So there's been another round of women-in-speculative-fic, and plenty of really good commentary. Highlights (if you missed them) include Fox Meadows' Realism & Outliers, which followed up on her masterpiece PSA: Your Default Narrative Settings Are Not Apolitical, Tansy Rayner Roberts' Historically Authentic Sexism in Fantasy. Let’s Unpack That. and Kameron Hurley's 'We Have Always Fought': Challenging the 'Women, Cattle and Slaves' Narrative and its especially awesome cannibalistic llamas analogy. [ETA: I thought someone did a roundup, but I can't find a link. If I do, I'll add.]
I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that someone would have to come along behind them and do the apologia, internalized misogyny reply. This time it was provided by Felicity Savage's Girl, You’re In the Army Now, which incidentally is also listed as Amazing Stories' 3rd most popular post in the past week. I would hope this is because there's a lot of people like me, who read it mostly to point and laugh, but my cynicism tells me otherwise.
I'm going to skip Savage's little apologia dance-moves. They're the same as what you'd find men writing, so nothing new here. What makes me roll my eyes the hardest are thoughtful observations like this: "It’s hard to imagine how any significant number of women could be spared from these vital tasks [of domestic duties like child-bearing/rearing], except for ideological reasons in a society that is violently breaking itself to remake itself, such as Maoist China (pre-industrial in the remoter regions then)."
Maybe war is different in Savage's reality. Anywhere else I can think of, war by definition is a break-or-be-broken situation. Revolution -- from Japan to Russia to France to the United States -- is just a domestic/internal version of the same. Ideology is a luxury; for those at the front lines, ideology takes a back seat to survival. The next generation is important, of course, but pretty much pointless if the current generation's about to get broken beyond repair.
( A little more from Savage, and then onto Wrexler and the G's rehashed women-as-fighters arguments, and how you can get a totally useless answer by asking a totally wrong question. )
I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that someone would have to come along behind them and do the apologia, internalized misogyny reply. This time it was provided by Felicity Savage's Girl, You’re In the Army Now, which incidentally is also listed as Amazing Stories' 3rd most popular post in the past week. I would hope this is because there's a lot of people like me, who read it mostly to point and laugh, but my cynicism tells me otherwise.
I'm going to skip Savage's little apologia dance-moves. They're the same as what you'd find men writing, so nothing new here. What makes me roll my eyes the hardest are thoughtful observations like this: "It’s hard to imagine how any significant number of women could be spared from these vital tasks [of domestic duties like child-bearing/rearing], except for ideological reasons in a society that is violently breaking itself to remake itself, such as Maoist China (pre-industrial in the remoter regions then)."
Maybe war is different in Savage's reality. Anywhere else I can think of, war by definition is a break-or-be-broken situation. Revolution -- from Japan to Russia to France to the United States -- is just a domestic/internal version of the same. Ideology is a luxury; for those at the front lines, ideology takes a back seat to survival. The next generation is important, of course, but pretty much pointless if the current generation's about to get broken beyond repair.
( A little more from Savage, and then onto Wrexler and the G's rehashed women-as-fighters arguments, and how you can get a totally useless answer by asking a totally wrong question. )