Book review: "Freedom's Choice" has no freedom or choice for women

[zandperl]

I used to think when I was younger that Anne McCaffrey was a feminist writer. This might have been partially due to the fact that I viewed my mother as a feminist and she was the one who started me on the Dragonriders of Pern series when I was still in elementary school. It was probably due more to my early notions of what feminism entailed:

Comments

[zandperl]

A book contains multiple aspects to me: the philosophy, the universe, the characters, and the writing style. I find that in print books I need to like three or four of these to enjoy the book, while in audiobooks I only need two. In this particular series the philosophy is the only part that I dislike, and I'm reading it as an audiobook that I'm borrowing from the library so I'm not paying for it.

Take the "Sword of Truth" series by Terri Goodkind as another example. I didn't like the philosophy and I was just "enh" on the writing style, but again, it was an audiobook so I read the entire super-long series.

[zandperl]

It may also be worth noting that the situations as described in the book were not as clear-cut as I depicted them here. What I label as date rape, the character Kris labels as "drunken consensual sex" - both characters were very drunk, and in fact the man may have been more drunk than her as later in the book evidence surfaces that he wasn't even sure afterwards whether they had sex. If such is the case, then perhaps she perpetrated the date rape upon him, especially since just prior to the sex (but after they were both drunk) Kris muses about being horny and missing her lover, implying that she initiated the sex rather than the man.

[l0stmyrel1g10n]

Did you ever read the Pern book that was about F'lessan? There's the bit when his girlfriend's dragon wants to mate and the girl gets scared, and he asks "wait, did they rape you? that's horrible!" and then goes and rapes her too.

[zandperl]

I've read so many of them they really run into each other. IIRC McCaffrey's "excuse" for the dragon rape flights is that the riders get so swept up by the emotions of the dragons, that it's really all okay.

[fireaphid]

Eep! The only McCaffrey I've read is the Dragonriders of Pern series, and I rather liked it when I read it (middle school). I think I lost interest in McCaffrey right around when I discovered Ursula LeGuin and started rejecting gender. I'm seriously disturbed by her dismissive attitude toward the severity of rape. Is it possible she's just pointing out that the territory can be murky and not that she supports the view the protagonist eventually adopts? I hope that's what was intended, as in Octavia Butler's Lilith's Brood series. . . Anyway, thanks for the review. I still may read the book, but the warning is appreciated.

[zandperl]

The first book of the series is definitely more liberal in attitude, as Kris forges her place among the colonists, and a peeping tom gets thrown in the stocks for a few days

[fireaphid]

It's an interesting question, that of the place of feminism in a world in such crisis. However, I think it's hard to defend a species that must remove a female's choice of if/when to reproduce in order to propagate itself. If the cause is great enough, people will volunteer to do what's right, according to the shared morals of whatever society it is. What's the point of saving the human race from slavery if there are no human rights remaining to defend? Would the resulting society be any better than that of the aliens who keep humans as slaves?

As for rejecting gender, I don't mean to offend those who are happy with its descriptive use, but I've seen gender misused to control people (in a religious context). On top of that, I don't feel like I fit into the flawed binary of gender at all, so I consider myself ungendered. Anyway, this discussion really makes me want to re-read the Dragonriders series, and maybe start on the Catteni series. Whoohoo for summer reading!

[zandperl]

If the cause is great enough, people will volunteer to do what's right, according to the shared morals of whatever society it is.I'm not convinced that there's a clear-cut difference between "volunteering to do what you want because it's right," "giving in to peer pressure because others want you to do it," and "being forced to do what you don't want

[hrafn]

I don't think I've read any McCaffrey in, um, probably about a decade. Loved the Pern books when I was a teenager; started to get annoyed with them as the series got longer and longer, and having read some feminist criticism of them, I'm not sure I could stomach them any more at this point (maybe the Dragonsinger trilogy, since those were aimed at a younger audience), which would ruin the fond, dim memories I have.

I tried reading one or two of her other books and couldn't get into them. Sounds like I didn't miss much :\

[zandperl]

I haven't read any actual critiques of McCaffrey.

As for her other works, they're kinda hit-or-miss for me.

[hitchhiker]

the harperhall trilogy was great, the rest of it gets sort of boring after a bit.

[seekingferret]

Yeah, McCaffrey's dragon-rape was always kind of a problem with the Pern books. I'd like to think she played up the uncomfortableness of those scenes in order to make people think about what rape is, but honestly... these were children's (or at least YA) books and the scenes weren't that self-critical.

What I liked about Pern was that she constructed SF worlds that were fully within the conventions of science fiction, but didn't feel like science fiction. I think McCaffrey did a lot to open up the horizons of SF. What I never liked about Pern was the characters and the social structures.