furyofvissarion (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
furyofvissarion) wrote2010-10-19 08:27 pm
furyofvissarion) wrote2010-10-19 08:27 pm
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The Secret Feminist Cabal: A Cultural History of Science Fiction Feminisms - Helen Merrick. Enjoyable text covering the often uneasy relationship between science fiction and feminism (mostly within US/UK contexts) from the around the 1920s onward. Neatly discussed are the way feminism has often historically tried to view feminist science fiction as anything but science fiction & how there were, actually, women in SF before the second wave of feminism, some of them even writing & grappling with gender issues. There's some overlap with other similar books (like Justine Larbalestier's), of course, but still enough of a difference to be worth reading, & I appreciated that the tone wasn't as mind-numbingly academic as some stuff I've read on the topic. One thing that irked was the repeated explanation of APAs as some kind of pre-internet equivalent of Livejournal or blogs in general. There are still paper zines to this day! Why not compare them to that? Ugh.
Mechademia 2: Networks of Desire - Edited by Frenchy Lunning. Fascinating anthology of cultural critique relating to anime & manga; I definitely want to check out the rest in the series. Topics covered include: lolita fashion as a form of resistance; the use & popularity of an explicit manga series as informal, realistic sex ed; depictions of war in anime in relation to Japan's constitutionally-mandated pacifism; Ranma 1/2 fanfic & the ways it often preserves the status quo (not subverting it as a certain school of thought insists fic by definition does); & the ubiquitous (but true!) "more." Very worth reading.
Asleep - Banana Yoshimoto. Three novellas, all dealing with young women & sleep. I suppose it is then very cliched to describe them as dreamlike, but yes, they are suffused with a sense of reality being at one remove: things happening at night, in secret quiet moments, that don't make sense, or only make sense through the haze of sleep. The first one deals with a woman whose brother died years ago, and the two women (her cousin, & an exchange student from the US) with whom he was romantically linked. The second features a woman who, in a kind of severe ennui, just can't stay awake, and the last is about a woman dreaming about a former romantic rival. Not earthshaking, but quietly engrossing.
Mechademia 2: Networks of Desire - Edited by Frenchy Lunning. Fascinating anthology of cultural critique relating to anime & manga; I definitely want to check out the rest in the series. Topics covered include: lolita fashion as a form of resistance; the use & popularity of an explicit manga series as informal, realistic sex ed; depictions of war in anime in relation to Japan's constitutionally-mandated pacifism; Ranma 1/2 fanfic & the ways it often preserves the status quo (not subverting it as a certain school of thought insists fic by definition does); & the ubiquitous (but true!) "more." Very worth reading.
Asleep - Banana Yoshimoto. Three novellas, all dealing with young women & sleep. I suppose it is then very cliched to describe them as dreamlike, but yes, they are suffused with a sense of reality being at one remove: things happening at night, in secret quiet moments, that don't make sense, or only make sense through the haze of sleep. The first one deals with a woman whose brother died years ago, and the two women (her cousin, & an exchange student from the US) with whom he was romantically linked. The second features a woman who, in a kind of severe ennui, just can't stay awake, and the last is about a woman dreaming about a former romantic rival. Not earthshaking, but quietly engrossing.
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I'll also take a look at Merrick's book. I find that sci-fi is a genre where pretty consistently also male writers display feminist attitudes (such as Iain Banks, and--although he's often accused of having misogynist characters--even Heinlein). It's the genre where I'm least likely to rip my hair out of because of stupid gender roles. :)
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(The article that talks about lolita fashion is by Mari Kotani, yay!)
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There's definitely loads of problematicness in sf/f re: gender & other oppressions, but... yeah, it surprises me when people write it off totally, as a genre, as non-feminist. Er, imagining the future--just possibly a good vehicle for imagining a future where gender roles are different? Hahaha.