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May. 3rd, 2008 05:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labellementeuseSome items of interest:
1. I enjoyed St. Trinian's, but did anyone else feel it had a serious lack of lesbianism? Hmm.
2. This post about race, ethnicity, and Psych (via the People of Colour in SF carnival, although what Psych is doing in a post about SF... ;)) was illuminating in several ways - like Alexis Bledel is Hispanic and speaks Spanish fluently! I feel terribly embarassed I did not know that. Anyway, I was interested by a number of people of mixed race commenting that they often experience conversations with people who are intent on pinning down their ethnicity/race, and how troubling these conversations are. Interested because I occasionally experience these kinds of conversations even though I'm not mixed race (to the best of my knowledge). But I have a Maori name, and so does one of my brothers. Tui actually isn't a hugely uncommon name among Pakeha, but Rewi is fairly unusual, so when I'm talking about my family people often ask whether we're Maori. This has never bothered me, but now I wonder whether it would have if I were actually mixed race, and had to explain exactly how, and to what degree, I was Maori. I know that it bothers my friend Amelia, who is Maori; apart from one of her sisters, the rest of her nuclear family identifies exclusively as Pakeha, and I'm aware that it bugs her to have to explain this to strangers, or to have to defend her own ethnic identity to "more Maori" Maori, or Pakeha who want to question her right to act as as spokesperson for Maori.
3. Also of interest today: This post about the Rape & Revenge storyline in fantasy/sf (comics fans will be aware of similar discussion in that media.) If you're not familiar with the notion of R&R, read that post, but briefly, and R&R storyline is the all-too-common backstory for women in SF&F: they experience a rape, which motivates them to Do Good (or occasionally Bad). (IMO, R&R storylines are the women's version of Women in Refrigerators syndrome: I find it interesting that violence against women is seen to be the best motivator for both women and men, but normally doesn't motivate them to, for example, work a Rape Crisis hotline or address the issue of violence against women; rather, it seems to motivate them to go out and investigate crimes against men - theft and murder, for example.)
Pursuant to that, anyone want to talk about Keladry of Mindelan as a sexual assault story success?There are a few things about Kel's story that strike me as significantly different. Kel is not a character who hasn't experienced sexual assault - her story, as a woman in a hostile (fantasy) military environment, deals with her own experience of sexual assault (which she is able to defend herself from) and the repeated sexual assaults on her maid, Lalasa. So what makes her different?
Well, to start off, sexual assault is not Kel's catalyst. Well before the Protector of the Small quartet deals with assault, Kel is a highly motivated, tough, and self-aware young woman. She already has a highly defined moral code (concerned with, um, Protecting the Small) which she is prepared to defend, repeatedly and with little regard for her own physical safety, on the same level as her fellow, male, students - i.e., with violence, not words! Kel's catalyst moment is a childhood memory of her mother defending more-or-less religious objects from pirates - probably my favourite origin story ever: Kel is motivated by a woman, and a woman involved in violence, but not a victim: a victor, and a woman defending not only her life and her child (her traditional motherly responsibility), but also contributing to the security of relations between her country and the country she is living in (the Mindelans were ambassadors living in another nation at the time.)
So by the time Kel starts dealing with sexual assault she's already on her path towards becoming a warrior, inspired by her mother (and Alanna.) And then, I think, the quartet's examination of sexual assault is generally perfectly on target. When Kel is attacked she fights it off. Eventually she discovers that her maid was *not* able to fight of similar assaults, and feels guilty for not recognising that other women don't all have the same ability to defend themselves that she does. Kel is never a victim. Lalasa, her maid, *is* a victim, and - crucially - it doesn't inspire Lalasa to go out and fight crime. Actually, Lalasa is timid and shy, especially around strange men. After Kel starts teaching Lalasa self-defense, eventually Lalasa regains her own self-confidence - but it speaks volumes to me that it didn't happen straight away, and that both Kel and Lalasa's response to sexual assault is to try to equip other women to defend themselves, not to randomly go out and fight criminals.
Kel already wants to go out and fight criminals, of course, and this story (*not* Kel's only story, by any means) crystallises that desire in special ways, by identifying the fact that women of lower classes are more at-risk for sexual assault and have fewer tools after the fact (in terms of the legal system), as well as being vulnerable to character assassination.
Blah. I don't feel like I'm articulating this too well, but I do feel Tamora Pierce did a pretty good job of this (And AFAI can remember, Kel's the only one of her characters to deal with sexual assault, although all of them tend to deal with misogyny and violence against women (and now I come to think of it, Daine could possibly have been raped at some point.)) Really keen to have a discussion of this, if anyone feels like it.
1. I enjoyed St. Trinian's, but did anyone else feel it had a serious lack of lesbianism? Hmm.
2. This post about race, ethnicity, and Psych (via the People of Colour in SF carnival, although what Psych is doing in a post about SF... ;)) was illuminating in several ways - like Alexis Bledel is Hispanic and speaks Spanish fluently! I feel terribly embarassed I did not know that. Anyway, I was interested by a number of people of mixed race commenting that they often experience conversations with people who are intent on pinning down their ethnicity/race, and how troubling these conversations are. Interested because I occasionally experience these kinds of conversations even though I'm not mixed race (to the best of my knowledge). But I have a Maori name, and so does one of my brothers. Tui actually isn't a hugely uncommon name among Pakeha, but Rewi is fairly unusual, so when I'm talking about my family people often ask whether we're Maori. This has never bothered me, but now I wonder whether it would have if I were actually mixed race, and had to explain exactly how, and to what degree, I was Maori. I know that it bothers my friend Amelia, who is Maori; apart from one of her sisters, the rest of her nuclear family identifies exclusively as Pakeha, and I'm aware that it bugs her to have to explain this to strangers, or to have to defend her own ethnic identity to "more Maori" Maori, or Pakeha who want to question her right to act as as spokesperson for Maori.
3. Also of interest today: This post about the Rape & Revenge storyline in fantasy/sf (comics fans will be aware of similar discussion in that media.) If you're not familiar with the notion of R&R, read that post, but briefly, and R&R storyline is the all-too-common backstory for women in SF&F: they experience a rape, which motivates them to Do Good (or occasionally Bad). (IMO, R&R storylines are the women's version of Women in Refrigerators syndrome: I find it interesting that violence against women is seen to be the best motivator for both women and men, but normally doesn't motivate them to, for example, work a Rape Crisis hotline or address the issue of violence against women; rather, it seems to motivate them to go out and investigate crimes against men - theft and murder, for example.)
Pursuant to that, anyone want to talk about Keladry of Mindelan as a sexual assault story success?There are a few things about Kel's story that strike me as significantly different. Kel is not a character who hasn't experienced sexual assault - her story, as a woman in a hostile (fantasy) military environment, deals with her own experience of sexual assault (which she is able to defend herself from) and the repeated sexual assaults on her maid, Lalasa. So what makes her different?
Well, to start off, sexual assault is not Kel's catalyst. Well before the Protector of the Small quartet deals with assault, Kel is a highly motivated, tough, and self-aware young woman. She already has a highly defined moral code (concerned with, um, Protecting the Small) which she is prepared to defend, repeatedly and with little regard for her own physical safety, on the same level as her fellow, male, students - i.e., with violence, not words! Kel's catalyst moment is a childhood memory of her mother defending more-or-less religious objects from pirates - probably my favourite origin story ever: Kel is motivated by a woman, and a woman involved in violence, but not a victim: a victor, and a woman defending not only her life and her child (her traditional motherly responsibility), but also contributing to the security of relations between her country and the country she is living in (the Mindelans were ambassadors living in another nation at the time.)
So by the time Kel starts dealing with sexual assault she's already on her path towards becoming a warrior, inspired by her mother (and Alanna.) And then, I think, the quartet's examination of sexual assault is generally perfectly on target. When Kel is attacked she fights it off. Eventually she discovers that her maid was *not* able to fight of similar assaults, and feels guilty for not recognising that other women don't all have the same ability to defend themselves that she does. Kel is never a victim. Lalasa, her maid, *is* a victim, and - crucially - it doesn't inspire Lalasa to go out and fight crime. Actually, Lalasa is timid and shy, especially around strange men. After Kel starts teaching Lalasa self-defense, eventually Lalasa regains her own self-confidence - but it speaks volumes to me that it didn't happen straight away, and that both Kel and Lalasa's response to sexual assault is to try to equip other women to defend themselves, not to randomly go out and fight criminals.
Kel already wants to go out and fight criminals, of course, and this story (*not* Kel's only story, by any means) crystallises that desire in special ways, by identifying the fact that women of lower classes are more at-risk for sexual assault and have fewer tools after the fact (in terms of the legal system), as well as being vulnerable to character assassination.
Blah. I don't feel like I'm articulating this too well, but I do feel Tamora Pierce did a pretty good job of this (And AFAI can remember, Kel's the only one of her characters to deal with sexual assault, although all of them tend to deal with misogyny and violence against women (and now I come to think of it, Daine could possibly have been raped at some point.)) Really keen to have a discussion of this, if anyone feels like it.
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no subject
Date: 2008-05-03 12:56 pm (UTC)Huh.
You are totally right about Kel. And, yes, I too think Daine had probably been sexually assaulted/raped at some point, probably right before she took up with the wolves.
OK, now I'm gonna have to go reread the Kel series again. (Damn Audible for not doing the audiobooks fast enough...)
Thank you fro posting these thoughts so intelligently. (And YAY for Tamora Pierce for writing female heroes that are made of WIN.) :)
no subject
Date: 2008-05-03 03:38 pm (UTC)Why do you think that?
no subject
Date: 2008-05-03 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-03 05:59 pm (UTC)Although Daine's virginal attitude in some of the later books might be said to preclude this.
Like the fact that she's jealous of what's-her-name and doesn't know why in Emperor Mage, I guess.
Although she seemed very matter-of-fact, no internal dialogue or whatnot, in the Realms of the Gods. Like, "lalala, I'm just hanging around without a breastband and snuggling Numair... What?" That surprised me.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-03 04:05 pm (UTC)