Jump to content

Bakker and Women II


Mackaxx

Recommended Posts

[quote name='needle' post='1686120' date='Feb 13 2009, 13.50']Heh. Me too. I really don't think it's an [i][i]unconscious desire for tokenism[/i][/i] that's operating here.[/quote]

I think it is for the majority of dissenters, when your comfort area is a world where women are equal, or at the least not regulated to the back channels.


[quote name='needle' post='1686120' date='Feb 13 2009, 13.50']Joy. I can rest easy tonight.[/quote]

Somehow I doubt that... [wry grin] ...but that would have nothing to do with me.

On reread though, that does come off fairly patronizing doesn't it. Apologies.


[quote name='needle' post='1686120' date='Feb 13 2009, 13.50']Actually, I'm going back to looking at the text on its own merits, without looking for authorial comfort that he's going to make it alright in the end by [i][i]deliberately[/i] invoking debates on sexism. And as Kal stated previously, and what many do not seem to get, is that we are in the business of examining the work, not the man. (Apart from Ran :P)[/quote]

You and Kal are the only two who've said this. Most have piped up otherwise, citing the cultural sexism as one of the reasons they couldn't stand to finish the first trilogy. [shrugs] But when I say give Bakker a chance I mean the work. I wouldn't have actually thought, judging from his writing, that he'd much care about knee jerk labels.

I was honestly surprised he piped up.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1686141' date='Feb 13 2009, 22.02']Women are objectively damned in his world. The metaphysics actually says women are worse.[/quote]
The metaphysics may indeed say women are inferior - even if we don't really know what it means and how it came to be - but it doesn't mean they are damned. They are not damned unless they committed sins that merit damnation.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote]The metaphysics may indeed say women are inferior - even if we don't really know what it means and how it came to be - but it doesn't mean they are damned. They are not damned unless they committed sins that merit damnation.[/quote]Okay, i was wrong about that part. Does it matter? Shryke asked how Bakker's world is more misogynistic. Well, Bakker created a world where women are inferior to men; that's definitely more misogynistic than ours (as far as I know at least; science has not claimed women are objectively inferior to men yet).

[quote]You and Kal are the only two who've said this. Most have piped up otherwise, citing the cultural sexism as one of the reasons they couldn't stand to finish the first trilogy. [shrugs] But when I say give Bakker a chance I mean the work. I wouldn't have actually thought, judging from his writing, that he'd much care about knee jerk labels.[/quote]I think you didn't read the responses closely enough then.

But it doesn't matter; I don't think the folks who have had problems with the work have stopped reading it because they felt he was a sexist prick. I don't want to speak for anyone who has, but if I had to guess I'd say that reading about a world where people like you are objectively worse, where people like you are only good for sex and babies, and people like you are objectified [i]just isn't that much fun[/i]. It's not something I think I can actually exactly understand because that's not the world I live in, but to say that they should just shut up and appreciate the other parts of the book in spite of the rampant, institutionalized misogyny? Sorry, don't buy it.

It's clear that not everyone thinks this way and it's certainly clear that it's not every woman. At the same time, I wouldn't tell someone to deal and give the writing a chance when it's pretty clear that the whole series isn't going to be a good read.

Bakker's succeeded admirably in that respect. There's always going to be books and medium that are very uncomfortable personally to some people and fine with others. (mine's ECT; I have to leave the room if I see something with it, or shut my eyes.) Bakker's clearly succeeded in making a series uncomfortable enough to a broad enough range of people to get that reaction, and that can be a valuable thing. It is affecting.

But it doesn't make it profound, any more than 2girls1cup is profound.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='Shryke' post='1686125' date='Feb 13 2009, 14.53']Is it? Really?

Ignoring the metaphysical for the moment, their society isn't all that much more sexist then ours was at various points in history. Hell, I'd say it's about the same.

I mean, what evidence is there of their society being way more sexist then our own?

Cause, personally, I saw it as, at worst, mildly more sexist. At the very worst.[/quote]

That's not true. It's a slippery slope type of argument, where one finds a correlation with one set of a larget subset and than on that calls it equal. Would you like for racial relations in this world for the only examples you show to others being the holocaust and the subjugation of blacks through slavery? Or is it true that those are just the worse aspects of our humanity, but to say that is what we are misses the point.

That's the problem with your so called equality here. You go and find the worst and most heinous subjugation of women in our world's history, and then since Bakker's is no worse than that you call it equal. What people keep pointing out and you keep failing to see (for why I don't know) is that there is a large spread of women/men relations. Even when times were darkest for women in our history, there was still positive things for them and ways for them to express themselves that wasn't tied to their biological function.

Bakker has created a world where women have received much of the worst things that happened in ours, but he has purposely removed all the good things that happen to women. Even in the worst societies for women that our world has ever seen there is a lot of positives there. As has been mentioned many times here. Bakker in his world purposely only has shown the dark, and for that he has alienated a lot of people, specifically female ones.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1686141' date='Feb 13 2009, 22.02']Women in Earwa got -1 STR. That's just how his world is. But that's a very misogynistic view.[/quote]
And men in Neuropathworld have -1 INT. Is that a very misoandric view?

(Answer: no. You are confusing a description of “what is”, even if fictional, with “what ought.” Your definition of misogynism is your own, and I don’t seem to be able to find a way to agree with it. We fundamentally disagree about what constitutes bigotry.)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='Arakasi' post='1686156' date='Feb 13 2009, 22.10']Even when times were darkest for women in our history, there was still positive things for them and ways for them to express themselves that wasn't tied to their biological function.[/quote]

But why would it be [i]good[/i] to write about that? I would find such a perspective repugnant. “After all, the Holocaust wasn’t [i]that[/i] bad.” to make it abundantly clear. Bad things should be described in the worst possible light, and an I (as a feminist) would be extremely sususpicious about an agenda that tried to show us some feisty heroines in a pre-feminist setting who were empowered because they really, really wanted to.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1686141' date='Feb 13 2009, 16.02']Women are objectively damned in his world. The metaphysics actually says women are worse.

That is a pretty big difference.

All the other stuff about the lack of women in the world in general, the role of the women that do exist, the main villains being phallic-waving rape demons, the womb-plague, the No-God destroying fertility,
SPOILER: TJE
the main antagonist so far in TJE being a fertility cult
- all of that can be given 'too little evidence' or 'absense of evidence does not mean non-existence' clauses, but that the world specifically states in its bylaws that women are worse than men?

Women in Earwa got -1 STR. That's just how his world is. But that's a very misogynistic view.[/quote]

That's metaphysics.

What evidence is their that their SOCIETY is more sexist then ours was at some point in the past.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='Happy Ent' post='1686163' date='Feb 13 2009, 14.14']But why would it be [i]good[/i] to write about that? I would find such a perspective repugnant. “After all, the Holocaust wasn’t [i]that[/i] bad.” to make it abundantly clear. Bad things should be described in the worst possible light, and an I (as a feminist) would be extremely sususpicious about an agenda that tried to show us some feisty heroines in a pre-feminist setting who were empowered because they really, really wanted to.[/quote]

[i]EXACTLY[/i].
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote]Bakker has created a world where women have received much of the worst things that happened in ours, but he has purposely removed all the good things that happen to women.[/quote]

No, we just don't see them. Or much of anything of society.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='Happy Ent' post='1686163' date='Feb 13 2009, 15.14']But why would it be [i]good[/i] to write about that? I would find such a perspective repugnant. “After all, the Holocaust wasn’t [i]that[/i] bad.” to make it abundantly clear. Bad things should be described in the worst possible light, and an I (as a feminist) would be extremely sususpicious about an agenda that tried to show us some feisty heroines in a pre-feminist setting who were empowered because they really, really wanted to.[/quote]

It would be just as unrealistic to write a book where the only way cultures could communicate is genocide as compared to one where the only way that women have to assert themselves is through sex. Both are completely unrealistic. I don't disagree that bad things should be described in a bad light, but that misses the point entirely. The world is not that black and white. This board has always praised Martin for showing the grey, for showing the good and bad to any character or situation. Bakker has deliberately made a very black world for women.

It's the same kind of thinking that have lead people to state that in war movies/books the people involved shouldn't be having fun in the middle of all this death. But no the point is that these people are human, and even in the middle of so much suffering humor and joy can and do happen.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote]I (as a feminist) would be extremely sususpicious about an agenda that tried to show us some feisty heroines in a pre-feminist setting who were empowered because they really, really wanted to.[/quote]

This isn't about empowerment for me. Its about women being shown as ANYTHING other than some sort of sexual object. Emphasis on the word [i]object.[/i]I don't need or want Xena, Warrior Princess showing up. What would be nice to have any woman represented as something other than an object to fuck.

I'm not nearly as articulate as Kalbear or Needle on this subject. All I know is these books were not enjoyable to read, and I would probably never pick up another book by Bakker. Maybe the grand scheme will reveal some rabbit from a hat and make it apparent why things were the way they were, but he has lost audience members along the way. Not because we are too stupid to get it, not because we are looking for a rat, but because the trip so far hasn't been enjoyable enough to look towards the destination.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote](Answer: no. You are confusing a description of “what is”, even if fictional, with “what ought.” Your definition of misogynism is your own, and I don’t seem to be able to find a way to agree with it. We fundamentally disagree about what constitutes bigotry.)[/quote]So you're saying that writing about something where one sex or race is objectively worse than another isn't actually bigotry?

And I'd argue very much that men have -1 int in the world. The most brilliant person in the world is a man. Esmi is stated to be more clever than Akka, but no one holds a candle to Kellhus. Heck, women succeeding in education today isn't necessarily because they're on average smarter; there's all sorts of selection bias there. Bakker has said it's his personal belief that women are better than men. He's also stated that Earwa has women worse than men. I don't see how this is really an argument.

ETA: sorry, I missed that you were talking about Neuropath. In that, the most brilliant person is also a man. But yes, if he outright stated that men were objectively worse than women in the book, created a world where men were simply not ever able to be as smart as women and this was measurable and definable, it'd be misoandistry.

[quote]That's metaphysics.

What evidence is their that their SOCIETY is more sexist then ours was at some point in the past.[/quote]I didn't say it was, though I pointed out lots of ways that it is. It's (as Arakasi pointed out) a moving target too. What society? Is it more sexist than today? Than 50 years ago? Than Iran today?

It's more sexist than the Crusade period, in that women could hold religious power (they can't officially in Earwa, or couldn't before Kellhus), they did appear in places of nobility and wield power then, and they did accompany men to war as leaders. That's about the best basis for comparison. But really, it should start and end with the world objectively stating women are worse than men.

[quote]But why would it be good to write about that? I would find such a perspective repugnant. “After all, the Holocaust wasn’t that bad.” to make it abundantly clear. Bad things should be described in the worst possible light, and an I (as a feminist) would be extremely sususpicious about an agenda that tried to show us some feisty heroines in a pre-feminist setting who were empowered because they really, really wanted to.[/quote]Would you (as a feminist) be suspicious of someone who wrote a story where women were actually considered worse than men and this was written into the actual worldbuilding?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='Shryke' post='1686181' date='Feb 13 2009, 15.25']No, we just don't see them. Or much of anything of society.[/quote]

That's a copout answer though. If people are allowed to respond to critiques of authors by saying "well they did it offscreen, or we really don't know because they really weren't clear" than one can pretty much dismiss any criticism. All you can judge for is the words the author put on the page. I have all sorts of great things I wish Peter Jackson did when remaking LotR on screen, but he didn't do it. Instead he did something else, and that is what I judge him on.

And even with that your answer isn't really legit. There is plenty of the world and story that doesn't take part in the war. There is room there for something, not as a token like you guys keep harping about, but as a part of a real breathing world. Not a world where women go through the shit Bakker puts them through. Kalbear is pretty much right, he wrote it deliberately that way. Sure in the world Bakker made it would be tokenism for him to put an empowered woman in it among the tons of women that aren't. But a world such as he created is like others have said here, inherently unrealistic. So it comes down to why make a world in which women are subjectively worse? I don't know and I don't think anyone has answered that one yet.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote]No, we just don't see them. Or much of anything of society.[/quote]Agreed, we don't. What we do see of society is from outcasts and aliens, from religion and war. We do see cities, but women don't exist in them other than as whores. We do see men but no mention of their women.

This was a conscious decision. Why?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1686192' date='Feb 13 2009, 16.32']Agreed, we don't. What we do see of society is from outcasts and aliens, from religion and war. We do see cities, but women don't exist in them other than as whores. We do see men but no mention of their women.

This was a conscious decision. Why?[/quote]

We don't see cities almost at all. And when we do, it's crowds, with no gender given.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote]That's a copout answer though. If people are allowed to respond to critiques of authors by saying "well they did it offscreen, or we really don't know because they really weren't clear" than one can pretty much dismiss any criticism.[/quote]

No, you can't. And it's beacuse of your next sentence that you can't:

[quote]All you can judge for is the words the author put on the page.[/quote]

We can't dismiss criticism of what is on the page. We can dismiss criticism of what is NOT on the page, but assumed to be part of the story anyway.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote]I (as a feminist) would be extremely sususpicious about an agenda that tried to show us some feisty heroines in a pre-feminist setting who were empowered because they really, really wanted to.[/quote]

Again, and again, and again.

It's not about feisty empowered women. It's about having non-abused woman, non sexualised objects within the text. It's about the vague mention that someone is worried about his daughter. It's about someone missing his wife. It's about someone thinking back to his mother in a positive light. It's about having evidence that women exist in Earwa beyond the bounds of the military camp. It's about some evidence that 50% of the occupants of this world are women. It's about Ran's washerwoman. It's not about a token Lara Croft.

Bakker's books would work if discovered as historical manuscripts - if we were reading a history of Earwa. The omission of woman apart from sidenotes to Istrya, Esme, and even Serwe as mother of wee moenghus would be about right, seen through a lens of contemporary-to-that-era male misogny. But it's not a history book of a world, it's a depiction of inside that world, from a modern writer who should surely be aware that the written evidence does not always equate to reality.

Hell, if we want to look at feisty empowered woman, that cliche is right there within the text in the form of Esme. Esme who is still somehow radiantly beautiful despite twenty years as a prostitute suffering from malnutrition? realistic, much? Esme, who we are continually told is dazzling intelligent with no education ( but we're not really [i]shown[/i] her being intelligent, are we? just told she is). Bakker wanted to write a rags to riches to story for his one woman POV. All that does for me though, is to highlight absence within the the text. To be honest, without the faintly ridiculous and romanticised Esme sotry I might not have a problem and may have accepted the books as just 'ones without wimmen'. Because, I can and do do that as a reader without getting upset. But he did put his one woman in, who overcomes adversity to become great. And then the questions fall thick and fast..why are there no other women in this world, even in peoples thoughts?

Being a feminist does not mean wanting every book to be about Joan of Arc -you are right there, Happy Ent. But the removal of woman from the canvas completely or than in deliberately mysogynistic stereotypes is an entirely different matter.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote]It's not about feisty empowered women. It's about having non-abused woman, non sexualised objects within the text. It's about the vague mention that someone is worried about his daughter. It's about someone missing his wife. It's about someone thinking back to his mother in a positive light. It's about having evidence that women exist in Earwa beyond the bounds of the military camp. It's about some evidence that 50% of the occupants of this world are women. It's about Ran's washerwoman.[/quote]

It's about wanting a token women to appear in the story.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

We're in cities in one form or another for a good chunk of the first book and quite a bit of the second and third.

During that time there is exactly one woman with any power in the entire part. There are no wives of deposed rulers. There are no sisters of kings or lords. There are noble-cast women even mentioned. None have names.

Let's compare this to Martin. Think about all the keeps that are taken, all the castles stormed, all the battles fought. No, there weren't a lot of women in Tyrell's van. But there certainly were noblewomen ruling the keeps while the men were fighting, right? There were queens, and consorts, and sisters, and daughters. They didn't have a lot of power and certainly not as much as men, but they actually existed. Even when they were locked in a tower and eating their own fingers, they existed.

And yet there are none here.

Really, it's not that important and doesn't necessarily indicate anything by itself, but it really served to magnify the roles of the women that do appear in the book. It makes the book less realistic as well, but that doesn't really matter except to HE, who should reasonably think that Bakker really missed a step by not showing the worst of all situations for these women that don't exist.

[quote]It's about wanting a token women to appear in the story.[/quote]How is a woman appearing at all in the books a token? Do you really think that in all of the Fanim cities, the Nansur cities and the Scarlet Spires there exist no wives? Because in their absence it feels often like Bakker is saying all women are sex objects, since that's the only women that are around. If that's not his intent, that's fine, but he did a really bad job of portraying that.

Really, you don't find it odd at all that women just aren't there? Anywhere? No wives, no daughters, no nothing? That's not odd to you?
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...