Cats, sleep, Dragon's Ring.

[davefreer]

Barbs has been with my mum for a few days (back now, TG) and the furkids have been rather all over me. So when La Duchesse was conspicious by her absence last night (and she does things HER way, so this is not surprising, really) I got my nickers in a twist and didn't do a lot of sleeping going out looking for her a couple of times etc. Of course

Comments

[alphastk]

Thanks for the reminder, Dave. Dropped by Amazon to pre-order Dragon's Ring and Sorceress of Karrs.

Can't think of much to add to your view of feminism since I share your viewpoint on the issue. Obsessive feminazi zealots who go way off the deep end strike me as narrow minded folks that can hold only one issue in their head at a time and thus end up seeing "oppression" in everything. This, of course, simply leads to another kind of bigot. Pathetic examples of human bias and stupidity, in my opinion.

[unixronin]

Unfortunately a lot of the "feminazis" seem to be about finding someone THEY can discriminate against, and, like all bigots, are totally blind to their own bigotry. I've run into self-professed "feminist" zealots who I've found to be every bit as repellent as the most fervent skinhead neo-Nazi or Klansman-wanna-be.

(Ironically, one of these was a post-op transie who actually made a point of explicitly declaring that she despised men so much because she was quite certain every male just HAD to be every bit as much of a total asshole as she had been before she decided to go the transgender route. Gotta love that logic - "I'm a raging asshole, therefore you must be an asshole too." The only part of the train of logic I agreed with her on was that she was, indeed, a complete asshole.)

[reverancepavane]

Feminism still hasn't won it's fight, even in the so-called West. [As for elsewhere... ] As with most forms of discrimination, there is still an awful lot of innate prejudice left to overcome, but a lot of the radical feminists actually make the situation worse with their own prejudices. For instance at a local University the entire Department of Women's Studies went rather ... insane ... when a man tried to enroll in a subject (he was apparently honestly interested in the topic offered). Then again, until this actually blew up I never realised we had an actual Department of Women's Studies (they were, shall we say, rather insular and self-reinforcing in their viewpoint).
One of the reasons I like SF so much is that the "us vs them" mentality tends to concentrate on humans vs aliens (and the better SF usually wants to hurry up and include the aliens with the us ASAP and then go off and find new aliens to become us as well).

[unixronin]

As with most forms of discrimination, there is still an awful lot of innate prejudice left to overcome, but a lot of the radical feminists actually make the situation worse with their own prejudices.
My point exactly. As in almost any controversial cause, there's always that subset of people "supporting" it who make you want to say, "Hey, do me a favor and get offa my side, willya? You're not helping."

[eneit]

I have always found what's in a person's mind to be of far more interest to me than their reproductive organs. Some of the most interesting conversations I've had, have been with elderly people - can you imagine a young mum today, going out to drove sheep, with the baby in specially sewn saddle bags? The colour of someone's skin is not as important to me as their actions. And I believe all people are capable of more than they give themselves credit for.

I've not read the book the reviewer was comparing yours to, Dave, but I suspect your own set of beliefs is why your character, starting from a similar point, becomes an equal.

[davefreer]

:-) Actually, she becomes superior. But that's because she is what she is. I DO remember being obsessed with reproductive organs with a disinterest in the rest of the package ;-). I was 14. I had a piece of good fortune that should happen to every intelligent human. I had a really beautiful blonde girlfriend, the envy of my mates... with a shoe-size IQ. I lasted about 3 weeks and that was 20 days too long. My next gf was not particularly statuesque but she clever, funny and had a level of sarcasm that _I_ envied ;-).

[davefreer]

:-) And the saddlebags thing... yep. I know at least three young-ish women off the top of my head who would do that. I admire them deeply and no, they're not typical! But they ARE bloody marvelous people. (and my B took our boy with us to shark-processing factories - in his own fish-crate. There's damn few like her, more's the pity.