Feminist Utopian Fiction

Cafe Society
81

Funny, but a Google search for the coherent English phrase “coherent English phrase” yields only three hits, which sort of blows* that* little theory all to heck.

Yes, and if you’re looking for “aardvark” but you search for “zebra,” you’d get a lot of hits, too, so what in the Sam Hill is your point, Lamia?

I noted a wide variety of examples of feminist utopian fiction, including the ones whose utopia is grounded in the fact that men no longer exist, or are greatly reduced in numbers. If it is a utopia because those bad, evil, violent men are gone, then yes, it is fiction about how great the world would be if all men were gone.

I have. But because such works cast light on the extreme forms of feminism, there will always be those who feel compelled to deny its existence, or to explain it away – arguing that utopia=no men is not really an anti-male sentiment.

And another strawwomyn bites the dust. By jove, good sport, that.

You can lead a horse to citations but you can’t make him think, to mangle a phrase.

If you can’t comprehend the anti-male attitudes behind the concept that utopia means no men, or utopia means only women rule, then no amount of citations will break through that cherished wall of denial. It merely demonstrates, once again, how ready some are to accept, defend and run interference for whatever anti-male attitudes emerge from the field.

82

Funny, but a Google search for the coherent English phrase “coherent English phrase” yields only three hits, which sort of blows* that* little theory all to heck.

Yes, and if you’re looking for “aardvark” but you search for “zebra,” you’d get a lot of hits, too, so what in the Sam Hill is your point, Lamia?

I noted a wide variety of examples of feminist utopian fiction, including the ones whose utopia is grounded in the fact that men no longer exist, or are greatly reduced in numbers. If it is a utopia because those bad, evil, violent men are gone, then yes, it is fiction about how great the world would be if all men were gone.

I have. But because such works cast light on the extreme forms of feminism, there will always be those who feel compelled to deny its existence, or to explain it away – arguing that utopia=no men is not really an anti-male sentiment.

And another strawwomyn bites the dust. By jove, good sport, that.

You can lead a horse to citations but you can’t make him think, to mangle a phrase.

If you can’t comprehend the anti-male attitudes behind the concept that utopia means no men, or utopia means only women rule, then no amount of citations will break through that cherished wall of denial. It merely demonstrates, once again, how ready some are to accept, defend and run interference for whatever anti-male attitudes emerge from the field.

83

Daniel, learn the difference between a trope and the rope you hanged yourself with.

When you say “you don’t mention other themes,” anyone can see your statement is false. It also demonstrates that someone trying to be fair to this particular sub-genre will be dealt with in bad faith.

Then we note that your claim of familiarity with the field has greatly expanded in the course of one thread. Earlier you say “I’ve read a good half-dozen or more examples from the field,” and now you claim that you have read “at least somewhat widely in the field.” No one has to actually call you a liar – they need merely read your statements and let them speak for themselves.

If I am wrong in calling both statements a lie, I’d be interested in hearing you, A) explain why the original post, which mentions other themes, doesn’t mention other themes, and B) how you could possibly reconcile those latter two assertions on your reading experience.

84

I agree there are many who come to feminism out of an interest in women’s issues rather than antipathy toward men. Overall, feminism did develop a rather persistent reputation for harboring anti-male ideals. You’ll note that a lot of people today associate feminism with anti-male attitudes. I think that the more anti-male books in this field are another demonstration of why this is so, as well as the persistent refusal on the part of some in the ranks to object to anti-male attitudes – condoning them by silence or denial.

Now let us propose reworking this theme. Let’s say that in this story, parts of Europe are cut off from the outside world. Many people are interested in re-establishing contact with other cultures. But then three black people show up. They prove themselves to be either an uncontrollable rapist, a violent coup leader, or overly emotional.

I think that few people would have any trouble recognizing this theme as racist. And few people would put up the kind of unfortunate, strident defense for that broad smear.

Because of your interesting post, I’ll have to read “Houston” one of these days. I’m interested in your reaction that “It should be noted that the TONE of the story isn’t anti-male. The women are portrayed as sensitive, compassionate people… but they aren’t fools.” The thing of it is, if I were confronted with a rapist in action, I’d do my utmost to stop him. And if all of us were confronted with a gun-wielding fanatic, we wouldn’t want him in charge. Both reactions are entirely understandable.

What is going on here, though, is that this wasn’t a real situation – it was a feminist author deliberately chosing characters. So it is interesting that of her sample of men, a third represents the idea that men are potential rapists, a third represent the idea that men want to impose patriarchal religion on the masses, and the remainder is too emotional to be of any use (sort of throwing the stereotype of emotional women back at men). The author can then make her heroines respond very reasonably to these conditions. If you painted all members of any racial group as savages or sub-humans, you could have your heroes do the right thing. But in the end, it is a stereotype – a very hateful one.

In particular is the idea that you remove a man’s inhibitions and it makes him want to rape – only his inhibitions were preventing him from carrying that out.

Having had some experience with a substance that removes inhibitions – namely, demon rum – I know what it’s like to have your inhibitions squashed. It could make me want to make a pass at every woman I saw, it could give me the “beer goggles” that make all women beautiful, it could make me want to make a pass at a woman old enough to be my grandmother. But the one thing it never, ever made me do is want to have violent sex that violates a woman. The idea that men will prove themselves rapists if you just remove their inhibitions is particularly hateful – and has real-world consequences.

I am sure that this type of fiction, unfortunately, has its defenders. Then again, “The Turner Diaries” has its defenders, too.

85

Satisfying Andy Licious writes:

> Thus when certain feminists write of certain utopias in which
> men do not exist – especially if it is the return of men that
> cause the utopia to fail – they are expressing an inevitably anti-
> male belief system.

Let’s go over this slowly, since you just don’t seem to get this point. To write a story that includes a particular social change (like, say, having all men disappear) does not mean that you are advocating that such a change could happen. This is a very important point that a lot of people don’t understand about science fiction. Science fiction is not about prediction. Science fiction is not about advocating social change. Science fiction is about proposing interesting social/psychological/scientific/philosophical changes in present-day society and asking the question: “What would the world be like if we assumed that this change happened?” Writing about a utopia or dystopia or some combination of the two does not mean that you are advocating that society or warning against it. It means that you are thinking about it. Presuming that an author must advocate ideas mentioned in his/her story is a sign of sloppy reading.

I don’t see that any of the stories discussed in this thread actually advocate eliminating men. Look at “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” by James Tiptree, Jr. (a.k.a. Alice Sheldon), which probably sounds more anti-male to the sloppy reader than anything else mentioned here. Far from wanting all men to disappear, Sheldon spent most of her adult life married to a man. When they got old and it became clear that she would spend the rest of her old age either alone or with him being so senile that she could no longer even talk to him, she couldn’t take the thought of being without him. She killed him and committed suicide herself.

86

Andy, do you understand earth logic or what? I mean, seriously. You refuse to provide cites for your accusations against feminism; then you bring up fiction as if that’s relevant. Fiction, as it’s been pointed out to you over and over again, does not prove your wild accusations. It wasn’t even a good diversion.

Then you claim that I deny such a thing exists. Uh, no. I deny that it has any relevance to the original subject, but hey, why let reality stop you?

Oh, and you whining about straw women? That’s rich. Your defense of your points pretty much amounts to straw women. You accused me of lying about my job situation. I can nothing more appropriate than you getting a taste of your own medicine.

87

No you haven’t. You have yet to name a single book that depicts a utopian society that is utopian because there are no (or very few) men. You have named works of feminist science-fiction and claimed that they were based on this theme, but everyone here who has actually read the books you’ve named has explained that you are wrong about them because either 1) the society is not depicted as utopian or 2) it is utopian, but this is not presented as being because of a lack of men.

**

And you have yet to come up with a single title that fits this description. Not a one. This is really surprising, not just because you have repeatedly claimed that this is a hugely popular feminist genre, but because all kinds of weird science-fiction novels have been published by all kinds of weird people. I shouldn’t think it would be so difficult to find one that supports the wacky theory of your choice. So make with the titles. And once again, I mean books that are really about a society that is utopian because “those bad, evil, violent men are gone”, not a book that merely deals with an all or predominantly female society.

**

For all your talk about strawmen, you sure do tell a lot of lies about your opponents. Neither I, nor anyone else here, has said “It’s not at all anti-male to think that the world would be perfect if only there were no men!” What we have said is that we have not seen these books you describe that advocate the idea that the world would be perfect with no men. Find me a book that sincerely presents the message “Things will be great once we kill all the men!” and I will agree with you that it is an anti-male book. What I will not agree with is that such a belief is common among feminists or that such books are widely read. Your posts here have done more to convince me of the falsehood of your own claims than anything else, because if such books were popular you should have been able to find one by now.

88

On what do you base the idea that affirmative action is pretty rare? And

First, no one here, including me, has said that most feminist science fiction is anti-male. The problem here is the denial of the bigotry manifest in stories that obviously would be considered racist if you substituted whites for women and blacks for men in those roles.

And if you haven’t met any female executives who actively discriminate, you must be in a good place to work. I’m sure that the vast majority of them do not discriminate. OTOH, you having never met them is not proof they don’t exist. There are some workplaces that are more toxic than others, and given your personal outlook, perhaps you heard stories that were true and chose not to believe them.

As I am. But denial is hard to deal with, and it’s usually met with such non-sequitor responses as "but that doesn’t apply to all (blank).

Already done that.

Down, boy. Your gallant, defend-the-womenfolk reflex needs to be dialed down past eleven.

89

I haven’t read “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” either, but I gather that it is somewhat biased.

Wrong. It’s that way by design – the author’s design. “Herland” is not recounting actual events. It’s a story – a story consciously designed to explore themes about a society with no men. You have to look at the meta-issues and not take the story as gospel. These plot elements did just fall out of the sky. They were selected by the author. You do understand that?

Let’s make this a story of an all-(one ethnic group) society encountering three members of (another ethnic group.) The author believes that members of (another ethnic group) are so inclined to violence that sure enough, one out of three members of (another ethnic group) promptly turns violent, in this author’s prediction. I’m sure that member of (another ethnic group) would see this as a stereotype.

Now consider the time it was written in, with a raft of feminist rhetoric about there being an epidemic of domestic violence, or Robin Morgan saying things like “never except a ride from a strange man – and all men are strange.” Or Susan Brownmiller saying that rape “is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.” And other feminists saying that wife-beating goes up on Super Bowl Sunday (it didn’t), that the term “rule of thumb” refers to English common law giving men the right to beat their wives (it didn’t), that “One in three women will be sexually assaulted at some time in their lives” or “One in three women will be the victim of domestic violence during their life,” with many feminists inflating those inflated figures even higher. You have to put “Herland’s” depiction of men in social context – feeding the anti-male stereotyes that we’re just too violent to have around. It’s the type of bashing that no ethnic group would put up with, so the strident defense of it, the failure to see the stereotype, is another sad reminder that unfortunately, feminists largely do not object to bigotry in their own ranks.
And this whackiness goes on today. From this site http://www.holysmoke.org/fem/fem0291.htm come the claim:

Am I missing something? Is my local newstand featuring pornography that often shows women killed? How often? How many snuff mags are on sale at the mom-n-pop? Mutilated? Really? What title is that – Playcorpse? Deathouse? If it often shows rape, even, how many have seen that on the newstand?

Or is it just a crock of alarmist shit?

Not that I’ll defend mags that do show rapes, mutilations and murders. But I’ve never seen them, and granted, I don’t browze newstand porn, but if this is “often” there, wouldn’t you at least see it in passing?

Which, if that attitude were held today, would be called xenophobia. Tell us about these “social problems” that exist in these other lands. Is it that societies of men are violent? Bigoted? Hierachical? Because men bad, women good?

Because – some of their best friends are male?

90

I’d like to ask about feminist blinders. Do they come in “this year’s color” that changes with the seasons? Or is that considered being a fashion-slave and they all come in some neutral, utilitarian shade?

Careful when you speak for everyone. Feminists might deem this their prerogative, but a search through the thread reveals that even DanielWithrow, whose obviously on your side, recognized anti-male elements in one work, and Wang-Ka had a lot of ambivalence about “Houston.” My mistake was in naming the thread “Feminist Utopian Fiction,” a title that is more likely to attract people of your philosophical bent, rather than “Anti-Male Elements in Feminist Utopian Fiction,” which might draw posters from a more varied background.

Do you prefer to hold your blinders in place with a strap, or with a string?

What you are doing is refusing to acknowledge that some of this fiction is anti-male. What you are doing is defending, apologizing and finessing the obvious anti-male elements where it does exist. Feminism has earned a reputation for man-bashing. I’m not the one who gave them that. It’s the people who refuse to admit they have a problem and therefore will never do anything about it. Feminism marginalizes itself that way.

While I suspect that such books exist, it’s perfectly legitimate of you to demand a direct cite for those in which characters advocate killing those men who do exist. But that is not the only form that the bias can take. If it’s utopia because men somehow “accidentally” died off or dwindled, there is an obvious animosity at work in that theme. If you wrote a book in which utopia is achieved because – say – disease wiped out all or most non-white people, the racism is manifest. Sure you could say “no one said we should kill them all.” But praising the world as it would be without them is still racist.

Again with the dodge.

Lamia, if I presented you with a parakeet you’d say birds don’t exist, then blame me for smearing all reptiles.

91

Andy, she’s read the books. You haven’t. Nice try at avoiding getting hoist by your own petard, though.

She’s not speaking for everyone. Interseting that you missed that, as you miss so much else. She’s speaking for everyone who’s read the books, which excludes you.

Prove it. Or are you just going to make shit up?

[/quote]
Granted you were misrepresenting what I said so you could attack the strawwomyn, but you claimed that the works I referred to existed only in my “fevered little imagination.”
[/quote]

You presented a list of bullet comments about what feminism desires. You have not provided a cite. Therefore, Andy, your beliefs as to what feminism wants exists in your own fevered little imagination. Lamia, DanielwithThrow, and Wang-Ka have all provided thoughtful discussions of books that you persist in labelling anti-male. Funny how you just go on and on without providing a man-hating quote from either the books you’re bashing, or from anybody but radical feminists.

And once again:

Just so you get it this time. You made statements about feminism that you have yet to prove as true. Pressed for proof, you started talking about feminist fiction. Fiction is relevant to proof in what way? It’s really simple, Andy. Your comments about feminism need to be verified by reputable sources. Fiction—and it’s been pretty conclusively proven that you haven’t read the books youre’ talking about, and are grossly mischaracterizing them besides—is not relevant to a discussion of what you claim is the goal of feminism. Until you provide that proof that you didn’t make all that crap up, your statements about feminist fiction are doubtful as well.

Oh, and spare me that Robin Morgan quote. If you really think that that is relevant, then here’s one from Warren Farrell that, according to your methods, serves to indict the entire Fathers’ and Mens’ Rights movements.

I guess since this method works for Andy we should all adopt it.

92

Good, we finally get some sort of admission that you are spouting off about books you’ve never read. Now if only you would realize that this means your opinions on these books are rooted in ignorance and you are thus incapable of participating in any sort of meaningful discussion on the subject.

**
[/QUOTE]

Wrong. It’s that way by design – the author’s design. “Herland” is not recounting actual events. It’s a story – a story consciously designed to explore themes about a society with no men. You have to look at the meta-issues and not take the story as gospel. These plot elements did just fall out of the sky. They were selected by the author. You do understand that?
**
[/QUOTE]

And Gilman chose to make her story about a society that was all-female because a past tragedy (that was seen as a tragedy by all the inhabitants of the land) had led to the death of the men. The women were sad there were no men. At the end of the book the heroine says quite clearly that she thinks it must be better to have both sexes rather than just one, and leaves her single-sex country with the male narrator to see what the rest of the world is like!

**

Gosh, I wasn’t aware that all of those things happened in 1915. You did know that was when Herland was written, didn’t you? I mean, you couldn’t possibly be so ignorant and bigoted as to condemn a book that you not only have never read, but that you know so little about that you can’t even correctly identify which half of the century it was written in, can you?

**

The social context of Herland is that it was written in the Edwardian Era. If anything, Gilman was being generous in showing that only one out of three of her early 20th century manly man explorer characters reacted badly to a society made up completely of women who were not inclined to let him be the boss.

You may have forgotten this, but you are in Cafe Society, not The BBQ Pit. This is a forum for discussing the arts. You stated this discussion about books, but every time someone asks you a question about these books that you can’t answer (which is pretty often, since you’ve never read them) you switch to making bizarre insults. If that’s what you wanted to do, you should have stuck to the Pit. I have asked you again and again for specific titles that fit your description of feminist utopian fiction, but you just can’t do it. The best “answer” you can give me is

**

Which doesn’t sound like the title of a book to me. If you can’t name a single book that depicts a utopian society that is utopian because there are no (or very few) men then you probably should have thought twice about opening this thread here.

93

First, margin, that’s an intriguing spelling of my name, but it’s not “DanielWithThrow,” it’s just “DanielWithrow,” my first and last names. I wonder what I’d be throwing? One of these days I’ll change my handle to something better – maybe Left Hand of Dorkness?

Second, I’m not sure why anyone’s still debating this with Andy. Once I find out that a person can’t tell a pit bull apart from a poodle, I’m not going to continue arguing with them about breed-specific legislation. I’ll not continue a debate on the merits of the Atkins diet with someone who doesn’t know what carbohydrates are. And I’m not going to argue about the content of feminist utopian fiction with someone who’s never read feminist utopian fiction.

Andy is willfully ignorant, and clearly has no desire to let the facts interfere with his polemic. Why present him with facts? Are there no brick walls around to bang your head against?

Daniel

94

Daniel, I’m still waiting for an explanation on how you’ve only read six books but have still read widely in the field. Please feel free to present me with those facts.

Also, I was hoping you would be honest enough to retract your direct lie about my original post. You’ve had several opportunities.

95

You can tell a great deal about this work from a plot summary. Dealing with deliberate denial on the part of feminists is another thing, though.

I’m not the one who earned feminism its anti-male image. It’s people who go to great lengths to defend some of the most blatant intolerance in feminism. It’s sad that they can’t actually take a stand against bigotry, but then that is why your movement earned its current reputation and marginalized itself so.

I see. We’re supposed to be grateful that she only stereotypes a third of men rather than fifty percent. Her generosity knows no bounds.

You might have noticed that I have been attacked far more than I have attacked. I do insist that you have on feminist blinders, but it is relevant because it is part an partial of the audience mentality for these books. If you object to people making insults and attacks, you might want to talk to our friend margin. Because she has weighed in, I have asked that the thread be closed.

The answer you asked for. Read the thread.

96

Considering how small the field of feminist science fiction is, six books doesn’t sound like too bad of a sampling to me. And I’m not sure where you think you get off criticizing him for it, since that’s six more books in the genre than you’ve read.

Right. There’s no point reading any books at all, since you can just read other people’s summaries of them to save time. That way you don’t even have to worry about what to make of the book, someone else can tell you what it means.

Here’s my summary of a book I had to read back in high school:

“An all-male society degenerates into savagery and murder, eventually destroying itself.”

As I’m sure you will instantly realize, I’m describing classic anti-male feminist novel The Lord of the Flies.

**

Yes, you’ve been pretty boldly criticized for spouting off about books you’ve never read and know nothing about. That’s the sort of ignorant behavior that earns you criticism around here.

**

No, the answer I asked for would be something in the form of “I, Satisfying Andy Licious, have personally read an entire feminist utopian novel in which a society is portrayed as being utopian because there are few or no men living there. The title of this book is [title here], and the author is [name here].”

97

Andy, I see nothing in your post worth responding to. You’re not going to get either an explanation or a retraction, because both requests are stupid.

Daniel

98

Darn. I was so hoping for an explanation. I can’t seem to reconcile your statement that “I’ve read a good half-dozen or more examples from the field,” from your subsequent claim that you have read “at least somewhat widely in the field.” I guess this will just have to go on being one of those cherished mysteries of life.

99

So, are you really claiming that we would have to read “The Turner Diaries” or “The Clansman” or “The Protocols” to know they are bigoted?

My mistake was in giving this thread a title that was likely to attract only feminists, and given their poor track record of actually denouncing anti-male attitudes, I am saddened but not surprised.

I probably will read some of these some day. But if you took a women-only utopia and switched it so that a society of whites become paradise because all non-whites “accidentally” disappeared, people wouldn’t have to be hit over the head to realize the bigotry at work. Sad to say, that doesn’t apply to feminism, which is why most people view it that way.

That and the fact that feminists regularly attack anyone who objects to man-bashing rather than trying to understand why they object to bigotry.

100

DanielWithrow my apologies. I wonder if that was some kind of weird Freudian slip? Although now I’m jealous that somebody out there might snag The Left Hand of Dorkness as a handle.

I have to say that I have this deep fear about letting i gnorance and bigotry go unchallenged, existing side by side with a vast reserve of ambivalence. I know I should just give up on Andy’s ridiculous contentions, but I’m afraid about leaving stuff like that unchallenged. The stuff he says is just too absurd, and in some cases, just too bigoted, too resist. I don’t know whether it counts as foolishness or obstinacy to continue, but I figure somebody’s got to do it, especially after he calls me a liar. I’m sorry, I’m just too old-fashioned to tolerate that.