Reporting on Electron-Free Friday and Other Matters

[rolanni]

We took yesterday off. Yes, we are grasshoppers. No, the work in hand did not evaporate while we were gone, more's the pity.

Despite this, we had an excellent day, driving down to Old Orchard Beach in the early and dry Maine morning. Once there, we discovered to our dismay that our favorite restaurant has put its opening time back an hour, no doubt in response to the eons of rain driving tourists away in droves, so we had the opportunity to explore another restaurant. After, our walk on the beach was enlivened by watching a small-boat come into the very breakers to pick up two passengers and take them out to the fishing boat anchored just beyond. A curious thing altogether, as we didn't receive news of the closure of clam flats due to the red tide until somewhat later in the day.

It was also a fine morning for watching dogs chase balls. Dogs are silly.

Since we were doing things we didn't usually do, we decided to go to the zoo, so off to York's Wild Kingdom we drove, only to find the gate fee of $14.50 per each too rich for our blood, white tiger or no white tiger.

Back to the car we went, wandering across to Eliot eventually, hoping to find our sometime associates Ms. Crowell and Mr. McIntosh to hand. Alas, they were elsewhere. We left a card and moved on.

We came home by not-exactly-the-straight-route, stopping for dunch, or possibly linner, at the Lucky Panda, and so to home.

Today's first task is to try to unravel our preliminary WorldCon schedules, which are. . .complex. I am, for instance, scheduled for a panel against Steve's signing, which seems. . .less than optimal for everyone, since I have no signing. Though I guess a book signed by only one of us could be a collectible.

I discover that I'm moderating two panels, which for one is absolutely perfect, since I expect we're talking about TV/movie kick-ass chicks*, of whom I know slightly less than nothing, and so will be able to ask questions of those more knowledgeable than myself. (*In my day, Nancy Drew lived in a series of books and wasn't exactly kick-ass, though she was certainly feistier than other heroines held up for girls to admire. I'm guessing, but cannot prove, that the recent movie "fixed" that.)

The other panel -- Why are there so few older female characters in SF? -- poses a question worth exploring, though as a moderator I feel I would like more than the viewpoint of three aunt-aged ladies (myself included) represented. Perhaps the moderator may need to draft someone from the audience. *evil grin*

There's also the puzzlement of how this WorldCon envisions readings. I'm scheduled for an early-con reading with two other writers, both excellent fellows; while Steve is scheduled to read very late in the con with yet another excellent fellow. Since Steve and I usually read together, this particular question has never come up before.

In health news, MRI of the knee is scheduled for Tuesday evening. I am cautioned to wear clothes without zippers or metal buttons. I have no pull-on clothing; I no longer even own the all-purpose denim skirt. *feels like an idiot for having to buy clothes to get an MRI in* The post-MRI doctor visit is scheduled for the afternoon of July 29, a work-day, of course, so I have to reschedule myself again or get another doctor's appointment -- in September. Grrr...

After I parse the WorldCon schedule, I'm headed for the couch to finish reading Saltation, so I can be up-to-the-minute for tomorrow's big Story Meeting.

The mail has arrived; royalty check still AWOL. *looks at checkbook. winces*

Hope everyone is having a lovely Caturday.

Comments

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

>*feels like an idiot for having to buy clothes to get an MRI in*

WalMart has a line of cheap-cheap sweat pants and shirts in varying sizes. No metal.

(Yes, I have experience in this quest.)

Clothing

[dvdscar.livejournal.com]

snipped
*feels like an idiot for having to buy clothes to get an MRI in*

Sweatpants - all purpose easy clothing, forgiving of a multitude of sins. On cool days, they also have the added advantage of being somewhat warm.

Alternatively, you could imitate the Gen Y-ers I see around town (including my youngest daughter) and wear flannel pajama bottoms. :-)

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure you could ask them if you could just have a hospital gown. Beats spending money on clothes you don't love or want.

[cailleuch.livejournal.com]

Yes, I have always just used changing rooms at MRI and put on hospital gown. Definitely ask before you spend $$$.

[zola.livejournal.com]

Older women in SF/Fantasy.... yeah, if they aren't wise old crones backing the hero or evil old witches...

Let's see.

Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea (Ursula Le Guin)
I really enjoyed that, and Tehanu is an older woman, she's got grown children.

Barbara Hambly's Winterlands series has a middle-aged female protaganist and even (gasp) mentions her menopause symptoms in passing a couple of times.

Those are the first two that come to mind. I have found myself toying with the idea of writing a story where the protaganist comes looking for the great wizard of the insert-name-here and assumes the wizard is male and is clueless that this famous wizard is in fact the middle-aged woman whom he assumes is a servant and treats accordingly....

[grassrose.livejournal.com]

One word - CORDELIA! :o)

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

One word - CORDELIA!

The problem being that it's practically the only word anyone has. Not Cordelia's biggest fan, here.

Elizabeth Moon's protagonist in Remnant Population is a grandmother, and there are, as Zola points out, a few others. But, by and large, the belief, in fiction as in everyday life, is that middle-aged women are BORING. And let us not forget STUPID.

A while back, I pitched a novel idea featuring a 40-ish heroine and was told that the heroine was "too old to be interesting."

Hard to see how to get past that kind of cultural blind-spot. I'm wondering if UP would have been a success if it had been Ellie who had survived Carl.

[zola.livejournal.com]

I also think I should remind Cordelia fans that the novels that focus on Cordelia cover her younger childbearing years.

In subsequent novels, she is an important supporting character, but she is not the main character, nor do the stories follow her thoughts and actions the way the first two books did.

So while she certainly qualifies as "interesting older woman in sf" she is not "older woman as female protagonist", IMHO.

I'm trying to think of other older women in literary genres, and I think that you'll likely find more in the mystery genre (Miss Marple, among others) since usually the protagonists merely need to be able to think, not have children nor perform feats of derring-do nor be an ornament.

Sharon, maybe you can take a Liaden female character who is hitting that age--oh, Kareen yos'Phelium maybe? It seems to me that the move to Surebleak might be fertile ground for a mid-life identity crisis... especially with Pat Rin at last fully claiming his adult melanti.

just saying... :D


Edited to add:

ARRRGH! I completely forgot about Lynn Abbey's Emma Merrigan in the "Time" novels

"Why are there so few older female characters in SF?"

[mothadventures.livejournal.com]

Hmmm....(walks to bookshelf, glances at titles)

Most of my SF is packed away. But if I take the subject as "older female characters", without limiting it to LEAD characters or "middle-aged" characters, I get quite a few:

- Many of the women in the Heris Serrano universe
- Jessica from Dune (along with a lot of other Reverend Mothers, Fremen like the Shadout Mapes, etc)
- Ari Senior from Cyteen
- Pyanfar Chanur from the Pride of Chanur and others (if we're not limiting it to human females)
- Hilda from "Number of the Beast"
- Clarissa from "Children of the Lens"
- Nadia from "Spacehounds of IPC"
- Lunzie and Sassinak from Generation Warriors
- Kethry, Tarma, and Kerowyn from the "Valdemar" books
- Lessa from the Pern books

Some of these characters we see first as young women, but I think for all of them they have key roles once they are older as well.

I came up with that list in about 2 minutes -- it's taken me much longer to type this than to compile the list. That may indicate a bias in my taste in authors, though....

Let's be fair and try to turn the question around. What if it had been "Why are there so few older MALE characters in SF?" How many could you come up with on a quick glance at your bookshelf or memory?

If it does still appear that there is a bias of fewer older females than older males, and not just a bias against age in general, then we could better look for "Why".

MRI

[(Anonymous)]

Most if not all scanners will provide sweats or a gown for those who do not have metal-free clothing. Also, see if your doctor might mail or phone you with the results! I do so all the time for my patients, reserving a visit for treatment.

Re: "Why are there so few older female characters in SF?"

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

But if I take the subject as "older female characters", without limiting it to LEAD characters or "middle-aged" characters, I get quite a few:

Where I grew up, this is called "stacking the deck."

Re: "Why are there so few older female characters in SF?"

[mothadventures.livejournal.com]

That wasn't my intention at all -- I was just going by the wording from the original post, which simply said "older female" without qualifications. But it's your panel, your rules.

For the purposes of this discussion, what limits would you like to be used?

[doccolt.livejournal.com]

David Weber's Honor Harrington is chronologically qualified although her "third generation prolong" treatment might make her "real" age debatable.

[kalimeg.livejournal.com]

Zenna Henderson told the story of the destruction of the People's Home through the eyes of a grandmother who chose to stay behind. And then there's Cecilia de Marktos, the character by Elizabeth Moon. Cecilia has grown nephews and nieces, even though she has no children. And let's not forget the Aunts and Admiral Serrano. She has old women in many places.

Re: "Why are there so few older female characters in SF?"

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's the convention's panel, and as far as possible, the panelists play fair with the convention's intent.

Sometimes, panelists need to get creative, because the convention has asked a question that is too shallow, too broad, or frames the question as a yes/no and all the panelists immediately come down on one side. (Example: Can writers dispense with characters in Hard SF stories? Answer from four panelists, in series: No. Hard to fill up 55 minutes that way.)

The question posed by the con this time is: Aunts in Spaceships: Why are there so few older female characters in SF?

As you note, this is a Trick Question, because it supposes that there are few older female characters in SF. Certainly, the panelists will need to examine the supposition before we can discuss Why. I would expect the panel's examination to include both lead and secondary characters, as well as the question, Fewer than What?

I do think that there are less older women leads, but I don't know if it is a simple question of ageism, as you suggest. It seems to me that the stated ages of men in SF is less important, but that may be my bias.

Various

[(Anonymous)]

"Dogs are silly." Yeah, but as I watch my JRT roll around on his
back in the warm grass, I think 'There's a creature who knows how
to live in the moment - to be Zen.' Not that cats don't. I think
humans are definitely inferior to both dogs and cats in that respect.

"TV/movie kickass female characters" - heh. They've been around
(Ripley? Buffy? Xena? All the main females in Babylon 5 and
Firefly?) for awhile - they just haven't been noticed so much.:)

"Older female characters in SF." How older is older? There are a
lot of my favorites already mentioned (Pyanfar! Oh, I wanted to be
Py for a long time!). How about the Warrant Officer in David
Drake's Leary/Mundy series? Woetjans herself? I also had a soft
spot for Esmae Suiza's CO, Major Pitak in Elizabeth Moon's books.
Whatshername in Hellspark who kept swearing, "Toes and feet!"
Hey, these women weren't afraid of swearing. Hmn, I dunno what
that says about me. :)

I could go on but I bet the answer to why lies in the critical
mass of female writers who have entered the SF field. It used to
be you'd rarely find a female writing hard SF and then they would
have to hide it. CL Moore? Tiptree? Now we have a statistically
significant population of those writers - and I have to say I
relish reading scenes with women in charge at least as often as
men.

Things HAVE improved...
Lauretta @ ConstellationBooks

Connie Willis's books?

[(Anonymous)]

I just remembered some of the pivotal characters in Connie Willis' books are older and female.

I should note older to me == 40s+.

Yeah, you can stop laughing now:)
Lauretta@ConstellationBooks

PS Weren't there some in Anne McCaffery's Pegasus and Nimisha books?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Off the top of my head, for older female protag?

Paladin of Souls -- Ista -- where a major part of the plot revolves around her refusal to allow herself to be forced into the role that most expect her to fill.

Of course, it probably feeds into your topic that we're having to strain to find characters of that description.

Re: "Why are there so few older female characters in SF?"

[(Anonymous)]

Others have mentioned my 1st thoughts - E. Moon's "Aunts and Lady Admirals ...". I would add Schmitz' "Agent of Vega", and several of Anne McCaffrey's characters not yet mentioned - Lessa and many other Pernese females in weyr, hold or crafthall were strong characters.
Also can't forget Killashandra - yes, she was in her teens when we first meet her, but we also see her at several hundred years of age.

Savil Ashkevron, Kerowyn, Tarma & Kethry, and don't forget Hydrona, all from M. Lackey's Valdemar (and related) novels.

Linnea Sinclair often uses mature, experienced females (ship captains ..) as her protagonists.

More obscure - Chairiste Ni Cummen from Baudino's Gossamer Axe.

I also like Mother Lenka, from Ringo's Paladin of Shadows novels.
Brom

Mature female protagonists

[od-mind.livejournal.com]

Ista (and certainly not Cordelia, who is young when introduced) was my #1 exemplar also. That's part of what I love about Paladin of Souls, more with every re-read.

Annie Jason Masmajean from Janet Kagan's Mirabile is another. I'm not sure Tocohl from Hellspark qualifies; I got a 30-something vibe from her.

Lady Jessica, in Dune, is the mother of a 16(?)-year-old boy, and thus probably not a spring chicken. But she's also a secondary character.

Cantra yos'Phelium springs to mind.

Hmm. I think the protagonist of Cherryh's "Chanur" novels probably qualifies as well.

Of course, this problem is not unique to F&SF. When I try to bring to mind mature female protagonists in other genres or mainstream fiction, I can't think of many. Miss Marple; Mrs. Pollifax; the Ladies #1 Detective Agency (?, I haven't read it); "Murder, She Wrote" on TV. Mystery seems to do better here, but it's still slim pickings.

-- Why are there so few older female characters in sf

[(Anonymous)]

When I was 14 or 15 1974-75 The Romance "erotica" novel was getting a lot of attention. The heroine needed a man to help her fulfill her potential as a women. Those books drove me crazy, because the women just could not do a thing without a man helping her.
These books were mainly written by women.
In the last couple of decades, more and more sf is being written by women and these women are kick ass; fulfilling their own potential.
Of course, it's hard to have a kick ass older female lead when her knee's crackle when she walks, and the hot flashes are not from the media attention.
Tisha

[gilraen2.livejournal.com]

your schedule for worldcon sounds like the program people failed to take notice that you and steve write as pair. i can see putting you on separate panels, but readings and signings would seem logical to consolidate. what action did they suggest for altering your schedule?

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

In general, it's better that Steve and I aren't on a lot of panels together, because we are collaborators and we will double-team the other panelists. Not fair. We are on a panel about collaborating with the Kollin brothers -- and that makes perfect sense. Also? They can hold their own. *g*

I don't actually mind having two readings, because (1) the readings are, I'm told, "20 minutes," (2) apparently shared serially among the scheduled writers (seeking confirmation of this as we speak), and (3) Lee-and-Miller has a book coming out in September, and Lee has a book coming out next year, so the opportunity to get people het up about both is nice.

We have gotten a confirm that Steve and I will be sharing a signing. Possibly we'll be reading together as well, though I didn't ask for that, only for clarity.

Re: "Why are there so few older female characters in SF?"

[mothadventures.livejournal.com]

Yes, a trick question indeed! And each time I read the concom's title for the panel I come up with different interpretations. Is it "Why are there few older females in SF, aka 'Aunts in Spaceships'" or is it "Why are older female characters in SF usually 'Aunts in Spaceships'"?

To me, the "Aunts in Spaceships" implies a supporting character, not one of the major ones. But that may be a bias of the implication "Aunt" often has had in current general usage. You commented that it seemed to you that the stated ages of men in SF (are) less important... I think that's true in current general usage as well, that the age of older men is viewed as less important than the age of older women. Just look at popular culture, movies, TV, etc for examples.

Taking my original list of titles and breaking it down into two categories, one where the female is a supporting character and one where they are more prominent, I get this:

Supporting:
- Lessa from the Pern books
- Clarissa from "Children of the Lens"
- Nadia from "Spacehounds of IPC"
- Jessica from Dune (along with a lot of other Reverend Mothers, Fremen like the Shadout Mapes, etc)

Major:
- Many of the women in the Heris Serrano universe
- Ari Senior from Cyteen
- Pyanfar Chanur from the Pride of Chanur and others (if we're not limiting it to human females)
- Hilda from "Number of the Beast"
- Lunzie and Sassinak from Generation Warriors
- Kethry, Tarma, and Kerowyn in "By the Sword"


In those categories, five out of the six "major" characters were written by women. Three of the four I list as supporting were written by male authors. The fourth, Lessa, is written by a female ...and I had to think about it before I called her "supporting" -- the reason I did is that when she was a lead she was young; in the later books, when she is older, she's a supporting character only.

This leads me to two thoughts: are lead females primarily written by women authors, and their representation in SF is biased by the number of women authors, as Lauretta noted in her comment? And, if we are introduced to a major female character when she is young, does she stay a major character as she ages? Is the same true for male characters?

This sounds like it's going to be a fun panel.

older women protagonists

[amm-me.livejournal.com]

I might mention Ronnie Dreeson of the 1630s, as well as a number of the matrons of Grantville. Ista, of course; I was reading down the comments and wondering why in the world she wasn't the first one mentioned, but her name finally came up. Indira in Mother of Demons (and Kopporu, Nukurren and most of the gukuy too, if we're including non-humans). Heinlein's Tamara Sperling, maybe. Aunt Grace. Cantra?

Older women in SF

[(Anonymous)]

If we're including non-humans, than Illissidi (?) from Cherryh's Foriegner series should definately be included, as well as some of the captains of the Phoenix.
Annemarie S.

[muehe.livejournal.com]

Personal opinion, I do not think this is a fair question. Mature women – to me that means at least 35. How many mature men? Sure you can rattle of several, but as a percentage of the male leads. I think it would be quite small. So taking a sub criteria of an already limited pool (because female leads are less than male) -- well, that sounds like stacking the deck to me. The real question is just male/female ration or young/mature. But that has already been overdone. Plus everyone already knows the answer to that.

Too bad they could not think of an original question.

Kick-ass chicks. All of Joss Whedon's shows. Buffy, Dollhouse, Angel, Firefly. Actually, we have no shortage of female ass-kickers on TV. But how many action movie stars are female? That might be a question. Why the difference between movies and TV? Or better yet.
Action stars – I identify that with male. I know we have had women that did great action movies – but I do not id them as action stars. Is it because they are more rounded actors?

By the way, you have to keep Sigourney Weaver in mind. She has not done anything recently, but she is the standard that all other female ass-kickers are rated against.

Older Women

[jane-barfly.livejournal.com]

Huh. Older women in Fantasy who aren't crone or wise woman are beginning to appear - Tarma & Kethry in a couple of stories are older protagonists, but in books they are either protagonists or they are old, but not both.
SF, though? It depends on whether you count some of the women in Old Man's War as main characters. ("If you count" - > "Can't find better") It depends on whether you count some of the very old (but not aged) people in a couple of Poul Anderson's books.

The Women Editors Don't See?

Laura