So let's talk about women who respect women.

[cahn]

julianyap has once again declared National Put Quotes in Your Blog Month, so I'm going to put one in every post I make this month.

"Truth is all I have, and truth is never a comfort. But understanding truth, that is what you taught me to do. So here is the truth. What human life is, what it's for, what we do, is create communities. Some of them are good, some of them are evil, or somewhere between. You taught me this, didn't you?"

-Diko to her mother Tagiri, Pastwatch

winterfox had a very interesting post. It's locked, I think [EDITED: unfortunately, has been deleted], but here are the money quotes:

...even in fairytales where the girl is the one setting out to rescue the boy (i.e. "The Snow Queen"), the alpha and omega of her desires--her person, her motive, her dreams--is still a man.

And

It's like, a lot of authors who think they are being feminist and shit don't... quite get the point: their female protagonists, rather than forming strong relationships with other women, are defined by their relations with men. Their fathers shaped them from childhood. Their boyfriends give them a reason to exist. It's all... proper.

Oh, sure, their dads supposedly taught them to be progressive and enlightened and strong and shit, but why not their mothers? It could just easily have been. Or their older sisters, or their aunts. Whatever. Why can't these super-feisty heroines grow up with female role models?

My first reaction was, "Ah, that can't be so!" and then I went to look at my bookshelf. It is indeed so, with many of the heroines I love. Lots of strong fathers and love interests; extremely few strong mothers. Aerin in Hero and the Crown: strong father, dead mother, two love interests (and let's just not even get into Luthe, squick). Only barely passes the Bechdel test, even. Sophie in Howl's Moving Castle at least has sisters, and thus passes Bechdel, but it turns out to all be about A Man. Raederle in Riddlemaster of Hed also has a strong father, dead mother, and is defined mostly by the love interest (though as lytrigian pointed out to me there are other strong female role models, like Nun and the Morgol, so McKillip should really get half credit). Tenar in Earthsea. Kivrin in Doomsday Book.

And these are the heroines I love. Let's not get into, say, Katniss. And let's definitely not get into the actively misogynistic books, like K.J. Parker.

(There are, of course, books that aren't so neatly explained. Credit goes to Bujold, who is... complicated; Paladin of Souls, for example, is partially about Ista making her arduous way away from that model, and then there's Cordelia, who's even more complicated because she's immersed herself in a society that takes her for granted -- which Bujold has done consciously, and sometimes pokes you with. Then there's Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, who, although her mom is in fact dead (and she has a strong dad), has female role models who teach her lots of very important things, although since this is early 1900's South those things are very different than a girl might learn today.)

In fact, the only books I can see on my bookshelf with a strong female character who has a strong mother role model (unless you count Lyra and the Morgol) are... Vonda McIntyre's Dreamsnake (more on this in the next post, I have too much to say about its awesomeness to do it here) and Card's Pastwatch, with Diko and Tagiri (which I suspect is also awesome, but I haven't done the feminist reread yet). And even in the Card, there's the hitch where Diko is obsessed with Columbus, though I'm willing to be forgiving since at least this is a plot point (and aimed at getting Columbus to understand that uh, women are people too) and therefore motivated on grounds other than Twu!Luv (although I would understand not being forgiving of it, or wondering if it really would have buggered up the message had Hunapu gone to Columbus instead) -- but that aside, it's crazy to me the dearth of strong mother role models! I can name plenty of strong dads!

Okay, so I had a whole rant I was going to give on how it is much easier to romanticize the non-primary-caregiving parent, and what I really want feminist-wise is a society where a) men think it's okay, a viable career option, to stay at home and take care of babies, or at least to be the primary caregiver in general, and b) women should be okay with men staying home and taking care of babies, which... let's just say, neither of those would have flown in my family, at all -- and c) down with the breastfeeding Nazis, because although I love nursing it is seriously the most gender-inequality-promoting thing I have ever done, including childbirth -- not to say people shouldn't bf, obviously, since I'm doing it, but please no more YOU ARE A BAD MOTHER IF YOU DON'T. Not that I am bitter!

And then I decided I was too tired. (This is the short version of the rant. Consider yourself lucky!)

And then I thought, well, that's part of the problem, but it's clearly not the whole thing. Because now let's think about strong female friendships. This is a little better -- looking at my bookshelf I see Brust's Draegaera books, Bujold's Curse of Chalion and Vor books, Pamela Dean's Tam Lin, Shannon Hale's Goose Girl, Cynthia Voigt's Tillerman series, Zenna Henderson's People stories, the Riddlemaster books, Diana Wynne Jones' Year of the Griffin. But, yeah, it could be a lot better.


And ending with a strong-female-friendship quote in honor of NPQiYBM:

It finally dawned on her that their exaggerated courtesies signified respect.

It made her furious. All Kareen’s courage of endurance had bought her nothing, Lady Vorpatril’s brave and bloody birth-giving was taken for granted, but whack off some idiot’s head and you were really somebody, by God—!

2-5-11: ETA link to unlocked post, above.

Comments

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Re: books and role models, yup, yup. I kind of wanted Nita Callahan's father to have the cancer... not that either parent is characterized roundly anyway in those books. Sometimes it matters crucially which parent is offed (Of Nightingales That Weep, anyone?), but really, it's a lot of perpetuation most of the time.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes! And speaking of female friendship... unless it's changed drastically (I haven't read the last book or so), why is it that Nita can't have any female friends who aren't cat wizards? Kit manages to have guy friends, even one who is his "best" friend aside from Nita. I mean, I personally didn't have close female friends until late high school, so I give her a partial pass, but it's still a little annoying. Same with Meg Murry having no friends besides Calvin (she did have a cool mom, at least, but all the action came from her dad in Wrinkle and Planet).

Okay, so, not really related to your point, but I read Nightingales very young, and it kind of... horrifies me now, that it's in the kid's section of the library! I mean, it's seven different kinds of disturbing! I guess the thing is, the really disturbing parts are elliptical enough that you don't see them as a kid, or at least I didn't.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Totally, re: Nita and Meg. Oh, Meg. I loved Planet so much as a kid, in part because I envied being able to unfold family history. Then too, neither Nita nor Meg had the internet as kids, and the density of geek(-compatible) girls in any locale tends to be very low. My two best friends from HS are female, and they are still my two best friends (thanks in large part to internet connectivity, I must say); most of my other HS friends were male.

Yes. Heh. Me neither. I have been a little afraid to try Paterson's better known Terebithia as a result.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Terebithia is one of those books I love so much that I can't possibly be objective about it. So, take that for what it's worth. I don't find it at all anything like as weird as her Japan books -- it's almost like it was written by a different person. (Note that I grew up in the South in a place that... while it wasn't as hicksville as the place portrayed in Terebithia, let's say that it probably helped me identify with the whole situation in the book. Also that it was written in the 60's or something like that, so there are bits like a teacher asking a kid to go to an art museum with her where there's nothing shady going on but would So Not Fly Today.) I recently reread Chrysanthemum and boy, that one was more disturbing than I remembered too. Love interest gets thrown in a brothel! I totally did not get that as a kid.

Oh, yeah, don't get me wrong, I love both Nita and Meg (Meg particularly I got to at the right time to totally identify), and I have always loved Planet and the others. I hadn't even noticed this problem until, well, this week, and it's annoying in the sense of "gosh it would be nice if I could find things for E. to read that had female friendships she could look at" rather than in a "I don't like Nita or Meg now" sort of way.

Hm... where I grew up there was a bit of a dearth of geek-compatible kids in general. I had a couple of friends (hm, mostly female, actually, now that I think of it), but no one close or that I wanted to keep contact with (though I suppose I could find them on Facebook now). Last two years of high school I went to a really good high school filled with geeks, which is when I actually made the interesting/close friends -- the ones I still keep in touch with really at all are all female. (Same for college -- although interestingly grad school is reversed; the only people I keep in touch with are guys.)

[ase.livejournal.com]

There's occasional SF/F novels with mothers who are protagonists (The Interior Life, with its PTA mom / fantasy quest double narrative), but that's a very telling point. For example, Doris Egan's Ivory novels feature a powerful family matriarch; she's respected and loved, but not held up as a female role model.

Mentally thumbing along the list of formative authors: you've mentioned Bujold; Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy didn't really do role models, mother or father; Cherryh... mothers may be influential, but rarely models of positive behavior (I'm particularly thinking of Cyteen and the Olga - Ari I - Ari II mother / daughter sets); Lackey has dead or useless moms; etc.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm willing to do partial credit if there aren't any role models at all. Does Cherryh really do role models of positive behavior?

Oh, I forgot Octavia Butler as a mom -- does she have any decent mother-daughter pairs, though? The only one I can think of offhand is in Mind of my Mind, and that one... was not a good one.

At least Lackey has Talia acting as a major role model to Elspeth, which I like. (And Talia herself has some decent female role models, including Selenay.) So that's an improvement.

[ase.livejournal.com]

Does Cherryh really do role models of positive behavior?

Not on purpose? There's the human ambassador in the Foreigner series, who trains the guy from other human faction; a character in one of the the nighthorse books tries to emulate an older character he respects. Positive mentorship just isn't on Cherryh's radar.

Octavia Butler does have mom-daughter pairs! The Parable duology has the mom/stepmom - Lauren Olamina - Larkin / Asha sets (none particularly happy, especially the last pair); Lilith as a parent in the Xenogenesis novels;

Oh! Not a mother explicitly, but Lackey does have an older female Herald-Mage running around being a model of good Heraldic behavior, in an awesome acerbic old woman way. (Also, saving young Vanyel from himself. It's not quite a full-time job.)

[ase.livejournal.com]

Lost something in that middle paragraph; I think I was going to say, mothers are nurturing in some of Butler's work but rarely who you-the-protagonist want to be. Which circles back to your original point.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

I was trying to remember if Lilith had female offspring. Now that you mention it, I think they're prominent, we just don't ever get a daughter POV? Or do we? I do like Lilith and think she is an ultra-cool character.

Actually, I think it's even more interesting to have older-women-mentor to younger males. It's fun that Lackey does so well on this score.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

One that I would look at is Dean's Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary -- have you read that yet? It's been a while since I read it, and I wasn't thinking about it from this angle, but there are definitely sisters, and I generally expect her to do fairly well with the relationships among women. It was a book that, had I read it in my early teens might've been to me what Tam Lin was when we read that, if that makes sense.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

I have not, even though it came out ages ago (when we were in college, I think?) - I really should. As you say Tam Lin does very well with the women relationships; Tina is kind of an airhead, but she's also a person, and Janet gets called on that, which I approve of highly.

Heh, I remember Tam Lin kind of ruining college for me, a little; I expected people to go around quoting Greek and Shakespeare all the time. Which I suppose the Classics/English majors may have done, but I didn't actually know any.

(And it was lovely to see you, if only briefly! Next time!)