When did No stop mattering when women say it?
We were grabbing a bite of lunch at a small cafe, in a mall, right across from a booth that sold jewelry and where ears could be pierced for a fee. A mother approaches with a little girl of six or seven years old. The little girl is clearly stating that she doesn’t want her ears pierced, that’s she’s afraid of how much it will hurt, that she doesn’t like earrings much in the first place. Her protests, her clear ‘no’ is simply not heard. The mother and two other women, who work the booth, begin chatting and trying to engage the little girl in picking out a pair of earrings. She has to wear a particular kind when the piercing is first done but she could pick out a fun pair for later.
“I don’t want my ears pierced.”
“I don’t want any earrings.”
The three adults glance at each other conspiratorially and now the pressure really begins. She will look so nice, all the other girls she knows wear earrings, the pain isn’t bad.
She, the child, sees what’s coming and starts crying. As the adults up the volume so does she, she’s crying and emitting a low wail at the same time. “I DON’T WANT MY EARS PIERCED.”
Her mother leans down and speaks to her, quietly but strongly, the only words we could hear were ‘… embarrassing me.’
We heard, then, two small screams, when the ears were pierced.
Little children learn early and often that ‘no doesn’t mean no.’
Little children learn early that no one will stand with them, even the two old men looking horrified at the events from the cafeteria.
Little girls learn early and often that their will is not their own.
No means no, yeah, right.
Most often, for kids and others without power, ”no means force.”
from “No Means Force” at Dave Hingsburger’s blog.
This is important. It doesn’t just apply to little girls and other children, though it often begins there.
For the marginalized, our “no’s” are discounted as frivolous protests, rebelliousness, or anger issues, or we don’t know what we’re talking about, or we don’t understand what’s happening.
When “no means force” we become afraid to say no.
(via k-pagination)
Some Thoughts on Cassie
So, I got two of my friends who read the same kind of stuff that I do to start the Karen Chance books. And they, of course love them…But, they are working their way slowly though them. They have almost caught up to the reread. They obviously don’t compulsively read like I do. I swear to g-d text to speech was an evil invention. I used to have to put the book down to do things like brush my teeth, wash my hair, or cook. Now, I have headphones or a stupid bluetooth speaker. Although it does allow my children to get more regular meals that DO NOT revolve around Laurell K Hamilton or Karen Chance’s publishing schedule…
So, I keep getting these hysterical texts as things happen in the Cassie Palmer world. From random questions to OMG. And of late, I’ve been getting a lot of the OMG variety. They have gotten to the geis and the trip to Fairie. And then to the final duel with Dracula. And I found myself laughing last night at the following text:
OMG Bram Stoker was a Human Servant! WTF! Then, awww so the incubus waited all that time for Dracula? How sweet
My response to the last was Have you ever read Dracula? OK, not sure where I was going with all that…Just chalk it up to my random tangent
But back to my original message, or at least thought. Cassie is not a victim. Sometimes, we forget that she ran away at 14 and returned, of her own volition, to make Tony pay. And then lived in a house with Vampires while she worked tirelessly to destroy what Tony loved most: his money. And hid it. And then ran with government protection. She survived the death of her governess. and then ran successfully for three years. I gotta say, she’s got some chops. That’s at the beginning.
She’s got a voice and she learns to use it. Everyone wants control of her, but somehow, she ends up with a family that includes everyone from the crazy incubus Cassanova to Marco to Pritkin to, yes, Mircea! She takes the guards who come to her and makes them HERS. Cassie is never going to be Agnes. Agnes was raised in the system and a part of it. And her life was compartmentalized, even though she fell in love with her body guard, Jonas. and oh what a love that must have been- Ley line racing and trips though time. But when we see Agnes in other times, she’s alone. And a secret pregnancy to boot! Cassie knows how to hide. She knows how to run. She knows how to win.
Yes, she sometimes gets buffeted by the strong winds of the personalities around her. And remember, we are in her head. And sometimes we get her insecurities bleeding through. But no matter what comes, she copes as best she can. And that’s better than 99% of the population! She learns, she quietly assimilates. She fucking conquers! Her life is messy. I can’t see her making her life fit in boxes. I can’t see her without Mircea’s family, which is becoming hers. I have this image in my head of some of the mansions in Vegas. The really awesome ones that have every possible luxury and themed bedrooms. Almost like an MTV tricked out house for Real World. But I can’t see Cassie, Tami and the kids from the schools living quietly in the suburbs with a mixed security force of vamps and mages. I don’t know where I see her, but…
[Top]Author Scott Lynch responds to a critic of the character Zamira Drakasha, a black woman pirate in his fantasy book Red Seas Under Red Skies, the second novel of the Gentleman Bastard series.
The bolded sections represent quotes from the criticism he received. All the z-snaps are in order.
Your characters are unrealistic stereotpyes of political correctness. Is it really necessary for the sake of popular sensibilities to have in a fantasy what we have in the real world? I read fantasy to get away from politically correct cliches.
God, yes! If there’s one thing fantasy is just crawling with these days it’s widowed black middle-aged pirate moms.
Real sea pirates could not be controlled by women, they were vicous rapits and murderers and I am sorry to say it was a man’s world. It is unrealistic wish fulfilment for you and your readers to have so many female pirates, especially if you want to be politically correct about it!
First, I will pretend that your last sentence makes sense because it will save us all time. Second, now you’re pissing me off.
You know what? Yeah, Zamira Drakasha, middle-aged pirate mother of two, is a wish-fulfillment fantasy. I realized this as she was evolving on the page, and you know what? I fucking embrace it.
Why shouldn’t middle-aged mothers get a wish-fulfillment character, you sad little bigot? Everyone else does. H.L. Mencken once wrote that “Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” I can’t think of anyone to whom that applies more than my own mom, and the mothers on my friends list, with the incredible demands on time and spirit they face in their efforts to raise their kids, preserve their families, and save their own identity/sanity into the bargain.
Shit yes, Zamira Drakasha, leaping across the gap between burning ships with twin sabers in hand to kick in some fucking heads and sail off into the sunset with her toddlers in her arms and a hold full of plundered goods, is a wish-fulfillment fantasy from hell. I offer her up on a silver platter with a fucking bow on top; I hope she amuses and delights. In my fictional world, opportunities for butt-kicking do not cease merely because one isn’t a beautiful teenager or a muscle-wrapped font of testosterone. In my fictional universe, the main characters are a fat ugly guy and a skinny forgettable guy, with a supporting cast that includes “SBF, 41, nonsmoker, 2 children, buccaneer of no fixed abode, seeks unescorted merchant for light boarding, heavy plunder.”
You don’t like it? Don’t buy my books. Get your own fictional universe. Your cabbage-water vision of worldbuilding bores me to tears.
As for the “man’s world” thing, religious sentiments and gender prejudices flow differently in this fictional world. Women are regarded as luckier, better sailors than men. It’s regarded as folly for a ship to put to sea without at least one female officer; there are several all-female naval military traditions dating back centuries, and Drakasha comes from one of them. As for claims to “realism,” your complaint is of a kind with those from bigoted hand-wringers who whine that women can’t possibly fly combat aircraft, command naval vessels, serve in infantry actions, work as firefighters, police officers, etc. despite the fact that they do all of those things– and are, for a certainty, doing them all somewhere at this very minute. Tell me that a fit fortyish woman with 25+ years of experience at sea and several decades of live bladefighting practice under her belt isn’t a threat when she runs across the deck toward you, and I’ll tell you something in return– you’re gonna die of stab wounds.
What you’re really complaining about isn’t the fact that my fiction violates some objective “reality,” but rather that it impinges upon your sad, dull little conception of how the world works. I’m not beholden to the confirmation of your prejudices; to be perfectly frank, the prospect of confining the female characters in my story to placid, helpless secondary places in the narrative is so goddamn boring that I would rather not write at all. I’m not writing history, I’m writing speculative fiction. Nobody’s going to force you to buy it. Conversely, you’re cracked if you think you can persuade me not to write about what amuses and excites me in deference to your vision, because your vision fucking sucks.
I do not expect to change your mind but i hope that you will at least consider that I and others will not be buying your work because of these issues. I have been reading science fiction and fantasy for years and i know that I speak for a great many people. I hope you might stop to think about the sales you will lose because you want to bring your political corectness and foul language into fantasy. if we wanted those things we could go to the movies. Think about this!
Thank you for your sentiments. I offer you in exchange this engraved invitation to go piss up a hill, suitable for framing.
Here follows is a non-comprehensive list of historical female pirates and sailors, women of color first:
- Ching Shih (1775-1844): controlled south China seas, had 80,000-man fleet at her disposal, outlawed rape, extorted retirement package from the Chinese government.
- Sayyida al-Hurra (1482-1562): Pirate queen of Morocco who bedeviled Portuguese and Spanish fleets after being kicked out of Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella in her youth.
- William Brown (1800s, birth name unknown): married Grenadan woman who disguised self as man after fight with her husband and became a sailor.
- Jacquotte Delahaye (1600s): half-Haitian woman who, according to some sources, took over an island and led a force of hundreds of pirates.
- Hingyuon (1800s): Filipina warrior/probable pirate who led armies in Cebu; relative of Humabon, “first truly wealthy person in Cebu”
- Lai Choi San (1900s): Chinese pirate who commanded 12 ships and was a model for the Dragon Lady archetype; thinly-sourced
- Mary Lacy (1740-1801): willful bisexual runaway who became first female shipwright; disguised self as man but claimed pension under own name
- Alfhild (400s): Viking princess who decided to become a pirate instead of getting married.
- Anne Dieu-le-Veut (1661-1710): French pirate who fought along Laurens de Graaf for many years.
- Anne Bonny and Mary Read (1700-1782, c.1690-1721): probably the two most famous female pirates of all time
- Granuaile aka Grace O’Malley (1530-1603): Irish pirate queen who led rebellions against England, personally negotiated with Elizabeth I, gave birth on a ship.
- Cecilia Vasa (1540-1627): Swedish princess who got into endless scandals, became a pirate briefly, was utter black sheep, hated the English.
- Mary Patten (1800s): Took control of ship when her husband suffered mutiny, learned medicine, navigated to port, all while pregnant
- Christina Anna Skytte (1643-1677): Swedish baroness and pirate, very ruthless
- Jeanne de Clisson (c.1300-1359): burnt down much of the Normandy coast and sank a ton of ships after her husband was killed.
- Charlotte Badger (1778-?): Australian convict/single mom who took over ship, sailed to New Zealand, settled with Maori tribe.
In conclusion: read a goddamn book, critic person.
You know, the trolls on the internet are not good people. Nor are they sane!
[Top]
[Top]So many people forget that we’re supposed to raise our kids to have lives of their own, not give them ours.
And then Fred came to the rescue. “No, no, no, I got this,” he said, jogging in from the lounge, and talking to someone over his shoulder. “Got what?” I asked warily as he turned to me and grinned. Don’t know why.” Because they’re depressing, I didn’t say, since he was only trying to help. But honestly, who bought black balloons? Fred, apparently, and now he was blowing them up. “Trust me … I used to do this … all the time,” he told me in between breaths. He soon had a cluster of long, skinny tubes, which he then proceeded to tie together using vampire speed. One second, there was a depressing bunch of cylinders, and the next … It was worse. The kids were glancing at each other, like they didn’t know what to make of it, either. But Fred looked hopeful. And then he started moving his creation up and down, so that the tortured appendages hanging off either side flopped about in a dying-bird sort of way. One of the littlest girls made a sound and hid her face.“Fred,” I began, trying to figure out how to say please stop without hurting his feelings. And then one of the guys solved the problem for me. “What the fu—uh, heck?” “Leo,” Roy said, frowning at him from beside the bar. “What? I said heck. And look at that thing.” “What is it?” another guy asked. “A spider?” “A bat, obviously,” Fred said. And flapped it about some more, on the theory, I assume, that he just hadn’t been vigorous enough the first time. “Freakiest thing I ever saw,” the vamp mumbled. “Freakiest?” Roy dropped ice into a glass. “You haven’t been here long enough.” “Then why does it feel that way?” “I have more,” Fred said, finally realizing that his distraction was not a hit. “A lot more. I used to make these all the time—well, the pig bladder kind—” “But were any of them any good?” Leo asked. Fred stopped to glare at him, while Roy assessed his latest attempt. “What is that?” “It’s a clown!” “Oh, demonic clown. Great choice.” gift from someone I cared about, so I just never had. Plus, they had a charm on them I thought the girls might like. It had proven oddly accurate at reading the atmosphere around a situation and giving advice in the form of a pertinent card. And sure enough, practically as soon as I touched them, one popped up. A black one. A black one with a leering devil on it.Well, shit.
Day 01 – Best book you read last year
[Top]After much deliberation (lying on my bed staring at the ceiling for 10 minutes) I have chosen the Phedre Trilogy from Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Legacy. Yes, I know that it’s three books but if you read them all one after the other, like I did, then they count as one. Logic.
Carey has created a world in these books that seems so real and rich in back story that you’re sure there should be history books out there about the land of Terre D’Ange. The characters that she created are equally rich in personal history and beautifully crafted in such a way that you can care for even the most hateful villian.
The trilogy follows Phedre from an unwanted orphan to the savior of her home lands that are poised on the edge of war. All along the way friendships are made and broken, relationships are kindled and put out, enemies are created and cut down.
The characters in these books quickly became some of my all time favourites, not only for their strengths but for their multitudes of weaknesses as well. (I may be 100% in love with Josceline Verreuil)
Disclaimer: These aren’t bed time stories to read to your kids. The whole axis that this epic tale revolves around is the fact that Phedre is marked by the angel Kushiel meaning that she finds pleasure in pain. Get where this is going? 50 Shades ain’t got nothing on these books. But know that Carey uses this element in her stories as a means to an end, a tool for Phedre to use to her advantage, not as the central focus.
