[lit-ideas] Re: The Feminine Technique?
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 20:12:13 -0600
Mirembe::
> Many thanks, Judy, for your comments. Also to Robert for posting the
> original Dowd piece.
Well, if I'd know Mirembe was going to give special notice to those who
responded to her post I'd have sent a copy of my email to Maureen Dowd sent
last Sunday in response to her column:
"I can't speak for any other guy but me, but let me tell you, you're the
funniest, wittiest, most trenchantly satiric and wonderfully sarcastic
columnist I've ever read. Any man who finds you emasculating has already
been castrated by a pathetic ego, so what the hell? Let them squirm in
their seats and more power to you.
"Thanks for not returning to the Metro Section. You're the greatest!
Mike Geary
Memphis"
****
I've emailed her many kudos through the last couple of years. But alas, she
ignores me
Mike Geary
Memphis.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mirembe Nantongo" <nantongo@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 11:42 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The Feminine Technique?
Here's Dahlia Lithwick at Slate on the same topic:
> http://slate.com/id/2114926/
>
> I find this topic particularly fascinating just now for two reasons:
>
> One is my (admittedly sporadic) current reading of feminist science
> fiction. I have had great fun with Ursula LeGuin ("The Left Hand of
> Darkness", "The Matter of Seggri" etc) and Charlotte Perkins Gilman
> ("Herland"). I have the two collections recommended by Cathy in hand and
> look forward to those. The question in my mind was: how different would
> things be civilizationally if women designed the context? and some of the
> answers suggested by these fiction writers are interesting, to say the
> least. LeGuin, for example, posits several different kinds of world -- the
> world of Gethen, for example, in which the entire population is genderless
> and without sexuality most of the time and all go into a sort of rut
> period once a month during which they evolve into either female or male
> (they never know which it will be) during which they have a few days of
> nothing but continual sex. They then emerge, sometimes pregnant if they
> were female that time, sometimes not. If not, they go back to
> normal sex- & sexuality-free business; if pregnant, they go on to bear
> their children. One can be a mother following one time and become a father
> the next. In another story, LeGuin has men, a statistical minority, locked
> up living in luxury in castles and spending their lives either preparing
> for tournaments featuring feats of strength and/or competing in them,
> while women run things outside and enjoy all the power and hire the men
> for sex. And so forth. Perkins' "Herland" is an interesting thought
> experiment, wherein a group of women are geographically isolated on earth
> and develop the ability to procreate without men. The story is a
> description of their society, which is run based on the concept and
> demands of motherhood & needs of children.
>
> It's all fascinating reading, I must say, although am still hoping to run
> into someone who tackles more contemporary global issues (eg competition
> between states/ideologies) in the same framework. Deborah Tannen's piece
> fed into this hope, tangentially, which is why I bring up all this.
>
> Secondly. The reason this feminist science fiction reading is taking me so
> long and is happening in so sporadic a manner is that I spend most of my
> spare time just now reading (or trying to read) Arabic in many different
> and hideously difficult forms. Among others, I now struggle with
> commentary and editorials from the mainstream Arabic press. Once the
> intricacies of vocabulary and idiom are mastered, I find there remains the
> problem of grasping the basis many Arab opinion writers use to reach and
> convince their readers.
>
> It seems to me that here in the States, probably in England too (I can't
> speak for other countries, perhaps someone else can) that the ideal
> opinion piece has a certain universally recognized form, in that its
> emphasis is on sequential argument, on rationality in the
> Aristotlean/Enlightenment sense. Were it pictured, perhaps it would be an
> elegant skeleton -- a bird's maybe. Light but strong, aerodynamic,
> perfectly articulated, carrying nothing beyond what is absolutely
> necessary for its function. The goal of an opinion piece here is to seduce
> the intellect. The value of opinion writers is not in their writing skills
> or their mastery of the language, necessarily -- a good contemporary US
> opinion writer need have no more than competent, workmanlike writing
> skills.
>
> I am finding (admitting freely that I am still very much in an exploratory
> phase here) that the emphasis, in general, seems to be completely
> different in Arabic opinion pieces. I'm talking about mainstream
> writers -- the Friedmans and Brooks and Ignatieffs of the Arab world. It
> seems to me that the goal of the average opinion piece in Arabic is not to
> seduce the intellect. Argument as we understand it in the US is present
> but it is not the main point of the process. Perfection of the structure
> of the argument is not the paramount goal it is here. Good Arab opinion
> writers have superb language skills and excel at creating atmosphere.
> Rather than to the intellect, the central appeal is to emotion and to
> empathy and to the imagination. Conversations with Arab friends seem to
> point to their finding mainstream opinion pieces in the US style
> superficial, in the sense that nothing in them is left to interpretation,
> nothing provokes the imagination, there is no attempt to demonstrate
> or to inspire empathy.
>
> And the reason I was struck by Deborah Tannen's piece is that she seemed
> to be articulating this very difference, but, oddly enough, between male &
> female opinion writers in the US, rather than between Arab & US opinion
> writers!
>
> My two cents' worth for today. Those sick of hearing me whine about how
> tough Arabic is should circle May 31 on their calendar -- the day of my
> final exam!!
>
> All best, Mirembe
>
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