SOMETHING NEW

[bookgazing]

Over at Torque Control Nic (of the ever joyous Eve’s Alexandria) has a post about feminism in Gwyneth Jones sci-fi novel ‘Life’. The quote below gets all my cogs spinning:

‘I don’t want to be liberated, I want to be a monster. He didn’t get it. No one ever got it, and Ramone could have straightened them out by saying nobody is born a woman and that what she hated was the way she COULD NOT ESCAPE from the role of second-class person. No woman could, the only escape was to become SOMETHING NEW that had never existed before.’

and I was hoping we could talk around the ideas in this quote a little bit (come on, it’ll be more fun than it sounds *puppy dog eyes*). 

First I wonder, how could (edit: cis-gender women) become ‘SOMETHING NEW’, in the middle of a pre-existing world full of pre-conceptions about gender and behaviour?

Then, I’d love to know if you think this new state of existence is even what feminists should be aiming for. Are some current feminist goals (achieving respect for things that are traditionally female and respect for women who don’t want to be traditionally female) more important? Is it important to work towards both traditional feminism and the ‘new paradigm’ that Nic mentions in her review?

And do you think the idea of existing, without being being examined as a product of gender at all (in a negative, or positive way) is desirable for (edit:cis-gender) women?

Chuck your words at me if you’re interested.

Edit: Please note that I am specifically asking these questions about cis-gender women, because I don't have the knowledge to ask how this quote might apply to trans-gender women.

Comments

[cypher]

Hmm. I think the questions raised by that quote are interesting -- can we rehabilitate an existing, disadvantaged gender role, or do we need to scrap the system and start over? If the latter really would help, how on earth would one do it?

But I'm also a little uncomfortable with your last paragraph, which seems to imply that living outside the gender binary is a hypothetical option with its merits open to debate, rather than something a lot of people are struggling to do now in the face of constant assumptions that we don't exist.