How much would you be prepared to sacrifice to be totally equal?

[OrmIrian]

One of my favourite books is Woman on the Edge of Time. It is a SF novel about a painfully poor Hispanic women confined to mental hospital initallly for attacking her neice's pimp. She has a history of abuse and poverty.

Whilst under the influence of medication she starts to hallucinate (or so she thinks at first) about a young woman from the future called Luciente. Gradually over the course of many visits Lucient shows her around their 'brave new world'.

It is a sort of utopia, largely agrarian but also with advanced technology that enhances their lives, but ecologically sound. They are all survivors of some sort of catastrophe, either nuclear or chemical (or both), in which the fertility of the planet was hugely reduced, and which large parts of it unusable. Their society is one in which all people are given the same chances, male and female are utterly equal, no-one starves but no-one has excessively more than anyone else. People are free to choose their jobs and can train wherever they can find a mentor and trainer. Everyone is valued for their own qualities. Basically every member of the community has an equal stake.
No-one is exploited or abused or afraid. Sexuality is just another part of self-expression, individuals don't 'live' with partners and relationships are fluid. Needless to say homosexuality is seen as equal to heterosexuality.

But nuclear families are no more. Families are made up of the people that they care about, be their friends, co-mothers, children. Children are reared in children's houses although they do see their 'families' whenever they want to. Babies are made in 'breeders' bascially artifical wombs and are born to 3 co-mothers who can be male or female. One co-mother elects to breast
feed - if that co-mother is male he is given treatment to allow him to feed the baby too. The genetic material for each baby is selected so as to keep a balance in any given community.

According to Luciente the only way to ensure true equality between the sexes is to break down the barriers to men holding the same positions as mothers. Women had to 'sacrfice' the sacredness of birth in order to allow men to share, so that women could be equal in all other areas.

I am paraphrasing grossly (read the book yourself if you haven't) but that is the thrust as I read it. Anyone else familiar with it so they can put me right if I have got it wrong?

So would anyone be prepared to make that sacrifice?

SOmeone come and talk to me. I'm so bored....

Prepared to give up pushing something huge out of my vagina in order to not have to get up to feed it every 20 minutes through the night? Well when you put it like that...

I've not read it, but I feel that there's a difference between equality & having identical roles. Equality should be possible without such extreme measures, surely? Although I suppose it depends what you think that 'equality' means.

It sounds like a really interesting book.

Answer to your question - I would not make that sacrifice.

I know all the militant feminists say everything should be absolutely equal in terms of parent / child relationships and work but I don't entirely think that is right. My reason for thinking this is only based on personal experience - which is the experience I had of giving birth and breast-feeding my child. The fact that a woman can do this means that there is something really special in that bond between mother and child.

Also, I am not entirely sure equality in the work place is all its cracked up to be in terms of the pressure it potentially puts on women who may want to spend time with their families and be active in bringing up their children. If women are seeking equality at work then they are also seeking to have the same workload and they may be expected to do the same out of hours work as a man in the same position who may have no family.

Is the book trying to say be careful what you wish for? Or am I not getting the point.

I don't think it's pushing an agenda at all. Just posing a question about our society.

I really like the sound of it. I will definitely have to read it.

I would like to put your question back to you - would you be prepared to make the sacrifice?

That was a great paraphrasing (it's one of my favorite books too). If I remember right, Connie is enthralled by the society at first, but can't cope with the women giving up their special mothering role.

I think I'd feel the same way, but I also think you wouldn't have to have an equal society that way.

In every other aspect of life the people are celebrated for their individual skills, it's only there that MP has a group renouncing part of who they are.

Aargh, have to go out, will check back on thread later.

Ali - I don't know. I really don't. To me, unexpectedly, having my babies was the most important act of my life - but not the only one and the older they get the more I realise that pregnancy and babyhood are actually such a short period of time and no more important, perhaps less, than all the decades of parenting that will follow.

BTY Marge Piercey is the author - couldn't remember her name before

Review tells it better than i do

No omni - it was the other way round. She started off feeling repelled by it but in the end she longed for her little girl to be growing up in Matapoisett.

I wondered would it drive us all a bit mad, to lose our basic biological urges?

And what about seahorses?

at what about seahorses?

Having read the OP and the review I am going to try and order this book from the library, it sounds really thought provoking.

Does society function and seem satisfied in Luciente's world in the book?

Yes it does. It's pretty idyllic - if you aren't afraid of hard physical work

"The fact that a woman can do this means that there is something really special in that bond between mother and child."

I agree that is true at the start but my 'bond' with my children now that they are older is still strong and it has now nothing to do with the womb/breast thing, and more to do with shared history, affection and respect. IE it's something that any adult who has know them and been as close to them as I have could have. The mother/child link changes IMO and from here it seems less important. It doesn't feel all that impossible not to have had it iyswim.

Please read it. I'd love to know what you think.

I have ordered it from Ebay.

Sorry to say, but I can't think about sacrificing for equality without thinking of [http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html Harrison Bergeron]

this

Brilliant marymungo!

But that isn't quite the kind of equality WOET offers

Yes you are completely right orm about the shared history and the fact that the relationship changes (I would not know about this I am still in the first flush of love).

However, I think it is important in the beginning. I am sure though that not carrying your own child would probably change the way you felt about the child initially.

Sorry baby crying - whish I could be more articulate.

Oh it would initially no doubt. But what I mean is that if there was enough to gain, the cost of not having that initial phadr of sll-consuming mother/baby love might not be too high. And that is something I never thought I would think. Long-term there is much more.