writing, gender, and stuff

[anotheranon]

She doesn't post often, but posts well: just found another thought provoking article over at Brutal Women about the disappointment when fictional female-dominated societies turn out not to be, so much. I've not read the book in question, but she makes some interesting points - the society described reads as "female-dominant" only by virtue of there being more women than men, and the men are given great freedom to use and abuse due to their "rare" status:

Great! A female-dominated society, and girl babies are still greeted as gutter trash. One royal husband also abuses his wives and brutally rapes one of them. And guess what? Because he's a guy, he goes unpunished.

How does this fulfill the "things can be really different?" school of spec. fic.?

Disclaimer: I'm not a professional writer or gender studies student. However, I dabble in both and got to thinking - how would one create a fictional women-dominated society? I wrote a storyline once that involved a female-dominated society of evolved ants, but it wasn't that challenging - ant colonies ARE mostly female; in most species males only live long enough to mate. How to write it with people? Could women really be dominant without being a numeric majority? What would be different, and what would stay the same?

Maybe I've just not read a really good story on this theme - I am new to reading sci fi. Readers, writers - any suggestions beyond what's in the Brutal Women comments?

Comments

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Or if there was no real difference between men and women as far as biological ability and desire to care for the young?

I would argue that this is biologically the case; I think the reason women have been the primary caregivers through much of human history is because they are the ones who give birth and lactate - I imagine that leaving the children with the women who bore them was just easier in premodern societies, before things like bottles and diapers.

Sorry if I jumped on this first thing - your comment makes many other interesting points that I'll try and comment on later, but this one stood out for me because the idea that "women are natural nurturers" has always been a particular bugbear of mine because it stands behind almost every myth about the "biological clock", the assumption that all women somehow innately know how to care for children, women shouldn't have careers because they'll inevitably quit to have babies, etc. I'm living proof that this isn't the case - if I were a cat, I'd eat my kittens :P Yet I've met several men who would be fantastic as stay-at-home dads.

Strayed a bit there, sorry.