brust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust) (03/08/85)
"What could be more sexist than altering the conventions of
the language on purely sexual considerations?"
-- Gene Wolfe
(I have included this in our FORTUNE file. Go thou and
do likewise. -- SKZB)jagardner@watmath.UUCP (jagardner) (03/13/85)
In article <123@hyper.UUCP> brust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust) quotes: >"What could be more sexist than altering the conventions of >the language on purely sexual considerations?" > > -- Gene Wolfe > >(I have included this in our FORTUNE file. Go thou and >do likewise. -- SKZB) A good point in many instances, but there are exceptions. I think Samuel R. Delaney's new novel "Stars in my Pockets Like Grains of Sand" contains a highly enlightening alteration in the conventions of English that is based on purely sexual considerations. On many planets of Delaney's universe, one refers to all citizens (sentient beings) as "she" or "her", regardless of gender. Furthermore, these people are all called "women" (though they can be female women or male women if gender is important for some reason). The words "he", "him", and "man" are used to refer to citizens by whom the speaker is sexually aroused; therefore the sexual distinction is only made when you are feeling your own sexuality. Again, a man in this sense can be either female or male depending on your sexual preferences. People are quite free to switch from shes to hes (when sexual feelings stir) and from hes to shes (when sexual feelings die down one way or another). At first this just seems like an artificial device to mess up the reader's mind. However, halfway through the story I finally figured out what (I think) Delaney was trying to illustrate. Whenever a new character is introduced into the story, the character is automatically a woman and "she". At first, the reader believes all these people are female, but that's not true -- they're just neutral people and their sexuality is of no interest to the story's narrator (there are one or two "men" who ARE of interest to the narrator, but that's another problem). As you read, you realize that some of these "women" are male and some are female AND YOU DON'T KNOW WHICH IS WHICH. The story's narrator doesn't care, but the reader does (of course I am only describing my personal reaction). I think this demonstrates how deeply we feel the need to differentiate between the sexes. We want to know if someone is male or female even when that has no relevance to that person's actions or outlook. Delaney's linguistic conventions made this mental peculiarity obvious in a way that would be difficult with normal language. Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo P.S. By the way, I'm with Gene Wolfe and Steven Brust on playing with conventions when you don't have a special point to make in the way Delaney makes it. You can he or she or (s)he your writing into incomprehensibility if you aren't careful.
dwight@timeinc.UUCP (Dwight Ernest) (03/15/85)
Re: Sexual differentiation in recent science fiction I, too, was confused about the gender of the characters in Ursula K. LeGuin's famous "The Left Hand of Darkness" when I first read it in 1973... I desperately wanted to know which gender the two major protagonists were members of. Then it dawned on me (as it apparently did on you, too, Jim) that this was exactly what the novel was about and that LeGuin intended us to think about this need to connect characters with gender. I certainly did, and it was the dawning of what became a more mature anti-sexist consciousness later (I hope). Incidentally, if you can get your hands on "The Left Hand of Darkness" by LeGuinn, by all means don't pass it up.
brust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust) (03/15/85)
> In article <123@hyper.UUCP> brust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust) quotes: > >"What could be more sexist than altering the conventions of > >the language on purely sexual considerations?" > > > > -- Gene Wolfe > > > >(I have included this in our FORTUNE file. Go thou and > >do likewise. -- SKZB) > > A good point in many instances, but there are exceptions. ... > > Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo > > P.S. By the way, I'm with Gene Wolfe and Steven Brust on playing > with conventions when you don't have a special point to make in > the way Delaney makes it. You can he or she or (s)he your writing > into incomprehensibility if you aren't careful. Okay. I agree. The use you describe is valid. I'm not sure that any lesser writer than Delany could have gotten away with it, but it is a good point. - SKZB