tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5360814020056871156.post4673634396485329672..comments2024-03-03T13:55:46.243-08:00Comments on Ambling Along the Aqueduct: The Resurgence of Feminist Science FictionTimmi Duchamphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00673465487533328661noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5360814020056871156.post-82989633876296457252007-05-27T04:56:00.000-07:002007-05-27T04:56:00.000-07:00I've just come across something interesting regard...I've just come across <A HREF="http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/15women.html#mccormick" REL="nofollow">something interesting</A> regarding the connection between the birth control pill, politics and economics...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5360814020056871156.post-58255781436626344072007-05-12T11:44:00.000-07:002007-05-12T11:44:00.000-07:00I've been thinking about these issues lately - and...I've been thinking about these issues lately - and not just because of the SF literature I've read, but because of changes in the real world.<BR/><BR/>I believe that science and technology drive social progress. There was the birth-control pill of course, and technology freed women from the daily drudgery of fetching water.<BR/><BR/>The biggest agent of social change in the foreseeable future will be cloning. SF writers must take seriously the possibility that societies might emerge where women can reproduce without men.<BR/><BR/>(Get this: scientists are about to try and create artificial sperm from women's stem-cells. If this works -- and so far, it doesn't seem impossible -- it would mean, in effect, all-female reproduction.)<BR/><BR/>Here SF literature has a unique historical opportunity: to speculate in advance about a social revolution that would dwarf <I>everything</I> we've seen before.<BR/><BR/>With such prospects for the future, it becomes virtually impossible NOT to deal with feminist issues in science fiction.A.R.Yngvehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03972668378286177600noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5360814020056871156.post-2030987629742122022007-05-05T07:49:00.000-07:002007-05-05T07:49:00.000-07:00As a species we seem to be very bad at remembering...As a species we seem to be very bad at remembering history of any kind. I suspect this is partly due to our short life span. This is particularly obvious in the U.S., where we seem to always want to put everything behind us and move forward as if the world is new everyday. And when we do remember it, it ritualized in some way: for example, my great-great uncles fought for the South and therefore I am supposed to remain loyal to the Confederacy, despite such obvious evils as slavery. We want the tie to our ancestry, but we don't want to understand what really happened back then.<BR/>As you say, the Pill is technology -- though technology that would not have been possible without underlying scientific research. You make an important point about control of the technology -- in fact, that is the core of the whole debate over birth control, of which the abortion question is only the most visible.Nancy Jane Moorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01030267999537291250noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5360814020056871156.post-29108129483511730222007-05-02T12:31:00.000-07:002007-05-02T12:31:00.000-07:00One thing we frequently forget about feminism is h...One thing we frequently forget about feminism is how much of it <I>we've forgotten</I>.<BR/><BR/>And how many advances in women's rights were deliberately crushed by men over the centuries.<BR/><BR/>And speaking of Joanna Russ -- have you read her essay, "SF and Technology as Mystification"?<BR/><BR/>The Pill is not science. It is technology. Its value for women is indissociable from the socio-economic factors that regulate its use. Even science, which is a fancy word for knowledge, is bounded by politics, not only in its application but in its acquisition. In what what we can conceive of as areas of knowledge.<BR/><BR/><I>We no longer need to come up with aliens who have different genders -- one or three or half a dozen or none; we can create all these variations for ourselves out of human beings.</I><BR/><BR/>And it is certainly not a new thing to root the concept of gender in biology.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com