There’s no Danger Gal profile today, I’ve just been swamped this week with other projects. The feature will return next week, never fear. In lieu of that, here’s some music in the same vein as the female characters I write about. I should really play this song every Friday.
(#31)
1. Roadkill Cafe! You kill it, we grill it.
2. Hello, Clarice.
3. Phone tag, you’re it.
4. Your soul is mine.
5. Sorry, she’s dead. Can I have her call you back?
6. The number you have called is not in service…Please try again.
7. Federal Bureau of Investigation tips line, this call has been traced.
8. WJIH, you’re caller 27 and you’ve just won twenty thousand dollars!
9. You started it.
10. For the nuclear terrorism department, please press 1.
11. Bates Motel.
12. You Rang?
13. Mommy?
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I know that the usual topic here has something to do with science fiction, but since I do sometimes post about feminist issues, I think this is apropos. Earlier today, CNN posted the article “8 Ways To Be A Happier Mom” in conjunction with its content partner Parenting.com. While most of the advice here isn’t necessarily bad advice, it’s advice that should apply to everyone, not just mothers: be vocal about asking for help when you need it, get your zzzzs, re-prioritize, live in the moment, see the forest for the trees, connect with other people and be grateful. Still, I have three bones to pick with this article.
(1) The article points to a University of Michigan study that examined mothers’ attitudes toward childcare — the article doesn’t specify, but from the context I assume this study was of stay-at-home mothers. The mothers were asked to rate certain activities, and: “on their list of pleasurable activities, moms rank child care lower than eating, exercising, or watching TV. . . And kid care rates only slightly higher than housework, working, or commuting!”
I venture that this is a common attitude by most people, not just most women or most mothers. This is the high point of the article for me, that at least we’re acknowledging how unrewarding childcare can be at times. I didn’t say it isn’t valuable, I’m saying it’s difficult. I’m looking forward to the day when stay-at-home mothers upon re-entering the workforce can put “childcare” down on their resumes and not be penalized for it. I’m a working mother and I pay almost a grand a month in childcare costs. It’s valuable, people. It’s worth something.
(2) Maybe my priorities are just messed up, but this doesn’t ring true for me: “‘Making $60,000 more in annual income has less of an effect on your daily happiness than getting one extra hour of sleep a night,” says study author Norbert Schwarz, Ph.D., a professor of psychology.’” Um, no. Especially when gas prices are $4/gallon.
(3) Just martyr yourself during the week, kay? You can take the weekends off from that:
So how can you sneak in that extra hour or two? Misha Sauer, mom of 1-year-old Riley, says her husband takes over on the weekends so she can sleep in. “It makes a big difference in the way I feel,” says the Culver City, California, mom. “And I’m more willing to do something active, like take my daughter to the park. If I’m tired, the most I can do is sit there and read to her.”
So, she’s a stay at home mom, which means she works in childcare all day. Her husband works in something else all day. But I assume it’s only her getting up in the middle of the night. I guess the thinking is that she can sleep in? She can’t. She’s got a 1 yr. old and a second child, both of whom are probably awake by 7am. She’s running around all day, he’s likely sitting at a desk. Why can’t he get up at night?! Hmmm? Wait, I see the difference now. He’s using his brain all day, while she is not. Right?
While I’m up on my soapbox, here’s an article by The Guardian “Is this the end of the stay at home mother,?” which instead wants to elicit an emotional reaction akin to “OMFG! The sky is falling! Cthulhu is going to eat you!” But let’s quote Tina Downham, former headhunter and now a “full-time mum” (since I work, does this mean that I’m not a mother during 9-5? Does this in turn mean that my stretch-marks magically disappear during those hours?) says:
“Looking after children is the biggest job you will ever have. If you put them in nursery you get the worst of them – at the beginning and the end of the day. How do you ever do any bonding?”
I don’t believe in the Mommy Wars; I think that mostly the conflict is manufactured by the media. Most real-life women understand that whether you work in or out of the home, we’re all still working our tails off. I’m not sure Downham does though, unless she really meant to imply that working mothers can’t bond with their children, that bonding only happens between 9-5. Let’s just give her the benefit of the doubt, shall we?
Let’s see Downham’s whole story though:
One day she picked her daughter up from nursery at the 6.30pm cut-off time and Holli, then three, said, “Mummy, do I have to be the last one here?’ She realised it was time to quit. “It makes me feel sick when I think about what I had to juggle.”
Downham’s problem wasn’t that she worked, it’s that she had a crappy commute. I’ve been there, I’ve had the nasty 90-minute commute. I understand where she was in that moment. I just wish she weren’t using the bonding excuse, though, to justify a life choice that makes her happy: being home with her kids. She’s doesn’t need to justify that at all, let alone denigrating working mothers in the process. Faced with this same dilemma, we moved to another city where housing costs were lower, extended family was closer, and the whole family could be sitting down for dinner at 6pm. It was a drastic solution, but we both wanted more family time — and it shouldn’t come down to one of us having to give up our professional lives if we didn’t want to and could avoid it. If you’re happier being at home, more power to you, but there are other choices available. The only options are not binary and mutually exclusive.
Other parts of this Guardian article were very interesting, such as the idea that what we think of as the “classic nuclear family” isn’t all that classic, and that Joy Gower’s quote was poignant:
“My husband did not approve of his wife going out to work. He thought that if you had children, it was your duty to stay at home. I did enjoy bringing my sons up, but I also wanted to be me. I was glad that I could be there for all the sports days, but I do look back now and see that I was oppressed. There is some sadness and regret. I was capable of a lot more.”
Over at Dear Author this morning, there is some great discussion on the independently minded heroine in the Romance genre titled “‘Can’t Buy Me Love,’ or how the independent heroine challenges Romance.” The discussion has led to the working inside vs. outside the home decision that all mothers have to face at some point. One of the many good points raised is the differentiation of the kinds of autonomy: emotional, financial, professional. This is a vital distinction. I would caution not to sacrifice the latter two for the first one. I’m not so much advocating the pitfall of “having it all,” but I am saying that we women should safeguard our financial and professional security. If you’re going to take yourself off the official job market to get your Ph.d. in motherhood, keep in touch somehow with the market so your resume doesn’t have an 8-10 year hole in it, which could mean you’re unhirable. Also, you haven’t been paying into Social Security or contributing to a 401(k) during that timespan. Get a good life insurance plan for the hubby in case the unimaginable happens.
One day maybe those years at home raising the next generation will count as work experience on our resumes. That probably won’t happen until a whole bunch of men start becoming stay-at-home dads and they experience it first-hand.
But really: All the moms? Same team. The media? The other team. The Mommy Wars are propaganda, don’t give into it.
Case in point: Want to look ten pounds slimmer? Wear a girdle. What is this, 1953? You say it’s not my mother’s girdle, but I don’t buy it.
This weeks’ Danger Gal profile is on Annja Creed, the protagonist in the Rogue Angel series by Alex Archer. The Rogue Angel series is Urban Fantasy, and I realize that I normally stick to Science Fiction novels, TV shows and movies for Danger Gal profiles, but I enjoyed this book and this character.
Published by Gold Eagle books, a division of Harlequinn, “Alex Archer” is actually a Gold Eagle house name, as Wikipedia explains it:
The series was first envisioned by Randall Toy, a Harlequin executive who fell in love with the history concerning Joan of Arc and wanted to develop the idea of a present-day Joan. Veteran action-adventure editors Feroze Mohammed and Nicole Brebner teamed up with Mel Odom to flesh out their series. The first eight novels were written by Victor Milan and Mel Odom. New writers joining the series starting with book nine include Jon Merz and Joseph Nassise.
Creed is an orphan who grew up in New Orleans, has a keen interest in the martial arts, a Masters in Archeology and even has her very own MySpace page. In the first book of the series, DESTINY, Creed is chosen to wield Joan of Arc’s mystical sword after finding the final piece of the weapon. The wizard Roux and his sometimes-friendly-sometimes-not apprentice Garin Braden have been piecing the sword together for 500 years, ever since it was destroyed at Joan’s death and, cursing them with near-immortality. While investigating the Beast of Gevaudan (or simply “La Bete”) as a type of Lara Croft for a documentary show called Chasing History’s Monsters, Creed is pulled into a hunt for lost treasure by crooked mobster with his hands in every illegal activity for miles around.
The series is Gold Eagle’s first to showcase a female protagonist, but the novels appeal to both genders. While Gold Eagle normally angles its novels toward a male audience, they decided to try something different with Rogue Angel. Harlequin editor Nicole Brebner explained in a Star newspaper article that:
“Women are responding to her because she’s strong but she’s not perfect, she’s not superhuman, she makes mistakes, she’s kinda goofy. Men like the action (and) she’s a sexy woman,” Brebner added.
Creed is a very active character and doesn’t suffer fools lightly. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the books in this series.
(#30)
You may have heard that CBS canceled Moonlight. Figures. I hope we get to see Alex O’Loughlin, Sophia Miles and Jason Dohring again in other shows very soon. You made a huge mistake, CBS. It looks like even a last minute save isn’t going to happen.
1. Alex O’Loughlin (with fangs and glowy eyes, oh my).
2. Vampire Solidarity. Rah. Rah.
3. We’ll never find out what happens to Coraline after she was carted off by her brother.
4. So many unemployed Freshies.
5. Claudia Black as The Cleaner!
6. We won’t get to see the vampire Lisa again, and so I won’t get to hear Alex O’Loughlin say my name anymore. Say my name Mick! (WAV, 164KB)
7. There are too few great female characters like Beth Turner.
8. Because I will miss seeing the Fortress of Style that is Mick’s apartment.
9. We never found out who Josef’s sire was. That’s just not fair.
10. Alex O’Loughlin (without the fangs and glowy eyes, oh my).
11. We’ll never find out what happened to Josef’s Girlfriend in a Coma (thanks, Recapist, thanks).
12. All that speculation about Mick’s fleur-de-lis jewelry, for naught.
13. No more cheeky Recapist summaries.
Bonus: No more emo voice overs. (Alex: Can you please get another job where you get to read teh emo voice overs? kthxbye)
Both screen caps come from Moonlight Love.
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-Physics is important. How did Debi Ridpath Ohi know this about me? Next thing I know she’ll be telling everyone about my secret crush on Michio Kaku. Oh wait. Frell.
-The first rule of Quarrel Club. Ye Olde LOLManuscripts.
-Godwin’s Law of Romance. They thought Shakespeare was a hack too. Don’t be a sheep.
-PZ Myers discovers befanged man-titte. The Smart Bitches reply.
-Writers Block. Part of Slate’s series on procrastination, so just read this one tomorrow.
-Do you think he lives in his mom’s basement? Church of the Jedi
-Captain Kirk Analytics. Lucy. In. The. Sky. With. Diamonds.
-LOL Movies: Star Wars. I can haz akademy?
-Why the Demetrius on Battlestar Galactica is a sweatbox. I hope someone packed deoderant.
-Because breasts weren’t already multitasking. Will they glow in the dark now too?
-Eat your green beans and remember that Moms can be nerds too.
-Strong female characters really are important. Buffy helps one servicewoman deal with The Big Bad in Baghdad.
-Get ready to rumble! Author Lynn Viehl reports in on Alton Brown’s Iron Author America. And the secret ingredient is B-Neg.
-I <3 Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. Now I can have tshirts just like his. Shazam!
Over at io9, Annalee Newitz has written a post about “What Chicks Don’t Like About Science Fiction.” If you’re a woman and you like your Science Fiction extra crispy, thank you very much, go chime in as a commenter. The discussion has turned to what kind of market share women have in the genre, which led me to the Broad Universe statistics page. Digging in to these numbers has highlighted a few trends I didn’t quite quantify before.
In 2007, of the number of forthcoming books as reported by Locus almost 40% were written by female authors. That was up about 8% from 2000, and I feel comfortable saying that we could gain that much again in half the time if the trend continues. So, by 2012 half of Science Fiction writers could be female.
Of the various writing awards in the genre, the Philip K. Dick, Hugo and World Fantasy awards are still quite male dominated. From 1990-1999, 1 woman and 10 men were awarded the Philip K. Dick Award. In the same time frame, 13 women and 28 men won the Hugo. However, in that same time span, women closely edged out men in winning the Joseph Campbell award (6 women, 5 men) while 19 women and 21 men won the Nebula. There are two Campbell awards, so I’m unsure which one this statistic refers to, but if it’s the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, that award is a little unique in that winners are chosen by a jury — and in 2006 three of the eight jurists were female.
In 2001, the National Science Foundation reports that a nearly equal number of women and men read Science Fiction magazines and books: Out of 823 women and 751 men in the data set that 28% of women and 31% of men read Science Fiction. So, of the approximately 1,500 people in the data set, 230 women and 232 men read Science Fiction.
While researching the statistics in this post, I came across a transcript of a speech that Hugo and Nebula award winning author Nancy Kress gave in 1993 where she provides and excellent overview of how Science Fiction has changed as a genre and how female characters and writers have factored into the equation. One great quote:
If true equality presume that all, or most, readers will respond to a work of fiction solely on the basis of its quality, no matter what gender wrote it or what gender are the main characters, then no, we don’t have equality within science fiction. And we never will, because people don’t read only for literary quality. They read to see themselves in books, people they can identify with. And for that to happen, many people need to see someone of the same gender as they are in the central role in order for the identification to fully happen.
io9 has its Monday summary of the previous Friday’s Battlestar Galactica episode. If you’ve seen it, then you know that Gaeta sang. A lot. And that he has a fantastic, mournful, voice. Go Alessandro!
So, has this episode changed my prediction of Dualla being the Final Cylon? I’m not sure, to be honest. On the one hand, this episode devoted quite a lot of screen time to Gaeta and his singing — and to Anders making a point of Gaeta’s Lament. However, it could just be a huge red herring. Some viewers are saying that Gaeta isn’t a big enough character to have the kind of impact that’s expected for the Final Reveal. The same is true of Dualla. However, like the other four, Gaeta was involved in the resistance and has been the person actually pushing the buttons to get humanity to Earth. Dyspeptic Mutterings has a succinct run-down of Gaeta’s influence from the beginning.
Certainly Gaeta’s pain from losing a leg fulfills part of the hybrid’s prophecy “in the howl of terrible suffering.” However, Gaeta has nothing for which to be redeemed (“hungering for redemption”). At one time he did, when everyone thought he was a Baltar supporter, but once it was revealed that he actually helped the resistance that faded. Cally would fulfill both these predictions, but she’d have to be resurrected. Considering they’re about to go into the resurrection hub, it would have quite an impact if she popped out of a tub of goo there, but how likely is that? Nothing so far has shown that the Final Five resurrect as the other models do. Here’s the part of the hybrid’s prophecy that I’m talking about:
And the fifth, still in shadow, will claw toward the light, hungering for redemption that will only come in the howl of terrible suffering.
As far as Kara Thrace and her Special Destiny goes, remember what else the hybrid said, that Starbuck “will lead the human race to its end. She is the herald of the apocalypse. The harbinger of death. They must not follow her.” Certainly Starbuck has led the Cylons to their end, since once the resurrection hub is destroyed all Cylons will be mortal. I still won’t be surprised if there turns out to be two Starbucks — her old self (who is likely dead) and her new self (created by the Beings of Light). This would not be inconsistent with RDM saying that the Final Cylon isn’t in the Last Supper photo, if indeed Starbuck turns out to be the Final Cylon.
I keep thinking everyone is going to die except for Hera and Nikki, the new Eve and Adam who have genes from both humans and Cylons.
(#29)
Image Source: LOL Movies, Star Trek: First Contact
1. You always get the green girl.
2. You have the cushiest chair in the joint.
3. The Captain’s stash of Romulan Ale.
4. You get to regularly say things like “Fire at Will” and “Number One.”
5. At some point, probably due to a rift in the space-time continuum, you’ll get to meet your Evil Twin.
6. Things that don’t work right now will be fixed by Tuesday.
7. If you blow up or crash the ship, Starfleet will just build you another Enterprise.
8. Private Captain’s holodeck hours. (Worf with the Wesley Crusher wig. ‘Nuff said.)
9. You can ditch the Prime Directive whenever you want.
10. Starfleet lets you bring your dog onboard.
11. You’ll inevitably quote Shakespeare at some point, but only in the original Klingon.
12. The self-destruct can always be turned off with your code.
13. Even strange ladies from 1985 will buy you dinner and beer, just ’cause you’re awesome.
Bonus: In TNG, you’re one of the few “red shirts” who returns from away missions.
A few fun links I found while writing this post:
LOLTrek: First Contact
Top 10 Things I Hate About Star Trek
Top 10 Star Trek Moms
Entertainment Weekly’s Top 10 Star Trek Next Generation Episodes
Top Ten “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” Episodes
100 Greatest Things About Star Trek
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Thanks AppleJedi and Scott B.
I’m piping up over at my group blog Writers at Play about the role of mothers in Science Fiction and Romance. C’mon over!
