Creative Life
Meta Monday 10: Why Women Should Read SFF
Nov 23rd
photo by John Le
When asked why women should read science fiction and fantasy, Ursula K. LeGuin replied:
Because it offers alternatives. What any group that is socially oppressed, or marginalized, or not in control, needs is to know that there are other ways to run a society, that the way this society is being run is not ordained by God from the beginning of time, that things can change. Which gives hope—any social movement of betterment has got to have some hope that things can be changed. And science fiction’s really good at actually imagining other societies: How would they run? What are the costs and what are the benefits? And so on. You can actually do a dry run of what would it be like if … men and women were equal—or, like I did in The Left Hand of Darkness, what if basically there was no gender? Stuff like that. So you can do thought experiments which I think is a really important human activity.
Reason enough, I think, for people of all races, genders and cultures to read speculative fiction. And something for all writers of speculative fiction to consider: is my world patriarchal, misogynistic, racist? It is certainly a different story when magic or future technology are introduced. After all, one would hesitate to raise his hand to a woman if he feared magical retaliation. It is merely the unfortunate events of our world’s past that have subjugated women. Not every fictional world should necessarily follow suit…
The full interview with Room Magazine can be found here.
Because it offers alternatives. What any group that is socially oppressed,
or marginalized, or not in control, needs is to know that there are other ways
to run a society, that the way this society is being run is not ordained by God
from the beginning of time, that things can change. Which gives hope—any
social movement of betterment has got to have some hope that things can be
changed. And science fiction’s really good at actually imagining other societies:
How would they run? What are the costs and what are the benefits? And so on.
You can actually do a dry run of what would it be like if … men and women were
equal—or, like I did in The Left Hand of Darkness, what if basically there was no
gender? Stuff like that. So you can do thought experiments which I think is a
really important human activity.
or marginalized, or not in control, needs is to know that there are other ways
to run a society, that the way this society is being run is not ordained by God
from the beginning of time, that things can change. Which gives hope—any
social movement of betterment has got to have some hope that things can be
changed. And science fiction’s really good at actually imagining other societies:
How would they run? What are the costs and what are the benefits? And so on.
You can actually do a dry run of what would it be like if … men and women were
equal—or, like I did in The Left Hand of Darkness, what if basically there was no
gender? Stuff like that. So you can do thought experiments which I think is a
really important human activity.
Meta Monday 8: Artificial Means
Oct 5th
photo by andrea
The aim of every artist is to arrest motion which is life by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later when a stranger looks at it it moves again since it is life.
-William Faulkner
Fiction Friday 4: I think
Sep 18th
photo by epsos
“Belief isn’t simply a thing for fair times and bright days…What is belief – what is faith – if you don’t continue in it after failure?…Anyone can believe in someone, or something that always succeeds…But failure…ah, now, that is hard to believe in, certainly and truly. Difficult enough to have value. Sometimes we just have to wait long enough…then we find out why exactly it was that we kept believing…There’s always another secret.”
-Sazed, via Brandon Sanderson’s The Final Empire
Look forever at the successes, and dwell not on the failures. A lesson I am perpetually learning, ‘I think’.
“Belief isn’t simply a thing for fair times and bright days…What is belief – what is faith – if you don’t continue in it after failure?…Anyone can believe in someone, or something that always succeeds…But failure…ah, now, that is hard to believe in, certainly and truly. Difficult enough to have value. Sometimes we just have to wait long enough…then we find out why exactly it was that we kept believing…There’s always another secret.”
-Sazed, via Brandon Sanderson’s The Final Empire
Look forever at the successes, and dwell not on the failures. A lesson I am perpetually learning, ‘I think’.
“Belief isn’t simply a thing for fair times and bright days…What is belief – what is faith – if you don’t continue in it after failure?…Anyone can believe in someone, or something that always succeeds…But failure…ah, now, that is hard to believe in, certainly and truly. Difficult enough to have value. Sometimes we just have to wait long enough…then we find out why exactly it was that we kept believing…There’s always another secret.”
-Sazed, via Brandon Sanderson’s The Final Empire
Look forever at the successes, and dwell not on the failures. A lesson I am perpetually learning, ‘I think’.