Richard's Animorphs Forum
Animorphs Section => Animorphs Forum Classic => Topic started by: Darth Zakryn on February 16, 2011, 06:39:43 PM
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Does it seem to any of you like KA, in her writing, really, really, REALLY wants a female leader? I mean, we have two of her series where the presidents are females (Animorphs and Remnants), a queen, and a few other examples. I mean yeah, I wouldn't mind a female leader, but because that female is a GOOD LEADER, not just because she's a female. This strikes me like a feminist. Is KA a feminist? And if so, what spectrum does she occupy? The extreme? Or the moderate? Discuss!
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If I'm correct, you're talking about the woman in the Absolute? If so, I don't think she was president. She may have been a senator or mayor.
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No, remember? In Book 54? Cassie referred to president as "her."
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Oh. I thought you were talking abogut book 52: the Absolute.
I remember very little about book 54.
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That was 51. And she was governor of California. ::)
And really, I don't see why it's a big deal. A female president is pretty likely, considering Hilary Clinton nearly ran for president, and Sarah Palin was the Republican candidate for Vice-President.
Also, there's nothing in 54 except that the president's female. You can assume whatever you want about her fictional abilities, because that's the only thing there.
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It just feels like KA only wants a leader to be female for the sake of only being female, for Girl Power or something like that, when I think we should be more concerned with that person's ABILITIES.
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Yeah, that's great. It's fiction, though. She can make the leader whatever gender she wants them to be. She's not writing books about those leaders, so who cares? Vote for someone based on their ability in real life. This is fiction. Someone wants to write that in their book, it's their prerogative.
And for all you know, KA feels the same way you do. She just likes writing women into leadership roles in her books.
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Feminist does not mean something bad. To be feminist means you believe women deserve equal rights. Just getting that out there, to make sure there's no confusion.
That said, I think that KA's writing does not express a desire to have a female leader just because she's female-- I think that it's far more likely that she likes writing women into roles of leadership because they have not, traditionally, had an equal chance. Women deserve a chance at roles in government-- and it should not be considered that they may not have the ability, just because they're female. Your post kind of comes off like you think that she might not have the ability, just because she's a woman, so it's just her gender that matters. We can probably safely assume that if someone got to a position of power like that, that they're plenty capable.
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You keep saying feminist like it's a dirty word. It's not.
It just feels like KA only wants a leader to be female for the sake of only being female, for Girl Power or something like that, when I think we should be more concerned with that person's ABILITIES.
We know NOTHING about the president besides that she's female. I find it insulting that you assume that because she's female, she must be incompetent.
Toby Hamee was smarter than the other Hork-Bajir. Edriss was clearly incredibly intelligent and conniving, not to mention more sane than many of the other Yeerks we saw. The governor in #51 was an outright BAMF who was practical, gutsy and willing to put personal politics aside to help her state. And we're assuming they're incompetent why? Because of their gender?
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I'm not. Sorry if it sounds that way. I have read feminist philosophy and I agree with a lot of it. However... I HAVE also met with a lot of extreme feminists. So... yeah. I tend to stick my foot in my mouth too often. I have got to learn to control my tongue.
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You keep saying feminist like it's a dirty word. It's not.
It just feels like KA only wants a leader to be female for the sake of only being female, for Girl Power or something like that, when I think we should be more concerned with that person's ABILITIES.
We know NOTHING about the president besides that she's female. I find it insulting that you assume that because she's female, she must be incompetent.
Toby Hamee was smarter than the other Hork-Bajir. Edriss was clearly incredibly intelligent and conniving, not to mention more sane than many of the other Yeerks we saw. The governor in #51 was an outright BAMF who was practical, gutsy and willing to put personal politics aside to help her state. And we're assuming they're incompetent why? Because of their gender?
Edriss doesn't count, does she? Yeerks don't have gender.
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No, she doesn't. Yeerks are genderless. The "she" when referring to her just refers to Eva's gender.
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Edriss seems to be identified mostly as female (and identifies herself as a mother, which is a gender-specific term). Eva calls her female, and Eva's probably the one that knows best. So I tend to go with Edriss being female.
But like, Yeerk gender is a whole can of worms.
Not to be all 'citations!', but:
"“She has a reason,” Eva said.
“Tell me.”
“She has children.”"
"<I shouldn’t have helped you,> she said. <Even if it did lead to open war, I shouldn’t have helped you. You filthy, evil thing. I thought I’d found something decent inside you. I thought you were a mother, too.>
<I was. I am.>"
"But someday she would know me. I would tell her all about me, all about who I was, how she had come to exist. And she would love me, as a daughter loves a mother."
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I'm not. Sorry if it sounds that way. I have read feminist philosophy and I agree with a lot of it. However... I HAVE also met with a lot of extreme feminists. So... yeah. I tend to stick my foot in my mouth too often. I have got to learn to control my tongue.
Fair. There are some extremists-- but there are in any group. This post just came off negatively, that's all. I can understand that.
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It must be the whole brain sharing thing. Edriss thinking of herself as a mother might come from some multiple personality disorder. Not as extreme as Taylors, but an identity crisis none the less. And, like you said in another thread, I don't think she really understand what it means to love and be a mother. I mean, infesting a kid to show love.
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I know. The whole point of this was just to see if KA really wanted a female leader but only because of that person's gender, which to me feels wrong. It's like saying I only want a Cherokee person in office cuz I'm part Cherokee. KNOW before you judge them it what I'm trying to see. Aborting post now.
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But she's creating these characters, so she's making her female characters competent. I'd like to see an Asian woman as president but not enough to vote for a female Asian candidate solely on that characteristic. However, if I were writing a work of fiction, why not? It's not like I can't write her as completely capable and awesome too.
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Some people (TMP) write their female characters with too much power...So much that the other male characters are a little terrified of her :P
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Just something to throw out there. While you certainly want to choose anyone you vote for based on abilities and political views and such, choosing to make one of the major figures in your story a female is a "feminist" thing to do. It's a statement not only about a woman's ability to make it to that kind of position, but about society's acceptance of her ability and power. She's saying she believes we can and are moving forward to a world where gender equality is much more of a reality.
Recently, we've all seen that a woman could have a very good shot at the presidency. Not so much the case in the 90s.
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I find this topic interesting, considering that most of the female figureheads of Animorphs were secondary characters. You have Edriss (who, despite being Yeerk, clearly identified as female), the mayor/governer, the brief passing mention of the president in #54, etc. However, the main roles of power throughout the series were, in fact, held by males. Let's look at the list:
Alloran: Before he was disgraced he was a well-known and powerful military commander.
Esplin 9466: Identifies as male, is a powerful leader in the Yeerk Empire.
Elfangor: One of the most trusted leaders and heroes of the Andalite military (which is almost exclusively male)
Jake: (Rather successful) Leader of the Animorphs.
James: Leader of the Auxiliaries.
....and really, that's just the tip of the ice berg. There were MANY male leadership roles throughout Animorphs, and it's actually a bit unnerving to see that as soon as a female is placed in a similar role, even as a background character, it automatically turns into a feminist statement.
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Wow, Amber, you're right! Yeah! Well personally I'm all for equality too (for ALL groups) but also for fairness too, even if I contradict myself at times. It's still one of my core beliefs.
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"The whole point of this was just to see if KA really wanted a female leader but only because of that person's gender, which to me feels wrong."
I feel that those instances were her attempts to show her ideal, which she was easily able to do in a fictional world - and her ideal was a more representation world, with more equal power. It's very easy to do that in a fictional world, with characters we've never seen before - she wasn't picking from a pre-made bunch of people, grabbing the first female one and going "Ah, she'll do, because she's female, moohaha! AT LAST MY NEFARIOUS PLAN IS IN MOTION!"
If she'd written about male presidents, would you have assumed that this was a statement that male politicians should be voted for for their sex, or that they should be assumed to be competent based purely on their sex?
I mean, is it so unbelievable that a woman would be intelligent enough to be president that it has to be some interfering, shoehorning process for an author to have such a thing in their world?
(And yes, I absolutely agree she's feminist. A lot of people are feminists but just don't like using the label - whether she calls herself a feminist I don't know.)