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Wiscon: Terry Pratchett Panel
I attended the Saturday Terry Pratchett panel and wanted to share my thoughts on it. (Hi. I'm popelizbet. I assisted with the con_or_bust auction & very much enjoyed my first Wiscon.)
This panel was disappointing to me. While I thought Farah Mendelsohn brought some interesting perspectives regarding influences on Pratchett's writing of which American readers may be unaware - and while I appreciated her recommendation of London in the 19th Century - the fact that she essentially dominated the panel was unfortunate, especially as she made more than one claim I found problematic. I don't really feel the moderator kept the panel on topic or spent enough time permitting the audience to respond or become involved. I also felt the topic of men self-identifying as feminists was not within the scope of the discussion, and that may have colored my perception as well.
One of the most problematic things suggested during the panel, at least to my mind, was that the world of Ankh-Morpork limits women in the workforce, with a few exceptions among the main characters, to either sex work or service-industry roles. This was flabbergasting to me and to other members of the audience with whom I discussed the panel immediately after.
Although some challenges were made to this assertion from the floor, I thought I'd compile my own list (with help from fellow Pratchett aficionado hnmic and the Discworld Wiki) of women whose economic role in Ankh-Morpork is not within the categories listed by Ms. Mendelsohn. (In interpreting the term "service industry", I have excluded women who work as waitresses, own restaurants, or are in domestic service, including governesses. The sex workers category includes both the women of the Pink Pussycat Club and the Guild of Seamstresses.)
* The multiple women of the Watch: Sgt. Angua, Corporal Littlebottom, Lance-Constable von Humpeding, and an unknown number of female dwarfs. (I did feel Ms. Mendelsohn had a point that no human women have thus far become part of the Watch. As far as we know, there are no married women in the watch, but given that among the tertiary cast most of the female characters are culturally disinclined to acknowledge it, that's far from a certainty.)
* Queen Molly of the Beggar's Guild is one of two women on the Guild Council.
* In addition to terrorizing priests, Mrs. Cake runs a boarding house for the undead and differently alive of the city.
* Mrs. Cosmopolite, unwitting progenitor of the Way of Mrs. Cosmopolite, also owns a boarding house in the city.
* The Assassin's Guild employs female teachers and trains female Assassins; a young woman whose name I cannot quite remember (Jenkins?) is sent on a training exercise to the Vimes estate at the beginning of Night Watch, which exercise was also assigned by a female professor. We also see Lady T'malia, Professor of Political Expediency, in Pyramids, and Alice Band, head of Tump House.
* Lady Roberta Meserole is perhaps barred from this list by the exclusion of sex workers, but her function as a revolutionary is central to her character.
* Sacharissa Cripslock is a reporter for the Times who previously assisted her father in his engraving practice. She retained her maiden name when she married William de Worde, and continued to work.
* Berenice Houser is employed by the Times as a clerk who serves as chief archivist.
* Gunilla Goodmountain is one of the two dwarfs who originally engineered the printing press and is employed by the Times. I believe she is married or had intentions to marry her co-inventor, but I don't have that book handy.
* Adora Belle "Spike" Dearheart is employed by the Golem Trust. She was previously employed as a bank clerk in Sto Lat. The chances of her giving up her job if and when she marries Moist von Lipvig are, I think it's safe to say, minimal.
* The Post Office employs women, including but not limited to the formidable Miss Maccalariat. As the Misses Maccalariat occupy a quasi-inherited position, one assumes that the Post Office employed women in its earlier incarnation as well. The Misses Maccalariat keep their names and the "Miss" along with their jobs when they marry.
* Sam Vimes attended a dame school run by a female teacher in his youth. Other dame schools are mentioned in other books: a Gammer Wimblestone ran the one attended by the unfortunate student wizard Mr. Sydeney.
* The Sonky manufacturing plant employs multiple women, some of whom are married.
* Crumley's in the Maul has a female clerk, Miss Harding, on staff.
* The story of Miss Battye in Night Watch indicates that she is one of many self-employed needlewomen in Ankh-Morpork.
* The Sunshine Home for Sick Dragons employs various young women who all appear to be named Sarah or Emma as whatever the dragon equivalent of stable hands is.
* Verity Pushpram, Nobby's sometime love interest, owns and runs a fish cart.
* Topsy Lavish, née Turvy, was a bank chairman until her death.
* Miss Drapes, serves as assistant to the chief clerk of the bank. It is implied that she will keep her job at the bank after her marriage to Mr. Bent.
* Grace Speaker, whose unusual skill at crossword puzzles is of interest to Lord Vetinari, runs a pet food shop.
* The Opera House employs multiple women as ballet dancers and instructors, as well as singers and divas in the opera itself. Agnes Nitt, of course, is employed by the Opera House, along with the ingenue Christine.
* During the time that Holy Wood is operational, it employs multiple women as actresses, including trolls Galena and Breccia, as well as human Theda Withel.
* Prior to marrying Detritus, Ruby worked as a singer in a troll cantina. I don't recall any mention of what, if anything, Ruby does for a living after that time.
* Doreen Winkings may or may not have a job for pay, but her role with the League of Temperance is apparently equivalent to that of a community organizer or lobbyist. While Mrs. Winkings is not the most sympathetic character in the world, the role she fills is an important one.
* Violet Bottler is only one of many women employed as a Tooth Fairy. Tooth Fairy wages appear to be decent enough for young women to live independently if not terribly comfortably, even in Ankh-Morpork's housing market. (One thing I sometimes find unusual about the city is the startling dearth of female roommates; the Tooth Fairies appear to work a limited geographic area and have the same work schedules, and it's not beyond the realm of possibility that at least some of them are setting up in the kind of shared living situations young women in the workforce of today create in sky-high housing markets.)
* Miss Pointer and Miss Pickles, two women with one body, run a geology shop that serves at least partially as a sort of community center for the work being done with troll and dwarf youth by Mr. Shine and the grag whose name I have mislaid. (Library in boxes, forgive me.) The extent to which this activity is subversive is tantalizingly unclear, but it does appear to be underground, at the very least.
* Daniellarina Pouter is an artist whose work appears in the Royal Art Museum. She sculpted the work "Don't Talk to Me About Mondays" which so offended Lord Vetinari's sensibilities.
* Anaglypta Huggs is a folklorist of sorts, although that work is apparently not for wages.
* While she may be excluded as a service worker, I don't feel this list is complete without Mrs. Whitlow, who is Head of Housekeeping at Unseen University.
Having compiled this list, I think it shows a much different picture of gender roles in Ankh-Morpork's economic climate than that stated during the panel. While we see few women in the professions or in positions of high political authority - no female lawyers or doctors, and their role on the Guild Councils apparently limited to the Seamstresses and Beggars - we do see women in nearly every Ankh-Morpork novel who are part of the city's economic life while being neither seamstresses nor waitresses...and all of them, nearly, are capable, self-directed, often contrarian in their views, not infrequently outright subversive and active. Lord Vetinari knows the potential danger to systemic power posed by these kinds of women; we see it often in his little asides to Drumknott. (I also find it interesting that the term "glass ceiling" is known in Ankh-Morpork and used by Lord Vetinari to irritate the Grand Trunk owners; makes me wonder who's been discussing the phenomenon with him.)
Of interest to me, but not discussed by Pratchett, is where the women of business fit into the various Guilds. We have heard nothing, for instance, about whether pet food or sewing notions shops are considered too insignificant to render their owners eligible for the Guild of Merchants. We know that the Assassins have a history of female involvement and I seem to recall the mention of female Thieves as well.
However, this list indicates to me, at least, that the Discworld actually provides more economic roles for minor female characters than some other fantasy series in which you're lucky to find a female shopkeeper, much less several. In this respect, the economic makeup of Ankh-Morpork reflects historical economic situations much more accurately than average, as women have never been entirely barred from the workplace but have been prevented from attaining the highest-paid jobs or excluded from certain industries. To me, it's refreshing to see female clerks and shopkeepers and reporters, even if their numbers do not approach gender parity - realistic, if regrettable. Whether or not this grants Mr. Pratchett feminist credibility is a question for someone other than myself.
Did I forget anyone? Feel free to add to the list and share your thoughts on the panel in general in comments. (Edited to add some additional thoughts on some of the characters, including those who kept employment after marriage or engagement.)
This panel was disappointing to me. While I thought Farah Mendelsohn brought some interesting perspectives regarding influences on Pratchett's writing of which American readers may be unaware - and while I appreciated her recommendation of London in the 19th Century - the fact that she essentially dominated the panel was unfortunate, especially as she made more than one claim I found problematic. I don't really feel the moderator kept the panel on topic or spent enough time permitting the audience to respond or become involved. I also felt the topic of men self-identifying as feminists was not within the scope of the discussion, and that may have colored my perception as well.
One of the most problematic things suggested during the panel, at least to my mind, was that the world of Ankh-Morpork limits women in the workforce, with a few exceptions among the main characters, to either sex work or service-industry roles. This was flabbergasting to me and to other members of the audience with whom I discussed the panel immediately after.
Although some challenges were made to this assertion from the floor, I thought I'd compile my own list (with help from fellow Pratchett aficionado hnmic and the Discworld Wiki) of women whose economic role in Ankh-Morpork is not within the categories listed by Ms. Mendelsohn. (In interpreting the term "service industry", I have excluded women who work as waitresses, own restaurants, or are in domestic service, including governesses. The sex workers category includes both the women of the Pink Pussycat Club and the Guild of Seamstresses.)
* The multiple women of the Watch: Sgt. Angua, Corporal Littlebottom, Lance-Constable von Humpeding, and an unknown number of female dwarfs. (I did feel Ms. Mendelsohn had a point that no human women have thus far become part of the Watch. As far as we know, there are no married women in the watch, but given that among the tertiary cast most of the female characters are culturally disinclined to acknowledge it, that's far from a certainty.)
* Queen Molly of the Beggar's Guild is one of two women on the Guild Council.
* In addition to terrorizing priests, Mrs. Cake runs a boarding house for the undead and differently alive of the city.
* Mrs. Cosmopolite, unwitting progenitor of the Way of Mrs. Cosmopolite, also owns a boarding house in the city.
* The Assassin's Guild employs female teachers and trains female Assassins; a young woman whose name I cannot quite remember (Jenkins?) is sent on a training exercise to the Vimes estate at the beginning of Night Watch, which exercise was also assigned by a female professor. We also see Lady T'malia, Professor of Political Expediency, in Pyramids, and Alice Band, head of Tump House.
* Lady Roberta Meserole is perhaps barred from this list by the exclusion of sex workers, but her function as a revolutionary is central to her character.
* Sacharissa Cripslock is a reporter for the Times who previously assisted her father in his engraving practice. She retained her maiden name when she married William de Worde, and continued to work.
* Berenice Houser is employed by the Times as a clerk who serves as chief archivist.
* Gunilla Goodmountain is one of the two dwarfs who originally engineered the printing press and is employed by the Times. I believe she is married or had intentions to marry her co-inventor, but I don't have that book handy.
* Adora Belle "Spike" Dearheart is employed by the Golem Trust. She was previously employed as a bank clerk in Sto Lat. The chances of her giving up her job if and when she marries Moist von Lipvig are, I think it's safe to say, minimal.
* The Post Office employs women, including but not limited to the formidable Miss Maccalariat. As the Misses Maccalariat occupy a quasi-inherited position, one assumes that the Post Office employed women in its earlier incarnation as well. The Misses Maccalariat keep their names and the "Miss" along with their jobs when they marry.
* Sam Vimes attended a dame school run by a female teacher in his youth. Other dame schools are mentioned in other books: a Gammer Wimblestone ran the one attended by the unfortunate student wizard Mr. Sydeney.
* The Sonky manufacturing plant employs multiple women, some of whom are married.
* Crumley's in the Maul has a female clerk, Miss Harding, on staff.
* The story of Miss Battye in Night Watch indicates that she is one of many self-employed needlewomen in Ankh-Morpork.
* The Sunshine Home for Sick Dragons employs various young women who all appear to be named Sarah or Emma as whatever the dragon equivalent of stable hands is.
* Verity Pushpram, Nobby's sometime love interest, owns and runs a fish cart.
* Topsy Lavish, née Turvy, was a bank chairman until her death.
* Miss Drapes, serves as assistant to the chief clerk of the bank. It is implied that she will keep her job at the bank after her marriage to Mr. Bent.
* Grace Speaker, whose unusual skill at crossword puzzles is of interest to Lord Vetinari, runs a pet food shop.
* The Opera House employs multiple women as ballet dancers and instructors, as well as singers and divas in the opera itself. Agnes Nitt, of course, is employed by the Opera House, along with the ingenue Christine.
* During the time that Holy Wood is operational, it employs multiple women as actresses, including trolls Galena and Breccia, as well as human Theda Withel.
* Prior to marrying Detritus, Ruby worked as a singer in a troll cantina. I don't recall any mention of what, if anything, Ruby does for a living after that time.
* Doreen Winkings may or may not have a job for pay, but her role with the League of Temperance is apparently equivalent to that of a community organizer or lobbyist. While Mrs. Winkings is not the most sympathetic character in the world, the role she fills is an important one.
* Violet Bottler is only one of many women employed as a Tooth Fairy. Tooth Fairy wages appear to be decent enough for young women to live independently if not terribly comfortably, even in Ankh-Morpork's housing market. (One thing I sometimes find unusual about the city is the startling dearth of female roommates; the Tooth Fairies appear to work a limited geographic area and have the same work schedules, and it's not beyond the realm of possibility that at least some of them are setting up in the kind of shared living situations young women in the workforce of today create in sky-high housing markets.)
* Miss Pointer and Miss Pickles, two women with one body, run a geology shop that serves at least partially as a sort of community center for the work being done with troll and dwarf youth by Mr. Shine and the grag whose name I have mislaid. (Library in boxes, forgive me.) The extent to which this activity is subversive is tantalizingly unclear, but it does appear to be underground, at the very least.
* Daniellarina Pouter is an artist whose work appears in the Royal Art Museum. She sculpted the work "Don't Talk to Me About Mondays" which so offended Lord Vetinari's sensibilities.
* Anaglypta Huggs is a folklorist of sorts, although that work is apparently not for wages.
* While she may be excluded as a service worker, I don't feel this list is complete without Mrs. Whitlow, who is Head of Housekeeping at Unseen University.
Having compiled this list, I think it shows a much different picture of gender roles in Ankh-Morpork's economic climate than that stated during the panel. While we see few women in the professions or in positions of high political authority - no female lawyers or doctors, and their role on the Guild Councils apparently limited to the Seamstresses and Beggars - we do see women in nearly every Ankh-Morpork novel who are part of the city's economic life while being neither seamstresses nor waitresses...and all of them, nearly, are capable, self-directed, often contrarian in their views, not infrequently outright subversive and active. Lord Vetinari knows the potential danger to systemic power posed by these kinds of women; we see it often in his little asides to Drumknott. (I also find it interesting that the term "glass ceiling" is known in Ankh-Morpork and used by Lord Vetinari to irritate the Grand Trunk owners; makes me wonder who's been discussing the phenomenon with him.)
Of interest to me, but not discussed by Pratchett, is where the women of business fit into the various Guilds. We have heard nothing, for instance, about whether pet food or sewing notions shops are considered too insignificant to render their owners eligible for the Guild of Merchants. We know that the Assassins have a history of female involvement and I seem to recall the mention of female Thieves as well.
However, this list indicates to me, at least, that the Discworld actually provides more economic roles for minor female characters than some other fantasy series in which you're lucky to find a female shopkeeper, much less several. In this respect, the economic makeup of Ankh-Morpork reflects historical economic situations much more accurately than average, as women have never been entirely barred from the workplace but have been prevented from attaining the highest-paid jobs or excluded from certain industries. To me, it's refreshing to see female clerks and shopkeepers and reporters, even if their numbers do not approach gender parity - realistic, if regrettable. Whether or not this grants Mr. Pratchett feminist credibility is a question for someone other than myself.
Did I forget anyone? Feel free to add to the list and share your thoughts on the panel in general in comments. (Edited to add some additional thoughts on some of the characters, including those who kept employment after marriage or engagement.)