“Think Like a Dinosaur” Addendum
The marble slab in Kelly’s “Think Like a Dinosaur” functions like a modem, which sends information in packets from one computer to be “reassembled” be a modem on the receiving computer. In 1995, modems weren’t new, but they were being used more as the World Wide Web made home internet access more user friendly. I mention this because modems were hi-tech at the time and new for most consumers. Universities, libraries, and the military were well acquainted, but everyday consumers were just beginning to get online in the early to mid-1990s. By the way, the word “modem” comes from the device’s full name: modulator/demodulator.
Gender Studies and Absolutes
This subject is going to be difficult for many of us. We tend to live in a binary world: right and wrong, black and white, us and them, male and female…we have little patience to contemplate ambiguity, especially when it’s as “fundamental” as gender. The attributes and behaviors of men and women, our gender roles, seem to be essential to what’s masculine and feminine. If something violates our assumptions, at best, we think it odd, and, at worst, we hate it. Having absolutes is comfortable to us because we don’t like to have our worldviews predicated on shaky assumptions.
Unfortunately, ambiguity, doubt, and relativity are cultural conditions. We might try to ignore that or even avoid those in favor of our concrete perspectives, which are often un-examined convictions. In a class like this one that covers how culture influences the texts we read (and their creation), no absolute should remain unquestioned.
Gender is such an absolute that many don’t want questioned: men are men; women are women…why? Before we get farther into the discussion, let’s define some words:
- Feminism: the social and political philosophy advocating the equality of all people regardless of gender.
- Patriarchy: male dominated society; the powerful group in a society elevates male privilege and subordinates women.
- Sexism: attitudes, assumptions, and stereotypes directed at a particular sex/gender; especially when these are related to women.*
- Heteronormativity: the attitude that recognizes heterosexual relationships as the societal norm and ignores other possibilities.
- Heterosexist: the belief that the only valid form of relationship is the heterosexual union between a man and a woman.
- Phallocentrism: power is held and wielded by those in control of the phallus, the site of male power; male superiority based on the legitimate use of the phallus.
- Exogamy: practice of marrying outside one’s group (family, culture, “race,” species–this is a Sci Fi class. Btw, who’s seen The Shape of Water? Great film).
*There is a theory that only men can be sexist in patriarchal society because sexism is systemic–it’s part of the culture, part of the system and pervasive. There is no female equivalent to sexism, no reverse sexism, because a subordinate group doesn’t have the same prevailing power privilege.
As an introduction, let’s look at a scene from ABC’s Modern Family that can have multiple readings (interpretations). On the surface, it’s a funny story and a leading character triumphs. Below the surface, it’s a trite display of gender roles and gendered value in patriarchal culture. For a brief context, Gloria feels inferior to her ex-husband’s fiancee because she’s very well educated, calm, and a successful career woman. This threatens Gloria because she feels Manny (her son) will look up to the new stepmom more than her. Check out Gloria meeting Javier’s fiancee. (Here’s a short article about the first part of the episode–Season 4, ep. 20). If we’ve got time, let’s check out Jay getting Gloria new shoes. (By the way, Joe Mangianello is Sofia Vergara’s actual husband…)
Questions–Trish, the fiancee, sees the relationship dynamic differently from Gloria.
- What motivates Trish’s reasons for locking herself in the room?
- This comes at the end of the show, so what does the “resolution” value in femininity?
- Is there a comment about a woman’s proper role?
James Tiptree, Jr./Alice B. Sheldon “And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side” (1972)
Alice B. Sheldon was pretty ahead of her time. She was promoted to the rank of Major in Army Air Force Intelligence and worked with (most likely) spy photos (1942-1946). She was also in the CIA from 1952-1955, but left to go back to college, and in 1967, she earned a PhD in experimental psychology and studied animal behavior. Although we can’t read an author’s work as a pseudo-biography, she was a very smart person who saw the world in complicated ways. As the Anthology editors note, sexuality is a major theme of her work. She would definitely not subscribe to a binary but, rather, a spectrum of sexuality.
Clearly, humans aren’t in control in her short story. They appear to be obsessed with aliens and alien sexuality or, more accurately, the mystique of alien sexuality. Tiptree plays on the situation of eroticizing the “other.” There is a long history of Western culture having a fetish for those from other cultures. The space dock worker waiting for his wife even mentions “the Polynesians” to refer to the way a culture has been exploited and eroticized by a colonial power (pp. 522-523). Even today, consumerist culture sexualizes caricatures of indigenous women.
Let’s take a look at some main passages from the short story:
- p. 518: Wristwatches on spaceships.
- p. 519: “I had him figured out now. A xenophobe. Aliens plot to take over Earth.” {Is that what the “red-haired man” is? Didn’t he seem a bit more xenophile?}
- p. 519: “Little Junction,” dive bar in DC.
- p. 520: Aliens as celebrities
- p. 522: “Man is in love and loves what vanishes…”
- Let’s unpack this because it relates to the poem.
- Every heard the idea that you love what you can’t have?
- Why not love what’s easy?
- p. 523: “Man is exogamous–all our history is one long drive to find and impregnate the stranger.”
- Interpret this from an imperialist lens.
- Why the lament?
- p. 524: “The station employs only happily wedded couples” most likely because they need the stability of marriage to keep the humans from going bonkers over the aliens. If they stray, they could disrupt the station’s business.
Keat’s “La Belle Dame sans Merci”
I guess being an English professor means I have to explain the reference to Keats’s poem “La Belle Dame sans Merci” (“The Beautiful Lady without Pity”…google translate used to claim it was “without thank you”). Of course, full disclosure, you know I’m not really that kind of English Professor, but I’ll wear that hat for a little while and explicate the poem…to a certain extent.
- This poem is about a young man deserted and left bereft by a mysterious and magical lover.
- The poem also could be a lament that the women died. Why are there so many narratives by men who seem to long for the perfect women?
- Possibly a femme fatale, who seduces men and then destroys them.
Carol Emshwiller’s “Abominable” (1980)
More on phallocentrism: This idea states that males are superior and, therefore, their outlook is the only legitimate one. In the short story, it’s the male outlook that constructs what the ideal “Grace” would be, and those ideals are phallocentric because they originate in the male’s assumptions of the creature, which is a thinly veiled allusion to women.
Did anyone else think about the “Messin’ with Sasquatch” Jack Link’s commercials? They should have used beef jerky instead of bananas. Anyway, this is certainly a satire that comments on the sexist assumptions men have of women. Although you have to read between the lines, you don’t have to read too far between the lines to recognize the pack mentality this gang of men have as they “hunt” for the illusive creature. Many of the stereotypes about men being from mars and women being from Venus–a not-so-clever attempt to rationalize sexism–appear in this story. Let’s start with the setup:
- Boys’ Night Out on the Prowl: “We are seven manly men in the dress uniform of the Marines, though we are not (except for one) Marines. But this particular uniform has always been thought to attract them” (p. 540,emphasis).
- Bar hopping: “the Commander says to leave the river and go up into the hills even though they are treacherous with spring thaws and avalanches. The compass points up” (p. 541).
- Dissecting the above passage: The alpha male of the group, the Commander, says it’s time to leave the current place (probably the apartment or typical bar where they drink–hence, “river” as a reference to “watering hole”–and build up confidence) and head to where they can find women, girls, chicks, etc. You don’t stay at home and have them come to you until you’re dating or pseudo-dating {the politest way to say…}. Now it’s time to hunt. But be careful, for there are dangers–their friends, your self-confidence, and, of course, other men–that will thwart you.
- Does “the compass points up” need any explanation?
- Make them laugh: The psychoanalyst claims “there’s a kind of nervous giggle, which is essentially sexual in origin and, if it occurs when they see us, is probably a very good sign” (p. 541). Of course, Emshwiller isn’t offering a pickup blueprint; instead, she’s commenting on the fact that in dating/mating rituals, men often see women as objects to have sex with.
- All their behavior gives clues to whether or not she’ll have sex with the man. This is what the Editors meant when they claimed the narrator’s worldview “is childishly pathetic” and “how the struggle to understand [the other gender] may be crippled by cultural assumptions” (p. 540).
Assuming there’s time left, talk among yourselves for the next few minutes and think about the percentages that came up in the short story. Especially on pages 544-545, the narrator describes how to deal with the emotionally weaker species.
- What attitudes (think stereotypes) about women are being carried out here?
- In what ways are women portrayed as aliens or animals? How do these portrayals comment on attitudes toward women?
- Is this really a science fiction story?
Next Class
No Friday class this week. Instead, you’ll have Test 2 on Canvas, so make sure you do that between 8am and 11pm on Friday (9/27).
Next week, we’re moving onto Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, so start reading that if you haven’t already. The full text is available online.