VLSI%DEC-MARLBORO@sri-unix.UUCP (01/05/84)
From: John Redford <VLSI at DEC-MARLBORO> Re: the inquiry about matriarchies in science fiction: A quick pass over my library yields a number of books containing matriarchal soceities: The Pride of Chanur - C. J. Cherryh - Alien females behave like the saltiest of sailors while the males lounge around the home planet. A World Between - Norman Spinrad - Fairly crude sexual allegory that contrasts a lesbian soceity, a Faustian male culture, and a sexually balanced, albeit gaggingly mellow, planet. The Female Man - Joanna Russ - Have not actually read. Pursuit of the Screamer - Ansen Dibell - Women stay on top in a low-tech trading culture by means of telepathy and alien female mercenaries. Watch the Northwind Rise - Robert Graves - Here's an obscure one. This is a utopian novel by the well-known English poet. In it he expresses his ideas about how the archetypal figure he calls The White Goddess might manifest herself in a future soceity. The Tombs of Atuan - Ursula Le Guin - Middle volume of the Earthsea trilogy. A soceity run by priestesses. Then there are the stories of cultures with permanent queens. Women aren't actually in charge at the lower levels, but a queen is the source of ultimate authority. In this category you find: The Snow Queen - Joan Vinge The Black Flame - Stanley Weinbaum She - H. Rider Haggard plus a whole lot of A. Merritt stuff which I don't have on hand. Most of this counts as male fantasy rather than as serious speculation as to how women would run things. The same goes for the stories of Amazon races, of which I can't think of any good examples right now. Hope this helps your data gathering. /jlr --------
betsy@dartvax.UUCP (Betsy Hanes Perry) (01/08/84)
A fine book in this vein is _When Voiha Wakes_, by Joy Chant (also the author of _Red Moon and Black Mountain_). It concerns a society in which women are the farmers, rulers, and property-owners of society. Men are craftsmen, supposedly because 'it allows them to make up for not being able to bear children'. This is a far subtler book than many role-reversals; it pays due attention to the logical consequences of a society's beliefs. (For instance, since men leave their families at an early age to join craftsmens' guilds, their primary socialization is as guild-members. Women see themselves as members of families. Both guilds and families have secrets to which members of the other sex are not privy. As a result, sex relationships tend to be short and shallow. What can you discuss with a social alien? For long-term companionship, people tend to stick to members of their own sex.) The book is more than a thought-experiment, though; it rotates around the lives of two people, and we see their society through their eyes, not through those of an omniscient observer. It's a romantic novel and a thoughtful one. I recommend it highly. Betsy Hanes Perry decvax!dartvax!betsy P.S. Does ANYONE out there know if/when Joyce Ballou Gregorian plans to publish a sequel to 'Castledown'? 'The Broken Citadel' and 'Castledown' are supposed to be two parts of a trilogy, but it was eight years between their publication dates. It's a long time between books... -- Betsy Perry decvax!dartvax!betsy
donn@hp-dcd.UUCP (01/09/84)
#R:sri-arpa:-1506400:hp-dcd:16400003:000:547 hp-dcd!donn Jan 6 16:21:00 1984 More matriarchies, sort of... In Heinlien's "Farnham's Freehold", the line of succession of one culture is matriarchal, but the actual exercise of the power is by the males. Thus "uncle" (brother of the female parent) is the wielder of power, and "Uncle" (capitalized) is (more or less) (acting) God. I don't know if this qualifies for your purposes or not. (By the way, the original request made it to USENET notes sites as from NEWS@SRI-ARPA (approximately), and thus there's no way I could reply directly.) Donn Terry hplabs!hp-dcd!donn
friedman@uiucdcs.UUCP (friedman ) (01/11/84)
#R:sri-arpa:-1506400:uiucdcs:12500062:000:983 uiucdcs!friedman Jan 10 08:47:00 1984 I wouldn't classify the hani society in The Pride of Chanur as matriarchal at all. On the home planet, territories are ruled by males, supported by their wives, daughters, and sisters until, in their declining years, they're tossed out (and expected to die) by stronger young males. But they're assumed to be physiologically unsuited to intersteller jumps, so hani intersteller trading ships are crewed exclusively by females. Even these salty gals defer to males, though. When the ship of the title takes on a derelict human male, the crew worries their captain when she realizes that they are being deferential to their prisoner just because they've noticed he's male, even before they've worked out that he's as fully sapient as they are. Incidentally, I find it interesting in this book that the entire story is told from the viewpoint of the hani captain, so that the human is looked on as an alien (along with aliens of several other species). Cherryh is very good at this.