message 0048

• Gender roles in C.J. Cherryh's writing; incl. Azi and aliens (huge thread!)

>From: Lesley Grant <lgrant>
>Subject: Re: C. J. Cherryh List
>Date: Thu, 3 Dec 92 9:43:41 GMT

> >From: mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at (Markus Stumptner)
> >Subject: cherryhlist: What does The Pride of Chanur look like?

	[diagram deleted]
 
> So while the ship may actually be fastened to the dock by the nose and 
> any other structure intended, the exit is on the side.  The drive was
> stuck to the end of the ship (note that the new drive for the Pride was
> much larger than the old one).

	This makes sense to me. The various descriptions of 'booms' and
grapples' indicate there's a lot of stuff keeping the ships docked. The
presence of all this docking machinery is also implied by the fancy show-off
flying of the various Kif shuttle pilots who occasionally transport our
Hani friends.

 
> >From: nancy ott <ott@ansoft.com>
> >Subject: cherryhlist - "Manly Men"
 
> PS: Curiously enough, many of Cherryh's *female* characters fit this
> "heroic" stereotype much better than her *male* characters do.  Any
> thoughts on this?

	This is true, although they're also 'screw-ups and flakes' (wimps?
naah -- Mallory et al are flakey, but not wimps). Most of them have their
'heroism' thrust upon them, and are just trying to make the best of it.
Actually, I wonder if they are really fitting the 'hero' stereotype, or
if they just seem to be more visible. If those characters were male, would
their actions still seem so heroic? Do they seem more than they are (to the
reader) simply because they are female, and therefore stand out from the
usual SF protagonist? Would Mallory have been more 'acceptable' a character
if she were a man? If Ari Emory 1 were male and abused a young female student,
would those actions have been less shocking to the reader? I think that in
Cherryh's writing, 'gender' as a category has been radically reconstructed,
or even done away with altogether. 'Femininity' and 'masculinity' may no
longer be meaningful categories for large numbers of people (although
Stationers are depicted as being more conservative than Merchanters or
military). If this is so, then in Cherryh's universe it seems that people
in unthreatened situations may grow up to be nice, emotional, decent types
whether they are female (in which case the reader may not notice) or male
(in which case the reader might cry 'Wimp!'). In other situations, everyone
has the potential to be a hard bastard (female -- 'eek! sociopath!', male --
'normal hero-type').
	However, whether the 'conventional hero' is male or female, in both
cases Cherryh sidelines them. She is consistently more interested in the
people with problems. the only exceptions (and I think, the only true 'heroes'
Cherryh has) are Vanye and Morgaine, heroes in the epic, tragic tradition.
Even here though, it is difficult to really get a sense of Morgaine's heroic
qualities, as they are always presented to the readers through the filter of
Vanye, who comes from a culture that venerates heroes. Morgaine almost 
certainly sees herself as a 'hard bastard' type, with occasional forays into
decency (which she would undoubtably see as wimpish). Vanye can only see her
as a hero, having no other cultural niche for her (apart from demon, but she's
a heroic demon :-).
	Again, azi and aliens have to be left out of this.



> >From: rcrowley@zso.dec.com (Rebecca Leann Smit Crowley)
 
[Why do people get irritated by Cherryh's male characters]

> So I think that it isn't anything about the characters per se, but
> rather the style as a whole, the way that Cherryh portrays sentients
> of various species and worlds, that irritates some.  And it just
> completely misses some people, too.  

	And how -- I was reading a book of feminist SF criticism (_In the
Chinks of the World Machine_ by Sarah LeFanu, Women's Press 198?), looking
vainly for something about Cherryh. The Hani were described as 'cuddly'.
[barf] The author then went on to say 'at least the hani don't wear aprons
over their spacesuits' (a paraphrase, but aprons were definitely mentioned).
She made the Chanur series sound as woeful and stupid as one of the books
she raved about actually is (_Star Riders_ *Never* read this book!).

				Lesley