Bakker and Women 3 (merged topic)

[Mackaxx]

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1691548' date='Feb 19 2009, 12.30']A good explanation about the Inkys and severing from the world.[/quote]

Ok, on board with that and I remember Kelhuss' explanation. Which you have to take with a grain of salt of course but it'l do for the purposes of discussion. The outside damns the inkys via the humans. So, in order to be truely closed off to this other god they have to wipe out the humans. It is the only option they see as they see this outside force as being as real as gravity. Just as a creationist sees genesis. This doesn't make their choice the best one, and it doesn't mean its based on any truth whatsoever either. Were just trading the lesser gods of men for the higher gods of the Inkys here.

If we want to eliminate 'gods' from the outside then all there needs to be in some property of man that the Inkys can't live alongside. Thats fine but this in no way ties into the value of women though. You cant link two things together for no good reason.

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1691548' date='Feb 19 2009, 12.30']re women

Their atomic spiritual weight is a lesser isotope of spirituality than the men. That's just the way it is.[/quote]

Now you're neatly tieing the Inkys higher god/the outside being absolute law (which is disputable, of course), to the laws of lower gods of men being absolute, which is even more of a stretch.

It's even more of a stretch if you think that the Inkys problem may be nothing at all to do with gods and more to do with something more mundane like a disease.

They simply do not tie together, even if you write about them in paragraphs that follow one another.




Pretty much if you want to discuss it just say 'what if women were spiritually less valued than men' and start a thread on it, thats just fine. In the case of this story there is no evidence that women are of less value spiritually than men in anything but the eyes of society. Trying to twist the women bit around the Inky bit isn't necessary. Your the one pushing the women are a lesser spiritual isotope thing and thats an interesting idea to discuss, but the text does not not tell me that this is truth.

[Mackaxx]

Also, to add this spiritual isotope idea is kinda meaningless without a god anyway. How can one mean less in a spiritual way otherwise, its not all that spiritual then really is it.

All that does is make 'spiritual' another physical trait, like strength. In the end this means it still wouldn't make women inferior overall anyway, just in that one aspect. Why give spiritual superiority such value, why use it to persecute against women in Earwa. There is no justification for such treatment beyond the scripture of the lesser gods of men, and yet it happens. Just like it does here.

If spirituality is nothing to do with those gods then you arn't left with a leg to stand on in respect to wife beating.

[Nerdanel]

I think the Inchoroi aren't damned just for being Inchoroi. I think they are damned for being Chaotic Evil, to the point even only moderately good gods would shun them, and the Inchoroi really like themselves that way. So rather than do a total cultural U turn they decided they'd rather suck up to the Devil and do his will in hopes of getting a high spot in the Hellish hierarchy.

I think the Inchoroi necessarily didn't want to shut out the whole Outside. After all, they were souled beings themselves, and I don't see why the Outside should have some sort of treshold of X souls before it can do anything. I think the Inchoroi may have wanted to shut out the influence of the gods that didn't like them. If all the souls that remained in the world were evil, perhaps only evil gods could reach through them.

Complicating things, I think there's evidence sprinkled around the books that the dead can become like Catholic saints/gods/demons. (Matters of definitions strike again.) I think the No-God just might have been the mighty (by far the mightiest sorcerer in history, so mighty that it isn't certain who is more powerful, he or Kellhus) Su'juroit the Cûnuroi Witch King of the two inutterals fame, if it isn't something more alien...

Seswatha may also be sending his dreams from the Outside...

[Kalbear]

[quote]Pretty much if you want to discuss it just say 'what if women were spiritually less valued than men' and start a thread on it, thats just fine. In the case of this story there is no evidence that women are of less value spiritually than men in anything but the eyes of society.[/quote]Except this is [i]exactly what the author says is the case in the book[/i]. He's said this twice in interviews, he's given evidence in the novels themselves

SPOILER: TJE

especially with Mimara and her judging eye

and he's said it again in these threads. I'm not really sure how else you can get this point; this is the point we've been talking about for the last few days now, it's been confirmed by the author of the book already.

[quote]Pretty much if you want to discuss it just say 'what if women were spiritually less valued than men' and start a thread on it, thats just fine. In the case of this story there is no evidence that women are of less value spiritually than men in anything but the eyes of society. Trying to twist the women bit around the Inky bit isn't necessary. Your the one pushing the women are a lesser spiritual isotope thing and thats an interesting idea to discuss, but the text does not not tell me that this is truth.[/quote]Actually, no, I'm not. Bakker is. I'm saying that's what he said is the case. Now, the heroes of the tale don't know whether or not that's the case, but we do. Furthermore, knowing that this is the case is a very important part of the actual theme of the book.

As you say - does it change how you should treat a woman if you know that she's less spiritually valuable? Should it? Does it make them any less capable to do things like run a business or be able to read? Is it a reasonable justification to make them socially less valuable than men? That's an uncomfortable implication against a lot of premodern and current religious views. (It can also be construed as an analogy to women of the world now, that [i]they're[/i] inferior to men but should be treated well anyway, which I don't think is what Bakker is going for and I think is utter bullshit - but I think Happy Ent would be happy to disagree with me in a couple days.)

[quote]If spirituality is nothing to do with those gods then you arn't left with a leg to stand on in respect to wife beating.[/quote]The image of a one-legged man beating his wife was a really bizarre one. Just wanted to point that out.

[Mackaxx]

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1691606' date='Feb 19 2009, 13.39']Except this is [i]exactly what the author says is the case in the book[/i]. He's said this twice in interviews, etc etc[/quote]

Except he doesn't, not as you want define it. At no point has he made womens spiritual inferiority some immutable elemental force like you seem to want to do. This 'inferiority' is at the behest of gods, gods which happen to be pretty dubious gods in the first place and through words written by men that may not be the gods at all. They are 'damned' in the eyes of some of those gods, but to what ends? What is this damnation that this inferiority leads to? No evidence of such is provided. This damnation has no consequence that we can see beyond what society brings into the mix. We have seen in respect to proof of this inferiority exactly Darrel Donuts, nothing. Is there a reason for that perchance?

Now, spiritual differences are something else, we have physical and mental differences, why not spiritual. It is the men and women of the society who choose to view certain traits, be they spiritual or physical as inferior or superior. What god X finds worthy of damnation god Y may not give a toot about. And in the end, why care what either of them think?

This quote is rather telling

[quote]Keep in mind that Earwa, like all fantasy worlds, is a world steeped in intentionality, which is to say that setting is always a kind of character in fantasy. And characters - the good ones, anyway - develop. This is just to say the story ain't over yet, folks. Not by a long shot.[/quote]

Do you think that means things can maybe change a tad? The these laws are not 'chemical elements'? Unbreakable laws? No. This points without doubt somewhere else and in turn implies this 'inferiority' is[i] percieved[/i] NOT actual. I think its pretty damned explicit.

This of course applies to the rest of your post left unquoted, except the next bit.

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1691606' date='Feb 19 2009, 13.39']The image of a one-legged man beating his wife was a really bizarre one. Just wanted to point that out.[/quote]

Peg leg pete would like to make you his bitch and change your mind about that.

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1691548' date='Feb 18 2009, 20.30']based on the wiki, the No-God died in 2155 and Inri was born in 2159, so I'm not sure how that follows.[/quote]My mistake then. Perhaps belief this carries over from the previous polytheistic religion.

[Bastard of Godsgrace]

Aurang says at some point that he is damned because of the whim of demons - that is all he considers all gods to be - and he doesn't mention any immutable laws of nature in this context. He can be lying, of course - Inchoroi rather aren't known for their honesty - but he appears to be sincere.

[Marcelo Rebelo Firqoralas]

Mackaxx, I find it completely incomprehensible that you can interpret what Bakker said like that.

Bakker has said:
[quote]Could you imagine, for instance, what it would mean to live in a world where, say, the social and spiritual inferiority of women was a fact like the atomic weight of uranium.[/quote]
and
[quote]Specifically, I’m interested in what it means to live in a world where value is objective - which is to say, to live in the kind of world our ancestors thought they lived in.[/quote]
Here he explicitly says that A) in Eärwa the spiritual inferiority of women is like a natural law and B) that this is explicitly not like the world of our ancestors, since they only [i]thought[/i] that they lived in such a world.

Bakker has also stated that he wants to investigate worlds with a built-in intentionality and value scale and I really don't see why he would only say that and then go on and create a world without it.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

No, parse his statement again.

[quote]...what it would mean to live in a world where, say, the social and spiritual inferiority of women was a fact like the atomic weight of uranium.[/quote]

The social and spiritual inferiority in this fictional world is a fact. Another fact is the atomic weight of uranium*. It's not "like a natural law", it [b]is[/b] a natural law.

*Okay, this probably should have been "atomic [i]number[/i] of uranium", given that atomic weight of an element varies throughout the universe, but I think it was probably just meant to be shorthand for something immutable and universal. Or maybe it wasn't, and Bakker was being subtle again....


ETA: I know you're taking that from firqorescu's post, Triskele, and not inserting it on your own. I am just trying to point out how I disagree with firqorescu's wording, and since that's what you're basing your disagreement on (or appear to be), I don't think your alternative is a viable one.

ETA2: I spelled firqorescu's name wrong. Sorry!

[Marcelo Rebelo Firqoralas]

[quote name='Eefphrodite' post='1691956' date='Feb 19 2009, 11.17']ETA: I know you're taking that from fiqorescu's post, Triskele, and not inserting it on your own. I am just trying to point out how I disagree with fiq's wording, and since that's what you're basing your disagreement on (or appear to be), I don't think your alternative is a viable one.[/quote]
Well, right. I agree that it is a a natural law, but I decided to write "like a natural law" because I didn't want any quibbles about whether it was a natural law or a supernatural law (since it may not actually matter until you die anyway.) Now I got this quibble instead. :)

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

:lol: Fair enough. Maybe a 'universal law'?

[needle]

[quote name='Pierce Inverarity' post='1691372' date='Feb 18 2009, 22.49']Some things have stuck in my craw, I admit, but certainly not as much as I feared going in. I'm a veteran of Gabe's old Dead Cities board, and a survivor of several full-on broadsides from the estimable Matt Stover. Now that guy can fire grapeshot! Too much scar tissue to feel real pain anymore.

I know I do an awful lot of sloganeering for a guy who claims to hate slogans, but there is one slogan which drives all my work, if only in a negative sense, and that's Don DeLillo's "I write for the page," which I take to boil down to a nifty version of "I write for myself."

I literally think this is [i]the[/i] expression of a profound cultural tragedy - I won't bore you with details here (I have a paper built around it in the first issue Jay Tomio's online mag, [i]Heliotrope[/i], which should still be kicking around). All writers write for readers - writing is communication, after all, and communication is at minumum a two term concept. To say I write for myself is simply to say something along the lines of "I write for people like me," which is to say, "for people who [i]already[/i] share my tastes and values."

And as far as I'm concerned this amounts to "I write to entertain the like-minded," which I have no problem with so long as you don't pretend to be provocative and challenging (things we normally attribute to 'LITERATURE' (add french accent)). This is why I think most of the stuff that is extolled as challenging and literary is actually little more than a high-end consumer good, and only judged 'challenging' vis a vis [i]virtual[/i] readers who in actuality would never pick these books up.

What you write selects who your readers will be. You can either aim your books outward - and I think genre is the perfect vehicle for this - or you can aim them inward. Since I think we humans are quickly burning through whatever margins that have insulated us from the consequences of our folly in the past, I feel the distinct need to aim my books [i]outward[/i]. To spread the Dubious Word.

Now I'd be lying if I said my motives were simple: I have a new book coming out, and my future in this business depends on it doing at least as well as the old books. So yes, I'm here to promote my vision and so defend my living. But I take feedback [i]very seriously[/i] for the above reasons. I see all my writing as an attempt to walk a tightrope between alienation and fascination.

And to be totally frank, I really don't think anything I've written has been a 'success' in this particular regard. Far from it some respects.

Quite simply, I genuinely want to get better at communicating my stories to you all. And on this issue - gender - I worry that I've erred on the side of alienation.

I can see people shaking their heads, praying to God that junior never decides to get a philosophy degree!

scott/[/quote]


Ok, this is interesting. (except for the fact that I completely misread it on first reading to mean that you were saying you were writing for yourself, and similarly minded readers. :lol:. Not sure if that makes you a particularly obfuscatorial writer or me a very poor reader, but on third re-reading I'm inclined to the latter..)

Dredging through these threads to focus on female readers ( sexist, yes, I know :P) it looks like roughly a ratio of 2 out of 10 who [i]don't[/i] feel alienated. Sampling opinions on a message board is no way to gauge a wider readership, I know, but in the case of JoanneL, who wrote as though she was 'coming out' about her dislike, it's interesting, I think.

Perhaps you are trying to appease the masses, but I'm [i]glad[/i] you worry about this. It's far more likely to get me to read on than the 'don't read it if you find it frustrating' post that was made earlier. Pomposity and humility..the writer on the internet must tread finely between the two. Combined with your 'Archie Bunker' worries about the many readers who [i]don't[/i] find the uber sexism in Earwa disturbing, this post goes a long way to reassuring me that Scott Bakker is not, in fact, an asshat. :P (or maybe the Archie Bunker thing is just about Kelhus? hmm)

Let me state for the record - you've had a rough ride this thread, and many have asked why other authors don't get the samer scrutiny. I do beleive you have created something worthwhile in your books, and the quality of your writing is what [i]leads[/i] to greater scrutiny. But I'm re-reading from the beginning atm, I'm about half way through Darkness that Comes Before ( Thousandfold thought not having made a whole lot of sense when I read the other books 5 years ago) and the number of times 'harlotry' and whorish' and the pejorative 'womanish' are used is astounding. There are [i]no[/i] positive female adjectives at all, and the pejoratives come thick and fast. [i]Of course[/i] I find it disturbing to read. It would be incredible if I didn't.

Maybe my reaction should be to think, 'wow, these medeavil men are real bastards to woman, I'm glad things changed, even if by accident. Not going to romanticise these premodern worlds no more!'.. but in reality, it's more like a form of water torture. a constant subconscious dripping erosion at one's sense of pride in being female. Imagine watching a film as a black man with the subliminal message flashing up 'nigger..nigger...nigger..'. To me, that's what reading these books are like.

Of course, I'm picking up on this at the moment because of these threads. I'm reading specifically through a female lens. But I'm not making things up, just noticing what would unconsciouly bother me previously. I beleive Bakker's intent was not to alienate whole swathes of his female readership..but I'm also glad that he is listening when we try to explain how it does, even if there's a huge variety of reasons that have been given.

[Sophelia]

Thanks for bringing it back to topic needle (though it looks like there is a hell of an interesting discussion going on here about theology/metaphysics it isn't one I feel I can join until I've finished TTT - and probably even not then unless I reread the previous books).

[quote name='needle' post='1691975' date='Feb 19 2009, 11.01']Ok, this is interesting. (except for the fact that I completely misread it on first reading to mean that you were saying you were writing for yourself, and similarly minded readers. :lol:. Not sure if that makes you a particularly obfuscatorial writer or me a very poor reader, but on third re-reading I'm inclined to the latter..)[/quote]
Same thing happened to me. I do find Bakker's posts harder to understand than almost everything I have read recently (including academic journals), and have wondered if his writing style is unusually obscure or if I am unusually dense, but I've decided to take the middle view that he is very much at ease and familiar with the terminology and concepts of advanced literary criticism, sociology and so on, and I am not (and I have always had difficulty with the sociology end of my discipline).

[quote name='needle' post='1691975' date='Feb 19 2009, 11.01']Let me state for the record - you've had a rough ride this thread, and many have asked why other authors don't get the samer scrutiny. I do beleive you have created something worthwhile in your books, and the quality of your writing is what [i]leads[/i] to greater scrutiny.[/quote]
I agree with this. The books are more demanding/challenging than the average fantasy series, and thus attract readers who are also more demanding/challenging ;)

(It's also the case that with many other authors, it's just not worth bothering)

[quote name='needle' post='1691975' date='Feb 19 2009, 11.01']But I'm re-reading from the beginning atm, I'm about half way through Darkness that Comes Before ( Thousandfold thought not having made a whole lot of sense when I read the other books 5 years ago) and the number of times 'harlotry' and whorish' and the pejorative 'womanish' are used is astounding. There are [i]no[/i] positive female adjectives at all, and the pejoratives come thick and fast. [i]Of course[/i] I find it disturbing to read. It would be incredible if I didn't.

Maybe my reaction should be to think, 'wow, these medeavil men are real bastards to woman, I'm glad things changed, even if by accident. Not going to romanticise these premodern worlds no more!'.. but in reality, it's more like a form of water torture. a constant subconscious dripping erosion at one's sense of pride in being female. Imagine watching a film as a black man with the subliminal message flashing up 'nigger..nigger...nigger..'. To me, that's what reading these books are like.[/quote]

I can understand this reaction, and yes, I suspect my subconscious is being affected by the bombardment too*.

However my reaction (and I did notice the recurring 'womanish') is more like "Ah, yeah, this is authentic. Things are a hell of a lot better, but it's still there: nowadays people say 'You're such a pussy' "

The main way to put a man down is to call him a woman. Sexism against women is used against men too.


It's actually not this aspect of the 'apparent sexism' which I feel peeved about (though like you I have the overall concern of the subconscious messages being perpetuated). I'll make a longer post shortly to try and distinguish what works and what doesn't, in my view, as an 'anti-sexist message'.


* While understanding why the sexist terms are used, I have an internal wince every time I read them, same as if I read the words 'paki' or 'poof' spoken by characters in a book which is [i]not[/i] condoning their use.

[Bastard of Godsgrace]

[quote name='Eefphrodite' post='1691956' date='Feb 19 2009, 11.17']No, parse his statement again.



The social and spiritual inferiority in this fictional world is a fact. Another fact is the atomic weight of uranium*. It's not "like a natural law", it [b]is[/b] a natural law.

*Okay, this probably should have been "atomic [i]number[/i] of uranium", given that atomic weight of an element varies throughout the universe, but I think it was probably just meant to be shorthand for something immutable and universal. Or maybe it wasn't, and Bakker was being subtle again....[/quote]


Yes, that is what Scott explicitly said. I admit it is difficult for me to accept it - partially because of confirmation bias, since I argued in those threads that it is all relative, and Scott's words prove I was wrong, and partually because I am just a natural born relativist and I find the concept of absolute, knowable truth hard to swallow, even in context of fantasy novel.

I really wonder what Scott will do with it all - there is of course question of Eutyphro's dilemma which was already mentioned. I am also not sure how it pertains to the message of scepticism and uncertainly which is clearly discernible in the novels. RAFO, I guess.

[MinDonner]

[quote name='needle' post='1691975' date='Feb 19 2009, 11.01']Let me state for the record - you've had a rough ride this thread, and many have asked why other authors don't get the samer scrutiny. I do beleive you have created something worthwhile in your books, and the quality of your writing is what [i]leads[/i] to greater scrutiny.[/quote]

This. If you compare the multiple Bakker threads to the David Devereux one which briefly surfaced - [i]Hunter's Moon[/i] is an unashamedly misogynist work, but is so superficial that we can all just look at it and go "yeah, that's sexist" and move on. I think a lot of the anger and frustration that's surfacing in this particular argument is *because* the sexism is harder to pin down, and because there are too many people seemingly unable to see a problem.

Sophelia, looking forward to seeing your longer take on it. :)

[Nerdanel]

In Cnaiür's case I think his constant use of terms like "womanish" is meant to highlight the hidden insecurity that stems from his sexual orientation that is condemned by his culture. Cnaiür is questioning the manliness of everyone else around him in a futile attempt to make himself in contrast seem more like a manly man who penetrates instead of being penetrated.

In Xerius's case I think he has a love/hate relationship with his mother that is complicated by shame at the illicitness of it and is trying to subconsciously convince himself that he doesn't desire her after all even if he really does.

That said, I still didn't like about it...

[needle]

Me too, on the longer take. :)
[quote]However my reaction (and I did notice the recurring 'womanish') is more like "Ah, yeah, this is authentic. Things are a hell of a lot better, but it's still there: nowadays people say 'You're such a pussy' "

The main way to put a man down is to call him a woman. Sexism against women is used against men too.[/quote]

Yeah, that's very true. It's another part of the cumulative affect though - along with sexualised characters, absence of minor female characters, absence of reference to woman, and the metaphysical inferiority that the rest of the posters have moved on to discussing...

It's probably a part of the set up in the first book, that to emphasise the unlikeliness of Esme's rise, the despised nature of harlotry has to be mentioned at every turn..the 'whore of fate', the Shriah declaiming 'no more shall the faithful have intercourse with whorish nations' the Famin as people who had made 'harlots of their hearts'..I gess it's all [i]logical[/i], when foreshadowing Esme as empress. And as Nerdanel says, certain characters have reasons for using 'womanish'. ( like Geshrunni, slave to the Scarlet Spires, who calls the sorcerers 'weak-hearted, womanish'). But disturbing, nonetheless.

[Sophelia]

I have been rereading PI's (R. Scott Bakker's) posts, because I wanted to make sure I wasn't tilting at windmills. I also wanted to be clearer about why both sides of the debate seemed to be talking past each other.

My analysis of PI/Bakker posts suggests that the mismatch between author intention and reader perception (for the subset of readers of which I am one – for simplicity I lump us all together as the ‘protestors’) falls under three areas:

(1) [b]Depiction of women in fantasy literature[/b]

The protestors feel that the PoN trilogy depicts women in a similar way to too much existing ‘sexist’ fantasy.

PI/Bakker doesn't seem to see current depictions of women in fantasy as particularly (negatively) sexist:
[quote]Is there a dearth of 'positive representations of women' out there? Not so much anymore, I would think.”[/quote]

In fact Bakker seems to be taking a stand against the 'romanticisation' of women in fantasy literature in order to fit modern ideology i.e. he believes authors have gone too far the other way in placing modern feminist female characters in medieval settings.

The protestors do not feel that the inclusion of 'token women' of this type has mitigated the (negative) sexism which they see as still pervasive in genre fiction.

[i]So Bakker has a different view of the usual depiction of women in fantasy than do the protestors.[/i]

(2) [b]Realistic ways to show women in a historical setting[/b]

Bakker argues that since history was brutal to women, his depiction of women as downtrodden and abused is realistic, and any whitewashing of the harsh truth would dilute the feminist message (that women were treated abominably).

The protestors argue that real life history, though harsh, still allowed some women to exceptionally break out.

Bakker said he didn’t want to include any such women as it would dilute the message - see (3) for message.

The protestors feel there are other ways the books do not reflect RL, for example in the number of women mentioned at all, in the overemphasis on use of sex, and so on.

Bakker said the number and roles of women in the book was determined by the choice of setting (war, metaphysics), theme (desire etc.) and personal beliefs (sex as motivating force).

[i]So Bakker's choices about setting and theme, together with his beliefs, result in a depiction of women in Earwa which the protestors see as unrealistic, but Bakker feels is no worse than in RL history.[/i]

(3) [b]How to challenge reader’s gender assumptions[/b]

Bakker feels that showing the women the way he did in this brutal world will challenge gender assumptions.

The protestors do not understand how.

PI/Bakker explains:

[quote]I can go on and on about my reasons for choosing the female types I did. So for instance, I wanted to exploit the ironic parallels between 'Men' and their dastardly 'antithesis,' the Sranc. [b]I wanted to explore the nihilistic implications that underwrite social functionalist accounts of our present day gender egalitarianism - the suggestion that the now-sacred values so many have espoused here are actually secondary, ways to rationalize the more efficient utilization of labour given our new technologies of production and reproduction (something which is part and parcel of the way I use Kellhus as a contradictory figure of modernity). [/b]What does justice mean when it comes about for all the wrong reasons? I can go on and on, about the ways in which I parallel Serwe and Earwa, and so on.[/quote]
and
[quote]Earwa is - quite intentionally - a blur on real honest to goodness scriptural worlds that the majority of the human population actually believes in to varying degrees. It's exagerrated here and there according to various thematic axes I have to grind, nothing more, nothing less. Saying it's much worse simply candy coats the real thing, I think.[/quote]
The bolded sentence in the first quotation there is an example of what I struggle to understand, but it has been translated in later posts (I think) as that he wanted to point out how ‘equal rights for women’ was just an inevitable side-effect of the industrial revolution (presumably to challenge the view that it was either altruistic or a triumph of the human spirit in any way). An epiphenomenon rather than a phenomen.

Can I just ask – is this the answer, or have I missed the point?

[Sophelia]

Well, while waiting for illumination on number 3, I'll just say that what seems to me to be the source of the contention is that because of the disagreement on (1), Bakker doesn't perceive his choice to represent women as inferior (for whatever literary goal) as being a sore point to many of his readers.

The disagreement on (2) comes down to differences of opinion on historical authenticity, but again I feel that Bakker doesn't appreciate that feelings here are also affected by (1), i.e. by how previous fantasy authors have depicted [i]their[/i] faux-medieval women. His choice of setting and theme and his interpretation of history have ended up in the same - or worse - representations of women as so many other fantasy authors. Yet at the same time he is trying to dissociate himself from them, saying [i]his[/i] representation is a result of feminism (and is more authentic).

I am half way through another post trying to tease out all the different factors in the representation of women (since it otherwise we'll all mean different things by the term 'bad representations of women'*), but I have to go to work for a few hours first.

* I do feel there has been a mismatch here too.

[Paxter]

[quote name='Sophelia' post='1692046' date='Feb 19 2009, 22.10']The bolded sentence in the first quotation there is an example of what I struggle to understand, but it has been translated in later posts (I think) as that he wanted to point out how ‘equal rights for women’ was just an inevitable side-effect of the industrial revolution (presumably to challenge the view that it was either altruistic or a triumph of the human spirit in any way). An epiphenomenon rather than a phenomen.

Can I just ask – is this the answer, or have I missed the point?[/quote]

No, I don't think you've missed the point. He wants us to think about the origins of "justice" (e.g. gender equality) in our modern society, and whether it makes a difference when the origins of this "justice" are, in fact, unjust.

[quote name='Sophelia' post='1692046' date='Feb 19 2009, 22.10']Well, while waiting for illumination on number 3, I'll just say that what seems to me to be the source of the contention is that because of the disagreement on (1), Bakker doesn't perceive his choice to represent women as inferior (for whatever literary goal) as being a sore point to many of his readers.[/quote]

One of the "good" things about his choice to represent women as "objectively" inferior is that it makes us (or, all other things being equal, should make us) really stand up and take notice when Bakker makes his "big change" (killing and replacing Serwe/Istriya, empowering Esmi). Why do I say this? Because, in a relatively short period of time, we have seen Kellhus reverse a [i]metaphysical reality[/i] - a sexism that has existed since time immemorial and which is so extreme that even women in power (e.g. Istriya) resort to sex in order to achieve their political goals. The amazing thing is that Bakker makes us feel very [i]hollow[/i] about this "reversal" or "big change", even though it seemed to involve the destruction of a metaphysical reality. He did this by using Kellhus - his symbol for modernity.

This makes us (or, at least, me) think: shit. If I can't even get excited about the empowerment of a lowborn female and the destruction of characters who were symbols of female inferiority (Istriya/Serwe), and this has occurred in a very short space of time and [i]in a world in which women are objectively inferior[/i], why the hell should I get excited about gender equality in the modern world when we haven't even come from such a dire position as Earwa (we haven't had to reverse an objective reality in our own world)? It really does make me question my assumptions about gender equality (among other "now-sacred values") in our modern society and makes me skeptical as to the nature of their real origins. As needle said some time ago, these are depressing thoughts. But, as Achamian and Cnaiur would probably attest to, skepticism can be a virtue.

BTW: I recognise/acknowledge that, for many readers, the above discussion might well represent "one of the good things about Bakker's choice to represent women as obectively inferior", but is still significantly outweighed by the potential that the text has for alienating readers before any subtext can actually be perceived. That is the "fine line" I suppose.
ETA: Personally, I don't think he crossed the line. But, then again, maybe I should consider re-reading the series now that I have read these three threads.