The Women's Press Science Fiction

I’ve had a couple of these books on my bookshelf for many years, and I'm not sure I even read them. I think I tried at least one, and may have found it a bit hard to get into.

But just recently I stumbled across another at my local op shop, and something about it appealed to me. I was something like 10 cents short of the marked price and the lady was happy to accept my pile of change. I was at pains to promise I would make a donation next time, not wanting to seem to be trying to rip off a charity. Whereas she was seriously concerned to make sure I would be ok, having spent all the money in my wallet. It made me aware of the level of privilege I have, knowing I can always get more money from the ATM. I’m probably a little too relaxed about how much is left in my wallet – which is how I even ended up going into the op shop with less than $2 on hand.

I started reading Marge Piercy's 'Woman on the edge of time' straight away and really enjoyed it. Now that I’m older and wiser, I’m better equipped for reading science fiction than I used to be (though I was always attracted to it and did read quite a bit). And I know my brain is increasingly wired for feminism.

A few days later I found a few more at the book fair and I decided I would keep collecting the series. Since then I’ve found a couple more from Lilitu’s books and music - we were at Gold Creek for a wedding on Saturday and had time to kill before moving on to the reception. I’m not even bothering to read the descriptions on the back first – I’m sure I’ll like some and not others, but they go for just a few dollars each and I love a good collecting challenge.

This is the logo inside the front cover of every book in this series.


My first reaction was that it's hilariously wrong. I couldn't believe that a logo and slogan ("steaming ahead") based on ironing would be chosen for The Women’s Press. Yeah, I was a bit slow to get the pun on the word "press", but still. The women's press was set up in 1978 to publish feminist writing by women. Why would they want to use ironing as a symbol?

But when I showed K, he didn't see anything odd about it, he just thought it was deliberately ironic. Which echoes what founder Stephanie Dowrick says:

"Then, of course, we brought in the jokes too, which centred on the emblem of the Press, our little iron. This was a joke about not being oppressed. Ironing is extremely repetitious and typically women's work and we were asking you, with this little iron, steaming ahead and red hot and all of that, not to be quite so oppressed."

I wonder if my lukewarm reaction is a sign of the times. Even my much-increased interest in feminism in recent years is probably a reaction (I have to be different) to the current mood of conservatism in these matters.

I guess it was expected and even assumed that the audience would totally get the irony. But today in 2010, I think it looks iffy. Is it just me?

Thank you for blessing me with a mind to rhyme and two hype feet

Well. That little supermarket story seems to have hit a nerve and generated some interesting reactions.

I feel mean judging the mother like that, and I know that I might have taken what I saw and heard out of context. Like Amy said, it just might have been an ironic statement, though I didn't hear it that way. And like Karen said - and my sister (who has three small children) reacted similarly - maybe she would have said much the same to a boy who was banging inappropriately or annoyingly on the trolley handle.

I would probably buy this explanation, except that the child wasn't just banging or shouting, she seemed to be gleefully and not that loudly saying 'hammer hammer hammer' which makes me think she was actually acting out hammering specifically and maybe had been watching someone do it recently (or someone playing with a toy hammer). And the mother didn't sound annoyed or irritated, she said what she said quite sweetly to her daughter. Maybe she was annoyed but trying to be a "nice girl" or nice mum.

And that's the thing, even if she wasn't really telling her daughter to be girly and not play at carpentry, it's that phrase "nice girls" that really gives me a chill. I hope that was ironic. It's the sort of script that can replay in your head all your life.

Julie alluded to the risks of being brought up to be a nice girl. I've seen this idea in feminist and abuse survivor writing, about the stuff that women and girls will put up with, and the strategies they choose (and don't choose) in response to uncomfortable situations, in order to be nice and not make a fuss. It is ingrained deep in us.

On the other hand, to some extent we should all be nice. Human beings should on the whole try to be nice to each other. Why should it be the responsibility of women?

I agree with Dr K sometimes it seems like we have gone backwards. I don't know if this is just the 'jetpack effect' - that you would think that a lot more progress would have been made by now. I think there has also been an increase in religious fundamentalism in many parts of the world ... but that doesn't have a really large mainstream presence in Australia, so I don't know.

I wish gender didn't matter so much. I often find myself wishing I lived on an androgynous planet. (I read a wonderful story by Ursula LeGuin like that once.) I like and respond better to people who relate to me as a person (which of course does not exclude my gender) and not as some kind of representative of my gender.

It's 2010. We're living in the future. So where is my jetpack?

I got a rude shock in the supermarket yesterday. A woman pushed her trolley past me. Her little toddler was sitting in the child seat, happily chanting 'hammer! hammer! hammer!' and bouncing her hand up and down.

And the woman said to her daughter:

"No no, you're a nice girl, nice girls don't hammer!"

Wow. This woman must have been about my age. It's so depressing to see someone unthinkingly blurting out this poisonous muck. Or, I suppose, the alternative is that she is deliberately and consciously reactionary about gender roles - in line with a fundamentalist religion for example. Which would also be depressing.