Bakker and Women 4

[Galactus]

[quote]Fantasy is rarely wish-fulfilment escapism from the female point of view.[/quote]

Depends on the kind of fantasy I think (viking navy SEALS?), but yeah, I'd agree.

[Sophelia]

[quote name='needle' post='1694815' date='Feb 21 2009, 12.08']I really, really didn't think we'd get on to Bakker 4...:lol:. This thread is probably as long as one of the books by now.[/quote]

We already passed the thousandfold thought last thread. ;) (I think this is the 1237th post)




[size=1]Edited. Bah - I can never spell the T word.[/size]

[JGP]

[quote name='Sophelia' post='1694786' date='Feb 21 2009, 02.53']I wanted to comment on a couple of things Shryke said last thread (it's nice how the colliding of particles sends thoughts off in new directions).

I understand your take on it and see why it's a good bit of storytelling. I don't have a problem with the peril it put Esmi in or the exploration of the vulnerability it [i]puts her in[/i].

Here's another take on it. I'm going to call it the 'seagull effect'.

If all your characters are lined up, and a seagull flies across and craps on one of them, what does this do to the reader's perception of that character?

Well, really it should do nothing, since this is a totally random event which could have happened to anyone. A broken sandal could have happened to Kellhus, Akka, Cnaiur, or any other character.

However, in fiction (and in RL), when a random or unfortunate mishap befalls someone, we have a tendency to see them as more hapless and incompetent. We laugh at them, see them as inferior, and irrationally blame them in some sense for what has happened. Slapstick comedy is based on this.

It's also the case that people who belong to a group which is not perceived in the first place as possessing so much innate dignity will suffer disproportionately from the negative fallout of one mistake, because it primes all those associations. That's why people observe that Obama had to be far more flawless than a white candidate would have to be, to win the presidency in the US. So that's why I think the sandal incident will have contributed to the divide between the 'great' dignified* male characters and Esmi 'the helpless female'.

So in sum I am perhaps extra-sensitive to the author's decision to have the triggering event be a totally random one (as opposed to the events which deepen Esmi's peril, which are due to prejudice from other characters, so don't diminish Esmi in our eyes). It's also the way she reacts to the event, which deepen the pathos, but that's part of Esmi's character which is a separate issue - yet it interacts to confirm the 'hapless' perception which places the random sandal event alongside slapstick comedy and textual bullying** of contemptible characters.[/quote]

I'm trying to bring to mind what exactly this event triggered for Esmi. Achamian broke a sandal in The Darkness That Came Before [iirc, might've been TWP] which definitely came across as hapless, triggering an inner tirade of lamentation regarding his being 'persecuted by the smallest of things.'

Just pointing it out.

[john]

Meh, this is from the last thread -

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1694104' date='Feb 20 2009, 19.29']Let's go with an analogy, shall we? Those are fun, and we like those a lot. Let's say that there's a book that appears to be a classic...oh, I don't know, turn of the century class struggle but is in reality a clever dialog on the dietary restrictions of people back in the day. And every other page, we hear about shit. We read about people taking shits, about the consistency, the smell, the appearance, the size, everything. We hear about all its uses and see people using shit on a regular basis. We see how their agrarian world is built up on shit, how their boots are covered in it. This goes on for page after page, we're constantly reminded of it.[/quote]

[url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wetlands-Charlotte-Roche/dp/0007296703/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235161851&sr=8-1"]Wetlands[/url] by Charlotte Roche. A simple tale of a girl reuniting her divorced parents by her hospital bedside. With graphic descriptions of sex, the minutae of female hygiene, and indeed shit. Either a triumph of fem-lit or disgusting filth, depending on which German you ask.

[quote name='Kalbear' post='1694104' date='Feb 20 2009, 19.29']I agree, but when he said that he felt like it didn't work for some people because of confirmation bias, I think that really missed a lot of why that might even come up. When you read about all these sexist tropes and all this misogyny, it's hard not to pile that into sexist works. That's what I'm trying to say - that the confirmation bias that Bakker railed against and blames for his misinterpretation was caused mostly by him, and by how he chose to write the story.[/quote]

But those with the opposite confirmation bias are more satisfied. How do you win here? The only relevant thing that would make an author change his vision is sales. So does it just come down to numbers or is there some objectively correct way of doing things? (i don't think so)

[quote name='Finn' post='1694105' date='Feb 20 2009, 19.30']The almost obsessive need to recount the latest research as to why humans can't think critically is an unfortunate part of Bakker's posting style. I will give him the benefit of the doubt that he means well, but it can't help but give the impression that he's dismissing whatever viewpoint he's discussing as a kneejerk reaction without much thought behind it. Not conducive to good discussion, in my mind.[/quote]

A supposed neurological function we can't control doesn't give much scope for discussion, true. But it's an entirely neutral observation (although somewhat self-serving, as tends to be the case in arguments).

[JGP]

[quote name='kalbear']The almost obsessive need to recount the latest research as to why humans can't think critically is an unfortunate part of Bakker's posting style. I will give him the benefit of the doubt that he means well, but it can't help but give the impression that he's dismissing whatever viewpoint he's discussing as a kneejerk reaction without much thought behind it. Not conducive to good discussion, in my mind.[/quote]

To a large extent it's obvious these various strains of research have informed Scott’s personal philosophy, and thus colored his work. Besides the thematic elements of PoN he’s discussed, these observations and ideas that he’s brought into the thread that you find casually dismissive are prevalent in the entirety of his work to date.

I [i]really[/i] rebelled against what these veins of research were implying the first time I encountered them. On some level I reacted to them as if they were unconscionable. Later, I found it somewhat intriguing how I opened up to them because of Bakker's more subtle incorporation of them in PoN, only to then become completely repulsed by how overt they were in Neuropath.

But, it’s the subject itself that’s alienating, imo.

I never took Scott’s referencing of these and this as a means of dismissal, more an invitation to consider examining our reactions to the subjects he’s raised, and our selves. Seriously now, beyond the sexism and other elements discussed in these threads, is this [i]not[/i] the over-arching theme behind [i]all[/i] of his work-- that we’re not entirely as ‘self-moving’ as many of us must needs think?

I'd take immediate exception to this premise if he didn't, or couldn't, bring up actual neurological and psychological research to help back it up.

[Sophelia]

[quote name='Azor Ahai' post='1694871' date='Feb 21 2009, 13.56']I'm trying to bring to mind what exactly this event triggered for Esmi. Achamian broke a sandal in The Darkness That Came Before [iirc, might've been TWP] which definitely came across as hapless, triggering an inner tirade of lamentation regarding his being 'persecuted by the smallest of things.'

Just pointing it out.[/quote]

Ooh - so he might have been drawing a comparison which I completely missed. In which case my point about random crap especially targeting Esmi is invalid.

*wonders how the two examples would look juxtaposed*





[size=1]Edit: typo[/size]

[Sophelia]

[quote name='Azor Ahai' post='1694898' date='Feb 21 2009, 14.49']Seriously now, beyond the sexism and other elements discussed in these threads, is this [i]not[/i] the over-arching theme behind [i]all[/i] of his work-- that we’re not entirely as ‘self-moving’ as many of us must needs think?[/quote]

That's my impression, yes.

Since free will versus determinism was something I was exploring in my own novel, that's the magnet which drew me to the PoN series in the first place.

(Mind you, I have been a determinist since my early twenties so it's hardly a shocking idea to me)

[JGP]

[quote name='Sophelia' post='1694908' date='Feb 21 2009, 08.02']Ooh - so he might have been drawing a comparison which I completely missed. In which case my point about random crap especially targeting Esmi is invalid.

*wonders how the two examples would look justaposed*[/quote]

You know Soph, I've been thinking about this. You're right. There could be a direct comparison here. I'll need to take the time tonight to peruse the books and see if I can find both instances because a juxtapositon is definitely in order. After some reflection I think Achamian actually railed in response to his sandals getting [i]worn out[/i] while Esmi, despite one of her sandals being broken, soldiers on.

ETA: tugging thoughts and grammar into their proper order
ETA II: and spelling, heh

[Galactus]

Problem with these self-confirmation bias theories.... They really undermine themselves. If they are true, it means (paradoxically) that they cannot be trusted.

[Sophelia]

[quote name='Galactus' post='1695000' date='Feb 21 2009, 17.10']Problem with these self-confirmation bias theories.... They really undermine themselves. If they are true, it means (paradoxically) that they cannot be trusted.[/quote]

:lol:

You just want to believe that :P

[Shryke]

[quote name='Sophelia' post='1694786' date='Feb 21 2009, 04.53']I understand your take on it and see why it's a good bit of storytelling. I don't have a problem with the peril it put Esmi in or the exploration of the vulnerability it [i]puts her in[/i].

Here's another take on it. I'm going to call it the 'seagull effect'.

If all your characters are lined up, and a seagull flies across and craps on one of them, what does this do to the reader's perception of that character?

Well, really it should do nothing, since this is a totally random event which could have happened to anyone. A broken sandal could have happened to Kellhus, Akka, Cnaiur, or any other character.
[b]
However, in fiction (and in RL), when a random or unfortunate mishap befalls someone, we have a tendency to see them as more hapless and incompetent. We laugh at them, see them as inferior, and irrationally blame them in some sense for what has happened. Slapstick comedy is based on this.
[/b][/quote]

I don't realy understand this idea at all.

It's not "random" in a sense. It's a matter of lack of preperation. It's an illustration of the difficult position she's put herself in.

She's left her comfort zone and pu herself in a position where something as simple as a broken sandel becoems a HUGE deal.

It doesn't make her look stupid or hapless or incompetant, it makes her look like she's in a dangerous situation.

I saw it as, partially anyway, a way for the author to really get it through the readers head that "A women walking a long distance with little money in this time period" wasn't just a simple thing. It was a real .. ordeal. It was serious business.

[Tears of Lys]

The broken sandal showed just how tenuous Esme's position really was at that point. Her very existence depended on her being sheltered by some man (even if it turned out to be a skin spy.) She was feeling so confident and independent, and then to have her very life endangered in a wink of an eye was telling, to say the least, about the plight of unprotected women in Earwa.


[quote name='Sophelia' post='1694853' date='Feb 21 2009, 08.27']We already passed the thousandfold thought last thread. ;) (I think this is the 1237th post)




[size=1]Edited. Bah - I can never spell the T word.[/size][/quote]


I'm really glad that the Bakker threads have pushed the Lemmings off of the first page.
:smash:

[Sophelia]

[quote name='Shryke' post='1695160' date='Feb 21 2009, 20.34']I don't realy understand this idea at all.

It's not "random" in a sense. It's a matter of lack of preperation. It's an illustration of the difficult position she's put herself in.

She's left her comfort zone and pu herself in a position where something as simple as a broken sandel becoems a HUGE deal.

It doesn't make her look stupid or hapless or incompetant, it makes her look like she's in a dangerous situation.

I saw it as, partially anyway, a way for the author to really get it through the readers head that "A women walking a long distance with little money in this time period" wasn't just a simple thing. It was a real .. ordeal. It was serious business.[/quote]

[quote name='Tears of Lys' post='1695386' date='Feb 22 2009, 03.26']The broken sandal showed just how tenuous Esme's position really was at that point. Her very existence depended on her being sheltered by some man (even if it turned out to be a skin spy.) She was feeling so confident and independent, and then to have her very life endangered in a wink of an eye was telling, to say the least, about the plight of unprotected women in Earwa.[/quote]

Yes, I absolutely agree with what it showed, with the consequences and the way that was depicted.

Shryke - it does you credit that your evaluations of a person are unaffected by their mishaps. Next time it's raining and a passing car drenches me with water, I hope the only person watching is you.


Anyway, it does seem that my reaction to this incident wasn't warranted. Or at least, that it is one of those narrative decisions which in itself was well motivated, but which (for me anyway) added to the cumulative perception of Esmi as more 'pathetic' and shallower in her concerns than the male characters. I'm prepared for the possibility that this may be due to my own sexism.

(I'm curious to see what emerges from the comparison with Akka)

[Sophelia]

OK, so, this thread happened because a whole load of us, for varying reasons, were uncomfortable with the representation of women in the PoN series. Indeed, there were moments where I felt as if I had accidentally barged into the locker rooms at Eton college. In my case I persisted with the series, dismissing the feeling. The representation of women niggled me throughout, but no differently from many fantasy series.

Bakker has explained that he deliberately presented a sexist world, in order to challenge the readers' gender assumptions. For each of the different factors in the representation of women that people protested about, Bakker provided one, sometimes several, reasons.

What I want to examine is whether the feeling of discomfort is just due to the cumulative effect of all these decisions (all of which the author made deliberately for different reasons), or whether some of the decisions remain not satisfactorily accounted for.

I wanted to identify all the different factors which together capture the representation of a group within a novel. This is my first go at it (focusing on women in fantasy):

[list]
[*] [b]Setting[/b]:
[*] choice of setting within the world
[*] occupations and roles open to women as opposed to men
[*] attitude towards women in the society
[*] laws and other dictats of society
[*] educational opportunities
[*] family structures
[*] presence/absence of contraceptives
[*] [b]Biological factors[/b]
[*] strength and other bodily abilities
[*] age
[*] physical appearance / attractiveness
[*] special innate fantasy abilities e.g. ability to do magic (compared with men)
[*] [b]Mental factors[/b]
[*] personality
[*] intelligence
[*] sense of humour
[*] [b]Authorial decisions[/b]
[*] Which women (in terms of the above factors) are picked to feature in the plot
[*] How many women and how prominent in the story
[*] How active/passive they are in the plot
[*] How often they talk to or about other characters, and on what topics
[*] The purpose of their story arcs
[*] worldbuilding decisions
[*] [b]Narrative factors[/b]
[*] The nature of their thoughts
[*] The nature of their dialogue
[*] Their actions and interactions
[*] The vocabulary used to describe the women characters
[*] The way other characters think about them, and how often
[/list]

I'm sure this list is incomplete (and also somewhat arbitrary in its organisation), but it does show that many different things can influence the representation and perception of women in a particular book. I want to pull out some of these which have been mentioned in this thread, to try and consolidate my understanding of the debates.

[Sophelia]

One of the main debates has been what is 'realistic', and I'm wondering whether this is itself such a large topic that it would be better covered in a spin-off thread.

My argument is that writing can never be remotely realistic. Even were it possible for an author to conceive of a/the world veridically, and for vocabulary and language not to distort perception of that world in any way, a book can only reflect a minute part of a world, and at every step thousands of choices are made about which aspects of it to focus on.

A large part of Bakker's justifications for his choices are that he wanted to avoid romanticising, and show how realistically brutal things were for women. He did say that he had added some extra exaggeration, for thematic reasons, and he also added the device of making women 'metaphysically inferior' by converting some medieval belief to actual truth.

I got the impression from Bakker's writing, and he has agreed, is that he likes to depict the extremes of human suffering (muchos violence etc.). If GRRM and Abercrombie do 'gritty', Bakker does positively rocky. With avalanches and lava spewing and all.

OK, here's a totally separate point. When thinking about oppressed groups in society, there are some fine lines to be trodden. First, it is crucial (Bakker mentioned this himself) that it is the circumstances, the external factors, which are blamed, not the people themselves. Second, that there is full recognition and condemnation of the factors oppressing the group, without leading to a perception of the group as needing charity, pity or patronisation. That it is important for people who recognise oppressive circumstances to try and stamp those out, but not to do so with the mindset that these people are helpless victims who need to be rescued, since that mindset is the same one which caused them to be oppressed in the first place. All people want to be listened to and respected.

Bakker's continual plea in these threads is that people notice that his female characters end up being taken advantage of by the male ones not because of any defects of character, but because the world is sexist. He made the world extra-sexist in fact. He threw so much hardship at the women that many female readers began to think, wait a moment, don't we get enough of this in real life, why is this author going out of his way to depict us in the worst of all possible worlds?

Some of these female readers, and male readers who noticed the same thing, came into this thread to say that the 'mysogyny' in the books made women feel alienated. The author's motives were questioned because it wasn't just the attitudes of other characters in Earwa which were sexist, but all sorts of other decisions multiplied the effect. One reason why the threads are so long is that (by a strange coincidence) Bakker at first only replied to posts made by male posters*, so in a recapitulation of history, women's voices went unheard, and then were dismissed. Bakker still feels, I think, that the protestors have missed the point. At first he suggested this was because his readers weren't clever enough. Perhaps because he too caught the echoes of history, he has settled with the main explanation that people's conditioning didn't allow them to reach the underlying message, which I tend to agree with. However, the underlying message is still elusive, even now we have started to 'remove' the obscuring factors.

I am still trying to discern the 'feminist message' which he was trying to put across. I'm going to keep trying. There are plenty of other messages popping out in the process, which I hadn't discerned either.



* In another example of 'the mysogyny that came before' affecting my perceptions, I might not have noticed this coincidence if not for having had an overtly sexist chemistry teacher who used to address all questions first to the male students, who he addressed by name, and then only afterwards he would throw the question out as an afterthought to 'the girls' (he never learnt any of our names: I think we were an amorphous blob of fail to him).

[Sophelia]

So, Bakker has told us that the medium for the feminist message is placing women in this really sexist world.

If he'd been writing a historical novel or non-fiction, he could have simply been saying "other writers have been doing women a disservice by making you think women didn't have too hard a time of it. I'm going to show you how it really was". I could have understood this, since it was one of the ways I listed in the SWM thread for drawing attention to inequalities. It's a technique that has been used for some time (Tess of the d'Urbervilles anyone?) and historical realism is laudable.

However, this is not what he is doing, because he made some further changes and choices.

Firstly, he chose to write within the fantasy genre, so he added a great deal to his world which doesn't exist in real life, changed certain factors, and as in the conventional fantasy novel, hyped his world up to a state of epic confrontation.

Secondly, he zoomed in on a scenario in his world where women were extra especially badly off (more on this later, since this may be the main point where the misunderstandings begin). [and few in number]

Third, it eventually transpired that only one of the three 'women' he depicted was in fact a woman.

Fourth, he wasn't really concentrating on historical authenticity since his characters were not intended as realistic characters, but were also symbols and archetypes, unlike RL people.

Fifth, he added the twist that in Earwa, women really are metaphysically inferior, which on the fact of it would seem to completely reverse any 'feminist message' resembling the above, since it presents a world where sexism is justified and therefore quells any ability to complain about it (people who have read TJE will have a better handle on what this means and what it does to the messages). The parallels to the real world are (presumably) sundered by this decision, unless Bakker's message is the anti-feminist message that we need to suck it up and realise that we're just deluding ourselves that women aren't inferior: that there's got to be something about the nature of women which causes all this sexism.

Now, I assume this last wasn't Bakker's message, because he referred to his message as 'feminist', but my conclusion so far is that we can rule out the simplest and most obvious message that he could have aimed for (the message that in RL history women had a hard time).

[Sophelia]

OK, I wonder if the message is that 'women had a hard time because of people's religious and metaphysical beliefs/assumptions'? (Though if so still doesn't explain why he 'invented' religions for his world... though maybe the ways in which his religions differ from or are similar to RL ones is part of the message. Since I don't know much detail about any religion, this would go completely over my head. Besides this doesn't get us any further, since in RL one would ask where those religious beliefs came from, whereas in PoN that question is cut short by 'from the truth'.)

So far my only conclusion is that I am not cut out to be a literary critic ;)



ETA: People may wonder why I am still looking for 'the message' when earlier on Bakker provided 'the answer'. This is because the answer he provided was an explanation of why Esme started off downtrodden and then obtained (through Kellhus) a measure of equality. That answer was not in any sense that I can discern 'feminist' (about the origins of the equal rights movement). So I'm looking for the feminist message, the message he said challenged people's gender assumptions. I've probably missed something obvious, in which case someone please spell it out to me.

[Sophelia]

Another random thought: Bakker said that readers were meant to notice that it was a deliberately sexist world, rather than (as so many of us did before this thread), assuming the author was your usual well-meaning but slightly sexist fantasy author, rather than a determined feminist.

I wonder if one reason why we didn't notice was that in the first scene with Esmi and Akka, that relationship seemed touchingly realistic to me, and it wasn't until later that the absence of other female characters (either in scenes or in thoughts) together with the way Serwe was portrayed, that I felt 'disillusioned'. At some point that creeping feeling of sexism should (in Bakker's design) have caused me to realise the author was doing it for a reason (the reason I am still trying to discern :blush:).

ETA: Added to this, throughout the first book(s) my mental image of Esmi was of an average-looking women in her late 30s/early 40s. This is because I think in her thoughts she regarded herself as 'an old whore'. It surprised me when she turned out to be young, beautiful and fertile. In other words, I had assumed at first that PoN was [i]not[/i] entirely harking back to old fantasy stereotypes of women (apart from the 'whore' thing).

[needle]

[quote]Bakker at first only replied to posts made by male posters[/quote]

I did find it interesting that over the whole debate, even when Bakker eventually responded to a few of the female poster's points, he [i]never did so by name[/i], while he was quite comfortable calling the men by their names. It may seem a petty point, but it's kind of telling, especially when he's by and large been given the benefit of the doubt on his own personal sexism.

[Sophelia]

[quote name='needle' post='1695558' date='Feb 22 2009, 13.45']I did find it interesting that over the whole debate, even when Bakker eventually responded to a few of the female poster's points, he [i]never did so by name[/i], while he was quite comfortable calling the men by their names.[/quote]

That's exactly what I noticed. Weird! He used Kalbear's name when replying to Kalbear, and he used Finn's name, but when he replied to me it took me a few moments to work out that yes, he really was replying to my post, because he hadn't mentioned my name.


(That's why I mentioned the chemistry teacher thing, to raise his/others' awareness: I don't know if Bakker is sexist or not. He either is sexist without realising, or he doesn't realise all the ways in which other people are sexist, and is therefore too innocent to realise quite how often he puts his foot in it by behaving just like them and wonders why people look at him funny when he calls himself a feminist. :/ )


ETA: I'm not writing this in some holier-than-thou (to Bakker) way, since I'm the first to admit that I am, to my regret, quite often sexist. (And I certainly haven't done enough 'challenging of gender assumptions' in my own (poorer) writing)