But it seems like they are just throwing random stuff out there seeing what you will say.
I say (and have said) “thanks.”
Is something else required?
We certainly haven’t had a chance to read any of these books if that’s what you’re after.
But your not really being clear. I think I get what you mean by saying an excellent person who is a woman is not the same as an excellent woman. But your just splitting hairs.
It would be like if your friend said, “That John is a great guy for helping us out.” and you corrected him saying, “No, he is a great person. What he did to help does not make him great at being a guy.”
It seems like that is what you mean, at least to me.
Did you read my post in context? If so, I am confused by your reply.
You said you think people are giving suggestions in order to see what I will say.
And what I say is, “Thanks.”
There. Now everyone can see what I will say. (Because I said it.)
What’s confusing?
If you’d prefer to know not just what I would say, but what I would say if asked “Does this fit your desiderata?” then the answer is–“I don’t know. We haven’t read the book yet.”
What is the word “just” doing in this sentence? Is there a real distinction between the two concepts or not? If so, then I’m not just splitting hairs–I’m using an actual distinction that actually exists in order to tell you the difference between what I’m looking for and what I’m not looking for.
But is there not any real such distinction? In that case how can you get what I mean when I make such a distinction? If there’s no distinction to make, then no attempt to make this nonexistent distinction can be correctly understood.
I am finished with this thread. It isn;t worth my time. I do not know if you are trying to be obtuse or what, but I don;t have the time. I was trying to help pin down exactly what you are looking for, but you seem to want to play word games.
Again, my thanks to everyone for the suggestions so far.
This is a pretty clear example of precisely what I’m not understanding about your OP. I can see how someone can be an excellent communicator, but a terrible liar. I don’t see how a female character could be an excellent human being, without also being an excellent woman. The question only makes sense if you assume that there are positive traits that are only positive if exhibited by men, and not women. Which, certainly, is far from an unheard of opinion, except that the sort of people who hold it would generally consider a woman exhibiting a gender-proscribed positive trait to be a terrible human being. For example, a Muslim fundamentalist might consider being a professional race car driver to be an admirable thing, but think that Danica Patrick is a horrible human for being a female race car driver.
So it seems to me the only way to answer this question would be to presume some stereotype about women held by an undefined “other” group, and find a fictional character who defies that stereotype. Which is a fine topic for a thread, but I think you could have been a lot clearer if you’d just asked for examples of non-stereotypical women in science fiction.
Miller, does my post #32 help?
It really doesn’t.
Sorry, Miller, I genuinely don’t know how else to explain this. I do not have a model of feminine excellence in mind. I’m just looking for authors who don’t make the excellence of their female characters depend on some conception of what it means specifically to be an excellent female.
All of this as determined by you before you’ll permit your wife to read the books…
(And why limit her to SF?)
Right now, it seems you’re asking for a book that states something like:
Women should be X.
This female character is Y, not X.
But that’s okay, she’s still really cool.
The problem is, I don’t think any such book exists, because the conclusion violates the first premise. If it’s cool for her to by Y instead of X, then the premise that women should be X is invalidated.
Perhaps if you had a negative example? Is there an author you know of who did make the “excellence of their female character depend on some conception of what it means to be an excellent female?” Are there any novels that you’ve read that you feel do not fit the criteria of your OP? That might help make what you’re talking about clearer.
Whoah, “permit?” “Limit?” Where the hell are you getting any of that from?
I do not understand where you got any of this.
More likely:
This female character is Y and that makes her cool.
It’s totally irrelevant whether females, in particular, should be Y or not.
Or:
This female character is Y and that makes her cool.
(and the work never says anything at all about whether being Y is proper to femininity or not.)
Or perhaps:
You, reader, probably unconsciously expect women to be governed by norm X
Here’s a female character who is not X.
Yet you can see she’s awesome.
Ha ha I tricked you.
There are many other possibilities, but both of the above would fit as examples of what we’re looking for.
Well, one list of “strong characters in sci fi” mentioned Jane Grey from (I think) the films (as opposed to the comics) and then went on, after talking about how cool she was, to explain that what made her really an awesome character to read about was how she was such a good mother figure for the other X-men. (Something like that.) That’d be an example of someone who thinks what makes a female character excellent is the same as what makes her an excellent female, for some conception of “excellent female.”
I guess I just assumed by “excellent female” to be synonymous with “excellent (female) human being”.
I can’t really imagine what else it might mean, unless it means like what my PHCP said to me which was that I had a body made for making babies. (You’d never guess by looking at me!) But that doesn’t make sense, really… I mean if you asked for an example of an “excellent male” would you mean, one with a high sperm count? Or what?
I doubt there are very many worthwhile works where this will be an issue. Other than Ayn Rand, who emphasizes the excellence of their characters that much? Further more, who sets out the declarative structure you’re proposing?
I think most worthwhile authors will describe their characters - they will show traits which will make the characters compelling. Whether or not those traits contribute to excellence is in the mind of the reader. Whether or not those traits are feminine is also in the mind of the reader. Therefore it is up to you (the generic reader) to decide if a set of traits make someone an excellent generic person or an excellent woman.
I enjoy Neal Stephenson, although I understand the criticism that his female characters aren’t the most rounded. In the Baroque cycle the character of Eliza is exceptional in many ways - ruthlessly pragmatic, brilliant, devoted to social justice, and hyper-sexualized. The author through narrative voice never declares here an excellent human being or excellent woman (I would say from the standard understanding of those terms she’s more the former than the latter), although other characters do based on some subset of those characteristics and their own perspective.
I agree with Miller, what is the counterexample that you wish to avoid?
On preview, I see you mentioning Jean Grey as your counter example. Aside from the absurdity of a strong female character in a Marvel work, it seems that your problem is with the ‘mother character’ role. So you want excellent female characters who do not (only) derive their excellence from being nurturing? There are good examples in this thread, but it does seem to me that the restrictions are coming from your ideas regarding strong women vs. strong generic human being. Maybe you can flesh out the definition a bit more?
Exactly. There is no distinction. But when asked point blank if there is a difference, you refuse to answer. Which means we can’t know if you are using the terms as we assume they mean, or if you mean something different. And if we can’t know what you mean, we can’t actually answer you. It is infuriating trying to figure out what you mean because you refuse to clarify your question.
Honestly, no one should have answered you at all until you clarified your meaning, but some people were being nice. Is their niceness misplaced? Are you going to apologize for not being clear and actually ask your question in a manner that actually makes sense? Or are you going to continue giving non answers that claim the question means whatever we think it means?
Because, if the latter, I say the answer is John Cusack, because I interpret “works of science fiction which feature characters (esp. protagonists) who are female who are excellent human beings in a way that is irrelevant to the question of whether or not they are excellent women” to mean “random actor who just popped into my head.”
That would count, and also, you can replace “nurturing” with any characteristic that is taken to be a feminine ideal with any frequency, and the resulting sentence would count as well as something my wife is looking for.