*sigh*

[rm]

ktempest links to and quotes from a series of discussions on SF/F that should make your blood boil.

I don't really have time to form a response right now, in part because I am so enraged and in part because the stuff she points to strikes so closely and dangerously near the heart of really pressing things for me (and I would hope everyone, but I also know that isn't necessarily the case).

Where are the female Beethoven's? Sewing and breeding and doing as they're told, even right now. Because it's safer for peopel in general and women in particular. Women, in particular whow ould have to be in most cases twice as good as Bethoven to get half as much notice. to be, in fact "the female Beethoven." The quote goes on to say that women, by and large can't achieve the highs and lows of men, that it is not, apparently, by and large, in our characters.

Fuck you. The idea that men of great accomplishment are not as much shocking exceptions as the women galls me. The forgetfulness on the part of the posters ktempest cites that throughout history women have largely lacked the tools (physical and intellectual training, access, wealth) to do be something beyond the narrow circles that were granted them -- appalling. ANd of course, it omits those strange characters of history who knew that as women their lives had limits they didn't want -- La Maupin, Dr. John Barry, and the records we have of dozens if not hundreds of women who disguised themselves as men to go to war (interestingly, most records of American women who did this indicate that the women in question were following or looking for their spouses, brothers or other family members during the civil war; most European records we have of the same involve, it seems, little more than a bid for freedom or adventure or a desire to fight -- that is to say they were fleeing domesticity, rather than looking to reclaim it). Of course, all this also leaves out stuff like the women of the army Air Corp in WWII. Women have, throughout history been undocumented and straightjacketed, but not nothing, not weak, not lacking in imagination, fortitude, or genius (Marie Curie anyone?). Goddamn.

The thread goes on into some insane things about race as well, that are equally appalling and drive me crazy because the book I am writing is not a white white place, but I am also aware that I have been refraining thus far from teh describing the characters much physically because of the "Blaise Zabini factor" -- which is to say, I'm not sure if I want to fuck with people and their assummptions halfway through or if I'm dreading what happens the moment I do, even if it's on page 8.

Comments

[baronalejandro.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe I read into something that wasn't there, or maybe I just plain misread. Sometimes my comprehension, she ain't so good. :-)

I've studied the biology of it, at least in the fencing realm. Some of my research shows that in some ways, women are *more* suited biologically to fencing than men are (things having to do with lower body strength ratios and regulation of heat). I don't think anybody can disagree that there are differences, but only fools thing that those differences 'predispose' one gender over another in 99.9% of all activities.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Sure, again, it's the irrelevance I'm being freaked out by here, not what you're actually saying (all of which is reasonable). The issue in the discusstions that ktempest links to is that it is not a particular discussion of one particular field of endeavor, but an assertion that women simply to not achieve the highs (there is no female Einstein) and lows (there is no female Hitler) of huamn achievement/experience that men do. In any/every realm. That's SCARY.

As to fencing, as it's a digression I appreciate, I think we definitely have an advantage with French technique, because I watch a lot of guys struggle with not using physical force as their main tool with it over and over, and if they can't resist that urge, they should be doing Italian. And yeah, some people have a hell of a time hitting me just because of where I am in relation to them and the fact that they are unused to it. So once I can hit them reliably, they have a real problem.