Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 22:16:12 -0800 From: Susan Hericks Subject: [*FSFFU*] Califia's Daughters To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU Has anyone kicked off the discussion on this book? I have to say that I am really disappointed that this is the first book I've read for the BDG in a while and it's pretty so-so, IMO. Matt Ruff' s book (for Jan) is much better. If I've missed the kickoff message, would it's author please send it to me? Muchas gracias! Susan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:01:30 -0500 From: davebelden Subject: [*FSFFU*] Califia's Daughters - Some Initial Questions To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU This is all very encouraging. Lee Anne, I loved your post and as an essentially apolitical person I am very attracted to benevolent despotism just as long as it stays benevolent from my point of view (an annoying attitude, I know, that usually ends in tears and trying to summon the howling dogs of democracy). I did also connect with Janice's angle that the juices can really get going when you don't like something. I discovered a long time ago that if I was stuck in my own writing and suffering deep feelings of worthlessness it was much better to go and see a bad movie or read a bad book than a good one. Then the tiny idea starts again that you could do better yourself. Since I read Califia's Daughters in early summer I have gone through a major house remodel and it was amazing I could even find the book today - but I haven't retained a lot of detail in my mind about it. It was a mostly enjoyable fast read for me. Here are some questions to get a discussion started: What I thought was interesting was the attempt to reverse gender roles by setting up a situation in which women took on the dangerous and tough roles and men were protected, cosseted, treated as fragile objects. How well did people think this was done? Was it worth doing as a feminist exercise - i.e. of interest to you as a more or less seasoned feminist? Whatever your answer to that question, does it work as feminist education? E.g. would you give it to your teenage niece (or nephew) who buys into traditional femininity, as a way of opening her mind? Would the fact that it's an easy and fast read help you decide that it would make a good solstice present for said niece? How does it compare with other genre novels (not only sf, if we can travel further abroad) in putting over a basic feminist education? What would you rather give her to accomplish this purpose (imagining it is accomplishable)? How does it compare with other gender role reversal stories? Which are you favorites? It brings to my mind what I think was the first really good gender role reversal portrayal I saw: a Danish (I think) movie from the 1970s in which some suburban women are sitting around pompously smoking cigars while their menfolk meekly do the washing up... anyone recall that? (Was it called 'Wham Bang Thank you Ma'am' or was that something else?) SPOILER PARAGRAPHS: On page 327 we learn that every woman secretly wishes to see an adolescent boy 'freely testing his limits' - this in context of the women's assumption that one day men would regain their numbers and reclaim 'some of their traditional authority'. What's going on here? First question - do you think most men in our society today secretly wish to see adolescent girls freely testing their limits, or are our men not as enlightened as Richards' future women? Or are Richards' women less enlightened than hankering back themselves to wanting a time when they didn't have to do and run and decide everything? Is this an anti-feminist thought lurking in the novel, or is it more a human trait held by many men and women - wanting some strong people, not oneself, to take responsibility...? (please reread Lee Anne's last post....) I was engaged and horrified in the section where Dian becomes an Angel - the whole business of the terrible things you have to do to worm your way into a cruel enemy's stronghold and confidence. I actually didn't want to read this part - , or maybe I'm just a wuss. When I was a child I knew a woman whose son had been tortured by the Gestapo and I always somehow assumed I would have to face torture myself one day, which made 1984 the most terrifying thing I had ever read. Being the torturer (identifying with Dian in this story) brought all those feelings back. But I also always assumed the torturers would be men, and women were basically better than that (is that an anti-feminist thought, or a feminist thought? hmmm). I think it's true that the fact of her being a woman made it even more horrifying to me than if she had been a man. To me this suggests either that it just hit my partic ular buttons, or that there was very good writing here. What do you think? That's enough for a start. Dave ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 09:56:58 -0500 Reply-To:     gaile.pohlhaus@villanova.edu Sender:       "friendly discussion of feminist SF,               fantastic & utopian literature and other media"               From: Gaile Pohlhaus Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Califia's Daughters Possible spoiler Comments: To: friendly discussion of feminist SF fantastic & utopian literature           and other media To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU Reply to Dave's query from Gaile Well I was able to read Califia's Daughters and thought it was a pale imitation of Octavia Butler. Even it's locale and the struggle's the protagonist endured. On the other hand it was a quick read. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 11:03:09 -0800 From: Rain Donaldson Subject: [*FSFFU*] re (*FSSFU*) Califia's Daughter To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU Hi all, My name's Lorraine. I joined the list last month and this is my first post. I've been a SF fan since childhood, but I've only identified as a feminist within the last year. I joined this list both because it sounded interesting and because I'm planning to go to Wiscon next year and I wanted to meet other people who go to the con. That's enough about me for now. My comments below are very spoiler heavy and very opinionated, so please be aware of that before reading them. Anyone here is very welcome to disagree with me. I read 'Califia's Daughter' very much as a tragedy. Dian starts out as someone I see as very admirable. She has a strong work ethic, devotion to her people, and compassion for her dogs. I liked the Dian we met at first. She is also portrayed as independant and androgynous, at least by modern standards. Dian is largely self contained, except for her Dogs which I will argue are an extension of Dian herself. I liked Dian. "Training a dog is like growing a new limb." When you partner a dog, you become that dog, and it becomes you." Slowly all of this changes. First Isaac and his son enter her life. And she grudgingly, at first, accepts them in large part because of the son's ability to relate to her dogs. She does this even though she "knows" that she is sterile. Okay, I can buy that she's heterosexual and wants Isaac's company even if this reinforces the whole stereotype that every independant woman just needs the right man. Fine. But it gets worse. When she leaves she finds six-toes at the crossroads. She takes on this child and all the motherly duties which go along with that. Again, fine. Whatever. I understand that leaving the child to die would have been heartless. I even understand why, in the context of the story, the child had to have two toes amputated. That doesn't make me like the idea. My most recent ex was born with six toes on each foot and had an unwanted amputation that causes recurring pain to this day. I started to dislike Dian when she showed no regrets about having surgeons cut off bits of this infant she had adopted. To be fair, Dian shows an equal willingness to cut off bits of herself later. Next Dian becomes a sex object without realizing it in Meijing where she is seen as both erotic and inferior for her exotic nature. The entire Meijing sequence shows that Meijing is both the Patron of and patronizing toward the Valley and its inhabitants. Dian accepts this as perfectly natural and I lose even more respect for her. Stiil, it is only when Dian meets Robin that things get really bad. Part of herself (one of her dogs) she loses to the assault which also takes away her independence at least temporarily. Robin helps her out and reveals that Dian is pregnant. Her sterility is gone as if her recent experiences of loving a man, caring for a child, and becoming a sex object, and becoming dependent have transformed her from the sterile androgyne into a "real woman" as symbolized by her pregnancy But all of this still isn't enough. She gets to the Village and discovers that their men are independant and engaged in risky "masculine" behaviors to a degree that they will prove a danger to her home village. Her duty is clear. She needs to either warn the Valley or at least deliver an ulimatum to the Village. Ultimately she does neither. Instead she leaves to seek out Robin. The needs of one man, who she wrongly fears may suicide, outweigh for her the duty to her home Village to which she has devoted her life. At first, she rationalizes about the possibility of doing both, but when push comes to shove Robin is more important than the Village. Inside Ashtown it gets worse. Dian allows herself to be further debased, which in part is symbolized by the temporary loss of her dog. Instead of escaping with Robin she defers to his scheme to free all the men. She betrays not only the women of the guard who hurt her or harmed the men, but all of the women of the guard with only a plea for the lives of the "good women" standing between them and death at the hands of the men. She also goes along with this plan knowing that she will lose her dog. She has Robin amputate part of her breast, but shooting her dog she reserves for herself. Her reward for all of this is to return to the Valley with Robin. She returns to domesticity and it is somehow important that Robin approves of Isaac. She has beautiful twins a boy and a girl. No one cares that she betrayed the friggin community. She has a life of domestic "bliss" ahead raising her three young children. The only part of the story I see as optimistic is the epilogue. Dian has failed to kill her dog Tomas, who is a metaphor for her true and independant self. True Tomas is nearly dead, but some hope remains. I'll admit that I'm a little surprised that the first book I read for this discussion group is about a strong independant woman selling herself happily piece by piece for the benefit of men, but I think it did have a lot to say. On a seperate note, I found the several instances of gender crossing somewhat annoying. I'd argue that Dian's booklong transformation from androgynous independant to subservient wife/mother/traitor is the book's most severe and annoying gender change. Robin bothered me because he uses his female guise to ingratiate himself with Dian before he acts to destroy her. If Robin had really been a woman she wouldn't have been important enough in the terms of the story for Dian to save her. And finally, the crossdressing scene in the valley sets up a false parallell. The sex roles of this world are not reversed. Dian's world is a patriarchy. In the world of this novel men will, it seems, sooner or later be Men in the full patriarchal sense of that word and Women will lie down and happily take it. Yuck! That's my rather lengthy evaluation of the book. I hope I managed to send this to the write address and follow list etiquette. If I messed up, please let me know. Thanks, Lorrraine ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 08:56:43 -0500 From: davebelden Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] re (*FSSFU*) Califia's Daughter To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU Terrific post, Lorraine, and welcome to the discussion. I wish I had written my start off questions when the book was fresh in my mind, because I had simply forgotten a lot of what you write. Now I would need to reread it to see it with your eyes and recall my own at the time. I am eager to hear what others think. I was much more forgiving of Dian for her choices - she was just a human being trying to negotiate her way between hard choices, grappling with difficult to fiercely oppressive societies, and with her own feelings of love that came upon her somewhat unexpectedly and clashed with each other. I think you are looking for one kind of feminist hero, who puts her own women-run community first and puts women in general first, but there are other kinds of feminist hero, and I think the author is reaching for something different, showing the dilemmas life can produce, the totally unexpected (like the pregnancy) the necessity of choosing a lesser evil, and not being sure what that is, and sometimes just having to go with your gut even when it contradicts your mission and your every previous notion of yourself. She has lost a lot but gained a lot by the end, and learned much about her world, and will make a stronger leader of her community for it, I believe. Dave ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 15:39:12 -0700 From: PAT MATHEWS Subject: [*FSFFU*] Califia's daughters To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU I have to disagree with Lorraine about Dian ending as a tool of the patriarchy. First of all, I did not see freeing the men as equivalent to setting them up in power. In fact, I remember when one of the objections to liberating *women* was that if we became the equals of men, we would end up as their masters. Secondly, I came to feminism because freedom and individual rights and the right of the individual to do and achieve went bone-deep with me. So I saw the liberation of the men as an entirely good thing. As for setting them back up in authority - no. That I disagree with. Equal rights, yes. Of course. Patricia Mathews Living in a fantasy world - you say that like it's a bad thing. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2005 17:17:50 -0500 From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Califia's Daughters To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU Here it is, a new year! I have been meaning to write up my thoughts on *Califia's Daughters* for weeks now, but holiday activities got in the way, and now it's almost time to discuss the next book. Oh well. Better late than never. First off, I want to compliment Lorraine on her analysis of the book. I have a number of dissatisfactions myself, but the "taming of the shrew" theme is a big one. You articulated it better than I was prepared to. Thanks. My overall impression of the book is that it wasn't very well thought out, from a character, plot or world-building standpoint. Yet I was engaged enough to read it to the end. It just goes to show that the mysterious talent of "storytelling" can make up for a lot. Starting with the characters... Dian was all right as roving eyes go. She was competent, and driven to explore, which is certainly useful when what you (the author) want to do is take the reader on a tour of the known world. I didn't care too much about her, though. I didn't really care about anyone in this book -- they were too generic. Those that weren't often seemed to have walked in from somebody else's story. Isaac, for example. I guess his unusual personal history is supposed to explain why he is atypical for a man in this society, but in my view that's cheating. If this is speculative fiction, I want speculation. I want to know what the *typical* man in this society is like. How is he different from men of today? But with Isaac, we got a heterosexual, monogamous, upright family man who loves to do physical labor. He's also burly and bearded. And he even has the name of one of the Biblical "patriarchs". Could that explain his magical ability to impregnate Dian? Maybe the author was trying to be funny. If so, I wasn't laughing. I just found him very implausible. Robin was an atypical man as well, but I thought the author used him better. His abduction and time in the Men's House showed how men might be objectified and controlled when they are so few. But his relationship with Dian was weird. In some ways he was extremely parental, if not patronizing. (Who here believes that he would be able to tell that Dian was pregnant at such an early stage when even she didn't know it? Or that Dian would be fooled by his disguise?) But at the same time there was a strong hint of romance between them. The whole Ashtown section had a very different tone than the rest of the book; I wondered if the author was going to say, "to hell with the Valley" and have Dian shift her romantic interest to Robin. As it turns out, no. At the end of the book he returns to caregiver mode ("Yes... this man is worthy of her.") in a way that seemed forced and peculiar. Plot -- well, not much to say about it. Even before Ashtown we found out that Dian's goal was pretty much pointless except as an excuse to tell the story. I wish the author had made more of an effort to think up SOMETHING to justify all of Isaac and Miriam's evasion. As it was, I just shrugged. Who cares if these new people are a little careless? Particularly if they will be starting their own separate town outside the walls. Just talk with them, give them a little training, persuade them with trade conditions. Whatever. No big deal. So what was the point of the book? I guess it was the world-building. Too bad it didn't hold together very well. From the beginning I was put off by how unexamined the gender roles were, given the importance of gender to a story like this. Women did actually seem to be running things in each community Dian visited, but how was that important? Not at all. The message seemed to be: everything will be exactly the same if most of the men are eliminated from the human race. Women will step in to provide all the missing aggression, hierarchical oppression, and stupid militarism. That may well be true, of course, but it was more interesting in *Ammonite*. Particularly as Nicola Griffith did not dodge the subject of lesbian sex. I'm tired of authors trying to write about homosexuality when they aren't knowledgeable enough or comfortable enough with the subject matter to do it justice. The same could be said for the treatment of non-whites in the book. There's a section of the book I couldn't help but think of as the "diversity parade", in which Dian carries Sixtoes from one racial outpost to another. It beats me how these communities could have remained so distinct in language, customs, even genetic makeup, after being through a complete cultural collapse. Handwaving that question aside, I guess the point is that there will not be a single dominant culture in this imagined future. That's a commendable thought, but the way it was written it seemed more like an exotic vacation (and boy, the natives are helpful to their white guests) than a committed investigation of cultural possibilities. To be fair, the Valley itself is a mixed bag of cultures, but it kept reminding me of the Amish, and thus seemed pretty whitebread. Maybe that's just me. A last world-building complaint. There was way too much food. How many times was Dian absolutely stuffed by multi-course meals? It might be good manners to keep your guest well fed, but wouldn't there at least be some concern about what might be going to waste? Isn't food scarce? The economics didn't make sense. I realize that I haven't directly addressed any of Dave's excellent introductory questions, but I think I might have hit some of them glancingly. In any case, I think that's enough carping for now! ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://therem.net/ Listening to: Ensemble Al Kindi & Sheikh Habboush -- Aleppian Sufi Trance "I've built my white picket fence around the Now, with a commanding view of the Soon-to-Be." -- The Tick ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2005 21:19:53 -0800 From: Susan Hericks Subject: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Califia's Daughters To: FEMINISTSF@UIC.EDU I had good intentions to post on this book but thought that Janice really covered it all. So, ditto Janice! To put a thing or two in my own words: I also appreciated Lorraine's comments. The dogs were clearly a symbol of Dian, which is why I took the end as a hopeful moment, when we realize that the 2nd dog is still alive. I was disappointed by this book especially because the author wasn't a bad writer in many ways. It's ironic, perhaps, because I LOVE the ideas in Tepper and Slonzewski, for example, even though Tepper has terrible characterization most of the time and even worse dialogue. I thought that Richards dared so little. Where was the world building? Why would all these women, given the opportunity to change their society given the catastrophic change in population, just go back to living like it was the wild west? Much of the society and the talk of "menfolk" seemed like a simplistic reversal of the tropes of the Western. Nothing new to say. What was the point? If it was "people are people" I can kind of appreciate it - I don't really believe that women are morally superior and would attain utopia without the influence of men, but it is pretty disappointing to think that humans would learn so little and change so little in the face of catastrophe. Maybe it's true. One of the aspects aout the book that really turned me off was the excriciating pain that Dian is in half the time, especially after the beating. I didn't like Dian for going through it nor did I see the necessity for it. Now, on to better things! Susan