Lots of great suggestions for this month’s book club!
I made the determination based off of votes, which was not super helpful because the highest voted only had two votes, but still. Democracy is democracy!
Our next book shall be “Herland” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman as suggested by Okokimup.
Okokimup commented with several suggestions, but I chose this one because it is thematically relevant to last month which might be helpful for discussion, it is available for free through project Gutenberg, and because it might be more palatable with less trigger warnings than some of the other suggestions. I am still trying to balance a heavy movie with a lighter book, and this is more about a utopia, and from what I can tell does not include as much violence as the movie of the month. It is on the shorter end as far as books go, so hopefully will not be an overly huge time commitment.
Trigger warnings: allusion to attempted sexual assault, racism
I would like to include some discussion questions that are community specific and relevant to feminism, and not generic book club questions, so these will likely be questions I ask regarding every work, subject to change of course.
Some things to think about while reading:
- Do you think this work is told from a feminist perspective? Why?
- Do you think the authors gender or gender identity affected their choice of subject, writing style, or perspective character?
- Does the narrators gender or gender identity affect the work? If so, how?
- Did this work change your opinion on anything? If so, what and why?
This is not a homework assignment. You can choose to address any or none of the questions posed here, or talk about your general thoughts or whatever else. Please feel free to pose your own questions in the comments as well. These should serve as a handy springboard if needed, but not a mandatory outline for your comment.
For the October movie we will be watching Thelma & Louise as suggested by klemptor.
There seems to be a few sites where it is available for streaming, some of which are free with ads, so hopefully everyone will have at least one way they can watch.
Trigger warnings: domestic abuse, sexual violence, general violence, guns, suicide
The writer, Callie Khouri, won an academy award for best original screenplay for this movie. I’ll be taking that as an invitation to pay particular attention to word choice, so I’m hoping to see some realistic Bechdel approved dialogue.
Same spiel as above: I would like to include some discussion questions that are community specific and relevant to feminism, and not generic movie club questions, so these will likely be questions I ask regarding every work, subject to change of course.
Some things to think about while watching:
- Do you think this work is told from a feminist perspective? Why?
- Do you think the authors gender or gender identity affected their choice of subject, writing style, or perspective character?
- Does the narrators gender or gender identity affect the work? If so, how?
- Did this work change your opinion on anything? If so, what and why?
This is not a homework assignment. You can choose to address any or none of the questions posed here, or talk about your general thoughts or whatever else. Please feel free to pose your own questions in the comments as well. These should serve as a handy springboard if needed, but not a mandatory outline for your comment.
Comments are spoilers territory. If you want to use spoiler tags in the comments, please do, but it is not required. If you venture into the comments please keep in mind this is a discussion thread for media so there will likely be spoilers.
Going forward This is a community project. I would like to get input regarding written works and tv/movies that would be a good fit for this. I will leave a comment on this thread that you can respond to if you’d like to offer a suggestion. One suggestion per comment please. You can comment multiple times though. I’d like to make sure the selections are widely accessible, so please add that information if you know for sure something is in the public domain or available online, as that makes it easier to recommend. If you commented suggestions last month and they were not chosen, please feel free to comment them again! I will try to favor the most voted on replies each month, and if you don’t comment this month it won’t be considered unless there are no other suggestions. Please vote on the other comments you see there (I will not be voting since I’m organizing). I’d like to pair heavier topics in one media with lighter topics in the other, just in case you’re wondering why a specific piece was not chosen. Things like language or availability may also affect the selection. I’m also open to changing or adding discussion questions.
Thank you all for your comments last month. Excited to hear your perspectives on this month’s picks!
If you missed last month, please feel free to see what great insight your community members brought to the conversation: https://lemmus.org/post/16011446
Some highlights (not to play favorites!):
- ZDL had a great comment about the book of the month that touched on Daoism, which added a whole new layer to an already richly layered work.
- Dandelion explained that they didn’t perceive the movie of the month as feminist, which was a new angle to me and changed my perspective.
- Okokimup talks about the movie of the month and brings up body diversity and a huge plot hole I didn’t even think of (it’s not a top level comment, but still worth reading as a standalone!).
- Vanth brings up some other media that is in conversation with the book of the month.
PS: Even if you have seen or read the media for this month before, I would encourage a reread or rewatch to best participate in the discussion!
Ooh I’m excited for this month! Herland looks interesting and I’m looking forward to watching Thelma and Louise again. Thanks Greer!
Agree all around!
I love everything about this post, thanks for your efforts! I fucking love Thelma and Louise so I’m really happy we’re talking about it.
Thank you for YOUR efforts! Glad to see the interest is still here!
This is a really cool idea for this community. Seems I’ve got some catching up to do.
Welcome back! We’ve missed you
Thank you!! I’ve missed it here too. Things are looking even more active here than last time I was around and I love to see it!
Disclaimer: Thelma and Louise is one of my favourite films ever, so I’m totally biased.
Do you think this work is told from a feminist perspective? Why?
Yes, absolutely. The film talks about rape at a time when it was rarely discussed, and it shows the impact and how rape is NEVER justified. I usually hate the “she’s going to be raped but someone saces her” trope, however this is credible. Louise is keeping an eye on her friend so it makes sense she’d follow her out and check in.It also shows how women have the world stacked against them. The women get repeatedly fucked over by men, and the system fails them. They could never have reported the attempt rape because Thelma wouldn’t be believed, and they have to avoid Texas because of triggers and patriarchal systems.
It also shows what women often put up with in relationships. We get treated badly and for many reasons put up with it.
Then if course there’s the sisterhood. They never turn on each other, they have each others back non stop.
- Do you think the authors gender or gender identity affected their choice of subject, writing style, or perspective character?
Yes, absolutely. She wrote a ground breaking feminist film… a man wouldn’t have done that.
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Does the narrators gender or gender identity affect the work? If so, how?
N/a -
Did this work change your opinion on anything? If so, what and why?
It just enforced it really. Ridley Scott has had a few dynamic female leads, so I’m not surprised it was him doing it. The storyline also just told me what I already knew
No hate, but I barely made it through the first half of the movie. I’m so surprised to hear it’s a favorite! It’s a technically good film, definitely, but it was so crushingly depressing. Maybe just the state of my country right now has me in a bad headspace, but watching it made me actually upset. Not in a triggering way, but angry. Maybe it was triggering, just in a different sense than I’d normally use it? I can’t imagine wanting to watch it again, but I’m glad we were able to watch a favorite of someone’s!
I get that, their lives unravel FAST. It’s horrible seeing that, and them get such a miserable ending. For me the sisterhood and the film showing how women have the deck against them outweighs that, but I really see how it wouldn’t for someone else
I want to get involved this time, I had a tricky month last month and only got around to even watching K-pop demon hunters last night past the end of the month, it arrived too fast. I’ll make sure to get this in early :P
If you want, feel free to go back and post your thoughts. I’ll still read any new top level comments. Or you can just read and/or respond to other people’s comments if you like! I included some highlights at the end of this post, and maybe next time I’ll have to feature them more prominently, but Dandelions comment actually made me reassess my feelings on the movie a bit, so definitely some nuggets there imho.
Definitely no pressure to participate every month. Sometimes things get busy, but I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts this month if you end up participating!
For Herland:
Do you think this work is told from a feminist perspective? Why?
The author is clearly coming from a feminist perspective, and the narrator alludes to having developed a more feminist perspective many years down the road, but most of the book is told through the narrator’s original, decidedly misogynistic point of view.
Do you think the authors gender or gender identity affected their choice of subject, writing style, or perspective character?
Absolutely. She chose to write about a feminist utopia through the point of view of a self-assured young man who believes women are naturally lesser than men. I think the character of Van was useful for setting up prejudiced assumptions that the Herland citizens could easily thwart. In a way it’s more effective than a female main character would’ve been.
Does the narrators gender or gender identity affect the work? If so, how?
Yes. It’s obvious she thinks women are capable of much more than western society permitted at the time this was written. I do think she overestimates women’s ability to cooperate uniformly in working toward the common good. It’s a nice thought but it ignores human nature, so the culture she’s created seems very alien.
Did this work change your opinion on anything? If so, what and why?
Not really, but it was interesting to see how a society without men might function. The author clearly put a lot of thought into some of the logistics. Other parts had too much hand-waving - particularly, parthenogenic reproduction, but only when you really want to have a baby. I know the author needed a way for such a society to perpetuate itself but I thought that bit was pretty ridiculous.
Overall this was an interesting read, and I’ve started reading the follow-up, called With Her In Ourland. I do think it’s unrealistic that any large group of people could be so harmonious as Herland, and the emphasis on the supremacy of motherhood didn’t sit well with me. Not everyone wants children or thinks that a society geared toward raising children as well as possible would be a utopia.
I generally don’t read male protagonists by female authors, so it was really interesting to see her conception of how a man might approach this. I also found her characterization of each of her male archetypes and their respective relationships quite interesting. I totally agree that having it from a male perspective actually aids in centering women in this novel. Interestingly even at the end, her perspective character is still sympathetic towards his friend despite his actions. I’m not sure if that is a “statement” or the author having at least partially internalized that attitude.
I may be an optimist, but sociology has suggested that in times of crises people rally and show up for their communities. I know it’s hard to envision, but I really hope that the better part of our nature really would, and really does prevail. I will say that the elimination of predator animals for the sake of prey animals is an interesting take on vegetarianism and the hardest thing for me to imagine. I feel like having done that in a novel where men have also been “eliminated” says a lot.
I agree that the virgin births were a little silly, but I think it encouraged an interesting parallel with some religions. I don’t think religion was the main theme of the work, but I think it was a large enough piece of it that I’m willing to allow it to be used as a plot device.
I read the wiki page after finishing and that’s how I found out that it’s part of trilogy. I feel bad for dropping people in the middle of it. Let me know how that one is! I’ve had the yellow wallpaper on my list forever and this definitely encouraged me to move it up higher in the stack.
It definitely gives off overall generic white feminism vibes, and certainly has a specific view of what that means (motherhood and dedication to others). I think this relates back to the religious aspect of the work. This idea of the mother-love central driving power of the religion is doing a lot of heavy lifting and went fully unexamined, which is interesting considering the depth the women questioned the men.
I really appreciate your perspective! Thank you for sharing!
Hey @greercase@lemmus.org I’ve pinned your post, apologies should have thought of this before! Feel free to advertise it anytime you want as well
Please post suggestions for next month as a reply to this comment. One suggestion per comment please, but feel free to comment multiple times.
For books: The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf.
I’ve never read it but it sounds interesting. Here’s the synopsis from Amazon:
The bestselling classic that redefined our view of the relationship between beauty and female identity.
In today’s world, women have more power, legal recognition, and professional success than ever before. Alongside the evident progress of the women’s movement, however, writer and journalist Naomi Wolf is troubled by a different kind of social control, which, she argues, may prove just as restrictive as the traditional image of homemaker and wife. It’s the beauty myth, an obsession with physical perfection that traps the modern woman in an endless spiral of hope, self-consciousness, and self-hatred as she tries to fulfill society’s impossible definition of “the flawless beauty.”
just finished Thelma and Louise
spoilers
Do you think this work is told from a feminist perspective? Why?
Yes, for whatever flaws or hypocrisies might exist with this film in terms of its message and values, it absolutely is told from a feminist perspective - the story over and over centers the way women are subjugated (though, from a particularly middle-class, white, and cis perspective). In this film men are mostly dangerous, dishonest, and abusive. The central plot revolves around rape, and domestic abuse is explored. The writer of the film was a woman who explicitly wrote the film based on her own personal experiences, and those of her friend Pam Tillis (who is a country musician), and I suspect if not feminist she certainly would think of her film as being about women’s struggles in society.
At times the movie even felt like an exploitation film written for white, middle class women. 😅
Do you think the authors gender or gender identity affected their choice of subject, writing style, or perspective character?
Absolutely, since it’s written based on the author’s personal experiences, her life as a woman informed everything about the movie.
Does the narrators gender or gender identity affect the work? If so, how?
While I don’t remember a narrator, I do want to say I felt there was a real male influence on the film, it’s a Ridley Scott movie and many scenes feel lifted straight from Bladerunner (like when Harvey Keitel’s character was going through data entries on a computer). There is a patriarchal presence in the film which felt juxtaposed to its plot, a kind of patriarchy that criticizes another form of patriarchy, that the women just needed to trust men and their system and they would have been protected, etc.
Did this work change your opinion on anything? If so, what and why?
will come back to this, but it did shift my view on Ridley Scott some 🤔
Excellent comment! One thing I always notice is how the good men try to help but fail… even they can’t fight the whole system to protect the women.
I agree it’s a white perspective, and it would have had marked differences if they weren’t white. For me it showed how badly the deck was stacked against them, their gender massively outweighed their priviledge.
Great point about how even good men wanting to help can’t singlehandedly fight a system.
Yep! Straight white cis male privilege helps, but only so far. They really put themselves at risk to help the women, which I loved seeing.
Thank you for your perspective! I haven’t posted my comment yet, but I made a note while watching that I felt like so much of the movie was just trauma porn. Your use of the term exploitation film rings true for me. The last bit less so, but as stated in the film, even their liberated actions are the result of trauma.
I don’t know a lot about Ridley Scott, but interesting for you to note that you saw parallel scenes in his other works. I do agree about the patriarchal presence in the movie. I was struggling to put it into terms, but the detective wasn’t really the audience surrogate and felt out of place in a way that I made note of it. I understand wanting a b plot, and it wasn’t done poorly per se, but it was a bit paternal in a way I didn’t enjoy.
Herland
Overall this was a good read in my opinion. It lulled a bit in the later half for me, but was pretty engaging throughout. It appealed to the luxury gay space communism I strive towards, so it was fun to get lost in that world and essentially have my idealized (I’m not in support of eliminating men obviously) worldview supported and explored by this author.
It was interesting to see that they still had a religion, but just had morphed it to fit their lifestyle. I know this is basically what people have done since the dawn of time, but in my ideal space communism, we don’t need religion or veneration. We all kinda just do what’s right because that’s what’s right. Also notable that virgin birth plays a role in their religion too. I understand the men were hesitant to provide a lot of details of their religion, but you’d think there’d be more exchange regarding that. There’s a lot to be said about the assumptions the men made regarding life after marriage. They didn’t explicitly say anything and are surprised when things don’t go exactly as they expected. Still extremely relatable unfortunately. I wonder if the author added the polygamous nature of the original society because she assumed the marriage tradition would be too deeply embedded in the culture to have fallen out of common knowledge.
I was surprised that a group that venerates motherhood would so readily move back to standard male/female breeding. What if they had a male child? Their whole religion and way of life revolves around the feminine motherhood in a way a male cannot directly engage in. It’s one thing for outsiders to feel excluded, it’s another for a male child to grow up in that. I’m sure he’d be doted on, but there’s something there that was not addressed. I feel as though if this was written by a male I’d assume that had a female written it it’d have been different. But here we are with a female writer envisioning a female only society excited to reintroduce random males into their essentially eugenicsed society. There was no explicit mention of women who were not interested in having children, but I believe they did reference some being unable to, so possibly the inability stems from an unwillingness, but I would have liked to see that addressed.
I am curious as to what happened with the local men that had previously attempted to seek Herland out. Strange that native people were potentially unable to traverse the cliff safely but these men were. Or were they just captured and executed ages ago and they haven’t tried in a long time? Sex, lesbianism, and physical pleasure are also never really mentioned, but I’ll just chalk that up to this being originally a serialized work and needing to adhere to some kind of propriety.
The paternalism of the state seemed to persist in the way that a small group seemed to be making the decisions as to what to do regarding the outside world. Maybe I missed a vote or something, but I would have preferred seeing the inhabitants making the decision to stay isolated, especially as it can be suggested to be the best outcome for their children.
Also interesting that they seemed to have spent a lot of time and likely resources in making a tree they found beautiful bear food. I liked that they had done away with a lot of frivolous personal aesthetics, but were willing to invest in something beautiful that would outlast them. It speaks to a collective interest in beauty that seemed to be a throughline in their way of live in lieu of an ownership of beauty.
I made some notes about the perspective on animals in the book. Nothing particularly coherent, but things like the elimination of predator species. The encouragement of the prey drive in cats since they prey on “pests”, but restricting them from hunting birds. They must have a large rodent population to feed all the cats since cats are obligate carnivores. They also mention the removal of invasive moths. Clearly some things must be sacrificed so that others can flourish, but I don’t think that’s even a big theme, just something of note.
A highlight for me was the centering of older women. They were written of with a lot of respect that I rarely see given to them. The direct acknowledgement of that was also nice. The protagonist explicitly realizing that his society often discards women like this felt like a turning point. They reference a specific kind of aunt-mothering that is part of the cultural consciousness but not often addressed. A lot of cultures use aunt as a term of respect or endearment and you see it used for women in positions of authority in societies like Gilead in the handmaids tale. I like that this shined a light on that position that a lot of women are put in, regardless of if they wanted to be there or not.
I do want to point out that the protagonist somewhat excuses his friend for attempting to rape his wife. I’m not sure if the rape excuse is a reflection of the author or their view on men and this particular mans inability to truly hold his friend accountable. There was also elements of eugenics, and referring to people as savages. It definitely shows its age.
Thelma & Louise
This was a very well written and acted movie, but I can’t say that I enjoyed it. Much of it felt like trauma porn, or as Dandelion aptly put it, an exploitation film. I’m glad it was made, and it is definitely true to much of the female experience, but it was tough to watch.
I understand that the sex scene with Brad Pitt was supposed to seem reclamatory at first, but even in the moment it felt bad to watch. This naive woman was obviously being played, even if he hadn’t taken anything from her, it would have felt like there was an element of him taking advantage of her situation. I understand she’s a grown woman, but it felt manipulative the whole time.
Some small details I really enjoyed were when they were talking about Louise’s eye color. Previously she had closed her eyes when she asked him. This time she covered his eyes. I don’t know if that was intentional or just the most convenient or aesthetic choice, but it seemed a subtle nod to her agency. I liked that the Jimmy farewell kiss was the back of her head and not the side view we often get. It wasn’t about the kiss itself, just about her as a person. It made the kiss feel more personal than had they shown it in more detail in my opinion. I also liked that they didn’t shy away from showing that Jimmy was a bit of a mixed bag. He was violent, and obviously not a great partner, but Louise still loved him and he was trustworthy to a certain extent. It’s nice to see complicated relationships on screen, even if I’d prefer them to not be the case.
Overall it felt like there is no good move for women. Naive and trusting or bold and protective, either will lead to trouble. That’s often what it feels like, but watching it play out like that made me feel more upset than seen. I’m not excusing murder, don’t go do that ladies, but it really felt like they were backed into a corner and ended up spiraling, and all of it, even their spiral, was rooted in men. Even the “good cop” hoping to “help them” ends up being the reason they get caught. If they hadn’t somewhat trusted him, they wouldn’t have called him and given away their location. I’m glad I saw it, but it will be a one time watch for me.
