thing I won't be writing, take 2 or 3 or 12 or whatever

[mrissa]

I was thinking in the Brain Stimulation Box (known to most mortals as a "shower"), and my brain circled back to the meme that was going around ages ago, where writers would tell you what kinds of book they would never, ever write. And I came to a conclusion: I will never, ever write a book where I make up an imaginary setting where women are widely believed to be only good for their marriageability. "Pretty bird in a gilded cage": nope. Not me. Generally I am done with that one. I'm bored of it. Other elements in a book can make me enjoy a book that has that element, but writing a book where someone is the spunky First Girl Who -- meh. As Tamora Pierce managed to notice and write interestingly about, sometimes it's at least as interesting to have the Second Girl Who. Or to do something that's not just interesting because of the configuration of your bits. Or to do something with gender roles and relations other than "men don't want to let her/girl triumphs," if you're seriously interested in gender.

I'm not trying to forbid anyone else this general class of imaginary societies in their work. I have just spotted it as not interesting to me.

I wonder how much of this is generational. I think women of my mother's generation and older were flat-out told "girls can't _____" a lot more often than I was, growing up. Even the person who tried to get me not to be a physics major didn't try to tell me that girls couldn't, just that I would, in her estimate, be a lot more comfortable in a field with more women. (Showing pretty clearly that she knew me not at all, but never mind that part.) And I can see where if you'd heard that girls can't this and girls can't that, exorcising it in your work might have a great deal more appeal than if obstacles were subtler. Anybody care to be a data point with their own age and attitudes (and, if it seems relevant, gender) in this regard?

Comments

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Sing it.
I notice this in history as well: there's a whole lot of work been done on How Women Got Into Higher Education/The Medical Profession (etc) in the C19th, when there were obviously (thank you, Carol Dyhouse, for at least addressing what then happened about women in universities) ongoing problems. It would be really, really interesting to analyse What Happened Then? about e.g. the second and third generations of women in medicine who didn't have being E Garrett Anderson and S Jex-Blake causing the Walls of Jericho to tumble to sustain them.

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

Definitely there is too much focus on women as "firsts" in history and insufficent discussion of women of influence appart from first-ness and the problems they did or didn't tackle.

[sam-t.livejournal.com]

What's that bit in Gaudy Night about needing different characters in charge of Shrewsbury College at different stages of its development and acceptance? I've always thought that that would make a rather interesting story.