message 0055

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

>From: Lesley Grant <lgrant>
>Subject: cherryhlist
>Date: Wed, 9 Dec 92 9:53:08 GMT


>From: Jo Jaquinta <jaymin>
>Subject: CherryhList: gender and role

	)One potential case for criticism is that her characters might be
)seen as the quasi-feminist attitude that "Women are the same as men because
)they can be just like men" (like violence, opression, ... macho women with
)guns), i.e. promoting women who enact male roles rather than promoting women
)in their own roles. Many of Cherryh's women exhibit male-positive roles
)(leadership, initiative, ...) but not than many female-positive roles
)(I can only think of one "mother" in her books).

		There are a few mothers: Pyanfar Chanur (depicted as never
being there when the kids need her, the kids turn out bad), What-her-name
Faha (Hilfy's mother, depicted as loyal to her husband and his clan),
Olga Emory (seen in flashback, archetypal 'bad mother'), Jane Strassen
(Ari 2's foster mother, depicted as someone stuggling with a job she's
just not cut out for/ also Julia Strassen's mother, a previous 'job' she
failed at), Pia (azi mother from _40 000_, depicted as bewildered), Elli of
First Tower (azi descended, mothering comes after ruling her people). And
there are a few more. Cherryh seems to indicate that children need their
nurturing parent (who seems usually to be the mother, even though she ignores
gender roles in other places) or they turn out bad (Kara Mahn par Chanur),
or sociopathic (Ariane Emory), or neurotic (Julia Strassen). 'Mothering'
appears to be "female-positive" even in the Union/Alliance/Compact (mothering
can be done by men too -- until everything went bad, Jordan Warrick was
doing fine with Justin and Grant, Denys Nye was very good with Ari 2, etc --
Kohan Chanur's dealing with the 'wimpy' science-minded cousin doesn't count,
I think, as it was a case of benign negligence rather than a nurturing
parent/guardian-child relationship).

)	i think the sort of stories that critical feminists like to see
)involve women struggling against opression and winning through based on
)their own possitive attributes without succumbing to using male techniques.
)Grand, this is fine where in a world like now where radical philosophy is 
)a positive asset into making women aware they are not "the weker sex"
)and that can gain credibility by exhibiting their own positive traits
)than mimicing the male dominated world around them.
)	However, as Science Fiction is supposed to do, Cherryh takes
)her settings beyond the current. Her future does not fit in well with
)various common elements of feminist ideals. There are still widespread
)higherarchal, more or less male-prevelent power systems. (Which also
)makes her works more accessible to the general public) What they either
)fail or refuse to acknowledge is that, as Lesley says, "'gender' as a 
)category has been radically reconstructed". They highlight the change
)to the women but not the change to the men. If you look at it objectively
)you might say there has been a coming together of paths. 

	This could well be the reason cherryh is ignored by feminist
critics of science fiction (there are some who do mention her, but it
is usually only a brief mention). Cherryh seems to take sexual equality
for granted, not making any allusions to the past history of the matter.
Yet oddly, as you say, men still seem to be more 'in power' on the political
level. Only 2 of the Council of Nine on Cyteen are women (Emory and Lao),
although a later councillor is also female. Only 1 Fleet captain is a
woman (is this perhaps because the Fleet is still subconsciously influenced
by outmoded Earth attitudes?). Socialised humans are still shown as preferring
a man in politics. Non-socialised humans however, (and here come the azi,
relevant at last) couldn't care less about the sex of their leaders. _40 000
in Gehenna_ shows us a variety of azi-based societies, and is perhaps the
only book where Cherryh explicitly says anything about gender role. The
Styx community is male-led, with a warrior aristocracy and subservient
women, while the Towers are simply led by the first child of either sex, and
the sexes are equal. These 2 societies, and the observations made about them
by the alliance anthropologists serve to show how people with no cultural
ideas of gender might develop (once again, the azi demonstrate the ultimate
mallability of human gender).

			Lesley