399 replies to this topic

[Prince Alexander]

Absolutely agree with you there. I'm all for the old school manners

[Shryke]

sciborg2, on 11 April 2012 - 10:19 AM, said:

My "favorite" part is when someone quotes Handmaiden's Tale to defend Tyrion's treatment of Shae...talk about lack of reading comprehension.

Dear god....


I hope you know you made me reread that thread to see where that happened. You should feel bad about that.

[thistlepong]

Save everyone else and link it?

[Shryke]

OP is about how Tyrion/Shae is an abusive relationship.

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While reading the OP, I kept thinking back to a passage from the Handmaid's Tale:

"My red skirt is hitched up to my waist, though no higher. Below it the Commander is fucking. What he is fucking is the lower part of my body. I do not say making love, because this is not what he's doing. Copulating too would be inaccurate, because it would imply two people and only one is involved. Nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven't signed up for." (page 94)

I don't think anyone in a modern context would condone their relationship, but Shae knew exactly what she was signing up for.

[Grack21]

MY BRAIN *scanner head explosion*

[kalbear]

Heh. When people can misread the Handmaid's Tale as a story about authoritarian success and use that as a reason that Shae got what she did, folks like Bakker? They're totally fucked.

[kalbear]

Also, this by Kate Elliott seems relevant.

[Sci-2]

Kalbear, on 11 April 2012 - 11:14 PM, said:

Also, this by Kate Elliott seems relevant.

This was good, as she parsed out exploitation vs. honest examination. These can of course overlap, intentionally or unintentionally, as we have with Bakker (IMO) unintentionally fumbling with his critique.

We'll see though, after TUC he did say he would be more open about what he was trying to do...

[Grack21]

You lost me. What did Bakker do now?

[Sci-2]

Bakker's books contain an intentional feminist subtext that is, as I understand it, supposed to raised important questions about gender and sex.

Kalbear is saying that if someone can miss the point of The Handmaid's Tale there's little hope the people Bakker intended to reach will notice the subtext he's written.

I was noting that upon the release of TUC Bakker said he would be more forthright about what his intended messages were. For the record he has said that two issues he was looking at are biological wiring and the question of whether modernity gave women more rights because the world is more egalitarian now or if it was an economic decision.

On some level, the latter argument seems to have some merit given what we've seen regarding bills proposed or passed in varied state legislatures.

Edited by sciborg2, 12 April 2012 - 12:11 PM.

[Lyanna Stark]

sciborg2, on 12 April 2012 - 12:11 PM, said:

Bakker's books contain an intentional feminist subtext that is, as I understand it, supposed to raised important questions about gender and sex.

You know, interestingly, I think Bakker lost around 80% of the female readership on this board during the "Bakker and women" debate (or maybe even before that). It's rather ironic considering he was going for a feminist subtext, but an overwhelming majority of his readership consists of men, many of them not the least bit interested in feminist subtext.

Edited by Lyanna Stark, 13 April 2012 - 06:41 AM.

[Sci-2]

Don't worry, he's working on that other 20% as we speak...

(In all seriousness, it's kinda sad that he scares off female readers. I once told him that when a defense against sexism reads like evidence pointing to the original charge, one should rethink strategy.)

[Lyanna Stark]

sciborg2, on 13 April 2012 - 08:45 AM, said:

Don't worry, he's working on that other 20% as we speak...

(In all seriousness, it's kinda sad that he scares off female readers. I once told him that when a defense against sexism reads like evidence pointing to the original charge, one should rethink strategy.)

Yes, I have thought about that a lot, since well, it does interest me a lot that writers try their hand at feminist critique. So I wondered why, in this case, it has failed so badly to attract female readers to it based on those merits.


My main issue is that it's missing the mark because reading through the novels (the first three mind you), it doesn't convey the feeling that women are treated as inferiors because society is unfair at all, but because women are de facto inferior and should be treated as lesser humans since this is only right and proper (and I agree, having read it, and the way women are described in Bakker world, they are inferior to the men in almost every possible way). I have a hard time seeing this as "feminist critique" if this was indeed the point, since well, women are treated as inferior in real life as well. What is the point of making it an objective truth in a work of fiction, when to almost every woman out there, it is an objective truth today as well. Less so for us priviliged western women to be sure, but it's still very much there and present. And not showing many signs of going away.

Then you have the choice of three female characters: one incest rape alien and two whores, which I think a lot of women had a very hard time understanding. The selection is puzzling, to say the least.

So all in all, it feels a bit like being hit with a blunt instrument when what you need is a scalpel.

Edited by Lyanna Stark, 13 April 2012 - 09:23 AM.

[Larry.]

He seems to be taking the angle of deconstructing Abrahamic faiths' attitudes toward women by projecting it into a world where such could be demonstrated to be "truth," only for some underpinning to be pulled out later to show just how catastrophic such a belief system truly is.  Problem is that he is so skeptical about humanity as a whole that there is a distinct lack of empathy in most of his scenes, which undercuts any real potential for this plausible approach toward examining institutional sexism.

[Werthead]

I agree Bakker's biggest problem is his lack of empathy or pity in his world, born of that cynicism. The surprise he expressed at receiving a negative reaction for having child characters harmed in Neuropath seemed rather un-self-aware. Also, the idea of asking people to read 4,000 pages of stuff they don't enjoy/understand before he explains WTF is going on seems questionable (and also applicable to Erikson).

Have there been any good feminist takes on Erikson, btw? Felisin and her character arc, despite featuring abuse and degradation, seemed to be well-regarded by women readers (on this board anyway) but I've seen a lot of anger towards later perceived misogynistic plot turns (particularly Hetan's arc in Dust of Dreams, which was overloaded with WTF).

Edited by Werthead, 13 April 2012 - 09:51 AM.

[kalbear]

After bakker's behavior on valente's blog I'm done supporting him financially. The library is it for me.

Edited by Kalbear, 13 April 2012 - 09:53 AM.

[Datepalm]

What did he do on Valente's Blog? It's like a trainwreck, I can't look away!

I think my issue with Bakker (ok, i've only read TDTCB. But y'all talk about it so much...) isn't so much his overarching thesis (or even the way he's trying to go about proving it, in theory) but that it's kind of a ridiculously dated take on feminism. Well done, you've deconstructed the attitude of the Bible to women. The bible is three thousand years old, y;know? By his twentieth novel, maybe he'll have something to say about the suffragettes!

In going there, he's using sexualization, objectification, rape culture, gender essentialism and female marginalization to get his messages about female equality across. So he's doing fine service to medieval Islamic or Catholic or whatever thought, (women - not inherently inferior by the will of God or Orginal Sin or whateverthefuck. Gosh, profound.) but he's totally flunking the actual issues 21st century feminism is about.

[Sci-2]

I remember Mieville, in one of his books, has a damsel in distress suffer incredibly and the ending is bleak. When asked about it, he said he didn't want to have a fairytale ending.

Reading that book I thought he was so worried about the "fairytale" ending that his ending seemed clumsy and forced. I feel like Bakker made the same error.

One thing I think male authors have trouble with is cues to the reader that this is not a support-of-sexism tract. Alex McFarlane had a good review of Le Guin that talks about this.

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After bakker's behavior on valente's blog I'm done supporting him financially. The library is it for me.

Heh, I decided to stay out of Bakker's latest PR disaster. It's exhausting and I see little point in trying to keep him from his continual train wreck.

I think Arthmail might have said it best when he said no book survives the autobiography of the author.

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Well done, you've deconstructed the attitude of the Bible to women. The bible is three thousand years old, y;know? By his twentieth novel, maybe he'll have something to say about the suffragettes!

Good point actually, it's like a pro-female argument that would be great if we could fling the books back into a time machine.

All that said, Bakker does do some interesting stuff with male infatuation in the later books, and the confusion in fantasy with beauty and virtue. The man has talent, but his larger feminist messae message reminds me of being a frosh who took a 101 type class and suddenly thought he was ready to change the world with his brilliance.

Bakker does best when examination examining human compassion from a more general standpoint IMO. I think it was you, Datepalm, or Lyanna who said the worst way to write a women woman is to use her as a cipher for your message.

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Have there been any good feminist takes on Erikson, btw?

Erikson has a lot of powerful women, but he does pull out the "raped woman must be avenged by man but then woman forgives rapists" tale. Good point on Felisin.

You could also make the argument that Erikson's women are strong because they are warriors or mages, never because they are team builders (again, Mina in Moore's League or even Scandal Savage in Simone's Secret Six who is warrior and team builder), mothers, etc.

So we never acknowledge the value of traditionally feminine roles, and instead present strength as bravado/machismo. Now I do think that there is more to Erikson than that, and I've only read up to Toll the Hounds, but I think the criticism is there. I think he also uses too many femme fatale or "psycho bitch" characters.

Edit: My views on Erikson are based on reading the books years ago, so I readily admit it's an impression that is flawed.

Edited by sciborg2, 13 April 2012 - 10:18 AM.

[Prince Alexander]

Kalbear, on 13 April 2012 - 09:52 AM, said:

After bakker's behavior on valente's blog I'm done supporting him financially. The library is it for me.

Did he actually go on to another author's blog to argue?? Link please!

[David Selig]

Prince Alexander, on 13 April 2012 - 10:17 AM, said:

Did he actually go on to another author's blog to argue?? Link please!

http://yuki-onna.liv...page=6#comments