1. A recent issue of TV Guide reminded me that the Chief Assistant District Attorney (first Michael Moriarty's Ben Stone, then Sam Waterston's Jack McCoy) has gone through four female (no male) assistant D.A.'s, two of whom have been killed (one of whom announced out of the blue, in the final episode, that she was gay). He's embarking on a fifth woman. And we are to cheer because the cop pair of the first half hour of the show is finally going to include a woman. Of course, she's being called "the Beauty Queen" by the city's papers on the show, and she keeps screwing up (because she's a rookie, never because she's a girl), but I'm to be grateful because she's there. At last.
A bunch of folks are about to pile in to remind me the wonderful S. Epatha Merkerson is the longest-running black female character on television; that the excellent Dianne Wiest was the District Attorney on this L&O following Stephen Hill's departure; that there are female partners and ADA's and DA's galore. I am talking here about the two lead partnerships on the flagship show; I would like a lead female who is not A) pretty, B) mom-vibed, C) throwaway; and this is MY snarl. You are invited to write your own snarl on your LJ. Snarls should not have to include each and every tiny piece of mitigating detail or they get really long, like this one threatens to do.
2. In the trailer for next week's Without a Trace, I just found out the strong, intelligent, bold Latina agent gets to go undercover as a STRIPPER. Because this is what women get into law enforcement to do, go undercover as sex industry workers. Yep. We're just cashing in like mad.
3. At the Hugo Awards ceremony at the World Science Fiction convention over Labor Day, a science fiction legend (male), under the guise of "schtick", went up and--in front of the crowd--placed his hand on the breast of one of the most highly respected female writers in the industry. No, I won't name names. Volumes have been written, unto death, about it elsewhere. What has me crazy, still, is the reaction of so much of the science fiction community, which I boil down here:
It was no big deal.
It was two old people anyway.
You kids don't know how grownups act.
How dare you criticize the male legend?
She wasn't being funny anyway.
You young PC types are talking about things you know nothing about.
She was okay with it--she laughed it off and went on with the show.
I don't like the female legend so I thought she deserved it.
I thought it was funny.
I thought a man fondling a woman in public without her permission was no big deal.
The female legend has been mean to me in the past and treated me like a kid so she deserved anything I did to her.
I thought a man pawing a woman at a professional event was no big deal.
You women/feminists/henpecked men can't take a joke.
Oh, yeah. We've achieved equality. We're just cashing in. I've got those equality coupons just leaping out of my pockets, and drawers, and bags.
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Because she didn't immediately punch him in the Hugos, the rest of us have no right to "embarrass her" by talking about it.
He apologized (sort of...) so everyone else should just forget about it.
It wasn't intended as a sexual act, but an infantile one, so it's not as big of a deal.
In other words, any behavior that humiliates a woman with reference to some aspect of her femaleness can be excused with the right combination of words. Objecting to it is wrong, or at least in bad taste. Shame on you for even thinking people are right to object to this kind of behavior by anyone.
But yeah. The fact that there are people who are pissed and willing to say so is a good thing. Getting to the point where such behavior is squelched on the spot would be even better.
But I hadn't yet posted in my own LJ about it, though I have, vigorously, elsewhere, and I wanted to go on the record in my own space. It's great ti read those many people who are saying it's time for science fiction and fantasy circles to start cleaning up the behavior act.
But I was sickened by the things that have been said about this by people I once respected. I am sickened by the cavalier attitude toward the feelings of women and younger writers and fans that's been displayed by some of our top names. And with my nerves rubbed raw by other issues, I needed to get that out again, too.
--Dinosaurs, who don't even know that the Asteroid's hit and they're passe already.
Hopefully the lesson will permeate though, and we won't have these scenarios, nor will people feel as if they have to somehow justify the behaviour. I know I'd like to feel that this were more than just a haven from such behaviour, but a sea-change and omen of a better society to come.
And like you, I do hope this is an omen of change to come, at least with regard to the majority. Where it concerns a particular minority, I keep seeing the second part of Disney's "Fantasia," and hearing Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring." If they will not evolve, well, they are aging. So am I, but at least I try to learn, and to treat people like, well, decent human beings.
Regarding the media stuff, I got so tired of the male-centric and particularly the obsessive father-son focus of so much American fiction and media that my next book is a YA fantasy in which all the most important characters are female and the significant relationships are between mothers and daughters, or female friends.
PS. Hello! This is Rachel Manija Brown. I slipped you a copy of my memoir, "All the Fishes Come Home to Roost," when we had the same driver for book signings in San Francisco last year. You passed on your card to my friend who was getting her copy of Will of the Empress signed, but I misplaced it. Pleased to virtually meet you at last!
You mean you don't go all dewy-eyed at all the television shows and movies in which men go rampaging over the landscape tearing it apart and screaming for the return of their sons? Bellowing out "Give me MY SON!!" like the kid is the Holy Grail while their wives and daughters pale into weepy, hand-wringing insignificance?
I would miss guys in a book, mostly because I like to write girls dealing in the mix and making a success of it, but your idea sounds really interesting. I look forward to reading it!
Hello to you, too! We have another mutual friend, by the way, Bruce Coville, who saw your book on my shelf and mentioned he'd met you!
Also, I have to ask: how many copies of THE BLUE SWORD have you gone through? I went through three paperbacks before I broke down and got it in hardcover. (Okay, before I found a hardcover copy and grabbed it!)
You might call me something of an obsessive fiction feminist. I tend to read female heroes exclusively and my favourite characters will always be women first. I suppose it's a bit of overcompensation, but I've always wanted to be a strong woman, and so I find role models to emulate. It can be frustrating at times, especially when it comes to television, to find a woman who is competent, intelligent and secure. I gave up on Without A Trace after Elena's arrival. Catherine in CSI has made me throw things at the television(usually soft things, though). I almost yelled at a novel when the heroine fell in love very suddely because "she'd really been in love with him all along" (and it was the second last chapter of the book).
Something I always appreciated in your books was that the girls, and women they become, within them have males around them, they fall in love, get crushes and yet refrain from losing their personality and all sense in the meantime. I mean, even Princess Leia kept her head, and her snark, when Han was putting the moves on. But, that's why she is on my Girls Who Kick Ass action figure shelf and the others aren't.
Um, okay, so that rambled, but I'm hoping my point came across. I've given your Kel series to my cousin in hopes that she will take something important from them and I have high hopes in introducing them to my neice when she reaches reading age. The world can not suffer for having more strong women in it.