Nancy Jane Moore's recent book, Changeling (Aqueduct Press), has been
described as "an eminently satisfying, sweetly unraveling story centering on a wheelchair using woman who rolls through walls into a dimension her parents frequented when young". This odd but graceful confluence is indicative of
Moore's writing: her subjects range from labor revolts to the legal rights
of clones in the future.
Q: Recently Charles Coleman Finley has posted on his blog to organize a
slush bomb of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction by women
writers in August, which has stirred up some amount of controversy.
What do you think of the controversy? Will you be sending a story in?
the comment from Jenn Reese that Charlie quoted on the blog
summed it up best -- this
is activism, and that's a positive thing, even if it probably won't
change anyone's career. Targeting F&SF is also a good idea, because
Gordon Van Gelder has actually given the issue some thought in the past
-- that's where we get the statistic that only 25 percent of submissions
to F&SF are from women -- and is therefore more likely to look at it
with interest instead of getting defensive.
The truth is, most editors really don't think they are biased
against women. They -- like most people in the U.S. -- think that
passing laws against sex discrimination ended sexism (just like they
think that passing laws against race discrimination ended racism). And
now they don't want to think about it any more.
The general viewpoint in science fiction seems to be that women just
aren't tough enough to deal with rejection. Actually, this is a major
assumption in most fields: Men learn how to be tough and women don't, so
women are at a disadvantage when they encounter negative situations.
I've certainly encountered that attitude as an explanation for why there
aren't more women training in my Aikido dojo, for example.
Until I read Anna Fels's book Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women's
Changing Lives, I thought the wimp factor might be true. But in fact,
men aren't all that tough. What men actually get more of than women all
along the way is recognition. And recognition, Fels (a psychiatrist)
writes, is a crucial part of achieving one's ambitions. Necessary Dreams
is still available in paperback. Every woman ought to read it.
As for whether I'll join the slush bomb brigade -- Yes, if I get an
appropriate story finished in time. I always submit to F&SF and I plan
to continue even if Gordon keeps up the rejections. His fast response
time entitles him to an early crack at most of my stories.
Q: What landmark SF books about gender do you think have followed in the
footsteps of Ursula LeGeuin's he Left Hand of Darkness? What are the cutting edge books
informed by feminism?
There are the obvious usual suspects: The Female Man, We Who Are
About To and almost everything else by Joanna Russ (my personal
favorite is her short story "When It Changed"); virtually everything by
James Tiptree, especially "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" and, of
course, "The Women Men Don't See"; Suzette Haden Elgin's Native Tongue
trilogy; Suzy McKee Charnas's Holdfast series; Sheri Tepper's The Gate
to Women's Country; LeGuin's later work -- actually I've always been
most stunned by a short story she wrote set in the Left Hand of Darkness
world in which she used male titles and female pronouns for her
characters. It made it so obvious that they weren't just men who could
sometimes have kids.
I'm sure there are many others. Many women authors began actively
touching on feminist issues starting in the 1970s. I just read and
reviewed Daughters of Earth -- an anthology of 20th Century feminist
science fiction edited by Justine Larbalestier that includes 11 stories,
each with an essay about it -- and I'm now convinced that there are
numerous feminist short stories out there that ought to be reprinted.
(My review of Daughters is at http://sfrevu.com/Review-id.php?id=3719.)
Gwyneth Jones's Life is the premier example of cutting edge feminist
SF. It works with our current confused state of affairs -- where we're
trying to figure out what a world with gender equality would actually
mean while a large percentage of people are trying to rein in the
changes -- and adds in some fascinating ideas from the biology of the
day after tomorrow that deal with human fertility and gender itself.
Timmi Duchamp's Marq'ssan Cycle is also a significant series looking
at gender. It also deals heavily with class issues and with what could
happen to the world if we allow those currently in power to keep running
things. She's set up a world that never finished dealing with the
feminist ideas -- in fact, it's a world that seems to have become stuck
in the political analysis typified by the current White House. It's a
totalitarian world, but it's also a stagnant one -- that's what happens
when you leave the important issues unfinished.
In fact, pretty much everything from Aqueduct Press is on the
cutting edge, both as feminist and political work. Andrea Hairston's
Mindscape blew me away on so many levels -- especially the imaginative
ones -- and all the Conversation Pieces provide something to chew on.
Q: L. Timmel DuChamp has talked about how the revelation of gender can be a
pivotal moment in a text, and how its absence can make the reader focus
on the puzzle aspect of solving the question of gender. How have you
grappled with issues caused by the imperative to establish gender in
your writing?
One of my personal favorites among my stories is a first person
story told as one side of a dialogue in which I never identify the
gender of my protagonist. I kept the gender out of it on purpose because
I really didn't -- and don't -- know whether the character is male or
female. The theme of the story is traditionally male -- my character is
trapped in a very safe, very regulated society and is dying (almost
literally) for the freedom of the open road -- and yet I identify so
completely with the character that I cannot decree that it's a man.
The trouble with leaving it vague is that most readers just assume
that the narrator is male -- I sold it to a motorcycle magazine and I
suspect their readership is mostly male -- and don't even consider
whether a woman might have the same sort of feelings. I mean,
traditionally, women are the advocates of safety, of reining things in,
while men are the ones who are assumed to want "freedom." Of course, if
I insist that the character is female, it's not going to ring quite true
to some of those readers.
But there's that assumption that an unidentified first person
narrator must share the same gender as the author (which is why you're
supposed to address gender early on so that no one will be confused) and
my name is obviously female. I hope that gives readers the same
disconnect I have with the story, because I'm still not sure what gender
the character is and I think that's good for me and good for my readers.
It occurs to me that confusing readers about gender is probably a
good thing.
Q: What do you say to the F&SF readers who say "I'm not a feminist but...",
which seems such a common utterance in these days? Are you a post-feminist?
I am a feminist -- I don't see how anyone can be a post-feminist,
because the issues raised by feminism are still with us. Perhaps we need
a new word to replace feminist, if only to re-energize the issues, but
it shouldn't be a term that implies feminism is over.
My reaction to F&SF readers who say "I'm not a feminist but..." is
the same as my response to anyone else who says it: "If you're noticing
discrimination against women, it's time to think about becoming a feminist."
Q: Can a writer ever write something that is not, to one degree or another,
engaged with feminist issues?
Probably not. Feminist issues underlie so much of what is going on
in our society right now that I think they show up regardless of a
writer's intention. The same could be said of issues related to class
and race. If you leave women (or black people or poor people, etc.,
etc.) out of a story, it's obvious, even if the writer didn't intend to
make a point about it.
Q: Do you work with a writing group whose critiques are informed by
feminism? Are there people you particularly trust to steer you right
when you're exploring feminist issues in a story?
I don't actually work with a writers' group per se -- rather, I
solicit critiques from other writers whose opinions I value, both male
and female. Generally, I don't ask for direct comments on feminist or
any other political issue in my writing. I find that if I'm too
heavy-handed on feminist issues, someone will mention it. I'm inclined
to trust my own judgment on themes and mostly seek crits to find out if
I have done what I thought I was doing.
I'm more interested in feminist analysis of the published piece,
because it generally shows me things I didn't know were in the story and
leads to a new conversation. I'm not sure I'd want to know all those
things while I was still working on the story; it might gum up the works.
Q: Does a feminist writer have any obligations to feminism in their
writing? How constantly does it need to engage with one's writing, or
does it?
I'm a purist about fiction: The only obligation a fiction writer has
is to the story. But I don't think people write in a void -- who they
are is necessarily reflected in their writing. So a feminist writer is
necessarily going to engage with feminism in his or her work. That's
particularly true for women writers, for whom feminism is both political
and personal. Consciously avoiding feminist issues is a form of engagement.
I fear a lot of writers are pretty unsophisticated about the
feminism in their stories. In some cases, it feels as if it has been
added on to be political correct. Perhaps it's because those writers
think we're in the post-feminist stage, and that all they have to do to
deal with gender is put a woman in the lead role and proclaim the
society as non-sexist. I cringe when I read books supposedly set
hundreds of years from now in which the woman turn out to have the same
qualms and questions as anyone you'd meet on the street today. I'm not
sure these books are much of an improvement over the so-called Golden
Age stories in which the authors assumed that no matter how many
centuries passed, the relationship between the sexes wasn't going to change.
Women who actually grow up in a society without gender bias are not
going to have the same issues that you and I have. Plus I suspect we're
going to end up defining a variety of genders before we're through
monkeying with the genome and figuring out what we can change. The
current duality will become as old-fashioned as the idea that women
can't take care of themselves. Writers who give more than lip service to
their feminism will probably find themselves dealing with those
questions without actually planning to do it.
Q: What are you working on right now?
As usual, I'm writing all over the place. I suspect I'd have a more
stable career if I were more single-minded, but I don't seem to be good
at that. I'm always working on short fiction -- lately I've done several
short-shorts and I have half-a-dozen half-written stories I need to get
back to.
I'm blogging regularly on political subjects on In This Moment --
http://hopeandpolitics.blogspot.com/. That takes up too much time, but
it keeps me from screaming at the radio. It's also teaching me more
about writing -- I find almost every type of writing and editing teaches
me something more about how to use words to say what I really mean.
I've got a novel I'm trying to sell and ideas for several more. But
my next big project is going to be non-fiction. I'm working on a
proposal for a book tentatively called Taking Care of Ourselves: Self
Defense as a Positive Way of Life. It will make it clear that actual
fighting is about 1 percent of self defense -- the real keys to
protecting yourself have more to do with paying attention and trusting
your instinct. You don't have to be the action heroine du jour to take
care of yourself. This book comes out of my years of martial arts
training -- particularly Aikido -- but it won't be about techniques.
It's an idea book.
