A Quokka Dreeds its Weird

…is live in a sexist society which does not care if women are harmed.

But let's narrow that down a little.

The most dangerous person to a woman - the person most likely to attack, murder, or sexually assault her - is a man that she knows. Strangers do occasionally attack, murder, or sexually assault women. But this is rare. In my professional experience counseling people who have been assaulted, the rate of attacks by known persons vs. attacks by strangers is approximately 200-1. And keep in mind that people are way more likely to report stranger attacks than they are to report attacks by people they know.

With rare exceptions, these are the people who deliberately harm women: Their husbands. Their boyfriends. Their significant others of any nature or gender. Their friends. Friends of their friends. Their relatives. Friends or significant others of their relatives. Their bosses. Their co-workers. Their acquaintances.

I very rarely encounter women who don't know the name of the person who assaulted them. It happens. But it's not the norm.

Dangerous things a woman can do: Have relatives, especially male ones. Get married, especially to a man. Have a romantic or sexual relationship of any kind, especially with a man. Have relatives who have friends. Work. Socialize. Go to college. Stay at home with her family. Go anywhere with anyone she knows.

Things a woman can do which carry a low risk of rape or assault: Go places by herself. Be alone where nobody knows her. Walk alone. Travel alone.

And yet, what are women told not to do? Be alone! We are told that being alone is reckless, dangerous, tempting fate. Walking alone at night is asking to be raped. Camping alone is the height of stupidity. Women must keep people they know around them at all times, because otherwise they'll be assaulted by strangers.

We are safer with strangers.

A lonely street at night is often safer than one's own home, if that home is shared.

This message is brought to you via Blairmcg, who took the terrifying, reckless, foolhardy risk of... camping alone.

I read this while I was at horse camp, where I found it on the shelf and picked it up because I had enjoyed some of Friesner’s comic fantasy when I was in high school. (She is probably best-known for the “Chicks in Chained Mail” series.) This was not comic. I read it in mounting amazement, recounted plot points to a fascinated coraa (coraa: “And then they ate her?” Me: “No, the cannibals show up later.”), and then promptly forgot about it entirely until it came up in conversation recently.

It is a feminist dystopia, which is a genre which has thankfully become less popular of late, but was relatively common up to about fifteen years ago. I’m not saying that it’s a bad genre. Many examples are good. But they are nearly universally awesomely depressing, often with addition Cement Truck depressingness slapped on to an already inherently depressing set-up, and if you read too many of them in a row, you will get the impression that the future is wall-to-wall rape, broken up by cannibalism, oppressive religion, slavery, and sex with horses.

(Before I go any further, I have to note that the book with horse bestiality is not only one of the well-written ones, but is, remarkably, not awesomely depressing. (Though it’s the second in a series of four, and the first one is.) The society of hard-riding lesbian clones for whom sex with horses is necessary to make the parthenogenesis work is surprisingly functional, and the characters even sometimes have fun. But it’s impossible to have a discussion about feminist dystopias without someone saying, “And then there’s the horse cock book!”

Those books are by Suzy McKee Charnas, and if you can get past the slavery and the horse sex, they are actually quite good. The third and fourth books are about rebuilding society, which is an unusual topic and one I like quite a bit.

The Slave and The Free: Books 1 and 2 of 'The Holdfast Chronicles': 'Walk to the End of the World' and 'Motherlines'

The Furies (The Holdfast Chronicles, Book 3)

The Conqueror's Child (The Holdfast Chronicles, Book 4))

I also read I Who Have Never Known Men, in which women are locked up for no reason, then an apocalypse happens and kills all the men, and then everyone mopes around until the heroine, the last woman on earth, ironically gets cancer of the uterus that she never used, having never known men, and commits suicide, and, of course, The Handmaid's Tale (Everyman's Library). Sheri Tepper practically made a career out of writing feminist dystopias.

I read all these because at that time it was more-or-less possible to read all the sf that was published that year or at least was available where I was, and I did. They did not make me feel like the future was anything to look forward to.

On to Esther “Chicks in Chainmail” Friesner’s cannibal apocalypse rape gang book!

The Psalms of Herod

( Spoilers contain rape, sacred blowjobs, rape, mutant women, rape, lost legs, rape, cannibalism, and rape, and an annual rape festival. And rape. )

These books were part of a fictional rape trend, especially in fantasy. If a female character had a dark secret, it would inevitably turn out to be rape. Even today, especially in TV and movies, a female character’s dark secret is typically rape. (If it isn’t, it’s probably child abuse or a Secret Baby.)

Why all the rape? In some novels, it's a lazy shortcut to trauma: what else bad could possibly happen to a woman other than something sexual? In a few, it's pure exploitation. But in the feminist dystopias, and in many other books, the thought behind seemed neither lazy nor sleazy. These writers are clearly deeply concerned about sexism. The ultimate expression of sexism is rape, so if you're writing a book about sexism... The problem, or one of the problems, is that while the intent of the books individuallly is to say that rape is bad, considered as a group, if practically every fantasy you read with a heroine has her getting raped, what tends to come across was that rape is inevitable.

I eventually made the conscious decision that my female characters’ dark secrets would not be rape, just so there would be some island of sexual safety in the middle of the sea of fictional rape. In my efforts to avoid it, I have resorted to everything from “my sister was killed in an accident and I blame myself” to “I killed someone in a fit of rage when we were both kids and I will never forgive myself” to “I became a cannibal to save my life (and I blame myself.)” I especially like giving female characters trauma which didn’t occur because they were female. Which is not to say that I’ll never write about rape ever. But probably not till I run out of other dark secrets.

On the other hand, Robin McKinley’s Deerskin is one of my favorite books of all time. So is Lois McMaster Bujold’s Mirror Dance (Miles Vorkosigan Adventures). I am a hard sell on fictional depictions of rape, but a soft sell on fictional depictions of trauma and healing. I’m less bothered by rape when that’s a large part of what the character’s journey is about than when it’s just lurking in the background or is a large part of what the setting is about.

One person’s deeply felt exploration of trauma and recovery is another person’s trashy exploitation, of course. But there is a place for rape in fiction so long as it exists in real life. That being said, I am rather relieved that I haven't read much written after about 1995 in which the apocalypse inevitably results in state-sanctioned rape, state-mandated rape, rape festivals, or roving rape gangs.

cereta has an excellent post on many issues, but mostly on how men are acculturated to believe that rape is okay and that not raping women, much less preventing other men from raping women, is an extraordinary good deed.

I genuinely like a whole lot of heterosexual men. But I do not believe that just because I like a man, he has the same ideas about rape that I do. In fact, the conversations I've had with straight men about rape and sexual harassment have been almost universally depressing. (I know that gay men can also be misogynistic, but in my experience it's much less prevalent.) In my experience, about ninety percent of the men with whom I've had those conversations in person believe at least one of the following:

-Once a man is sexually aroused, he's not responsible for his own actions.

-Once a man is sexually aroused, sex is inevitable and something he can't control.

-If a woman goes on a date with a man/gets drunk with a man/goes to a man's apartment/flirts with a man/kisses a man, she has consented to sex with him and may not revoke her consent.

-Consenting to one sexual act is automatic consent for any further or other sexual acts. (ie, consent to oral sex = consent to vaginal sex.)

-Women falsely accuse men of rape all the time, and all men are terrified of being falsely accused. All conversations about rape must revolve around this, a much bigger problem than the problem of actual rape.

-There is no way for a man to protect himself against accidentally raping a woman whom he thought consented but actually didn't. Verbally asking if a woman wants to have sex with him is impossible. (Yes, I've heard this one repeatedly.)

ETA: Since people are still trickling in, and sometimes blaming me for hearing men blame women for being raped, let me clarify who the men are who I've heard say all that stuff. They are not only my closest circle of self-selected friends. They are drawn from the pool of all men ever whom I've heard discussing rape. This includes co-workers, students in classes I was in, friends of friends, men waiting in line, men with whom I share an activity, men with whom I share public transport, men at parties, men in the jury pool, etc.

The next person who blames me for associating with the general population will get their thread frozen, and may be subject to banning if they persist.

End ETA.

And yes, I do know that men are raped too, and women can be rapists or child molesters. However, due to the way at least USA culture works, while women sometimes believe all this stuff I mention above, it is almost universal in my experience that men do.

If you are a man and you DON'T believe that this stuff is okay, it would be really nice if you started teaching other men and boys what you believe. If nothing else, teaching them that it really is possible, acceptable, and sexy to ask, "Do you want to have sex with me?" And take no as a no. Because right now, you are in the minority.

ETA: If you are a man who does not agree with the rape myths, AND you are vocal about your opinions with other men, this post is not about you. Carry on with your good work.

I'm an Old-Skool Trek fan, one of the ones for whom shirtless, sweaty Sulu with a fencing foil was a pivotal moment in my sexual development.

I mostly adored the new movie, and would see it again with great pleasure. Spock was awesome: interestingly different from Nimoy's character, but still convincingly Spock. The movie's main pairing was Spock/Uhura, which I would have never thought of in a million years but which was sweet and hot and mature and awesome. Actually, for me the movie was all about Spock, Spock/Uhura, and Uhura, and all else was gravy.

But I was sad at its demonstration of exactly how far movies haven't come in terms of equality since the original Trek. The original series was progressive for its time in many ways: it had American primetime TV's first interracial kiss (though aliens made them do it), it had Sulu and Uhura on the bridge, and it had a sympathetic Russian character when Russia was America's top enemy.

And, of course, in many ways it wasn't progressive at all: women were love interests, moms, or telephone operators, didn't get to kick ass unless they were evil, and were all stuck in miniskirts. The attempts to deal directly with racism and other social issues were well-meant but also awful and anvillicious.

The new movie preserved virtually all the ways in which the original was sexist and blinkered, and additionally failed to be progressive for our time.

Much as I loved Uhura and her relationship with Spock, every single significant female character in the entire movie was either a mom or a love interest. Women still don't get to command or kick ass. And they're all still stuck in the ridiculous miniskirt uniforms, and mostly looked vastly uncomfortable in them. Every woman on the bridge seemed to be telepathically projecting, "Please God don't let the camera see up my skirt."

The point of Chekhov in the original was not that he had a funny accent. It was that he was a proud citizen of a country that, at time of airing, was America's # 1 enemy. The modern USA equivalent of Chekhov would not be Chekhov, but a crew member from Iraq or Afghanistan.

Gay, bi, lesbian, and/or transsexual crew members would also be progressive for our time. Of course there were none.

I'm sure the writers and director justified all this as being faithful to the original. In fact, it's selectively faithful. Without getting too spoilery, there are textually justified departures from the original, plus more that are there without being explained.

The original series had more female crew members. The movie chose not to include Yeoman Rand or Christine Chapel, let alone Number One. (Since Rand's actual job duties were unclear, at least to me, on the original series, they could have put her in security. Her shirt would still be red!)

The characters aren't identical to the originals. Chekhov looks nothing like Original!Chekhov. Kirk has a very different background. Spock is a different take on Spock. Spock and Uhura weren't romantically involved in the original. Romulans in this movie don't look at all like Original!Romulans. Basically, the filmmakers decided to change the things that they thought would be fun and cool to change, and decided to keep the (mostly sexist) elements that they thought would be fun and cool to keep.

Anyway, like I said, I did enjoy the movie very much. I critique because I love: because I want to imagine myself part of that world. What always bothered me as a kid watching reruns of the original was that a girl like me would have no place on the Enterprise. Forty years later, I still wouldn't.

For those of you who don't see why any of this matters, please read these (heartbreaking, to me) posts: closing a door, softly,
operating in hostile territory.

For those of you either baffled by the calls for sf pros to take a stand or who feel that requests for statements of position are McCarthy-like, there are two things that shed light on that for me, neither of which were part of the current discussion.

One is a beautifully written blog post off LJ: ...white friends who don’t understand race and all it’s implications may hurt you deeply, consciously or unconsciously. It’s not about a friend you’ve hung out with for years one day turning on you and yelling a racial epithet or trying to beat you up or anything of that nature. No, it’s about the smaller things. As my friend and housemate Jackie put it “People can die by a thousand cuts.” and it’s much more painful that way.

The other is that, in my experience, for a woman to discover how her male friends, relatives, and/or significant others define rape is typically not a happy or comforting moment.

In light of those experiences and the societal racism and sexism that cause them, it does not surprise me that some people want to know who considers their experiences and feelings and lives important, and who doesn't.

...my problem with the entire question of tone and courtesy is that it's typically only applied one way: people of color/non-white people who are angry about racism are told to watch their tone and be more polite.

It reminds me of how women angry about sexism are told that they're being shrill and strident, and men would listen to them if they were more polite and phrased it better. I say that not to compare oppressions, but to say that the mechanisms of socialization work in some eerily similar ways to maintain oppressive power structures: Speaking up for your rights is rude. Telling people who are being kicked from corner to post that it's their own fault nobody's listening, because they're not saying it right, is normal and polite.

The question of "personal attacks" is also applied and seen in a similarly skewed manner. When a person of color says, "Hey, so-and-so said a racist thing," they're seen as making a personal attack. When a white person says, "You're not smart enough for your opinion to count," they're seen as arguing the issues.

The burden of being polite and impersonal - in a matter that affects people's everyday lives on a profoundly personal level - is placed on the backs of the people who have to cope with the oppression in real life. And the people who are at the top of the power structure are the ones who get to be perceived as being polite and nice, when the substance of what they're actually saying - your opinions don't count, you're not educated enough to have a valid opinion, you're too educated to have a valid opinion, we don't want you - is neither nice nor polite.

These are not my original ideas, just my phrasing. I have seen this argument made many, many times by people of color. And also by white women. And also by GLBT people. A much more detailed explanation here, including the point that no tone is ever good enough.

I have worked in the TV industry, on and off, for more than ten years. (There are a lot of misconceptions floating around about how the industry works, which I don’t have time to get into here. But please try to avoid sounding off in my comments about how we’re all a bunch of no-taste idiots. Thank you.) I have pitched a lot of shows, written for several, and while I’ve never been in a position to personally greenlight (buy to put on the air) a show, I have advised for or against some.

Last night I watched an episode of a show I had been avoiding due to issues I had with the premise, despite the creator having written some of my favorite TV shows. It had every single problem I would have expected it to have based on my knowledge of the premise, and I wondered why, apart from the Whedon name, executives would have greenlit a show so clearly destined for early cancellation.

The show is Dollhouse, created by Joss Whedon. The premise is that the Dollhouse is a company which mindwipes and implants personalities into people, who are then rented for sex or various jobs. When their jobs are done, they return to the Dollhouse, have their memories of the assignment wiped, and get new personalities for the next assignment. But a doll named Echo begins to have memories seep through.

While a show itself can be complex, a premise that takes three long sentences to explain is itself frequently indicates that the show is locked into a limited structure that will be difficult to sustain over multiple seasons. (I think Pushing Daisies, which has an even more complicated premise, would have had that problem had it survived long enough.) Whereas you can sum up the extremely complex Lost as “People with complicated connections to each other are stranded on a bizarre island.”

The premise is a distillation of the essence of the show, so that changing it would create a different show. It can be very simple, like "It's about homicide cops in Baltimore." If the show is no longer about homicide cops in Baltimore, it's not the same show. If the setting is not essential, you might have, say, "A young woman named Veronica Mars solves mysteries." She can solve them in various locations, but lose Veronica Mars or lose the mystery element, and it's a different show.

While the plot, setting, and structure of a USA network TV show may change significantly (see Lost again; also see the fifth season of Angel) the premise (the one-line summary) rarely changes. (The premise of Angel is “A vampire with a soul tries to redeem himself by helping people.” That never changes. Ditto Lost: Some people are always still stranded on the island.) The only exception I can think of offhand is Prison Break, in which I believe they do break out of prison and continue the show on the lam.

That an essential element of the premise of Dollhouse is that Echo is a mindwiped tool of the Dollhouse who is repeatedly given new personalities, and that for her to escape the Dollhouse and cease to be regularly mindwiped would change the premise of the show, is a major part of my critique.

Before I begin, I want to be clear that I don’t impute bad motives to or look down on anyone who likes the show! I’m just explaining why I think it’s inherently bound to fail.

This is why I would not have greenlit Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse:

( Cut for length; no spoilers )