The overarching theme I noticed this week primarily regarded the way people act to abide by societal norms while still satisfying taboo, carnal, or otherwise socially undesirable whims.

First of all, I’m going to mention the elephant in the room: what’s up with the subtle incest vibes in a few of the works we’ve read this semester?  At first, I thought I was imagining things (well, except for Dr. Frankenstein and his dear sister, who were quite unashamed of their romance), but Le Guin’s Nine Lives seems to put it all out there.  In all fairness, I’m not sure of clones count as family members.  Regardless, they certainly share an amount of common genetic material than would make reproduction precarious.  I can’t help but feeling like this is a reflection of a repressed society that experiences release in the taboo.  This isn’t limited to Le Guin’s story, either, though it’s less incestual, “Parsons women selecting sires, making impregnation trips … The hell with Mrs. Parsons’ long-distance orgasm” (Tiptree, 151).  To me, both of these stories stood out in that authors addressing gender also tend to address some form of intercourse.  What this says about gender theory, though, is Greek to me; for Tiptree, it seems designed to highlight the way that women are sexualized, but Le Guin’s seems to argue for the opposite (in that it is okay to sexualize beings regardless of gender or identity).  Beyond this observation, however, I loved The Women Men Don’t See.  It does a beautiful job of underscoring the way that women are forced to perform gender and the way that men – when not demanding that performance – oftentimes lack the ability to see through it.  I saw this same theme evident in Underground Airlines in a slightly different context.  Rather than demanding performance from marginalized people (though there is certainly evidence to the contrary), it felt more like it was emphasizing performative ally-ship by the white majority. This was clearest to me in the scene where the Football team manager denounces slavery while still making use of enslaved PB players.  Outside the pages of a book, some of my friends call this “ally theater”: when vocal advocates do very little to make personal changes or legitimately take action to fight oppression.

Also, on an unrelated note: I got a huge kick out of TWMDS because my middle name is “Parsons” after my paternal Grandmother’s maiden name.  As the only kid in my hometown with a middle name that wasn’t deliberately intended to be cute, like “Rose” or “Grace” or any other more typical one, it’s cool to finally hear it represented (especially in such an awesome context).  I like to think that my Grandma would’ve gone with the aliens, too.

 

**Edit: just realizing I accidentally stole someone else’s title… sorry guys!!