(no subject)

Thanks to acelightning's mention of Fritz Leiber's short story The Man Who Made Friends With Electricity, I snavelled his 1975 anthology The Secret Songs from Elizabeth's Books in Newtown, and hugely enjoyed it. I was delighted to rediscover A Pail of Air, which was in the first SF anthology I ever read, Tomorrow's Children*, and The Girl With Hungry Eyes (both more sexist and better written that I remember). Very precise storytelling, no wasted words, but not without poetry.



* Edited, inevitably, by Asimov. I've been trying to collect all the stories from that ovular antho for years - Star Bright, It's a Good Life, The Ugly Little Boy, etc. Dealers on ABE will swap you a copy for a kidney.

(no subject)

(x-posted from feminist)

That leaving-in-a-huff post got me thinking about how feminists worry about our image. Often we expend energy on trying to convince the world that we don't fit the derogatory stereotype that's been assigned to us. We do shave, we plead. We do like men, we're not lesbians, we don't like abortion, we're not loud or annoying. Please, please like us.

I'm coming to suspect, more and more, that this is a total waste of time and effort. Sexists are never going to like us, no matter how much we reassure them. The most feminine, soft-spoken, conservative woman will be called a penis-hating muck-raking lesbian the moment she uses the f-word, because she wants things a lot of people don't want her to have.

We don't need to be liked. We need freedom. We don't need good PR. We need accurate sex education, access to contraception and abortion, equal wages, and safety from violence.

Basically, we need to be tougher than that. This is easier to say than to do: everybody wants to be liked. Women especially want to be liked. But personally, I'll trade being liked for the morning-after pill, or a just sentence for a wife-killer, or an honest classroom lesson about condoms. A pro-life feminist who demands fair wages for women is going to cop as much flak as I am. Her problem isn't me - it's the misogynists who want us both to shut up and go away.

ETA: Some folks have taken this to mean "We should never shave, wear makeup, make nice, negotiate, etc". I'm saying that even if we do this, we'll get insults from our enemies, so we shouldn't waste time dealing with their insults. Shaved or hairy, liberal or radical, we should stick to politely but firmly making our point - instead of reassuring everyone how much we like men, or arguing amongst ourselves about makeup, or staying silent in case someone calls us a feminazi.