Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 15:11:17 0100 From: Petra Mayerhofer Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG Conquerer's Child To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU The BDG book for February is _The Conqueror's Child_ (CC) by Suzy McKee Charnas. It was awarded the 1999 Tiptree. The judges praised that it "questions with acute vision human relationships in the context of gender, power, and history" [Bill Clemente], Diane Martin even said "Far and away the best gender- bending novel I've read this past year -- maybe in the past 20 or 30 years. Strong, thoughtful, relevant, and beautifully written." I wouldn't perhaps go so far but IMO CC is a worthy conclusion of the Holdfast series and provides lots of issues to discuss. What surprised me the most when I started reading this book were Sorrel's mixed feelings towards her birthmother. Somehow I've taken the impression from _Motherlines_ that the birthmother is by herself not so important for a riding woman. The relationships between mothers (and fathers!) and daughters are much more traditionally presented in this book than in the first 2 Holdfast books. Even Eykar tries to influence Servan in the end by telling him that Sorrel is his daughter! But back to Sorrel. I think the shift to her perspective in this last book is important. She's the daughter of a "great women" who has somehow to live up (at least in her own head) to what her mother did. Put like this I notice that I cannot think off-hand of any other real-life or fictional story with that mother-daughter constellation. Father-son or father-daughter couples yes, but mother-daughter? It is easy to understand that Sorrel is troubled. All the plans for Sorrel to start a new motherline fail (I will never read _Motherlines_ in the same way again) which makes her an outsider in the riding women's camp. And, of course, she identifies with the boy Veree. Another surprise was for me how the riding women were idealized and glorified in this book. I've read _Amazon Story Bones_ (AZB) by Ellen Frye last year and this reminded me a lot of it, especially when in the end the camps disappear (in most of AZB the women search for the Amazons, they are the ideal beyond the horizon). For me it was strange to read this idealized perspective after the society was described in _Motherlines_ with all its strengths and faults. It is easy to see how they become the (impractical) ideal for former slaves but I noticed that I became impatient with these people. I admire Charnas because she has such an unflinching look on people, she does not romanticize her characters. Tamara Hladik wrote about the characterization in CC (review in Science Fiction Weekly #111, see http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue111/books.html#cc): "There is irony in Charnas' artistry, though. For all the skill in conveying the rococo permutations of violence, its effects and surprising pathologies, the characters as a whole could be crafted more vividly. Some of the lesser characters suffer greatly and seem almost interchangeable. If individuals could only be as rich as the epic, this would be a more satisfying read." Other issues: There are two other societies presented in this book: the Bayo-born and the Pool towns. What do you think of them? I've read the 3 first Holdfast books before. And I think CC is by itself an interesting book. But, of course, my view is coloured by the first 3. Has anybody read only CC and what do you think? The book fleshes out the relationship between Eykar and Servan after Alldera left Holdfast. What did you think of it? And of Servan? And of that Eykar is still under Servan's spell? I hope for a fruitful discussion. Petra Online ressources: 1999 Tiptree Award Judge's comments at http://www.tiptree.org/1999/winner.html#1999W01 "While concluding on a hopeful note, the narrative refuses to sidestep the minefield of conflict women and especially men (who must work to overcome the consequences of what centuries of artificial gender differences have inculcated in society, resulting in unnatural distinctions that uphold male domination) must negotiate to understand and confront gender-based inequalities that inform society." [Bill Clemente] "In Charnas's post-liberation Holdfast, we see that for society to become politically inclusive, not only do men have to cease to be masters, but also their conception of what a socially normative man is must change." [L. Timmel Duchamp] Emerald City Review (Besprechung der ganzen Holdfast-Serie durch Cheryl Morgan) http://www.emcit.com/emcit047.shtml#Herstory "Given what they [the men] have done in the past, how could they [the women] dare let men be free? The answer is that before they can be free, a dream must die. That dream is the macho ideal of conquest and mastery. It is exemplified by the Bear Cult, an underground movement amongst the slave men which preaches that the mythical Sunbear will come and save them. Little do they know that the Sunbear is real. After many years travelling the wilderness with a band of brigands, Servan d Layo is about to return to Holdfast. He has women, he has strange and highly edible animals called goats, and best of all he has a gun. Servan's dream is of conquest. We are in allegory land here. Not only does Servan have to die, he has to do so in a way that redeems his fellow men. The key to this redemption must, of course, be Daya. [...] The Sunbear, and the dream he represents, is dead, killed not by a Fem, nor by one of the alien Women, but by a man protecting the woman he loves." Polly Shulman (2000) Matriarchy blues. Salon Books 21.4.2000 http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2000/04/21/sf/index.html Potlatch 9 Program Notes on panel (?) "Holdfast: Chronicles of Our Future, Chronicles of Our Past" http://www.potlatch-sf.org/pot9pro.htm#hold "JEANNE In _The Furies_ we revisit the Holdfast; it's a book about violent confrontation. _Child_ is about an attempt to create a just society. Easier in some ways than in our own world. SUZY I was trying to avoid the violence. Roughly, was trying to write _Child_ without having written _Furies_." "IAN The Riding Women seemed fictional to me, within the context of the story. The conflict in the story seemed to be more about race than sex: intractable problems, two societies that never meet. The accommodations in _Furies_ and _Child_ look like what happened in Rhodesia, Israel/Palestine. SUZY Yes, it's very much like race and colonialism. How is it possible to work this out so someone isn't colonizing someone else? JEANNE Rereading all of the books, Grays O'Melly, in _Motherlines_, one of the crazy people, said she felt unreal, like someone walking through fems' dreams. TIMMI The Riding Women all vanish at the end of _Child_, when they're no longer needed. DEBBIE They're the elves!" "JEANNE Problem in _Child_: do we hand down anger to children and hope they carry on, or tell them nothing, or accept that they've learned something new? Sorel is angry: never experienced Holdfast, doesn't accept that the only choices are to be a master or a slave. Central dilemma: what to do about the boys? TIMMI What are the alternatives for Veree: killed, enslaved, or castrated? Sorel considers taking him away and raising him herself. Eykar makes her realize it's a broader social issue. Understanding of gender: Aldera told Sorel not to feel bad about failing to kill Servan, it was Eykar's job, not women's job. Men have to create normative standards for being male. SUZY Question for our world: how should men change as part of the new world? Men can't just stay the same and expect women to do all the work of changing. By and large, the contemporary men's movement is about resisting change. It's men's job to make men into human beings." "TIMMI The cairn/horse in _Child_ is an important symbol. Sorrel builds it to express her feelings; it's not like the memorial cairns. It's a creative act. Nobody else knows how to interpret it because it doesn't fit into any of the preexisting political categories. " Petra Mayerhofer mailto:mayerhofer@usf.uni-kassel.de -- BDG website http://www.geocities.com/bdg_volunteers/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2001 23:21:10 -0800 From: Sharon Anderson Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG: CC To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU I read the first Charnas book when it was published, what, 20 years ago now? I was appalled. While I liked other utopias coming out about then (Gearheart, etc.), I did NOT like Walk to the Edge (End?) of the World. I found it brutal in the extreme. And even my anger was not enough to win me to this book. Imagine my surprise when I found I enjoyed Conqueror's Child. I think it was Sorrel's attitude of "That was my first mistake." I liked her. I liked her impulsivity. I liked her naiveté. And I was glad to discover that some other societies had survived, that it was not a choice between EITHER Holdfast or the riding women. ---s ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2001 23:06:07 -0500 From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Conqueror's Child To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU There is so much worth discussing in this book that it's hard to know where to start. Charnas took on a lot: the Fems not only had the task of reinventing society from the ground up, they faced serious divisions in their own ranks while doing it. But I think she rose to the challenge admirably. The interplay of the various groups was fascinating -- the Free Fems, the New Free, the Riding Women, the enslaved men, the Pool Towns survivors, the Bayo-born, the Ferrymen and all the gradations between incorrigibly angry, vengeful people (like Kobba) and forgiving, forward-looking people (like Beyarra) combined in unpredictable ways on the road to a state of reasonable stability at the end. The most notable new theme introduced in the book was that of the parent/child bond. Given the old Holdfast taboo against knowing who one's parents or children were, the Fems' only model of family was the Riding Women. But new Holdfast children are too precious to run loose in a childpack. I thought their solution of a central children's house made sense. But I did think it a little weird how contemporary notions such as the innocence of childhood were so quickly adopted by Sorrel and others. I completely agreed with her about the unfairness (and counterproductivity) of male children being raised as slaves, but it struck me as very odd for a Riding Woman to be protesting about "innocence". Did anyone else feel that way? Apart from the actual children, though, the theme of the parent/child bond was embodied primarily by Sorrel herself. Petra commented that Sorrel's relationship with Alldera is very unusual. I can think of only one other example, offhand -- Merwen and Lystra in *A Door Into Ocean* -- so I definitely agree. I can understand that Alldera, the Conqueror of the Holdfast, would be a very hard example to live up to, and that her apparent neglect of Sorrel could be very hurtful. All the same, I felt at times like shaking Sorrel and saying, "Get over it, girl!" Charnas' characterization of a hot-headed teen was certainly convincing. Overall, I found Sorrel's relationship with Eykar to be more nuanced, perhaps because she met him for the first time in the course of the novel and we got to see her perception of him change over time. There was never any proof of which man, Servan or Eykar, is Sorrel's father, but by the end of the book Sorrel was calling Eykar by that name. I found that very moving; it was an earned title, not a simple biological fact. What torment Eykar endured in this book! The scene in which he was locked in a room and ignored, despite his desperate questions about Setteo's whereabouts, was one of the saddest in the book for me. As was his attempted suicide near the end. Throughout *The Furies* and most of *The Conqueror's Child*, he was caught in an extremely stressful nexus position, associated with Alldera and hated by some Fems because of it, known by his reputation as the Oracle among the men and alternately courted and tormented on that account. By the time Servan approached the Holdfast and Setteo was killed, he was at the breaking point. Though I have always loved his character, at times in the previous books I thought he might be too intelligent, too scrupulous and fair, to be true. Perhaps his "fall" in *Conqueror's Child* was Charnas' proof that he was, after all, just human like anyone else? Servan, on the other hand, came across as much more monstrous in this book than in *Walk to the End of the World*. Charnas commented in our previous discussion of *The Slave and the Free* that "...a lot of his manipulative cleverness revolves around getting himself out of dangerous situations that he has blithely waltzed into on impulse. I sometimes think of him as the Trickster of some Indian cultures (US) -- Coyote, Raven, others. Part of his story is about the negative pole of that kind of behavior/character, particularly when you are not a kid any more (in CHILD) -- it gets to be a lot less appealing and a lot more destructive to others." It always seemed to me that Servan wasn't naturally inclined to the role of leader. He had smarts and ambition, but of a kind more suited to dancing around the margins rather than operating in full view. It surprised me that he was able to hold his band of desperados together even as long as he did; by the time he arrived in the Holdfast, he was clearly running on empty. His death was almost an anticlimax. I never imagined that Daya would be the one to engineer his death. In fact, I'm still not sure what she intended. What a fascinating character! I felt that Charnas avoided ever nailing down her "essence" for the audience. So many of the things she did seemed evil and twisted, but she kept surprising me up to the end. Did she really believe in Moonwoman? Or was her holiness just an act? She seemed fully capable of deceiving even herself about it. In a way, a storytelling pet fem was the perfect foil for Servan -- her past as a slave had honed her skills beyond the reach of his considerable talents. But I was a bit disappointed with the way it played out. It's unrealistic to expect dramatic speeches, obviously, but I was hoping for more of a confrontation between them. Instead she was shot and easily thrown aside. Her death was another of the saddest parts of the book for me. With all the terrible history between her and Alldera, I was very moved by this passage: "Alldera said quietly, 'Nobody but Daya is responsible for Daya's dying. It's what she set out to accomplish. It's how she's decided to end her own story.' Sorrel gazed at the pet fem's moist, scarred face with fascination now. 'Has she said that?' 'To Beyarra. She hasn't said a word to me. I don't think she will. I think she is done with words.' She wanted suddenly to cry and wished that Sorrel would leave her alone to do so privately." In so few words, Charnas sketches the complicated relationship of these two people who have loved and hated one another so intensely over the course of the books and who are approaching the moment of final parting. The Epilog of the book, though shot through with the light of a promising future, gives me a sense of loss every time I read it. The disappearance of the Riding Women is depressing. In the Potlatch program notes, someone named Debbie exclaimed, "They're the Elves!" She was right on. The feeling of an age ending was, to me, very similar to the feeling I got at the end of *The Lord of the Rings*. It's very effective -- every few sentences an upwelling of emotion nearly makes me cry -- but I'm not sure the shift in tone is really appropriate. Maybe Charnas is saying, "Hey, you are your own Women now, so the Riding Women must go and leave you to your own devices." But it gives me the feeling that they are retroactively being defined as Symbols instead of a real society. And the fact that Alldera left with them goes as least part of the way toward making her into a god, as Eykar ironically predicted before their parting. What do other people think? There is still much more to say about this book. I haven't even touched on the new societies that were revealed or the questions of history and literacy that cropped up, both very interesting topics. This book fully deserved the Tiptree Award. p.s. Sadly, it could have won an award for hideous cover art as well! ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT Feminist SF Posting Archive at: http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/femsf-index.htm Listening to: Badly Drawn Boy -- The Hour of Bewilderbeast "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 20:23:59 +1100 From: Julieanne Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Conqueror's Child To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU At 11:06 PM 8/02/01 -0500, you wrote: >There is so much worth discussing in this book that it's hard to know where >to start. Charnas took on a lot: the Fems not only had the task of >reinventing society from the ground up, they faced serious divisions in >their own ranks while doing it. But I think she rose to the challenge >admirably. I will second that! It would have been too easy to just have it all fall neatly into place, initially I was worried that Charnas would build in a romance between Alldera and Eykar, and was so glad that she didn't, and I think Charnas did well to show the confusion of the fems once they had won their battle... like they were saying "OK, we've won - now what do we do?" They had so few models of a workable society to work from - only the free fems, who were few anyway, had had 15 years of living with the Riding Women, and it soon became apparent that that model wouldn't work. So they had to play it by ear, and work from scratch so to speak - especially with what to do with the children. I particularly liked the interplay of a variety of characters and cultures - and I was often reminded of clashes ammongst feminist collectives, in particular with the differences between the Free fems and the New fems. The latter had had it easier than the Free Fems, most had been born after the battle in which Alldera escaped at the end of the first book, and some of them couldn't understand why the Free fems were so 'hard-hearted'. >The most notable new theme introduced in the book was that of the >parent/child bond. Given the old Holdfast taboo against knowing who one's >parents or children were, the Fems' only model of family was the Riding >Women. But new Holdfast children are too precious to run loose in a >childpack. I thought their solution of a central children's house made >sense. But I did think it a little weird how contemporary notions such as >the innocence of childhood were so quickly adopted by Sorrel and others. I >completely agreed with her about the unfairness (and counterproductivity) >of male children being raised as slaves, but it struck me as very odd for a >Riding Woman to be protesting about "innocence". Did anyone else feel that >way? I thought it very much in character for a young woman like Sorrel - she felt betrayed by her birth mother, as well as her other share-mothers and cohorts in the Riding Women clans. She was talking more about herself I think - protesting her own 'innocence' in having been raised with the Riding Women. She didn't know which world she belonged to. In Motherlines, I often felt angry at the Riding Women's treatment of Alldera in the early years, they did 'exclude' Alldera from Sorrel, as well as other social events etc on numerous occasions, and she was only 'tolerated' due to their complex kinship laws and relationships - it wasn't until she learned to ride, fight and raid and live like Riding Women that she was finally accepted. The Riding Women were quite conservative in many ways, despite their freedom of lifestyle relative to the Holdfast fems, and like many conservative cultures, they didn't like change or innovation. Their unusual clone mode of reproduction would have made them even more resistant to change I guess - but I did enjoy even the small moments of 'culture clash' eg. when one of the Riding Women sneers at the Free fems for eating greens mixed with their meat - instead of separately! I never saw the Riding Women as a utopia, although they were a relief after the harshness of Holdfast. I saw them as a realistic portrayal of how such a culture would have developed from such origins as explained in Motherlines, with their own unique flaws and bonuses. They were engineered quite roughly by their ancestresses and with only the basics allowing them to survive & reproduce in that environment were bequested them. The ancestresses knew that there would come a time, that they would lose all their technology, and hence there had to be a way for the women to reproduce without using laboratories, so they spliced the gene into the male horses. I guess they could have spliced it into a plant instead to produce the chemical or protein needed to 'trigger' pregnancy - but considering the horses were integral for survival for several reasons, and would become culturally important & least likely to be lost due to a bad season or environmental changes, it made sense to splice the gene into the horses. The mares milk wouldn't be useful because it was used in food etc - I suppose it could have gone in saliva, but too many other bacteria, and too many chances for 'mistakes'! ...semen seemed about the best bet to ensure survival down the generations. Perhaps they even tried initially to extract it manually without risking the danger of physical mating - maybe it didn't work, or early generations forgot the manual process, as literacy didn't survive in the Riding Women either. Like the Holdfast and other societies, much had been forgotten and lost from before the Wasting. And their self-songs for example, I saw as being a necessity that needed to be invented because of the need to recognise clones as individuals - hence it was so very important to them culturally, & individually - and although the Free Fems tried to imitate the ritual later - it never quite 'worked' for them:) Having had generations upon generations without human males, I found their reaction to men, somewhere between intense curiousity & wariness, very believable. Sheel's attitude & lack of guilt over shooting Setteo being something like - "well... if it's male & running - shoot it' very much in character - although his death was so sad, particularly with the consequences with Eykar finally breaking when hearing that Sorrel had killed Setteo (but I did also think it was interesting that he back so quickly when he found out it hadn't been Sorrel at all) >I never imagined that Daya would be the one to engineer his death. In fact, >I'm still not sure what she intended. What a fascinating character! I felt >that Charnas avoided ever nailing down her "essence" for the audience. So >many of the things she did seemed evil and twisted, but she kept surprising >me up to the end. Did she really believe in Moonwoman? Or was her holiness >just an act? She seemed fully capable of deceiving even herself about it. I think she deceived herself for most of her life - as a pet fem, she had some privileges other fems like Kobba never had. But these privileges were very fragile, and her life was no more valuable than that of any other fem, and she was just as likely to end up dead as any other when her usefulness was at an end. Her privileges as a pet fem were bought at the price of her always having to be conscious of being pleasing and giving 100% loyalty to the most powerful men, in order to gain some protection from them and hopefully ensure her own survival - until she became free, that 'most powerful' who could give her protection was always men. In the tea-camp - she immediately allied herself with the most powerful woman, always demonstrating extreme fanatic loyalty, & trying to be pleasing even if that meant cruelly betraying others. Like a sycophant... she *needed* to know she was 'master's favourite' even when 'master' was a woman. Her relationship with Alldera was probably her first relationship of true mutual affection - and she found it difficult to handle, at least in part because Alldera didn't play power-games. Daya had been so ingrained & conditioned with the concept of men being the only ones to hold power (and therefore the only ones who could ever safeguard her life) - she constantly felt insecure & unsure of herself giving loyalty to women in power. For example, Daya never raised a hand against the men even after the fems won. She just could not bring herself to do it, although she was comfortable with being nasty to Setteo initially. She figured later that the Moonwoman religion and its followers were becoming more powerful than Alldera's faction - hence, true to character, Daya switches loyalty yet again to support the perceived 'more powerful' faction, even if it meant betraying Alldera. In the scene at Endpath with Alldera and the others involved, Daya tried very hard to argue that her actions were somehow demonstrating loyalty to 'both sides' - unsure as to which faction was the "most powerful", she didn't know which side to be on! In the end, I like to think Daya found peace of a sort - suffering guilt and confusion over her betrayal of Alldera, she finally figured where her true loyalties really lay, and in being true to herself, she sought some way of demonstrating loyalty to Alldera, even if it meant risking her own life and so "ending her own story". The attempt at killing Servan, was hugely courageous for Daya - particularly in overcoming her conditioned inability to show hostility to a man. So I didn't expect brave speeches, or confrontations between them - it was hard enough for Daya to even try. Although it took long enough for Eykar to pull himself together in that scene - and I particularly liked when Alldera said in reply to Sorrel's regret that she hadn't been able to kill Servan, that it wasn't Sorrel's job to kill Servan, but rightly should have fallen to Eykar and other men to deal with it: "Alldera tried to explain: 'That was Eykar's task, his and Galligan's. Men generally want someone to do it for them -- us of course -- but in the end its their own job.' 'What is?' Sorrel said, looking confused. 'Drawing the line,' Alldera said, 'between what a man may do, and may not do, and still have other men call him a man.'" >The Epilog of the book, though shot through with the light of a promising >future, gives me a sense of loss every time I read it. The disappearance of >the Riding Women is depressing. In the Potlatch program notes, someone >named Debbie exclaimed, "They're the Elves!" She was right on. The feeling >of an age ending was, to me, very similar to the feeling I got at the end >of *The Lord of the Rings*. It's very effective -- every few sentences an >upwelling of emotion nearly makes me cry -- but I'm not sure the shift in >tone is really appropriate. Maybe Charnas is saying, "Hey, you are your own >Women now, so the Riding Women must go and leave you to your own devices." >But it gives me the feeling that they are retroactively being defined as >Symbols instead of a real society. And the fact that Alldera left with them >goes as least part of the way toward making her into a god, as Eykar >ironically predicted before their parting. What do other people think? I found the Epilog ending a surprise twist, and sad - mostly for Sheel, her feelings at having been left behind must have been horrible. But after the initial surprise at finding the Riding Women gone with Alldera - I thought I could understand it, and again I felt Charnas had made this more realistic, more real, more in character - than having all the loose ends tie up in a classic 'happy ending' with lets-all-live-together-in-harmony etc. It was because they knew Sorrel was bringing Eykar with her - and this would be just the first of having men visit the clans. The Riding Women had difficulty enough tolerating the tea-camp women, then later accepting them as a separate clan of 'honorary Riding Women' - but they couldn't accept men in their camps - bringing men would change their culture far more than they were willing to change. So off they went, they wished to remain as they had always been, women-only, secret and *free* - and not deal with men at all - but bearing no ill-will, they left the plains as a Gift to the Holdfast peoples. As for Alldera, I don't think she cared what others thought of her - she was getting older and tired even before the attempt on her life, she didn't want to 'play mother' to Holdfast, or men anymore - she had done what she needed to do. Fought back and won - she had no desire for power or directing a society through its birth pangs, inevitable problems, arguments, discussions etc - she wanted to live her remaining days enjoying her right to "freedom" so well-earned - I see Charnas saying in this scenario using the Riding Women "Your ways are not our ways, so you'll have to work it out for yourselves without our help - Good Luck!" Cheers - Julieanne:) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 15:35:33 -0600 From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Conqueror's Child To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU On Wed, 7 Feb 2001 at 15:11:17 0100, Petra Mayerhofer wrote: >There are two other societies presented in this book: the Bayo-born >and the Pool towns. What do you think of them? The Bayo-born struck me as an authorial device to highlight alternative means of dealing with men and keeping memory alive. Like the Holdfast women, I found the idea of controlling men by "gelding" them to be "a barbarically simple solution to a complicated problem" (p. 92), but I was intrigued by their tattooing ritual. Like the building of the cairns in the Holdfast, it kept alive the memory of the past the fems had survived and were determined never to repeat. I couldn't really understand why Alldera was so revolted by it. The Bayo-born's territorial conflict with the Breakaways was another authorial device -- a harbinger of things to come as the Holdfast continued to prosper and grow. But, with no viewpoint character and little time spent in their world, I didn't feel that we ever got to know them. In contrast we learned a lot about the Pool Towns survivors. Their situation and, later on, the fates of Leeja-Beda and Tamansa-Nan, were gruesome reminders of the brutality the old Holdfast males were capable of. Salalli very much reminded me of Anyanwu in *Wild Seed* -- another woman trapped in a relationship with a brutal man who, despite it all, is grimly determined to survive and protect her children. I thought it was interesting that the mild sexism of the Pool Towns left Salalli vulnerable to d Layo in more than one way. The mildness of the sexism meant that she lacked the Fems' emotional calluses; the fact that it nevertheless existed meant that she viewed the rule of men as being in some way right. By the time they got to the Holdfast, she was cowed enough to believe that no one could defeat d Layo. I thought her hesitant dealings with Alldera, complicated by homophobia and issues of race, were very well done. More than the Bayo-born, the people of the Pool Towns came across as real and complex human beings. And of course they are the ones who are on their way to integration with the Holdfast at the end. Did anyone else have the feeling that there were many more survivors of the Wasting waiting to be discovered? As the Holdfast was healed, the view seemed to open out wider and wider, to take in more variation and diversity. I imagine adventurous young women of the Holdfast making all kinds of voyages over time, getting to know more and more of the world they live in, and learning all the while. It is a hopeful vision. ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/ Listening to: Gomez -- Liquid Skin "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 16:08:38 -0600 From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Conqueror's Child To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU On Fri, 9 Feb 2001 20:23:59 +1100, Julieanne wrote: >But after the initial surprise at finding the Riding Women gone with >Alldera - I thought I could understand it, and again I felt Charnas had >made this more realistic, more real, more in character - than having all >the loose ends tie up in a classic 'happy ending' with lets-all-live- >together-in-harmony etc. Yes. And I like how options are kept open for women within the Holdfast itself. The Breakaways, at the end, are living lives very similar to those of the Riding Women, wandering with their herds, no men (and no children) allowed. The fact that women and men are learning to live together in the cities doesn't mean that that's the way everyone must live. There is plenty of room for some women to live for themselves alone, free of unpleasant reminders or duties. It seems like a tremendously healthy alternative to have available. ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/ Listening to: Gomez -- Liquid Skin "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 18:51:19 -0500 From: Misha Bernard Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Conqueror's Child To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU On Fri, 9 Feb 2001, Janice E. Dawley wrote: > On Wed, 7 Feb 2001 at 15:11:17 0100, Petra Mayerhofer wrote: > >There are two other societies presented in this book: the Bayo-born > >and the Pool towns. What do you think of them? > > In contrast we learned a lot about the Pool Towns survivors. Their > situation and, later on, the fates of Leeja-Beda and Tamansa-Nan, were > gruesome reminders of the brutality the old Holdfast males were capable of. And I thought this was very important- especially for those of us who haven't reread the early books again recently and for those who haven't ever. Just like the NewFems, the readers needed a reminder/warning of how bad it could actually be with the Holdfast men in charge. [snip] > Did anyone else have the feeling that there were many more survivors of the > Wasting waiting to be discovered? As the Holdfast was healed, the view > seemed to open out wider and wider, to take in more variation and > diversity. I imagine adventurous young women of the Holdfast making all > kinds of voyages over time, getting to know more and more of the world they > live in, and learning all the while. It is a hopeful vision. I wasn't sure. I spent a lot of time attempting (ha) to figure out where on Earth it might be... and wondering what the Riding Women would find across the Salt River. Also, the Riding Women- as has been said- are conservative, but are slowly dieing out through lack of genetic diversity. So, potentially, in the future, they will be vanished in actuality. Really, what I was thinking about the hope to find more peoples is that- other than the Riding Women who did know a slavery in the lab but haven't know another personally for generations, everyone left that readers are aware of (assuming the towns on the map west of the Pool Towns were also conquered by d'Layo's group?) are either recently enslaved/freed (Pool Town women and children) or the descendent of enslaved people- both the new Holdfasters AND the Bayo born. I don't know what to think of that. Misha Bernard Cultural Studies PhD student mbernar1@gmu.edu George Mason University ------------------------- -mmmm! tastes like a scratch world! but it's Bishop Berkeley's Cosmo Mix!- Ursula K. Le Guin "World Making" (1981) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 19:25:41 -0500 From: Rose Reith Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Conqueror's Child To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU lots snipped... >I wasn't sure. I spent a lot of time attempting (ha) to figure out where >on Earth it might be... and wondering what the Riding Women would find >across the Salt River. Actually, I did the same thing. I really think the Holdfast is in the Mid Atlantic States - around Washington DC, The Refuge would be in north central Maryland - I am pretty sure that there is one of those shelters for the president to be taken to up there in the hills north of Frederick MD. The mountains they cross to get to the Grasslands are the Appalachians, and that would sort of make the great salt river the Mississippi. I wonder if we also need to account for damage done to the earth making the area much smaller - maybe the coast is more inland than DC because of the war and devastation. I did so want 'troi to be Detroit - especially because of Maggomas being an engineering type. But that really doesn't work - it's much too far away from the area, and also it would I assume be much colder there. They seem to imply that the climate is relatively warmer in the holdfast than say up in the area of the Pool Towns where they have maple trees (and get syrup that is sweeter than sex I think Salalli said). The sad thing is that I know it shouldn't matter where it is because it really doesn't have to be anywhere that really exists, but for me it becomes more real if I can situate it somehow relative to current geography. I have done the same thing when reading Gate to Women's Country (I figure it is set in California), and I tried to figure out where Vonarburg's Maerland is relative to Litale and Italy, and why Bethely is called that (it really makes me think of Bethlehem, but I don't think that really works for the whole locale either.) >Also, the Riding Women- as has been said- are >conservative, but are slowly dieing out through lack of genetic >diversity. So, potentially, in the future, they will be vanished in >actuality. I wonder if that is how it would work with a group that are just clones of themselves over and over again. I also wonder how fast mutation would really enter into the picture. Would they even have been able to continue as long as they have already according to the story. Diversity is not really an issue for them. Each woman is the same woman, genetically speaking, as her mother. Their only real differences are in their experiences. It's a wonderful idea and a frightening idea. Are we all really doomed to grow up to be our own mother? And sister? And Aunt? etc. Or is that really the case? The other way to look at it is that each woman has many ova that are programmed to create duplicates of their initial half set of chromosomes. But those ova do not have to be clones of the woman since we all know that in regular sexual reproduction the chromosomes in the egg that is fertilized by the sperm do not have to be an exact replica of what we have ourselves. For example I am dark haired but have a blonde haired daughter. Obviously I have some blonde recessive genes in my chromosomes, and if that egg happened to be the one that was told to duplicate its chromosomes to create a child without benefit of a human sperm for fertilization then that daughter would not look exactly like me. Somehow though I don't think this is the case here with the Riding Women though because originally they had been bred / created by the scientists to reproduce consistently as clones so that experiments on them would be readily reproducible and predictable. They are supposed to be races of women who are exactly alike for that reason. (It seems to me that somewhere I once read that they have done the same kind of thing with the Canadian laboratory rats used in so many studies today. They are clones or very close to clones so that the is no impact on the results of the scientists' studies that is related to differences in the animal's genetic makeup.) Oh well, sorry to have run on here. The whole Holdfast Chronicles series is just so fascinating! Rose -- Information is not knowledge. ~Caleb Carr, KILLING TIME ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 21:55:39 EST From: Maire Shanahan Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Conqueror's Child To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU "Or is that really the case? The other way to look at it is that each woman has many ova that are programmed to create duplicates of their initial half set of chromosomes. But those ova do not have to be clones of the woman since we all know that in regular sexual reproduction the chromosomes in the egg that is fertilised by the sperm do not have to be an exact replica of what we have ourselves. For example I am deark haired but have a blonde haired daughter. Obviously I have some blonde recessive genes in my chromosomes, and if that egg happened to be the one that was told to dupicate its chromosomes to create a child without benefit of a human sperm for fertilization then that daughter would not look exactly like me." This is not strictly accurate. In actual fact, all human cells have 2 sets of chromosomes, except for gametes (ova/sperm) which only have one set. Cloning an ova would result in an organism with identical genetic makeup. The reason brothers and sisters look different, is because, at fertilisation, not only do the 2 sets of chromosomes form each gamete, combine- but the genes on each chromosome *recombine* (recombination) So, your ova contain genetic material, which if cloned, would produce a human identical to you. But, when that ova is fertilised with a sperm- your genetic material is shuffled around, creating a different set of genetic material (same for the sperm) and ALSO combined with the sperm's genetic material. So, all your ova have the same genes, no matter which one was cloned the result would be identical to you. Fertilisation has the potential to create endless new combinations of your own genes, and then mix them with the sperms. Hope I didn't go on too much... Maire Shanahan (studied molecular biology) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 19:05:11 +1100 From: Kate Orman Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Conqueror's Child To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Maire: > This is not strictly accurate. In actual fact, all human cells have 2 sets > of chromosomes, except for gametes (ova/sperm) which only have one set. > Cloning an ova would result in an organism with identical genetic makeup. > The reason brothers and sisters look different, is because, at fertilisation, > not only do the 2 sets of chromosomes form each gamete, combine- but the > genes on each chromosome *recombine* (recombination) > So, your ova contain genetic material, which if cloned, would produce a human > identical to you. > But, when that ova is fertilised with a sperm- your genetic material is > shuffled around, creating a different set of genetic material (same for the > sperm) and ALSO combined with the sperm's genetic material. > So, all your ova have the same genes, no matter which one was cloned the > result would be identical to you. > Fertilisation has the potential to create endless new combinations of your > own genes, and then mix them with the sperms. Erm... actually, the cross-overs you're describing do happen, but most of the variety comes from the random shuffling of the chromosomes when they're packaged into the eggs and sperm. A woman's ova are *not* all identical. With two copies of each chromosome, it's a toss-up which one of the pair will end up in an individual egg or sperm. With 46 pairs of chromosomes, you can see how much variety just one woman's ova can contain. The random shuffling also means that a "clone" made from an ovum would almost certainly *not* be genetically identical to the mother. To take a simple example: in one particular pair of chromosomes, Rose has one with the dark-haired gene, and one with the blonde gene. There's a 50:50 chance of either chromosome ending up in one of Rose's eggs. So her "clone" daughter could inherit either two dark genes, or two blonde genes - she could be blonde! The same random chance would affect the other hundreds of thousands of genes Rose has. Her daughter could be very different to her! (I hope that explanation is vaguely comprehensible. Any good encyclopaedia will do it better, with diagrams. :-) I'm partway through "Motherlines" at the moment, lagging horribly behind this discussion. :-) I must take another look at the explanation of how the motherlines work. If mothers and daughters are identical, then something else is involved. Cheers, Kate Orman http://www.zip.com.au/~korman/ "I am a very silly person, really." - Equinox the Surrealist ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 04:13:02 EST From: Maire Shanahan Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] genes, and pigs. To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU I'm not commenting any further on the ova debate because (how embarrassing for me if I'm wrong) I'm still not convinced. Thank goodness the Internet is a medium people can disagree about things and not have ego come rushing into it. I remember listening to a friend going on very authoritatively in front of about 5 people about how pig's penises were corkscrew shaped. Nobody said anything. From memory, the Riding Women reproduced by using horse semen to start their eggs dividing, resulting in identical (how identical being a matter of debate :) ! ). On the subject of genes, my cousin's son has just been diagnosed as having 2 extra X chromosomes! Ie XXXY. He is cosmetically male, but will need testosterone shots, is will be mildly retarded (like Forrest Gump, say) and my cousin say the doctor told her he is apparently more likely to have a gentle, artistic and shape-appreciative personality. I have never heard of this condition before, and wonder what the process s to end up with a cell with XXXY. I have heard of men with an extra Y chromosome- occurring in a minute percentage of the population, and apparently the male prison population has a greater proportion of extra Y's than the general population. The extra Y /male chromosome making them more aggressive, inclined to violence... Anyway, I apologise for going on again, I have been staying up late typing job applications and ten had job interviews all day, so that's my excuse. Maire ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 20:49:41 +1000 From: Erika Maria Lacey Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] genes, and pigs. To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU At 04:13 am 15.02.01 -0500, Maire Shanahan wrote: >I have heard of men with an extra Y chromosome- occurring in a >minute percentage of the population, and apparently the male prison >population has a greater proportion of extra Y's than the general population. >The extra Y /male chromosome making them more aggressive, inclined to >violence... Actually, at University I believe we were taught that this paper was a fallacy. The guy who did this study in the UK got these findings but nobody was ever able to reproduce it. He studied the men who were in prison in the UK, by the way. cheers Erika -- : Erika Maria Lacey : righ@uq.net.au : www.grailsearch.cjb.net : : "I have often regretted my speech, but never my silence." : : - Xenocrates (396-314 B.C.E.) : ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 22:09:51 +1100 From: Julieanne Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Conqueror's Child To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU At 07:05 PM 15/02/01 +1100, you wrote: >The random shuffling also means that a "clone" made from an >ovum would almost certainly *not* be genetically identical to the >mother. To take a simple example: in one particular pair of >chromosomes, Rose has one with the dark-haired gene, and one >with the blonde gene. There's a 50:50 chance of either >chromosome ending up in one of Rose's eggs. So her "clone" >daughter could inherit either two dark genes, or two blonde genes - >she could be blonde! The same random chance would affect the >other hundreds of thousands of genes Rose has. Her daughter >could be very different to her! IIRC - the original ancestresses were engineered to have diploid ova - the 'trigger' chemical spliced into the horses triggered maturation, cell-division and pregnancy similar to hormonal stimulation. In that way only the first daughter generation would have been unique like Rose's daughter above - all generations after that would have been close enough to identical apart from random mutation in the developing embryo. Being diploid, they would not have been able to conceive by men either - it would no longer work the old-fashioned way. Its possible that some of the lines which had died out, had 'reverted' to the wild-type haploid ova production - but with no males, they could no longeer conceive? Clone reproduction is well-known to be detrimental over time, the 'photocopy effect' is one problem - like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy etc - with each generation, some information is lost This happens with some clone reproduced crop plants - they have to be reengineered every 30-50 generations or so. Unable to perform DNA self-repair which requires introns (segments of DNA with no functional genes - like ligaments or tendons, they are there primarily for physical support, but when 'lost' - it screws up the DNA replication & repair processes) - this 'copy effect' or 'data loss' is in part a simple explanation of what happens in ageing processes, the cells (which do reproduce like 'clones' - whether its liver, skin or bone etc) just gradually lose the ability to divide properly, because over so many thousand generations too much information has been lost. Diploid reproductive cells tend to double-dose bad genes as well as good ones - the original researchers were only interested in double-dosing of genes for telepathy I *think* - it didn't matter to them that other bad genes were also being double-dosed in their laboratory specimens. Its often mentioned by the Riding Women that certain Motherlines were almost defined by such traits - like the O'Mellys were all a little crazy, and everybody in the camps knew to be gentle with them, and one of the culture-clash scenes was caused because this sort of thing was so obvious to Riding Women, it never occurred to anybody to explain to the Free fems not to tease or argue with an O'Melly:) Julieanne:) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 07:33:57 -0500 From: Rose Reith Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Conqueror's Child To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU >Erm... actually, the cross-overs you're describing do happen, but >most of the variety comes from the random shuffling of the >chromosomes when they're packaged into the eggs and sperm. A >woman's ova are *not* all identical. With two copies of each >chromosome, it's a toss-up which one of the pair will end up in an >individual egg or sperm. With 46 pairs of chromosomes, you can >see how much variety just one woman's ova can contain. OK - the above is what I was trying to get at when I was questioning how the riding women all looked like their Motherlines. It is supposed to be some form of cloning from the description of how they all look alike, and the description in Motherlines of why they were genetically engineered to be that way - to make the work easier for the scientists. Charnas never uses the word clone though, I don't believe. And since the horse sperm is simply used to trigger the cell division, the riding women eggs either already contain a full complement of chromosomes - (and aren't haploid, but are diploid like all other body cells), or somehow they (the chromosomes) double when they are subjected to what I assume is the connection with the sperm of the stud who triggers the mechanism. When I read it originally I just assumed that the full complement of chromosomes was included in each ova, and the sperm when it entered the cell did nothing but trigger the cell division to start for the embryo to begin to form. This seemed interesting to me, but not such a big deal. Now that I think about it though it has to be a pretty big deal because from the rest of the story it does seem that the ova do all have to be alike - the women of a certain line all have the same characteristics. Sheel can enter the camp of another group and be mistaken for another woman of the Torrinor line who lives in that camp - the only differences would be up close and related to scars etc., and Nenisi has sore teeth like all the women of the Conor line. And I think I remember than Nenisi explains to Alldera that if you wonder when you are young what you will be like as you grow older you have only to look at anyone else of your motherline, for other than different experiences their bodies are exactly like yours, other than in the clase of mutations ( and I think she does actual mention that mutations have occurred). >The random shuffling also means that a "clone" made from an >ovum would almost certainly *not* be genetically identical to the >mother. To take a simple example: in one particular pair of >chromosomes, Rose has one with the dark-haired gene, and one >with the blonde gene. There's a 50:50 chance of either >chromosome ending up in one of Rose's eggs. So her "clone" >daughter could inherit either two dark genes, or two blonde genes - >she could be blonde! The same random chance would affect the >other hundreds of thousands of genes Rose has. Her daughter >could be very different to her! That's sort of what I thought too - thanks for stating it more clearly. >(I hope that explanation is vaguely comprehensible. Any good >encyclopaedia will do it better, with diagrams. :-) > >I'm partway through "Motherlines" at the moment, lagging horribly >behind this discussion. :-) I must take another look at the >explanation of how the motherlines work. If mothers and daughters >are identical, then something else is involved. > >Cheers, > >Kate Orman http://www.zip.com.au/~korman/ >"I am a very silly person, really." - Equinox the Surrealist -- Information is not knowledge. ~Caleb Carr, KILLING TIME ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 07:49:10 -0500 From: Rose Reith Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] genes, and pigs. To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Hi Maire, I understand and appreciate completely too the fact that we can discuss this and lots of other things without as you aptly put it "ego" coming into play. (perhaps unlike the men of the old Holdfast) I spent a lot of time last night thinking about that too - about what a lout Servan d Layo is, and wondering if part of the problem with these books is the author's seemingly blanket assumption that most men would just love to lord it over their fellow men and all the women. Are decent men that hard to come by? And would the men really become so openly vile if the world as we knew it ended and they had control over starting a new culture... if you can even call it that? One thing that struck me during the night (as I was thinking) was that women in these books feel more responsibility about making sure that the society runs smoothly and fairly (though fairness is a matter of definition for fems like Kobba) while the men just want power - power over each other, power over fems, power over the few animals they have left, even power of the land itself - that whole description at the beginning of the first book in which it is said that they came out of the shelter and proceeded to clear the land in the same way as was done in pioneering times. Oh, here I am going on and on again. What I really wanted to say too, was that I remember hearing about the extra x's in a child psychology class I took at college. There are quite a few of these syndromes that include extra chromosomes - I seem to recall one with an extra x ( at least I think it was extra x) in females too that causes them to be smaller and immature for their whole lives - they never achieve menarche... I'll look for the text book and see if I can send you something on it. Rose -- Information is not knowledge. ~Caleb Carr, KILLING TIME ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 07:55:19 -0500 From: Rose Reith Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Conqueror's Child To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU >At 07:05 PM 15/02/01 +1100, Julieanne wrote: > >>The random shuffling also means that a "clone" made from an >>ovum would almost certainly *not* be genetically identical to the >>mother. To take a simple example: in one particular pair of >>chromosomes, Rose has one with the dark-haired gene, and one >>with the blonde gene. There's a 50:50 chance of either >>chromosome ending up in one of Rose's eggs. So her "clone" >>daughter could inherit either two dark genes, or two blonde genes - >>she could be blonde! The same random chance would affect the >>other hundreds of thousands of genes Rose has. Her daughter >>could be very different to her! > >IIRC - the original ancestresses were engineered to have diploid ova - the >'trigger' chemical spliced into the horses triggered maturation, >cell-division and pregnancy similar to hormonal stimulation. In that way >only the first daughter generation would have been unique like Rose's >daughter above - all generations after that would have been close enough to >identical apart from random mutation in the developing embryo. Being >diploid, they would not have been able to conceive by men either - it would >no longer work the old-fashioned way. Its possible that some of the lines >which had died out, had 'reverted' to the wild-type haploid ova production >- but with no males, they could no longer conceive? Ahhh - this was something that hadn't occurred to me - if the modification didn't keep on because of mutation or whatever. I just sort of assumed that lines had died out because they weren't able to reproduce in time to keep on - if children dies in the child pack - Sharu swarms, whatever. But actually your thought here is as good a possibility. And, I had wondered if they could revert to reproducing with the men. >Clone reproduction is well-known to be detrimental over time, the >'photocopy effect' is one problem - like a photocopy of a photocopy of a >photocopy etc - with each generation, some information is lost This happens >with some clone reproduced crop plants - they have to be reengineered every >30-50 generations or so. Unable to perform DNA self-repair which requires >introns (segments of DNA with no functional genes - like ligaments or >tendons, they are there primarily for physical support, but when 'lost' - >it screws up the DNA replication & repair processes) - this 'copy effect' >or 'data loss' is in part a simple explanation of what happens in ageing >processes, the cells (which do reproduce like 'clones' - whether its >liver, skin or bone etc) just gradually lose the ability to divide >properly, because over so many thousand generations too much information >has been lost. >Diploid reproductive cells tend to double-dose bad genes as well as good >ones - the original researchers were only interested in double-dosing of >genes for telepathy I *think* - it didn't matter to them that other bad >genes were also being double-dosed in their laboratory specimens. > >Its often mentioned by the Riding Women that certain Motherlines were >almost defined by such traits - like the O'Mellys were all a little crazy, >and everybody in the camps knew to be gentle with them, and one of the >culture-clash scenes was caused because this sort of thing was so obvious >to Riding Women, it never occurred to anybody to explain to the Free fems >not to tease or argue with an O'Melly:) True - I had forgotten that too - funny how no matter how many times I am reading this stuff there is still some to over look. It's nice to be able to have other minds to discuss it with. Rose -- Information is not knowledge. ~Caleb Carr, KILLING TIME ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 09:29:13 -0500 From: Rose Reith Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] genes, and pigs. To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU >Oh, here I am going on and on again. What I really wanted to say too, >was that I remember hearing about the extra x's in a child psychology >class I took at college. There are quite a few of these syndromes >that include extra chromosomes - I seem to recall one with an extra x >( at least I think it was extra x) in females too that causes them to >be smaller and immature for their whole lives - they never achieve >menarche... I'll look for the text book and see if I can send you >something on it. Hi Maire, I just got out the Child Development book I used in that class a few years back - I was wrong about the non- developing syndrome being extra x's, instead that's Turner syndrome and it's comes with only 1 x chromosome with no matcher (x or y) for it. the ones with extra x's are "triple x syndrome" (girls) and "Kleinfelter's syndrome"(boys). They occur far more frequently than Turners - about once in every 500 to 12500 live births. The major symptom is delays in speech and language development. Interestingly triple x syndrome girls tend to be taller than average, and so do Kleinfelter boys. In addition to the characteristics you mentioned, it says also that there are hormone therapies that can be used to aid the boys because at puberty they are likely to have incomplete secondary sexual characteristics. Also the extra x is likely to make them sterile. Of course this text is from 1991, so I would imagine some changes have probably been come up with considering the frequency that it occurs. Rose -- Information is not knowledge. ~Caleb Carr, KILLING TIME ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 13:29:11 -0500 From: Misha Bernard Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Conqueror's Child To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU On Thu, 15 Feb 2001, Julieanne wrote: > IIRC - the original ancestresses were engineered to have diploid ova - the > 'trigger' chemical spliced into the horses triggered maturation, > cell-division and pregnancy similar to hormonal stimulation. In that way > only the first daughter generation would have been unique like Rose's > daughter above - all generations after that would have been close enough to > identical apart from random mutation in the developing embryo. Being > diploid, they would not have been able to conceive by men either - it would > no longer work the old-fashioned way. Its possible that some of the lines > which had died out, had 'reverted' to the wild-type haploid ova production > - but with no males, they could no longer conceive? I had thought/remembered that some of the Motherlines had died out because, in each generation, any traits of the motherline became intensified. I took this to mean that chances for cancer increased and occurred younger, etc. and some lines had died out already because of genetic traits being amplified into non-survival. I don't know that all the lines would end up the same way, but it did seem, evolutionarily, that it would just be a matter of time before the population was small enough that either many more daughters would be required of each mother or a greatly restricted lifeway would result- either way forcing more adaptations among the Riding Women. [snip] > Diploid reproductive cells tend to double-dose bad genes as well as good > ones - the original researchers were only interested in double-dosing of > genes for telepathy I *think* - it didn't matter to them that other bad > genes were also being double-dosed in their laboratory specimens. > > Its often mentioned by the Riding Women that certain Motherlines were > almost defined by such traits - like the O'Mellys were all a little crazy, > and everybody in the camps knew to be gentle with them, and one of the > culture-clash scenes was caused because this sort of thing was so obvious > to Riding Women, it never occurred to anybody to explain to the Free fems > not to tease or argue with an O'Melly:) > > Julieanne:) Misha Bernard Cultural Studies PhD student mbernar1@gmu.edu George Mason University ------------------------- -mmmm! tastes like a scratch world! but it's Bishop Berkeley's Cosmo Mix!- Ursula K. Le Guin "World Making" (1981) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 13:41:03 -0500 From: Misha Bernard Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Conqueror's Child To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU On Wed, 14 Feb 2001, Rose Reith wrote: [snip] > Actually, I did the same thing. I really think the Holdfast is in the > Mid Atlantic States - around Washington DC, The Refuge would be in > north central Maryland - I am pretty sure that there is one of those > shelters for the president to be taken to up there in the hills north > of Frederick MD. The mountains they cross to get to the Grasslands > are the Appalachians, and that would sort of make the great salt > river the Mississippi. Ha, since I'm from metro DC, it never even occurred to me it would be around here. Mostly because- from reading the first books to reading CC it seemed as if the area encompassed by the Holdfast, Grasslands and the Wild shrank! I had thought about the river being the Mississippi, but started to wonder when it was supposed to be so wide the other side couldn't be seen (how was it know to be a river, then?) and the desert just the other side of the mountains before the grasslands. > I wonder if we also need to account for > damage done to the earth making the area much smaller - maybe the > coast is more inland than DC because of the war and devastation. I > did so want 'troi to be Detroit - especially because of Maggomas > being an engineering type. But that really doesn't work - it's much > too far away from the area, and also it would I assume be much colder > there. They seem to imply that the climate is relatively warmer in > the holdfast than say up in the area of the Pool Towns where they > have maple trees (and get syrup that is sweeter than sex I think > Salalli said). Actually, all that- climate change, maple sypup (?) and all made me wish I new more about the geography of New England and the Maritime provinces (thinking the river could be the Saint Laurence). I wondered exactly HOW much coast was above the Pool Towns in the woods and what type of forest was below the Bayo Swamps and Breakaway camps... and about all the potential peoples living there. > The sad thing is that I know it shouldn't matter where it is because > it really doesn't have to be anywhere that really exists, but for me > it becomes more real if I can situate it somehow relative to current > geography. I know- but it does start to make it more 'real' in some way if you can make a connection. These are future people from the same place/group, etc. > I have done the same thing when reading Gate to Women's Country (I > figure it is set in California), and I tried to figure out where > Vonarburg's Maerland is relative to Litale and Italy, and why Bethely > is called that (it really makes me think of Bethlehem, but I don't > think that really works for the whole locale either.) Aha- see, I did that too, and I thought it would have to be in Colorado, so that the oppressive polygynous group was in Utah. Since Tepper lived in CO and the SW, I thought it might be there- like Plague of Angels which I was convinced went up and down I25 from Cheyenne through CO to NM. Ah, to be America-centric =/ Anyone stick the Holdfast elsewhere? Misha Bernard Cultural Studies PhD student mbernar1@gmu.edu George Mason University ------------------------- -mmmm! tastes like a scratch world! but it's Bishop Berkeley's Cosmo Mix!- Ursula K. Le Guin "World Making" (1981) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 10:54:09 +1100 From: Kate Orman Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Conqueror's Child To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Julieanne: > IIRC - the original ancestresses were engineered to have diploid > ova - the 'trigger' chemical spliced into the horses triggered > maturation, cell-division and pregnancy similar to hormonal > stimulation. In that way only the first daughter generation would > have been unique like Rose's daughter above - all generations after > that would have been close enough to identical apart from random > mutation in the developing embryo. You recall correctly - from p 60 in my copy of "Motherlines": "The lab men didn't want to have to work with all the traits of both a male and female parent, so they fixed the women to make seed with a double set of traits. That way their offspring were daughters just like their mothers - if they didn't die right away of bad traits in double doses." (Nenisi) How this must have worked: The initial mothers had normal ova, with half of each pair of their chromosomes. Then these ova were somehow altered so that each half of a pair was copied, creating pairs of identical chromosomes. Normally the other half of each pair would have been provided by a sperm, so in a sense, the eggs fertilised themselves. Some genes were also added to these special eggs which would allow the daughters to do the self-fertilising trick without help from the lab. Since the chromosomes in each pair are now identical, the daughters can only produce more copies of themselves. My guess is that sperm trigger the self-fertilising process - once a sperm begins to penetrate, the egg kills it, and copies its own chromosomes. In the original mothers, any nasty recessive genes lurking on one chromosome in a pair would have been masked by the working version of that gene on the other chromosome. But some unlucky daughters would have got a double dose of that recessive gene when the egg fertilised itself. Without any working copy of the gene, that daughter would die, probably well before birth. > Being diploid, they would not have been able to conceive by men > either - it would no longer work the old-fashioned way. Its > possible that some of the lines which had died out, had 'reverted' > to the wild-type haploid ova production - but with no males, they > could no longer conceive? That's a good theory - that the lines which died out somehow lost the ability to fertilise themselves. Without men around, their daughters would have effectively been sterile. > Clone reproduction is well-known to be detrimental over time, the > 'photocopy effect' is one problem - like a photocopy of a > photocopy of a photocopy etc - with each generation, some > information is lost [...] I think you've probably put your finger on the mechanism there. > Diploid reproductive cells tend to double-dose bad genes as well as > good ones - the original researchers were only interested in > double-dosing of genes for telepathy I *think* - it didn't matter > to them that other bad genes were also being double-dosed in their > laboratory specimens. Perhaps that explains Nenisi's aching teeth! Mind you, by definition, the daughters can't have had a double dose of any lethal recessive genes. Here's a diagram of meiosis (egg/sperm production) online: http://www.biology.arizona.edu/cell_bio/tutorials/meiosis/page3.html Maire, your skepticism is wise. But incredibly, apparently pigs *do* have corkscrew shaped penes! See: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_060.html http://cal.vet.upenn.edu/swine/abc.html (My mind completely boggles. Aren't the Riding Women lucky they have horses instead of hogs? :-) Kate Orman http://www.zip.com.au/~korman/ "I am a very silly person, really." - Equinox the Surrealist ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 05:05:28 EST From: Maire Shanahan Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Conqueror's Child To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Thanks I checked out the meiosis site. It took me back to uni, the endless drawing of those little X shapes, telophase etc. I had to draw cell division many times- so why it is that I don't know about the genetic diversity of gametes is beyond me. So, when the homologous chromosomes are pulled to either end of the cell on the spindle fibres (I remember that much) it's random whether it's the chromosome from the Mum or the dad that gets pulled to each end? So say, when the cell splits into 2, in one daughter cell, it might have got the Dad's nose gene (simplifying) and the Mum's hair gene, in the other the Mum's nose gene and the Dad's hair gene. And in another meiotic division, one daughter cell might get both Mum's nose and hair chromosome, and the other daughter cell get Dad's nose and hair. Is this right? Please, someone help me!!! Maire ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 09:26:46 +1100 From: Kate Orman Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Conqueror's Child To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > Thanks I checked out the meiosis site. It took me back to uni , the endless > drawing of those little X shapes, telophase etc. I had to draw cell division > many times- so why it is that I don't know about the genetic diversity of > gametes os beyond me e. Meiosis II still messes with my head. I mean, *why*? :-) > So, when the homologous chromosomes are pulled to either end of > the cell on the spindle fibres (I remember that much) it's random > whether it's the chromosome from the Mum or the dad that gets > pulled to each end? Yep, you got it! Kate Orman http://www.zip.com.au/~korman/ "I am a very silly person, really." - Equinox the Surrealist ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 14:19:52 -0500 From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Conqueror's Child To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU At 07:49 AM 2/15/01 -0500, Rose Reith wrote: >I spent a lot of time last night thinking about [...] what >a lout Servan d Layo is, and wondering if part of the problem with >these books is the authors seemingly blanket assumption that most men >would just love to lord it over their fellow men and all the women. >Are decent men that hard to come by? And would the men really become >so openly vile if the world as we knew it ended and they had control >over starting a new culture... if you can even call it that? Well, the first book, which set the stage for all the others, was a satire. Charnas was writing an extreme inversion of the "Nixonian ethos" of the time, and that involved pushing sexism to its limit. What's so depressing, though, is that it doesn't take too much work for me to imagine the conditions in the Holdfast becoming reality. Two words: the Taliban. I don't think that Charnas is making an essentialist argument, that men would do this and women would do this, etc. If she were, men would not be able to change enough to fit into the new Holdfast. At the end of *The Conqueror's Child* people like Payder look to be the model of the "new man"; they've realized that they have no investment in the old ways and are moving on. I see Charnas' stance to be very much skewed toward nurture, rather than nature, at least as far as sex roles are concerned. She is just realistic about how hard it can be to shed behaviors and thought patterns that are deeply ingrained. The reason it is relatively easier for the fems is that their lives as slaves forced them to be more aware of the range of human behavior and psychology; they had to know the oppressors intimately in order to survive. By the same token, the "junior" men have to know the "seniors"; d Layo is a master at manipulating these older guys in *Walk to the End of the World*. So we know that men are capable of insight. It's just that fems, being further down the totem pole, don't register for them. That's why the power structure needs to be totally upset to start over again. This leads me to a question I've been pondering. At the end of the book Alldera says that killing d Layo was a task for Eykar and Galligan, that they must take it upon themselves to draw the line between what a man may and may not do and still be called a man. But... the drama in which this line was drawn was in some ways a stereotypical jealous rage. Galligan, seeing his woman done wrong, whipped d Layo's butt. Of course, with all his conditioning telling him that feeling love for a fem was wrong and perverted, Galligan was taking a pretty big step. But something still feels a little weird about Allldera's comment. Haven't men in the Holdfast always policed themselves? The difference is in viewing fems as equal players in the polity. Ha ha. I just inserted my Microsoft Bookshelf CD and this very appropriate quotation popped up: Whom do we dub as Gentleman? The Knave, the fool, the brute -- If they but own full tithe of gold, and Wear a courtly suit. -- Eliza Cook, (1818-89) That may be the answer to my question. That men in the old Holdfast could overlook any lapse in morality as long as the offender was powerful enough. Hierarchy is the root of their evil. By the end of the book, at least, the fems seem to have avoided this evil, if by the skin of their teeth. Alldera's refusal to stay in the Holdfast and "do everything" helps. She doesn't want to be an authority. And things are looking promising for the people she is leaving behind. Not happily ever after, maybe. But without the "ladder" of social status that Alldera mentions, the future is a lot more hopeful. Did I mention that I love these books? :-) ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT Feminist SF Posting Archive at: http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/femsf-index.htm Listening to: Badly Drawn Boy -- The Hour of Bewilderbeast "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 16:42:52 EST From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Conqueror's Child To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU In a message dated 2/19/01 2:18:46 PM, jdawley@IMPOP.BELLATLANTIC.NET writes: << What's so depressing, though, is that it doesn't take too much work for me to imagine the conditions in the Holdfast becoming reality. Two words: the Taliban. >> And two others: Christian Right. best, phoebe w ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 17:28:08 -0600 From: Robin Reid Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Conqueror's Child To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU At 04:42 PM 02/19/2001 -0500, you wrote: >In a message dated 2/19/01 2:18:46 PM, jdawley@IMPOP.BELLATLANTIC.NET writes: > ><< What's so depressing, >though, is that it doesn't take too much work for me to imagine the >conditions in the Holdfast becoming reality. Two words: the Taliban. >> > >And two others: Christian Right. > >best, >phoebe w And a third -- a book featured in the DALLAS PAPER Sunday session, "The Suppressed Wife" written by a woman claiming this is how to save your marriage--never criticize and give him control over all the money! Robin ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 15:21:26 -0500 From: Misha Bernard Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Conqueror's Child To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU On Mon, 19 Feb 2001, Janice E. Dawley wrote: > This leads me to a question I've been pondering. At the end of the book > Alldera says that killing d Layo was a task for Eykar and Galligan, that > they must take it upon themselves to draw the line between what a man may > and may not do and still be called a man. But... the drama in which this > line was drawn was in some ways a stereotypical jealous rage. Galligan, > seeing his woman done wrong, whipped d Layo's butt. Of course, with all his > conditioning telling him that feeling love for a fem was wrong and > perverted, Galligan was taking a pretty big step. But something still feels > a little weird about Allldera's comment. Haven't men in the Holdfast always > policed themselves? The difference is in viewing fems as equal players in > the polity. I took that the men had to decide for themselves what it meant to be a man slightly differently- though when I first read it, I thought UGH. However, thinking about it, what I see Charnas doing is showing that men have to (and be allowed to) make up their own minds about what is appropriate behavior (as should any group forming a society of equals). Thought about this way- and with what Janice said below- the women can't force the Holdfast men into a new mold, but the men have to choose that being men means being equal with women, not out for violence, etc. [snip] > That may be the answer to my question. That men in the old Holdfast could > overlook any lapse in morality as long as the offender was powerful enough. > Hierarchy is the root of their evil. By the end of the book, at least, the > fems seem to have avoided this evil, if by the skin of their teeth. > Alldera's refusal to stay in the Holdfast and "do everything" helps. She > doesn't want to be an authority. And things are looking promising for the > people she is leaving behind. Not happily ever after, maybe. But without > the "ladder" of social status that Alldera mentions, the future is a lot > more hopeful. I think this last bit is very important: everyone making their own choices in the group(s). It's also very difficult, and something other femSF deals with. When there's no leader with what might be taken as "the right answer" there's no place to fall back. The men- not only Galligan and Eykar killing d'Layo, but all the ones who requested to be sponsored or killed themselves- had to make a choice about what type of society they would participate in and the women had to make choices about sharing. Misha Bernard Cultural Studies PhD student mbernar1@gmu.edu George Mason University ------------------------- -mmmm! tastes like a scratch world! but it's Bishop Berkeley's Cosmo Mix!- Ursula K. Le Guin "World Making" (1981) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 23:29:11 -0500 From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Conqueror's Child -- Religion To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU At 04:42 PM 2/19/01 -0500, Phoebe Wray wrote: >In a message dated 2/19/01 2:18:46 PM, J. Dawley writes: > ><< What's so depressing, >though, is that it doesn't take too much work for me to imagine the >conditions in the Holdfast becoming reality. Two words: the Taliban. >> > >And two others: Christian Right. I know we've begun discussing *The Terrorists of Irustan*, but this response made me think about the issue of religion in the Holdfast series, so I decided to throw out one more post. And, given my sense of *The Terrorists of Irustan*, it may be appropriate in that context as well. Religion doesn't look good in *The Conqueror's Child*. Alldera, the person in the series who most deserves the designation of protagonist, is deeply suspicious of most metaphysical ideas. The men of the old Holdfast used a much-mutated version of Christianity to enforce their social order, and the results were deadly for fems. Rather than turning the tables with the Moonwoman cult, as so many other fems do, she rejects the new faith as well. To her, it's just more counterproductive superstition. As it was portrayed, it seemed that way to me too. The only spirituality I felt was authentic was the wacked out mythology of Setteo, who at times seemed to be genuinely tapping in to supernatural insight. But even that was perverted by the members of the Bear Cult in *The Conqueror's Child*. All in all, religion comes across as a regrettable tendency of humanity that is too often used as an excuse to engage in abominable behavior. I'm largely in agreement on that score, and have to admit that I felt a stab of satisfaction when Beyarra and Eykar burned the remaining Bibles (not that I would do it in real life -- but hey, this is science fiction!), but it did strike me as a little strange that Alldera, given her upbringing and life-experiences, was such an atheist. I have the impression that atheism is pretty rare in the overall scheme of things, and even more so in stressful environments. How did others feel about this issue? Was spirituality given short shrift? -- Janice, moving on to *The Terrorists of Irustan* once I finish the 2nd book in Dorothy Dunnett's "Lymond Chronicles" (it has occurred to me that if Servan and Eykar were fused in a transporter accident, Lymond might be the result) ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/ Listening to: Gomez -- Liquid Skin "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas ========================================================================= Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Conqueror's Child -- Religion Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 10:14:28 EST From: Phoebe Wray To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU In a message dated 3/6/01 2:05:53 AM, jdawley@IMPOP.BELLATLANTIC.NET writes: << Religion doesn't look good in *The Conqueror's Child*. Alldera, the person in the series who most deserves the designation of protagonist, is deeply suspicious of most metaphysical ideas. >> I would agree with this. But then, why not? As you note, the Holdfast men used a religion that smacks of the Christian patriarchy, cubed and distorted. But this made sense to me, Alldera's rejection that is. Seems to me many women have rejected and are rejecting the excesses of the patriarchal religions. Some then search in the other direction - towards the goddess. But that doesn't work for all, who then become suspended between a need and a vacuum. Alldera's lack of spirituality, if you will, didn't bother me. The women needed to DO things for themselves, out of their own strengths. In their situation, it was more prudent to trust themselves than a unseen Host (or Hostess). I loved this series. Couldn't read fast enough. best, phoebe w