Gender, Life, and Death in Sci Fi
I just read an article about Alice Sheldon. Apparently, she was a very weighty author in the sci fi genera about 30 years ago. Many of her short stories are considered classics. The odd thing about this situation was most people thought she was a man. She wrote under the name James Tiptree Jr. Not only that, but she corresponded with other sci fi writers as a man. She won awards as a man. No one ever saw her face to face for ten years of her writing career.
She came up with that pen name while grocery shopping. She saw it on a jar, 'Tiptree'. Her husband told her to add the 'Jr.' for kicks. I read a few excerpts of her short stories. They are raw. No wonder people thought she was a man. She kind of wrote how you would expect a man to write. She wrote about sex and humanities relationship with it and around it. Some say sex was a vehicle to illustrate dominance. I say, she compared earth to a testicle and humans to sperm. Raw sex is in there somewhere.
The article spoke of how her mother was a writer and a hunter and how Alice tried her best to live up to the unattainable goal of feminine impossibility her mother had achieved. Alice served in the army, worked for the CIA and got her Ph.D. in clinical psychology. But she never felt it was enough. The article said she didn't like being a woman for most of her life. I guess she found it limiting. (Alice was 50 when she started writing in 1969) She may have also found life more difficult being considered very attractive. Attractive women were expected to be on display, to entertain, and to perform all the acts of 'keeping up appearances'.
Octavia Butler was similar and different. She lived a much quieter life. Her writing was more deep than raw. But her characters did usually deal with dominance and submission, master/slave, have and have nots. Octavia was the complete opposite of Alice physically. Octavia Butler looked like a man. I say that with love. A man. The first time I saw her in a photo I honestly thought someone was fucking with me. A few years later I heard her voice, she sounds like a man more than she looks like a man, and she was tall. But she was also shy. She spoke as a baritone, but the way she spoke was very soft and sweet.
Alice lived how Octavia looked. They both were gender bending in their life and writing. Ambiguously feminine and seemed to be at home there. Maybe the theme of dominance and submission was their personal theme of masculine and feminine, or their personal battle.
Both died strangely. Alice, still healthy at 71, had a suicide pact with her hubby. She shot him then herself in 87'. Octavia fell outside her home and died at 58.
Wanna read more about it?? huh? huh? do ya? well here you go.
Sheldon examples
Butler examples
-mel
She came up with that pen name while grocery shopping. She saw it on a jar, 'Tiptree'. Her husband told her to add the 'Jr.' for kicks. I read a few excerpts of her short stories. They are raw. No wonder people thought she was a man. She kind of wrote how you would expect a man to write. She wrote about sex and humanities relationship with it and around it. Some say sex was a vehicle to illustrate dominance. I say, she compared earth to a testicle and humans to sperm. Raw sex is in there somewhere.
The article spoke of how her mother was a writer and a hunter and how Alice tried her best to live up to the unattainable goal of feminine impossibility her mother had achieved. Alice served in the army, worked for the CIA and got her Ph.D. in clinical psychology. But she never felt it was enough. The article said she didn't like being a woman for most of her life. I guess she found it limiting. (Alice was 50 when she started writing in 1969) She may have also found life more difficult being considered very attractive. Attractive women were expected to be on display, to entertain, and to perform all the acts of 'keeping up appearances'.
Octavia Butler was similar and different. She lived a much quieter life. Her writing was more deep than raw. But her characters did usually deal with dominance and submission, master/slave, have and have nots. Octavia was the complete opposite of Alice physically. Octavia Butler looked like a man. I say that with love. A man. The first time I saw her in a photo I honestly thought someone was fucking with me. A few years later I heard her voice, she sounds like a man more than she looks like a man, and she was tall. But she was also shy. She spoke as a baritone, but the way she spoke was very soft and sweet.
Alice lived how Octavia looked. They both were gender bending in their life and writing. Ambiguously feminine and seemed to be at home there. Maybe the theme of dominance and submission was their personal theme of masculine and feminine, or their personal battle.
Both died strangely. Alice, still healthy at 71, had a suicide pact with her hubby. She shot him then herself in 87'. Octavia fell outside her home and died at 58.
Wanna read more about it?? huh? huh? do ya? well here you go.
Sheldon examples
Butler examples
-mel
posted by state of our nation at 5:07 PM
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