THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES IN SCIENCE FICTION

Reviewed 2/15/2012

The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction by Justine Larbalestier
Paperback: Cover art by Gabriel Mayorga
Access to this book courtesy of the
San Jose, CA Public Library
THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES IN SCIENCE FICTION (PB)
Justine Larbalestier
Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, June 2002

Rating:

4.0

High

ISBN 0-8195-6527-X 295pp. SC $24.95

Errata

Page 3: "Murphy, and her coconspirator, Karen Joy Fowler, felt that feminism generally, and within science fiction in particular, had a long way to go."
  Extra comma: S/B "Murphy and her coconspirator,". (And I would put the fourth comma behind "feminism," not behind "generally." Also, S/B "co-conspirator".)
Page 4: Quoting Speer: "The IPO made no attempt to isolate an essential characteristic by which all fans mite [sic] be distinguished, but said that 'A real fan fulfils {sic} practically all the following requirements: He [sic] buys and reads most of the professional fantasy magazines (this was when there were less than half a dozen), collects them, and writes the editors. He corresponds with other fans. S-f fandom is his ruling passion..."
  Quoted from Speer 1944: 29-30. Italics are Larbalestier's. "sic" in square brackets is hers; mine is in curly braces.). She missed the misspelling of "fulfills." Speer comments are intelligent and insightful, but display some odd spelling habits: he would write "insiteful."
Page 4: "A discourse of fan authenticity was already in operation."
  Not "discourse on"?
Page 7: "My book draws on, and is also a contribution to, a variety of fields, most especially feminist theory, semiotics, American studies, cultural studies, literary theory, science fiction, and histories of sexuality. I do not view these fields as being discrete or as consisting only of a body of written texts. I argue that science fiction texts, and indeed all texts, are engaged in a series of discourses about sexuality, knowledge, subjectivity, and power—in short, social relations and the world. Texts are not merely examples of the operation of these discourses; they are those discourses. My approach involves moving away from a treatment of 'fictional' texts as the raw material of analysis and 'theoretical' texts as the means of explicating such texts. In this light I view semiotics, literary theory, and work on the history of sexuality as engaging in dialogue with the science fiction texts that are the basis of my book. The book emerges from this dialogue."
  This suggests a very academic approach. Could there be branching K-lines ahead? Minds of boolean chasteness want to know.
Page 8: "All fiction is engaged in both theory and practice, indeed all writing, all speech, is doing both/and rather than either/or. All language is metalanguage."
  The meaning of these statements is unclear. Also, the first sentence is not punctuated correctly. Larbalestier tends to misuse commas. And how she loves the word "engage." (Move over, Captain Picard; Justine Larbalestier is taking over the center seat.)
Pages 55-6: This consists of the beginning text of a story in Wonder Stories which is photocopied as page 57.
  Why reproduce the text from the story when what's important to the author is Gernsback's editorial comment about it? The editorial comment is roughly 1/3 as long as the story excerpt and both are photocopied on the page immediately following.
Page 56: The source of the following quote, which begins "According to Kipling", is not clear.
  (1030)?
Pages 56-7: "Kelly writes that 'The Feminine Metamorphosis' is 'unfair and one-sided' because the women were 'merely striving for economic liberation. Due to the intolerance of the male sex...'" and later: "Kelly does not argue with the misogyny of 'The Feminist Metamorphosis'..."."
  After quoting a portion of John J. Kelly Jr's letter in which he points out unfair treatment of the women by the men, the author says he does not do this.
Pages 57-60: "Real Man Makes Real Woman"
  This section goes into great detail in analyzing how, in various texts, the hero (a Real Man) makes the heroine into a woman "by stripping her of agency and making her body into something over which she has no control." This accords with her theme that such narratives represent the restoration of the "natural order" of "the heterosexual economy" — meaning a patriarchal society in which women are willingly subservient. I think she goes way too far in this, and also ignores counterexamples like Asimov's The End of Eternity.
Page 62: "For a real woman to orgasm ..."
  "Orgasm" is a verb now?
Page 62: "However, various parts of Meg's body and emotions/sensations are actors: anger thoughts (presumably hers), her veins, her heart, her fists, her eyes, a vast and terrible weakness (also presumably hers as it 'trembles through [her]'.)"
  This is the kind of hyperanalysis that renders so much academic writing nugatory. Whose thoughts and feelings would they be, if not hers?
Page 68: "It features a 'ravaging, man-hating, vicious, hulking, Lesbian, sadistic, fetishistic Women's Libbers' motorcycle gang who terrorize the hero, George."
  Number and usage errors: S/B "which terrorizes the hero".
Page 70: "Russ's knowledge of Tiptree's hidden "true" sex..."
  Taken literally, these quotes would indicate that Tiptree (whose real name was Alice Sheldon) was not really a woman. The author uses way too many "scare quotes".
Page 71: "This collapsing of race and sex so that white women's oppression and otherness is made equivalent to that of African American men with no African American women in sight is a sleight of hand..."
  The author quotes a passage from Tiptree's "Mama Come Home" in which a man tries to convince Tillie that she should not go home with the Capellans. The "collapsing" comment refers to this: "Did you ever meet any American blacks who moved to Kenya? Talk to one some time." She misinterprets the meaning of this completely.
Page 73: "* There is only one sex, which is hermaphrodite or androgynous—
Katherine Burdekin's Proud Man (1934), Sturgeon's Venus Plus X, and Ursula LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)"
  On page 91, the author of Proud Man is given as Murray Constantine. This could be Burdekin's pen name; but if so, that should be made clear.
Page 78: "The hegemonic force of the discourse of romance is irresistible."
  Classic academese.
Page 92: "Is the intersex really a man or really a women?"
  Spelling: S/B "woman".
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