Thursday, August 2nd, 2007

Time	Event
8:08a	Eldering; winding down; afternote... I had said, in one example of me fussing at myself, "Okay, so there are strangers who have considerable respect for you, but some of your own children are still waiting for you to publish what they refer to as a Real Book, and you still haven't made peace with the feminist community!" And cmeckhardt, fjm, and bibliofile all asked for an explanation of "you still haven't made peace with the feminist community!" That's fair enough, but it's not easy. The objection that there is no one single "feminist community" is also fair, and accurate; I can only say that in this instance it's not relevant. Over the years I've been asked to speak to groups from all of the various branches of feminism, and -- without exception -- what I've said has made my audience angry with me. Part of the problem is a set of philosophical differences, and I don't think there's any point in my listing those here. I've had no luck making them clear to audiences when I was actually there before them... when they could observe my body language and I could observe theirs, and we could interact on that basis. The chances of my being able to make them clear with nothing but the written word at my disposal are vanishingly small. I will, therefore, mention just the one practical difference that puts me at odds with the feminists (using that as an admittedly over-broad cover term). Here goes.... My perception is that none of the branches of feminism has been willing to make any real effort to reach the cultural group represented by women who get called "white trash" and "trailer park trash" even when they don't live in trailer parks. Women like Paula Jones. Women who are crippled by the Southern Mountain dialects they speak -- women whose dialects very effectively bar them from any chance of moving out of their cultural group. This is my cultural group; I escaped from it -- by sheer blind luck -- because I was born into its "gentry" branch, and I was dogged-stubborn, and telling me I couldn't do something was a sure way to make me fight till I found a way to do it. The books and articles that feminists write, and the speeches they give, and the courses they teach, and the conferences they offer -- in my opinion -- systematically neglect those women. When I speak to feminist groups, of whatever theoretical orientation, I feel duty-bound to express my dissatisfaction about this, and to ask that they do something to fix the problem. That has never yet led to a peaceful resolution. [And while I'm here: This is analogous to my perpetual demand that Big Name Linguists -- linguists who already are full professors and already have tenure and already have secure status and couldn't be hurt in any way by an accusation that they've stooped to "popularization" -- write something, for once, that would make linguistics clear to ordinary people. That demand never leads to a peaceful resolution either. That gets me responses like "Oh, for gods sake, Suzette, 'ordinary' people don't read!" Uhuh. Many of the women I want so much to reach with feminism are part of that population of "ordinary people."] (174 Comments | Comment on this)
8:38a	Part of a relevant science fiction story.... The post about my being at odds with feminists reminded me of a short story I wrote many years ago, and I thought I'd post its opening section here. It was in The 1987 Annual World's Best SF [edited by Donald A. Wollheim for DAW Books 1987]. I wrote it right after I'd gone to a WisCon feminist sf convention, in the days when WisCon was still held in Madison, Wisconsin, in the middle of winter, in a downtown hotel that was right across from a park. It seems to me not to be all that off-topic, especially now that we're living in the Age Of George W. Bush's Executive Orders. Donald Wollheim's introductory squib for it ended with: "Here's a story of a miracle that may or may not be scientifically explained." And this is how the story begins... Lo, How An Oak E'er Blooming The day that she caused the miracle, Willow Severty was just plain tired. The women in the audience had been thrashing her a good half hour, and she'd been patiently bearing that, working away one word at a time toward somehow making them understand. But they were angry, at her and at the world, and they would not let Willow be. And when words failed her, Willow turned in utter weariness to deeds. One deed, to be precise. She stood there sagging under the lash of their tongues, looking more and more battered and useless every minute. And then she gave herself a sort of shake, the way a tired animal will shake off water, and she raised her two hands before her to ward the other women off. "That's enough," she said, standing there at the front of the room before the rows of chairs, beside the speaker's lectern. "That's more than enough. I'm sorry you're so dissatisfied with me, but I can't do any better. And I tell you you're wrong, with that laundry list of yours. I tell you there've been laws written down since first men could record their wickedness and their pride -- and there has always been a way to make those laws no more than chicken scratches. Laws are like wars -- of their making there is no end, and they're not worth warm spit. I tell you, what we need is a miracle." They would have interrupted her if she'd paused, and she knew that, so she went right on. "A miracle!" Willow said again. "Something that money and power and law and science and war cannot do. I've had enough of words -- they ignore words anyway -- it's time now for signs. Signs and portents. We need a miracle to show them... " And she had smiled an exhausted smile and added, "Just a very small miracle will do. It doesn't have to be the levitation of the Pentagon. It will be sufficient if--" Willow looked around her, and out over their heads toward the windows at the back of the conference room, and she saw something that would serve her purpose. "It would be sufficient for that bare oak tree, standing out there naked in the snow, to burst all at once into glorious bloom. That would be miracle enough." And she had drawn a deep breath, and it was so. ....... (18 Comments | Comment on this)
12:50p	Conestoga podcast available... I've just had an e-mail saying that the podcast I did at Conestoga this year is available online now, at http://www.sftulsa.org/conestoga/2007/08/02/program-32-suzette-hayden-elgin/ . (2 Comments | Comment on this)

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