Space: the feminist frontier


This article originally appeared in T&S Issue 37, Summer 98.

Science fiction need not be about technological gadgetry or wars in outer space. Feminist writers have used science fiction to explore alternative to patriarchy as we know it. Hence it can entertain us while making political points. Here Dianne Butterworth suggests some science fiction novels which radical feminits might enjoy.

Last summer, I lent some science fiction books to one of the T&S sisters to take on holiday with her. This year, she asked if I could write a short summer reading list for this issue. I must warn you, though, that this is a very idiosyncratic list. It’s not a systematic review of recent books, nor does it have any kind of theme; I just scanned my shelves and picked out a few books that I thought radical feminists might be interested in reading (in fact, one of my selections is not about gender).

I am going to skip over the well-known feminist classics such as Joanna Russ’ The Female Man, Suzy McKee Charnas’ Walk to the End of the World and  Motherlines, Suzette Haden Elgin’s Native Tongue, etc. Most of these are already known to feminists, although I would always recommend them to those who haven’t yet read them. (The Female Man is one of the most amazing science fiction books I have read — see the review in T&S No. 5). This is also not a proper ‘review’, since what I know about critiquing fiction could fit in the belly­button of a gnat. Instead, this will be more of a commentary on books I have found particularly gripping.

Having given all these warnings, let me begin by telling you why I like science fiction — I know many women are utterly uninterested in it, so let me try to convince you to read these books. Most non-science fiction readers, when they think of science fiction, tend to think of Star Wars or Aliens. Yes, these are set in the future or in a galaxy far, far away, but they do not show what science fiction can achieve (don’t get me wrong, though, I like both these films). Science fiction, at its best (and there is a lot of really crap science fiction out there), allows authors to explore ideas and themes which are not bound to ‘reality’. They can postulate situations where the reader cannot say ‘the legal system doesn’t work like that’ or they can create alien races which escape the limitations of so-called ‘human nature’. This is the kind of science fiction I like best. Forget Star Wars — that’s just a war movie set in outer space, with a few weird-looking creatures thrown in. Aliens is a jumped-up slasher film with some real mean bad guys.

A Door into Ocean

My first book, A Door into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski, is about two worlds: Valedon and its moon, the ocean world of Shora. Valedon is a world very much like our own in many ways — capitalist, and patriarchal in its many forms. Ruling over all the known worlds in the galaxy is the Patriarch. Shora, on the other hand, is a world where the ‘Sharers’ live. This is a race of women, genetically compatible with humans, as they are descended from humans. The following description of Sharers will cause many women to sigh heavily, I’m sure (oh, no, not another women-are-all-connected-to-nature aren’t-we-all-nice utopia), but, please, bear with me.

Physical violence and coercion is incomprehensible to Sharers (although there are a few psychotic individuals), they live in balance with their ecosystem, they limit their numbers to a sustainable population, decisions are reached through consensus. However, the Sharers are not perfect people — they feel anger, jealousy, hate, they can be petty, but the one thing they do not feel is fear; or rather, they feel sensible fear when confronting the dangers of their world (carnivorous creatures, storms), but they have the ability to withdraw into ‘whitetrance’ — a kind of dissociation. Whitetrance is used when Sharers want to be alone in a world where they are forced to live in very close proximity to each other. It is used for meditation and for grieving.

The plot of the book revolves around the fact that the Patriarch’s representative, the Envoy, has ordered Valedon’s High Protector to get Shora under control before his next visit some years later. So Valedon ‘invades’ Shora. The crucial point of the book is: what happens when an army invades a planet of people who don’t understand the concept of ‘orders’ and who therefore don’t understand how to obey? How can non-violent tactics succeed against violence? How can soldiers force someone to co-operate when she can choose to withdraw into white­trance — a state in which Sharers do not feel pain?

The tension in the book is in the dilemma faced by the Sharers — to learn violence in order to repel a ravaging army (as one faction would do), or to hold to non-violence. In the book, two of the central characters are Valans living with the Sharers — a woman, Berenice, whose father was one of the first to start trading with Shora, and who grew up amongst the Sharers, and a boy, Spinel. These characters (whose culture is much more like ours than Shora’s) allow the reader to observe and react along with them and to engage with the fears and hopes of the Sharers.

I keep returning to this book, especially during those times when you’ve heard one atrocity too many, when sustaining a radical feminist vision of possibilities seems too hard, and when violence as a political strategy seems an appropriate response to male violence. A Door into Ocean grounds me; the relationships between the women — despite tensions and individual histories — delight, amaze and amuse me; the core message of non-violence refreshes me; and I think about how my fears constrain my life.

Alien Influences

In contrast, Alien Influences by Kristine Kathryn Rusch is disturbing, but it is one of the most powerful novels I have ever read about child abuse. The book begins with an investigation by Justin Schafer, a human- and xeno-psychologist, into the murders of two children on the planet Bountiful. The only human presence on this harsh planet is a colony of 1,000 men, women and children living in a dome, who trade with the native race — the Dancers — for the ingredients of Salt Juice, their only export. Justin Schafer, whose anthropomorphic assumptions about another alien race triggered humans’ genocidal slaughter of a harmless sentient species, is determined to find out the truth about the murders and the possible involvement of the Dancers, under suspicion since both children were murdered in an imitation of a Dancer ritual.

Soon after Justin’s arrival, a third killing takes place, and it becomes clear that the killers are a group of the colony children. The first half of the book follows the investigation, the subsequent arrest of the children, their deportation to Lina Base for trial, the children’s attempts to cope with their new environment, and the various interactions, benevolent and otherwise, of the adults on Lina Base with the children. It emerges during this time that the children ‘killed’ their peers in order to force them to grow up, imitating a Dancer’s metamorphosis into adult life.

But the adults around them — Justin Schafer, their attorney and the base psychologist, as well as the police and guards — are much more concerned with whether the children were ‘influenced’ by an alien species. Their case will be the first test of a new law, the Alien Influences Act. Their lawyer says:

‘We have to determine at the hearing how to treat them in our legal system. Do we treat them as children or are their crimes too severe for that? Do we treat them as human? Do we treat them as human under Dancer influence? Do we treat them as Dancers with human characteristics? Do we treat them as Dancers only?’

Twenty years later, John, the last of the of the Dancer Eight, as the children became known, begins a quest to find the other seven, not knowing their fates. John eventually meets up again with Justin. This time he says what he was not able to as a child:

‘You have never looked beyond the surface, Dr Schafer. Your entire career has been one of taking the illusions people present and going no deeper. When you realized that children — children! — were killing each other, you never asked why. You never looked to the true cause, the real motive.’ …

‘Think, Doctor. It would seem to me, although I am not an expert like you, that a basic tenet of human psychology is that when the children take drastic action, there is something wrong with the adults. You never looked at the families. You never looked at the community, although you did us all a favour by breaking it up. You only looked at us as if we were diseased and because we imitated the Dancers, you and everyone else figured that they had influenced us somehow.’

‘You chose their rituals,’ Justin said. ‘You chose them.’

‘No,’ John said softly. ‘They chose us. But that’s another issue and one I’ve only just figured out. No. The Dancers were never players. They were only a method of escape. And on other colonies, there are other escape methods — probably not as drastic or severe — but they exist. You don’t understand your own world, doctor. How can you understand alien worlds if you don’t understand your own?’

Alien Influences is about memory and surviving, and it is about the choices we make, even given extremely limited options. It is about how adults intervene, and the consequences — for the children and for themselves — of their actions and assumptions. It is about the damage child abuse can do, as well as the ways in which we cope with our own pasts.

Feminism against fundamentalism and liberalism

My third book, Grass, was written by Sheri S. Tepper, a rather prolific science fiction writer. One of the things I like about her novels is that she always has such great female characters (the vast majority of her central characters are women). I never hesitate when I see one of her new books in the shop. However, the more I have read of Sheri Tepper’s books, the more reservations I have about her politics. She is a feminist, and she makes it clear that she understands very well the mechanisms at work in the construction of gender. Yet she still has essentialist tendencies; she believes that many human characteristics are genetic. Add to that the fact that for many years she worked for Planned Parenthood, and you get a rather disturbing world view. This comes through often in the books she writes.

Having said that, her settings and plots are imaginative, her female characters are strong and interesting, she is usually impatient with men, and two of her most frequent targets are fundamentalist religion and liberalism (her authorial views are always crystal clear) — this makes for a rather appealing combination. ( Of Tepper’s other books, I would particularly recommend The Gate Into Women’s Country and Beauty.) Grass is typical; it is set on a planet inhabited both by humans and aliens (or rather, the native species’ planet has been colonised by humans). It is also the only planet in the galaxy free of the plague that is threatening all humans. Marjorie Westriding-Yrarier is the wife of the new Terran ambassador, who has been sent to the planet Grass to find out why the plague has not affected it. In typical Tepper style, Marjorie, somewhat reluctantly at first, takes action to piece together the planet’s puzzles.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *