03:56:31 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ArtBrau@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Organizing WisCon X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 03:56:31 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ArtBrau@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Organizing WisCon X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Laurie Marks asks: > On an unrelated subject, I wonder if Jeanne Gomol would mind > organizing a Wiscon that lasts year-round...? Aaargh....! I know you were mostly kidding, Laurie, but it brings up an interesting topic. WisCon expanded into all nooks and cranies of two years of my life. During most of the last year, I had to turn down freelance work because I had no more of that stuff called free time. I'm happy it's over; I'm very happy to have done it, but I don't know how much I can do for the next WisCon. If there is a next WisCon. First of all, let me thank you all for the extraordinary amount of praise and general hoorays you've sent in my direction during and after WisCon. I never did hit the wall, as I usually do after a big convention (turning into a hermit and avoiding contact with groups of people larger than three). How could I feel tired or grumpy when everyone I met told me what a wonderful convention they were having and what a great job we were all doing. I'd been working toward the weekend for so long, and it actually turned out to be more wonderful than I expected. So thank you all. You made it all worthwhile. Last weekend our group held a "postmortem" meeting at which we discussed details of how WisCon 20 went, and then got around to discussing WisCon 21... Well, it turns out that at this point, only a few people are even thinking of volunteering to chair a department. And no one has come forward to be coordinator. I'm not sure what role I'm going to take on next year, but it can't be as extensive as it was this last year. It's almost certain that we will have to rely on people from outside the group to fill out the committee. So here's my idea: It seems to me that the year-round WisCon that Laurie asked for is happening right here in the FEM-SF list. So maybe this is the logical place to plan out the heart of WisCon for next time. How would you people feel about directing WisCon programming as a group? Steve Swartz will be moving to Seattle from Madison, and although he's said that he may be willing to run a programming list through his spiffy computer program --designed by Jane Hawkins and Steve, by the way -- (which eliminates schedule conflicts and spits out material in correct format for the pocket program, name tag schedules, table tent signs, etc.), he won't be able to chair programming next time. The number of professionals at WisCon 21 will most certainly drop from this year and so will the attendance, I think, I hope. (We simply don't have a large enough committee or adequate number of volunteers to handle another 800-person convention.) I'd like to see the number of programs reduced and for WisCon 21 to be a smaller and more intimate convention than #20 was.There would be fewer tracks of programming; there would be lunch breaks, dinner breaks, what a concept. But I'd also like to maintain the intensity and depth of programming, and also the "positive" aspect of feminist programming (described by Timmi in an earlier message to the FEM-SF list). It seems to me that we could divide programming up into a number of tracks (and keep the essential feminist theme throughout). We could assign a specific number of programs to each of those tracks and fill them with the best ideas and most interesting people we can. It seems to me that the people most qualified to create programming for the next WisCon are the people on this list. How about it? Could I take a proposal to the next WisCon meeting (at which we will decide whether or not there will be a WisCon next year and what its shape will be)? Jeanne Gomoll Artbrau@aol.com  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA20491; Thu, 27 Jun 96 08:18:51 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id HAA21515; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 07:18:05 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA21458 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 07:02:57 -0500 Received: from lynx.dac.neu.edu (lynx.dac.neu.edu [129.10.1.14]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA23090 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 07:02:55 -0500 Received: (from lmarks@localhost) by lynx.dac.neu.edu (Noygdb!) id IAA02769 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 08:02:53 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199606271202.IAA02769@lynx.dac.neu.edu> Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 08:02:53 -0400 (EDT) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Laurie Marks To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Organizing Wiscon Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 08:02:53 -0400 (EDT) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Laurie Marks To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Organizing Wiscon X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Jeanne Gomoll writes: Well, it turns out that at this point, only a few people are even thinking of volunteering to chair a department. And no one has come forward to be coordinator. I thought: It's the bestseller syndrome. You do it once, against all odds, and people think you can do it every single year for the rest of your life. (Not that I've ever experienced this problem.) I think the idea of planning programming over the list is intriguing, and of course I'm willing to play. But we'd still need to have a coordinator to collect everybody's ideas in a big net and spit them back periodically so we could see where we're at. I'd think we could just identify the major discussion threads and give them titles, and there we'd have our program, presto! It sounds so simple, so I know it can't be. I'm sorry the con committee is pooped. Not that I blame them. Laurie Marks lmarks@lynx.neu.edu  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA22699; Thu, 27 Jun 96 09:38:35 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id IAA22491; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 08:37:06 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA22035 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 08:10:37 -0500 Received: from dnrmai.dnr.state.wi.us (dnrmai.dnr.state.wi.us [168.236.2.253]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id IAA23615 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 08:10:36 -0500 Received: from dnrvax.dnr.state.wi.us [168.236.2.250] by dnrmai.dnr.state.wi.us with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 08:09 CST Message-Id: <199606271310.IAA23615@lucy.cs.wisc.edu> Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 08:09 CST Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: HUDSOJ@dnr.state.wi.us (James Hudson IM/8, 608-267-0840) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: RE: Organizing WisCon X-To: ArtBrau@aol.com X-Cc: fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Vms-To: SMTP%"ArtBrau@aol.com" X-Vms-Cc: SMTP%"fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu",HUDSOJ X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 08:09 CST Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: HUDSOJ@dnr.state.wi.us (James Hudson IM/8, 608-267-0840) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: RE: Organizing WisCon X-To: ArtBrau@aol.com X-Cc: fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Vms-To: SMTP%"ArtBrau@aol.com" X-Vms-Cc: SMTP%"fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu",HUDSOJ X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN I want to put a slightly different spin on what Jeanne wrote. Maybe more positive, maybe not. My view is that Wiscon doubled in size, added 50% in length, and more than quadrupled in complexity, and it did so only because of superhuman efforts by several people -- most clearly Jeanne & Scott on everything, Steve on Programming, and Meg on Publications. We've also had several people move away or take 80-hour/week jobs or have babies or become effectively single parents or whatever. So things are a bit thin. Jeanne wrote: >>WisCon expanded into all nooks and cranies of two years of my life. During >>most of the last year, I had to turn down freelance work because I had no >>more of that stuff called free time. I'm happy it's over; I'm very happy to >>have done it, but I don't know how much I can do for the next WisCon. If >>there is a next WisCon. >>First of all, let me thank you all for the extraordinary amount of praise and >>general hoorays you've sent in my direction during and after WisCon. I never >>did hit the wall, as I usually do after a big convention (turning into a >>hermit and avoiding contact with groups of people larger than three). How >>could I feel tired or grumpy when everyone I met told me what a wonderful >>convention they were having and what a great job we were all doing. I'd been >>working toward the weekend for so long, and it actually turned out to be more >>wonderful than I expected. So thank you all. You made it all worthwhile. >>Last weekend our group held a "postmortem" meeting at which we discussed >>details of how WisCon 20 went, and then got around to discussing WisCon 21... >>Well, it turns out that at this point, only a few people are even thinking of >>volunteering to chair a department. And no one has come forward to be >>coordinator. I'm not sure what role I'm going to take on next year, but it >>can't be as extensive as it was this last year. >>It's almost certain that we will have to rely on people from outside the >>group to fill out the committee. That, I think is the key issue -- one faced by Worldcons from about 1980 on, and by most local conventions when they hit the 1500-2000 people size (which is where Wiscon rates, because we have fewer people but more complexity). In our case, it means that if Wiscon is going to continue in the style of Wiscon 20, it needs to draw people from throughout the Feminist SF community -- not just for programming, but for key roles throughout the convention. >>So here's my idea: It seems to me that the year-round WisCon that Laurie >>asked for is happening right here in the FEM-SF list. So maybe this is the >>logical place to plan out the heart of WisCon for next time. How would you >>people feel about directing WisCon programming as a group? Steve Swartz will >>be moving to Seattle from Madison, and although he's said that he may be >>willing to run a programming list through his spiffy computer program >>--designed by Jane Hawkins and Steve, by the way -- (which eliminates >>schedule conflicts and spits out material in correct format for the pocket >>program, name tag schedules, table tent signs, etc.), he won't be able to >>chair programming next time. I think this is a wonderful idea. I want to expand it, though. We have other areas which could be given over almost totally to people from outside Madison, such as the Art Show. And we have a whole bunch of what I think of as "20-hour" and "4-hour" at-con jobs. The "20-hour" ones are where somebody commits to being part of running an area and takes responsibility for that area. For example, the Con Suite needs about 5 such people during the convention, only one of whom needs to live in Madison to do the buying. The "4-hour" jobs are staff who can be trusted to do anything for a limited amount of volunteer time. For the Showcase, I had wonderful people like Sheila Bostick and Terry Garey in that category. I think our community is full of people who would contribute in these ways, if we can locate them and treat them well. (The community has, of course, been contributing in many ways, especially by being on program items -- 200 or so of 800 people -- but we need more in the other areas). >>The number of professionals at WisCon 21 will most certainly drop from this >>year and so will the attendance, I think, I hope. (We simply don't have a >>large enough committee or adequate number of volunteers to handle another >>800-person convention.) I have my doubts about Wiscon 21 being smaller or having fewer pros. I think our success means more people will want to come, not fewer (and ending 4 days before ABA starts in Chicago won't hurt). I don't think it will be any bigger -- we should keep the 800 cap -- and I think we can both simplify a lot of areas and expand the staff internationally. But that's a big challenge. >>I'd like to see the number of programs reduced and >>for WisCon 21 to be a smaller and more intimate convention than #20 was.There >>would be fewer tracks of programming; there would be lunch breaks, dinner >>breaks, what a concept. But I'd also like to maintain the intensity and depth >>of programming, and also the "positive" aspect of feminist programming >>(described by Timmi in an earlier message to the FEM-SF list). It seems to me >>that we could divide programming up into a number of tracks (and keep the >>essential feminist theme throughout). We could assign a specific number of >>programs to each of those tracks and fill them with the best ideas and most >>interesting people we can. It seems to me that the people most qualified to >>create programming for the next WisCon are the people on this list. Agreed, >>How about it? Could I take a proposal to the next WisCon meeting (at which we >>will decide whether or not there will be a WisCon next year and what its >>shape will be)? >> >>Jeanne Gomoll >>Artbrau@aol.com Obviously, we have lots of things to talk about. And one of them is whether Wiscon is the Wisconsin group putting on the convention for the Feminist SF Community, or an annual gathering of the community, held in Wisconsin. I'd like it to be the latter. -- jim  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA25565; Thu, 27 Jun 96 10:50:24 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id JAA23246; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 09:49:37 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA22962 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 09:25:25 -0500 Received: from tom.compulink.co.uk (tom.compulink.co.uk [194.153.0.51]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id JAA24450 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 09:25:23 -0500 Received: (from root@localhost) by tom.compulink.co.uk (8.6.9/8.6.9) id PAA14194 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 15:25:21 +0100 Message-Id: Date: Thu, 27 Jun 96 15:24 BST-1 Reply-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Feminist fanhistory X-Cc: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 27 Jun 96 15:24 BST-1 Reply-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Feminist fanhistory X-Cc: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Just thought I'd offer a correction to Kate's account of feminist programming that was in the WisCon newsletter. Kate said there was no feminist programming at Suncon. This isn't true. Vague as my memory is these days, I'm pretty sure I was _on_ feminist programming at SunCon (thanks to Gary Farber). I can't remember at the moment whether Kate mentioned Patrick's general feminist programming at Iggy, although I can't imagine that she would have forgotten it. One thing that frequently gets left out of those historical notes about feminist fandom is just how important a role Gary Farber and the artist formerly known as Patrick Hayden played in it. Without them, it is unlikely there ever would have _been_ A Woman's Apa - they were the ones who chivvied Susan about the idea and convinced Janet Small and Victoria Vayne to OE the thing. They were also very much in the cheering section as well as going out of their way to provide advice and help for other feminist projects. And they were certainly responsible for the feminist programming for at least two worldcons that I'm sure of. It's an issue they have both always taken _very_ seriously. And I guess that's my cue to say it really does seem to me to be unfair that they aren't on this list. I know some people have personal reservations about Patrick (and believe me, _no one_ has had more reasons than I have to be pissed off at Patrick, in the past), but it just seems to me that we are cheating ourselves as well as Patrick and Gary not to include the two people who may have had the most profound effect in making sure that Susan used her powers for good and got things like AWA going in the first place. Avedon Feminists Against Censorship http://www.fullfeed.com/hypatia/censor.html ------------------------------------------------ "I saw Mortal Kombat and liked it greatly. Sort of like Fried Green Tomatoes, except instead of sensitive female conversation, they had people kicking each other in the head." - Phil Soletsky  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA04525; Thu, 27 Jun 96 13:58:31 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA26693; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 12:57:45 -0500 Received: from cs.wisc.edu (cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.6]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA26095 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 12:26:32 -0500 Received: from (blv-pm11-ip17.halcyon.com [204.29.17.47]) by cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA28494 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 12:26:28 -0500 Message-Id: Date: Thu, 27 Jun 96 10:24:15 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: change X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 27 Jun 96 10:24:15 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: change X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Tom Becker wrote: >This is the epitome of "love thy enemy." Jeez, what a strategy. I mean, >it's brilliant, but when has it worked before? Good luck! Actually, I wasn't being altruistic in the least. The idea that the struggle must ultimately include men changing themselves--- not entirely though at least partially along the lines of "Why can't a man be more like a woman?", to pervert Professor Higgins--- is strictly one of self-interest. The only alternative (besides keeping the intolerable arrangement of the world that we have now) is that we step into _The Female Man_'s world of Jael. I realize that people tend to believe either romantic myths about people engaged in making violent revolution (whether approving or disapproving) or else to think that rage alone is the fuel that generates revolutionary struggle. But myself, I feel sure that there must be those (in El Salvador, Guatemala, & Nicaragua, for instance) who contemplated the decision with some understanding that engaging in a calculated campaign of violence must destroy forever the potential self that acts as a beacon, allowing one not only creative engagement, but to love & forgive oneself. What a terrible, conscious, decision it must be to make, & how terribly much it must be to lose. Of course we're talking hypothetically here. But if one doesn't find deeply internalized sexism acceptable, then major nonviolent change must take place in men as well as women-- because the one thing men as they are now will not allow is for women to live free of sexist constraints-- to live in a different world from themselves, to live unsubordinated to the conceptual structures of masculinism, if not unsubordinated to actual individual men. As for violent sex war-- whether that somewhat mis-named form as described by Gwyneth Jones in _White Queen_ & _North Wind_, or that described by Joanna Russ, or something entirely different-- the idea is growing entirely more conceivable to my mind than it was say ten years ago. (& by the way, don't forget the pleasure with which so many "mainstream" women watched _Thelma & Louise_.) We're seeing rather different kinds of psychological profiles, & extremely different social & political conditions from 40 years ago. The rage in young women today is open & immense-- & not so underground & self-directed, as was the case at around the time the second wave first got going. At this point, in the US at least, violent sex war looks more likely than the prospect of men changing themselves. The "vitrifragist outrages" in England of the first decade & a half of the 20th century should be a reminder of what rage combined with determination can accomplish, even in "gently bred females." The fact that many young women at first buy into the myths about how "equality" is here & how feminism is old-fashioned & selfish & dated doesn't mean they stay fooled for long. Long enough, sometimes, to get dug into the same old pits of old, it's' true. But the rage, the sense of being cheated, when they figure it out-- well. If such women ever get organized-- & yes, there's the rub-- they will be furies. (& not thinking once about losing the power of creative engagement & loving & forgiving themselves, either.) Timmi Duchamp  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA07860; Thu, 27 Jun 96 15:03:08 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id OAA27741; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 14:02:30 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA27334 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 13:43:13 -0500 Received: from mail-out1.apple.com (mail-out1.apple.com [17.254.0.52]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA27957; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 13:43:08 -0500 Received: from scv1.apple.com (A17-128-100-119.apple.com [17.128.100.119]) by mail-out1.apple.com (8.7.1/8.7.1) with ESMTP id LAA04046; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 11:43:39 -0700 Received: from [17.201.21.69] (beckto2.apple.com [17.201.21.69]) by scv1.apple.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id LAA11716; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 11:45:50 -0700 Message-Id: Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 11:43:08 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: twb@apple.com (Tom Becker) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: RE: Organizing WisCon Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Cc: wiscon.concom@cs.wisc.edu X-Sender: twb@mail.apple.com X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 11:43:08 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: twb@apple.com (Tom Becker) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: RE: Organizing WisCon X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Cc: wiscon.concom@cs.wisc.edu X-Sender: twb@mail.apple.com X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN At 8:09 AM 6/27/96, Jim Hudson wrote: >I want to put a slightly different spin on what Jeanne wrote. Maybe more >positive, maybe not. My view is that Wiscon doubled in size, added 50% in >length, and more than quadrupled in complexity, and it did so only because of >superhuman efforts by several people... It also took substantial efforts from just about everybody in SF3. Madison has had pretty much the same people running WisCon and doing fannish good works for the last several years. This built up experience and skill is what made it possible for a relatively small group to successfully put on such an ambitious convention. Now they all need a rest, and they certainly deserve it. > ...if Wiscon is going to continue in the style of Wiscon 20, >it needs to draw people from throughout the Feminist SF community -- not just >for programming, but for key roles throughout the convention. Yes, but we need to be aware that those of us who come to help out won't be quite as efficient as the old SF3 hands, who have seen how everything is done several times. We need to plan and staff accordingly. In particular, I'd like to see previous WisCon committee members come back as mentors. We can bring them cold drinks, rub their feet, etc. -- it will be worth it if we can get the benefit of their experience. I think the coordinator and the hotel liaison need to be locals. Most of the other positions could be filled by out-of-towners. The committee structure should stay the same, except we should reduce the practice of people taking on multiple jobs. Committee meetings will have to go almost completely on-line (does anybody who is/was on InterSMOF have any suggestions?). >Jeanne wrote: >>I'd like to see the number of programs reduced and >>for WisCon 21 to be a smaller and more intimate convention than #20 was. Quite simply, WisCon 21 has to be smaller and more intimate. Go for quality rather than quantity. Give people a chance to talk to each other more, and to enjoy Madison on one of its best weekends. There is the question of whether SF3 is up to running a relaxacon. I know it's a challenge, but somehow I think they can do it. Jim again: >Obviously, we have lots of things to talk about. And one of them is whether >Wiscon is the Wisconsin group putting on the convention for the Feminist SF >Community, or an annual gathering of the community, held in Wisconsin. I'd >like it to be the latter. I think it's fair to say that WisCon is the mother of all feminist SF conventions. And when we come to visit her, she shouldn't have to do all the work. I'm posting this message to Fem-SF and the WisCon concom list, but this thread probably should move off Fem-SF pretty soon. I'd like to suggest that SF3 set up a WisCon discussion list, or use the concom list for that purpose, or something like that. And put me on it, please. Tom -- Tom Becker Hyper Propeller Head twb@apple.com Apple Computer, Inc.  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA09209; Thu, 27 Jun 96 15:27:52 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id OAA28067; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 14:26:53 -0500 Received: from cs.wisc.edu (cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.6]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id OAA27966 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 14:18:37 -0500 Received: from (blv-pm3-ip19.halcyon.com [204.29.16.109]) by cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id OAA28655 for ; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 14:18:33 -0500 Message-Id: Date: Thu, 27 Jun 96 12:16:33 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: change-- postscript X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 27 Jun 96 12:16:33 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: change-- postscript X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Here's a postscript to my last post. Probably its most important underlying assumption is my profound belief that human beings don't have to be as they are now, i.e., that we all can change, that even male human beings can get beyond the back brain that so far has been so overwhelmingly driving them. & I suppose this is the most contested assumption throughout SF. The contrary assumption is put very explicitly & *proudly* in one of the most hateful, sickening stories recently published, Mike Resnick's "Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge." "And never was there a race so different from all his fellows as Man. he was extinct barely seventeen millennia after he strode boldly out into the galaxy from this, the planet of his birth--- but during that brief interval he wrote a chapter in falactic history that will last forever. he claimed the stars for his own, colonized a million worlds, ruled his empire with an iron will. He gave no quarter during his primacy, and he asked for none during his decline and fall. Even now, some forty-eight centuries after his extinction, his accomplishments and his failures still excite the imagination." (from "Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge") We can guess whose imagination this excites. This is what the people who are always talking about keeping the "sense of wonder" mean, too. If I believed the above encapsulation of masculinist ideology, I would drop everything I'm doing, get myself trained in the engines of war, & wreak as much damage against the multinational rulers as I could manage before they caught & killed me--- or no, better: I'd do everything I could to render our species as ineffectual in carrying out the above as possible. (Which would, I suppose, be self-hatred writ large: except that I *don't* believe it.) Timmi Duchamp  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA02753; Fri, 28 Jun 96 03:18:42 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA04819; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 02:18:09 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA04758 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 02:01:46 -0500 Received: from emout10.mail.aol.com (emout10.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.25]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA05245 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 02:01:45 -0500 Received: by emout10.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA09034 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 03:02:21 -0400 Message-Id: <960628030221_342174509@emout10.mail.aol.com> Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 03:02:21 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ArtBrau@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Coelestis and the pits X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 03:02:21 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ArtBrau@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Coelestis and the pits X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Melissa Scott says, > Coelestis is an interesting and disturbing book - wasn't it at least > a long-list title a couple years ago, or even short-listed? Yes, as Tom Becker notes, it was read by the Tiptee judges during my year on the panel. I found myself unable to write an objective comment about it, because I disliked it so much. But, as Elisabeth Vonarburg points out, it stays with you. I can still recall quite a few details from it. To me, it spotlighted the way some people (and all of us some of the time) tend to identify gender as the sum of some really superficial details. A woman is what she looks like with make-up and certain "feminine" clothes or a certain kind of haircut, or a certain demeanor. If those outward signs are absent, some people angrily complain that "you can't tell the boys from the girls," as if it is the girls' and boys' fault that they fail to supply the necessary signals, not the fault of the person who is refuses to see the actual person beneath the gender clutter. I got so damned impatient with the main character that he clung to his need to identify the neuter alien as a woman, that I found it extremely difficult to finish the book. But I'm glad we kept it on the long list. It's STILL a book that sparks interesting conversation about gender. Jeanne Gomoll artbrau@aol.com  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA02762; Fri, 28 Jun 96 03:18:52 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA04797; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 02:17:52 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id BAA04744 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 01:57:05 -0500 Received: from netcom9.netcom.com (netcom9.netcom.com [192.100.81.119]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id BAA05216 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 01:57:04 -0500 Received: (from abostick@localhost) by netcom9.netcom.com (8.6.13/Netcom) id XAA15705; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 23:57:03 -0700 Message-Id: <+t20x8m9LwYY085yn@netcom.com> Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 22:19:58 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: abostick@netcom.com (Alan Bostick) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Coelestis and the pits In-Reply-To: References: X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 22:19:58 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: abostick@netcom.com (Alan Bostick) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Coelestis and the pits In-Reply-To: References: X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN In article , ms001@server1.rscs.net wrote: > Has anyone else read The Apartheid of Sex? The author uses a color system > to discuss sexual identity - the argument is that there are 3 components to > sexuality, aggression, nuturance, and eroticism/sex drive, which Rothblatt > links to the primary colors yellow, blue, and red, so that sexuality stops > being a dimorphic entity (men are aggressive, women are passive, etc.) and > becomes literally a spectrum depending on people's perceptions of their own > preferences and the degrees to which the 3 basic components are expressed. > I wonder if the same or a similar spectrum couldn't describe more than sex > - if nothing else, it's one way of moving gender a little further away from > what I think is the actual issue. I haven't read it, but it sounds like a book I'd want to. What are the particulars (author, publisher, etc.)? -- Alan Bostick | The Necronomicon was not written by the Mad Arab, mailto:abostick@netcom.com | it was written by Scott Adams news:alt.grelb | Alan Olsen http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~abostick  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA02772; Fri, 28 Jun 96 03:19:40 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA04808; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 02:18:02 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id BAA04748 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 01:57:12 -0500 Received: from netcom9.netcom.com (netcom9.netcom.com [192.100.81.119]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id BAA05219 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 01:57:10 -0500 Received: (from abostick@localhost) by netcom9.netcom.com (8.6.13/Netcom) id XAA15709; Thu, 27 Jun 1996 23:57:03 -0700 Message-Id: Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 22:52:19 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: abostick@netcom.com (Alan Bostick) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Feminist fanhistory In-Reply-To: References: X-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Cc: fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 22:52:19 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: abostick@netcom.com (Alan Bostick) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Feminist fanhistory In-Reply-To: References: X-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Cc: fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN In article , avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) wrote: > Just thought I'd offer a correction to Kate's account of feminist > programming that was in the WisCon newsletter. Kate said there was > no feminist programming at Suncon. This isn't true. Vague as my > memory is these days, I'm pretty sure I was _on_ feminist programming > at SunCon (thanks to Gary Farber). I can't remember at the moment > whether Kate mentioned Patrick's general feminist programming at > Iggy, although I can't imagine that she would have forgotten it. Fond of I am of Patrick Nielsen Hayden, he deserves as much credit for Iguanacon's feminist programming as Richard Nixon did for the moon landings. The Iggy feminist program was entirely the responsibility of Margaret Hildebrand, who was at work on it long before Patrick took over as head of programming. Hildebrand was directly inspired by the "Room of One's Own" track of feminist programming at the 1977 Westercon in Vancouver BC, put together by Susan Wood. It is to Patrick's credit, of course, that he gave Hildebrand's program his wholehearted support, despite the fact that the two were on opposing sides of the bitter feud that divided the convention committee. -- Alan Bostick | The Necronomicon was not written by the Mad Arab, mailto:abostick@netcom.com | it was written by Scott Adams news:alt.grelb | Alan Olsen http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~abostick  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA02777; Fri, 28 Jun 96 03:19:59 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA04830; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 02:18:18 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA04761 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 02:01:50 -0500 Received: from emout12.mail.aol.com (emout12.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.38]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA05248 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 02:01:49 -0500 Received: by emout12.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA21629 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 03:02:47 -0400 Message-Id: <960628030246_342174531@emout12.mail.aol.com> Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 03:02:47 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ArtBrau@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Coelestis and the pits X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 03:02:47 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ArtBrau@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Coelestis and the pits X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN I was as struck by Melissa Scott's last paragraph about kidsplay as so many others were > OK, in each case, these were small groups, and strongly imaginative > people. And all of it stopped once "pretending" stopped being > acceptable, about the same time that I was expected magically to > turn into a young lady. But that expectation, miserable burden that > it was, wasn't the logical outgrowth of gender-differentiated play > habits. It was the direct result of a society that decrees that men > and women are fundamentally different and had better behave that > way. In fact, now that I think of it, the fact that we were > expected to stop playing pretend games at the same time that > we were expected to take on more strictly gendered behavior seems > significant: society couldn't function if too many people noticed > that "man" and "woman" are as artificially constructed as the > imaginary people they played at being once upon a time. The thing that I remember as a young girl was playing in small groups, but not only with other girls. In fact, I didn't have many friends from school. I was pretty much a loner there, spending most of my recesses reading or with one or two other outsiders. I didn't bring these friends home or visit their homes. But when I was home, (and not reading), I would play with my brother most often or the boy next door on whom I had a crush, or a girl in the neighborhood who I played with mainly to get the chance to talk to her older sister who I idolized. The game I remember playing most often with either Rick or Tom, the boy next door, was "Starship." We would build spaceship controls by nailing little doodads onto a piece of wood. And then we would draw a map of space on a blackboard; that was our viewport. And in fact, I remember very little of the actual playing; I think we spent most of our time preparing to play -- building the sets, describing the planets we would be encountering, or the area of space we woud pass through. When Rick and I played, one of us was the "captain," and the other was "cap-i-tan" and neither of us attempted to figure out which was a higher rank than the other. It seems to me that Melissa has really got something with her theory that we loose something vitally adaptive when we let go of the ability to pretend as a main component of our playtime. Jeanne Gomoll artbrau@aol.com  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA02952; Fri, 28 Jun 96 03:24:18 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA04841; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 02:18:27 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA04766 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 02:02:11 -0500 Received: from emout07.mail.aol.com (emout07.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.22]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA05251 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 02:02:09 -0500 Received: by emout07.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id DAA09621 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 03:02:07 -0400 Message-Id: <960628030205_342174640@emout07.mail.aol.com> Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 03:02:07 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ArtBrau@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Trina Robbins X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 03:02:07 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ArtBrau@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Trina Robbins X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN I thought I'd pass on to you all something that Trina Robbins told me in a couple phone calls since WisCon. She and a group she belongs to in San Francisco (though I understand that there's a national component too) -- Called "Friends of LuLu"-- are planning to do for feminist comic book artists what WisCon does for feminist SF. She's getting quite enthusiastic about planning this thing. If anyone is interested in contacting her, I would be glad to give you her adddress. Unfortunately she's not on line, or I would invite her to join us here. Jeanne Gomoll artbrau@aol.com  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA07767; Fri, 28 Jun 96 07:44:41 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id GAA06180; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 06:39:08 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA06066 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 06:34:10 -0500 Received: from chic.saglac.qc.ca (chic.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.2]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA06545 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 06:34:08 -0500 Received: from [204.19.37.55] (srv1s4.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.55]) by chic.saglac.qc.ca (8.6.11/8.6.11) with SMTP id HAA25594 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 07:35:02 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 07:35:02 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: ... and carry a Big Wiscon Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mailer: Eudora F1.5.1 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 07:35:02 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: ... and carry a Big Wiscon X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Wiscon 20 was GREAT, but many people with whom I shared a frustration about missing everything (and I did feel I was missing almost everything), as well as going out of my mind *and* body with exhaustion (and I was not even an organizer!:-) told me kindly "next year it will be smaller, more intimate, we'll have time to really talk". Really talk, now, that's what I am looking forward to. Is Wiscon going to buy into "bigger is beautiful", then? If it has shown the way, etc., and the community is now aware and willing etc., let the community organize its own human-sized events, the more (human-sized events) the merrier, let a hundred flowers bloom and all that. We don't need a feminist SF *Fair*. Do we? Every twenty years, may be, but not *each year*? Elisabeth Vonarburg evarburg@saglac.qc.ca "Il s'agit de vivre et non d'avoir raison"  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA15774; Fri, 28 Jun 96 12:10:58 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA10024; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 11:08:13 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA09997 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 11:07:27 -0500 Received: from mhub1.tc.umn.edu (mhub1.tc.umn.edu [128.101.131.51]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA08943 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 11:07:21 -0500 Received: from maroon.tc.umn.edu by mhub1.tc.umn.edu; Fri, 28 Jun 96 11:07:17 -0500 Received: from x136-99.open.umn.edu by maroon.tc.umn.edu; Fri, 28 Jun 96 11:07:17 -0500 Message-Id: <31d4033549db087@mhub1.tc.umn.edu> Date: Fri, 28 Jun 96 11:07:17 -0500 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Terry A Garey (Terry A. Garey) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: wiscon a la carte Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Sender: t-gare@maroon.tc.umn.edu X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Fri, 28 Jun 96 11:07:17 -0500 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Terry A Garey (Terry A. Garey) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: wiscon a la carte X-Sender: t-gare@maroon.tc.umn.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN As long as I'm not in charge of anything I am willing to help out at future Wiscons, because I want there to BE future Wiscons! with the wonderful flavor we had this year! SF Cubed people have lives to live, too. It seems to me that a lot of people who were at Wiscon this year will feel this way--any chance we have to re-create even of tiny bit of what it was like this last year will be worth it. Don't want to be in charge of anythng major because I'm not very good at it (organizing a book in my head is such a monumental task it stuns me for months) but I make a good soldier or even sargeant and am pretty good at improvising. I missed a lot at the con working this time, but so did everyone else, either because there was just too much stuff going on, or because they were working. However, people were so good at telling me what went on at what I missed and I had such great experiences in the green room and showcase, that I didn't feel so bad. Also, compared to the months of pre-con work that the committee had gone through, it was nothing, and besides, Ursula smiled at me. I liked Jeanne's and Jim's suggestions about out-of-town people and programming A LOT! I hearby declare it fashionable to work one's butt off for Wiscon (someone who is actuallly fashionable will have to second this motion because I have been known not to wear black or beige at a gallery opening). Let's make it possible for SF cubed people to have lives and have Wiscon! (If we had it in Mississippi would it be Misscon or Mscon?) fuzzily Terry  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA19628; Fri, 28 Jun 96 14:01:19 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA11278; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 12:54:18 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA11066 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 12:35:35 -0500 Received: from server1.rscs.net (server1.rscs.net [204.249.238.10]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA10140 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 12:35:33 -0500 Received: from [205.247.20.229] by server1.rscs.net via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/940406.SGI) for id NAA03650; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 13:35:29 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 13:42:17 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ms001@server1.rscs.net To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Apartheid of Sex Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 13:42:17 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ms001@server1.rscs.net To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Apartheid of Sex X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN The full title is: The Apartheid of Sex: A Manifesto on the Freedom of Gender. It's by Martine Rothblatt, and it was published by Crown in 1995; the ISBN is 0-517-59997-X. It's an interesting book, though a little weak on how to get where Rothblatt wants to be from here. I also found that it challenged some of my ideas in unexpected places: I was fine with all the ideas until Rothblatt reminded me that I would lose my identity as a lesbian in an uni-gendered world. Brought me up short, which is never a bad thing. M. === Melissa Scott ms001@mail.rscs.net My performance ain't perfect But it's loud and it's fast Widespread Panic  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA22381; Fri, 28 Jun 96 15:11:02 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id OAA12151; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 14:09:41 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA11854 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 13:50:12 -0500 Received: from roatan.ucs.indiana.edu (roatan.ucs.indiana.edu [129.79.10.65]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA11134 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 13:50:11 -0500 Received: from juliet.ucs.indiana.edu (hwhipple@juliet.ucs.indiana.edu [129.79.5.203]) by roatan.ucs.indiana.edu (8.7.3/8.7.3/1.10IUPO) with ESMTP id NAA14042 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 13:50:35 -0500 (EST) Received: (from hwhipple@localhost) by juliet.ucs.indiana.edu (8.7/8.7/regexp($Revision: 1.3 $) id NAA15239; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 13:50:08 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 13:50:08 -0500 (EST) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: hwhipple To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: The Apartheid of Sex (fwd) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Sender: hwhipple@juliet.ucs.indiana.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 13:50:08 -0500 (EST) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: hwhipple To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: The Apartheid of Sex (fwd) X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Sender: hwhipple@juliet.ucs.indiana.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN I haven't seen the book, but there is also a www page: _______________________________________________________________________ Heather Whipple Tell me, what is it you plan to do hwhipple@indiana.edu with your one wild and precious life? http://nickel.ucs.indiana.edu/~hwhipple/home.html --Mary Oliver ---------- Forwarded message ---------- :<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>: GENDER & COMMUNICATION :<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>:<>: I discovered an interesting web site today: "The Apartheid of Sex An Educational multi-media presentation in five parts" by Martine Rothblatt and Janet Laylor. You can find it at http://www.webworqs.com/g3/apart1.html The main point of this slide show is that Gender is as Gender does. We're really not born as boys or girls. We're born as people. We just practice being boys or girls until we have it down letter perfect. Imagine sex wasn't limited to being male or female. Imagine we weren't trapped as prisoners of gender. That kind of world is now possible, and I invite you to join me in establishing this fundamental right to express our innermost soul. It reads sort of like a scrolling slideshow. A graphic and brief text to each slide, separated by a line. All inline graphics expand to full view versions. They make use a very useful metaphor for describing their view of gender: Three primary mental elements -- nurturance, assertiveness and eroticism -- are associated with three primary colors -- blue, yellow and red. Blending mental elements within our souls creates thousands of sexes just like blending primary colors within a palette creates thousands of hues. It takes a strong advocacy stance, but should be very useful for provoking discussion in undergrad classes. It seems especially useful for audiences who haven't considered gender spectrums before. There are weaknesses in the argument, it is pitched to a popular audience and I thought referring to socio-biological arguments as "bullshit" was a bit over the line, but I'd still recommend it. Karla-Tonella@uiowa.edu  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA23365; Fri, 28 Jun 96 15:39:31 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id OAA12747; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 14:39:02 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id OAA12520 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 14:33:41 -0500 Received: from tom.compulink.co.uk (tom.compulink.co.uk [194.153.0.51]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id OAA11783 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 14:33:38 -0500 Received: (from root@localhost) by tom.compulink.co.uk (8.6.9/8.6.9) id UAA24701 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 20:33:37 +0100 Message-Id: Date: Fri, 28 Jun 96 20:33 BST-1 Reply-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Feminist fanhistory X-Cc: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Fri, 28 Jun 96 20:33 BST-1 Reply-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Feminist fanhistory X-Cc: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Alan Bostick wrote: > I can't remember at the moment > > whether Kate mentioned Patrick's general feminist programming at > > Iggy, although I can't imagine that she would have forgotten it. > > Fond of I am of Patrick Nielsen Hayden, he deserves as much credit > for Iguanacon's feminist programming as Richard Nixon did for the > moon landings. The Iggy feminist program was entirely the > responsibility of Margaret Hildebrand, who was at work on it long > before Patrick took over as head of programming. Hildebrand was > directly inspired by the "Room of One's Own" track of feminist > programming at the 1977 Westercon in Vancouver BC, put together by > Susan Wood. > > It is to Patrick's credit, of course, that he gave Hildebrand's > program his wholehearted support, despite the fact that the two were > on opposing sides of the bitter feud that divided the convention > committee. No, that's not what I meant. Hildy was indeed responsible for _THE_ feminist programming - but Patrick also had _general_ feminist programming (in other tracks) and a feminist slant to programming in general. Avedon Feminists Against Censorship http://www.fullfeed.com/hypatia/censor.html Avedon Feminists Against Censorship http://www.fullfeed.com/hypatia/censor.html  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA00665; Fri, 28 Jun 96 18:19:51 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id RAA14024; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 17:19:23 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id QAA13842 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 16:57:27 -0500 Received: from chic.saglac.qc.ca (chic.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.2]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id QAA13420 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 16:57:25 -0500 Received: from [204.19.37.62] (srv1s11.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.62]) by chic.saglac.qc.ca (8.6.11/8.6.11) with SMTP id RAA02005 for ; Fri, 28 Jun 1996 17:58:15 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 17:58:15 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: A New Potential Member Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mailer: Eudora F1.5.1 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 17:58:15 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: A New Potential Member X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN I'd like to recommend, sponsor, whatever, the filmmaker Helene Klodawsky. Those of you who were at Wiscon may remember her: she was the young woman trying to see and film everything and talk to everyone. She's preparing a really interesting documentary on Women and Sf, women as visionaries, and I believe she would find a lot of relevant material on the list. Elisabeth Vonarburg evarburg@saglac.qc.ca "Il s'agit de vivre et non d'avoir raison"  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA23275; Sat, 29 Jun 96 13:33:56 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA21696; Sat, 29 Jun 1996 12:33:22 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA21649 for ; Sat, 29 Jun 1996 12:19:30 -0500 Received: from tom.compulink.co.uk (tom.compulink.co.uk [194.153.0.51]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA19084 for ; Sat, 29 Jun 1996 12:19:28 -0500 Received: (from root@localhost) by tom.compulink.co.uk (8.6.9/8.6.9) id SAA17560 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Sat, 29 Jun 1996 18:19:26 +0100 Message-Id: Date: Sat, 29 Jun 96 18:19 BST-1 Reply-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Gaia's Toys X-Cc: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Sat, 29 Jun 96 18:19 BST-1 Reply-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Gaia's Toys X-Cc: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Timmi Duchamp wrote: > As for recommendations-- let me recommend Rebecca Ore's _Gaia's > Toys_. I *love* this book. [...] > I'd love discussing this book, or any of the above aspects of > it, if anyone else has read it. (Actually, I've been waiting > for someone else to bring it up.) Since I had just started reading _Gaia's Toys_ when this post appeared, I marked it and didn't read it until I'd finished. I finished it last night and had a genuine nightmare about it, waking up drenched with sweat at 3:00 in the morning. I could not stop thinking about it. From the moment I started it, I could feel it tapping into some pretty dark places. For one thing, it depicts one of the scariest futures I've ever seen drawn in sf (or anywhere). It tapped into some of my angriest feelings about "workfare" and some long-standing feelings I have about undercover cops, as well. I've always felt, since the days of narcs actually shacking up with hippies during the sixties in order to bust a few small-time pot dealers, that this kind of undercover work was both morally reprehensible and soul-destroying. The idea of being able to invade people's minds so thoroughly is, of course, repellent. From the moment Alison is busted, watching what her captors do to her is like sitting in the dentist's chair having your teeth drilled. No no no. Paranoia about the government...and corporate power... well, no one has to work too hard to evoke those feelings from me anymore. It's only the fact that I now know these people to be too stupid to do anything very well that keeps me from being in a state of total paranoia all the time. The personal violence in the book was stomach-churning for me - although when I say "violence", I'm not just talking about blowing things up and guns. There's not a lot of beating people up in the book anyway - it's actually worse than that, I think. I'm not talking about the rape scene or the later scene where the rapists are killed. There are two late scenes with on-camera killings, both of which I found shattering, not least because in both cases they involved killings by people who had intimate relationships with their victims. It certainly put a new twist on the idea of parental inability to see one's children as distinct people and love them for who they are. Jesus. I don't know if the book really said anything about ecology, but it sure pushed some emotional buttons. Avedon Feminists Against Censorship http://www.fullfeed.com/hypatia/censor.html  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA23279; Sat, 29 Jun 96 13:34:02 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA21707; Sat, 29 Jun 1996 12:33:36 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA21651 for ; Sat, 29 Jun 1996 12:19:33 -0500 Received: from tom.compulink.co.uk (tom.compulink.co.uk [194.153.0.51]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA19088 for ; Sat, 29 Jun 1996 12:19:30 -0500 Received: (from root@localhost) by tom.compulink.co.uk (8.6.9/8.6.9) id SAA17574 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Sat, 29 Jun 1996 18:19:29 +0100 Message-Id: Date: Sat, 29 Jun 96 18:19 BST-1 Reply-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Apartheid of Sex X-Cc: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Sat, 29 Jun 96 18:19 BST-1 Reply-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Apartheid of Sex X-Cc: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Melissa Scott wrote: > It's an interesting book, though a little weak on how to get where > Rothblatt wants to be from here. I also found that it challenged > some of my ideas in unexpected places: I was fine with all the > ideas until Rothblatt reminded me that I would lose my identity as > a lesbian in an uni-gendered world. Brought me up short, which is > never a bad thing. I think that's the problem with utopia-building - in all truth, all of us who have actually been trying to _work_ toward that future would lose a lot of our place, our work, our roles, our identities in the struggle in the world we hope to achieve. Since so much of my identity is invested in my work to achieve that world, who would I be if I woke up tomorrow and _had_ that world? But it's also why we have to be very careful about what kind of world we plan and how we go about it - why the means are at least as important as the ends. We have to live in this world, and that is what we are adapted for, and who we are. We cannot oppress others on our way to utopia by demanding that they conform to our plan - both because it would cost us our humanity to do so and because we cannot know how useful our plan would be when we don't know when, or if, or how, any of us could actually live there. Or if anyone could. Taking the risk that somehow we will grope our way naturally and humanely toward utopia - evolve toward it - is a big risk indeed, but then so is _any_ path, so we might as well go for the compassionate route. Avedon Feminists Against Censorship http://www.fullfeed.com/hypatia/censor.html  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA02912; Sat, 29 Jun 96 22:50:34 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id VAA24721; Sat, 29 Jun 1996 21:50:04 -0500 Received: from cs.wisc.edu (cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.6]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA24701 for ; Sat, 29 Jun 1996 21:49:32 -0500 Received: from (blv-pm10-ip7.halcyon.com [204.29.17.7]) by cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id VAA01608 for ; Sat, 29 Jun 1996 21:49:28 -0500 Message-Id: Date: Sat, 29 Jun 96 19:46:40 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Gaia's Toys X-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Cc: fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Sat, 29 Jun 96 19:46:40 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Gaia's Toys X-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Cc: fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Avedon Carol wrote: >Jesus. I don't know if the book really said anything about ecology, >but it sure pushed some emotional buttons. I'm sure _Gaia's Toys_ was written out of an immense, fierce rage. It's a rage I respect; it's a rage I share. It took me a week or so to get past the book's initial emotional shockwave before I could really start thinking about it. (I should probably say that I read it last February or March-- & still feel as though it's indelibly printed in my imagination.) I don't think it's just because the future it depicts is scary (except to the extent that it feels in many places horrifyingly likely-- for instance, in its elaboration of just what is likely to happen in the US to children-- & what they would likely grow up to be-- if the "welfare reforms" currently being pushed by the politicians go through in anything like the "moderate" forms being proposed). It pushes emotional buttons because it renders all the abstractions personal & concrete. In its attack on the attitudes spawned in the 80s (& still with us, folks), Ore shows just how personal politics is. The situation of the vet who is one of her three viewpoint characters is the logical consequence of the growing computerization of war by the US, & of its use in slaughtering enormous populations with little *apparent* consequence to the US public. Her characters are struggling to find loyalty truth & honor (not to mention survival) in a world that does everything it can to obscure them. [Every aspect of our lives is already commoditized: Ore didn't make that up. The targeting of children, the commodification of them, is an obscenity that is taken for granted in this culture-- as long as it doesn't go to the lengths of child prostitution-- the lengths considered suitable in Third World cultures.] The eco-warrior actually wants so little. The vet wants so little. The biologist wants so little. (Love, trust, loyalty, the ability to love & trust & be loyal...) I guess what all these free market pushers don't get is that a world ruled in every smallest respect by the market is a world that makes none of those things possible. I don't think the book is particularly about ecology. I'd call it political science fiction. The closest published fiction I can think of that resembles it is Fred Pfeil's _Goodman 2000_-- another shattering, button-pushing book. (_Gaia's Toys_ is better.) Oh, & in this I'm with Ore, too: every new technology in such a society as ours is likely to be applied for the crassest of motives, & with no care for its evil consequences. She elaborates this "fact of life." Isn't the entire 20th century a proof of that fact? But note-- & Ore makes it clear: it's not a "fact of life" as most techie cheerleaders would have us resign ourselves to, but only a fact insofar it's what we have now. Ore's book makes me angry, yes: but it's an anger of struggle, not despair. & though obviously I wouldn't want every novel I read to stoke my rage, I find the rage this book provokes a powerful, desirable outcome.  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA03273; Sat, 29 Jun 96 23:14:38 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id WAA24894; Sat, 29 Jun 1996 22:14:13 -0500 Received: from cs.wisc.edu (cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.6]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA24725 for ; Sat, 29 Jun 1996 21:52:46 -0500 Received: from (blv-pm10-ip7.halcyon.com [204.29.17.7]) by cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id VAA01611 for ; Sat, 29 Jun 1996 21:52:44 -0500 Message-Id: Date: Sat, 29 Jun 96 19:49:06 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: fantasy bibliography--II X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Sat, 29 Jun 96 19:49:06 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: fantasy bibliography--II X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN I've just remembered a better (academic) discussion of fantasy than Todorov's. It's Rosemary Jackson, _Fantasy: the Literature of Subversion_. I think it came out from Verso in the 1980s sometime. (But I may be wrong.) It's really very good, & much more interesting. & unless my memory deceives me, it actually discussed some fiction by women, of all things! Timmi Duchamp  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA20162; Sun, 30 Jun 96 17:14:25 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id QAA05025; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 16:13:52 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id PAA04856 for ; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 15:52:18 -0500 Received: from deputy.pavilion.co.uk ([194.242.128.24]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id PAA26062 for ; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 15:52:14 -0500 Received: from dialup2-24.pavilion.co.uk (dialup2-24.pavilion.co.uk [194.242.131.152]) by deputy.pavilion.co.uk (8.7/8.7) with SMTP id VAA09513 for ; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 21:52:03 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <199606302052.VAA09513@deputy.pavilion.co.uk> Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996 21:52:03 +0100 (BST) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: gajones@pavilion.co.uk (Gwyneth Jones) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Tiptree Award criteria Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Sender: gajones@mailhost.pavilion.co.uk X-Mailer: X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996 21:52:03 +0100 (BST) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: gajones@pavilion.co.uk (Gwyneth Jones) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Tiptree Award criteria X-Sender: gajones@mailhost.pavilion.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN On 18th June Laurie Marks wrote: >I would be riveted, fascinated, and intellectually pleasured to be made >cognizant of such discussions, and wish someone in the know would write >a kiss-and-tell narrative in which they describe what the jury thought >at first and how things changed and how they made the decision they did. > Even a reproduction of the exchanged letters (edited of course to >make them all look even more incredibly smart) would be a thrilling >reading experience to such as I. Is there Any Hope? > Every time I've opened my mailbox since the beginning of June I've been swamped by fem-sf posts, or so it seems but maybe that's just guilt at not making any contribution. I'm snatching a moment to enter into this discussion of the Tiptree Award/Judging/Criteria, and Laurie's post raised some ideas I'd like to address. I was a judge for the '93 award. I don't think I like the idea of the jury's discussions being published; or made public. I think there has to be a certain amount of parliamentary privilige in what people on the jury say to each other, and say about the books being discussed. In other words, you have to be free to be rude, clumsy or tactless on occasion, or you'd be too paranoid to say a word. If it wasn't private, either the discussion itself or the published version would become sanitised, and I don't think either result would be good. On the other hand, if somebody wants to know what happens, what's to stop them being a Tiptree judge? Maybe there should be some kind of pool of willing volunteers, who could be called on to do jury duty? G __________________________%%%%%%__________________________ Gwyneth Jones gajones@pavilion.co.uk ___________________%%%%%------------------------------  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA20169; Sun, 30 Jun 96 17:14:36 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id QAA05036; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 16:14:02 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id QAA04900 for ; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 16:04:21 -0500 Received: from chic.saglac.qc.ca (chic.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.2]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id QAA26141 for ; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 16:04:19 -0500 Received: from [204.19.37.66] (srv1s15.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.66]) by chic.saglac.qc.ca (8.6.11/8.6.11) with SMTP id RAA19826 for ; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 17:05:13 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996 17:05:13 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Fantasy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mailer: Eudora F1.5.1 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996 17:05:13 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Fantasy X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Thank you to everyone who took the time to answer my call about fantasy. My French friend should be able to do something with all this! Elisabeth Vonarburg evarburg@saglac.qc.ca "Il s'agit de vivre et non d'avoir raison"  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA20172; Sun, 30 Jun 96 17:14:38 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id QAA05047; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 16:14:12 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id QAA04908 for ; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 16:08:15 -0500 Received: from deputy.pavilion.co.uk ([194.242.128.24]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id QAA26162 for ; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 16:08:11 -0500 Received: from dialup2-24.pavilion.co.uk (dialup2-24.pavilion.co.uk [194.242.131.152]) by deputy.pavilion.co.uk (8.7/8.7) with SMTP id WAA10275 for ; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 22:08:05 +0100 (BST) Message-Id: <199606302108.WAA10275@deputy.pavilion.co.uk> Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996 22:08:05 +0100 (BST) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: gajones@pavilion.co.uk (Gwyneth Jones) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Blue Mars Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Sender: gajones@mailhost.pavilion.co.uk X-Mailer: X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996 22:08:05 +0100 (BST) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: gajones@pavilion.co.uk (Gwyneth Jones) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Blue Mars X-Sender: gajones@mailhost.pavilion.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN >Oh, and further to my last, I think the Tootsie award is a fine idea. However, I want to comment on something else. In a recent post Tom Becker proposed Blue Mars for consideration *for* the Tiptree award; and then Jeanne Gomoll countered this proposal pretty convincingly. The point I'd like to make is that _Blue Mars_ is just the sort of book I'd like to see considered *by* the Tiptree award jury, which is different from considering it as a possible prize winner. Isn't that what the "long short list" is for? I'd like to see any notable sf novel that has a take on gender roles discussed by the jury. I don't think this would be an enormous task. There aren't that many *notable* sf novels in a year, and fewer still that deliberately make gender role (for better or for worse) part of their agenda. Actually, though I've just said I wouldn't want the judging process to be public, I'd really like to see that long-short list, short-list and winners collection of comments spread around a bit more freely. I bet David Pringle of Interzone (eg) would publish it in the UK. And certainly all the publishers and writers involved should get a copy. But maybe this already happens, in most years? G __________________________%%%%%%__________________________ Gwyneth Jones gajones@pavilion.co.uk ___________________%%%%%------------------------------  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA21533; Sun, 30 Jun 96 18:17:59 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id RAA05264; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 17:17:34 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id QAA05171 for ; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 16:59:51 -0500 Received: from chic.saglac.qc.ca (chic.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.2]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id QAA26364 for ; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 16:59:49 -0500 Received: from [204.19.37.74] (srv1s23.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.74]) by chic.saglac.qc.ca (8.6.11/8.6.11) with SMTP id SAA20193 for ; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 18:00:43 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996 18:00:43 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Jurors in a Pool Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mailer: Eudora F1.5.1 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996 18:00:43 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Jurors in a Pool X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN G. Jones writes: >Maybe there should be some kind of pool of >willing volunteers, who could be called on to do jury duty? Yes. Besides, if the jurors' deliberations are not to be divulged in their entirety, "parliamentary privilege" etc. OK..., there *should* be extensive official public comments on the works, both winners and short-listed works. Why should the jury have to "sanitize" its comments? [am I being naive, here?] Good reviewers don't, do they? A well-articulated comment on a text -- not on its author --, shoudn't have to be sanitized. The Tiptree award main criteria are well known, or should be, and it should come to no surprise to anyone if works are commented upon according to those specific criteria. And since these comments would be depersonalized, I mean, attributed to The Jury, not this or that juror... AH, OK, I see I'm perhaps being naive again: what if there are strongly divergent opinions on this or that work? Well, would it be SO BAD to make them public? Why? United Feminist Front and all that? I thought we were beyond this. Elisabeth Vonarburg evarburg@saglac.qc.ca "Il s'agit de vivre et non d'avoir raison"  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA21541; Sun, 30 Jun 96 18:18:08 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id RAA05275; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 17:17:43 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA05211 for ; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 17:09:32 -0500 Received: from ux1.isu.edu (ux1.isu.edu [134.50.254.5]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA26414 for ; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 17:09:30 -0500 Received: from FS.ISU.EDU by ux1.isu.edu with SMTP (1.37.109.18/16.2) id AA288212669; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 16:11:09 -0600 Received: from FS/SpoolDir by FS.ISU.EDU (Mercury 1.13); Sun, 30 Jun 96 16:11:37 -0600 Received: from SpoolDir by FS (Mercury 1.13); Sun, 30 Jun 96 16:11:18 -0600 Message-Id: <1787D2D45B8@FS.ISU.EDU> Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996 16:11:17 -0600, MDT Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: "FS ATTEBERY BRIAN" To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: fantasy bibliography--II X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.22 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996 16:11:17 -0600, MDT Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: "FS ATTEBERY BRIAN" To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: fantasy bibliography--II X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Can I add a couple of books to Timmi's suggestion of Rosemary Jackson's study of fantasy. One is Kathryn Hume's _Fantasy and Mimesis_, the other my own _Strategies of Fantasy_. Lots of women writers covered in mine; I can't remember whether Hume does much with women's fiction. Brian Attebery  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA23488; Sun, 30 Jun 96 20:03:30 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id TAA05587; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 19:03:04 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id SAA05551 for ; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 18:46:55 -0500 Received: from mail-out2.apple.com (mail-out2.apple.com [17.254.0.51]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id SAA26884 for ; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 18:46:53 -0500 Received: from scv1.apple.com (A17-128-100-119.apple.com [17.128.100.119]) by mail-out2.apple.com (8.7.1/8.7.1) with ESMTP id QAA10242 for ; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 16:46:20 -0700 Received: from [17.201.21.69] (beckto2.apple.com [17.201.21.69]) by scv1.apple.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id QAA07552 for ; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 16:49:22 -0700 Message-Id: Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996 16:47:00 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: twb@apple.com (Tom Becker) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Jurors in a Pool Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Sender: twb@mail.apple.com X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996 16:47:00 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: twb@apple.com (Tom Becker) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Jurors in a Pool X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Sender: twb@mail.apple.com X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN I like the image of a pool of Tiptree jurors. It helps convey the solemnity of the process. About the jury discussions -- a reviewer gets to have a free-wheeling conversation with her friends, and then decide what to say in print. I think we will get the best results if we give the Tiptree jurors the same sort of privacy. I also don't mind the idea of the short list comments being edited (sanitized is too strong a term). Reviewer's comments get edited. We just need good editing, the kind that strengthens and focuses, not the kind that waters down. So far I think we've been very fortunate and the Tiptree jurors have been really good about presenting alternative perspectives in the short list. When you're read the short list, and you still want to know, what *really* happened, I think the right way to get the inside story is to buy a Tiptree juror a drink. You can bring it to her at the pool... Tom  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA29488; Mon, 1 Jul 96 00:39:33 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id XAA07553; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 23:38:53 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA07506 for ; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 23:20:02 -0500 Received: from slip-3.slip.net (slip-3.slip.net [204.160.88.17]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id XAA28508 for ; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 23:20:00 -0500 Received: from sf-pm6-1-65.dialup.slip.net [204.162.160.65] by slip-3.slip.net with smtp (Exim 0.52 #1) id E0uaaPi-0002mm-00; Sun, 30 Jun 1996 21:16:44 -0700 Message-Id: Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996 21:18:51 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: kith@slip.net (Debbie Notkin) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Assorted ... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Sender: kith@pop.slip.net X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Sun, 30 Jun 1996 21:18:51 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: kith@slip.net (Debbie Notkin) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Assorted ... X-Sender: kith@pop.slip.net X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Hi, everyone, Getting this list as a digest has many advantages, but it does leave one with a lot to digest ... *** First, a comment to Karen about boy's play versus girl's play. Everything you write sounds true to me, and valuable, and worth looking at--and I felt like I had seen that pack of girls running through the neighborhood, only the neighborhood was in the Riding Women's country on the other side of the mountains from the Holdfast, and the pack is the kidpack Suzy writes about ... BUT ... I do chafe at the notion that the boys are having more fun. The girls who are making up the rules and setting the process and learning how to compromise aren't doing it inactively, or without a lot of laughter and running around and, well, play. You almost conjure up a picture of a bunch of active boys and a bunch of passive girls, and that's not how I remember it. And I always liked working out the rules (maybe because that's how I was socialized, but it was fun). When my friend Gret chen and I were in the attic building a spy computer out of cardboard and construction paper for our mysterious U.N.C.L.E.-clone, and writing dossiers on everyone in the neighborhood, we *were* having fun. Lots of it. *** Suzy Charnas says: >(we had started talking about a story called"The Dancer and the >Three" by somebody I can't remember, which was about aliens so alien that >nobody could figure out what the heck the story was about, or if there was >one). That's "The Dance of the Changer and the Three" by Terry Carr. *** Tom Becker says: >What I meant was that femininity is career limiting in ways that >masculinity is not, at least here and now. Because our society worships the >almighty dollar above all else, I tend to think of economic discrimination >as worse than other kinds. Your point is well taken-- emotional health is >important too, for many reasons. Well, economic discrimination is certainly bad. And emotional health is certainly important. But even here on this list, where everyone knows this, I feel that we shouldn't ignore the true bottom line: women are being beaten up, and mutilated, and killed every day for being women. _That's_ the most important kind of discrimination there is. *** Warning: BLUE MARS spoilers below: Jeanne Gomoll wrote: >But I do have a problem with calling the society of BLUE MARS a feminist >utopia. It's true that Robinson seems to want us to accept it as one. He says >several times that patriarchy is dead on Mars, even though it seems to linger >on Earth. Several of his characters say that men no longer abuse women on >Mars (though, again, they're a little behind the times on Earth). The thing >is, that even though he kept TELLING me that patriarchy had been replaced by >a feminist sensibility on Mars, he SHOWED us very little of that change. >(Many women raise children without telling anyone who the fathers are. There >is a matriarchal community--Dorsa Brevia--which is culturally influential. >But the details seemed superficial to me.) Wow, do I agree with you. And I'd go even further. I *love* these books; it's ages since a science fiction series has spoken to me this way. And I'll defend them against all comers for their appropriateness for almost any award on the planet that *isn't* gender-related. But I thought he made more gender mistakes than that. I thought the whole section about the "genius" female mathematician rang depressingly false. (I asked my downstairs neighbor the professional mathematician, and he looked at me and said, "Of course there have already been genius-level women in mathematics," and named two.) I thought that Dorsa Brevia was almost conspicuous by how underexplored it was. And I thought that Nirgal's surprise and confusion when he finds that Jackie is carrying a child and not identifying the father was almost disingenuously bad. That happens *now.* It's what sperm bank fatherhood is. By the time of BLUE MARS, there ought actually to be the technology for real parthenogenesis, which Robinson never even acknowledges. "Feminist utopia," no. I don't think so. But read it anyway. There's *so* much food for thought, and so much to learn. **** Working remotely on Wiscon: Yep. Sign me up. Now. -- Debbie Notkin kith@slip.net  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AB12220; Mon, 1 Jul 96 10:19:44 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id JAA12731; Mon, 1 Jul 1996 09:18:05 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA12522 for ; Mon, 1 Jul 1996 08:58:17 -0500 Received: from exploratorium.edu (isaac.exploratorium.edu [192.174.2.1]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id IAA01792 for ; Mon, 1 Jul 1996 08:58:11 -0500 Received: from isaac (isaac.exploratorium.edu) by exploratorium.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1/sro) id AA27054; Mon, 1 Jul 96 06:58:05 PDT Message-Id: Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1996 06:58:05 -0700 (PDT) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Pat Murphy To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Tiptree short, etc. In-Reply-To: <960620205814_139502115@emout08.mail.aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-To: Scharn12@aol.com X-Cc: FEM-SF Recipients X-Sender: jaxxx@isaac X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Mon, 1 Jul 1996 06:58:05 -0700 (PDT) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Pat Murphy To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Tiptree short, etc. In-Reply-To: <960620205814_139502115@emout08.mail.aol.com> X-To: Scharn12@aol.com X-Cc: FEM-SF Recipients X-Sender: jaxxx@isaac X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Did Karen already respond to this? If so, ignore me--I'm a bit behind. We have indeed been talking about exactly this. Probably not every two years, but at least once and soon. Pat Murphy jaxxx@exploratorium.edu On Thu, 20 Jun 1996 Scharn12@aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 96-06-20 11:44:49 EDT, Kjfowler@aol.com writes: > > >(2) Tiptree short stories: seems we have our work cut out for us: there > >should be an anthology of stories (as opposed to novels) noticed or > >nominated for the Tiptree. If not annual, then every two years, at least. > > I think this is a splendid idea; to which publishers might it profitablay be > proposed? > > Suzy >  1, filed,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA23941; Mon, 1 Jul 96 14:37:13 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA16851; Mon, 1 Jul 1996 13:36:16 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA16288 for ; Mon, 1 Jul 1996 13:05:28 -0500 Received: from tom.compulink.co.uk (tom.compulink.co.uk [194.153.0.51]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA05171 for ; Mon, 1 Jul 1996 13:05:26 -0500 Received: (from root@localhost) by tom.compulink.co.uk (8.6.9/8.6.9) id TAA15008 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Mon, 1 Jul 1996 19:05:23 +0100 Message-Id: Date: Mon, 1 Jul 96 19:04 BST-1 Reply-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Assorted X-Cc: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Mon, 1 Jul 96 19:04 BST-1 Reply-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Assorted X-Cc: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Debbie Notkin wrote:Hi, everyone, > BUT ... I do chafe at the notion that the boys are having more fun. > The girls who are making up the rules and setting the process and > learning how to compromise aren't doing it inactively, or without a > lot of laughter and running around and, well, play. Your mileage may have varied, Deb, but the only things I remember really enjoying of the girls games were things with pretty clear rules, like jump-rope. Doll-play and stuff like that I found incredibly boring and frequently nasty. > (I asked my downstairs neighbor the professional mathematician, and > he looked at me and said, "Of course there have already been > genius-level women in mathematics," and named two.) Oh, more than two. For just about any of the areas of "male" genius, when you actually look at the field's history, you discover that not only are there unsung female geniuses, but even _sung_ female geniuses, often pioneers in the field. And what's that we hear about the _real_ female Einstein? Avedon Feminists Against Censorship http://www.fullfeed.com/hypatia/censor.html  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA23945; Mon, 1 Jul 96 14:37:25 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA16864; Mon, 1 Jul 1996 13:36:28 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA16291 for ; Mon, 1 Jul 1996 13:05:32 -0500 Received: from tom.compulink.co.uk (tom.compulink.co.uk [194.153.0.51]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA05174 for ; Mon, 1 Jul 1996 13:05:28 -0500 Received: (from root@localhost) by tom.compulink.co.uk (8.6.9/8.6.9) id TAA15042 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Mon, 1 Jul 1996 19:05:27 +0100 Message-Id: Date: Mon, 1 Jul 96 19:04 BST-1 Reply-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Gaia's Toys X-Cc: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Mon, 1 Jul 96 19:04 BST-1 Reply-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Gaia's Toys X-Cc: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Timmi Duchamp wrote: > It took me a week or so to get past the book's initial emotional > shockwave before I could really start thinking about it. (I should > probably say that I read it last February or March-- & still feel > as though it's indelibly printed in my imagination.) I don't Now you tell me! I simply can't get it out of my head. I am reassured to hear that eventually I will get enough distance to look at it dispassionate, but right now I feel pretty raw. I guess I was also unprepared for it because I can usually describe Rebecca's stuff as books I *enjoy*. And whatever else I can say about _Gaia's Toys_, I did not _enjoy_ it. I think everything you say about it is true. It's a very good, very smart, and very involving book - no doubt about it. It's just that it _hurts_ so much. And yes, I do have a horrible feeling that this, more than anything else, is just the sort of thing they'd do if they had the technology. It's the kind of thing that makes me hope I die before I have to see the future... Avedon Feminists Against Censorship http://www.fullfeed.com/hypatia/censor.html Avedon Feminists Against Censorship http://www.fullfeed.com/hypatia/censor.html  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA12395; Tue, 2 Jul 96 16:16:20 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA08701; Tue, 2 Jul 1996 15:15:21 -0500 Received: from cs.wisc.edu (cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.6]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id OAA08377 for ; Tue, 2 Jul 1996 14:54:39 -0500 Received: from (blv-pm0-ip17.halcyon.com [204.29.16.17]) by cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id OAA05447 for ; Tue, 2 Jul 1996 14:54:29 -0500 Message-Id: Date: Tue, 2 Jul 96 12:52:41 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: narrative transvestism X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Tue, 2 Jul 96 12:52:41 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: narrative transvestism X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN I finished reading James Patrick Kelly's _Wildlife_ last night. I found parts of it interesting (for instance, the chapter "Mr. Boy," which I'd read previously as a short story), parts dissatisfying-- & the whole ultimately disappointing. I don't automatically adopt a consciousness about a man writing from a female pov unless it's egregiously awful. (I'm sure we can all think of examples that have offended our aesthetic-- as well as political-- sensibilities.) But before I reached the end of the book I'd begun to wonder if it the female pov wasn't a major problem for Kelly, particularly when the female character in question is in one of those Heinleinian positions of being the clone/daughter/lover of a rich, powerful, ambitious male. [As I write this I realize that Kelly probably intended to turn Heinlein on his head, but somehow got trapped in the coils of the conceit: I say this on the basis of what I infer about Kelly from his other work, not from any personal knowledge, since I know nothing about him personally.] In the end, the "real women" are monsters; they are controllers; & transcendence is the special province of the (wounded) male. Kelly's "real women" can only become non-monstrous by becoming indifferent to their pain & rising above their personal *female* histories. (& note, Kelly manages to tell us in one brief flash of memory that the original ambitious male who started it all was only trying to escape a clinging, controlling mother.) Trying to drive away this suspicion (which seemed a little obvious-- & speaking of suspicion, I tend to be suspicious of the obvious, though sometimes the obvious is the correct take), I asked myself if maybe it wasn't simply the nature of the characters themselves-- i.e., their being almost all surface-- especially as most of them become digital constructions, & the clones become nearly conflated with the digital constructions in the narrative economy. (& here's another suspicion: that Kelly wasn't aware that he was making such a gratuitous--& probably inappropriate--conflation.) In the same way, the novel makes generational difference identical with sex difference: a very suspicious kind of narrative rule, that increased my dissatisfaction the instant I perceived it. But on further thought, I found that I can't believe that the surfacial/anti-interior projection of personality (sort of the postmodernism with a vengeance view of future identity) wholly accounts for the flatness of the female characterization. Mr. Boy is well-fleshed out, feels like a real person (feels, in fact, like someone the author has been inside of), & is in revolt against being a flat, superficial character. (In fact, he regards his mother's "stunting" of him as an attempt to keep him from becoming a real person with autonomy ["autonomy" figures in what we might call the text's own lexicon].) In this book, it would seem that femaleness is the enemy of depth as well as connection, that femaleness thwarts becoming. (Argh. That last bit sounds like an old, old theme in US literature.") All of which leads me to consider the novel in terms of what Madeleine Kahn calls "narrative transvestism" (_Narrative Transvestism: Rhetoric and Gender in the Eighteenth-Century English Novel_, published by Cornell University Press in 1991). Kahn examines fiction by Defoe & Richardson with particular emphasis on how authors create fictional narrators that are distinct from the author yet have the authority of the autobiographical. She suggests that Defoe & Richardson do this by presenting themselves (as authors) as readers, deciphering their characters. & that they accomplish this most effectively by presenting their authorial personae as being readers & interpreters of the life histories of the female main characters (which they, of course, have created, & whose voices they themselves ventriloquize). Kahn says that Defoe in particular used this technique to solve the narrative problem of how to create a coherent life history. Some of Kahn's general comments about what male authors had to gain from "narrative transvestism" bear rather specifically on 18th century English writing; others, I believe, can be generalized to include, for instance, Kelly's SFnal "narrative transvestism." Here's a sample of the former: "The bluestockings who adopted male education and rhetoric gained access to greater intellectual freedom, just as those women who passed as men in the army gained greater physical freedom. The rhetorical `dressing down' of narrative transvestism gave men access to the same female realm that women were trying to escape. What was imprisoning to a woman was liberating for a man because his participation in that female realm was temporary and because she functioned as a defining other for his male self... It is not by accident that in this period in which women were seeking power and mobility in the real world through male dress, men sought power in the imaginative world through an ersatz female voice. Narrative transvestism offered tot he eighteenth-century male writer a structure that allowed him to explore his society's experimental transgression of boundaries even while it afforded him some distance from and control over the risks he was taking." (pp44-45) "Man is man by virtue of not being woman. Woman is all that man fears and abhors... The great disadvantage (for that hierarchy of power) is that the two poles are inextricably linked; each pole is defined only by its opposition to the other. Thus the male must continually redefine the female to assert his identity as not-female. Moreover, the polarized structure continually undermines itself: the male who is defining himself as not-female, or the self who exists because he is not-other, turns out to be deeply dependent upon this opposite to which he denies all connection. Thus the defining self can never simply exist. He must continually reaffirm his selfhood by negating all others whose very existence threatens his identity." (p.47) "Definition by opposition is characteristic of narrative transvestism." (p.81) "In this world [Kahn's talking about the world of _Roxana_] the search for a self is a competition for scarce resources; what others are you cannot be, and the space they take up defines the space you can inhabit." (p.88) As I write, what strikes me most is that the practice of "narrative transvestism" that I see in Kelly, & like that Kahn sees in Defoe & Richardson, is completely unlike my own experiences writing from male pov's (& sometimes in male voices); considering the first long quote I made of Kahn above, one can begin to see why. Narrative transvestism does different things, depending on one's sex (or is it, one's gender?). Would I say for every case of a male writing from a female pov (or in a female voice) that he is "continually redefin[ing] the female to assert his identity as not-female"? I can think of one case in which my male pov became oppositional (in the sense of "definition by opposition is characteristic of narrative transvestism"). I'm not sure why that bit of writing was different. (It was my first male pov: perhaps that's the reason?) In the story, the male character is deprived of all sex & gender language & markings: he is, effectively, neutered-- in a more literal, total sense than people usually mean that term: the environment he is in forbids any reference of any sort to sex or gender; & all bodies are stripped of any kind of sex characteristics. Among such characters, gender performance is defiant-- but it also, inevitably, ceases to be "performed" at all, until the very idea of it becomes wiped from the character's mind. Was it the story of neuterization that made my attitude oppositional, or was it that I was working originally from a "type" (as I consciously understood myself to be doing from the outset)? Kahn notes that male authors need to adopt strategies (which can vary considerably) for dealing with the threat of the emasculating consequences of narrative transvestism. She suggests that this threat requires the attitude of male authors to be oppositional. Do female authors have to deal with a complementary threat? Or do we feel that we tend not to have anything to lose by the bit of merging involved in creating a male pov? Or can it be that our childhood socialization to be empathetic makes it easy for us to identify (for a time) with a male character? (After all, most of us grew up reading books with male povs that we for a time at least could identify with. Remember LeGuin's comments on male povs vis-a-vis _The Left Hand of Darkness_?) But I've just realized that every time I've used a male pov or voice, I've been writing in a highly dialogical style-- i.e., in which the narrative pov is set up with contradictions that allow (if not outright encourage) the reader to construct an oppositional narrative of her own. (A standard technique to be found in most of my short fiction.) As far as I can recall, the only time I've not used a dialogical style designed to challenge the male pov is when the male in question is marked by some kind of oppression (usually a racist or sex-orientation oppression). But even so: in the process of writing these male povs I tend not to think in terms of sex opposition, but imaginative identity. Conclusion: on the basis of my own experience, I think this "narrative transvestism" works differently for male writers than it does for female writers. I think this may be the reason we find many female povs or narrators that have been created by male authors deeply unsatisfying. Comments, anyone? Timmi Duchamp  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA23299; Tue, 2 Jul 96 21:09:37 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id UAA12979; Tue, 2 Jul 1996 20:09:16 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id UAA12843 for ; Tue, 2 Jul 1996 20:05:20 -0500 Received: from relay1.geis.com (relay1.geis.com [192.77.188.2]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id UAA24853 for ; Tue, 2 Jul 1996 20:05:18 -0500 Received: by relay1.geis.com (1.37.109.16/15.6) id AA212985829; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 01:03:49 GMT Received: by (genie.)relay1.geis.com ( 2rem/1.40 ) ; Wed, 3 Jul 96 01:03:49 UTC 0000 ( from INTERNET# ; Wed, 3 Jul 96 01:03:37 UTC 0000) Message-Id: <199607030103.AA212985829@relay1.geis.com> Date: Wed, 3 Jul 96 00:54:00 UTC 0000 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: s.sturgis2@genie.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Assorted Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Genie-Qk-From: S.STURGIS2 X-Genie-Qk-Id: 6343536 X-Genie-Gateway-Id: 755070 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 3 Jul 96 00:54:00 UTC 0000 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: s.sturgis2@genie.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Assorted X-Genie-Qk-From: S.STURGIS2 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Timmi, reading your "narrative transvestism" post got me thinking (again!) about one of my obsessions: why women novelists, at least in f/sf, are much more likely to create gay male protagonists than lesbian ones. > . . . the threat of the emasculating > consequences of narrative transvestism. [Kahn] suggests that this > threat requires the attitude of male authors to be oppositional. > Do female authors have to deal with a complementary threat? Or do we > feel that we tend not to have anything to lose by the bit of merging > involved in creating a male pov? Perhaps there is more at risk for a woman (either heterosexual or closeted bi/lesbian) in creating a lesbian pov? It's also interesting to contemplate narrative transvestism in connection with THE MEMOIRS OF ELIZABETH FRANKENSTEIN. Which I had to interrupt in order to reread SHADOW MAN before Gaylaxicon, not to mention reading play mss. for the New England New Play Competition, but -- so far I believe Elizabeth F's pov, and it's rather a jolt to see a man's name on the cover of the book. About Tiptree jurors' deliberations: I think the deliberations themselves, like the notes I make when writing a review, have to be confidential. This does not mean that the published annotations can't contradict each other, or mention the drawbacks of a winner or shortlisted work. Think of the deliberations as a rough draft. Most of us don't publish our rough drafts. The idea of hypothetical future Ph.D. students with nothing better to do effing around in my discard files . . . ! Yecchh! Susanna S. -30-  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA10295; Wed, 3 Jul 96 09:31:54 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id IAA23563; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 08:30:47 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA23387 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 08:23:26 -0500 Received: from server1.rscs.net (server1.rscs.net [204.249.238.10]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA00570 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 08:23:23 -0500 Received: from [205.247.20.232] by server1.rscs.net via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/940406.SGI) for id JAA04830; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 09:23:13 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 09:30:07 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ms001@server1.rscs.net To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Tiptree Judging Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 09:30:07 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ms001@server1.rscs.net To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Tiptree Judging X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN I've been really reluctant to say anything on the subject, since Shadow Man has been one of the books mentioned as missing. But Gwyneth Jones raised a good point in regard to making the short list/long list notes more available. She said: > I'd really like to see that long-short list, short-list and >winners collection of comments spread around a bit more freely. I bet David >Pringle of Interzone (eg) would publish it in the UK. And certainly all the >publishers and writers involved should get a copy. But maybe this already >happens, in most years? I completely agree that the list(s) could be more widely distributed. I've actually only seen a couple of them - once because the award was given at a Readercon that I attended and it was in the program book, and once because a friend sent me the list. So I suspect it's pretty safe to assume that plenty of other people further outside feminist fandom haven't seen the lists either. (Does this explain some of why the founders have felt that they're not pulling the pig tails they expected?) Publication in a 'zine or three would be a marvellous idea (and I can give you the email address of the managing editor of a queer sf review 'zine that I review for, if that seems a possibly appropriate venue, though we have a pretty small circulation) It would also be nice if the writers and publishers did get copies of the list(s) automatically: that's one way that the Lambda Literary Awards have been publicized, and it seems to be working. I assume a press release is routinely circulated to announce the winners? I realize that including the short list comments in that would increase the press release beyond the usual limits, but maybe the release sent to SF outlets should include it? I can see arguments both for and against, but it might be worth it, as the Tiptree seems to be the only SF award that does annotate, and because the judging criteria are so different from most other SF awards. I'd also like to add my voice to the chorus stressing the importance of the annotated short/long lists. There's a huge difference between knowing why the judges made their decisions, and simply looking at a list of titles: somebody's always going to be angry - an inevitable and maybe even a healthy outgrowth of the award process - but, speaking here from personal experience, there's a hell of a lot of a difference between the anger of being rejected for known cause, and the anger of simply being ignored. Eg., knowing that the judges were "aware of" the absent lesbians in Little Sisters of the Apocalypse doesn't tell me what was present that made it worth their while. M. === Melissa Scott ms001@mail.rscs.net My performance ain't perfect But it's loud and it's fast Widespread Panic  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA10315; Wed, 3 Jul 96 09:32:25 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id IAA23574; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 08:30:56 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA23386 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 08:23:27 -0500 Received: from server1.rscs.net (server1.rscs.net [204.249.238.10]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA00569 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 08:23:23 -0500 Received: from [205.247.20.232] by server1.rscs.net via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/940406.SGI) for id JAA04833; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 09:23:18 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 09:30:12 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ms001@server1.rscs.net To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narrative transvestism Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 09:30:12 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ms001@server1.rscs.net To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narrative transvestism X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Timmi said: >Conclusion: on the basis of my own experience, I think this "narrative >transvestism" works differently for male writers than it does >for female writers. I think this may be the reason we find many >female povs or narrators that have been created by male authors >deeply unsatisfying. I'd certainly agree with that. I'd also point out that a lot of my gay male friends find the gay male characters written by straight women to be deeply unsatisfying, and I think it's for similar reasons. I suspect that many straight women write about gay men/from a gay male point of view to resolve essentially straight and female issues (I'm thinking about China Mountain Zhang and Ethan of Athos), issues that are in large part irrelevant to and unrepresentative of the gay experience. For that matter, you can find the same kinds of problems in some lesbian characters written by straight women, though there are a number of notable exceptions. But Glass Houses seemed to me to be a whole lot more about straight issues of female autonomy vis-a-vis the male world than it was about anything I recognized from my dyke life. I also see a similar problem with The Nature of Smoke, in that, while it is ostensibly about a lesbian and the woman who becomes her lover, the bulk of the emotion and all of the plot is the result of the actions of the (supposedly secondary) male characters. (The lesbian character becomes a symbol of an almost impossible-to-imagine freedom from the constraints of heterosexuality, which is depicted as unrelentingly awful; she is killed, and then resurrected once her lover has effected revenge. It's interesting to contrast this with the handling of the lesbian character in The Handmaid's Tale, whom Atwood sets up to be exactly that symbol, and then exposes the falseness of the expectation. But I digress. ;) Then, after I started this, Susanna Sturgis wrote: >Perhaps there is more at risk for a woman (either heterosexual or closeted >bi/lesbian) in creating a lesbian pov? I don't know if anyone else was at the MagicCon panel on "straight women writing gay men", or at the one the year after in San Francisco, but on the first panel 2 women writers said that they could not find women (sexually) attractive enough to write about them, and therefore wrote about gay men because they wanted to write about characters who were like them (all gay men are like women, right?) but who were still sexually attractive to them. Then at San Francisco, I asked the panellists, who had all written gay men, if they had ever considered writing a lesbian character. The first woman to answer said, "I've never had cause to doubt my sexuality." That wasn't the question I asked, but I think it says a lot about people's fears of being presumed to be queer. This isn't to say that writing outside one's gender/sexuality/race/class/whatever _can't_ be done well. We've all seen it done well. But using other people's cultures as symbols for one's own problems/issues is always a dicey undertaking. M. === Melissa Scott ms001@mail.rscs.net My performance ain't perfect But it's loud and it's fast Widespread Panic  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA17049; Wed, 3 Jul 96 12:16:33 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA26426; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 11:11:47 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id KAA24994 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 10:13:07 -0500 Received: from exploratorium.edu (isaac.exploratorium.edu [192.174.2.1]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id KAA02033 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 10:13:05 -0500 Received: from isaac (isaac.exploratorium.edu) by exploratorium.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1/sro) id AA19746; Wed, 3 Jul 96 08:12:53 PDT Message-Id: Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 08:12:53 -0700 (PDT) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Pat Murphy To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Tiptree Judging In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-To: ms001@server1.rscs.net X-Cc: FEM-SF Recipients X-Sender: jaxxx@isaac X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 08:12:53 -0700 (PDT) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Pat Murphy To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Tiptree Judging In-Reply-To: X-To: ms001@server1.rscs.net X-Cc: FEM-SF Recipients X-Sender: jaxxx@isaac X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN I think it would be great if the short and long lists got wider exposure. What I do right now is send the lists--when the winners are announced--to Locus, SF Chronicle, and a number of SF 'zines, as well as to Belles Lettres, Women's Review of Books, Ms. Magazine, and National NOW Times. If people want to suggest 'zines to add to that list, that would be just great. I agree that a sustained PR campaign for the award would be a great idea. If there's anyone out there who wants to take that on, it would be just great. I would love to, but I'm currently facing the dilemma of the 90s--too much to do, too little time. The only way I could take it on would be to cut into my already severely limited writing time, and I can't bring myself to do that. So are there any enthusiastic volunteers out there? Pat Murphy jaxxx@exploratorium.edu On Wed, 3 Jul 1996 ms001@server1.rscs.net wrote: > I've been really reluctant to say anything on the subject, since Shadow Man > has been one of the books mentioned as missing. But Gwyneth Jones raised a > good point in regard to making the short list/long list notes more > available. She said: > > > I'd really like to see that long-short list, short-list and > >winners collection of comments spread around a bit more freely. I bet David > >Pringle of Interzone (eg) would publish it in the UK. And certainly all the > >publishers and writers involved should get a copy. But maybe this already > >happens, in most years? > > I completely agree that the list(s) could be more widely distributed. I've > actually only seen a couple of them - once because the award was given at a > Readercon that I attended and it was in the program book, and once because > a friend sent me the list. So I suspect it's pretty safe to assume that > plenty of other people further outside feminist fandom haven't seen the > lists either. (Does this explain some of why the founders have felt that > they're not pulling the pig tails they expected?) > > Publication in a 'zine or three would be a marvellous idea (and I can give > you the email address of the managing editor of a queer sf review 'zine > that I review for, if that seems a possibly appropriate venue, though we > have a pretty small circulation) It would also be nice if the writers and > publishers did get copies of the list(s) automatically: that's one way > that the Lambda Literary Awards have been publicized, and it seems to be > working. I assume a press release is routinely circulated to announce the > winners? I realize that including the short list comments in that would > increase the press release beyond the usual limits, but maybe the release > sent to SF outlets should include it? I can see arguments both for and > against, but it might be worth it, as the Tiptree seems to be the only SF > award that does annotate, and because the judging criteria are so different > from most other SF awards. > > I'd also like to add my voice to the chorus stressing the importance of the > annotated short/long lists. There's a huge difference between knowing why > the judges made their decisions, and simply looking at a list of titles: > somebody's always going to be angry - an inevitable and maybe even a > healthy outgrowth of the award process - but, speaking here from personal > experience, there's a hell of a lot of a difference between the anger of > being rejected for known cause, and the anger of simply being ignored. > Eg., knowing that the judges were "aware of" the absent lesbians in Little > Sisters of the Apocalypse doesn't tell me what was present that made it > worth their while. > > M. > > === > Melissa Scott > ms001@mail.rscs.net > > My performance ain't perfect > But it's loud and it's fast > Widespread Panic > > >  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA18714; Wed, 3 Jul 96 13:04:36 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA27768; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 12:04:14 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA27459 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 11:57:32 -0500 Received: from mhub2.tc.umn.edu (mhub2.tc.umn.edu [128.101.131.52]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA05010 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 11:57:29 -0500 Received: from maroon.tc.umn.edu by mhub2.tc.umn.edu; Wed, 3 Jul 96 11:57:27 -0500 Received: from x136-99.open.umn.edu by maroon.tc.umn.edu; Wed, 3 Jul 96 11:57:26 -0500 Message-Id: <31daa6774f66004@mhub2.tc.umn.edu> Date: Wed, 3 Jul 96 11:57:27 -0500 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Terry A Garey (Terry A. Garey) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narrative transvestism Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Sender: t-gare@maroon.tc.umn.edu X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 3 Jul 96 11:57:27 -0500 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Terry A Garey (Terry A. Garey) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narrative transvestism X-Sender: t-gare@maroon.tc.umn.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Melissa wrote: Then at San Francisco, I asked the panellists, who had all written gay men, if they had ever considered writing a lesbian character. The first woman to answer said, "I've never had cause to doubt my sexuality." That wasn't the question I asked, but I think it says a lot about people's fears of being presumed to be queer. This isn't to say that writing outside one's gender/sexuality/race/class/whatever _can't_ be done well. We've all seen it done well. But using other people's cultures as symbols for one's own problems/issues is always a dicey undertaking. - --- I've never understood why so many women writers like to use gay males as characters, but some of my best friends do it and I like what they write. Slash fiction has never turned me on, although I think it is fun that it exists. I was sick through most of the SF Worldcon, and thus missed that panel but that was a fascinating reply ("I've never had cause....etc."). Eleanor Arnason started doing that panel a few years before at Minicon and Wiscon and that was one comment we never heard, but then, no one had asked that question, either. That's REALLY interesting. EA has done some lesbian characters, too, and oddly,(although no one has ever accused her of being a gay male) some people immediately wondered about her sexuality. One wonders about them wondering. Several years ago I ended up on a panel about using other people's cultures in one's writing. All the people on the panel were white. I would not care to repeat the experience--it was too damned aggrivating. We could have used Melissa's wisdom on that panel. My friend Wendy Rose teaches a class in multiculturalism, and she says one of the hardest things is to convince white kids that they have a culture, and an ethnic background. They think they are the universal norm and everyone ELSE is 'ethnic'. Weird, huh? But yeah, many women writers who write about gay men have their own ideas about what it must be like and many gay men find their ideas to be puzzling and some times laughable. Others like it and think it's hot. But when you're walking around in someone else's shoes you'd better watch how you walk, even in fantasy writing--even if you're a woman, and even if you "mean well". Terry A. Garey Phone:(612) 624-7401 Book Acquisitions Fax: (612) 624-9245 St. Paul Campus Library email: t-gare@maroon.tc.umn.edu 1984 Buford St. Paul, Mn 55108 "Of course, this is only temporary--unless it works..." Red Green  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA23112; Wed, 3 Jul 96 15:01:34 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id OAA29432; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 14:00:57 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA29343 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 13:53:39 -0500 Received: from WOMENSCOL (womenscol.stephens.edu [204.185.32.1]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA06597 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 13:53:37 -0500 Message-Id: <96070313430929@womenscol.stephens.edu> Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 13:43:09 -0500 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Characterizations across experience gaps X-Vms-To: SMTP%"fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu" X-Vms-Cc: TOMDILL X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 13:43:09 -0500 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: tomdill@womenscol.stephens.edu (TOM DILLINGHAM) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Characterizations across experience gaps X-Vms-To: SMTP%"fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu" X-Vms-Cc: TOMDILL X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN I have been interested by the discussion of the problems of portraying gay females/males if one is a "straight" author (does that still mean anything?)--especially if we remember the comparable question raised in the past about gay writers portraying heteros (everyone just "knew" Albee was really writing about a gay couple in _Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf_--maybe two, and as for Tennessee Williams---blah blah). Clearly the same questions arise in relation to ethnicity, which is the occasion of this post--just to mention an interesting book by Shirley Jordan called _Broken Silences_. In it, Shirley interviews women writers about precisely that question--how can they as black/white women portray the lives of women of a different racial/ethnic background? That's not the only question, of course, but it tends to focus the rest. The great sadness is that she does not interview any sf writers, especially not LeGuin or Butler or Ore or Scott or Elgin (enough list--we know who we mean). Anyway, I would be interested to know any other reactions to Shirley's book. Since this is my first post to this list, I should thank you for the invitation to join and introduce myself. I teach at STephens College in Columbia, Mo.--one of the few remaining women's colleges and strongly committed to remaining so. I have been here since 1971 and have taught mostly English but also a number of women's studies sections. Our faculty has required that all general education courses must demonstrate that they "include new scholarship by and about women and ethnic minorities"--this requirement has been in place since the mid-80's, though it was a fact about most of th eliberal arts courses starting in the late 70's. I mention this because we are proud of it, but also because our administration has made every effort to keep it a secret from the outside world (fear of backlash, fear of alumnae refusing gifts, fear of recruitment problems among our traditional "market".) So far I am very pleased to be able to follow these discussions. Tom Dillingham  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA26849; Wed, 3 Jul 96 16:32:30 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA01120; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 15:31:16 -0500 Received: from cs.wisc.edu (cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.6]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id PAA01078 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 15:29:12 -0500 Received: from (blv-pm0-ip25.halcyon.com [204.29.16.25]) by cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA07134 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 15:29:06 -0500 Message-Id: Date: Wed, 3 Jul 96 13:02:02 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: RE: narrative transvestism X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 3 Jul 96 13:02:02 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: RE: narrative transvestism X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Melissa Scott wrote: >I suspect that >many straight women write about gay men/from a gay male point of view to >resolve essentially straight and female issues (I'm thinking about China >Mountain Zhang and Ethan of Athos), issues that are in large part >irrelevant to and unrepresentative of the gay experience. For that matter, >you can find the same kinds of problems in some lesbian characters written >by straight women, though there are a number of notable exceptions. Eccolo! I think this is always going to be the trickiest part of writing outside one's own direct experience. You can get a lot of things right through reasoned imagination, but whether you have a feeling for what matters, what is interesting, what the spin is-- that's another thing. & this is what those people always whining about "political correctness" just don't get. (Gee, ignorance is privilege-- as Reagan-- the All Time Master of Ignorance-- showed us best of all.) >This isn't to say that writing outside one's >gender/sexuality/race/class/whatever _can't_ be done well. We've all seen >it done well. But using other people's cultures as symbols for one's own >problems/issues is always a dicey undertaking. & it's the writer's responsibility (aesthetic as well as moral) to beware. (Which is why I think Mike Resnick's work is so particularly abominable.) And then Terry Garey wrote: --- >I've never understood why so many women writers like to use gay males as >characters, but some of my best friends do it and I like what they write. >Slash fiction has never turned me on, although I think it is fun that it exists. My impression is that slash fiction is entirely different in its writer/reader dynamics than the usual sort of fiction. I don't know anything about role playing, so I'm guessing, but wouldn't Slash fiction be closer to that? I guess the question is, which of any of the female creators of gay male characters actually read gay male fiction? I suspect Slash creators don't. (I also think they're not really imagining flesh & blood men, either. There's something about television & movie media & the mediation of actors & sets & scenes that makes me think it's a particular form of group fantasy-- similar to the kind children create in their play-- cf last week's thread "the pits"-- & not an engagement in proper (or experimental) fictional forms (which involves a reader-writer contract of sorts, that I imagine to be distinct from the contract operating in Slash fiction).) (Sorry for all my parentheses.) And then Terry Garey further wrote: > Several years ago I ended up on a panel about using other people's >cultures in one's writing. All the people on the panel were white. I would >not care to repeat the experience--it was too damned aggrivating. We could >have used Melissa's wisdom on that panel. > My friend Wendy Rose teaches a class in multiculturalism, and she >says one of the hardest things is to convince white kids that they have a >culture, and an ethnic background. They think they are the universal norm >and everyone ELSE is 'ethnic'. Weird, huh? Privilege grants ignorance. Just as white kids don't think they don't have "a culture" so the typical straight person doesn't think they have a "sexual orientation," & men don't think they have gender. This is a responsibility of the writer that shouldn't be minimized. (& creating fiction without cultural, racial, gender & sex differences isn't the solution.) (No easy way out: however much people whine about PC.) Timmi  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA29499; Wed, 3 Jul 96 17:26:22 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id QAA02096; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 16:26:05 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id QAA01675 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 16:00:20 -0500 Received: from mhub1.tc.umn.edu (mhub1.tc.umn.edu [128.101.131.51]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id QAA08367 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 16:00:19 -0500 Received: from maroon.tc.umn.edu by mhub1.tc.umn.edu; Wed, 3 Jul 96 16:00:15 -0500 Received: from x136-99.open.umn.edu by maroon.tc.umn.edu; Wed, 3 Jul 96 16:00:14 -0500 Message-Id: <31dadf5f73c3404@mhub1.tc.umn.edu> Date: Wed, 3 Jul 96 16:00:17 -0500 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Terry A Garey (Terry A. Garey) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: RE: narrative transvestism Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Sender: t-gare@maroon.tc.umn.edu X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 3 Jul 96 16:00:17 -0500 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Terry A Garey (Terry A. Garey) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: RE: narrative transvestism X-Sender: t-gare@maroon.tc.umn.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Timmi wrote: I guess the question is, which of any of the female >creators of gay male characters actually read gay male fiction? I suspect >Slash creators don't. The ones I know do. I don't know if that's so for the majority. Also, some of the slash fiction writers I know write 'real' SF, too. Timmi also wrote: > >Privilege grants ignorance. Just as white kids don't think they don't have >"a culture" so the typical straight person doesn't think they have a >"sexual orientation," & men don't think they have gender. > > >This is a responsibility of the writer that shouldn't be >minimized. (& creating fiction without cultural, racial, >gender & sex differences isn't the solution.) (No easy way >out: however much people whine about PC.) Yup. I think being an Air Force Brat helped me realize a lot of that. And being married to a 'non-white" (as a relative delicately put it) for several years, and then being in the Native American community for several years to the point where the older ladies wanted to know when I was going to settle down and marry a nice Indian boy, I learned a lot about being very careful and re-checking and re-checking my assumptions. Probably not enough, though. Whoops, gotta go. Terry A. Garey Phone:(612) 624-7401 Book Acquisitions Fax: (612) 624-9245 St. Paul Campus Library email: t-gare@maroon.tc.umn.edu 1984 Buford St. Paul, Mn 55108 "Of course, this is only temporary--unless it works..." Red Green  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA06725; Wed, 3 Jul 96 21:03:41 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id UAA03272; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 20:03:16 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA03158 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 19:56:15 -0500 Received: from chic.saglac.qc.ca (chic.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.2]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA10898 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 19:56:12 -0500 Received: from [204.19.37.59] (srv1s8.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.59]) by chic.saglac.qc.ca (8.6.11/8.6.11) with SMTP id UAA04905 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 20:57:06 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 20:57:06 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Tiptree list to zines Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mailer: Eudora F1.5.1 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 20:57:06 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Tiptree list to zines X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Perhaps you should think beyond the U.S. of A, or Anglophopnia, too...? For instance, add SOLARIS to the list, it is a French [Quebecois] SF magazine, tne First One in North-America, more than 20 years of age... and I write for it, so there!:-) Elisabeth Vonarburg evarburg@saglac.qc.ca "Il s'agit de vivre et non d'avoir raison"  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA07535; Wed, 3 Jul 96 21:48:44 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id UAA03634; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 20:48:21 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id UAA03491 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 20:38:34 -0500 Received: from chic.saglac.qc.ca (chic.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.2]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id UAA11184 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 20:38:31 -0500 Received: from [204.19.37.59] (srv1s8.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.59]) by chic.saglac.qc.ca (8.6.11/8.6.11) with SMTP id VAA05436 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 21:39:24 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 21:39:24 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: _Blue Mars_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mailer: Eudora F1.5.1 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 21:39:24 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: _Blue Mars_ X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Having asked Jeanne permission to forward her comments to KS Robinson - he's a friend of mine - I received his comments, that he also allowed me to forward. Although he was afraid of being too "snappish". I told him there was no need to censor oneself that way on FEM SF. His comment somehow seemed characteristic to me, but I don't know exactly of what: is he wondering whether he is reacting too "snappishly" to a comment by readers, or to a comment by *feminist* readers? Are "we" Dragons to be feared by any male author daring to tread on Our Ground? *************** Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 13:27:33 -0700 Mime-Version: 1.0 To: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) From: ksr@pa.mother.com (kim stanley robinson) Subject: Re: Blue Mars and Fem. SF >HI Elisabeth, thanks for sending that along, very interesting. I'd be the >first to admit that there is a fair bit of telling and not showing in Blue >Mars concerning the end of patriarchy, especially the absence of showing >this in Process. In a book about many things it was hard, and even if the >book were just about that one thing it would still be hard; how to imagine >the shift of power away from the powerful? This is not my problem as >novelist but society's generally, I think. > >I would want to defend the women characters in Blue Mars as more various >than that commentator seems to think. Zo by her own lights is perfectly >whole and it's presumptuous to judge her by our standards. Also to think >that all women brought up in a non-patriarchal system are going to be Nice >by our standards is silly. Some Nietszchean post-scarcity hotshots may >laugh at our values all day long, and still do less harm than we do. > >Even Jackie I would defend as a good politician fighting for Mars; again, >not nice, and disliked by some who know her, but not by Zo, and not by >Nirgal. Then Nadia is very sane, and althought Maya may look dangerously >mood-swingy from the inside, and a bit hard on her men, she's just like >many and many of us, I think. Anyway, it was more important to me that >these people seemed real to me than that they made political points in a >nearly unthinkable utopian project. > >There's also Bao, only a minor character, but a suggestion that from within >a matriarchy, mathematical genius would appear in women just as it appears >in men in patriarchies. She's important in that sense; and so is Hiroko; >and Charlotte, and Irishka, and Vendana, and the whole crowd of secondary >characters who are women, who are doing important work in that world. > >Anyway, I did what I could; I was thinking about it; 14 of the 32 chapters >are from inside the point of view of women, and I wanted it at 16, but it >didn't work out, following the plot where it led me; no doubt a sign of the >difficulty of thinking equality at the fundamental level of narrative, but >I still feel the women characters in the Mars trilogy are powerful and >realistic, and crucially important to the story, which is now unthinkable >without them. I think it was more explicit a project in that novel than it >is in any other novel that is not entirely devoted to being a feminist >utopia. > >So I find myself impatient with people complaining, even when they are >right! So quick to take for granted what they like, so quick to focus >their writing on what they object to. I want to say to them, Write your >own book then. > >But of course one can't. So, onward. [...] Elisabeth Vonarburg evarburg@saglac.qc.ca "Il s'agit de vivre et non d'avoir raison"  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA08873; Wed, 3 Jul 96 22:53:25 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id VAA03943; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 21:53:03 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA03829 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 21:49:29 -0500 Received: from relay1.geis.com (relay1.geis.com [192.77.188.2]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id VAA11678 for ; Wed, 3 Jul 1996 21:49:27 -0500 Received: by relay1.geis.com (1.37.109.16/15.6) id AA131558474; Thu, 4 Jul 1996 02:47:54 GMT Received: by (genie.)relay1.geis.com ( 2rem/1.40 ) ; Thu, 4 Jul 96 02:47:54 UTC 0000 ( from inet# ; Thu, 4 Jul 96 02:47:01 UTC 0000) Message-Id: <199607040247.AA131558474@relay1.geis.com> Date: Thu, 4 Jul 96 02:14:00 UTC 0000 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: s.sturgis2@genie.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narrative transvestism Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Genie-Qk-From: S.STURGIS2 X-Genie-Qk-Id: 0641298 X-Genie-Gateway-Id: 872153 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 4 Jul 96 02:14:00 UTC 0000 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: s.sturgis2@genie.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narrative transvestism X-Genie-Qk-From: S.STURGIS2 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Ooh, Terry, what you said! > My friend Wendy Rose teaches a class in multiculturalism, and she says > one of the hardest things is to convince white kids that they have a > culture, and an ethnic background. They think they are the universal > norm and everyone ELSE is 'ethnic'. Weird, huh? I had a major epiphany toward the end of high school, after spending some years envying my friends' ethnic traditions, food, languages, etc. Oh, wow, I realized: WASP is an ethnic group; it is not the universal standard, although this society has elevated it to that status. It doesn't surprise me that middle-class (and up) white kids with predominantly WASP backgrounds and little familiarity with other cultures make this assumption. In my novel in progress I'm trying to treat New England WASPs as an ethnic group, and one whose traditional modes of relating (like pretending anything unsettling doesn't exist) are lethal. Unfortunately readers will tend to impose their own assumptions (WASP = default setting) no matter what I do. So most of the characters are women, and most are lesbian or gay. I'm hoping to throw a lot of people off balance. I mean, if I'm constantly muddling through gray slime, why shouldn't everyone else?? About writing outside "one's own group": Back in the early 1980s, when PC was still a concept that feminists guilt-tripped each other with, there were two conflicting orthodoxies: it is racist for white feminist writers not to include nonwhite characters in their work, and it is racist for white feminist writers to include nonwhite characters in their work. Editing my anthologies in 1988-90, knowing nothing about most of the writers who submitted work, I was afraid of getting it wrong, e.g., publishing a story with a black protagonist by an author who turned out to be white and then getting trashed for it. I decided not to ask, or try to find out, details about the authors. Meanwhile, I got several letters from men confiding that they had considered submitting work under a female pseudonym but decided not to. (!) For me, now, as a (WASP lesbian 45-year-old die-hard New England) writer (whose family tumbled out of the upper class a couple of generations ago and hasn't recovered yet), there are some "crossovers" that I will attempt and others that I won't. This has a lot to do with whom I've known and where I've lived in my life, and, to a lesser extent, with what I've read or learned second-hand. (You might find a Wampanoag in my fiction; you will not, for the foreseeable future, find a Navajo.) OTOH, this black gay man has showed up in my novel and I'm seriously praying that before I get to his chapters he undergoes a gender, color, and/or sexual-identity change! We're not talking protagonist here, but I don't think I can do this guy justice. =END=  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA19607; Thu, 4 Jul 96 09:09:14 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id IAA09390; Thu, 4 Jul 1996 08:08:53 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA09079 for ; Thu, 4 Jul 1996 07:57:32 -0500 Received: from chic.saglac.qc.ca (chic.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.2]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA14804 for ; Thu, 4 Jul 1996 07:57:30 -0500 Received: from [204.19.37.52] (srv1s1.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.52]) by chic.saglac.qc.ca (8.6.11/8.6.11) with SMTP id IAA09989 for ; Thu, 4 Jul 1996 08:58:25 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Thu, 4 Jul 1996 08:58:25 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Narrat.transvest. & synchronicity Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mailer: Eudora F1.5.1 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 4 Jul 1996 08:58:25 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Narrat.transvest. & synchronicity X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN In the wake of S.Sturgis's last message: (1) I was just wondering about the amount of, er, "waspiness" of FEM SF, and its amount of Americanness versus other cultures. (2) And I wanted to propose another member/participant, whatever, someone who like me is not a native English-speaker, Sylvie Berard, a Quebecer (she's just finished her Doctorate Dissertation on SF women writers). May I? ********** This whole discussion on narrative transvestism is fascinating. I am in a maniacal phase of writing right now (except mornings and nights when I check The E-Mail) but strangely enough this discussion doesnt' disturb the process, it is nourishing it... Elisabeth Vonarburg evarburg@saglac.qc.ca "Il s'agit de vivre et non d'avoir raison"  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA23395; Thu, 4 Jul 96 12:36:36 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA12020; Thu, 4 Jul 1996 11:34:57 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA11756 for ; Thu, 4 Jul 1996 11:25:58 -0500 Received: from server1.rscs.net (server1.rscs.net [204.249.238.10]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA16139 for ; Thu, 4 Jul 1996 11:25:57 -0500 Received: from [205.247.20.241] by server1.rscs.net via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/940406.SGI) for id MAA05903; Thu, 4 Jul 1996 12:25:52 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Thu, 4 Jul 1996 12:32:48 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ms001@server1.rscs.net To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narrative transvestism Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 4 Jul 1996 12:32:48 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ms001@server1.rscs.net To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narrative transvestism X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Two things struck me in the thread, the first being the question of "getting it right" when you the writer aren't part of the group. WaveLength, the gay 'zine I mentioned, has struggled with with the issue of reviewing gay-themed books by people we knew to be straight. My friend Don Sakers finally put it best when he said that sometimes the writing had an accent: all the words and themes and issues were in the right places, but somehow the stresses were wrong, and it was clear that the writer, however well-intentioned, wasn't part of the culture. I think that's what I see more of from both men writing women and straights writing gays (and, for that matter, yankees writing southerners): nothing is actively wrong, you just know from the "accent" that the writer is not of the group. The other interesting thing was what several people said about WASPs not having an "ethnicity." Reading that, I suddenly understood why I didn't get the "New Yorker" style of fiction that was held up to me in college as the height of literary achievement (I took a class from Anne Beattie once - 'nuff said?). This WASP lifestyle - and not just any WASPs, but WASPs who lived in Connecticut and commuted to NYC every day to work in Business - was alien to me (a Southern WASP lesbian), and, more importantly, it was treated as a self-evident norm. The writers did not feel that they needed to create a point of entry for people who were not part of that culture, and I really didn't have the experience at that point to understand what was going on. But it was the missing concessions - translations - and subtle explanations, all the stuff that anyone writing about characters who aren't "the norm" is expected to provide that really struck me this morning. It must be very interesting to write from that perspective. And it's impossible to do it in SF. Back to work. M. === Melissa Scott ms001@mail.rscs.net My performance ain't perfect But it's loud and it's fast Widespread Panic  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA15551; Fri, 5 Jul 96 10:19:40 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id JAA23350; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 09:18:45 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA23052 for ; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 08:55:30 -0500 Received: from chic.saglac.qc.ca (chic.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.2]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA22844 for ; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 08:55:27 -0500 Received: from [204.19.37.56] (srv1s5.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.56]) by chic.saglac.qc.ca (8.6.11/8.6.11) with SMTP id JAA23489 for ; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 09:56:04 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Fri, 5 Jul 1996 09:56:04 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Narratives, transvestisms Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mailer: Eudora F1.5.1 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Fri, 5 Jul 1996 09:56:04 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Narratives, transvestisms X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN I fell out of bed very early this morning thinking about all this, sentences organizing themselves in my head, so perhaps it is time. I have this nagging feeling I've been censoring myself by just listening to this discussion -- although, or perhaps, because it is not much of a *discussion*, there being only one expressed point of view -- with very interesting nooks and crannies but nevertheless. I am on of these (supposedly) straight person writing (about) gay characters, and I have been wondering about those two topics ever since I began writing in earnest: (1) why is there so many gay *males* in SF&F written by women (and so Iperked my ears at the beginning of this discussion, as you may imagine) (2) why do *I* write (about) gay characters --although I began with gay women, one of them being a metamorph and temporarily a male, how suspect can you be!:-) But that is precisely one the points I want to question: why should I "suspect" myself, and, ame thing, why should *others* "suspect" me? When I first tackled the subject of "why is there so many gay male characters in female SF&F", beginning in 1978 (in the wake of the Tiptree thing), all I had ever written was about male characters, and I had begun to look closely into that (I found out later that my supposedly male characters of that period didn't quite ressemble the traditional male characters, and I became suspicious. Again!...). Looking at other women's fiction, I decided at once that the reductionist approach was just too... reductionist. OK, I thought, *some* of them may be unaware or closeted or out-and-out gay themselves --well, some women had also been writing under male pseudonyms, being somehow closeted themselves. So: true, but not enough. However, what occupied the forefront of my reflexion then was this Tiptree thing and a very general reflexion on women and SF. I put this "why gay characters?" on the backburner and I wrote a long essay on women and SF, in which I built a sweeping theory about the multi-phased evolution of women writers [and please read "stereotypical" before the words male and female in all the following; I was not and am not saying that there *are* essentialy male and female characteristics; only that males and females are attributed these characteristics]: feminine denegation (male pseudonym, positive male characters, female characters), masculine revendication (one's own name, triumphant female characters with male attributes), feminine revendication (female characters with positively accentuated "female" caracteristics: they win *because they are not/don't act like males"), accompanied or not by male denegation (male characters are Villains or Victims --or absent); then, utopia at last, human integration which I rather interestingly (ah. That suspicion again) called "integration bisexuelle" in French, since "sex" in French means *both* sex and gender and is used both ways even today; I tell you, we-French-women must come a long way, baby. I guess that's what was later became the big fad about "androgyny", a concept with which I've always had problems, but let's not go into that now. I was French, and academically trained, and a SF convert: all these persona love to make sweeping generalisations, and that's what this theory of mine was, of course, although I took pain to say that many writers can go through more than one of these "phases" in the same story, and of course during their life! The other part of the essay was dedicated to exploring the question "are there themes more specifically written by women in SF?" It was 1978, I was entering my feminine revendication/male denegation (or at least male questioning!) phase, and I had to limit the study: I didn't look for corresponding texts written by men; I did that much later, in the late Eighties.) I reread about 200 texts, novels and short stories, pencil in hand, and I found recurring themes, which I listed in the essay. Some of them were a surprise (*so many* mutilated bodies!?), some of them were not (procreation). One of the surprises was the way *duplication* was treated by women (the double motif, that is: either robots, androids and such, or downright cloning -- Sargent's _Cloned Lives_, for instance). I had of course in mind a few stories written by men on the subject and I felt they were quite different: I couldn't seem to remember a story written by a man where the double in any form was not feared and fought against, a slave, or an impostor, and generally a stealer of the soul (I should check dates for Silverberg's _Tower of Glass_, which is quite interestingly ambiguous about all this). Of course Simack's _Time and Again_... but then it was Simack, one of my male exceptions of the time with Sturgeon [and Tiptree, but Now I Knew!]; (Simack had also written a very paranoid story about a stealer-of-soul double ... in which the double wins! "Goodnight, Mr. Jamot", I think it is.). Whereas, in women's stories, the point seemed universally to give full, equal human status to the double ("Nine Lives", for instance; or earlier, I think, _Cloned Lives_ again) -- *be it a female or a male double*. But-of-course, I thought, the robot, or android or clone, is obviously an image of the feminine self claiming its right to exist! The double's sex/gender is not what matters, what matters is *that it is a double*, as women have been considered like imperfect males all along; (the doubles in men's stories were all somehow imperfect too: sterile, short-lived, emotionally stunted... depending on the nature of the imperfection, interesting questions arise here: men writers, OK, but it is still an image of the self: anima/animus and all that; but then again, sometimes, the doubles are just very obviously women...). And so the relationship to the double in women's SF&F is a relationship to the self, either "female self" or more generally "human self", since that human status is what has been denied them first (well, it may be the other way around; I don't know.) I'm sure you've already guessed what that did to my reflexion on gay characters in female SF&F: it's less the fact that they are gay than the fact they are the Same Who Is Also Nevertheless The Other. Well, one thing I discovered about ten years later is that we focus on things and build theories about them according to what we need -- academics and normal people alike! Of course. Two years after that essay on women and SF, I was writing a novel with a metamorph who must pass for a man in the Bad Outside World and in that guise which is/is not a disguise for [her, since she's born female...] makes love to a women and gets her pregnant (with a girl child). Wow, I thought, back up the horses there. What's this? Now, my previous SF trauma, all for the good, had been, as for many SF women of my generation, not _The Female Man_ ("yes, but too angry", oh, was I uncomfortable with it when I read it the first time!) but _The Left Hand of Darkness_. However, since I'd always subliminally read these two characters as males, (aaargh!), somehow it had not registered as well as it did when I did my own take on the metamorph motif -- of course. *This* was much more... "suspect"! I sent my character in an orgy of "male body, female body, it's all the same to me, I can be all of them, it's I and I love you (the woman with whom he/she is making love) and that's what counts" and all that, and later I had her voluntarily "revert" to being-a-female-and-proud-of-it; but somehow I knew this thing was far from being solved to my satisfaction (by 1980, I still had relapses as to possible answers!) So I wrote a few short stories exploring what sex and gender could mean for a metamorph in a society more like ours, and not the post-catastrophe, more of a tabula rasa, world of my first novel. (Writing this, I realize that once more I was hemmed in by the very gendered French language, but also forced by it to face the contradictions in a more acute way: which pronoun do I use, damn it??? I came down heavily on the "she" side: I was full-fledged into the feminine revendication phase by then...) OK, so I made this long detour to explain where I come from, but it's time to go back to narrative transvestism, isn't it? One of the initial question was "I'm supposedly straight and I sometimes write (about) gay characters"; and one of the takes of the present debate is that non-gay people don't speak well in the gay tongue and should abstain or get a clue. Darn, rats and all that: now I can't write half the stories I want to write!!! Like hell I won't. The arguments goes like this, and I am sure that all of youenlightened people know it by heart, yawn, oh-hum and all, but bear with me, I have not been to any such panel yet. (1) writers of either sex/gender are *supposed* to be transvestites. That's why they go into the business anyway. (Well, one of the reasons...) (2) the old saw about write-about-what-you-know is bull, especially for SF&F writers. Besides, we know much more than we know, if we just care to *look* into ourselves as well as into others. [of course, for someone like me whose all experience of life, for a loooong time, came massively from books and solitary musings about books, the write-what-you-know crap *must* be crap, or I couldn't have written/write; hey, why do you think I went into SF:-)!?] (3) Are there qualitative differences between talking about places/times we haven't been and people we are not? I say (polemically, mind you; I could never be as certain as that in real life!) there are not. Leap of imagination. [I am a true believer in the power of imagination: in my own life it *is* a very powerful element, doing and moving and changing things in my so-called real worldever since I was a child, I cannot not believe in it, it's in my make-up.] (4) the whole "voice appropriation" thing has been very good in raising awareness about various cultural imperialisms, but it shouldn't degenerate into hysteria (oops, loaded word here...). Be aware and responsible, yes. Be suspicious (ah...) and self-censoring, no. You pays yer money and you takes yer chance, is that how you put it? If everybody lands on me like a ton of bricks for not getting the accent right, well, I may learn -- then again I may not... my choice -- but if I don't try, I will *never* learn. And that's what writing is mainly about, isn't it, learning? Well, for me, it is. And if learning for me happens to be through gay characters, for instance (or males, or aliens, or a cat), I will damn well proceed. The world is all fiction to me anyway:-)! And to really bare my soul to you guys, or the purpose of this whole thing would be moot, I'd also like to conclude on that "unaware/closeted gay/bi" thing. I said earlier that as an all-purpose "answer" (more like dismissal, usually), it seems suspiciously (...!) lacking to me. As a sometime, circumstancial comment/description among many, OK. For instance, my own reflexion on the subject and my own writing has brought me some time ago to the realization that I am a non-actualized bisexual, which immediately gives birth to more questions: Isn't everybody? Why not actualized? Should we all be [metamorphs...]? Does it add/take anything to/away what I or anyone else write(s)? Does it preclude any other reading of what we write -- do we have always one and only one reason to write/do/be what and who we write/do/are? Does it merely mean that I write male characters as badly as I write female characters and everyone in between? Aaargh. Etc. Well, that's it. Back to the current novel/series, now, which has many so-called male main characters, a few so-called female main characters, many so-called straights, many so-called gays and bi [but then, most of them are not Terrans; does it count?], many so-called (etc.; you get my drift) white and semi-white people, a few non-whites, many middle-aged and young people, less old people (and one who is the main character, but then he fears he is immortal, poor guy), an awful lot of people with psi of all sorts (my God!), non-Terran humanoids, really alien people from another dimension -- my GOD! --, sapient animaloids and pseudo-trees. Good ole SF about what I "know". The readers will judge. Meanwhile I am having fun and learning a few things. I hope no one will mind. But if they do... Well, there will still be other books. This one is the one I need to get over with now. Elisabeth Vonarburg evarburg@saglac.qc.ca "Il s'agit de vivre et non d'avoir raison"  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA19904; Fri, 5 Jul 96 13:27:35 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA26850; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 12:27:15 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA26750 for ; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 12:24:15 -0500 Received: from emout16.mail.aol.com (emout16.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.42]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA25255 for ; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 12:24:14 -0500 Received: by emout16.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA12672; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 13:25:35 -0400 Message-Id: <960705132535_349609715@emout16.mail.aol.com> Date: Fri, 5 Jul 1996 13:25:35 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Blue Mars X-To: gajones@pavilion.co.uk, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Fri, 5 Jul 1996 13:25:35 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Blue Mars X-To: gajones@pavilion.co.uk, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN In a message dated 96-06-30 17:16:09 EDT, gajones@pavilion.co.uk (Gwyneth Jones) writes: >The point I'd like to make is that _Blue Mars_ is just the sort of book I'd >like to see considered *by* the Tiptree award jury, which is different from >considering it as a possible prize winner. Isn't that what the "long short >list" is for? I definitely agree with this stance, and I think in fact it's already happened -- look at the inclusion of GLORY SEASON, for example. But making this an explicit tenet of the process seems to me a good idea, and I like Gwyneth's criteria for admitting books to the judging process. Suzy  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA19940; Fri, 5 Jul 96 13:29:02 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA26861; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 12:27:24 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA26817 for ; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 12:25:57 -0500 Received: from emout18.mail.aol.com (emout18.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.44]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA25279 for ; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 12:25:56 -0500 Received: by emout18.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA16567; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 13:25:25 -0400 Message-Id: <960705132347_349609739@emout18.mail.aol.com> Date: Fri, 5 Jul 1996 13:25:25 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Pretending, Fantasy, Infinite Instrumentalities, Power X-To: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Fri, 5 Jul 1996 13:25:25 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Pretending, Fantasy, Infinite Instrumentalities, Power X-To: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN In a message dated 96-06-26 09:23:54 EDT, evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) writes: >* "fantasies of infinite instrumentalities": yes, Suzy, I liked this >expression too. But what if it is NOT a male thing? What if it is a human >thing and not merely about quick fixes et al.? Granted, it's not always about *quick* fixes, but it is about fixes; and I think what makes it a male thing is the word "infinite." I, and most of the women I know, are pleased to devise/obtain/have the use of "instru- mentalities to make life easier, and to expand beyond that base into greater realms of possibility (ie, sewing machines if you need to make clothes for your family, the internet if you are a word-and-concept worker, etc.). But only in males do I come across notions like the one constantly expressed by the bad guys in Dr. Who, for instance: " -- and then I WILL RULE THE UNIVERSE!" The idea of being able, through techniques of one kind or another, to *do anything,* to "become God," I have always identified as a masculine notion (and a famously stupid one at that), which I think is expressed perfectly in the phrase "fantasies of infinite instrumentality." My take on this is that women are aware that when you *can* do some- thing, you are likely to discover that you are then stuck with certain kinds of responsibility connected with that something; whereas men seem inclined to "just do it" and only worry about responsibility in a serious and far-reaching way when they get slapped with a lawsuit for inadvertantly de- stroying somebody else's health, livelihood, or life. I think women's empathy training has a lot to do with this, as does men's anti-empathy training which I believe is a foundation of masculinization of boys -- "independence" is made to mean hard-hearted selfishness and being closed off to the in- terests of others weaker than yourself and submissive/rebellious to the interests and wishes of those stronger than you. Girls get trained to consider everybody else first, which means that if we acquire the "instrumentality" to affect and effect new things in the world, we are damn sure going to also get a whole new load of anxious self-questioning about how that instrumentality's function will have an impact on everybody else; which makes instrumentality itself as a broad concept a lot less attrac- tive to many women (who already have too much responsibility as it is), and certainly more cautious as fantasy than is indicated in the word "infinite." Suzy  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA20270; Fri, 5 Jul 96 13:52:05 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA27110; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 12:51:32 -0500 Received: from cs.wisc.edu (cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.6]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA27050 for ; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 12:49:56 -0500 Received: from (blv-pm11-ip26.halcyon.com [204.29.17.56]) by cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA09324 for ; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 12:49:46 -0500 Message-Id: Date: Fri, 5 Jul 96 10:47:08 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narratives, transvestisms X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Fri, 5 Jul 96 10:47:08 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narratives, transvestisms X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Elisabeth, I found your message really interesting & thoughtful. Your discussion of doubles has set me thinking, but I want to continue to engage the narrative transvestism thread. You write: >But that is precisely one the points I want to question: why should I >"suspect" myself, and, ame thing, why should *others* "suspect" me? A telling choice of word here, I think. When I started all this by talking about my suspicions about James Kelly's book, I wasn't thinking in terms of establishing a sort of blanket condemnation of people writing out of their own voices. (What an astonishing thing that would be to see any writer-- & particularly one like me [qv below]-- doing.) Still, the word is kind of interesting. In English it connotes mistrust. According to my Latin dictionary, though, the Latin %suspicio% has somewhat contradictory meanings. The first definition my dictionary gives is *to look from below, to look upwards*, & the example given is Ovid's use of it to mean *to look up to, to esteem, to respect*. The second meaning is *to look askance at, to suspect*. & then the definitions given for the noun form (%suspicio, -onis% f.) are first, *mistrust, suspicion* & second *a faint idea, imperfect conception.* I especially like the second definition of the noun form-- "a faint idea, imperfect conception." I think this is the sense in which I was thinking of the word "suspicious" when I said that I tend to be suspicious of the obvious. It's because I'm aware that the obvious makes it easy not to think, easy to be lazy with the way one perceives & conceives. And then you write: > One of the initial >question was "I'm supposedly straight and I sometimes write (about) gay >characters"; and one of the takes of the present debate is that non-gay >people don't speak well in the gay tongue and should abstain or get a clue. Let's elaborate on the metaphor of writing in other voices (i.e., from alien positions one does not oneself occupy in one's "real life") as writing in another language. If one can understand anything of what the heavily accented person is saying, then there is something one can call communication. Much will be lost-- much tends to be lost in communication between native speakers of the *same* language, but even more must be lost in communication between two speakers raised in different tongues. Does that make any attempt to cross languages a pointless-- necessarily appropriative-- exercise? No & no & no! Otherwise one would have to say that only those raised bilingually may be allowed to do the speaking. (The person occupying an "other" position to the unmarked, dominant position, is the bilingual person. The person occupying the unmarked, dominant position, is monolingual.) (Well, few people are monolingual in that sense-- only the "purest" WASP, straight, middle-class male.) My suspcions about Kelly's use of the second language has to do not with his attempting to speak in it, but with his failure to grasp certain rudimentary elements of syntax & grammar. [Outside this metaphor, I know from personal experience that Italians are amazingly forgiving of poor Italian spoken by North Americans, while the French (in Paris, at least), are not similarly forgiving about poor French. But regardless of their respective attitudes, the fact remains that I do not communicate well-- or with any fluency or sophistication-- in French or Italian. I can shop, order meals, get a typewriter repaired, & things like that in Italy, but I'm incapable of carrying out any kind of thoughtful discussion in Italian. (Which, obviously, would not be as true if doing so were among my top priorities.) I guess I would say that Kelly can metaphorically speaking do those practical kinds of things, but no more. Which means that those areas of the book in which he attempts to speak that language are, essentially, of no interest to me. You also write: >(1) writers of either sex/gender are *supposed* to be transvestites. >That's why they go into the business anyway. (Well, one of the reasons...) >(2) the old saw about write-about-what-you-know is bull, especially for >SF&F writers. Besides, we know much more than we know, if we just care to >*look* into ourselves as well as into others. [of course, for someone like >me whose all experience of life, for a loooong time, came massively from >books and solitary musings about books, the write-what-you-know crap *must* >be crap, or I couldn't have written/write; hey, why do you think I went >into SF:-)!?] You're saying all this is a question of the writer's imagination. Isn't it true that when you begin to think & daydream in the non-native tongue, you've crossed an important border? (I don't reckon Kelly was thinking & daydreaming in the non-native tongue at all: which was what made his female characters so flat.) For me, writing begins in verbal daydreaming. (Words, always words, accompanying images.) Daydreaming requires an imaginative engagement below the most conscious levels. "Only women stir my imagination," Virginia Woolf wrote. I can't imagine women in that same sense stirring Kelly's imagination when he wrote _Wildlife_-- I can only think of some sort of Heinleinian fantasy propelling him along. >(3) Are there qualitative differences between talking about places/times we >haven't been and people we are not? I say (polemically, mind you; I could >never be as certain as that in real life!) there are not. Leap of >imagination. [I am a true believer in the power of imagination: in my own >life it *is* a very powerful element, doing and moving and changing things >in my so-called real worldever since I was a child, I cannot not believe in >it, it's in my make-up.] >(4) the whole "voice appropriation" thing has been very good in raising >awareness about various cultural imperialisms, but it shouldn't degenerate >into hysteria (oops, loaded word here...). Be aware and responsible, yes. >Be suspicious (ah...) and self-censoring, no. You pays yer money and you >takes yer chance, is that how you put it? If everybody lands on me like a >ton of bricks for not getting the accent right, well, I may learn -- then >again I may not... my choice -- but if I don't try, I will *never* learn. This all gets to be so complicated. "Voice appropriation," I mean, for the usual reason that it implies definitions of who is who. (I find positionality a more fluid, flexible, self-complicating way of talking about difference.) I'm an avowed bisexual-- that is, I speak of myself in that way, & make no bones about it to family & friends. My imagination is bisexual. (But when I write about significant male-female sexual relationships (i.e, more than just sexual flings), the conceptualization is so complex & harsh that it runs virtually off any existing publishing map. & so that part of my imagination exists only for a few close readers.) I grew up with a bisexual imagination. (I can't remember when I figured out that girls were only supposed to go with guys. Sometime in junior high, I guess: if there was a single, blinding revelation, I've repressed it.) Certainly that happened sometime after I had asked my most desired friend's father for her hand in marraige. I had sexual experiences with other women-- some lesbians-- in college. I've had "romantic friendships" with sexual overtones with a number of women (usually active bisexuals or heterosexuals). To all appearances, though, my life on paper looks typically heterosexual. I've been living more or less continuously with the same male partner since I was 19 years old. I believe-- & everyone in my personal life knows-- that I would never involve myself with another male partner again. So. Am I "appropriating" another's voice when I write celibate or lesbian or "actualized" bisexual characters? I don't think of it that way-- I feel "blingual," & at home with lesbian friends (who have always been in my life, since college). I can't say I feel bilingual when I create black characters, though. (Black friends, yes, but always with a certain awareness of my own positionality as white.) Which I think points out the difference-- makes me aware of the problems-- to use the language metaphor again-- of syntax & grammar & accent-- & aware that when I write about race, I am most likely writing for people speaking my language, rather than people speaking the other language. & that's the kernel of this discussion, I suppose. >And that's what writing is mainly about, isn't it, learning? Well, for me, >it is. And if learning for me happens to be through gay characters, for >instance (or males, or aliens, or a cat), I will damn well proceed. The >world is all fiction to me anyway:-)! I used to say that I write to understand, but I found this irritated people, so I stopped saying it. & of course, after a while, one simply has no choice. One writes because one is addicted to writing. (I'm lately been entertaining a theory that writing changes the brains of those who do it: even to producing bipolar syndrome in formerly steady psyches.) >And to really bare my soul to you guys, or the purpose of this whole thing >would be moot, I'd also like to conclude on that "unaware/closeted gay/bi" >thing. I said earlier that as an all-purpose "answer" (more like >dismissal, usually), it seems suspiciously (...!) lacking to me. As a >sometime, circumstancial comment/description among many, OK. For instance, >my own reflexion on the subject and my own writing has brought me some time >ago to the realization that I am a non-actualized bisexual, which >immediately gives birth to more questions: Isn't everybody? Why not >actualized? Should we all be [metamorphs...]? Does it add/take anything >to/away what I or anyone else write(s)? Does it preclude any other reading >of what we write -- do we have always one and only one reason to >write/do/be what and who we write/do/are? Does it merely mean that I write >male characters as badly as I write female characters and everyone in >between? Aaargh. Isn't it amazing what we discover about ourselves through writing. Because we write, we actually get a shot at looking at the products of our own imaginations. For me, this was the scariest thing when I started my adulthood fiction writing. Later, after I myself had gotten used to it, I found that sometimes when people I knew read pieces of my ficiton, they felt embarrassed, because-- in one (former) friend's words-- she had learned things about the "way [my] mind works" that I would never be able to know about her. As if she saw me doing a psychic striptease on the printed page. (Which is not how I look at my work-- or at the personal anecdotes I tell on myself when I incorporate them into Fem-SF discussions!) Timmi Duchamp  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA20294; Fri, 5 Jul 96 13:52:58 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA27099; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 12:51:23 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA26887 for ; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 12:28:37 -0500 Received: from emout14.mail.aol.com (emout14.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.40]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA25318 for ; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 12:28:36 -0500 Received: by emout14.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id NAA07976; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 13:29:36 -0400 Message-Id: <960705132513_349609684@emout14.mail.aol.com> Date: Fri, 5 Jul 1996 13:29:36 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: change-- postscript X-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Fri, 5 Jul 1996 13:29:36 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: change-- postscript X-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN In a message dated 96-06-27 15:32:33 EDT, ltimmel@halcyon.com writes: >The contrary assumption is put very explicitly & *proudly* in >one of the most hateful, sickening stories recently published, >Mike Resnick's "Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge." Timmi, Resnick is a major pig. He had a statement some years back in some publication or other saying, you don't have to construct alien societies, there are plenty of 'em right here on earth -- look at how Africans "circumcise" their girls, and it's the women who do it to them!" I wrote a lengthy letter to that publication, going over the social and economic factors that make female genital mutilation a must in societies offering no work for women, only "wife" status or prostitution, etc. etc. I never heard one word in return, and later that year at a con panel, damned if the fool didn't say the same thing he'd said in the first place all over again! This was a panel on whether it was okay to rip off "primitive" cultures to make fictional ones, and S. Sucharitkul started it off by saying *he* was from a non-western culture, and *he* thought it was fine and did it regularly. Just the kind of set-up that you will find Resnick in. It was pretty disgusting. Of course, I also use elements of other cultures in making up new ones, but at least I have the grace to feel bad about it . . . Suzy Suzy  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA21528; Fri, 5 Jul 96 14:36:40 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA27447; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 13:36:19 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA27386 for ; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 13:34:52 -0500 Received: from emout08.mail.aol.com (emout08.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.23]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA25844 for ; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 13:34:48 -0500 Received: by emout08.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA16636; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 14:35:44 -0400 Message-Id: <960705143543_570501533@emout08.mail.aol.com> Date: Fri, 5 Jul 1996 14:35:44 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narrative transvestism X-To: s.sturgis2@genie.com, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Fri, 5 Jul 1996 14:35:44 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narrative transvestism X-To: s.sturgis2@genie.com, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN In a message dated 96-07-03 22:54:25 EDT, s.sturgis2@GENIE.COM writes: > Editing my >anthologies in 1988-90, knowing nothing about most of the writers who >submitted work, I was afraid of getting it wrong, e.g., publishing a story >with a black protagonist by an author who turned out to be white And how. I attended a conference at UNM on feminist scholarship, and when a couple of panels on scholarship about Black experience turned out to be full of white panelists and none of color, the place exploded. The conference organizers pointed out (to no avail) that they had not felt entitled to inquire as to the race of each person who submitted a paper on Black experience, and that it is not their fault that there are more white scholars than Black ones; and I suspect that those particular women will never organize another conference, having been seared to the bone by the rage of angry Black participants at this one. It was, how you say, a sobering experience all around, and a disheartening one. Nobody had a workable solution to offer. Suzy  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA21535; Fri, 5 Jul 96 14:36:48 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA27417; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 13:35:55 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA27382 for ; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 13:34:48 -0500 Received: from emout19.mail.aol.com (emout19.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.45]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA25839 for ; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 13:34:46 -0500 Received: by emout19.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA07121; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 14:36:10 -0400 Message-Id: <960705143609_570501517@emout19.mail.aol.com> Date: Fri, 5 Jul 1996 14:36:10 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Assorted X-To: s.sturgis2@genie.com, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Fri, 5 Jul 1996 14:36:10 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Assorted X-To: s.sturgis2@genie.com, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN In a message dated 96-07-02 21:10:41 EDT, s.sturgis2@GENIE.COM writes: > why women novelists, at least in f/sf, are much >more likely to create gay male protagonists than lesbian ones. I have done both, as a hetero female, and while I've received some criticism (most of it helpful, a bit of it sarcastic) from lesbians about my lesbian characters, I have never received any from male homosexuals about my gay male charac- ters, and pretty well none from straight men about either. I did once overhear a young gay (I have reason to assume) man complaining that the gay men in WALK were a deliberate assertion that this icky world is the one that gay men would produce if they were in charge, but this was such a wrong-headed mis- reading of the premise of the book that I simply (I hope) refuted it. Besides, critical put-downs and/or dismissal is nothing new from men in general, and I don't much care about it since I assume many more women will read my work than men, and it's to them (and to the male readers who don't come to the work for-armed with critical put-downs and a need to dismiss) that I address my work in the first place. Whereas I've found that criticism from lesbians is much more scarey, and more hurtful, because a) I know and they know that I actually don't know what I'm writing about in the same way that they know it, which means that I'm very prob- ably wrong right out of the gate but should not be since I style myself a feminst author and have a responsibility therefore *not* to be wrong about other women, and if I probably will be, I might well choose to avoid the problem in the first place by not writing about such characters. b) There is an implicit assumption that as a self-named feminist, if I've screwed up some aspect of characterizing lesbians, I have revealed a secret, hypocritically hidden hatred or fear of lesbians and so on that level I'm a fraud. In this sense I have a lot more to lose if I mess up the making of a lesbian character than if I mess up the making of a gay male character, so I'm more likely to risk the latter -- it's less fraught, less dangerous, in terms of the impact of reader-responses on me as author. Also if I'm a hetero female author, I might feel threatened personally by the idea of exploring, through a lesbian character, my own unenacted lesbian interests and understandings. In my own case, the story has pretty well forced me to ignore these fears, which I certainly have been prey to myself, and write lesbian characters anyway whom I have done my best to get vetted by lesbian friends so that I can avoid at least the more obvious mistakes of ignorance. I have never vetted my gay male characters in the same way, I realize as I write this, partly because I *know* I can write men okay because slaves must know their masters, and hell, I read the Village Voice (this is only partly a joke), but mostly because the men in the Holdfast are not "gay" in the way that gays are gay here. That is, they are gay in a culture which makes male homosexuality not only a norm but a requirement, so some of them may well be hetero-oriented men who must put on the appearance of being gay in order to get along. So to me that creates enough of a tabula rasa situatiion for me to invent at will, extrapolating from my understanding of today's gay male culture and life. Whereas the lesbian women of the Holdfast are lesbians in an oppressed class which is just an exaggeration of the current situation; while the Riding Women are again developed against the tabula rasa of a brand-new world in which there are hardly any men to start with, and in which lesbian relationships are expected of women, *not*, so far as I know, a part of the experience of modern lesbians. And that encourages me to forge ahead (although not without criticism. Somebody re- marked recently that she did not believe that the Riding Women could run their love lives with so little jealousy. My feeling about that is that, again, these women have not been raised under the pressures of modern society and with capitalist ideas of property, so perhaps they can develop an idea of love and sex which is so disapproving of jealousy that jealousy becomes rare and mostly unexpressed). Another factor in why women write more gay male characters than gay female ones may be the "knowability" aspect of today's male gay culture, based on the open self-expression of (some) gay men in this culture now, which brings to everyone's attention what they have to say about themselves (one of the things they say, often, is that they have gone from "the love that dare not speak its name" to "the love that won't shutup"). Public fora for lesbians to express themselves seem a lot less numerous and prominent than, say, the VV and large numbers of plays on the New York stage. Interesting to think about. Suzy  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA21541; Fri, 5 Jul 96 14:37:05 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA27428; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 13:36:06 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA27384 for ; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 13:34:50 -0500 Received: from emout07.mail.aol.com (emout07.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.22]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA25843 for ; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 13:34:48 -0500 Received: by emout07.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id OAA17833; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 14:34:45 -0400 Message-Id: <960705143443_570501523@emout07.mail.aol.com> Date: Fri, 5 Jul 1996 14:34:45 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narrative transvestism X-To: t-gare@maroon.tc.umn.edu, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Fri, 5 Jul 1996 14:34:45 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narrative transvestism X-To: t-gare@maroon.tc.umn.edu, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN In a message dated 96-07-03 13:09:11 EDT, t-gare@maroon.tc.umn.edu (Terry A Garey) writes: > Several years ago I ended up on a panel about using other people's >cultures in one's writing. All the people on the panel were white. I would >not care to repeat the experience--it was too damned aggrivating. Doesn't help always if they aren't -- see my comment on a similar panel including Mike Resnick and Somtow S. It was ghastly. Suzy  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA29853; Fri, 5 Jul 96 20:48:16 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id TAA01291; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 19:46:40 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA01258 for ; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 19:43:19 -0500 Received: from halcyon.com (coho.halcyon.com [198.137.231.21]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id TAA28419 for ; Fri, 5 Jul 1996 19:43:17 -0500 Received: by halcyon.com id AA24634 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu); Fri, 5 Jul 1996 17:43:14 -0700 Message-Id: <199607060043.AA24634@halcyon.com> Date: Fri, 5 Jul 1996 17:43:14 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: "L. Timmel Duchamp" To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narratives, transvestisms X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Fri, 5 Jul 1996 17:43:14 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: "L. Timmel Duchamp" To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narratives, transvestisms X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Elisabeth, I found your message really interesting & thoughtful. Your discussion of doubles has set me thinking, but I want to continue to engage the narrative transvestism thread. You write: >But that is precisely one the points I want to question: why should I >"suspect" myself, and, ame thing, why should *others* "suspect" me? A telling choice of word here, I think. When I started all this by talking about my suspicions about James Kelly's book, I wasn't thinking in terms of establishing a sort of blanket condemnation of people writing out of their own voices. (What an astonishing thing that would be to see any writer-- & particularly one like me [qv below]-- doing.) Still, the word is kind of interesting. In English it connotes mistrust. According to my Latin dictionary, though, the Latin %suspicio% has somewhat contradictory meanings. The first definition my dictionary gives is *to look from below, to look upwards*, & the example given is Ovid's use of it to mean *to look up to, to esteem, to respect*. The second meaning is *to look askance at, to suspect*. & then the definitions given for the noun form (%suspicio, -onis% f.) are first, *mistrust, suspicion* & second *a faint idea, imperfect conception.* I especially like the second definition of the noun form-- "a faint idea, imperfect conception." I think this is the sense in which I was thinking of the word "suspicious" when I said that I tend to be suspicious of the obvious. It's because I'm aware that the obvious makes it easy not to think, easy to be lazy with the way one perceives & conceives. And then you write: > One of the initial >question was "I'm supposedly straight and I sometimes write (about) gay >characters"; and one of the takes of the present debate is that non-gay >people don't speak well in the gay tongue and should abstain or get a clue. Let's elaborate on the metaphor of writing in other voices (i.e., from alien positions one does not oneself occupy in one's "real life") as writing in another language. If one can understand anything of what the heavily accented person is saying, then there is something one can call communication. Much will be lost-- much tends to be lost in communication between native speakers of the *same* language, but even more must be lost in communication between two speakers raised in different tongues. Does that make any attempt to cross languages a pointless-- necessarily appropriative-- exercise? No & no & no! Otherwise one would have to say that only those raised bilingually may be allowed to do the speaking. (The person occupying an "other" position to the unmarked, dominant position, is the bilingual person. The person occupying the unmarked, dominant position, is monolingual.) (Well, few people are monolingual in that sense-- only the "purest" WASP, straight, middle-class male.) My suspcions about Kelly's use of the second language has to do not with his attempting to speak in it, but with his failure to grasp certain rudimentary elements of syntax & grammar. [Outside this metaphor, I know from personal experience that Italians are amazingly forgiving of poor Italian spoken by North Americans, while the French (in Paris, at least), are not similarly forgiving about poor French. But regardless of their respective attitudes, the fact remains that I do not communicate well-- or with any fluency or sophistication-- in French or Italian. I can shop, order meals, get a typewriter repaired, & things like that in Italy, but I'm incapable of carrying out any kind of thoughtful discussion in Italian. (Which, obviously, would not be as true if doing so were among my top priorities.) I guess I would say that Kelly can metaphorically speaking do those practical kinds of things, but no more. Which means that those areas of the book in which he attempts to speak that language are, essentially, of no interest to me. You also write: >(1) writers of either sex/gender are *supposed* to be transvestites. >That's why they go into the business anyway. (Well, one of the reasons...) >(2) the old saw about write-about-what-you-know is bull, especially for >SF&F writers. Besides, we know much more than we know, if we just care to >*look* into ourselves as well as into others. [of course, for someone like >me whose all experience of life, for a loooong time, came massively from >books and solitary musings about books, the write-what-you-know crap *must* >be crap, or I couldn't have written/write; hey, why do you think I went >into SF:-)!?] You're saying all this is a question of the writer's imagination. Isn't it true that when you begin to think & daydream in the non-native tongue, you've crossed an important border? (I don't reckon Kelly was thinking & daydreaming in the non-native tongue at all: which was what made his female characters so flat.) For me, writing begins in verbal daydreaming. (Words, always words, accompanying images.) Daydreaming requires an imaginative engagement below the most conscious levels. "Only women stir my imagination," Virginia Woolf wrote. I can't imagine women in that same sense stirring Kelly's imagination when he wrote _Wildlife_-- I can only think of some sort of Heinleinian fantasy propelling him along. >(3) Are there qualitative differences between talking about places/times we >haven't been and people we are not? I say (polemically, mind you; I could >never be as certain as that in real life!) there are not. Leap of >imagination. [I am a true believer in the power of imagination: in my own >life it *is* a very powerful element, doing and moving and changing things >in my so-called real worldever since I was a child, I cannot not believe in >it, it's in my make-up.] >(4) the whole "voice appropriation" thing has been very good in raising >awareness about various cultural imperialisms, but it shouldn't degenerate >into hysteria (oops, loaded word here...). Be aware and responsible, yes. >Be suspicious (ah...) and self-censoring, no. You pays yer money and you >takes yer chance, is that how you put it? If everybody lands on me like a >ton of bricks for not getting the accent right, well, I may learn -- then >again I may not... my choice -- but if I don't try, I will *never* learn. This all gets to be so complicated. "Voice appropriation," I mean, for the usual reason that it implies definitions of who is who. (I find positionality a more fluid, flexible, self-complicating way of talking about difference.) I'm an avowed bisexual-- that is, I speak of myself in that way, & make no bones about it to family & friends. My imagination is bisexual. (But when I write about significant male-female sexual relationships (i.e, more than just sexual flings), the conceptualization is so complex & harsh that it runs virtually off any existing publishing map. & so that part of my imagination exists only for a few close readers.) I grew up with a bisexual imagination. (I can't remember when I figured out that girls were only supposed to go with guys. Sometime in junior high, I guess: if there was a single, blinding revelation, I've repressed it.) Certainly that happened sometime after I had asked my most desired friend's father for her hand in marraige. I had sexual experiences with other women-- some lesbians-- in college. I've had "romantic friendships" with sexual overtones with a number of women (usually active bisexuals or heterosexuals). To all appearances, though, my life on paper looks typically heterosexual. I've been living more or less continuously with the same male partner since I was 19 years old. I believe-- & everyone in my personal life knows-- that I would never involve myself with another male partner again. So. Am I "appropriating" another's voice when I write celibate or lesbian or "actualized" bisexual characters? I don't think of it that way-- I feel "blingual," & at home with lesbian friends (who have always been in my life, since college). I can't say I feel bilingual when I create black characters, though. (Black friends, yes, but always with a certain awareness of my own positionality as white.) Which I think points out the difference-- makes me aware of the problems-- to use the language metaphor again-- of syntax & grammar & accent-- & aware that when I write about race, I am most likely writing for people speaking my language, rather than people speaking the other language. & that's the kernel of this discussion, I suppose. >And that's what writing is mainly about, isn't it, learning? Well, for me, >it is. And if learning for me happens to be through gay characters, for >instance (or males, or aliens, or a cat), I will damn well proceed. The >world is all fiction to me anyway:-)! I used to say that I write to understand, but I found this irritated people, so I stopped saying it. & of course, after a while, one simply has no choice. One writes because one is addicted to writing. (I'm lately been entertaining a theory that writing changes the brains of those who do it: even to producing bipolar syndrome in formerly steady psyches.) >And to really bare my soul to you guys, or the purpose of this whole thing >would be moot, I'd also like to conclude on that "unaware/closeted gay/bi" >thing. I said earlier that as an all-purpose "answer" (more like >dismissal, usually), it seems suspiciously (...!) lacking to me. As a >sometime, circumstancial comment/description among many, OK. For instance, >my own reflexion on the subject and my own writing has brought me some time >ago to the realization that I am a non-actualized bisexual, which >immediately gives birth to more questions: Isn't everybody? Why not >actualized? Should we all be [metamorphs...]? Does it add/take anything >to/away what I or anyone else write(s)? Does it preclude any other reading >of what we write -- do we have always one and only one reason to >write/do/be what and who we write/do/are? Does it merely mean that I write >male characters as badly as I write female characters and everyone in >between? Aaargh. Isn't it amazing what we discover about ourselves through writing. Because we write, we actually get a shot at looking at the products of our own imaginations. For me, this was the scariest thing when I started my adulthood fiction writing. Later, after I myself had gotten used to it, I found that sometimes when people I knew read pieces of my ficiton, they felt embarrassed, because-- in one (former) friend's words-- she had learned things about the "way [my] mind works" that I would never be able to know about her. As if she saw me doing a psychic striptease on the printed page. (Which is not how I look at my work-- or at the personal anecdotes I tell on myself when I incorporate them into Fem-SF discussions!) Timmi Duchamp  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA00336; Sun, 7 Jul 96 05:23:16 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id EAA13831; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 04:21:49 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA13799 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 04:09:46 -0500 Received: from pgmail.arts.su.edu.au (pgmail.arts.su.edu.au [129.78.16.13]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id EAA07090 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 04:09:43 -0500 Message-Id: Date: 7 Jul 1996 19:07:55 U Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: "Justine Larbalestier" To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Narratives, transvestism X-To: "FEM sf list" X-Mailer: Mail*Link SMTP-QM 3.0.2 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: 7 Jul 1996 19:07:55 U Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: "Justine Larbalestier" To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Narratives, transvestism X-To: "FEM sf list" X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN RE>Narratives, transvestisms 7/7/96 I'm really glad Elisabeth Vonarburg has jumped in on this thread cause I have to admit that I've been getting just the tiniest bit peevish with some of what's been said. There are so many ways of being it seems pointless to talk about anyone having a monopoly on a particular experience. It seems to me more useful to say we are ALL different. I am an Australian in my twenties with some nasty scars - I am not like any other Australian in their twenties with some nasty scars. If I wrote about an Australian in her twenties with some nasty scars I would hope that the believability of that ozzzie would not be ruled out by another Australian in her twenties with some nasty scars proclaiming "I don't recognise that - it's inauthentic." Or that the other ozzie with the scars is the only person who could possibly coment on such a piece of writing. We have to recognise that we are all different and we have to recognise that lesbian experience is not identical in every city or town in the world that some lesbians are not part of queer communities are not politcal and want no part of queer pride and some do. Some have affairs with women but marry men. Some marry women but have affairs with men. Some marry either and have affairs with either. Some don't have sex. The variables are infinite which is the authentic lifestyle and way of being "lesbian"? Or straight or any other way you want to identify each other and ourselves. I have a friend who identifies as a dyke and has been active in the community in Sydney ever since she escaped rural Queensland. Every time she goes out dancing at some of the queer clubs she feels like an outsider. She is not tattooed or peirced and her clothes cover more than ten centimetres of her flesh. She feels like she doesn't belong but she loves to dance. I have another friend who has had both male and female lovers but would never call herself a dyke who goes to the same clubs and feels at home. She is not politically active and clubbing is her only contact with "the community". Both have been bashed by men from the suburbs who screamed abuse at them for being filthy lezzos. So who's being more authentically lesbian? Which would you believe if they wrote a lesbian love story? I think Elisabeth's account of her own history on these issues eloquently sets out another point - identities change. We don't always name ourselves in the same ways or are named in the same ways. And she's right write what you know is bullshit.  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA01700; Sun, 7 Jul 96 08:09:20 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id HAA19025; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 07:08:58 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA18978 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 07:05:22 -0500 Received: from chic.saglac.qc.ca (chic.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.2]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA07474 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 07:05:20 -0500 Received: from [204.19.37.59] (srv1s8.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.59]) by chic.saglac.qc.ca (8.6.11/8.6.11) with SMTP id IAA13711 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 08:06:14 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 08:06:14 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Divergences Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mailer: Eudora F1.5.1 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 08:06:14 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Divergences X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Justine L. writes: >I'm really glad Elisabeth Vonarburg has jumped in on this thread cause I have >to admit that I've been getting just the tiniest bit peevish with some of >what's been said. And why was my first reflex to thank her privately? Wwhy was I feeling kind of worried after sending my message? Why did I wait so long to send it (apart from the fact that I am currently in the maniacal phase of Writing?) And has anybody read the editorial about Wiscon 20 in the latest New York Review of SF? (Hartwell ed.), which I will summarize rashly by quoting only one sentence: "A lot of discussion about disagreement went on in the halls, not much in the panels" You see where all this is going. I for one know that that Wiscon being my first one, I was quite ready to refrain from saying any "yes, but". After Ursula's comment on "yes, you are a feminist-but(t)", who would? Well, Nancy Kress did, and I admired her immensely for it, at the same time as I agreed with Ursula --it is a question of context(s), and I could see in which context one was saying what she was saying, and in which context the other was reacting. Kress was also the one who (dared to) disagree(d) with S.H. Elgin (my GOD!) in a panel which to my everlasting regret I couldn't attend to. (I notice that the only times I said "yes but" quite spiritedly was (1) to the male panelists on the Feminist Men panel. Ah... (2) to a male panelist on the panel Can Women be Soldiers. Double ah.) In fact, there are quite a lot of interesting *questions* in Hartwell's editorial, and I invite you to read it. Elisabeth Vonarburg evarburg@saglac.qc.ca "Il s'agit de vivre et non d'avoir raison"  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA06306; Sun, 7 Jul 96 14:06:55 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA20974; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 13:06:33 -0500 Received: from cs.wisc.edu (cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.6]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA20906 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 12:53:57 -0500 Received: from (blv-pm1-ip27.halcyon.com [204.29.16.57]) by cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA11628 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 12:53:54 -0500 Message-Id: Date: Sun, 7 Jul 96 10:33:42 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: The Views from Above & At Ground Level X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Sun, 7 Jul 96 10:33:42 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: The Views from Above & At Ground Level X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Elisabeth Vonarburg writes: >And has anybody read the editorial about Wiscon 20 in the latest New York >Review of SF? (Hartwell ed.), which I will summarize rashly by quoting only >one sentence: >"A lot of discussion about disagreement went on in the halls, not much in >the panels" >In fact, there are quite a lot of interesting *questions* in Hartwell's >editorial, and I invite you to read it. They don't sell the NYRSF at any local outlet in Seattle anymore, & over the last two years it's generally gotten to be too boring for me to find it worth paying for an entire subscription. But frankly, I find the idea of David Hartwell talking about what "went on in the halls" & reporting on WisCon from his lofty perch above the hoi polloi about as credible as listening to the speeches of Bob Dole & Gingrich in order to find out about what the lives & problems of single mothers. Perhaps his editorial does raise interesting quesitons-- but they certainly can't have much to do with the ordinary WisCon goer's experience. But then maybe the subject of these conversations only involves the higher circles of Name personages-- Le Guin, Kress, Elgin, Hartwell, Vornarburg & so on. The conversations I had tended to be about fiction, writing, utopian dimensions, teaching & scholarship (there happened to be a fair number of graduate students there, with some of whom I fell into hallway discussions) more than anything. So I guess it's really a quesiton of who's WisCon Mr. Hartwell is speaking about. (All of which disagreeably reminds me of how differently the same occassion can be where different social spaces exist in the same territory, as in grownups vs. children, or the Drawing Room vs. the Servants' Hall.) Timmi  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA06864; Sun, 7 Jul 96 14:28:46 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA21057; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 13:28:22 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA20991 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 13:18:35 -0500 Received: from netcom22.netcom.com (netcom22.netcom.com [192.100.81.136]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA08839 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 13:18:33 -0500 Received: (from abostick@localhost) by netcom22.netcom.com (8.6.13/Netcom) id LAA11918; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 11:18:31 -0700 Message-Id: Date: Sun, 07 Jul 1996 11:04:21 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: abostick@netcom.com (Alan Bostick) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Pretending, Fantasy, Infinite Instrumentalities, Power In-Reply-To: <960705132347_349609739@emout18.mail.aol.com> References: <960705132347_349609739@emout18.mail.aol.com> X-To: Scharn12@aol.com X-Cc: fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Sun, 07 Jul 1996 11:04:21 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: abostick@netcom.com (Alan Bostick) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Pretending, Fantasy, Infinite Instrumentalities, Power In-Reply-To: <960705132347_349609739@emout18.mail.aol.com> References: <960705132347_349609739@emout18.mail.aol.com> X-To: Scharn12@aol.com X-Cc: fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN In article <960705132347_349609739@emout18.mail.aol.com>, Scharn12@aol.com wrote: > But only in males do I come across notions like the one constantly > expressed by the bad guys in Dr. Who, for instance: " -- and then I WILL > RULE THE UNIVERSE!" The idea of being able, through techniques of > one kind or another, to *do anything,* to "become God," I have always > identified as a masculine notion (and a famously stupid one at that), > which I think is expressed perfectly in the phrase "fantasies of infinite > instrumentality." I'm not sure whether I'm disagreeing with you or not; but the writer who to me most exemplifies this notion taken to its horrid extreme is a woman, Ayn Rand. (But perhaps this explains the perverse fascination Rand's books hold for adolescent women -- like Prometheus stealing fire from the gods, she stole power-fantasy from the men.) -- Alan Bostick | [Spielberg's] latest is TWISTER, a film that mailto:abostick@netcom.com | gives whole new meaning to the phrase "giant news:alt.grelb | sucking sound." -- Patrick Taggart http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~abostick  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA08970; Sun, 7 Jul 96 16:37:19 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA21665; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 15:36:50 -0500 Received: from cs.wisc.edu (cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.6]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id PAA21637 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 15:35:34 -0500 Received: from (blv-pm3-ip19.halcyon.com [204.29.16.109]) by cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA11749 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 15:35:31 -0500 Message-Id: Date: Sun, 7 Jul 96 13:26:28 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: risk-taking posts X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Sun, 7 Jul 96 13:26:28 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: risk-taking posts X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Elisabeth Vonarburg writes: > Wwhy was I feeling >kind of worried after sending my message? Why did I wait so long to send >it (apart from the fact that I am currently in the maniacal phase of >Writing?) I almost *always* feel anxious after posting to fem-sf. It's a consequence of risk-taking. Writing fiction is like that for me, too. I think the important point here is that you *did* send your message, you *did* formulate a response (& a very thoughtful, interesting one, in my opinion-- as I said in my lengthy reply on Friday). The day I stop formulating posts I couldn't risk elsewhere & stop sending them is the day this list ceases to be a space that can include me. Timmi  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA10219; Sun, 7 Jul 96 17:40:01 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id QAA21836; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 16:39:32 -0500 Received: from cs.wisc.edu (cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.6]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id QAA21766 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 16:21:32 -0500 Received: from (blv-pm3-ip23.halcyon.com [204.29.16.113]) by cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id QAA11790 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 16:21:28 -0500 Message-Id: Date: Sun, 7 Jul 96 14:15:51 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: RE: Narrativs, transvestism X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Sun, 7 Jul 96 14:15:51 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: RE: Narrativs, transvestism X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Justine wrote: >I'm really glad Elisabeth Vonarburg has jumped in on this thread cause I have >to admit that I've been getting just the tiniest bit peevish with some of >what's been said. There are so many ways of being it seems pointless to talk >about anyone having a monopoly on a particular experience. It seems to me >more useful to say we are ALL different. I am an Australian in my twenties >with some nasty scars - I am not like any other Australian in their twenties >with some nasty scars. If I wrote about an Australian in her twenties with >some nasty scars I would hope that the believability of that ozzzie would not >be ruled out by another Australian in her twenties with some nasty scars >proclaiming "I don't recognise that - it's inauthentic." Or that the other >ozzie with the scars is the only person who could possibly coment on such a >piece of writing. >We have to recognise that we are all different and we have to recognise that >lesbian experience is not identical in every city or town in the world that >some lesbians are not part of queer communities are not politcal and want no >part of queer pride and some do. Some have affairs with women but marry men. >Some marry women but have affairs with men. Some marry either and have >affairs with either. Some don't have sex. The variables are infinite which is >the authentic lifestyle and way of being "lesbian"? Or straight or any other >way you want to identify each other and ourselves. This is-- I think!-- what I said in my post responding to Elisabeth's post. To use feminist theoretical language: it's a matter of positionality, not identity. >And she's right write what you know >is bullshit. Yes, otherwise we'd never learn anything. I've looked backed through the posts on this thread & I can't find anyone saying that writers have to stick to writing in their own voices. In fact, it seems to me that all the writers who posted talked about the challenges they themselves have faced writing in other voices. So my question is, was I not supposed to discuss how Kelly's writing from a female pov was not interesting to me, & my ideas for why that was? (I've run my comments on _Wildlife_ by a male who has read the book, & he agrees absolutely with me.) I do like to think of it as a language problem-- & that Kelly's mastery of the foreign language he chose to write in is too crude to say anything in it that can interest me. (I.e., anything of interest in that book was in his own language, in which I am at least passively bilingual.) So what I'm wondering is, are you suggesting that the discussion of these kinds of problems be censored? Timmi  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA11182; Sun, 7 Jul 96 18:47:30 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id RAA22376; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 17:47:04 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA22206 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 17:30:31 -0500 Received: from chic.saglac.qc.ca (chic.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.2]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA09989 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 17:30:29 -0500 Received: from [204.19.37.56] (srv1s5.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.56]) by chic.saglac.qc.ca (8.6.11/8.6.11) with SMTP id SAA18730 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 18:31:21 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 18:31:21 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Names? NAMES !?! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mailer: Eudora F1.5.1 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 18:31:21 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Names? NAMES !?! X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN About David Hartwell and what he heard in the halls etc. at Wiscon, Timmi D. writes: >But then maybe the subject of these conversations only involves >the higher circles of Name personages-- Le Guin, Kress, Elgin, Hartwell, >Vornarburg & so on. The conversations I had tended to be about fiction, >writing, utopian dimensions, teaching & scholarship [snip] I am not sure I understand the tone of that remark, and since we've talked about giving the other the benefit of the doubt, I'll refrain from spluttering. I'll only say: Vonarburg is a NAME? Le Guin, Kress, Elgin, Hartwell are NAMES? Silly me. I thought we were persons. Now, let me remind everyone that I SAID I was quoting David H. quite savagely, i.e. cutting down his editorial piece. He said he noted a difference between what was said in the panels (no real arguing) and what was said in the halls, parties, dinners, breakfasts, lunches and other informal gatherings, (arguing). Perhaps I didn't convey well enough the fact that I felt the same, but that was the gist of my message, Timmi, and I thought that, considering some of the discussions that are taking place on this list, Hartwell's comments were of some interest. But don't mind me, or him: we're just Names. I would like to know what other people on the list think of this: for instance, (and considering that we couldn't attend *all* panels and don't know what may have been happening there), did you feel there was a healthy amount of arguing among panelists (and in that case, it was a "feminine" way of arguing, and Hartwell -- and I, sometimes too --just didn't get it); or...? My day of writing is over, my elbows ache, and I don't quite feel like typing David H.'s editorial just now. But if necessary I will, for he *does* make points that I feel should be discussed on the list (about feminist criticism of women by women, and the fact that female critics seem to be censoring themselves; my words, not his); and also something about a panel-that-should-have-been: Writers present at Wiscon (the Names and others...) speculating on where feminist SF is and where it is going. I found some of this in the panel about ageism, in fact. But not much in the other panels I attended. Did any of you? It would have been interesting indeed. Elisabeth Vonarburg evarburg@saglac.qc.ca "Il s'agit de vivre et non d'avoir raison"  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA11183; Sun, 7 Jul 96 18:47:32 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id RAA22387; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 17:47:13 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA22229 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 17:35:45 -0500 Received: from chic.saglac.qc.ca (chic.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.2]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA10011 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 17:35:44 -0500 Received: from [204.19.37.56] (srv1s5.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.56]) by chic.saglac.qc.ca (8.6.11/8.6.11) with SMTP id SAA18774 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 18:36:37 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 18:36:37 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Censoring Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mailer: Eudora F1.5.1 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 18:36:37 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Censoring X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN About the conversation about narrative transvestism, my comments, and Justine L. comments, Timmi writes: >So what I'm wondering is, are you suggesting that the discussion >of these kinds of problems be censored? I can't answer for Justine, but as for myself: not at all. That's why I am surprised by your reaction to Hartwell's comments, which *feels* like censoring to me. Elisabeth Vonarburg evarburg@saglac.qc.ca "Il s'agit de vivre et non d'avoir raison"  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA11581; Sun, 7 Jul 96 19:11:39 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id SAA22635; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 18:11:15 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA22398 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 17:49:04 -0500 Received: from emout12.mail.aol.com (emout12.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.38]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA10103 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 17:49:02 -0500 Received: by emout12.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id SAA18250 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 18:50:25 -0400 Message-Id: <960707185024_351512342@emout12.mail.aol.com> Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 18:50:25 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ArtBrau@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: New member X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 18:50:25 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ArtBrau@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: New member X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN I've added Helene Klodawsky to the list of FEM-SF list subscribers. Elisabeth Vonarburg nominated her last week. It will be interesting to hear from Helene how her film on feminist SF is going. Jeanne Gomoll artbrau@aol.com  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA11588; Sun, 7 Jul 96 19:11:47 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id SAA22646; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 18:11:23 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA22432 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 17:49:30 -0500 Received: from emout08.mail.aol.com (emout08.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.23]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA10106 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 17:49:29 -0500 Received: by emout08.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id SAA17193 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 18:50:29 -0400 Message-Id: <960707185027_351512696@emout08.mail.aol.com> Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 18:50:29 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ArtBrau@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Jurors in a Pool X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 18:50:29 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ArtBrau@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Jurors in a Pool X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN > Besides, if the jurors' deliberations are not to be divulged in > their entirety, "parliamentary privilege" etc. OK..., there *should* > be extensive official public comments on the works, both winners and > short-listed works. Why should the jury have to "sanitize" its > comments? [am I being naive, here?] Good reviewers don't, do they? A > well-articulated comment on a text -- not on its author --, shoudn't > have to be sanitized. The Tiptree award main criteria are well > known, or should be, and it should come to no surprise to anyone if > works are commented upon according to those specific criteria. As a past Tiptree judge, I agree with Gwyneth Jones that the correspondance among the judges needs to be protected as confidential. This is not to say, however, that the short list comments need to be sanitized. In my own year, we included several books on our short and long lists which included criticisms. David Brin's GLORY SEASON, leaps to mind. In my opinion such free-ranging discussion helps to open the discussion about gender-bending fiction, what it is, what it might be, etc., which is of course the purpose of the award in the first place. > > And since these comments would be depersonalized, I mean, attributed > to The Jury, not this or that juror... In fact, those comments are not depersonalized. Except for the first two years, jurors have signed their initials to their comments. > > AH, OK, I see I'm perhaps being naive again: what if there are > strongly divergent opinions on this or that work? Well, would it be > SO BAD to make them public? Why? United Feminist Front and all that? > I thought we were beyond this. And in fact, among the comments published in my year, there WERE divergent opinions, and that's fine. Still, we all are willing to say things in a private party with 4 friends than we are to publish for all to read.... I think it's a good thing to promise confidentiality for these proceedings in that it nurtures trust and openness among a small group of peole who spend a great deal of time talking to one another, finding common ground, and in some cases, becoming friends. Jeanne Jeanne  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA11589; Sun, 7 Jul 96 19:11:49 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id SAA22657; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 18:11:31 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA22443 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 17:49:48 -0500 Received: from emout12.mail.aol.com (emout12.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.38]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA10112 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 17:49:46 -0500 Received: by emout12.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id SAA18496 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 18:51:09 -0400 Message-Id: <960707185108_351512911@emout12.mail.aol.com> Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 18:51:09 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ArtBrau@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narrative transvestism X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Sun, 7 Jul 1996 18:51:09 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ArtBrau@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narrative transvestism X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Melissa Scott writes: > Two things struck me in the thread, the first being the question of > "getting it right" when you the writer aren't part of the group. > WaveLength, the gay 'zine I mentioned, has struggled with with the > issue of reviewing gay-themed books by people we knew to be > straight. My friend Don Sakers finally put it best when he said that > sometimes the writing had an accent: all the words and themes and > issues were in the right places, but somehow the stresses were > wrong, and it was clear that the writer, however well-intentioned, > wasn't part of the culture. I think that's what I see more of from > both men writing women and straights writing gays (and, for that > matter, yankees writing southerners): nothing is actively wrong, you > just know from the "accent" that the writer is not of the group. That's an interesting way to look at it. But I had an odd conversation with a gay man who had just finished reading TROUBLE AND HER FRIENDS. He was unaware of any personal information about you and assumed, in fact, that you were straight. He claimed to find your description of lesbian and gay characters unbelievable. I told him that you had a bit of first hand experience in the matter and he retreated, rather chagrined. It seems to me that the risk of doing to one another what was done to James Tiptree, Jr., means that we should be very careful about looking for bad accents among the work of those we think are foreigners to their topic. Tiptree was assumed to be a man and so people looked for masculine characteristics. Even in the KHATRU symposium, Tiptree was attacked several times on the basis that his obvious lack of female experience prevented him from fully understanding the concept of motherhood. It seems to me that we are more likely to find differences (and accents) when we look for them than any other time. This is NOT to say that we all speak with the same accent or that people don't get it wrong fairly often when they choose to write about or act upon the assumptions of groups with whom they are not familiar. But miscommunication can easily be escalated in the process of assuming basic unbridgeable differences. Jeanne Gomoll artbrau@aol.com  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA18911; Mon, 8 Jul 96 01:06:13 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA24861; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 00:05:38 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA24757 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 23:50:56 -0500 Received: from relay1.geis.com (relay1.geis.com [192.77.188.2]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA12176 for ; Sun, 7 Jul 1996 23:50:55 -0500 Received: by relay1.geis.com (1.37.109.16/15.6) id AA289921343; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 04:49:03 GMT Received: by (genie.)relay1.geis.com ( 2rem/1.40 ) ; Mon, 8 Jul 96 04:49:03 UTC 0000 ( from inet01# ; Mon, 8 Jul 96 04:48:51 UTC 0000) Message-Id: <199607080449.AA289921343@relay1.geis.com> Date: Mon, 8 Jul 96 04:22:00 UTC 0000 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: s.sturgis2@genie.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Disagreement Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Genie-Qk-From: S.STURGIS2 X-Genie-Qk-Id: 5139737 X-Genie-Gateway-Id: 786342 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Mon, 8 Jul 96 04:22:00 UTC 0000 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: s.sturgis2@genie.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Disagreement X-Genie-Qk-From: S.STURGIS2 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN I just got back from Gaylaxicon, where many of these issues (narrative transvestism, under other names; the invisibility of lesbians; etc.) came up. At the moment the brain's too sluggish to recapitulate -- later! I haven't read David Hartwell's editorial, I hope to find a copy at Readercon next weekend -- but knowing HOW MUCH was going on at WisCon, and how totally impossible it was for one person, or even a small group of friends/associates, to attend more than a fraction of the panels, I bristled at his generalization, as quoted by Elisabeth V. I would bristle if ANYONE made that generalization. Is the presence of arguing/disagreement (which definitely aren't the same thing in my book) necessarily a sign of health, and is its absence necessarily a sign that something's wrong? Is a 55-minute-long panel necessarily the best setting for argument/disagreement? The key word here is "necessarily." Some of the best panels I've been to, at WisCon and elsewhere, are spontaneous collaborations: ideas spark between panelists and active audience members, and what emerges is insight or understanding that no single person had when the panel began. I've also walked out on several, NOT at WisCon, that turned into pissing contests between two or more panelists or audience members. Sure, one person's pissing contest is another's high-level debate, but(t?) . . . More about this after I read Hartwell. More about Gaylaxicon after I get some sleep. Susanna S. -30-  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA21805; Mon, 8 Jul 96 04:22:59 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id DAA25708; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 03:22:27 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id DAA25670 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 03:15:30 -0500 Received: from pgmail.arts.su.edu.au (pgmail.arts.su.edu.au [129.78.16.13]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id DAA13214 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 03:15:25 -0500 Message-Id: Date: 8 Jul 1996 18:16:26 U Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: "Justine Larbalestier" To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Panels and Hallways X-To: "FEM sf list" X-Mailer: Mail*Link SMTP-QM 3.0.2 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: 8 Jul 1996 18:16:26 U Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: "Justine Larbalestier" To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Panels and Hallways X-To: "FEM sf list" X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Panels and Hallways 7/8/96 Actually I've had the exact same experience at every single conference and convention - academic as well as science fiction - I've ever been to. With rare and very noisy exceptions people have a tendency to listen and absorb and add to in the formal space of the paper or panel and then afterwards when they've thought about it more and they're with people they know well they start chewing it over and disagreements and debates start happening. Doesn't worry me at all. But I was part of some disagreements on and with two or three panels at WisCon - but then I'm perverse. And in response to Timmi (feel awkward calling you that without having met) no I'm not calling for censorship just for more thoughtful articulations of what it is we're rejecting as "inauthentic". The argument that something is not like the "real" world and is therefore bad writing always falls down because there are examples of *everything* out there. God forbid there are even women who scream when they see rats and wear high heels! Notions of bad writing have far more to do with fictional worlds than with "real" ones which are pretty imaginary anyway. And there's some self-contradiction for you all!  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA28521; Mon, 8 Jul 96 10:12:06 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id JAA29513; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 09:09:53 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA29004 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 08:47:57 -0500 Received: from lynx.dac.neu.edu (lynx.dac.neu.edu [129.10.1.14]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA15014 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 08:47:56 -0500 Received: (from lmarks@localhost) by lynx.dac.neu.edu (Noygdb!) id JAA14478 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 09:47:55 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199607081347.JAA14478@lynx.dac.neu.edu> Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 09:47:55 -0400 (EDT) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Laurie Marks To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narrative transvestism Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 09:47:55 -0400 (EDT) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Laurie Marks To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narrative transvestism X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN I'm really impressed that Susanna Sturgis managed to write a post after Gaylaxicon, after a lengthy trip home which involved various expressways, taking a boat trip, _and_ getting lost, thanks to the poor directions of yours truly (you will all be unsurprised to hear that she was very sweet about it). I'm still exhausted and I've had a full night's sleep and my trip home only took twenty minutes and did not require that I cross a piece of the Atlantic. Therefore I have come to realize that Susanna is Superwoman reincarnated. Two ideas from Gaylaxicon panels which seem to be of relevance: 1) Stealth lesbians. Under the inspiring moderatorship of Melissa Scott we wrestled with the matter of lesbian invisibility and managed to get everyone in the audience riled up about it. I realize that no one on this list is telling anyone that they _can't_ write about people who are not like themselves, but I worry, like others who have spoken up lately, that lesbians in particular are inadvertently silencing those who would write about them by insisting that they get it right. I think people need to have permission to get it wrong so that they at least will take the risk. If Suzy Charnas hadn't been willing to take that risk, I wouldn't be writing lesbian fantasy today - not only that, but I might not even be a lesbian, as far as I can figure out. (Thank you Suzy, thank you.) So it seems to me that reactions from people who claim a writer got it wrong are wrong-headed because they reinforce the very invisibility that we are supposedly against. If the only people who are allowed to write about lesbians are lesbians, and the four of us (more or less) each write a book a year, which is optimistic, and we actually choose to write about lesbians, which is also optimistic, we still haven't done a lot to change the world, now, have we? Same goes for people of color. This expectation is also wrong-headed from another point of view, because the very idea of "getting it right" is kind of nonsensical, especially in the context of fantasy/science fiction. My fantasy worlds tend to have non-nuclear families; have I "gotten families wrong"? Or am I setting myself up to be judged by the people who actually are in group marriages, because I'm somehow colonizing their turf? The whole question seems silly to me. This is a fantasy. It is, by definition, not subject to the rules of reality. So my vote is that we should be generous to the people who get it wrong because I think you have to be able to get it wrong it order to be able to get it right. 2) Why women like to see men make it. In the panel on this subject I requested that we turn the question around and start asking why women don't like to see women make it. I think that women find gay sex exciting and lesbian sex unexciting because of the power factor. The two writers of slash fiction agreed that it was the equality of power between the men which made it worth writing about. I find myself struggling even for the language with which to discuss this subject (which I guess might explain its invisibility), but I find it astonishingly difficult to write about women's sex in an exciting way because I can't really imagine what women's power looks like in the bedroom (outside of S/M of course, which, besides seeming like a major capitulation to me just doesn't do what I want). Is it possible for women to have agency and active, aggressive, potentially dangerous desire between _equals_? I just can't seem to get my mind around this concept. But it's easy to imagine between men, and I think that's why women like it. Laurie lmarks@lynx.neu.edu  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA04056; Mon, 8 Jul 96 11:58:45 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id KAA02255; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 10:58:09 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id KAA01813 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 10:46:59 -0500 Received: from DUKEMC.MC.DUKE.EDU (dukemc.mc.duke.edu [152.3.78.3]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id KAA16720 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 10:46:58 -0500 Received: from ccmail.duke.edu by mc.duke.edu (PMDF V5.0-5 #16741) id <01I6TUUFECJ4000B3D@mc.duke.edu> for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Mon, 08 Jul 1996 11:48:45 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <01I6TUYGONFG000B3D@mc.duke.edu> Date: Mon, 08 Jul 1996 11:15 -0400 (EDT) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: hirsc003@mc.duke.edu To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: an ardent lurker Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Mon, 08 Jul 1996 11:15 -0400 (EDT) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: hirsc003@mc.duke.edu To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: an ardent lurker X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN After months of silent lurking (or is that redundant?), I feel compelled to say how much I am enjoying this list. I am a reader of fem sf, not a writer, but I feel privileged, indeed, to be able to participate (silently) in these debates and discussions. My 9-year-old daughter is a particular fan of Madeline L'Engle, and would love to contact her. Does anyone know how to reach her? Marcy Hirsch  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA08853; Mon, 8 Jul 96 13:42:33 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA04205; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 12:41:57 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA03335 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 12:06:52 -0500 Received: from tom.compulink.co.uk (tom.compulink.co.uk [194.153.0.51]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA18005 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 12:06:49 -0500 Received: (from root@localhost) by tom.compulink.co.uk (8.6.9/8.6.9) id SAA12286 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 18:06:48 +0100 Message-Id: Date: Mon, 8 Jul 96 18:05 BST-1 Reply-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: narrative transvestism X-Cc: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Mon, 8 Jul 96 18:05 BST-1 Reply-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: narrative transvestism X-Cc: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Jeanne Gomoll wrote: > That's an interesting way to look at it. But I had an odd > conversation with a gay man who had just finished reading TROUBLE > AND HER FRIENDS. He was unaware of any personal information about > you and assumed, in fact, that you were straight. He claimed to > find your description of lesbian and gay characters unbelievable. > I told him that you had a bit of first hand experience in the > matter and he retreated, rather chagrined. Ha! "How dare you presume I'm heterosexual!" I wonder what he found "unbelievable" about the descriptions of gay characters. I thought they acted pretty much like people...in a dramatic, adventure-fiction sort of way. Avedon Feminists Against Censorship http://www.fullfeed.com/hypatia/censor.html  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA08854; Mon, 8 Jul 96 13:42:34 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA04194; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 12:41:48 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA03333 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 12:06:51 -0500 Received: from tom.compulink.co.uk (tom.compulink.co.uk [194.153.0.51]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA18003 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 12:06:47 -0500 Received: (from root@localhost) by tom.compulink.co.uk (8.6.9/8.6.9) id SAA12241 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 18:06:45 +0100 Message-Id: Date: Mon, 8 Jul 96 18:05 BST-1 Reply-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Names? NAMES !?! X-Cc: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Mon, 8 Jul 96 18:05 BST-1 Reply-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Names? NAMES !?! X-Cc: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Elisabeth Vonarburg wrote: > Now, let me remind everyone that I SAID I was quoting David H. quite > savagely, i.e. cutting down his editorial piece. He said he noted a > difference between what was said in the panels (no real arguing) > and what was said in the halls, parties, dinners, breakfasts, > lunches and other informal gatherings, (arguing). Perhaps I didn't > convey well enough the fact that I felt the same, but that was the > gist of my message, Timmi, and I thought that, considering some of > the discussions that are taking place on this list, Hartwell's > comments were of some interest. Actually, I frequently find it is the case that: (1) on panels of this type, people (women)try to smooth over differences between each other and look for commonality; but (2) later on, people's reservations about what has been said bubble to the surface in private conversation. Part of that is just a matter of things gestating in your brain for more than an hour. Most of us (yes, even I) don't leap on things right away and come up with a well-though out or meaningful response. Also, many things sound "true" at first until you spend a few minutes holding them up against experience. I think you also don't want to spoil the mood, and you want to see where other people's ideas are going. If someone is proposing an analysis that sounds like there might be something to it, you want to hear the whole thing out and see if it works. Then suddenly the panel is over and you've never had time to state your reservations about that analysis. Additionally, in private conversation it is easier to challenge an idea when the person who proposed that idea is not present - without giving the impression that you are challenging the _person_ rather than the idea. Ideas can meander a lot more easily in conversation, whereas on panels opposing ideas can sometimes tend to create false oppositions and dichotomies. I think that's something most of us don't want to see happen at WisCon panels - and especially not this year! Avedon Feminists Against Censorship http://www.fullfeed.com/hypatia/censor.html Avedon Feminists Against Censorship http://www.fullfeed.com/hypatia/censor.html  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA12725; Mon, 8 Jul 96 14:53:05 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA05518; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 13:51:16 -0500 Received: from cs.wisc.edu (cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.6]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA04952 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 13:20:54 -0500 Received: from (blv-pm3-ip14.halcyon.com [204.29.16.104]) by cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA13020 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 13:20:48 -0500 Message-Id: Date: Mon, 8 Jul 96 11:15:16 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Names? NAMES !?! X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Mon, 8 Jul 96 11:15:16 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Names? NAMES !?! X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN I woke up this morning realizing I violated the spirit of this forum yesterday in my inflammatory, sarcastic response to Elisabeth Vornarburg. I want to apologize to everyone for my bad behavior. It was gleefully rebellious. Any sign of police action has a tendency to trigger the bad, irresponsible child in me. Thoughtful discussion is called for, not sarcasm. Elisabeth Vornarburg wrote: >I am not sure I understand the tone of that remark, and since we've talked >about giving the other the benefit of the doubt, I'll refrain from >spluttering. I'll only say: Vonarburg is a NAME? Le Guin, Kress, Elgin, >Hartwell are NAMES? >Silly me. I thought we were persons. I apologize for provoking you, Elisabeth. My tone was ironic, which is always a difficulty in email communication (& I didn't even use a winking smilie to make it clear). I'm afraid I got carried away by a passionate spurt of irritation. Following your example, I will take your query about names & persons as straight (rather than ironic). "Names" in anglophone sf-talk is a commonplace usage designating well-known writers & editors. You may have noticed that at WisCon Names were referred to as "Luminaries." My irony was driven by three impressions I took from your "Divergences" post. One impression was that you & Hartwell were apparently referring to some bit out of outrage only the Luminaries had any awareness of. Censorship on a panel is a pretty serious charge: & in such loosely structured settings as WisCon's must be rather difficult to perpetrate secretly. Word of such a thing occuring in the open space of a panel would have spread like wildfire, & would have been very exciting conversational fodder to many of the 800 attending. As it was, at the airport a woman waiting for the same delayed plane as myself, after asking me if I'd attended WisCon, launched into an excited description of open, contentious conflict on a panel she had attended. If she had heard anything about suppressed conflict, you can bet she would have been talking about it, too. My own impression of the panels matched (to an extraordinary degree) that described by Justine. I understand what it means to be an oddball. (& I bet there are a number of people on the list who would say the same thing about themselves-- writers do tend to be askance to just about any group they're in. I suspect it has something to do with what drives people to write.) I didn't know a soul when I arrived. & yet I had interesting conversations with a couple of dozen individuals (& often talked about panel subjects in my own terms, or about subjects that I would have liked to have seen addressed). The idea of suppression or censorship never crossed my mind. As with this list, there was a spectrum of opinion. Just what I expect from thinking women. Hence, my irony about there being one WisCon for Luminaries (who were all secretly struggling to suppress one another) & another WisCon for the other 775 of us. The second impression is that there has been some covert discussion about suppressed expression at WisCon-- which is irritating to me, & naturally divisive, since it meant that you've decided not keep it from the members of this list (while at the same time choosing to cudgel them with it). Why is it we are not to know what was censored? I, for one, would like to know. & *who* was censored. How can you claim that there was censorship while at the same time refusing the opportunity to express those censored ideas? We've been discussing WisCon on this list since the very day after the event. I feel as if you're working the classic doublebind on us: in effect, you're saying you (or someone else) was censored, but the censored material is a secret. Catch-22! The third impression driving my irony was your willingness to take David Hartwell as the authorized representer of the experience of 800 people. Who but Luminaries ever saw David Hartwell except from a distance? For centuries of European history, men have been pontificating about how women always squabble & fight among themselves. This is a standard representation. The roots of that representation are misogynist, which one would think would give someone like David Hartwell, who I've heard has a PhD in medieval studies, pause. It's one thing for one feminist to talk about being censored or suppressed by others. It's quite another for a man standing on the sidelines to get on a soapbox & lay down the law to feminists. We're used to men laying down the law to us. That's all we've ever known. It's been a long time since I've run across one woman using a man's pontifications to chastize other women. I am sorry I was provocatively sarcastic with you, Elisabeth. But I do think it's foolish for you to have fallen into that very old pattern, & wrong-headed to try to suggest this grownups-children/ upstairs-downstairs division of WisCon. Divide & Conquer is an old strategy. Suggesting that there were two WisCons, & only one of them worth talking about, is a deployment of that strategy. Hence, my irritation. & finally, it's not in my power to censor David Hartwell. He has his own soapbox from which to pontificate, & the wherewithal to step up onto other soapboxes in a variety of venues. Perhaps it's different in Quebec, but here in the US, just about any articulate person-- particularly women & men who claim to be sympathetic to feminism-- can become media stars & bestselling authors by denouncing feminism. (While the only feminists who can become media stars are those that exemplify the public's worst stereotypical assumptions about feminists, such as Catherine McKinnon.) But of course that's part of the point of WisCon-- to have an openly feminist event, where feminists don't have to be on the defensive about Feminism 101, don't have to deal with the centuries-old media stereotypes, don't have to defend our calling ourselves feminists. One thing is certain, if we did have to deal with the usual monolithic sexism, we'd never have time to disagree about anything among ourselves. Timmi  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA15460; Mon, 8 Jul 96 16:00:44 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id OAA06563; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 14:59:25 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id OAA06229 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 14:32:48 -0500 Received: from belize.ucs.indiana.edu (belize.ucs.indiana.edu [129.79.10.64]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id OAA20340 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 14:32:44 -0500 Received: from ophelia.ucs.indiana.edu (lackeyj@ophelia.ucs.indiana.edu [129.79.10.44]) by belize.ucs.indiana.edu (8.7.3/8.7.3/1.10IUPO) with ESMTP id OAA09051 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 14:32:32 -0500 (EST) Received: (from lackeyj@localhost) by ophelia.ucs.indiana.edu (8.7/8.7/regexp($Revision: 1.3 $) id OAA14371; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 14:32:42 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 14:32:42 -0500 (EST) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: jennifer delaine lackey To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Panels and Hallways In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Sender: lackeyj@ophelia.ucs.indiana.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 14:32:42 -0500 (EST) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: jennifer delaine lackey To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Panels and Hallways In-Reply-To: X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Sender: lackeyj@ophelia.ucs.indiana.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Okay, this is my first time to make good on the pledge I made at WisCon to stop lurking on the list out of intimidation. Procrastination is one of my greatest talents. In one way I did feel that there were two WisCons, as Timmi commented facetiously. At any convention where there are people who present and people who don't, I think there is a bit of separation between the two groups, especially where you have pro writers and fans who want their attention. However, I did feel that the line between the two groups was constantly being adjusted and blurred by the hearty participation by the audience in some panels I attended, and by the friendliness and warmth of the pros. If Hartwell is suggesting that there isn't enough disagreement in the panels, he apparently wasn't attending the panels that I went to. I will admit that there were many times when I disagreed with what the panelists or some audience member said that I held my tongue, due to a desire not to pull the discussion off onto some tangent or an argument that would be completely useless, or out of sheer laziness on my part, which is to say that I didn't want to take the trouble to have to sufficiently formulate my thoughts on the subject to speak. Often there was a little flurry of murmurs of disagreement around me, as my compatriots or some other audience members quietly disagreed with some minor point. I would submit, as someone (sorry I don't remember who) already suggested, that in-depth disagreements cannot be carried out in a discussion group of fifty or sixty people in a one hour period. I know that the conversations I had with smaller groups over meals and so forth were much more sophisticated and included much more disagreement than the panels did, but that seems to me the way a conference works. You take the ideas out of the larger panels and work with them, in your own head and with smaller groups of people. I know that I also feel more certain of my own authority to speak in smaller groups where the social dynamics are much easier to work out, and dialogue about misunderstandings or varying uses of terms can be quickly negotiated. And how come Hartwell got picked to comment on a feminist science fiction convention, anyway? Aren't there an infinite number of people who might have been better suited to the task? Hartwell's comment (if that's indeed what he said, since I haven't read it yet) seems typical of the catch 22 that feminism finds itself in: if we don't argue then we're supressing freedom of expression; if we do argue then we're being catty just like women "always are". I do get awfully tired of hearing other people (especially men) comment on the dynamics of what I consider to be "my group", as if they knew exactly everything that was going on. I don't know exactly everything that was going on at WisCon, having at present only one body and a single consciousness. But I do know that what Hartwell seems to be implying wasn't what was going on in my neck of the woods, and I do have the feeling that I, and about a zillion other people, had a better clue about the proceedings than he. How's that for an "I'm-worthy-but-I'm-going-to-post-anyway" first posting. Please feel free to disagree; after all, you know what "they'll" say about us if we don't ;) Jennifer Lackey lackeyj@indiana.edu "Just watching the dark" - Richard Thompson Any resemblance between graduate students and the living dead is purely coincidental ******************************************************************  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA22130; Mon, 8 Jul 96 19:10:29 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id SAA09621; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 18:09:48 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA09098 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 17:48:57 -0500 Received: from server1.rscs.net (server1.rscs.net [204.249.238.10]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA23675 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 17:48:55 -0500 Received: from [205.247.20.243] by server1.rscs.net via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/940406.SGI) for id SAA16007; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 18:48:46 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 18:55:48 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ms001@server1.rscs.net To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narrative transvestism Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 18:55:48 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ms001@server1.rscs.net To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narrative transvestism X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Llike Susanna, I've been at Gaylaxicon over the weekend, which is why I haven't been responding to this thread as much as I'd like. I'd like to reiterate that my comments about "accents" were not intended to say that writers shouldn't write outside their own experiences - perhaps the fact that I've been trying to finish this book has made me more hasty than I intended - but that we should all do our homework. I can't see that it would even occur to any of us to write about - pulling an example out of my own past here - alchemy without reading some of the source material. That's one level of gross ignorance that does still occur and there's no real excuse for it, just as there's no excuse to write SF, mysteries, or any other genre, including mainstream, without learning some of the conventions of the writing and the expectations of the intended readership. Ah. I just got Laurie's post, and I see what people are hearing me say. She said: > (snip) I worry, like others who have spoken up lately, >that lesbians in particular are inadvertently silencing those who would >write about them by insisting that they get it right. I think people >need to have permission to get it wrong so that they at least will take >the risk. (snip again) >So it seems to me that reactions from people who claim a writer got it >wrong are wrong-headed because they reinforce the very invisibility that >we are supposedly against. If the only people who are allowed to write >about lesbians are lesbians, and the four of us (more or less) each >write a book a year, which is optimistic, and we actually choose to >write about lesbians, which is also optimistic, we still haven't done a >lot to change the world, now, have we? Same goes for people of color. I have been assuming that writers _will_ take risks, that you cannot write without taking risks, and that writers can't help taking these risks. I've also been assuming that a certain level of criticism isn't going to stop people from taking these risks. At least I hope it won't. (Witness all of us sticking our necks out on this topic in the first place.) I have also been assuming that everyone _especially_ in SF/fantasy is going to write outside their own skin. I've also been assuming that any criticism will be made in a reasoned and responsible manner - in other words, I'm not advocating trashing the people who "get it wrong", nor have I been bashing anybody on the topic. The book that I've had in mind in much of this discussion (which I've said before) is The Nature of Smoke; I've also mentioned Glass Houses, China Mountain Zhang, and Ethan of Athos. I don't think writers grow without thinking critically about their own work, or without thinking about criticism of their own work. No, trashing is not useful. But I'm not hearing anybody trashing anybody here. Are you all hearing me trash you? (This is literally a reality check and nothing more: I honestly want to know what you all are hearing me say. In other words, I think _I'm_ having an accent problem here. :/ ) (And, speaking of criticism: earlier Jeanne said: >That's an interesting way to look at it. But I had an odd conversation with a >gay man who had just finished reading TROUBLE AND HER FRIENDS. He was unaware >of any personal information about you and assumed, in fact, that you were >straight. He claimed to find your description of lesbian and gay characters >unbelievable. Did he say why? _That_ would be the interesting part, and I would really love to know his reasons, what he found unconvincing. Please, tell me more!) To return to what Laurie said: >So my vote is that we should be generous to the people who get it wrong >because I think you have to be able to get it wrong it order to be able >to get it right. There is a great deal of truth in this - but even in this topic we've found at least one book and author that says they are feminist and which a lot of people on this list have said just gets it wrong: Glory Season. Feelings about this book are _really_ strong, and as far as I can see, for good reason - it seems to be a book in which Brin contradicts everything he thinks he's supporting. How generous can/should I be to this level of misunderstanding? To put this in more extreme terms than I know you meant, Laurie, I feel as though I'm being asked to be grateful that someone not of the group has condescended to write about the group, to hold them to lesser standards than I would "one of us" because, well, at least they bothered. How do we "give permission" for writers to make this kind of mistake while at the same time allowing ourselves the right as readers to interrogate the text and subtext of novels? The other part of this issue is the subtler question of getting nothing wrong, but not getting it, whatever it is, fully right. That's a whole lot harder to either define or assess, and I've been trying to articulate my thoughts more fully because I'm not entirely happy with my earlier analogy - which does seem to rely on a cultural unity that doesn't exist and in which I don't believe. But recently I read The Nature of Smoke, which I felt used the lesbian character as a symbol of manlessness - I mean this in a positive sense, in that Cid is the only character who manages to be mostly free of male influence and action (on which the plot otherwise depends); she is also the most creative and exciting character in the book, and is the inventor of the version of chaos theory that is the scientific crux of the novel. She also must (a) take this drug that causes serious mutation, becoming a superior being but no longer human (b) die and (c) be ressurrected in a plant-based clone body before she and her female lover can get back together. And the lover is explicitly immunized against the virus that gives Cid her chaos vision in order that she can ground Cid, can be what Cid isn't, which is very neat on one level but is also somewhat disturbing in that it ends up making the character who has been presented as the "real" lesbian explicitly different from (in an explicitly biological sense, making her almost a different species from) her lover for whom she is the first lesbian affair. The handling of sex is similar: the heterosexual sex scenes are described from (stereotypically minimal) foreplay to orgasm, and presented as at best manipulative and generaly abusive; the lesbian scenes cut away before the characters do much more than fondle each other - _but_ a scene is included in which the scientist villain watches security tape of the two women having sex and considers how he could reedit it into a porn tape. The lesbian character (and I make the distinction between Cid-the-lesbian and Magnolia-her-lover because the writer does) and relationship seem to exist to comment on the straight world - to be in some sense a symbol of what Magnolia (and the straight female POV character, Rose) could have if they escape the straight world. The parallel flower names seems only to point up this symbolic use. And there is a huge difference between using a lesbian character and relationship as a _symbol_ and as a _subject_. In The Nature of Smoke, the symbolism is very positive, and in fact I enjoyed the book. But I felt that the author was using this lesbian character to talk about something else. There is nothing wrong with this - it's a perfectly legitimate tool and it's in every writer's repertoire, particularly in SF. But the two intentions are different, and it shows. I'm _not_ saying that Harris "got lesbians wrong". I'm saying that at some fundamental level she wasn't really writing about lesbians at all. And maybe that's OK. By concentrating on the fact that these characters don't ring true as lesbians, I think I missed the strong possibility that she wasn't actually that interested in them as lesbians. My point is that this symbolic use makes Cid something other than a fully realized character. And that's what a number of male writers have been doing with female characters for years - objectifying us as an alien "them". Even when that objectification is positive, I'd rather be the subject. This isn't an easy question. Writing isn't an easy craft/art, and sometimes you can't make the leap into another's skin and have to rely on familiar tropes and types. (It's not easy for me to write straight people. I hold myself responsible for trying to do it right, and maybe not succeeding, but I keep trying to push myself when the stories demand it.) But I think that we all have to push beyond the symbolic protagonists. M. === Melissa Scott ms001@mail.rscs.net My performance ain't perfect But it's loud and it's fast Widespread Panic  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA22139; Mon, 8 Jul 96 19:10:33 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id SAA09647; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 18:10:08 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id SAA09571 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 18:07:45 -0500 Received: from chic.saglac.qc.ca (chic.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.2]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id SAA23899 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 18:07:43 -0500 Received: from [204.19.37.65] (srv1s14.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.65]) by chic.saglac.qc.ca (8.6.11/8.6.11) with SMTP id TAA01126 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 19:08:34 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 19:08:34 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Names, Impressions, Assumptions, Reflexes, Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mailer: Eudora F1.5.1 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 19:08:34 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Names, Impressions, Assumptions, Reflexes, X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN This is getting not unexpected, and slightly sad (for me at least). Let me try to analyse it. * "Names":I know what "Names" means in English in that context. I was surprised and rather scandalized to see it used by Timmi, since I felt it was used in a dismissive and needlessly divisive way. Seems I was not mistaken. * Impressions: as I read Timmi's last post, I could see the net of misunderstanding proliferating wider and wider, until at the end I had to laugh, incredulous, and as I said, sad. I reread my initial post, and I still have no idea how Timmi can have come by these impressions she says she had. >One impression was that you & Hartwell were apparently >referring to some bit out of outrage only the Luminaries had any >awareness of. Let me state simply and unequivocally: no. He was not and I was not. He was referring to possible self-censorship by women; that's how I read his editorial, at any rate (or what I chose to read in his editorial. I can feel suspicion cropping up all over inside me. No, nooooo!) He writes, (and I should have copied this to begin with, guilt-guilt). "The strength of feminist SF in the past has most often been its opposition, often its radical opposition to other sf, even to other sf by women or about women or about gender roles and identities. A lot of discussion about disagreement went on in the halls, not much in the panels." I don't know how to express this, but somehow it strikes me as very paranoid to automatically assume that others are paranoid, and that's the *impression* I get from Timmi's comments on the censorship Hartwell (and I, both culprits) is supposed to have noticed at wiscon and so forth: >The second impression is that there has been some covert discussion >about suppressed expression at WisCon-- which is irritating to >me, & naturally divisive, since it meant that you've decided not >keep it from the members of this list (while at the same time >choosing to cudgel them with it). Why is it we are not to know >what was censored? I, for one, would like to know. & *who* was >censored. How can you claim that there was censorship while at >the same time refusing the opportunity to express those censored >ideas? We've been discussing WisCon on this list since the very >day after the event. I feel as if you're working the classic >doublebind on us: in effect, you're saying you (or someone else) >was censored, but the censored material is a secret. Catch-22! Now, here is an example of what we perhaps should refrain to do in a discussion (notice: I'm not being snide or anything, here; statement of fact, OK?)!; saying "you" and attributing to people, as facts, "claims" we *think* they have made. Again, I reread my initial post and I can't see *anything* about a "covert discussion about suppressed expression at WisCon". The only way I can explain Timmi's impression is that, because I didn't have much time to write my message, I wrote it too quickly and seemed to suggest things and "cudgel" (gosh) people with whatever I was not saying. >The third impression driving my irony was your willingness to >take David Hartwell as the authorized representer of the experience >of 800 people. Who but Luminaries ever saw David Hartwell except >from a distance? For centuries of European history, men have >been pontificating about how women always squabble & fight among >themselves. [snip] That's where I began to understand what was going on, hence the "not unexpected, slightly sad" bit at the beginning of my present message. * It goes like this: Timmi *assumes* I am willing to (etc.). From that assumption (not fact) she goes into full telepathic mode, *knows* what I really think,(deluded, or even man-identified me, or something to that effect, I *assume*..), and launches into its rebuttal, the well-known argument "men have been pontificating about how women always squabble & fight among themselves" etc., etc. [which may well have become a *reflex* by now for many of us (I do it!)] I don't mean to argue with that argument, although I'm beginning to be rather fed up seeing it trotted out at any opportunity, especially to silence a man's or a woman's not necessarily irrelevant arguments... [That may not be what Timmi was doing. Assumptions, assumptions. Ommmmmmmmmmmmm. OK, I'm back.] > I am sorry I was provocatively sarcastic >with you, Elisabeth. But I do think it's foolish for you to have >fallen into that very old pattern, & wrong-headed to try to suggest >this grownups-children/ upstairs-downstairs division of WisCon. > Divide & Conquer is an old strategy. Suggesting that there were >two WisCons, & only one of them worth talking about, is a deployment >of that strategy. Hence, my irritation There we go again. The pattern/suggestion/strategy etc Timmi attributes to me is the pattern she's been (reflexively, my impression) imposing on my comments, not what I actually wrote. (And what Hartwell wrote, although I quoted only one sentence). What *I* see here, the *impression* I am getting is that having a man in the loop of that discussion, [and perhaps especially Hartwell, I don't know)], has triggered a few *reflexes* which have distorted the reading of my initial post by Timmi, as well as its subject, which was self-censorship among women. It so happened that on that particular subject I agreed with Hartwell. If that makes me unclean... Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm >From a few private messages I got from this list, it seems I was not alone in having this *impression* (ogawd, not another contaminated word in my vocabulary!) that *some* people may have been censoring themselves at Wiscon, for various reasons, yes, shyness, time, not seeing a yes-but (or no-but...) argument before the show is over, etc., all this is true... *And*, *possibly*, for *some people* -- I'm getting cramps for walking on eggs, here, is this what it should come to? -- an unwillingness to disagree with other women. Like I said in another message, "United Front" and all that. Which is death. And I don't *care* if men have used our disagreements to... Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. >& finally, it's not in my power to censor David Hartwell. He >has his own soapbox from which to pontificate, & the wherewithal >to step up onto other soapboxes in a variety of venues. So, OK David Hartwell is a *man* who wields a certain amount of *power* in SF&F. Does that make him *automatically* wrong about anything, including and especially feminist issues? And the way I read his editorial (which, by the way, is signed "David Hartwell & the editors", not all of whom are men), I don't see any "pontificating". He asks some questions which I think are valid and, to quote a word someone used a while ago here and explained very well to me, "interesting". [And now am I going to be jumped upon or at because I am "defending" him? I'm not, because he doesn't need to be defended, shouldn't need to be defended here. It could be anyone saying what [I read] he said. And now I am wondering, more and more dispiritedly, if any of this would have happened had I quoted another "Name" -- a female one. Or simply not quoted any "Name" and just posted what I did post about my *impression* and *questions* about Wiscon. Damn, is this what it's all about? It can't be! Not here on this list!! It is so incredibly...!!! I have to stop. Ommmm is not enough. Alas. Elisabeth Vonarburg evarburg@saglac.qc.ca "Il s'agit de vivre et non d'avoir raison"  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA22149; Mon, 8 Jul 96 19:10:47 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id SAA09632; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 18:09:58 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA09122 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 17:54:50 -0500 Received: from mail-out2.apple.com (mail-out2.apple.com [17.254.0.51]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA23732 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 17:54:48 -0500 Received: from scv1.apple.com (A17-128-100-119.apple.com [17.128.100.119]) by mail-out2.apple.com (8.7.1/8.7.1) with ESMTP id PAA10444 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 15:54:12 -0700 Received: from [17.201.21.69] (beckto2.apple.com [17.201.21.69]) by scv1.apple.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id PAA07326 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 15:57:13 -0700 Message-Id: Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 15:54:49 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: twb@apple.com (Tom Becker) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Panels and Hallways Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Sender: twb@mail.apple.com X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Mon, 8 Jul 1996 15:54:49 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: twb@apple.com (Tom Becker) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Panels and Hallways X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Sender: twb@mail.apple.com X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN I haven't read Hartwell's editorial yet, but I do have some comments on what has been said so far. At 2:32 PM 7/8/96, jennifer delaine lackey wrote: >And how come Hartwell got picked to comment on a feminist science fiction >convention, anyway? David Hartwell is a past WisCon guest of honor, as well as a leading editor in the field. His book, _Age of Wonders_, is the best general book on the sociology of science fiction. Also, the New York Review of Science Fiction regularly publishes feminist criticism, including frequent contributions from Gwyneth Jones as well as others. At 10:33 AM 7/7/96, Timmi wrote: >They don't sell the NYRSF at any local outlet in Seattle anymore, & over >the last two years it's generally gotten to be too boring for me to find >it worth paying for an entire subscription. To each her own, but I think you've been missing a lot. At 11:15 AM 7/8/96, Timmi wrote: > ...As with this >list, there was a spectrum of opinion. Just what I expect from >thinking women. The spectrum of opinion should include thinking men as well. >The second impression is that there has been some covert discussion >about suppressed expression at WisCon-- which is irritating to >me, & naturally divisive, since it meant that you've decided not >keep it from the members of this list (while at the same time >choosing to cudgel them with it). Every once in a while I see messages pop up with quotes from discussions off to the side of the list. Please be careful how you use e-mail, friends! It's easy to have a discussion fall of the list by accidentally replying to original sender instead of the list server. Also, it's perfectly ok to have discussions of to the side, but when you want to take a discussion back to the list it's nice to give us all an appropriate summary of what was said. >The third impression driving my irony was your willingness to >take David Hartwell as the authorized representer of the experience >of 800 people. Who but Luminaries ever saw David Hartwell except >from a distance? Well, I did, and I'm not a luminary, and he doesn't really know me. I spent more time talking with Kathryn Cramer about hypertext, but David was there to be a part of the convention and he seemed to be as approachable as anyone else. WisCon 20 was a big con and I'm sure no two people had quite the same experience. I think we can all agree that Hartwell is entitled to report on his experiences and his opinions, as long as he doesn't try to represent the rest of us. I still need to read the editorial and make sure he isn't crossing over that line, but I think of Hartwell as a basically good guy and I hope this is just a misunderstanding. Tom -- Tom Becker Hyper Propeller Head twb@apple.com Apple Computer, Inc.  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA25779; Mon, 8 Jul 96 21:26:39 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id UAA10588; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 20:26:07 -0500 Received: from cs.wisc.edu (cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.6]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id UAA10393 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 20:16:57 -0500 Received: from (blv-pm0-ip8.halcyon.com [204.29.16.8]) by cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id UAA13606 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 20:16:54 -0500 Message-Id: Date: Mon, 8 Jul 96 18:14:38 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: distorting effects of anger X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Mon, 8 Jul 96 18:14:38 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: distorting effects of anger X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN I see that I misunderstood what Elizabeth was saying. This is a tribute to the distorting effects of anger. I'm not angry at the presence of male opinion in this space, but at the use of male judgment of feminists, delivered from a bully pulpit. There's a difference. Feminist-bashing is a national sport in the US. A man speaking from a position of authority NOT to feminists but to the SF world as a whole is not delivering an opinion, but making a judgment. Charles Platt & David Brin will be delighted. A "liberal" proving that feminists are feminazis. Hartwell wasn't engaging *us* in discussion, he was telling the rest of the world what he thinks of us. Hence, my anger. Since I'm demonstrably prone to distorting what I'm reading in this discussion, I think I'd better sit back & cool it, at least until this (male) judgment from on high has faded. (& frankly, my work has suffered today, just because I'm so irrationally pissed off.) Sorry if I've made anyone uncomfortable. Timmi  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA01306; Tue, 9 Jul 96 01:17:34 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA14329; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 00:17:02 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA13917 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 23:52:41 -0500 Received: from pgmail.arts.su.edu.au (pgmail.arts.su.edu.au [129.78.16.13]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id XAA27214 for ; Mon, 8 Jul 1996 23:52:37 -0500 Message-Id: Date: 9 Jul 1996 14:51:27 U Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: "Justine Larbalestier" To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: One kind of lesbian? X-To: "FEM sf list" X-Mailer: Mail*Link SMTP-QM 3.0.2 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: 9 Jul 1996 14:51:27 U Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: "Justine Larbalestier" To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: One kind of lesbian? X-To: "FEM sf list" X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN One kind of lesbian? 7/9/96 Melissa Scott wrote: <> I have not been hearing Melissa saying that writers who are not lesbians should not write about lesbians but I *have* been hearing her say that there is somehow only one kind of lesbian accent. This I disagree with completely. I was trying to make that point clear with my earlier post where I used two of my friends' lives as anecdotal support. Being a "lesbian", "dyke", "gay woman" whatever is not a unitary experience or way of being, nor is being "straight" "bisexual" or whatever. You can, for example, have nothing but female lovers your whole life and never be part of any recognisable lesbian community and you can have relationships with both men and women and be the most militant dyke out you can also slide between these positions. To repeat myself identities change, subjectivities are fluid. Getting a lesbian charcter right is *not* the same as doing the research to get alchemy right or the use of a particular kind of gun. Actually the Ann Harris book is a perfect example of this - and I enjoyed and agreed with Melissa's analysis - Harris did not get some of her research right: Jakarta has not been spelt "Djakarta" for about twenty years - a jarring mistake in a book that's meant to be set in the future. Justine  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA01311; Tue, 9 Jul 96 01:17:37 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA14340; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 00:17:11 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA14313 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 00:15:50 -0500 Received: from emout13.mail.aol.com (emout13.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.39]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA27455 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 00:15:48 -0500 Received: by emout13.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA25618 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 01:15:34 -0400 Message-Id: <960709005116_233634725@emout13.mail.aol.com> Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 01:15:34 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ArtBrau@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Names, Impressions, Assumptions, Reflexes, X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 01:15:34 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ArtBrau@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Names, Impressions, Assumptions, Reflexes, X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN I think it would be a real good idea if all of us who are interested in this track of conversation to go out and try to find Hartwell's editorial and discuss it rather than the impression of someone else's impression of it. The discussion about disagreement still has merit (and is probably more important in the long run than Hartwell's conreport), but let's simplify it and talk about THAT by itself, rather than how we might be misinterpreting one another about an article that has been quoted partially and out of context, and seemingly read by only one of us--Elisabeth--so far. It seems to me that there are two conversations here, not one, and it would help if we separated them. I will attempt to buy a copy of NYRSF on Tuesday, and will scan it with OCR softwear and run it on Tuesday night for anyone who can't get a copy. Jeanne Gomoll artbrau@aol.com  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA08734; Tue, 9 Jul 96 08:17:05 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id HAA18689; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 07:16:09 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA17290 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 06:54:21 -0500 Received: from chic.saglac.qc.ca (chic.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.2]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id GAA29707 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 06:54:19 -0500 Received: from [204.19.37.62] (srv1s12.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.63]) by chic.saglac.qc.ca (8.6.11/8.6.11) with SMTP id HAA11392 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 07:55:12 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 07:55:12 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: cooling off period Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mailer: Eudora F1.5.1 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 07:55:12 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: cooling off period X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Jeanne Gomoll writes: >It seems to me that there are two conversations here, not one, and it would >help if we separated them. > >I will attempt to buy a copy of NYRSF on Tuesday, and will scan it with OCR >softwear and run it on Tuesday night for anyone who can't get a copy. Yes Jeanne, thank you, I thought exactly that as I was tossing and turning last night. I am sorry I didn't simply copy Hartwell's editorial myself. I was lazy. But the problem (as I see it) is that this thing developped not as much because of what Hartwell said, but *because he said it at all*. Which I find very disquieting. Elisabeth Vonarburg evarburg@saglac.qc.ca "Il s'agit de vivre et non d'avoir raison"  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA19619; Tue, 9 Jul 96 12:54:14 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id LAA22813; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 11:52:22 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA22251 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 11:32:50 -0500 Received: from server1.rscs.net (server1.rscs.net [204.249.238.10]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id LAA02821 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 11:32:48 -0500 Received: from [205.247.20.237] by server1.rscs.net via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/940406.SGI) for id MAA08463; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 12:32:37 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 12:39:41 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ms001@server1.rscs.net To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: One kind of lesbian? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 12:39:41 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ms001@server1.rscs.net To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: One kind of lesbian? X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN You're right, the basis of some of what I was saying was an unarticulated assumption that there is some basic "lesbian experience" that a writer can get right or wrong. And you're also right that that just ain't the case. (This is one of the problems with this kind of discussion: in one's haste to reply to a part of the thread, one doesn't always think out _all_ the parts of one's argument.) I think part of what I have been groping for is what I was trying to say about Harris's book. There is a huge difference between using a lesbian character to talk about the straight characters' lives and writing about that lesbian character in her own right. The former feels funny to me - sometimes it feels false to me; sometimes, as in The Handmaid's Tale, it works devastatingly well. There are also still the books out there that start from the premise that all lesbians are bad people purely because they are lesbians (eg., Wilhelmina Baird's Crashcourse and Clipjoint), and ones that assume that really all she needed was a good man (Northlight; I can't remember the author's name). There may not be a basic "lesbian experience", but there is something - I don't know how to articulate what it is, except as "getting it right" - that makes these books, which state a general rule, not an individual experience, well, wrong. M. === Melissa Scott ms001@mail.rscs.net My performance ain't perfect But it's loud and it's fast Widespread Panic  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA21223; Tue, 9 Jul 96 13:30:10 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA23644; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 12:29:15 -0500 Received: from cs.wisc.edu (cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.6]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA23021 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 12:07:30 -0500 Received: from (blv-pm3-ip26.halcyon.com [204.29.16.116]) by cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA14707 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 12:07:26 -0500 Message-Id: Date: Tue, 9 Jul 96 10:05:16 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: cooling off period X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Tue, 9 Jul 96 10:05:16 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: cooling off period X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Elisabeth Vonarburg wrote: >But the problem (as I see it) is that this thing developped not as much >because of what Hartwell said, but *because he said it at all*. Which I >find very disquieting. I'm not the only one prone to misread others' posts in significant ways, it seems. I did not say I was angry because Hartwell "said it at all." That is a significant misrepresentation, & one I have no choice but to disavow. Please read my last post carefully, & grasp the distinction I drew. I like to be misreperesented no more than the next person. What disquiets & depresses me is not that I & others are prone to misreading one another, but the fact that that I've been operating under a delusion about the nature of this space. I would have been a listener all these months, not a frank, open participant, if I hadn't misunderstood. I certainly do feel like a fool now. Timmi Duchamp  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA00684; Tue, 9 Jul 96 16:59:45 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA28483; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 15:56:24 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id PAA27625 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 15:31:44 -0500 Received: from life.ai.mit.edu (ai.mit.edu [128.52.32.80]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA06568 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 15:31:41 -0500 Received: from motor-cortex.ai.mit.edu (MOTOR-CORTEX.MIT.EDU) by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu id AA29468; Tue, 9 Jul 96 16:31:37 EDT Received: by motor-cortex.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) id AA00589; Tue, 9 Jul 96 16:31:35 EDT Message-Id: <9607092031.AA00589@motor-cortex.ai.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 9 Jul 96 16:31:35 EDT Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: eliz@ai.mit.edu (Elizabeth Willey) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: NYRoSF X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Tue, 9 Jul 96 16:31:35 EDT Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: eliz@ai.mit.edu (Elizabeth Willey) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: NYRoSF X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN For a long time I've been thinking of writing something about "why I didn't renew _The New York Review of Science Fiction_". But I haven't applied myself and quantitiatively confirmed my perception of it as a boys' club kinda zine. Spurred by Elisabeth Vonarburg's reports here of Hartwell's august commentary on Wiscon, and also by Tom Becker's remark that "the New York Review of Science Fiction regularly publishes feminist criticism, including frequent contributions from Gwyneth Jones as well as others", I finally did it. My impression of the NYRoSF editorial process is that most articles are written by invitation, in a roundabout way: Delia Sherman, say, remarks to someone there that she'd like to review _Tam Lin_, and he says fine, send it. Unsolicited out-of-the blue submissions aren't really wanted; most published articles grow out of some kind of contact with the staff. Or Ray Davis mentions that he's working on an essay on Delany, and one of the editorial people tells him they'll print it if he'll finish and send it in. David Hartwell has always exercised more influence than one might like to think; now the zine is pretty much his, and articles that give him digestive difficulties either don't appear or are pointlessly delayed. When I decided not to renew my subscription, my perception was that writing by women---both articles by women writers, and reviews and discussions of women writers---is invisible in the NYRoSF. It's never been the top priority---an average midlist novel by a man (such as Kim Stanley Robinson) has always had a far, far greater chance of being reviewed than an average midlist novel by a woman (such as Megan Lindholm). But, on reflection, I doubted myself: perhaps my perception was wrong; I was damning without facts. So I counted. Don't think, by the way, that my position is that feminist criticism (whatever that means) can only be produced by women. I'm sure that's not true. However, can we fairly characterize a publication in which women writers are neither published nor discussed as a vehicle for feminist criticism? Or for serious criticism of any kind? Personally I don't give a damn about criticism; most of the criticism published by NYRoSF is unreadable. I'd just like to read some reviews of books by women writers, and I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation of a zine that inclusively calls itself a "Review of Science Fiction". I counted articles by women and men, and about women and men, for years 1, 4, and 7 (plus the two issues I received after the end of my last year). Not only was my initial perception confirmed, but a trend was too, too plain: as the zine became older, more mature, as the staff became "shaken out", the women were sifted away, leaving us with Robert Heinlein in nearly every issue and, as I turned it off, John Norman's tedious droning whine... I don't think the folks at NYRoSF think of themselves as misogynistic, but the magazine certainly feels that way to me: NO GIRLS ALLOWED. Enough flaming: here's my numbers. Rules for counting: I sampled three ranges: Issues 1-12, 37-48, and 73-86 (my last paid issue was 84, but they sent two more anyway, and I continue to periodically receive renewal flyers in Tor envelopes---perfect junk mail, as Tor is my publisher; I always open them excitedly and toss them with disappointment). 1. Credit can be split, but there are limits. E.g.: I didn't bother counting and divvying up responsibility for an "article" composed of many responses to John Norman (a de facto letter column), or the shortlist for the Tiptree (a committee production, and essentially an announcement and not an article). 2. Books and articles are counted twice: who wrote them, and what are they about: Thus, Greg Cox reviewing Norman Spinrad is by a man about a man. An article by Alexei Panshin about Robert Heinlein is by a man about a man. An article about general criticism by Ursula LeGuin is by a woman. An article by a man about himself or his own writing (this happened several times) I counted only once, as by a man. Anthologies are divided up by editor: Windling-Datlow counts as one woman; Greenberg-Kerr counts as .5 man, .5 woman; and so on. 3. Editorials and letters not counted. 4. ? means that I don't know the sex (a list of these: Chris L. Miller, Ashley Grayson, J. Maxwell Young, Lauric Guillaud, J. R. Dunn, Arinn Dembo). Issue #10 seems to have been an exceptional feminism-themed issue and my favorite quote was the first sentence of one of the cover articles: "For years largely a boys' club---or as one male critic (Charles Platt, `Profile: Joanna RUSS') put it, stories written by men for boys, science fiction has been infiltrated since the early 1970s by an increasing number of women writers and critics, many of them feminists." Patrick D. Murphy---"`Gender Politics': Epithet or Accolade? Or, Feminism, SF, and the Case of Joanna Russ". (I think he may have been trying to be ironic, but the implied metaphors are unfelicitous as well as hackneyed.) ======================================================================== Article Authorship Article Subject Issue By W By M ? W M ? 1 2.5 12.5 0 1 7 0 2 6 9 0 0 8 0 3 5 10 0 1.5 8.5 0 4 5.5 8.5 0 0 7 0 5 8.5 11.5 0 7 7 0 6 4 9 1 2 8 0 7 4 14 1 2 10 0 8 6 10 0 2 10 0 9 2 13 0 2 10 0 10 5 7 0 5.5 3.5 0 11 5.5 7.5 1 5/6 5 1/6 0 12 3.5 6.5 0 3 3 0 Year 1 57.5 118.5 26.8 87.16 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Article Authorship Article Subject Issue By W By M ? W M ? 37 2 12 1 3 6 0 38 4 13 0 3 6 0 39 3 9 0 3 6 0 40 3 9 0 1 5 0 41 2 14 0 2 11 0 42 1 10 0 0 6 0 43 4 8 0 3 4 0 44 0 10 0 1 6 0 45 3 9 0 1.5 6.5 0 46 3.25 9.75 0 1 7 0 47 2.33 11.66 0 1 7 0 48 3 9 0 1 8 0 Year 4 30.58 124.41 20.5 78.5 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Article Authorship Article Subject Issue By W By M ? W M ? 73 3 10 0 2.5 6.5 0 74 2 9 0 2 6 0 75 1 8 1 2 3 0 76 1 11 0 2 6 1 77 3 9 0 3 7 0 78 1 7 0 1 4 0 79 2 9 0 2 6 0 80 0 12 0 0 9 0 81 1 12 0 1 8 0 82** 1 14 0 1 7 0 83 4 11 0 1 8 0 84 2 9 0 3 4 0 Year 7 21 121 20.5 74.5 85 0 8 0 1 4 0 86 0 11 0 .5 4.5 0 Y7 +2 21 132 22 79 **This issue included the Tiptree Shortlist, which I have not counted as it was a very multiple-author multiple-subject item. Issue #80 marks a nadir of sorts; I recall phoning a friend who also subscribed when that one first arrived and discussing the absence of women's work in it. Unlike most nadirs, however, there is no subsequent upward movement. Elizabeth Willey  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA00712; Tue, 9 Jul 96 16:59:59 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA28468; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 15:56:01 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id OAA26867 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 14:54:29 -0500 Received: from lynx.dac.neu.edu (lynx.dac.neu.edu [129.10.1.14]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id OAA05968 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 14:54:27 -0500 Received: (from lmarks@localhost) by lynx.dac.neu.edu id PAA14008 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 15:54:24 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199607091954.PAA14008@lynx.dac.neu.edu> Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 15:54:19 -0400 (EDT) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Laurie Marks To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narrative transvestism Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 15:54:19 -0400 (EDT) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Laurie Marks To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: narrative transvestism X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Melissa wrote: To put this in more extreme terms than I know you meant, Laurie, I feel as though I'm being asked to be grateful that someone not of the group has condescended to write about the group, to hold them to lesser standards than I would "one of us" because, well, at least they bothered. How do we "give permission" for writers to make this kind of mistake while at the same time allowing ourselves the right as readers to interrogate the text and subtext of novels? Me: I'm not so sure that "generous" equates to "grateful" but I think Melissa's dilemma hits the nail on the head (as usual). Maybe I see a way through the opposing demands of interrogation and generosity because I've experienced so many difficulties relating to my occasional innocent and inadvertent acts of racism. The people I hurt with my blundering can respond in two ways: by explaining my mistake (which is generous because they assume I mean well and they're devoting substantial energy to helping me to do better) or by assuming I intended to be a dolt, and lumping me with all the rednecked Klansmen of the world and telling me off. Both responses depend upon critical interrogation, but one uses it as a means of nurturing explication and the other uses it as a weapon with which to bash your head in. The head-bashers are entitled to their righteous rage - but they miss things. Melissa: I have been assuming that writers _will_ take risks, that you cannot write without taking risks, and that writers can't help taking these risks. I've also been assuming that a certain level of criticism isn't going to stop people from taking these risks. At least I hope it won't. Me: I don't know, Melissa. Try reading a few hundred freshman compositions and you'll get a whole lot of evidence that risk-less writing is the norm, not the exception! (heh, heh) I guess I'm more timorous than most, but it's actually very difficult for me to take public risks - a side effect of being an introvert I think - and very easy to discourage me from doing so. Perhaps it's because I'm a recent graduate school survivor, but the entire world sometimes seems myopically focused upon error. It's probably one reason why writing gets more and more difficult the more I do it. I'd like to imagine myself as a wild-haired screw-you-and-the-horse-you-came-in -on kind of gal, but the truth is that I'm not. I'm fortunate that my nascient attempts to write attracted nobody's notice and so nobody ever tried to fix me. Otherwise, who knows, maybe I'd be working for a living... Laurie lmarks@lynx.neu.edu  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA02602; Tue, 9 Jul 96 17:32:12 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id QAA29214; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 16:31:05 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id QAA28630 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 16:08:31 -0500 Received: from mail-out1.apple.com (mail-out1.apple.com [17.254.0.52]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id QAA07222 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 16:08:27 -0500 Received: from scv1.apple.com (A17-128-100-119.apple.com [17.128.100.119]) by mail-out1.apple.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id OAA32772 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 14:08:54 -0700 Received: from [17.201.21.69] (beckto2.apple.com [17.201.21.69]) by scv1.apple.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id OAA09266 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 14:10:51 -0700 Message-Id: Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 14:08:28 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: twb@apple.com (Tom Becker) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: cooling off period Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Sender: twb@mail.apple.com X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 14:08:28 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: twb@apple.com (Tom Becker) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: cooling off period X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Sender: twb@mail.apple.com X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN At 10:05 AM 7/9/96, Timmi Duchamp wrote: >What disquiets & depresses me is not that I & others are prone >to misreading one another, but the fact that that I've been operating >under a delusion about the nature of this space. I would have >been a listener all these months, not a frank, open participant, >if I hadn't misunderstood. Some people say they are frank and open but they are frank and open only about their own point of view. Timmi, I think you've been genuinely frank and open in the way that I respect: admitting imperfections and working out misunderstandings, while staying engaged in the discussion and fiercely committed to your principles. You've been a big part of the recent renaissance of this list and I hope you will keep it up. It's interesting that this is happening as part of a thread on the nature of discourse and disagreement at WisCon. There are a lot of parallels between what happened at WisCon and what's happening on this list. There will always be a tension between the things we have in common and the things we see differently. It echos up the meta-ladder into our modes of discourse, into our modes of perception, and our definitions of each other and ourselves. This should be no surprise given that our ostensible discussion topic is feminism and science fiction. Just like Prometheus, we're playing with fire. But think about it this way: In order for us to have a substantive discussion of how we disagree, we have to have a lot in common, so we can meet on a common ground, so we can have a common language with some degree of mutual understanding, so we feel motivated to hang in there and continue the discussion. On the other side of the coin, if we all had exactly the same point of view, we'd be pretty boring, and ineffective at adressing any real issues. It's hard to avoid getting black and white about one's role in a group like this: everybody's a stranger, and it's scary to speak up, or everybody's a friend, and one can say anything. Of course, what we've really got is in the middle: a lot of friends that mostly don't know each other very well. At 9:47 AM 7/8/96, Laurie Marks wrote (on a different thread): >So my vote is that we should be generous to the people who get it wrong >because I think you have to be able to get it wrong it order to be able >to get it right. I think this is right on. I'm willing to trust the people on this list, that they're focusing on the issues and not the personalities. Could say more, but I gotta go. Tom -- Tom Becker Hyper Propeller Head twb@apple.com Apple Computer, Inc.  1, answered,, Return-Path: Received: from netcom23.netcom.com by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA04544; Tue, 9 Jul 96 18:07:56 EDT Received: (from abostick@localhost) by netcom23.netcom.com (8.6.13/Netcom) id PAA22254; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 15:07:43 -0700 From: abostick@netcom.com (Alan Bostick) To: eliz@ai.mit.edu Cc: fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Subject: Midlist? (was Re: NYRoSF) Date: Tue, 09 Jul 1996 14:43:50 -0700 Organization: Arrogant Opinions 'R' Us Message-Id: References: <9607092031.AA00589@motor-cortex.ai.mit.edu> In-Reply-To: <9607092031.AA00589@motor-cortex.ai.mit.edu> Lines: 32 *** EOOH *** From: abostick@netcom.com (Alan Bostick) To: eliz@ai.mit.edu Cc: fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Subject: Midlist? (was Re: NYRoSF) Date: Tue, 09 Jul 1996 14:43:50 -0700 Organization: Arrogant Opinions 'R' Us References: <9607092031.AA00589@motor-cortex.ai.mit.edu> In-Reply-To: <9607092031.AA00589@motor-cortex.ai.mit.edu> In article <9607092031.AA00589@motor-cortex.ai.mit.edu>, eliz@ai.mit.edu (Elizabeth Willey) wrote: > When I decided not to renew my subscription, my perception was that > writing by women---both articles by women writers, and reviews and > discussions of women writers---is invisible in the NYRoSF. It's never > been the top priority---an average midlist novel by a man (such as Kim > Stanley Robinson) has always had a far, far greater chance of being > reviewed than an average midlist novel by a woman (such as Megan > Lindholm). Not to draw attention away from your excellent (and damning) work of statistics, but . . . How long has it been since Stan Robinson wrote a midlist novel? Several years, I think. Expecting a fair comparison between him and Megan Lindholm is absurd. Let's compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. In terms of the push they get from publishers, I would say that Robinson is more or less equivalent to someone like Lois McMaster Bujold. (But look how little attention she gets from the NYROSF crowd.) Contrariwise, a fairer comparison to Megan Lindholm might be someone like Richard Grant. (And he has a tremendous edge, because he's a member of the club.) Your point holds true if we play fair. Why bother stacking the deck? -- Alan Bostick | [Spielberg's] latest is TWISTER, a film that mailto:abostick@netcom.com | gives whole new meaning to the phrase "giant news:alt.grelb | sucking sound." -- Patrick Taggart http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~abostick  1, filed, answered,, Return-Path: Received: from server1.rscs.net by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA05107; Tue, 9 Jul 96 18:21:49 EDT Received: from [205.247.20.232] by server1.rscs.net via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/940406.SGI) for id SAA17805; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 18:21:19 -0400 Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 18:28:38 -0400 To: eliz@ai.mit.edu (Elizabeth Willey) From: ms001@server1.rscs.net Subject: Re: NYRoSF *** EOOH *** Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 18:28:38 -0400 To: eliz@ai.mit.edu (Elizabeth Willey) From: ms001@server1.rscs.net Subject: Re: NYRoSF Real quick, just for your info: I can identify the genders of 2 of the unidentifieds on your list. Chris Miller is a woman, and Ashley Grayson (my former agent) is a man. Don't know if it's worth rerunning the numbers, but for what it's worth.... M. === Melissa Scott ms001@mail.rscs.net My performance ain't perfect But it's loud and it's fast Widespread Panic  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA05576; Tue, 9 Jul 96 18:29:25 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id RAA00280; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 17:28:46 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA29862 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 17:08:05 -0500 Received: from netcom23.netcom.com (netcom23.netcom.com [192.100.81.137]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA08239 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 17:08:04 -0500 Received: (from abostick@localhost) by netcom23.netcom.com (8.6.13/Netcom) id PAA22254; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 15:07:43 -0700 Message-Id: Date: Tue, 09 Jul 1996 14:43:50 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: abostick@netcom.com (Alan Bostick) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Midlist? (was Re: NYRoSF) In-Reply-To: <9607092031.AA00589@motor-cortex.ai.mit.edu> References: <9607092031.AA00589@motor-cortex.ai.mit.edu> X-To: eliz@ai.mit.edu X-Cc: fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Tue, 09 Jul 1996 14:43:50 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: abostick@netcom.com (Alan Bostick) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Midlist? (was Re: NYRoSF) In-Reply-To: <9607092031.AA00589@motor-cortex.ai.mit.edu> References: <9607092031.AA00589@motor-cortex.ai.mit.edu> X-To: eliz@ai.mit.edu X-Cc: fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN In article <9607092031.AA00589@motor-cortex.ai.mit.edu>, eliz@ai.mit.edu (Elizabeth Willey) wrote: > When I decided not to renew my subscription, my perception was that > writing by women---both articles by women writers, and reviews and > discussions of women writers---is invisible in the NYRoSF. It's never > been the top priority---an average midlist novel by a man (such as Kim > Stanley Robinson) has always had a far, far greater chance of being > reviewed than an average midlist novel by a woman (such as Megan > Lindholm). Not to draw attention away from your excellent (and damning) work of statistics, but . . . How long has it been since Stan Robinson wrote a midlist novel? Several years, I think. Expecting a fair comparison between him and Megan Lindholm is absurd. Let's compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. In terms of the push they get from publishers, I would say that Robinson is more or less equivalent to someone like Lois McMaster Bujold. (But look how little attention she gets from the NYROSF crowd.) Contrariwise, a fairer comparison to Megan Lindholm might be someone like Richard Grant. (And he has a tremendous edge, because he's a member of the club.) Your point holds true if we play fair. Why bother stacking the deck? -- Alan Bostick | [Spielberg's] latest is TWISTER, a film that mailto:abostick@netcom.com | gives whole new meaning to the phrase "giant news:alt.grelb | sucking sound." -- Patrick Taggart http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~abostick  1,, Return-Path: Received: from august.ai.mit.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA08717; Tue, 9 Jul 96 19:28:34 EDT From: eliz@ai.mit.edu (Elizabeth Willey) Received: by august.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/AI-4.10) id TAA13344; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 19:28:32 -0400 Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 19:28:32 -0400 Message-Id: <199607092328.TAA13344@august.ai.mit.edu> To: ms001@server1.rscs.net Cc: eliz In-Reply-To: ms001@server1.rscs.net's message of Tue, 9 Jul 1996 18:28:38 -0400 Subject: NYRoSF *** EOOH *** From: eliz@ai.mit.edu (Elizabeth Willey) Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 19:28:32 -0400 To: ms001@server1.rscs.net Cc: eliz In-Reply-To: ms001@server1.rscs.net's message of Tue, 9 Jul 1996 18:28:38 -0400 Subject: NYRoSF Thank you. I'll add them in their proper places, but I don't think Chris Miller being a woman will help much! Depressing picture.... Elizabeth Willey  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA09038; Tue, 9 Jul 96 19:41:28 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id SAA01038; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 18:41:02 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id SAA00885 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 18:26:24 -0500 Received: from life.ai.mit.edu (ai.mit.edu [128.52.32.80]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id SAA09223 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 18:26:22 -0500 Received: from august.ai.mit.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu id AA08664; Tue, 9 Jul 96 19:26:21 EDT Received: by august.ai.mit.edu (8.6.12/AI-4.10) id TAA13341; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 19:26:20 -0400 Message-Id: <199607092326.TAA13341@august.ai.mit.edu> Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 19:26:20 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: eliz@ai.mit.edu (Elizabeth Willey) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Midlist? (was Re: NYRoSF) In-Reply-To: Alan Bostick's message of Tue, 09 Jul 1996 14:43:50 -0700 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 19:26:20 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: eliz@ai.mit.edu (Elizabeth Willey) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Midlist? (was Re: NYRoSF) In-Reply-To: Alan Bostick's message of Tue, 09 Jul 1996 14:43:50 -0700 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN > When I decided not to renew my subscription, my perception was that > writing by women---both articles by women writers, and reviews and > discussions of women writers---is invisible in the NYRoSF. It's never > been the top priority---an average midlist novel by a man (such as Kim > Stanley Robinson) has always had a far, far greater chance of being > reviewed than an average midlist novel by a woman (such as Megan > Lindholm). Not to draw attention away from your excellent (and damning) work of statistics, but . . . How long has it been since Stan Robinson wrote a midlist novel? Several years, I think. Expecting a fair comparison between him and Megan Lindholm is absurd. Let's compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. --The data span many years: 1989-1995. --I have no idea who is midlist or lead except in the vaguest way. Moreover, I have no idea when any lead author's status changed from midlist. (Robinson certainly hasn't been lead for his whole career, has he? Just since _Red Mars_, perhaps? Or I'm totally wrong and in 1989 _Escape from Kathmandu_ was a lead?) --Had I merely said that a midlist male author had/has a better chance of being noticed than a midlist female author, you wouldn't have quibbled with me at all.... In terms of the push they get from publishers, I would say that Robinson is more or less equivalent to someone like Lois McMaster Bujold. (But look how little attention she gets from the NYROSF crowd.) Contrariwise, a fairer comparison to Megan Lindholm might be someone like Richard Grant. (And he has a tremendous edge, because he's a member of the club.) A long critical article on Richard Grant appeared in one of the issues I tallied, by the way. I don't recall seeing any reference to Megan Lindholm. Your point holds true if we play fair. Why bother stacking the deck? Huh? You're responding to specific names in a way I did not intend. Forgive my ignorance and my attempt to be specific. I had no intention of creating apparent bias by naming exemplars of publishing category authors. Elizabeth Willey  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA13385; Tue, 9 Jul 96 22:10:46 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id VAA02743; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 21:10:14 -0500 Received: from cs.wisc.edu (cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.6]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id UAA02448 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 20:49:57 -0500 Received: from (blv-pm3-ip22.halcyon.com [204.29.16.112]) by cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id UAA15412 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 20:49:49 -0500 Message-Id: Date: Tue, 9 Jul 96 18:47:13 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: (Lengthy explanation) X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Tue, 9 Jul 96 18:47:13 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: (Lengthy explanation) X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN I don't want to give the impression that I'm stomping off the playground mad, as someone hinted I was doing in the nicest possible way in a private email message. I'm not angry now. (Just chagrined & embarrassed at all my misunderstanding.) My intention was to step back & try to find a different way to participate in the list, but given the private email I've received, I can see I need to better explain myself (one last time). My postings at the time I lost my temper have probably exasperated a lot of you. If so, you may want to skip this one. (As a fiction writer, my greatest anxiety is boring the reader. The anxiety carries over into this space, too, of course.) To start with an obvious generalization: every space of communication-- be it an academic journal, an academic conference, a family party, a con like WisCon, a courtroom, & so on-- has its own style & mode of discourse. The socially competent person adapts herself to the space she's in. When I joined fem-sf, I spent a little time "lurking" in order to get a sense of the style & mode of its discourse. Recently, I read all the digests covering the list's existence dating before my joining. As you may remember from things I've said in past posts, I felt this was a safe space for engaging in a certain kind of thinking & discussion. I'd characterize such discourse as engaged, mutually respectful & trusting, & non-authoritarian. The posts I saw people make & the posts I myself made used personal experience to explore the issues we were discussing. Because I felt safe to take risks of self-exposure, I broke barriers of self-censorship that usually operate in our thinking about almost anything. The barriers of self-censorship are most firmly enforced by mind-body dualism. In most kinds of discourse, one severely separates mind from body-- "body" comprising things like personal experience & emotional reactions, & analysis of those reactions. For someone as reticent & reclusive as I've been since 1987, venturing into this personally engaged kind of discourse was rather astonishing (& scary). As a graduate student I excelled in writing virulent polemic & took great pleasure in my papers ripping authorities to shreds before advancing my own theories. I found defending myself in a court of a law an exhilarating, high-adrenaline experience. I so thoroughly wiped the floor with the prosecuting attorney (& his police witnesses) that the judge-- disgusted & pissed-off at me-- threw the case out of court before half-time (as the system calls it). As for the sf world-- when I feel like it, I can whip off an incisive, detached letter to the editor using the best Aristotelian-style logic & never revealing the faintest bit of my self in the process-- & without taking very much time to think it out or write it. (I've had letters published in the NYRoSF & _Tangent_: & said to myself afterwards, So What Did That Accomplish? Which is why I don't write such letters very often these days.) In other words, in discourse, I can detach body from mind with the best of them. But it's become clear to me that it does nothing for me, it gets me nowhere I want to go. It simply relieves an itch, without teaching me anything (beyond contempt for my opponent). In retrospect, I see there was a clue that I missed. That clue was that many of the responses to my posts were private responses. I was puzzled by this; I just didn't get it. I feel squirmy & self-conscious about continuing to use my engaged, whole-self style in posting, but I've become so accustomed to it that I don't think I can explain (at this point, anyway) anything without using it now. I believe that I seriously misunderstood this sapce: that in fact this space is more an adjunct of the sf world than a safe space for trusting engagement. (Which means I should be presenting my professional persona with which I interact with that world rather than exposing myself in my posts.) On Sunday, Elizabeth Vornarburg resorted to citing Hartwell-- as an authority-- in order to back up her contention. People in academia do this all the time. People in the courtroom do this all the time. People in _Tangent_ _Locus_, & the _NYRoSF_ do this all the time. It's a rhetorical tactic of discourse, which assumes a hierarchical structure of authorities & those who submit to them. My reading of her post is: <> In other words, because Hartwell said it was so, it was so. I did not hear Elizabeth say <> *That* would have been engaged discourse, in Elizabeth's voice. But Elizabeth wasn't satisfied with using her own voice, she had to use Hartwell's to back her up, citing him as an authority who knows better than the rest of us who were there. (My take on the subtext is: self-censorship is the problem; the women at WisCon & in fem-sf are the source of the problem; & therefore only Hartwell, a man outside & above who can see what we who create self-censorship cannot see or admit.) My take on the subtext may be wrong. I would still feel the same way about this use of authority if it were. To get personal: I had an extreme emotional response to this resort to authority. For me, it conjured up the image of the mother, not trusting her own control over the children, siccing the father's brutal violence on them. I said, extreme emotional response. My personal response. I understand very well why I respond that way, & can't regard my losing my temper as inappropriate & embarrassing. *But*-- though my reaction may be the result of damage, I consider it metaphorically as the death of the proverbial canary in the mine. I have an acute sensitivity to authoritarian moves. I have always fought tooth & nail against authority of any kind. (Which made me one hell of a graduate student.) If authority is present in a space, I ratchet up into adversarial mode. Using facts & Aristotelian logic as weapons, contempt for the other person's position: that's my version of the adversarial mode. If Hartwell is to be our judge, if his commentary is to be used as a proof that someone else is right, I either have to fight, silently watch, or leave. I don't want to leave. I don't want to fight. I don't hear anyone else responding in this way. Which means my perception & reaction is anomalous-- & that the problem is mine, not the list's. Not surprising, I guess: the deployment of authority doesn't bother other people quite as it does me. Personally, I think it would be tedious if we all went into rhetorical adversarial mode. We'd never get into any interesting topics. Imagine, if Hartwell is an authority for one of us, Freud may be an authority for another, & David Brin or Charles Platt an authority for a third. It's not that I have any objections to Hartwell's commentary being brought into fem-sf. But the manner in which it is done matters to me immensely. Such judgmental commentary needs, in the first place, to be contextualized-- as Elizabeth Willey's post gave us the information to do-- [& thanks for that: every time they send me one of their damned renewal notices, my response has been much the same as yours. Only I just didn't think it was worth bothering with, since that crew couldn't care less what my opinion of their last two years' might be.]; & it needs to be used in engagement, not as a rhetorical tool. Many of us (& I to probably absurd lengths, considering how often I drag snippets of scholarship into my posts) use outside sources in our posts. Until now, we've used these sources in a particular, non-authoritarian way, not to back up our arguments, but to expand the possible ways in which to think about things-- or to shoot the outside sources down (as with "Brinishness"). Therefore, I'd like to make it as clear as possible that it's not the *presence* of Hartwell's commentary I object to, but its use as an authority. Anyway, I want to empahsize that I'm not in a huff, & I'm not going to leave. I just need to figure out how to be comfortable in this space, & to what degree I am willing to violate the mind-body dualist conventions in a space that's an extension of the world in which I have a professional existence, rather than a supplement to it. Timmi Duchamp P.S. Though I didn't send return messages to those who emailed me, thanks very much. I was glad to receive them.  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA16665; Wed, 10 Jul 96 00:01:51 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id XAA03398; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 23:01:23 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA03297 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 22:52:46 -0500 Received: from emout18.mail.aol.com (emout18.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.44]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA11768 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 22:52:45 -0500 Received: by emout18.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id XAA29791; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 23:52:09 -0400 Message-Id: <960709235205_152552525@emout18.mail.aol.com> Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 23:52:09 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Names? NAMES !?! X-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 23:52:09 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Names? NAMES !?! X-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN In a message dated 96-07-08 14:53:07 EDT, ltimmel@halcyon.com writes: >The third impression driving my irony was your willingness to >take David Hartwell as the authorized representer of the experience >of 800 people. Who but Luminaries ever saw David Hartwell except >from a distance? For centuries of European history, men have >been pontificating about how women always squabble & fight among >themselves. This is a standard representation. The roots of >that representation are misogynist, which one would think would >give someone like David Hartwell, who I've heard has a PhD in >medieval studies, pause. It's one thing for one feminist to talk >about being censored or suppressed by others. It's quite another >for a man standing on the sidelines to get on a soapbox & lay >down the law to feminists. Woah a second, please. I haven't read David Hartwell's comments on Wiscon, but I doubt very much that he had any intention of "laying down the law to feminists." Nor did anyone "choose" him to represent anybody or to comment on the convention. He attended it and commented on it, so far as I can tell, in terms of his experience of it, as editor of NYRSF as any of us might do in such a forum (kind of like Charlie Browne's muti-voiced summaries of various conventions in LOCUS). He is probably as right as re- gards his particular experience, and as wrong as regards that of others, as anybody else would be. And the NYRSF does not hold itself out as a feminist publication, nor have I heard Hartwell call himself a feminist. He was an outsider at Wiscon, undoubtedly knew he was an outsider, and commented as an outsider (I presume) in a publication read by more outsiders, I have no doubt,.than Wiscon-admiring feminists. I have reservations about Hartwell on all sorts of grounds with respect to all sorts of subjects, and I certainly do not mean to suggest that he is in any way beyond criticism (who is?). But I remember, and will take this moment to re- mind folks here, that Hartwell as the ONLY editor who would take on MOTHERLINES back in 1977 or so, when he was at Berkely-Putnam. That book went to everybody else and they all said NO (including the female editor who said to me, wistfully, "If only the book were all about *men* we'd take it in a minute!"). Hartwell knew the book would draw fire from those of the usual suspects who deigned to notice its existence (Judy Lynn del Rey had already rejected it, after having published WALK mind you, with a furious letter undoubtedly written by Lester beginning "This book is unpublishable" and "what we want is stories like Tarzan of the Apes". Really). Hartwell knew MOTHERLINES wouldn't make money, and it didn't; but he said he wanted badly to publish it even though he couldn't pay a lot for it, because he knew it was an important book. He has told me since that he is proud of having been the editor who published it, and I believe him. If people are going to argue about Hartwell, I think they ought to know this bit of information. Suzy  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA17296; Wed, 10 Jul 96 00:24:36 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id XAA03529; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 23:22:57 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA03432 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 23:13:28 -0500 Received: from emout15.mail.aol.com (emout15.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.41]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id XAA11917 for ; Tue, 9 Jul 1996 23:13:26 -0500 Received: by emout15.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id AAA21156 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:14:35 -0400 Message-Id: <960710001433_234432510@emout15.mail.aol.com> Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:14:35 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: NicolaZ@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Ooops, this went to the wrong place.... X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:14:35 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: NicolaZ@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Ooops, this went to the wrong place.... X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN I've been waiting for this post to arrive, and then read Timmi's latest post, and realized I pushed the wrong button so that my reply went to her instead of the group. Here's what should have been on everyone's screens twenty-four hours ago. Nicola ****************************** --------------------- Forwarded message: Subj: Re: cooling off period Date: 96-07-09 13:54:36 EDT From: NicolaZ To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Timmi, please tell us in what way you feel deluded and let's try work out how we can all make sure it doesn't happen again. I really hate the idea of anyone feeling like a fool for posting here. I think you and Elisabeth have added all *kinds* of interesting things to this list. I'm speaking for myself here (but hope others feel the same) but I hope neither of you are thinking about leaving, or never posting again, or whatever. Online disagreements are difficult. The poster knows s/he is being read by dozens of people; lack of response from most of them can be eerie--especially when there is a public disagreement going on. Let me reassure you (again, I'm speaking personally but hope others agree), neither of you are hanging out there, twisting in the wind, being thought of as fools. Just so you know. I'm going to stop now because I'm beginning to feel like a blithering idiot.... Nicola Nicola Griffith http://www.america.net/~daves/ng/  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA18080; Wed, 10 Jul 96 01:16:12 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA04135; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:15:38 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA04106 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:14:53 -0500 Received: from tom.compulink.co.uk (tom.compulink.co.uk [194.153.0.51]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA12436 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:14:51 -0500 Received: (from root@localhost) by tom.compulink.co.uk (8.6.9/8.6.9) id GAA29079 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 06:14:48 +0100 Message-Id: Date: Wed, 10 Jul 96 06:14 BST-1 Reply-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Names? NAMES !?! X-Cc: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 10 Jul 96 06:14 BST-1 Reply-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Names? NAMES !?! X-Cc: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN ltimmel@halcyon.com wrote: > For centuries of European history, men have > been pontificating about how women always squabble & fight among > themselves. This is a standard representation. The roots of > that representation are misogynist, which one would think would > give someone like David Hartwell, who I've heard has a PhD in > medieval studies, pause. Actually, Hartwell has been a fan for a pretty long time, and a pro for a pretty long time. And fans, and pros, squabble & fight amongst themselves on panels (and everywhere else). Avedon Feminists Against Censorship http://www.fullfeed.com/hypatia/censor.html  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA18601; Wed, 10 Jul 96 01:46:54 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA04505; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:46:19 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA04304 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:39:22 -0500 Received: from emout19.mail.aol.com (emout19.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.45]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA12639 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:39:20 -0500 Received: by emout19.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA08771; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 01:40:56 -0400 Message-Id: <960710014055_152624515@emout19.mail.aol.com> Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 01:40:56 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Pretending, Fantasy, Infinite Instrumentalities, Power X-To: abostick@netcom.com X-Cc: fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 01:40:56 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Pretending, Fantasy, Infinite Instrumentalities, Power X-To: abostick@netcom.com X-Cc: fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN In a message dated 96-07-07 14:18:54 EDT, abostick@netcom.com (Alan Bostick) writes: >> But only in males do I come across notions like the one constantly >> expressed by the bad guys in Dr. Who, for instance: " -- and then I WILL >> RULE THE UNIVERSE!" The idea of being able, through techniques of >> one kind or another, to *do anything,* to "become God," I have always >> identified as a masculine notion (and a famously stupid one at that), >> which I think is expressed perfectly in the phrase "fantasies of infinite >> instrumentality." > >I'm not sure whether I'm disagreeing with you or not; but the writer who >to me most exemplifies this notion taken to its horrid extreme is a >woman, Ayn Rand. > >(But perhaps this explains the perverse fascination Rand's books hold for >adolescent women -- like Prometheus stealing fire from the gods, she >stole power-fantasy from the men.) > Alan, I think she was a furious crypto-feminist who could not *stand* the idea of being limited by being female, and so created for herself the masculine, fictional identities of her books, who are ultra-ultra instrumentality-fixated in order to "experience" what she thought she was being deprived of by a dirty trick of Nature. And adolescent women vibrate like mad to that frequency themselves in many cases, as they struggle with whether or not to acknow- ledge the mess that patriarchy makes for female people, and whether to fight as females or evade the fight by identifying with the worst patriarchal attitudes and becoming more Catholic (ik) than the Pope, so as not to suffer the horrors of being "mere" females. Suzy  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA18606; Wed, 10 Jul 96 01:47:02 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA04518; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:46:34 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA04308 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:39:24 -0500 Received: from emout14.mail.aol.com (emout14.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.40]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA12643 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:39:22 -0500 Received: by emout14.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA18200; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 01:40:34 -0400 Message-Id: <960710014029_152624492@emout14.mail.aol.com> Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 01:40:34 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Narratives, transvestisms X-To: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 01:40:34 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Narratives, transvestisms X-To: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN In a message dated 96-07-05 10:22:42 EDT, evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) writes: >the realization that I am a non-actualized bisexual, which >immediately gives birth to more questions: Isn't everybody? My first reaction is to say yes, everybody is. But in fact there are also people who are by nature a-sexual, and people who are by nature pan-sexual (sheep and things as well as people of both sexes, knotholes in trees, etc.). So I don't know -- although I think of myself as having been at one time a non-actual- ized lesbian (I had a very close girlfriend throughout years of school, and we were headed in that direction), and now as a heterosexual with occasional glimpses of sexual attractiveness in women, although not (so far anyway) compelling enough to drive me to strong emotion, let alone action. And the woman who was heading toward a lesbian relationship with me back when we were teens is herself married and has been for a number of years to a compu- ter programmer guy. So what the hell were we? Are we? Will we be next year? It's this very shifting, hard-to-pin down sexuality that I like to explore in my work, I guess because those questions are still, in my mind, open; and I am not willing to have anybody else close them for me with their answers, no matter how satisfactory to others. For me, the questions are really the whole shooting-match. Today, anyway. Suzy  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA18611; Wed, 10 Jul 96 01:47:16 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA04535; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:46:46 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA04306 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:39:23 -0500 Received: from emout16.mail.aol.com (emout16.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.42]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA12641 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:39:21 -0500 Received: by emout16.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA07530; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 01:40:52 -0400 Message-Id: <960710014052_152624502@emout16.mail.aol.com> Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 01:40:52 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Narratives, transvestism X-To: jazza@pgrad.arts.su.edu.au, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 01:40:52 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Narratives, transvestism X-To: jazza@pgrad.arts.su.edu.au, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN In a message dated 96-07-07 05:23:20 EDT, jazza@pgrad.arts.su.edu.au (Justine Larbalestier) writes: >I think Elisabeth's account of her own history on these issues eloquently >sets >out another point - identities change A crucial point, I think; including the subsidiary point that many people are so frightened of change, for various reasons, that they resist it, and the recog- nition of it in themselves and others, tooth and nail. > And she's right write what you know is bullshit. Yes. I think I am certainly not the only author who writes to *find out* what she knows at a given time about given materia, ideas, characters, etcl. Suzy  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA18619; Wed, 10 Jul 96 01:47:36 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA04556; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:47:09 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA04310 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:39:30 -0500 Received: from emout13.mail.aol.com (emout13.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.39]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA12650 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:39:27 -0500 Received: by emout13.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA05893; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 01:39:14 -0400 Message-Id: <960710013912_152624578@emout13.mail.aol.com> Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 01:39:14 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: (Lengthy explanation) X-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 01:39:14 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: (Lengthy explanation) X-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN In a message dated 96-07-09 22:12:43 EDT, ltimmel@halcyon.com writes: > If Hartwell is to be our judge, if his commentary is to be used >as a proof that someone else is right, I either have to fight, >silently watch, or leave. I don't want to leave. Good, because I don't think Elisabeth was citing Hartwell as an authority but suggesting that what she thought she was observing at the con was apparently observable to this other person too, who wrote about it in this way (quoted passage) which other people on the list might be interested in seeing. And I would hate to lose you as a contributor to this list, especially if it's over a mis- match of perceptions. Thanks for sticking to your guns and insist- ing on clarifying your position; and thanks for staying with us. Suzy  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA18623; Wed, 10 Jul 96 01:47:54 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA04567; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:47:20 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA04313 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:39:34 -0500 Received: from emout12.mail.aol.com (emout12.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.38]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA12653 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:39:31 -0500 Received: by emout12.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA28411; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 01:40:58 -0400 Message-Id: <960710014053_152624572@emout12.mail.aol.com> Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 01:40:58 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: lesbian sexuality and power differential X-To: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 01:40:58 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: lesbian sexuality and power differential X-To: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Been thinking about what Laurie wrote about how many women (hetero only, or other orientations? I don't remember and have deleted Laurie's text) find sex between women an unexciting concept because there is no eroticizing *power* imaginable in two women together; whereas since all men are assumed to be (comparative to women) powerful, Slash fiction (and other, more commonly homosexual fiction) gets its charge off the sense of male lovers who are roughly "equals" in power, being men. I see some problems with this. I think for *most* people of any orientation, one of the most erotic elements of sex is a *power-differential,* not a power- parity. This is most clearly (and perhaps most extremely) seen in S/M, I guess, but is also the immemorial theme of heterosexual sex in general: the man has power, the woman has less, and a "charge" between their inequalities is the basis of their attraction to eachother (Jane and *Mister* Rochester). It seems also to be the case for many gay pairs where the longed-for, even required differential is found in differences of class, race, ethnicity, butch/femme or top/bottom character types etc. and may function in place of the male/female differential to create that charge that makes eroticism fizz for so many. Even Slash seems to be built on a major differential: Kirk is a hotheaded human. Spock isn't, and this isn't the only case where the differential is provided by a difference of species in SF, where the favored relationships sometimes seem to me to be those between humans and non-humans, not between pairs of humans. I'm thinking of that chapter in Naomi Mitchison's MEMOIRES OF A SPACE- WOMAN, I think, where the heroine has wild sex with -- a reptilian male? Not to mention all those stories of the heroine being ravished by or just saved in time from, oh, an orchid, or your more standard BEM. If there is something to this, what the hell is it? A hard- wired biological drive to insure exogamy and the continuing mixing of genetic material (a drive disconnected from procreation in the case of gay couples, but still operating)? I *hate* explanations like that. Give me a better one, or show that I'm misreading things (ie, wrong, mistaken, and generally off the mark by miles). Suzy.  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA19044; Wed, 10 Jul 96 02:14:55 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id BAA04934; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 01:14:37 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA04571 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:47:22 -0500 Received: from lionfish.jcu.edu.au (lionfish.jcu.edu.au [137.219.16.119]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA12742 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 00:47:19 -0500 Received: from localhost by lionfish.jcu.edu.au with SMTP id AA03209 (5.65v3.2/IDA-1.5); Wed, 10 Jul 1996 15:47:12 +1000 Message-Id: Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 15:47:11 +1000 (EST) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Sylvia Kelso To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Narrative Transvestism Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 15:47:11 +1000 (EST) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Sylvia Kelso To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Narrative Transvestism X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN This is away behind the fair, since we are 12 hours behind the US, and it took me all weekend to think about it, and then some prods from others on the list to go public with this lot. It is basically a response to the discussion up to last Friday on narrative transvestism, the lack of "accents", why straight women prefer to write about gays than lesbians if they do alternate sexualities at all. I was all set to leap in and fire this stuff off on Monday, only to find Justine and Elisabeth had spoken for me, but I will add these musings anyhow. Firstly, as Justine said, why should there only be one lesbian/gay accent anyway? From the little I know about lesbian communities, which is limited to articles in *Signs*, for one example, the community in Albuquerque, in this case, has a totally different accent to the New YOrk one - as I think Melissa said, reading East coast writing she felt she missed cues - having just visited New York before I finally got hold of a Sandra Scoppetone detective novel (in Madison) I found myself reading New York rather than lesbian. Secondly, what about the straight (white) writer's dilemma as parallelled by Susanna Sturgis' editorial experiences? write about alternate sexualities and and get caned for doing it badly, omit 'em and get caned for leaving 'em out? Same as for other races/ethnicities. And what is the solution, when all the "homework" in the world, I am getting the implication, won't give you the right "accent" anyhow? Ties into a comment on criticism - you can either have at KSR for omitting gays and/or women's relationships from *Blue Mars* OR for doing them badly, but NOT BOTH [at least, not at the same time] Third and anyhow, if we are supposedly talking about non-realist fiction, why should we assume gays/lesbians in another culture will even construct themselves in the same way, let alone sound the same? I later read Suzy McKee Charnas' comment about the men in *Walk* not being gay, and couldn't agree more. Alternate sexualities don't do it cross-culturally right here and now - see Papua New Guinea homosexuality and Indian gays, who judging from Vikram Seth don't even SEE themselves as gay. And anyhow, on "gay/lesbian" , St. Michel (that's Foucault for less ardent followers than me) is nowadays practically taken as read on the premise that gay/lesbians didn't exist (in the sense of be constructed as identity and not actions) 200 years in the past -so why should they be the same 200 years in the future? As I did write to Elisabeth Vonnarburg, this smacks of the assumption that Joanna Russ was thumping SF for back in about 1972 - that 1000 years and starfaring civilisations of the future, women will still be living in galactic suburbia. Finally,why do straight women write about gays men more than lesbian women? Well, this is a personal experience comment, and I still don't have it enunciated properly - but from MY experience, I'm disappointingly the opposite of Virginia Woolf - women do NOT stir my imagination - in my academic hat I can analyse and complain about others who omit the alternate sexualities with the best of them, but if I'm gonna write creatively I have to engage the imagination, and that, apparently, needs an erotic centre - and for that women just will not do. It irritates the hell out of me, I can do women as narrators, leaders, best mates, working in a group with friends, enemies, relations, the whole gynocentric number - but look for the imaginative centre and there's a man, every time.. Which no doubt means I am a bad or limited writer, but that, so far, is the way it works... However, this question of the attraction of gay eroticism for women was chewed over back in the academic scene in the '80s with the big vogue for discussing Star Trek slash zines - women don't like their bodies enough to be erotically drawn to them (slashzine writer quoted by Joanna Russ) - women see their bodies as medical discursive ideological battlegrounds and not erotically (Constance Penley) - women in slashzines are creating a relationship between true equals and they don't see it happening between genders and women don't get to conquer the universe once a week (Lamb and Veith, slash-zine writers or editors themselves, or so I'm told.) Aanyone seen any recent stuff? Sylvia K.  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AB20626; Wed, 10 Jul 96 03:38:22 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id CAA05115; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 02:37:58 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA05081 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 02:22:49 -0500 Received: from relay1.geis.com (relay1.geis.com [192.77.188.2]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id CAA13328 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 02:22:47 -0500 Received: by relay1.geis.com (1.37.109.16/15.6) id AA173353245; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 07:20:45 GMT Received: by (genie.)relay1.geis.com ( 2rem/1.40 ) ; Wed, 10 Jul 96 07:20:43 UTC 0000 ( from inet# ; Wed, 10 Jul 96 07:17:45 UTC 0000) Message-Id: <199607100720.AA173353245@relay1.geis.com> Date: Wed, 10 Jul 96 07:03:00 UTC 0000 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: s.sturgis2@genie.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Disagreement, etc. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Genie-Qk-From: S.STURGIS2 X-Genie-Qk-Id: 3828331 X-Genie-Gateway-Id: 959429 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 10 Jul 96 07:03:00 UTC 0000 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: s.sturgis2@genie.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Disagreement, etc. X-Genie-Qk-From: S.STURGIS2 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Reading Timmi's and Elisabeth's posts about the Hartwell et al. editorial, I didn't get the impression that Elisabeth was holding Hartwell up as an authority; she was saying, more or less, "this editorial is worth reading." On the other hand, I found myself indeed bristling at the very idea that Hartwell would editorialize about WisCon or disagreement among feminists. I was quite prepared to believe the worst. Why? (1) My impression that Hartwell takes the importance of his opinions for granted. This I envy, even while it pisses me off. (2) My impression of the NYRoSF, which I pick up whenever I see it at a con and never subscribe to because it rarely discusses the books, authors, or issues that I like to wallow in. (And thanks, Elizabeth W., for your study!) This brings me to the issue of (negative) expectations, which I believe is also involved in the "narrative transvestism" thread. That is to say, I have heard more than enough people (mostly men, some women) use a public soapbox to either define feminism or read feminists the riot act. These people tend to drown grass-roots feminists out. One result is the "I'm not a feminist, but . . ." phenomenon -- people whose definition of feminism is shaped primarily by these "experts," whose version of feminism leaves an awful lot out. Another result is that, when someone gets up on his (usually) soapbox and clears his throat to expound about feminist _anything_ to a predominately nonfeminist audience (as I perceive the NYRoSF readership to be), I go from serene to furious in about three seconds. And may have to back off, if it turns out my suspicions were unfounded. Where this relates to narrative transvestism is that many of us have had the experience of seeing our various selves misrepresented in fiction. Lesbians who commit suicide or go straight. Native shamans who communicate their secrets to a white seeker, who then writes a best-selling book about it. Black nannies single-mindedly devoted to their white charges. Fat women who lose weight and all their problems are solved. [Add your own here.] We've come, with good reason, to expect the worst. We often get it. We protest. We are then ridiculed for being "politically correct," "rigid," "pro- censorship," etc. Whereupon some form of separatism starts looking really, really good! I look forward to reading Hartwell's editorial. I hope he isn't standing on his soapbox reading feminists the riot act, or oversimplifying feminists/ feminism for an admiring audience. Whether he is or isn't, however, DAVID HARTWELL ISN'T THE POINT. Come to think of it, this expectations thing is why I'm still so upset that WAKING THE MOON won a Tiptree Award. It equates "powerful woman" with "crazy, destructive, sicko woman." It gives the nod to a remarkably passive woman who acts only to Save Her Man. This is original? Susanna S. -30-  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA25957; Wed, 10 Jul 96 08:22:32 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id HAA11305; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 07:21:08 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA11184 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 07:09:22 -0500 Received: from chic.saglac.qc.ca (chic.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.2]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA14848 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 07:09:20 -0500 Received: from [204.19.37.65] (srv1s14.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.65]) by chic.saglac.qc.ca (8.6.11/8.6.11) with SMTP id IAA24430 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 08:10:09 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 08:10:09 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: *(...)* Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mailer: Eudora F1.5.1 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 08:10:09 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: *(...)* X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Fell out of bed this morning real early, reread a few posts before reading the new ones, and suddenly realized I posted this: >But the problem (as I see it) is that this thing developped not as much >because of what Hartwell said, but *because he said it at all*. Which I >find very disquieting. And rereading Timmi's reaction to this ("misrepresentation of what she said"), I realized that she must have interpreted my *...* as quotes! Oh, Timmi, if this is the case, now I understand your reaction --which had baffled me, but I didn't comment on it publicly because cooling off period and all that. No-no-noooo. I was not saying and am not saying that YOU, or anyone else for that matter,SAID anything like this. I use *...* to replace italics, to emphasize things! Old habit of mine on the other list I am a member of. Oh, I could hit myself for not having seen this earlier. What I was saying is that I had the impression that the GENERAL dicussion had drifted too quickly from the content of NYRSF's latest editorial to the fact that it had been written by a man (emphasis here), which is what I felt worried about. And like Nicola said, and like I told you privately in a much less articulate way: don't go back to lurking, please. This list is made for all of us who dare think and talk to one another, that's the kind of space I think it is, the one I need, the one we all need, and nobody is "a fool" (here I am quoting:-)) for having thoughts, tastes, opinions, impressions, assumptions, reflexes, i.e. a LIFE! Elisabeth Vonarburg evarburg@saglac.qc.ca "Il s'agit de vivre et non d'avoir raison"  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA26798; Wed, 10 Jul 96 09:05:57 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id IAA11517; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 08:05:11 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA11447 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 08:00:47 -0500 Received: from chic.saglac.qc.ca (chic.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.2]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA15121 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 08:00:46 -0500 Received: from [204.19.37.65] (srv1s13.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.64]) by chic.saglac.qc.ca (8.6.11/8.6.11) with SMTP id JAA24858 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 09:01:40 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 09:01:40 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Famous Last Words Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mailer: Eudora F1.5.1 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 09:01:40 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Famous Last Words X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Re Lengthy explanation: OK, now I understand fully, it IS a total misunderstanding, thank you, Timmi, for taking the time to explain. You write: >My reading of her post is: <I read Hartwell, & he confirmed it.>> In other words, because >Hartwell said it was so, it was so. I did not hear Elizabeth >say <we should think about it being not just me, but a general problem.>> > *That* would have been engaged discourse, in Elizabeth's voice. > But Elizabeth wasn't satisfied with using her own voice, she >had to use Hartwell's to back her up, citing him as an authority >who knows better than the rest of us who were there. What I thought I was saying was precisely: "I feel this. & reading Hartwell made me think that maybe we should think about it being not just me, but a general problem" Aaaargh. I should reread Elgin's books on how to present one's opinions and feelings in a way that minimizes possible misunderstandings! (I've drilled myself over the years not to need the authority of a man or anybody else's to BE, and I didn't even think my first post could be interpreted that way. And I did feel myself bristle when I saw it suggested in various posts. Which may mean I am not as blissfully free as I like to believe in this regard? Suspicions, suspicions...) Elisabeth Vonarburg evarburg@saglac.qc.ca "Il s'agit de vivre et non d'avoir raison"  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA28042; Wed, 10 Jul 96 09:35:17 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id IAA11877; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 08:34:38 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA11548 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 08:13:47 -0500 Received: from central.murdoch.edu.au (central.murdoch.edu.au [134.115.4.126]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id IAA15237 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 08:13:38 -0500 Received: from central by central.murdoch.edu.au; (5.65v3.0/1.1.8.2/01Jul95-0737PM) id AB05342; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 21:13:17 +0800 Message-Id: <9607101313.AB05342@central.murdoch.edu.au> Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 21:13:17 +0800 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: twilliam@central.murdoch.edu.au (Tess Williams) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: safe spaces versus guarded spaces Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Sender: twilliam@central.murdoch.edu.au X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 21:13:17 +0800 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: twilliam@central.murdoch.edu.au (Tess Williams) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: safe spaces versus guarded spaces X-Sender: twilliam@central.murdoch.edu.au X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Timmi recently wrote: Because I felt safe to take risks of self-exposure, I broke barriers of self-censorship that usually operate in our thinking about almost anything. The barriers of self-censorship are most firmly enforced by mind-body dualism. In most kinds of discourse, one severely separates mind from body-- "body" comprising things like personal experience & emotional reactions, & analysis of those reactions. For someone as reticent & reclusive as I've been since 1987, venturing into this personally engaged kind of discourse was rather astonishing (& scary). I think this brings up something very important. While trying to be sensitive to what has happened on the list recently, and realising that the individuals concerned are quite distressed with the interchanges, I think that what happened both to Elisabeth and Timmi is a salutary lesson. There are no safe spaces. To assume them or to try to construct them is an extension of utopian thinking, which is also in some ways (I don't say in all ways) an extension of polarised thinking. There are several other concerns I have with this "safe space" idea. Firstly, many of the people on the list are writers. This means their creative process and creative product is on the line and they can be subject to pretty heavy critical artillery on the list. I sometimes resist this quite strongly, having just completed an MA in Creative Writing where I had to write a thesis on my writing. The thesis, while it proved useful in clarifying certain issues and forced me not to be too lazy about reading my theory often felt like it was not quite relevant. In fact, I often felt frustrated with the theory as it simply didn't offer me the "thought vocabulary" I needed to express what my experience of writing is and to identify my writing objectives. So I don't think that analysis and creative writing are automatically complimentary, though they might be of some use to each other. The traditions they rise out of are, in places, very different, and the ground where we try to bring them together can be fraught - both for individuals and as different "modes of existence" (a tribute to St Michel, Sylvia!) in our culture. For some creative writers an intellectual, analytical or critical space will never be safe. Another point: Many of the responses on this list, while acknowledging the theory of diversity, actually seem to indicate that all writers/academics - emerging, developing and experienced professionals - merit the same level and kind of scrutiny and should have come up through a roughly similar cultural, educational process etc particularly regarding feminism, the women's movement and SF. While I don't advocate cutting slack for those that don't know (and I am a such person with significant gaps in my background), as it is ultimately their responsibility to inform themselves so they can participate, I have noticed initiation in the group can border on the cruel. In fact, Timmi, I feel obliged to remind you at this point that you did a rather brutal disection of someone's questionnaire on this list a few months prior to Wiscon. You did not create a safe space for that person, so why should you expect one. I'm not intending to make this personal, but quite honestly, what is one person's "safe space" can look to the uninitiated like a tank full of sharks. Also, for what it's worth, my understanding of the value of the whole "safe space" construct (something which I believe primarily belongs in a therapeutic relationship) is that the *desire* for the space illustrates that common social contexts (eg. the nuclear family) are consistently damaging rather than nurturing for a particular individual/group. This then triggers off identifying the problems in the social context and may prompt the building of "guarded spaces". "Guarded spaces" seem to be places where young girls (I know little about this, as I never had a neighbourhood for longer than a few months) and women go about setting the rules (similar to "nobody comes on this list unless we all say so") that some of the recent posts were talking about. Perhaps I have hold of the wrong end of the stick here, but to me the difference between these spaces is vital, and it seems naive (once again Timmi and Elisabeth, nothing personal) to expect safety in a group which embraces the critical/analytical model so strongly. Tess  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA29285; Wed, 10 Jul 96 10:04:21 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id JAA12398; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 09:04:04 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA11919 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 08:38:18 -0500 Received: from emout13.mail.aol.com (emout13.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.39]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id IAA15467 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 08:38:17 -0500 Received: by emout13.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id JAA10325 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 09:38:00 -0400 Message-Id: <960710093758_431118397@emout13.mail.aol.com> Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 09:38:00 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ArtBrau@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Hartwell conreport X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 09:38:00 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ArtBrau@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Hartwell conreport X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Sorry folks, I haven't found a copy of NY Review of SF. I was assuming I'd find it at the local SF bookstore, but could not find it there. I am investigating other possibilities. But in the meantime, if any of you have a copy, I'd appreciate it if someone ran the article here. If you would rather not re-type it, please feel free to mail it to me and I'll run it through OCR softwear. That will take a while, but it's do-able. Jeanne Gomoll artbrau@aol.com  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA07666; Wed, 10 Jul 96 13:26:11 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA15826; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 12:25:41 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA15409 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 12:12:32 -0500 Received: from tom.compulink.co.uk (tom.compulink.co.uk [194.153.0.51]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA18445 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 12:12:29 -0500 Received: (from root@localhost) by tom.compulink.co.uk (8.6.9/8.6.9) id SAA11573 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 18:12:27 +0100 Message-Id: Date: Wed, 10 Jul 96 18:11 BST-1 Reply-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: NYRoSF X-Cc: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 10 Jul 96 18:11 BST-1 Reply-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: NYRoSF X-Cc: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Elizabeth's statistics are interesting. Of course, there has to be this other balancing report on how many female writers have actually made any attempt to write for NYRoSF and been blown off or "pointlessly delayed". I think in the early days I probably had something like an invitation (verbal) to contribute to NYRoSF, but I never got round to it, partly because I kept having the feeling I was reading Really Pretentious Science Fiction Quarterly, but also because I was just plain busy. [Fan note: There once was a zine called PSFQ, but it was readable and interesting - and talked feminism pretty well, and I wish it had continued.] It's quite possible that women were originally just as welcome to contribute as men, but had better things to do, and now that it has developed its own style, most of us feel like, shit, who wants to? Would I even fit if I tried? Do I care? So the magazine reflects whatever remains. I know the original _idea_ of NYRoSF was something more like Comics Journal than what we have now - the intention was not to create an inaccessible Heinleinite circle-jerk, f'sure. But it does seem to have evolved. Shit, maybe it's MY FAULT for not writing for them before it found its current groove! Boy, do I feel guilty _now_... Seriously, I do know of numerous projects in various areas that started off as things that consciously hoped to have equal female/feminist participation, but so many women had so much else to do that none of them bothered, and they just ended up devolving into Boys' Stuff. Anyway, do any of the women on this list have first-hand experience, or know a woman who does, of getting the feeling they were being discouraged from contributing? I think it's only fair to ask this question before we write them off as a bastion of sexism. Avedon Feminists Against Censorship http://www.fullfeed.com/hypatia/censor.html  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA08988; Wed, 10 Jul 96 14:01:03 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA16478; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 13:00:29 -0500 Received: from cs.wisc.edu (cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.6]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA15878 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 12:27:49 -0500 Received: from (blv-pm3-ip15.halcyon.com [204.29.16.105]) by cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA16288 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 12:27:39 -0500 Message-Id: Date: Wed, 10 Jul 96 10:24:58 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: safe spaces versus guarded spaces X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 10 Jul 96 10:24:58 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: safe spaces versus guarded spaces X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Tess Williams wrote: >There >are no safe spaces. To assume them or to try to construct them is an >extension of utopian thinking, which is also in some ways (I don't say in >all ways) an extension of polarised thinking. An interesting contradiction. But I know very well that if I'm obliged to have "out there" with me all the time, I can't do any kind of thinking but the angry, reactive kind. Just before WisCon I had the privilege to go away to a Canadian Gulf island for two weeks, where people only spoke to me on the weekends. The plunge into that kind of silence allowed something wonderful to happen in me that couldn't have happened "out in the world," where the thoughts I was thinking would have been simply ridiculous on the one hand & impossible on the other. One can't live that way, of course. But it was a useful thing to do, to go there, & the effects linger on. Different spaces allow different kinds of thinking. I don't want my thinking to be so heavily dominated by what's outside. It's not that I hide what's going on in the world from myself (I don't), but that I want to develop in ways inconcievable (or inexpressible in the language of) "the world." (I.e., not submit my thinking to the scrutiny of a reality heavily influenced by large corporations, the far right Christian Coalition (which has people on television all the time, telling us how important they are in determining life in this country), & politicians like Newt Gingrich. At any rate, especially since reading _Slow River_ & seeing the film _Antonia's Line_, I'm very interested in finding/creating utopian dimensions-- a far different thing from creating utopia, tout court. Perhaps you are right, Tess, perhaps I was mistaking fem-sf for a utopian dimension (or space). Tess also wrote: >Timmi, I feel obliged to remind you at this point that you did a >rather brutal disection of someone's questionnaire on this list a few months >prior to Wiscon. You did not create a safe space for that person, so why >should you expect one. I'm not intending to make this personal, but quite >honestly, what is one person's "safe space" can look to the uninitiated like >a tank full of sharks. > but to me the >difference between these spaces is vital, and it seems naive (once again >Timmi and Elisabeth, nothing personal) to expect safety in a group which >embraces the critical/analytical model so strongly. I bungled when I used the expression "safe space." I don't know anything about the therapeutic use of the word. (I'm completely ignorant about anything therapeutic.) I was talking only about my perception of the mode of discourse operating in fem-sf. (Which I think of, oddly enough, as a "space.") I meant "safe" in the sense of safe to include my whole "body" in the discussions. Maybe I should offer an example of what I'm trying to indicate. Let's imagine I'm doing a review of Kelly's _Wildlife_ for the NYRSoF. (Absurd idea, I know, but let's be hypothetical.) Such a piece would have to be written-- & therefore conceived-- with a certain set of concepts, & nothing remotely speculative irrational allowed in. Thus I would have these choices for talking about _Wildlife_: (a) explain the failures of the book as the result of extreme ineptness on Kelly's part; or (b) discuss the subtext of the book (which is that girls who've had sexual relationships with their fathers grow up to be monsters-- while their fathers are really just guys who've had horribly clingy mothers) as misogynous. As I said when I started the narrative transvestism discussion, I found these ways of considering the book unsatisfactory because of my opinions about his past work. I don't believe Kelly's a misogynist. I don't believe he's inept. (One chapter of this very novel itself, "Mr. Boy," made that clear.) Because I felt I could have a discussion about it with this group, I let myself go, & dreamed up a different way of trying to understand what went wrong in that book. (Never mind that the third way may have implications I never imagined when I first dreamed up this approach.) I'm saying that in ordinary dualistic modes of discourse, it's much harder to let oneself go, to "dream up" (daydream up, really) other ways of thinking about things. & for me, that's been the wonder of fem-sf. As for my sharp criticism of that questionnaire, two things. I'm not looking for a safe haven from criticism of my ideas. I've never had any problem with that kind of criticism (any more than I, as a writer, have problems with editors' comments on my short fiction-- I've been helped tremendously by such comments-- which I don't read as judgment, but as opinions, & which I consider with care according to my respect for the editor who offers them). My posts have gotten abundant criticism here, which I take as a compliment to myself, since it means that people are actually reading & thinking about them. (Similarly, the fact that short fiction editors take the time to comment on my submissions makes me feel they take my work seriously.) On the other hand, no one in fem-sf has attacked me for being off the wall-- which would surely happen if I threaded so much personal inquiry & "feelings" (to speak rather generically) into commentary written for the sf world at large. (I could never, for instance, write a letter to the editor of the NYRoSF talking about feelings or personal experience: the people over there would laugh their asses off, & take me for incompetent--- it being a question of what mode of discourse is appropriate.) This is an example of polarized behavior, yes: it's required of us to live in this world-- unless, of course, we only want to use that one way of thinking-- the cold, cut, & dried way-- ever. That's the only way not to be polarized (unless we don't mind being taken for crazy, & thus being cut out of 99% of the world's existing discourse). Myself, I need to be able to operate in that world, & try to live in other worlds at the same time. "Safe" space, I guess, was a misnomer. Second (about the questionnaire): I was always on the outside of what you call "guarded spaces" when I was a kid. So the idea of creating or maintaining one doesn't exactly enthrall me. On the other hand, I think this space was created with the very idea that all the other existing e-spaces out there available for having discussions would render discussion a battle at a trivial level of having constantly to conduct Feminism 101 over & over & over again. (I've read the digests: that's my understanding of the reason the list is by invitation only.) In that sense, yes, this is a "guarded space." The kind of discussion that goes on here is utterly dependent on all of us-- which is why some care is taken as to who is invited in. I first saw that questionnaire in the Usenet space known as rec.arts.sf.written. When I saw it, I thought that was a perfectly appropriate space for such a questionnaire, because it seemed to be directed at people without a developed feminist consciousness (the kind of people that dominate that Usenet space). & so I thought nothing about it. Then it showed up in fem-sf. If my attack was brutal, it wasn't directed against the author of the questionnaire, but against the assumptions in the questionnaire itself, & against its being put to us at all. I don't think of this as a place where any of us come to get our egos stroked. We just don't do that-- & I think it would be awful if we did. Writing for one another's approval would be an obstacle to meaningful discussion. I guess I would add this third thing, too: I haven't seen any of us bringing pieces of work into fem-sf to be evaluated by the list. I can't imagine doing that, myself-- unless I really wanted no-holds-barred criticism. It's not that I think we're sharks, but that we do tend to "dissect" *pieces* of posts that interest us-- usually to take them off into directions the poster never thought of (as happened with my narrative transvestism post). & I think the very fact that many of us are writers of various kinds makes us particularly able to deal with criticism. (You can't survive long as a writer without learning how to take it.) But I think you may also be right, Tess, that I did have unwarranted illusions. As I said in my explanatory post, I can see that that's my problem, not the list's. Timmi  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA09025; Wed, 10 Jul 96 14:01:31 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA16491; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 13:00:41 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id MAA15975 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 12:32:36 -0500 Received: from mhub0.tc.umn.edu (mhub0.tc.umn.edu [128.101.131.50]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id MAA18769 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 12:32:34 -0500 Received: from maroon.tc.umn.edu by mhub0.tc.umn.edu; Wed, 10 Jul 96 12:32:26 -0500 Received: from x136-99.open.umn.edu by maroon.tc.umn.edu; Wed, 10 Jul 96 12:32:26 -0500 Message-Id: <31e3e92a4b83019@mhub0.tc.umn.edu> Date: Wed, 10 Jul 96 12:32:26 -0500 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Terry A Garey (Terry A. Garey) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: sex and women Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Sender: t-gare@maroon.tc.umn.edu X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 10 Jul 96 12:32:26 -0500 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Terry A Garey (Terry A. Garey) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: sex and women X-Sender: t-gare@maroon.tc.umn.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Just accidentally sent this to my lettersub list, thus the carrots... >At the risk of falling into another black hole I find myself puzzled at the idea that sex between women is boring or unexciting. If it is, how come so many women do it? > "Hi, Sweetie, think you can stand going to bed with me again? We'll use the Amaretto flavored whipped cream this time..." > > The only "edge" I concern myself during sex is the edge of the bed. > Terry A. Garey Phone:(612) 624-7401 Book Acquisitions Fax: (612) 624-9245 St. Paul Campus Library email: t-gare@maroon.tc.umn.edu 1984 Buford St. Paul, Mn 55108 "Of course, this is only temporary--unless it works..." Red Green  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA10436; Wed, 10 Jul 96 14:28:45 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA16882; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 13:27:46 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA16536 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 13:10:06 -0500 Received: from belize.ucs.indiana.edu (belize.ucs.indiana.edu [129.79.10.64]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA19385 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 13:10:03 -0500 Received: from juliet.ucs.indiana.edu (hwhipple@juliet.ucs.indiana.edu [129.79.5.203]) by belize.ucs.indiana.edu (8.7.3/8.7.3/1.10IUPO) with ESMTP id NAA18211 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 13:09:51 -0500 (EST) Received: (from hwhipple@localhost) by juliet.ucs.indiana.edu (8.7/8.7/regexp($Revision: 1.3 $) id NAA19198; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 13:10:01 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 13:10:01 -0500 (EST) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: hwhipple To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: _Memoirs_, _Moon_ In-Reply-To: <199607100720.AA173353245@relay1.geis.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Sender: hwhipple@juliet.ucs.indiana.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 13:10:01 -0500 (EST) Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: hwhipple To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: _Memoirs_, _Moon_ In-Reply-To: <199607100720.AA173353245@relay1.geis.com> X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Sender: hwhipple@juliet.ucs.indiana.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Susanna S. said: > Come to think of it, this expectations thing is why I'm still so upset that > WAKING THE MOON won a Tiptree Award. It equates "powerful woman" with > "crazy, destructive, sicko woman." It gives the nod to a remarkably passive I finally finished both reading Tiptree winners and have found both to be intriguing and difficult texts, on their own, in terms of having won the Tiptree award, and in relation to each other. They make a very interesting combination and sort of play off each other in terms of an exploration of men's powers, women's powers, the war between them, hints of possible alternatives, and women's spiritualities. Both books suggest that there might be some kind of way out of the binary opposition of men vs. women, but that other option seems to (1) fail in the case of _Memoirs_, and which I can accept somewhat better given its relation to _Frankenstein_--though that's another messy and intriguing "problem" I'd like to think/talk more about, that is, the relations between _Memoirs_ and _Frankenstein_. In any case, since it is not a complete revision of the original novel but takes place within its boundaries, a happy feminist ending (whatever that might be (and I am being facetious)) is out of the question. or (2) which is dropped without much development in the case of _Moon_, and I was quite disappointed not to find out more about the transgender character and the power s/he had, the resolution or replacement or suppression or whatever of the war between men's and women's powers. the ending of this book reminded me of the 30 second wrap-up at the end of so many Star Trek episodes. While I understand Susanna's criticism of _Moon_, I do think the idea of exploring the Goddess as Destroyer is an expansion/exploration of gender roles (I do NOT mean to suggest that Susanna either does or does not think that as well). So while it is open to the possibility that some readers may assume the message is powerful women are wacko serial killers, I don't think the book actually really descends to that level--that is, not until the very end, which is where my main criticism falls. Perhaps the mystery of the "other woman" is meant to be a ~Mystery~, but I think the aspect of the book concerned with gender would have been greatly enhanced had there been more discussion of that Mystery. Well, there's not much value in talking about "what might have been" (and certainly Kim Stanley Robinson's response of "why don't you go write your own book?" is valid here). So I'll stop and reread the ending so I can say more about what *is* there. _______________________________________________________________________ Heather Whipple Tell me, what is it you plan to do hwhipple@indiana.edu with your one wild and precious life? http://nickel.ucs.indiana.edu/~hwhipple/home.html --Mary Oliver  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA12899; Wed, 10 Jul 96 15:22:06 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id OAA17743; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 14:21:03 -0500 Received: from cs.wisc.edu (cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.6]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id OAA17346 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 14:08:46 -0500 Received: from (blv-pm0-ip19.halcyon.com [204.29.16.19]) by cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id OAA16402 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 14:08:40 -0500 Message-Id: Date: Wed, 10 Jul 96 11:59:36 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Famous Last Words X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 10 Jul 96 11:59:36 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Famous Last Words X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Elisabeth Vonarburg wrote: >What I thought I was saying was precisely: "I feel this. & reading >Hartwell made me think that maybe we should think about it being not just >me, but a general problem" I'm so glad this was a misunderstanding. (& as I said, I'm hypersensitive.) What I'd really value, Elizabeth, is your exploring your sense of a pressure for self-censorship at WisCon & in fem-sf in your own voice, if you wanted to. Discussion of such matters in an "I/we" voice is bound to be more interesting & thoughtful than commentary in a lofty "they" voice. Timmi Duchamp  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA17774; Wed, 10 Jul 96 17:11:01 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id QAA19310; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 16:10:31 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id QAA19192 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 16:07:45 -0500 Received: from mail-out1.apple.com (mail-out1.apple.com [17.254.0.52]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id QAA22193 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 16:07:43 -0500 Received: from scv2.apple.com (A17-128-100-120.apple.com [17.128.100.120]) by mail-out1.apple.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id OAA33046 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 14:08:08 -0700 Received: from [17.201.21.69] (beckto2.apple.com [17.201.21.69]) by scv2.apple.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id OAA08248 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 14:08:42 -0700 Message-Id: Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 14:07:41 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: twb@apple.com (Tom Becker) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: safe spaces versus guarded spaces Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Sender: twb@mail.apple.com X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 14:07:41 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: twb@apple.com (Tom Becker) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: safe spaces versus guarded spaces X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Sender: twb@mail.apple.com X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN At 10:24 AM 7/10/96, Timmi wrote: > Let's imagine I'm doing a review of Kelly's _Wildlife_ for >the NYRSoF. (Absurd idea, I know, but let's be hypothetical.) Why not? _Wildlife_ is an interesting but flawed book by a good writer. It's the kind of work that is worth reviewing. NYRoSF does publish feminist criticsm. If you write the piece, they may take it. If they don't, someone else will. Either way, we learn something. (I could never, for instance, write a letter >to the editor of the NYRoSF talking about feelings or personal >experience: the people over there would laugh their asses off, >& take me for incompetent--- it being a question of what mode >of discourse is appropriate.) Of course, that depends on how far you go. Analysis that is subjective at the appropriate level can be more honest and more useful than supposedly objective analysis. -- Tom Becker Hyper Propeller Head twb@apple.com Apple Computer, Inc.  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA21245; Wed, 10 Jul 96 18:59:58 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id RAA20979; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 17:59:27 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA20897 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 17:39:35 -0500 Received: from server1.rscs.net (server1.rscs.net [204.249.238.10]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id RAA23663 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 17:39:33 -0500 Received: from [205.247.20.231] by server1.rscs.net via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/940406.SGI) for id SAA20999; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 18:39:21 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 18:46:26 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ms001@server1.rscs.net To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: NYRSF Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 18:46:26 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ms001@server1.rscs.net To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: NYRSF X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Most of the people around here pronounce the above acronym as a single word, which sounds about the way I feel about the journal... Um, I've done a review for NYRSF. I _think_ I even suggested it - it was of Robin Roberts' A New Species, which I stumbled across at that year's Nat'l Women's Studies Association meeting. I felt the book had flaws, but seized on to some valuable things about the ways women who become writers have read older SF; I also said I hoped it was a first effort, not the last word. The review was pretty much just that, they paid me - and then they tried to pay me for it twice more, as it somehow didn't get noted down that they'd already done so. This was, needless to say, an unusual experience. :) Before this, I also wrote a review, which I later withdrew, of a book the name of which I can't remember, which I felt was cool science and bad writing. I was asked to reconsider my opinion - didn't I think the cool science was good enough to outweigh the improbabilities of the plot? - and I said I didn't think I could. I withdrew the review. (BTW, one of the things that _wasn't_ wrong with the book was sexism: it was one of the few novels in that genre in which _no one_ questioned the abilities, scholarship, or commitment of the female graduate student on the basis of her gender.) Both of these things happened quite a while ago - the first review at least 6 years ago, the New Species review in '93 or '94, soon after it came out. I also contributed a "cool books I read recently" list around the same time as the New Species list. I have been asked to do other things, too, but generally haven't had the time. (Like Avedon, I feel a pang of guilt here....) Bear in mind that I'm a Tor author, and David is my editor there, so in a fannish sense I'm a likely person to ask for reviews - I'm present in their minds and they have my address without having to look too hard for it. I stopped considering doing things for/with NYRSF after a really bizarre exchange regarding a review of Dreamships and Burning Bright. The reviews were mixed, but contained some errors of fact: the space drive in Dreamships was described as "drug-induced" and a secondary character in Burning Bright, Roscha, was described as a prostitute, both of which led to _wild_ misunderstandings of what was actually going on in the book. I wrote as dispassionately as I could to point out those errors (pilots don't use drugs, constructors do, and this is an important difference that helps in understanding the class problems that are at the root of the book; Roscha's the equivalent of a truck driver, which is how she knows something that is vital to the plot), I cited the appropriate page references, and the letter was published apparently without the reviewer's having had a chance to comment on it before and/or for publication. The reviewer read my letter, flipped out, and wrote a really nasty refutation, among other things calling me a liar on the grounds that Roscha is described as driving a "johnboat" and at that point Gordon van Gelder, who was then my contact among the editors, called me for further comment before they published it. After I stopped laughing about the johnboat thing (where I grew up, a johnboat is a flat-bottomed boat you take fishing because it can carry almost anything through real shallow water - but I see what he heard), I declined to enter into a pissing contest on the grounds that I'd said what I had to say. I have no idea if anything further was published, but my strong sense was that both Gordon and I were in a minority in wanting to resolve this without nastiness. Basically, my experience with NYRSF has been that it's pretty unprofessional, not nearly as different from most other fan-run projects as the editorship - which, as somebody else has already said, isn't _just_ David - would like to think it is. The style of discourse has gotten extremely contentious over time, and I don't care enough, or find the other participants important enough, to bother with it any more. It sounds like a lot of people have made the same choice. That said, I would like also to say this about David. As I mentioned, he's my editor at Tor, so that's the context in which I know him, and because of that professional relationship I haven't sought out a friendship with him. I haven't read the NYRSF article. But this is, I think, important: he's published my books without questioning anything except the writing. Some of our artistic disagreements stem from differing assumptions about gender, power, and elites, but in every case my choice as writer has prevailed. And his questions have made my books clearer and better, as the questions on this list have done. M. === Melissa Scott ms001@mail.rscs.net My performance ain't perfect But it's loud and it's fast Widespread Panic  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA25634; Wed, 10 Jul 96 21:26:21 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id UAA22717; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 20:25:56 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id UAA22607 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 20:22:47 -0500 Received: from pgmail.arts.su.edu.au (pgmail.arts.su.edu.au [129.78.16.13]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id UAA25452 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 20:22:42 -0500 Message-Id: Date: 11 Jul 1996 11:21:05 U Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: "Justine Larbalestier" To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Djakarta X-To: "FEM sf list" X-Mailer: Mail*Link SMTP-QM 3.0.2 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: 11 Jul 1996 11:21:05 U Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: "Justine Larbalestier" To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Djakarta X-To: "FEM sf list" X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Djakarta 7/11/96 I said: > Harris did not get some of her research right: Jakarta > has not been spelt "Djakarta" for about twenty years - a jarring > mistake in a > book that's meant to be set in the future. Avedon said: >>Who knows - they could spell it that way again. I've always >>liked that spelling, myself. And look at the number of >>countries lately that have retrieved their old names... Indeed - the Dutch could take over again but there was no background in Harris' novel to explain the reversion to that spelling. It was just dropped in with no additional texture to make the reader believe that the two characters were Indonesian at all - in that context the spelling reads like ignorance. Justine  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA25638; Wed, 10 Jul 96 21:26:31 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id UAA22728; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 20:26:04 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id UAA22611 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 20:23:07 -0500 Received: from fullfeed.msn.fullfeed.com (fullfeed.msn.fullfeed.com [199.184.182.42]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id UAA25455 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 20:23:05 -0500 Received: from [206.86.94.243] by fullfeed.msn.fullfeed.com (8.6.9/FF-1.1) id UAA05513; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 20:22:15 -0500 Message-Id: Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 18:25:07 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Bill.Humphries@msn.fullfeed.com (Bill Humphries) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Hartwell conreport Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-To: ArtBrau@aol.com, FEM-SF Recipients X-Sender: whump@pop.msn.fullfeed.com X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 18:25:07 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Bill.Humphries@msn.fullfeed.com (Bill Humphries) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Hartwell conreport X-To: ArtBrau@aol.com, FEM-SF Recipients X-Sender: whump@pop.msn.fullfeed.com X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN At 9:38 AM 7/10/96, ArtBrau@aol.com wrote: >Sorry folks, > >I haven't found a copy of NY Review of SF. I was assuming I'd find it at the >local SF bookstore, but could not find it there. I have a subscription (the new issue hasn't shown up yet, tho) and when it arrives, I will scan it and post it. bill.humphries@msn.fullfeed.com, Mountain View, California At the bottom of the 5th Inning, it's Angels of Light 2, Book Burning Thugs 1 "The more you know, the more jokes you get" --Tompkins and Kaufman "Everyone has the right and duty to go to hell in their own way" --P. Larsen  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA28718; Wed, 10 Jul 96 23:22:17 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id WAA23680; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 22:21:53 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id WAA23600 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 22:19:13 -0500 Received: from pgmail.arts.su.edu.au (pgmail.arts.su.edu.au [129.78.16.13]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id WAA26498 for ; Wed, 10 Jul 1996 22:19:02 -0500 Message-Id: Date: 11 Jul 1996 13:19:56 U Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: "Justine Larbalestier" To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: "straight" women writing ga X-To: "FEM sf list" X-Mailer: Mail*Link SMTP-QM 3.0.2 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: 11 Jul 1996 13:19:56 U Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: "Justine Larbalestier" To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: "straight" women writing ga X-To: "FEM sf list" X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN "straight" women writing gay blokes 7/11/96 Sylvia said: >>However, this question of the attraction of gay eroticism for >>women was chewed over back in the academic scene in the '80s >>with the big vogue for discussing Star Trek slash zines - women >>don't like their bodies enough to be erotically drawn to them >>(slashzine writer quoted by Joanna Russ) - women see their >>bodies as medical discursive ideological battlegrounds and not >>erotically (Constance Penley) - women in slashzines are creating >>a relationship between true equals and they don't see it >>happening between genders and women don't get to conquer the >>universe once a week (Lamb and Veith, slash-zine writers or >>editors themselves, or so I'm told.) Aanyone seen any recent >>stuff? Well no I haven't but I'm fascinated by some of these explanations for straight women writing about man to man sex. I'm especially fascinated by the apparent contradiction between these explanations and my anecdotal experience of talking about sex and desire with friends over the years. I'll stick to the exchanges with women who consider themselves heterosexual - *all* of them (until I had this conversation with Sylvia!) have said that they find women's bodies far more beautiful and desireable than men's. Now this probably speaks volumes for my circle of friends but I do find it fascinating that we hear frequently about women's hatreds of their bodies and this is extrapolated to being a hatred of *all* women's bodies. Most women I know - dyke, polymorphously perverse, breeder or whatever - don't entirely like their own bodies (some of them *hate* their own bodies) *but* the majority think women's bodies - other women's bodies - are far more beautiful then men's. I'm not sure where I'm going with this but it seems to me there are a variety of ways to identify with bodies and often the representation of a beautiful desirable woman seems to be an icon across sexualities - I mean you see the woman icon on the front cover of so-called straight women's mags like Cleo or Cosmo, on the front cover of so-called straight men's mags like Penthouse or Exquire on the front cover of Deneuve or Out and on the front cover of gay men's magazines - I've seen Madonna etc featured on gay men's mags. Not sure where I'm going with this but I think it does complicate the debate we've been having a little. Just museing, Justine  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA01802; Thu, 11 Jul 96 01:15:56 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA24642; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 00:15:30 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA24513 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 00:03:39 -0500 Received: from emout16.mail.aol.com (emout16.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.42]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA27433 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 00:03:37 -0500 Received: by emout16.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA02509; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 01:05:15 -0400 Message-Id: <960711010514_153431114@emout16.mail.aol.com> Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 01:05:15 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Famous Last Words X-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 01:05:15 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: Famous Last Words X-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN In a message dated 96-07-10 15:34:01 EDT, ltimmel@halcyon.com writes: >What I'd really value, Elizabeth, is your exploring your sense >of a pressure for self-censorship at WisCon Speaking for myself, I felt no pressure to self-censor, but I *did* feel great pressure to make sure that what I said was very, very clear and all hedged about with qualifying clauses etc. so as not to be mis- understood and taken-exception-to (as has apparently just happened on this list); and this need to be VERY VERY CLEAR about things may in fact have turned me away from speaking of things that could not *be* spoken of with the purest clarity possible in a few minutes and without time for further clarifying discussion of any depth from the floor. I say "may have" because it's a while ago now, and though I don't re- member making such a decision not to take on something impossible to speak clearly about in a short spell of time, I am pretty sure it must have happened at least once. Does this count as self-censorship? Suzy  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA01834; Thu, 11 Jul 96 01:16:19 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id AAA24653; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 00:15:41 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA24515 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 00:03:39 -0500 Received: from emout13.mail.aol.com (emout13.mx.aol.com [198.81.11.39]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA27431 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 00:03:36 -0500 Received: by emout13.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id BAA01071; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 01:03:22 -0400 Message-Id: <960711010320_153431092@emout13.mail.aol.com> Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 01:03:22 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: sex and women X-To: t-gare@maroon.tc.umn.edu, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 01:03:22 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: Scharn12@aol.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: sex and women X-To: t-gare@maroon.tc.umn.edu, fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN In a message dated 96-07-10 14:05:02 EDT, t-gare@maroon.tc.umn.edu (Terry A Garey) writes: >>At the risk of falling into another black hole I find myself puzzled at the >idea that sex between women is boring or unexciting. If it is, how come so >many women do it? Them as does it obviously don't find it boring or unexciting; but it appears that large numbers of women do find it so, including some writers who have difficulty writing lesbian sex scenes because of same. So it's not that *it* is or isn't xxxx, but that lotsa women seem to find it xxxx, while what appears to be a substantially less numerous lotsa women find it just dandy, thanks. Suzy  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA10304; Thu, 11 Jul 96 09:24:12 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id IAA29318; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 08:23:08 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA29064 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 07:58:33 -0500 Received: from chic.saglac.qc.ca ([204.19.37.2]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id HAA00334 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 07:58:31 -0500 Received: from [204.19.37.62] (srv1s11.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.62]) by chic.saglac.qc.ca (8.6.11/8.6.11) with SMTP id IAA08318 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 08:58:43 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 08:58:43 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: NYRSF Editorial Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mailer: Eudora F1.5.1 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 08:58:43 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: NYRSF Editorial X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Here is the NYRSF Editorial. Should have done this immediately. Now please check your reflexes at the door, try to forget for just one sec which (what?) person wrote this, and think about this "extending-good-will, benefit-of-the-doubt" thing we talked about earlier on. I thought "we" were strong enough by now to do it with (to?) anybody... Now, posts talking about utopia-here&now are right -- I realized my own utopian impulse was still strong after all there years, coming to an *SF/*Feminist* group, wow. But the thing is, this list is way, way, better than anything else I've ever attended to, so I'll keep my little para-utopia dormant somewhere in my head, it hasn't been proved SO wrong yet:-). I also realized, copying this, that what made me react when I read it is the idea that (feminist) women are not ready yet to accept their own possible weaknesses (even among themselves!) -- which accepting is to me the beginning of strength (not to mention wisdom...), just as accepting ignorance and asking questions is, since it makes us see the possible problems, which allows us to try understanding and solving them; OK, that's my personal utopia!:-) Of COURSE I won't let anyone *define* my possible weaknesses for me, but I am willing to listen to *descriptions* of possible weaknesses ("weakness". I hope this word is not a charged one... I don't see any wich other to use right now; certainly not "mistakes"...) taking what I know of the source into account, but calmly so (or most accurately trying to be calm about it:-)); there are many things in this editorial I can find fault with, and that could be pillored and skewed and etc.,there always is in anything if one looks for it, and often enough you don't even have to look:-)!), but they were not as important for me as the *question* I was forced to face once more because I had wondered myself now and then at Wiscon: Are women really not ready yet to be... non-utopian about themselves, i.e. not expect themselves to be perfect, as well as not expect themselves to always agree on everything)? Some of the other posts about that very question clarified things for me -- being shy, not having the time [and that is the major reason, to me, why Wiscon SHOULDN'T BE TOO BIG], not being on time, not being able to be very-very-clear, (as Suzy last said)...I'd felt all that myself. But I did also feel myself "censoring" myself and not because of all that or of good-will-benefit-of-the-doubt. I felt myself being *prudent* in groups, at panels, in the audience etc. Well, we always are up to a certain extent, in social situations; and I guess it *was* also my utopian impulse acting up -- it was my first time at Wiscon, THE big Wiscon 20, do not marr the fantasy, please. And I want(ed) to be accepted [now, there's a weakness for you. --But is it?]; I still harbor a lot of suspicion about my feminism. I have no doubt whatsoever about it when I am in a non-feminist environment, but as soon as I am in a feminist one, oops! So, I can imagine how being at Wiscon, this Wiscon, reactivated every anxiety I may have. But at the same time, I am questioning this. It doesn't seem... healthy to me. Why should I feel less secure about my feminism when I am among feminists, darn it? [taking into account what Tess said about "safe spaces"...] And the question I was asking myself leaving Wiscon was "is it just me?" -- considering what I said earlier about my self-doubts; I'd talked to a few women at Wiscon who'd seem to feel a bit like me. A few posts I got here seemed to indicate there is indeed something... And then I read the NYRSF editorial (note how I carefully depersonalize the thing!:-) and it registered, of course; although I don't think of [Hartwell, since his name is there with "& the editors"] as "one of us" (I can feel myself cringe writing this. Us.Them. Will we humans never go beyond this? --Shut up, Utopia!), I don't see him as one-of-them either (inasmuch as I know him: I don't, personally; I've read his stuff, I've read the authors he's published, and I've heard him talk on panels and at parties. I know nothing of his possible "gang", nothing "political"; I don't live in Nu-York. I'm not even an American,for god's sake:-)) And, contrary to the experience of apparently everyone who talked about it on this list, I usually *like* NYRSF. Yes, there are annoying, pretentious essays once in a while, but I have never expected a literary magazine to be a hundred per cent enjoyable, and there are many other essays which are thought-provoking (for me anyway; I find fodder where I can, up there in Chicoutimi!) And I feel (Suzanna's study notwithstanding) there is more about women and sf/f in it that in any other similar magazine or journal I am reading! Try SF STUDIES, and tell me about it (despite the laudable efforts of Veronica Hollinger; and I am "guilty" of the same "I don't have time" as others here; but then again, I'm not a native English-speaker, it takes much more time for me to write anything solid in English. OK, so I am too proud.). Or FOUNDATION, or EXTRAPOLATION. OK, I am not reading the right magazines. (But they come with the SFWA affiliation, she plaintively objects). Tell me which ones I should read. ******************* Wiscon 20 was held recently in Madison, Wisconsin, the premier feminist SF convention since its inception in the 1970s. It was a wonderful gathering of the clans with attendees from all over the world. Women came from Argentina and Germany, Canada and Australia, Japan and England. It rivalled the finest regional conventions of the last two decades, with te -track serious programming and a guest list that puts many worldcons to shame. In case you wondered, there were hundreds of men there having a great time too. To top it off, the annual James Tiptree Jr. awards ceremony was held there, returning once again to the convention at which the award was founded with a slate of retrospecvtive winners (Suzy MCKee Charnas, Ursula K. Le Guin and Joanna Russ) received with wild enthusiasm. It was a convention about "stand uo and be counted", about agreemnent on common ground. NYRSF staffers Kathryn Kramer and David G. Hartwell, as well as former staffer GOrdon Van Gelder, Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Rob Killhefer and Jenna Felice were there. It will seem like a cliche to say that the best moments were at the parties, the dinners and lunches and breakfasts, and in the halls, but it hides a minor problem. The panels tended to be about how much we all agreee on whatever the topci was --and this I thought was not reflective of the best moments iat parties, in the halls, over meals. There is, it seems to me, a lot to disagree over at present on issues relating to women, gender, and SF, and the strength of feminist sf in the past has most often been its opposition, often its radical opposition to other SF, even to other sf by women or about women or about gender roles and identities. A lot of discussion about disagreement went on in the halls, not much on panels. There was a panel that was proposed but not held that I signed up for: why isn't there more feminist criticism in NYRSF and elsewhere i the sf field? The quick answer is that it is hard to get people to write it well in this decade, and that we print it whever we can get it done to our standards (send for our guidelines if you wish). The difficult and arguable underlying observation is that judging by Wiscon, it would be socially unacceptable presently if one wishes to be considered a feminist to find any fault with a woman's work, especially on the level of politics, but also to a large extent, in execution. My recollection of Wiscon 4, many years ago, it that the hottest controversy of the week-end occurred when Charnas said on a panel that some works were better art than others and that feminist discourse sold concentrate on the best works, not on the average or below average fiction, if we were going to get anywhere. I recall that she was shouted at by parts of the audience for this. The other panel that was never even suggested --but Ithink should have been held anyway-- would have been composed of the guests such as Le Guin, Charnas, Judith Merril, Katherine MacLean and Nancy Kress speculating on where feminist SF is and were it is going. These writers, and others such as Judith Moffet, Eleanor Arnason, Gwyneth Jones, Karen Joy Fowler (the list could go on but this is a one column editorial) were instead democratically spread out over the ten tracks and never concentrated in one place . Wiscon 20 was, I repeat, a great place to be and a fine convention. I loved it. Now, as Ted Sturgeon said, "ask the next question." Elisabeth Vonarburg evarburg@saglac.qc.ca "Il s'agit de vivre et non d'avoir raison"  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA22747; Thu, 11 Jul 96 14:42:24 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id NAA04958; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 13:40:17 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA04653 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 13:18:07 -0500 Received: from tom.compulink.co.uk (tom.compulink.co.uk [194.153.0.51]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id NAA04800 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 13:18:05 -0500 Received: (from root@localhost) by tom.compulink.co.uk (8.6.9/8.6.9) id TAA29813 for fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 19:18:03 +0100 Message-Id: Date: Thu, 11 Jul 96 19:17 BST-1 Reply-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: safe spaces versus guarded spaces X-Cc: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 11 Jul 96 19:17 BST-1 Reply-To: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk (Avedon Carol) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: safe spaces versus guarded spaces X-Cc: avedon@cix.compulink.co.uk X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN In-Reply-To: <9607101313.AB05342@central.murdoch.edu.au> Tess said: > I think that what happened both to Elisabeth and Timmi is a salutary > lesson. There are no safe spaces. > I'm not intending to make this personal, but quite > honestly, what is one person's "safe space" can look to the > uninitiated like a tank full of sharks. and a lot of other good stuff. I think this is important. In my experience, saying anything challenging is always going to take a certain amount of bravery (or naivity), no matter where you are. And my experience with "safe places" is that by their very nature they are not safe at all, but rather exclusionary territory that can be nothing but an obstacle course for someone who wants to bring something new and challenging into the discourse. I have seen women thrown out of the "safe places" of various women's groups for being insufficiently queer, for failing to dress according to some ill-defined standard, for questioning some highly dubious dogma, and even, in one case, I saw a woman in a wheelchair ousted from a lesbian dance by able-bodied women who felt she was insulting to "disabled" people when she referred to herself as a "cripple". So much for "safe" spaces. Avedon Feminists Against Censorship http://www.fullfeed.com/hypatia/censor.html Avedon Feminists Against Censorship http://www.fullfeed.com/hypatia/censor.html  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA00254; Thu, 11 Jul 96 17:46:50 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id QAA07424; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 16:44:45 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id QAA07149 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 16:25:15 -0500 Received: from mail-out2.apple.com (mail-out2.apple.com [17.254.0.51]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id QAA07415 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 16:25:13 -0500 Received: from scv2.apple.com (A17-128-100-120.apple.com [17.128.100.120]) by mail-out2.apple.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id OAA12836 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 14:24:35 -0700 Received: from [17.201.21.69] (beckto2.apple.com [17.201.21.69]) by scv2.apple.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id OAA10524 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 14:26:13 -0700 Message-Id: Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 14:25:14 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: twb@apple.com (Tom Becker) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: NYRSF Editorial Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Sender: twb@mail.apple.com X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 14:25:14 -0700 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: twb@apple.com (Tom Becker) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: NYRSF Editorial X-To: FEM-SF Recipients X-Sender: twb@mail.apple.com X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN At 8:58 AM 7/11/96, Elisabeth Vonarburg wrote: > But I did >also feel myself "censoring" myself and not because of all that or of >good-will-benefit-of-the-doubt. I felt myself being *prudent* in groups, >at panels, in the audience etc. Well, we always are up to a certain >extent, in social situations; and I guess it *was* also my utopian impulse >acting up -- it was my first time at Wiscon, THE big Wiscon 20, do not marr >the fantasy, please. And I want(ed) to be accepted [now, there's a >weakness for you. --But is it?]; I really had a different experience at WisCon. I really felt comfortable and relaxed. Sure, it was intellectually challenging, but it was emotionally supporting at the same time. I was able to speak out more and feel that I was contributing positively to the discussions. Maybe it was because I've been to WisCons before, or it's because I've gotten to know and really like a lot of the people that were at WisCon 20. That can't be it totally, because I was able to have some really good conversations and make friends with new people. WisCon 20 was a safe place as far as I was concerned, actually much more so than this list. WisCon 20 was a love-fest. There are a lot of reasons why, and they've been discussed already. It was a jubilant celebration, a grand coming-together of people from all over. I think it's natural that this tended to skew the tone of the discussions, especially the more formal ones, towards the positive. Of course, WisCon 20 had problems, but they were the kind that are unavoidable when you bring a large number of people together. I like conventions with a single track of programming because it gives everyone more of a common experience, and the continuity makes it possible for each panel to build on the previous ones. But with a con as big as WisCon 20, that kind of continuity could have been achieved only by sacrificing intimacy and interaction. The WisCon planners were very aware of this tradeoff and they made a conscious decision in favor of lots of small panels, and I think they made the right choice for their convention. But think about the consequences: You can't assume any of the panelists and audience have been to any particular previous panels, or that they will go to the same panels later. Each panel has to start from scratch, and it has to cover its topic in an hour. This isn't a crippling problem because WisCon 20 attracted people with a common interest and a good basic knowledge of feminism and science fiction. Also, there was a huge pool of extremely qualified members who could serve as panelists. So what we got was a lot of small panels with really excellent interaction between the panelists and the audience. This worked out well for panels that covered topics at an introductory level, or that involved brain-storming, or sharing personal stories. But it wasn't as well suited for deep critical analysis or working out controversial issues. Again, I think the WisCon planners made the right choice for their situation. Discussion about disagreement is productive only after establishing where we do agree. WisCon 20 brought a lot of people together that needed to get to know each other first. If we keep the momentum going, we can get more deeply into the controversial aspects. I think I've provided two reasons why WisCon 20 may not have gotten so much into discussions about disagreement. The two reasons have a common aspect: people can focus on only a finite number of things at one time, and there is a finite number of hours during a convention. Getting to know people, learning things, discussing issues -- these all take concentration and time. One has to prioritize. There's a fine line between prioritizing -- of all the things you could discuss, choosing the ones that are appropriate for the moment and the people around you -- and self-censorship, but it's a line that is distinct and solid. Let's look at Hartwell's editorial: >It was a wonderful gathering >of the clans with attendees from all over the world. Right. >It was a convention about "stand up and be counted", about agreement on >common ground. Also right. >It will seem like a cliche to say that the best moments were at the >parties, the dinners and lunches and breakfasts, and in the halls, but it >hides a minor problem. The panels tended to be about how much we all >agreee on whatever the topic was --and this I thought was not reflective of >the best moments at parties, in the halls, over meals. First off, note that Hartwell is describing this as a "minor problem". Next, the point he's making is about his experience of WisCon 20, not about feminism. I explained above why I think WisCon 20 couldn't possibly be everything. I think it's ok for Hartwell to go to a con that is truly wonderful, and still find some parts of it to be more fulfilling than others, and to still want more. If he's criticizing WisCon 20, then I don't agree with him. But if he's relating his experience and where he would like things to go, that's ok with me. >There is, it seems >to me, a lot to disagree over at present on issues relating to women, >gender, and SF, and the strength of feminist sf in the past has most often >been its opposition, often its radical opposition to other SF, even to >other sf by women or about women or about gender roles and identities. This *is* a statement about feminism and feminist SF. It seems ok to me, but I'm certainly open to hearing what others think about it. >A lot of discussion about disagreement went on in the halls, >not much on panels. This is essentially a repeat of a previous point. >There was a panel that was proposed but not held that I signed up for: why >isn't there more feminist criticism in NYRSF and elsewhere in the sf field? >The other panel that was never even suggested --but Ithink should have been >held anyway-- would have been composed of the guests such as Le Guin, >Charnas, Judith Merril, Katherine MacLean and Nancy Kress speculating on >where feminist SF is and were it is going. So speaketh David Hartwell, back-seat program designer. Basically, I think the WisCon planners had to make a lot of tough choices, and they did a better job than any other convention I've seen. That doesn't mean they're perfect, just the best so far. In my last article for the WisCon newszine, I wrote about some panels I'd seen where I thought it would be worthwhile to go deeper into the issues. I don't think I was out of line. We should be able to take what Hartwell wrote as reasonable suggestions for programming on future WisCons (or other feminist SF conventions). In particular, I think Hartwell deserves a fair amount of credit for being willing to be on a "Why Isn't NYRSF More Feminist" panel, considering the panel could end up deciding he's the problem. >Wiscon 20 was, I repeat, a great place to be and a fine convention. I >loved it. Now, as Ted Sturgeon said, "ask the next question." I think this reinforces the context that Hartwell is saying WisCon is great, but he wants to see it get more into radical and controversial issues. One of the problems I have with Hartwell's editorial is its tone. It spends a lot more column inches on what WisCon *didn't* do, and on what he would like it to do in the future, than it does on what WisCon was actually like. I had to look at it carefully to see that he really does say positive things about WisCon and that his critiques and suggestions are worded in non-judgemental ways. I think he really could have written it better. It's too easy to misunderstand any part of it that is quoted out of context. It's almost as if he thought he was in a "safe space" and he didn't have to be extra careful about how he phrased things. I'm looking forward to WisCon 21. Because it will be smaller, we will have a chance to work the program design tradeoffs differently. The community that was formed at WisCon 20 gives us a base of mutual understanding and good will that we can use to move forward into more discussions about disagreement. And we can invite Hartwell back, give him that panel he wants, and really put him to the test. Tom  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA06236; Thu, 11 Jul 96 20:27:30 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id TAA09464; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 19:26:58 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA09346 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 19:21:36 -0500 Received: from chic.saglac.qc.ca (chic.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.2]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA09472 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 19:21:34 -0500 Received: from [204.19.37.61] (srv1s10.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.61]) by chic.saglac.qc.ca (8.6.11/8.6.11) with SMTP id UAA05407 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 20:22:22 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 20:22:22 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Just a minor point Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mailer: Eudora F1.5.1 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 20:22:22 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Just a minor point X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN Rereading what I posted at the beginning of Tom Becker's post, I realized I should haven written: "I also felt myself censoring myself *some of the time*" (for other reasons than the "good" reasons, I mean). The rest of the time, I had a tremendously GOOD time. I didn't come down for a WEEK afterwards. I wrote all my netted friends about it. I told all my non-netted friends aobut it. I talked about it in my radio program. I would still be talking about it if I didn't have to go back to writing! And I wholeheartedly agree with him that the Wiscon organizers did an great job, and made good choices considering the circumstances. But since we are all "bascksit organizers", especially after the fact, I still look forward to the next Wison, wishing it will be smaller, with one track programming, and not the Big Yearly Bash Forever that has been envisionned in some previous posts:-) Elisabeth Vonarburg evarburg@saglac.qc.ca "Il s'agit de vivre et non d'avoir raison"  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA06248; Thu, 11 Jul 96 20:27:37 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id TAA09475; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 19:27:08 -0500 Received: from lucy.cs.wisc.edu (lucy.cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.11]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA09350 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 19:21:43 -0500 Received: from chic.saglac.qc.ca (chic.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.2]) by lucy.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA09475 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 19:21:41 -0500 Received: from [204.19.37.61] (srv1s10.saglac.qc.ca [204.19.37.61]) by chic.saglac.qc.ca (8.6.11/8.6.11) with SMTP id UAA05412 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 20:22:35 -0400 Message-Id: Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 20:22:35 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Safe places Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Mailer: Eudora F1.5.1 X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 11 Jul 1996 20:22:35 -0400 Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: evarburg@chic.saglac.qc.ca (Elisabeth Vonarburg) To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Safe places X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN [a small, tentative voice in the back of the room:] "What about a *safer* place?" Elisabeth Vonarburg evarburg@saglac.qc.ca "Il s'agit de vivre et non d'avoir raison"  1,, Return-Path: Received: from sea.cs.wisc.edu by life.ai.mit.edu (4.1/AI-4.10) for eliz id AA06765; Thu, 11 Jul 96 20:51:24 EDT Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id TAA09726; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 19:50:47 -0500 Received: from cs.wisc.edu (cs.wisc.edu [128.105.2.6]) by sea.cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA09554 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 19:38:00 -0500 Received: from (blv-pm1-ip16.halcyon.com [204.29.16.46]) by cs.wisc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.12) with SMTP id TAA18382 for ; Thu, 11 Jul 1996 19:37:38 -0500 Message-Id: Date: Thu, 11 Jul 96 17:34:46 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu Precedence: bulk From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: NYRSF Editorial (WAY long) X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 11 Jul 96 17:34:46 PDT Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: owner-fem-sf@cs.wisc.edu From: ltimmel@halcyon.com To: FEM-SF Recipients Subject: Re: NYRSF Editorial (WAY long) X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.1 -- ListProcessor by CREN After reading the Hartwell editorial that Elisabeth has provided, it strikes me that part of the problem in our discussion so far has been that we have not been very, very clear (to use Suzy's phrase) about what exactly we're talking about. I think there are different things being talked about in referential terms that are being taken for different things by different people. It leaped out of Hartwell's editorial at me. For me, talking about this requires going out on a limb & being "personal" rather than analystically "dissecting" Hartwell's editorial, in an effort to elucidate the complexity of what we're talking about. He makes it sound so simple: women hiding their disagreement "in public spaces," & grumbling about it "in private spaces." (I use scare quotes because to me, none of the spaces of WisCon were what I would call private-- I'd say they were, at best, semi-private, for the simple reason that I knew no one there, had no history of relationships with people there that could be designated "private"; for me the experience of WisCon felt distinctly "professional," excepting perhaps on mid-Monday afternoon, when I spent a few hours hanging out on State Street with some graduate students: but even then-- I'm not sure I'd call it strictly private.) Making the decision to attend WisCon was a major one for me. (The only reason I even considered it in the first place was my involvement with fem-sf.) I went with fairly low expectations. My principal hope-- knowing from friends who are academics just how little one should expect from the panels & other organized activities of conferences or conventions-- was that of meeting at least one person I could engage in interesting conversation with. (For the first 30 years of my life my most pleasurable fantasy was walking into a library or a bookstore & finding the special idiosyncratic book(s) that I wanted most to read, but had never encountered. I only realized the fantasy had been supplanted when I noticed that such a scenario had ceased to be a deliciously erotic wish-fulfilmment dream. [Which happened when I started writing my own books, presumably to satisfy just that fantasy.] For the last 15 years, my most pleasurable fantasy has been that of meeting the perfect interlocutor-- one who will have the same hodgepodge of interests & ideas & reading background that I have. (Talk about impossible fantasies!) So I guess I did have one high hope, if not real expectation. (Other, subsidiary hopes: to discover neat fiction I didn't already know about, & to buy books I'd been looking for-- hopes that were met, I might add.) I had no positive expectations about finding the panels themselves satisfying. When I began attending panels on Friday night, the first one I attended was cringe-worthy dreadful (it had only men on it, & men who struck me as not very bright): at which I realized that my principle for selecting panels to attend probably shouldn't be its stated topic, but who was on it. (Fortunately I violated this principle for two satisfying experiences-- hearing Heather Whipple read Elizabeth Stevenson's paper on Octavia Butler, & the two-panels-that-combined-into-one on feminist Utopias.) Unlike Hartwell, it would seem, I soon realized that on most of the panels I attended, the panelists often weren't speaking to the same topic, & at least one of them tended to be in total opposition to the other three (or four). Sometimes the oppositional panelist was skillful enough to focus the discussion on the disagreement itself. At other times the majority-view panelists--- usually bolstered by by eager audience participation, which most often determined exactly what the panelists were able to speak about--- discussed aspects of the topic that interested them, instead of focusing on the point of disagreement. (In which case the minority-view panelist said little.) I wonder if this problem was what Hartwell was talking about. As I've mentioned in past posts, two of the three panels I was assigned to were not about the topic I was interested in. & in the case of all three panels, I held the minority view. In one case I was able to frame the discussion, & integrate my position into the others' discussion; but in two cases I was left almost speechless. In both of the latter two cases I would say that my speechlessness was due to the moderators' inadvertent ineptness. (& from the panels I attended, I would say this was generally the case.) On the panel on which I got out maybe half a dozen sentences in toto, a fellow member of the panel was a motormouth (the result, I gathered, of her having spent a lot of time lately in the classroom, teaching-- a standard occupational hazard, of course); I arrived with a sheaf of notes, that like the notes for my other panel proved wholly irrelevant, but the motormouth arrived with an agenda & major lung capacity & breath control & could not be stopped by anyone. The moderator, who was seated beside me, got a little anxious about this at about 15 minutes before the end of the hour, & scribbled notes to me, asking me if I wanted to speak. As it happened, there were three reasons I declined her offer to intervene. First, the panel wasn't what I had expected. Let me remind everyone of how the program guide worked: each panel had a title, & then a series of questions. My impression is that the organizers of the panel took the panel-topic questionnaires we all filled out & combined several topics into a single one. The subsidiary questions were of no interest to the majority view on the panels, & so they might not as well have been in the program guide at all. (I learned this about panels early, too: it became pretty clear that if I were interested in the subsidiary questions listed under the title but not in some narrow interpretation of the title itself, I would inevitably be disappointed in the panel, because the panel would never discuss any of those questions. Hence, I came prepared to discuss questions that had a snowball's chance in hell of getting onto the menu (except in that one instance where, because I was the odd-woman out, the moderator asked me to go first, & I used the opportunity to frame the discussion so that it would include my interests). The second reason I didn't assert myself in opposition to the motormouth was because the audience was fully engaged in a valuable discussion. My opposition, after all, wasn't to anything the motormouth said per se; what she was saying simply wasn't what I had come there to discuss. (I don't know what the other panelists came there to discuss: they, too, allowed her to control the discussion, & unlike me, found things to say.) My attitude was: here there are 25 or so people having an excellent discussion. Why should I wreck it, just to get a chance to talk about one of my pet interests? The third reason I was unable to speak is that the moments at which I could have integrated my interest into the discussion without disrupting it had already past. (Believe me, I tried to get a word in edgewise at those points, but, being a teacher of undergraduates, the motormouth simply ran right over me, like someone who has snatched up a microphone & has no idea that anyone else in the room might have something else to say.) Let's face it. Being a moderator takes a certain talent-- & no doubt a great deal of experience. As a matter of interest, the moderator of the other panel in which I had very little to say (& in which I was in fundamental disagreement on the topic, but couldn't really work it out in speech, because my position was too complex to spit out in the necessary short byte required for the style of discourse of that particular panel) apparently felt uneasy afterwards, for she approached me at the reception to express her anxieties & to seek reassurance that she had done all right. (Of course, for all I know she might have overheard me contradict her summary of the discussion when some people came up from the audience to talk to me, & I expressed disagreement with her summary.) In considering the story of my own experiences, I'd say there are a number of issues at stake. First, what was my purpose of being on the panels? Was it to participate in a public discussion, to assert my views, or to enhance my professional reputation? I pose the last question, because as a graduate student I provoked the Great Wrath of my advisor when I generated a lively discussion at a colloquium I presented (at which 11 faculty & forty-five graduate students crowded into a room designed to hold twenty people: others who arrived late couldn't get in because the door couldn't be opened without people first leaving the room). The discussion lasted two hours. My advisor was *furious*. Such behavior was not professional. The point of giving colloquia is to assert one's authority, to demonstrate one's brilliance, to show that one can dominate whoever asks questions during the "discussion" period. I had "lost control," he said. Which was something I must never, ever, allow to happen again. (& here I thought I'd been a smashing success!) Frankly, I considered the panels to be a mixture of the first & second objectives-- & not the third. (I would have refused to be on any panels at all, if my professional reputation were the issue.) This aspect of professionalism (which crosses professions & disciplines) I am in the habit of calling "barnyard professionalism." It's something I refuse to do. It's something one has to do to succeed in certain professions, & people I know who have survived in academia engage may hate doing it, but are skillfull at it nevertheless. I witnessed several sorts of "barnyard" conversations at WisCon. No big shock. As I said, WisCon was a public event. What I suspect is that Hartwell thinks of these panels the way my advisor did. What I suspect is that he didn't give a thought to the problem of having panels thrown together so randomly, & with the problem of having moderators without any sense of what they would be facing, of having panels meet without previous contact, & no real notion of what the discussion was going to be about. Academic panels are arenas for shows of barnyard dominance. People sometimes try to have meaningful discussions on academic panels: but they don't really expect them during the panel. Those come afterwards, in restaurants, bars, hotel rooms, or via email when everyone's gone home. Is this the kind of performance Hartwell was looking for? For myself, only the barnyard motive would have gotten me to disrupt the panels I was on & insist on articulating all that I had come prepared to say. Second, what kind of disagreement are we talking about? I believe Hartwell is conflating different kinds of disagreement. The points of disagreement on panels usually had nothing to with the issues that might provoke self-censorship among feminists in a public forum, & everything to do with basic philosophical differences (whether about aesthetics, or epistemology or ontology or broad ideology) & the difficulty of talking about interesting subjects without getting hung up on the differences in the crass, simplistic terms that are likely in a discussion by numerous persons in the space of 60 minutes or less. Third, the civility issue (which Hartwell misnames "social acceptability.") When does politeness turn into self-censorship? I was polite when I kept my dissatisfaction to myself. Was that self-censorship, or a result of my notions of civility? I can say straight out that I wasn't looking for "social acceptibility" at WisCon. The event wasn't small enough for that sort of desire even to find play. Social acceptibility, after all, requires that one be in a small-enough social environment that what one does is particularly noticed. & what does it mean to share a huge public space with 800 persons? Unless one considers that space as an arena for dominance displays-- as I know very well some people do, whether certain male sf writers I won't mention, or Ms. Paglia, to make clear I don't think this is *totally* a gender-determined behavior-- surely, if one comes for other reasons than to assert one's dominance in the pecking order, *or unless one feels an important ideologically-based injustice is being perpetrated* -- then one is going to do one's best to fit in. So an important question is, was an important ideologically-based injustice being perpetrated? Is that the kind of silencing we're talking about? Exactly what kind of "differences" & "disagreements" are at issue? I think it's essential that we not conflate the various kinds. As far as I'm concerned, the only kind to be concerned about are self-censorship of ideologically-based differences. All the other kind are a matter of organizational disorder & civility. (& how *can* one organize so damned many panels as carefully as needed having to set them up months & months in advance? I don't mean to be criticizing Steve & the others who did the organizing: I'm saying it's probably impossible not to have some unfortunate outcomes. Though maybe it would have helped if panel members had had a chance to get in touch with one another before meeting in situ.) Finally, the question of women publicly critiquing one another's work. Well, first of all, they do do it. Lucy Sussex did a *splendid* job on Connie Willis's "All My Darling Daughters" in SF EYE a few years back. (Not the only example, but the one that pops first into my mind for some reason, probably because it was so trenchantly done.) & if that seems too far in the distant past, or anomalous because SF Eye is not a magazine that especially appeals to women, then let me point out that the July issue of the _Lambda Report_ has a rather disparaging review of an all-women authors horror anthology. I'm sure there are many people on this list whose work has been reviewed critically by other women. In this, Hartwell obviously doesn't know what he's talking about. & if this is a public space-- & I really don't know what kind of space it is-- then they do it here, too-- even to works that have won the Tiptree award. Of course, many writers simply do not care to write negatively about other writers, except in those cases where alarm or vexation provokes them to it. I know *I* don't. & all the reasons (which I won't go into now, since this post is already way long) have to do with my being a writer-- not a woman writer, but a writer. My lack of interest in writing negative reviews doesn't just extend to women writers, but to men writers as well. If I'm going to write about somebody's work publicly, it's going to be about work I admire & enjoy or am puzzled about, and which I want other people to admire & enjoy or puzzle about, or at least to understand some of the reasons I admire & enjoy & puzzle about it myself. I think this is a fairly reasonable attitude to take. (It certainly keeps me from wasting my time.) It hasn't escaped my notice that obscure writers like myself (often referred to as "new" ) enjoy a privilege "Name" writers don't: reviewers tend to write only about their work only when they like it, & ignore it when they don't. The reason probably isn't to be nice to the non-Names, but because the reviewers consider it a waste of time (& column space) to trash the work of non-Name writers. That attiude works generally for myself with respect to most fiction. When I first started writing fiction, I spent a lot of time critiquing the flaws in the fiction I read because I wanted to make sure I didn't make those mistakes myself. It was useful then; it's not so useful to me now. & such analyses are certainly not interesting for the non-writer. Anyway, I think it's too easy to say the issue is one of "social-acceptability." & I certainly don't believe that's the reason the NYRSF hasn't been getting a lot of unsolicited submissions from feminists. But it's an easy one to cite, isn't it. Timmi