Foremothers of Today's Feminist SF (WisCon 31 panel) - Revision history

Lquilter: /* Le Guin */ punctuation

2007-06-05T01:26:49Z

Le Guin: punctuation

Lquilter: title fix

2007-06-05T01:22:43Z

title fix

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:22, 4 June 2007
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	Timmi: I can't either. It's like authors in the [[Second Wave\|2nd wave]] and authors who "rediscovered" women's history. It's a kind of revision that you don't see very often.		Timmi: I can't either. It's like authors in the [[Second Wave\|2nd wave]] and authors who "rediscovered" women's history. It's a kind of revision that you don't see very often.

	aud: ''[[Tales of Earthsea]]''?		aud: ''[[Tales from Earthsea]]''?

	Jeanne: It starts with ''[[Tehanu]]''. It's the first time we see that world from that perspective		Jeanne: It starts with ''[[Tehanu]]''. It's the first time we see that world from that perspective

Lquilter: /* Le Guin */

2007-06-05T01:20:46Z

Le Guin

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:20, 4 June 2007
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	duchamp: my reaction to Le Guin was very similar to yours (Lynn's) but I came to appreciate her later. I didn't think of her as a real feminist until her later work. And also reading her essays.		duchamp: my reaction to Le Guin was very similar to yours (Lynn's) but I came to appreciate her later. I didn't think of her as a real feminist until her later work. And also reading her essays.

	[[Lesley Hall]]; I realized that it was reading LHoD that got me into science fiction. I read everything growing up including my brother's [[comic books]]. This would have been early 70s. One of the [[Earthsea series\|Earthsea books]] had just won something. I was looking for [[Doris Lessing]]. There on the shelf was [[The Left Hand of Darkness\|LHoD]] and I picked it up and read it and by saying it's not a feminist book you're going too far but it's certainly not a manly book about hard manly objects hurtling into nothingness. laughter BANG SPLAT! It's about people in situations creating bonds between one another and if that's not a subversive act I'm not sure what is. What you say about Le Guin writing male identfied plots that is to some extent a historical artifact and [[Naomi Mitchison]] was writing plots which placed women at the center, and some of them were SF, and I'm wondering if there were different British and North American traditions here. A long tradition here of people of both sexes being able to write spec fic which was not regarded as a degraded genre. Hi [[Virginia]]! How is ''[[Orlando]]'' doing! So there is a ~~tradiiton~~ there. And [[Doris Lessing]] riffing off that as much as anything else. She and Mitchison were in the [[Soviet Union]] sharing a hotel room and I would love to hear the KGB tapes of their conversations. There ARE roots but they keep being [[women's history forgotten\|forgotten]], they are not known about, they are overpassed. We also in the united states have this movement from modernism on trashing women's rights. That didn't happen in Britain. Women writing were considered exceptional . . . Ursula herself told me in march . . . I wanted to ask her about her switch. My question was . . . about her switch. From the [[James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon\|Julie Philllips bio]]. I said what made the difference? What happened with you? "My audience changed. I saw my audience differently. In the mid 70s when feminist sf was really flowering. The audience began to include women."		[[Lesley Hall]]; I realized that it was reading LHoD that got me into science fiction. I read everything growing up including my brother's [[comic books]]. This would have been early 70s. One of the [[Earthsea series\|Earthsea books]] had just won something. I was looking for [[Doris Lessing]]. There on the shelf was [[The Left Hand of Darkness\|LHoD]] and I picked it up and read it and by saying it's not a feminist book you're going too far but it's certainly not a manly book about hard manly objects hurtling into nothingness. laughter BANG SPLAT! It's about people in situations creating bonds between one another and if that's not a subversive act I'm not sure what is. What you say about Le Guin writing male identfied plots that is to some extent a historical artifact and [[Naomi Mitchison]] was writing plots which placed women at the center, and some of them were SF, and I'm wondering if there were different British and North American traditions here. A long tradition here of people of both sexes being able to write spec fic which was not regarded as a degraded genre. Hi [[Virginia Woolf\|Virginia]]! How is ''[[Orlando]]'' doing! So there is a tradition there. And [[Doris Lessing]] riffing off that as much as anything else. She and Mitchison were in the [[Soviet Union]] sharing a hotel room and I would love to hear the KGB tapes of their conversations. There ARE roots but they keep being [[women's history forgotten\|forgotten]], they are not known about, they are overpassed. We also in the united states have this movement from modernism on trashing women's rights. That didn't happen in Britain. Women writing were considered exceptional . . . Ursula herself told me in march . . . I wanted to ask her about her switch. My question was . . . about her switch. From the [[James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon\|Julie Philllips bio]]. I said what made the difference? What happened with you? "My audience changed. I saw my audience differently. In the mid 70s when feminist sf was really flowering. The audience began to include women."

	===other writers & their problems===		===other writers & their problems===

Lquilter: /* Le Guin */ more

2007-06-05T01:07:14Z

Le Guin: more

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:07, 4 June 2007
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	Jeanne: She wrote it three ways: he, she, and ambiguous. And it shows Le Guin's willingness to revisit her own fiction. The [[Earthsea]] world, she goes back to that world and walks around and had been there looking from a mountaintop but she goes back and looks at it from the kitchen and says why aren't there any women sorcerers and what historical events would have led to that? I created this world not thinking about it and there are now several women who were affected by the real history. I can't think of many authors who would do that.		Jeanne: She wrote it three ways: he, she, and ambiguous. And it shows Le Guin's willingness to revisit her own fiction. The [[Earthsea]] world, she goes back to that world and walks around and had been there looking from a mountaintop but she goes back and looks at it from the kitchen and says why aren't there any women sorcerers and what historical events would have led to that? I created this world not thinking about it and there are now several women who were affected by the real history. I can't think of many authors who would do that.

	Timmi: I can't either. It's like authors in the 2nd wave and authors who "rediscovered" women's history. It's a kind of revision that you don't see very often.		Timmi: I can't either. It's like authors in the [[Second Wave\|2nd wave]] and authors who "rediscovered" women's history. It's a kind of revision that you don't see very often.

	aud: ''[[Tales of Earthsea]]''?		aud: ''[[Tales of Earthsea]]''?
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	Jeanne: It starts with ''[[Tehanu]]''. It's the first time we see that world from that perspective		Jeanne: It starts with ''[[Tehanu]]''. It's the first time we see that world from that perspective

	[[Lynn Kendall]]: I had a problem with her when I first read it. She writes gorgeous prose. but I was much more on the [[Joanna Russ]] axis of the spectrum. Having read and reread and annotated The Female ~~man~~. And the first few chapters of LHoD put me off bc thery're so sexist! She started out as a very male identified woman. All the protagonists are men. It is all about people doing public acts. That sledge journey .. no sense of domestic, private life, except the sledge journey. Great if you like arctic exploration. This is not going to be particularly feminist or revolutionary but the worlds are complementary. [[Joanna Russ]] and Le Guin [[communitarian]] sense of politics. [[Whileaway]] and the Hearth. What I love about Le Guin other than that utterly lovely liquid prose is the willingness to go back and change. She was born in [[1929]]! She's 5 years older than my mother. She started out in the best of the patriarchy. A loving mother, a loving father, a great education, Ivy League patrician of the Berkeley hills. She has described herself as a princess. It left her whole in a lot of ways, but also blind in a lot of ways.		[[Lynn Kendall]]: I had a problem with her when I first read it. She writes gorgeous prose. but I was much more on the [[Joanna Russ]] axis of the spectrum. Having read and reread and annotated ''[[The Female Man]]''. And the first few chapters of LHoD put me off bc thery're so sexist! She started out as a very [[male-identified woman]]. All the protagonists are men. It is all about people doing public acts. That sledge journey .. no sense of domestic, private life, except the sledge journey. Great if you like arctic exploration. This is not going to be particularly feminist or revolutionary but the worlds are complementary. [[Joanna Russ]] and Le Guin [[communitarian]] sense of politics. [[Whileaway]] and the Hearth. What I love about Le Guin other than that utterly lovely liquid prose is the willingness to go back and change. She was born in [[1929]]! She's 5 years older than my mother. She started out in the best of the patriarchy. A loving mother, a loving father, a great education, Ivy League patrician of the Berkeley hills. She has described herself as a princess. It left her whole in a lot of ways, but also blind in a lot of ways.

	aud: quoted as saying "All I know is housework" so she didn't want to write about it.		aud: quoted as saying "All I know is housework" so she didn't want to write about it.

Lquilter: links, typos

2007-06-05T00:51:13Z

links, typos

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:51, 4 June 2007
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	Reading, Viewing, and Critiquing SF&F•Caucus Room• Saturday, 1:00-2:15 p.m.		Reading, Viewing, and Critiquing SF&F•Caucus Room• Saturday, 1:00-2:15 p.m.

	The Left Hand of Darkness broke ground when it was written, but to readers today who missed that period in history, it might seem gender-biased. Compare the original Earthsea trilogy to Tehanu, written later. Not only Le Guin's opinions changed, but the world in which she was writing had changed as well. What makes the feminist speculative fiction of today different from that of "First Wave" feminist sf? How do new readers see fiction from the "First Wave" and later? And is it important that they have a grounding in the genre's history?		The ''[[Left Hand of Darkness]]'' broke ground when it was written, but to readers today who missed that period in history, it might seem gender-biased. Compare the original [[Earthsea trilogy]] to ''[[Tehanu]]'', written later. Not only [[Ursula K. Le Guin\|Le Guin]]'s opinions changed, but the world in which she was writing had changed as well. What makes the feminist speculative fiction of today different from that of "[[First Wave]]" feminist sf? How do new readers see fiction from the "First Wave" and later? And is it important that they have a grounding in the genre's history?

	M: L. Timmel Duchamp, Jeanne Gomoll, Lesley Hall, Lynn Kendall, Laura J. Mixon		M: [[L. Timmel Duchamp]], [[Jeanne Gomoll]], [[Lesley Hall]], [[Lynn Kendall]], [[Laura J. Mixon]]

	==Transcript by Liz Henry==		==Transcript by Liz Henry==

Lquilter: /* Transcript by Liz Henry */

2007-06-05T00:49:23Z

Transcript by Liz Henry

Show changes

Lquilter: links & typos

2007-06-05T00:37:04Z

links & typos

Show changes

Debbie at 23:45, 4 June 2007

2007-06-04T23:45:35Z

Show changes

Lquilter: notes

2007-05-31T00:49:47Z

notes

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:49, 30 May 2007
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	M: L. Timmel Duchamp, Jeanne Gomoll, Lesley Hall, Lynn Kendall, Laura J. Mixon		M: L. Timmel Duchamp, Jeanne Gomoll, Lesley Hall, Lynn Kendall, Laura J. Mixon

			==Transcript by Liz Henry==
	Transcript by Liz Henry

	Feminist Foremothers panel Sat. 1pm		Feminist Foremothers panel Sat. 1pm

Liz Henry: added transcript

2007-05-30T23:52:31Z

added transcript

Show changes

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:26, 4 June 2007
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	[[Jeanne Gomoll]]: When I came into SF it was great just to have a woman astrogator. Now we have higher expectations. LHoD . Now expectations are different. People pointing out that thought people dont have gender they're always referred to as "he" and the story is still about men. [[Ursula K. Le Guin\|Le Guin]] was resistent to that and she came around and went through the whole book ... or a chapter... and rewrote it. In the back of the new version you can see.		[[Jeanne Gomoll]]: When I came into SF it was great just to have a woman astrogator. Now we have higher expectations. LHoD . Now expectations are different. People pointing out that thought people dont have gender they're always referred to as "he" and the story is still about men. [[Ursula K. Le Guin\|Le Guin]] was resistent to that and she came around and went through the whole book ... or a chapter... and rewrote it. In the back of the new version you can see.

	Timmi: She wrote an essay defending "he" as being [[gender neutral]] and years later she revisited that essay and inserted her comments on that criticism and decided that no, "he "is not gender neutral.		Timmi: She wrote an essay defending "he" as being [[gender neutral]] and years later she revisited that essay and inserted her comments on that criticism and decided that no, "he" is not gender neutral.

	Jeanne: She wrote it three ways: he, she, and ambiguous. And it shows Le Guin's willingness to revisit her own fiction. The [[Earthsea]] world, she goes back to that world and walks around and had been there looking from a mountaintop but she goes back and looks at it from the kitchen and says why aren't there any women sorcerers and what historical events would have led to that? I created this world not thinking about it and there are now several women who were affected by the real history. I can't think of many authors who would do that.		Jeanne: She wrote it three ways: he, she, and ambiguous. And it shows Le Guin's willingness to revisit her own fiction. The [[Earthsea]] world, she goes back to that world and walks around and had been there looking from a mountaintop but she goes back and looks at it from the kitchen and says why aren't there any women sorcerers and what historical events would have led to that? I created this world not thinking about it and there are now several women who were affected by the real history. I can't think of many authors who would do that.

	Timmi: I can't either. It's like authors in the [[Second Wave\|2nd wave]] and authors who "rediscovered" women's history. It's a kind of revision that you don't see very often.		Timmi: I can't either. It's like authors in the [[Second Wave\|2nd wave]] and authors who "rediscovered" women's history. It's a kind of [[retellings\|revision]] that you don't see very often.

	aud: ''[[Tales from Earthsea]]''?		aud: ''[[Tales from Earthsea]]''?

	Jeanne: It starts with ''[[Tehanu]]''. It's the first time we see that world from that perspective		Jeanne: It starts with ''[[Tehanu]]''. It's the first time we see that world from that perspective.

	[[Lynn Kendall]]: I had a problem with her when I first read it. She writes gorgeous prose. but I was much more on the [[Joanna Russ]] axis of the spectrum~~. Having~~ read and reread and annotated ''[[The Female Man]]''. And the first few chapters of LHoD put me off ~~bc thery~~'re so sexist! She started out as a very [[male-identified woman]]. All the protagonists are men. It is all about people doing public acts. That sledge journey .. no sense of domestic, private life, except the sledge journey. Great if you like ~~arctic~~ exploration. This is not going to be particularly feminist or revolutionary but the worlds are complementary. [[Joanna Russ]] and Le Guin [[communitarian]] sense of politics. [[Whileaway]] and the Hearth. What I love about Le Guin other than that utterly lovely liquid prose is the willingness to go back and change. She was born in [[1929]]! She's 5 years older than my mother. She started out in the best of the patriarchy. A loving mother, a loving father, a great education, Ivy League patrician of the Berkeley hills. She has described herself as a princess. It left her whole in a lot of ways, but also blind in a lot of ways.		[[Lynn Kendall]]: I had a problem with her when I first read it. She writes gorgeous prose, but I was much more on the [[Joanna Russ]] axis of the spectrum, having read and reread and annotated ''[[The Female Man]]''. And the first few chapters of LHoD put me off because they're so sexist! She started out as a very [[male-identified woman]]. All the protagonists are men. It is all about people doing public acts. That sledge journey ... no sense of domestic, private life, except the sledge journey. Great if you like Arctic exploration. This is not going to be particularly feminist or [[revolutionary]] but the worlds are complementary. [[Joanna Russ]] and Le Guin [[communitarian]] sense of politics. [[Whileaway]] and the Hearth. What I love about Le Guin other than that utterly lovely liquid prose is the willingness to go back and change. She was born in [[1929]]! She's 5 years older than my mother. She started out in the best of the patriarchy. A loving mother, a loving father, a great education, Ivy League patrician of the Berkeley hills. She has described herself as a princess. It left her whole in a lot of ways, but also blind in a lot of ways.

	aud: quoted as saying "All I know is housework" so she didn't want to write about it.		aud: quoted as saying "All I know is housework" so she didn't want to write about it.
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	gomoll: in fisher... acceptable plots are all about men fighting each other.		gomoll: in fisher... acceptable plots are all about men fighting each other.

	duchamp: my reaction to Le Guin was very similar to yours (Lynn's) but I came to appreciate her later. I didn't think of her as a real feminist until her later work. And also reading her essays.		duchamp: My reaction to Le Guin was very similar to yours (Lynn's) but I came to appreciate her later. I didn't think of her as a real feminist until her later work. And also reading her essays.

	[[Lesley Hall]]; I realized that it was reading LHoD that got me into science fiction. I read everything growing up including my brother's [[comic books]]. This would have been early 70s. One of the [[Earthsea series\|Earthsea books]] had just won something. I was looking for [[Doris Lessing]]. There on the shelf was [[The Left Hand of Darkness\|LHoD]] and I picked it up and read it and by saying it's not a feminist book you're going too far but it's certainly not a manly book about hard manly objects hurtling into nothingness. laughter BANG SPLAT! It's about people in situations creating bonds between one another and if that's not a subversive act I'm not sure what is. What you say about Le Guin writing male identfied plots that is to some extent a historical artifact ~~and~~ [[Naomi Mitchison]] was writing plots which placed women at the center, and some of them were SF, and I'm wondering if there were different British and North American traditions here. A long tradition here of people of both sexes being able to write spec fic which was not regarded as a degraded genre. Hi [[Virginia Woolf\|Virginia]]! How is ''[[Orlando]]'' doing! So there is a tradition there. And [[Doris Lessing]] riffing off that as much as anything else. She and Mitchison were in the [[Soviet Union]] sharing a hotel room and I would love to hear the KGB tapes of their conversations. There ARE roots but they keep being [[women's history forgotten\|forgotten]], they are not known about, they are overpassed. We also in the united states have this movement from modernism on trashing women's rights. That didn't happen in Britain. Women writing were considered exceptional . . . Ursula herself told me in march . . . I wanted to ask her about her switch. My question was . . . about her switch. From the [[James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon\|Julie Philllips bio]]. I said what made the difference? What happened with you? "My audience changed. I saw my audience differently. In the mid 70s when feminist sf was really flowering. The audience began to include women."		[[Lesley Hall]]; I realized that it was reading LHoD that got me into science fiction. I read everything growing up including my brother's [[comic books]]. This would have been early 70s. One of the [[Earthsea series\|Earthsea books]] had just won something. I was looking for [[Doris Lessing]]. There on the shelf was [[The Left Hand of Darkness\|LHoD]] and I picked it up and read it and by saying it's not a feminist book you're going too far but it's certainly not a manly book about hard manly objects hurtling into nothingness. laughter BANG SPLAT! It's about people in situations creating bonds between one another and if that's not a subversive act I'm not sure what is. What you say about Le Guin writing male identfied plots that is to some extent a historical artifact. And [[Naomi Mitchison]] was writing plots which placed women at the center, and some of them were SF, and I'm wondering if there were different British and North American traditions here. A long tradition here of people of both sexes being able to write spec fic which was not regarded as a degraded genre. Hi [[Virginia Woolf\|Virginia]]! How is ''[[Orlando]]'' doing! So there is a tradition there. And [[Doris Lessing]] riffing off that as much as anything else. She and Mitchison were in the [[Soviet Union]] sharing a hotel room and I would love to hear the KGB tapes of their conversations. There ARE roots but they keep being [[women's history forgotten\|forgotten]], they are not known about, they are overpassed. We also in the united states have this movement from [[modernism]] on trashing women's rights. That didn't happen in Britain. Women writing were considered exceptional . . . Ursula herself told me in march . . . I wanted to ask her about her switch. My question was . . . about her switch. From the [[James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon\|Julie Philllips bio]]. I said what made the difference? What happened with you? "My audience changed. I saw my audience differently. In the mid 70s when feminist sf was really flowering. The audience began to include women."

	===other writers & their problems===		===other writers & their problems===