April 13, 2015 • 37 mins
Science fiction writers like Octavia Butler and Ursula K. Le Guin have long used this otherworldy genre to confront discrimination and inequality. Cristen and Caroline chat with Bitch Media's Sarah Mirk about the power of science fiction to create the equitable future we'd like to see in the real world.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You from how stup
works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today we're going to talk
about two topics that might not sound like they go together,
but in fact work so perfectly in tandem, and that
(00:25):
is social justice and science fiction. And thankfully, since to
be perfectly honest, I'm not a science fiction expert, Caroline,
or are you a science fiction I can't say that
I'm a science fiction expert. As much as I have
watched some science fiction movies, I cannot claim to be
an expert. And even though Caroline, I have dressed up
(00:45):
as Ripley for Halloween, sadly that doesn't you know that
that even still doesn't make me an expert. But thankfully
we have someone so much more knowledgeable in the realms
of both social justice and science fiction to talk to
us today about all this fun stuff, and that is
online editor of the feminism and pop culture nonprofit that
(01:07):
we site all the time on the podcast Bitch Media,
and also host of the feminist podcast Popaganda, Sarah Murk. Welcome, Sarah, Hi, Kristen,
Hi Caroline. It's to be here. Oh well, it's so
great to have you. Well, so Sarah, to get things
kicked off, let's start first by talking about your specific
(01:28):
interest in science fiction. What do you love about it
as a form of entertainment, and how has it informed
your personal perspectives or philosophies are even activism? Well, first
of all, science fiction is just fun. I love reading
science fiction and I like watching science fiction movies because
it's a really good time. Um, you can sort of
(01:49):
get deep and philosophical about it, but honestly, I just
like a story that's well told, that has an interesting
world behind it. You know, I'm somebody I grew up
reading a lot of fantasy and a lot of science fiction,
so you know, super mainstream stuff like Lord of the
Rings as fantasy, and then for science fiction like Dune
and Enders Game and the way that they sort of
prompted me to think about how other worlds could be.
(02:14):
It's just great for your imagination. You know, kids love
science fiction. I think in fantasy because, um, it ties
into our imagination so much and helps us sort of
see what other worlds could be and helps us imagine
a world beyond our own. And as I've gotten older,
science fiction is a great venue for it discussing our
(02:34):
own culture and our own society. So as we were
reading about alien worlds in really good science fiction, it's
a reflection of what's happening in our own society. And
so often in the science fiction books that I love,
you sort of introduced to a culture, and there's some
kind of observer, like an alien who has dropped onto
a planet, who's observing the culture and reflecting on it.
(02:55):
And what they're commenting on is stuff that you'll see
a lot in our society, or that pushes us to
rethink the things that that we take for granted as
normal and instead see them as, oh, this could function
totally different. Or if an alien landed here on Earth,
what would they be appalled by or what would they
think was really interesting? Well, I think from maybe more
(03:16):
of an outsider perspective for people maybe sitting more where
Caroline and I are who aren't really familiar, like in
depth with the genre. Who you know, we've seen star Wars,
we've seen alien things like that, But it seems like
for a long time, particularly in those more mainstream presentations
of science fiction, it hasn't exactly been a haven for
(03:40):
diverse representation. So just kind of wondering how the genre
and also reader's awareness is kind of perspective perspective. Excuse
me that you're bringing to this how that has evolved
beyond a white, cis gender, male centric canon. Actually it's
not a new thing. I was, you know. I sort
(04:00):
of came to this reading um books like doing a
enders game when I was a teenager, and then later
discovered writers like Ursula La Gwin and Octavia Butler, who
when I just picked up their books, I thought they
were writing today, and it turns out they were writing
in the nineteen seventies and the nineteen eighties. So a
sort of trend of linking social justice and science fiction
(04:22):
hasn't really happening for almost forty years, as in the
book world. Um. One of one of my favorite science
fiction books is by Ursula Kyla Gwin, and it's called
The Dispossessed, and this was published in nineteen seventy four,
So think about what's going on in nineteen seventy four,
which just had Rope Wade. We have a huge civil
(04:42):
rights movement activism and women's movement activism, and this book
comes along and it's about a planet that's a totally
egalitarian planet, an entire world that's sort of run on
UM the principles of anarchy, of mutual aid and no government,
so no no police, UM, no prisons, no no centralized government,
(05:04):
just everyone helping each other in the ways that they
want to. And you know, a person from this planet
goes to another world, and that world is very sexist,
and he sort of runs into all these sorts of
cultural problems around poverty and inequality in the world. UM.
And this book that Dispossessed it is mainstream science fiction.
(05:25):
It won in the year it came out, and won
the Hugo and won the Nebula Awards. Those are the
biggest awards in science fiction. UM. It won the World
Fantasy Award Award, and it won the National Book Award.
So that's as mainstream as it gets. And this is
a book that's really clearly discussing inequality, that's discussing um
other options for governments, that's clearly putting sexism front and center.
(05:47):
But what's funny about this book I have I have
an addition of it that was published by Harper just
recently in the last few years, and none of that
stuff that just talked about shows up on the cover
text of the book. So if you look at this
book in the store, what it says on the cover,
it's Ursula Cala Gwin's that dispossessed. And then the description
of the book on the cover is an astonishing tale
(06:07):
of one man's search for utopia. And I'm like, this
book is not about one man search for utopia. This
book is about like, uh, sexism and classism and physics,
as well as a lot of bureaucracy and politics. But
what it's not is like one brilliant man alone against
the world, searching for utopia. And so I think that
(06:30):
there's I think that there's definitely still a disconnect between
the way that science fiction books are often seen and
sold by publishers and like the sort of revolutionary content
that's actually within them. And that's something you see in
Octavia Butler's books too. Octavia Butler is and she she's
a black woman science fiction writer, and lots of her
(06:54):
story center on black characters and people of color. But
she had a lot of trouble in her life of
publishers whitewashing the covers of her books, of putting um
you know, white people on the covers of books that
are about characters who are not white, and so there's
there's has been that problem with how science fiction is
(07:14):
sort of seeing as as a genre for white sis,
gender dudes, when a lot of the stuff is written
about is actually very revolutionary. Well, and we've also speaking
to gender. I've noticed in recent years conversations about the
representation of gender in science fiction, but particularly to what
(07:35):
you're talking about in the marketing of science fiction. So
there have been those, uh, those kind of viral blog
posts of the gender flipped sci fi covers where you know,
men are doing the typical female poses, which kind of
leads to this question of the intersection of feminism and
(07:56):
sci fied Where, where and how do those worlds collide?
It Well, I think science fiction sort of gives us
a way to talk about our own culture and reflect
on what we think of as normal, and it also
gives us really good tools for sort of rethinking what
we think we know. And so so the way that
feminism and science fiction intersect is that when you hear
(08:18):
these stories about future societies or future cultures um or
people visiting our own world and being confused by it,
it makes you question what rules in society you take
for granted, and what's actually not like a biological imperative,
but it's just the culture that we've built. And so,
(08:39):
for example, in ur soloa Quin's books, since I was
just talking about her UM, there's often there's there's planets
where there is no gender difference. Or in Octavia Butler's books,
she has a book where there's um a whole race
of species where there's a third gender, and so that
pushes readers, even young readers or old readers to rethink,
wait a second, wait, there can be a planet where
(09:01):
there's no gender. What does this say about? What does
this say about what gender is? Well, speaking of these
social issues, in a recent Bitch article and on papaganda,
will lead your and Marisha talked about how, quote all
organizing is science fiction. That sounds a little bit out there,
but actually the theory is not that out there. Could
you talk a little bit about what this means? Yeah, sure,
(09:24):
Willia and Marisha is a really great scholar, activist, professor, poet.
She has a lot of jobs and she is most
recently the co editor with UM an organizer named Adrian
Marie Brown of an anthology called Octavia's Brood. Science fiction
stories from social justice movements which comes out this spring
(09:44):
from a K Press, And the whole idea of this
anthology is to collect stories of visionary fiction and visionary
fiction UM is a is a term to sort of
differentiate it from science fiction that doesn't deal with rethinking
the world and feminist shoes and social justice issues and
focuses on basically, how can fiction help us rethink the
(10:07):
world that we live in? UM? And they call science
fiction and exploring ground a laboratory to try new tactics,
strategies and vision without real world costs, so you can
kind of explore in your imagination what could society look like?
What could the world we live in be like? UM.
Since we've been talking a lot about Ursula Lagwin in
(10:30):
her article in In Bitch, which is called Rewriting the Future,
Willie that Marisia quotes Ursula Lagwin's speech that she gave
last year at the National Book Awards ceremony. And you
might have heard of this speech because it went viral.
It was a really big deal. And in the in
the speech she talks about UM basically that we need
writers who can force us to to re examine ourselves
(10:54):
and to rethink the world that we think about and
who can as she says, remember freedom and la gweno
on to say, we live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable,
but then started the divine right of kings. Any human
power can be resisted and changed by human beings, and
Leader writes in her article that that is precisely why
we need science fiction. But it allows us to imagine
(11:15):
possibilities outside of what exists today, and that's powerful, and
so as an organizing tool, you can use science fiction
to say, Okay, we don't like the world we live
in right now, there's all these problems with it. Where
could we look to as an answer. Well, in one
of the exercises that you all talked about on UM,
both on the panel that you hosted and on the
(11:37):
propaganda episode that she was on, was examining existence science
fiction or even just pop culture like the Simpsons and
sort of using existing science fiction to reimagine that. In
one of the examples you talked about was with Star Wars,
remembering the Droids, what about the droid or Another example
(12:01):
on the Octavia's Brewed blog was of the Orcs in
Lord of the Rings collectively rising up because if they
rise up and organized, then of course more to or
would be no more. So I was just curious to
get your thoughts on um not only creating new science fiction,
but maybe using existing science fiction as and reimagining that
(12:23):
as another kind of accessible tool, especially for again, for
for newbies like Caroline and me who might not be
so familiar. I love the idea of supporting the striking orcs.
You know, that's really exciting and with a little folding
ticket signs kind of cute or or freedom. Now, um,
(12:46):
well there isn't you know, a science fiction there's Uh,
there's a very healthy tradition of fan fiction of people
writing their own stories about the shows. Um. And that's
especially apparent when sort of the storylines don't pan out
the way you want too, or and you sort of
see characters and you want to know more from them. Um.
I mean a lot of our current sort of culture
(13:07):
of fan fiction, which is so robust and so many
people are publishing their own stories. A lot of it
begins with Star Trek, with people writing their own sort
of reimaginings of of Star Trek episodes because they wanted
to see different storylines develop. And I think that that's
great that, you know, if you want to see more
from these characters or um or different people who were
(13:29):
left out of the stories, or you want to see
what would happen if they want if they were suddenly
confronted with their own problems, fan fiction is a great
way to explore those things. Well, in terms of exploring
different themes, I'm interested in what you think in terms
of how science fiction in general and visionary fiction in
particular affect our views on things like gender, race, age,
(13:51):
and even society at large, and how that might work
differently from reading just you know, quote unquote regular contempory,
a fiction about recognizable systems and lifestyles. Well, I think
that's science fiction personally, like drove me in in a
way that contemporary fiction doesn't always do. You know, I'm
(14:11):
so drawn into these juicy stories of of other worlds
and other cultures that it kind of like slips it
slips me into the tow rethinking my own society instead
of hitting me over have a head with it in
a super heavy handed way. And I think a really
good book to bring up in this example is Octavia
Butler's book Kindred. This is probably her best known book.
(14:32):
You might have read it in school. A lot of
people read in school. Its Polish nine and it's about
a black woman in United States who falls back in time.
So she's an accidental time traveler. And I could see,
you know, kids get getting excited about this, like, oh,
it's a time travel story. I get excited about this.
I want to know about her time travel story. So
she falls back in time the nineteenth century in Maryland,
(14:53):
where she meets her ancestors who are enslaved people. And
the narrative really makes you think about sort of how uh,
how these stories can make us imagine a different future
that like a black female time traveler shows up in
a slaveholding state and says that in the future, the
slaves are free. Like that sound sound as wild to
(15:13):
them as it would if a time traveler showed up
now and said that in the future, we have no prisons,
you know, So I think that that kind of narrative
instead of handing kids a book and telling them, you
know that this is gonna be about American history, which
you know, not all that might be into you say,
this is book about a time traveler exploring alternate pasts
and re imagine the future and you're like, Wow, cool,
(15:36):
how exciting. So I just think personally, I think that
a lot of those sort of elements of science fiction
really draw in readers in a way that that fiction
certainly can. Um. But then I think is is powerful
to science fiction as a genre, and that sort of
all the limits are off. You know, if you're going
to explore another world, you can make that culture look
(15:58):
like whatever you want. You don't have to fit it
into our existing idea of what of what the world
looks like, So you can remake ideas of gender and
sexuality and class, because hey, it's another world. You can
make it look however you want. Yeah, it seems like
the genre can be so powerful by removing all of
the familiar signposts that might otherwise be distracting. Say, if
(16:21):
you're reading a book about a person in New York,
you're like, well, no, that's that's not how New York is,
Whereas in science fiction you can't say, no, this moon
World is not how Moon World should be because that
rule book doesn't exist, which is really really neat um.
As I was reading about this visionary fiction in these
(16:43):
possible uh future worlds utopias things like that, I also
got me thinking about how this may or may not
at all relate to the current popularity of dystopian y
A fiction. It seems like kids these days and adults
these days are really into it wouldn't necessarily constitute science fiction,
(17:08):
but it's still reimagining worlds and bringing up similar kinds
of issues from time to time. So I was just
wondering what your insights were on that. I think it.
I think it counts to science fiction that there's a
lot of sort of dystopian y a out there right
now that deals with a lot of these these issues,
and I think they're popular because, um, they feel a
(17:29):
little bit familiar. Often, you know, it's teenage. The characters
are often teenagers who are sort of going through teenage
troubles of trying to fit in and trying to deal
with their parents, but they've got the added issues of
their in dystopian society is falling apart and everyone's about
to kill each other, and so you know, there's there's
a couple of good examples of this. There's a there's
(17:50):
an author I really like named Nelo Hopkinson um and
their work focuses on sort of teens and a and
in a slightly changed society where suddenly everything starts getting weird.
You know, there's um like sort of weird and powerful
forces that show up and everyone gets weird different powers,
(18:11):
um and that. But it's actually a story about sort
of being a teenager and grappling with the world and
trying to figure out where you fit in and trying
to deal with the stuff that that you're handed at
at birth, like um, like your grace and your parents
and your family, and trying to fit that into this
weird changing world. Another example I really like is um
a BBC show called Misfits, which is about a group
(18:34):
of rather surly teenagers who are doing community service. They're
like on probation and they've been sentenced community service and
then there's a freak lightning storm and they all inherit
um really bad superpowers, and so they like have to
deal with having these kind of cursed superpowers and how
they've changed their bodies while they're still trying to like
(18:55):
get along with each other and get along with the world.
And I think that that's a story that like young
people really relate to, where you're we're trying to deal with,
you know, your body changing and in your social situation
changing and trying to figure out how you fit into
the world, which also makes you afflict on why the
world is the way it is and how a lot
of it is really screwed up. Well, So we've talked
(19:25):
a lot about imagining and how books like this help
us imagine alternatives, and I'm interested in hearing about some
of the things that you are imagining because you know, um,
we've seen a lot of elements of past science fiction
come true in our world. We have touch screens, we
do have big Brother in the n s a UM,
(19:46):
And I was wondering what elements of social justice science fiction,
or really any science fiction you've seen come true or
that you might predict or hope come true in the future.
Oh geez, this is a tough question because the stuff
I read about is really dark, but you don't want
it to come true. It's often more like like a
(20:08):
path that I don't I hope we kind of don't take.
A lot of the science fiction I read is sort
of deals with a Earth or an earthlike planet where
there's been massive climate change and so much of the
race has died off, and how do these scrappy survivors
come together in in this horrible time, and so I
(20:30):
hope that that doesn't happen, you know that that sort
of when I think about the future, I can't help
but get a little or very cynical, you know. It
doesn't like touch screens aside. I feel like, you know,
as as a as a human race, we're not going
to a to a good place in the next hundred
years because of the way that we've been treating the
(20:52):
planet and building our societies on inequality. And so in
these the works that I read are often more of
a cautionary tale of things you don't want to have happened. So,
for example, a classic example of this would be Margaret
Atwood's Handmaid's Tale, which a lot of people read in
school UM, which is about a very controlled and police
(21:13):
society where women's reproduction is tightly controlled and there are
certain women who are assigned to be breeders basically um.
And this speaks a lot to our current politics around
reproductive rights, policing of women's bodies, and the lack of
of women to have the ability to choose their reproductive healthcare.
And so when you read, when you read a story
(21:34):
that like a Handmaid's Tale, that envisions what this is
going to look like a hundred years from now, or
if things get to the extreme. It makes you. It
makes me at least reflect on current politics and be like,
oh jeez, this is where it's going and we need
to stop right now. And so I think a lot
of these stories can be sort of inspirational horrible tales
from the future, sort of cautionary tales what not to do,
(21:59):
better pay it to engine or else or else we're
doomed or else be no big deal, We're just doomed.
So I do love that outfits on Star Trek. If
we could get one thing in the future, I would
love like a Hora's dress, and yeah, that'd be good. Um,
(22:19):
but that's maybe space travel maybe. But I kind of
think we should fix our own planet first. That's if
I can go off on a little bit of a
rant about the movie Interstellar. So I did not like that.
Oh my gosh, that movie. I was like, it felt
like time stopped in the movie. I was like, we're
in the fifth dimension, we are here, and we're stuck
(22:42):
with Matthew McConaughey. So I mean that movie, I think
it was really the whole basic premise of that film
was upsetting to me. If you haven't seen it. The
film is basically like, there's massive climate change on Earth.
Everything is dust, horrible dust. The fields have turned to dust.
And so a band of of can do scientists sort
of make a rocket ship to send humans to another
(23:05):
planet to try and colonize another planet? And there are
somehow with like four or five hours of mishaps in
the middle there, and but the the but the whole
framing idea of it is we could we should use
science to find another planet to colonize. And I'm like, guys,
why don't you use your science to try and fix
our own planet? That's I thought that that was gonna be.
Like the thrilling conclusion of the film is that actually
(23:28):
we figured out a way to to improve our own
atmosphere and our own like way of approaching um agriculture
that's more sustainable. We've we've don't need to go to
space after all. Uh, that was not the point of
the film. But then, but then Jessica Chastain wouldn't get
a chance to ugly cry on camera? Can't you ugly
cry over like the carbon in the atmosphere? Apparently not?
(23:54):
I want you to re edit Interstellar, because I haven't
seen it and I only want to watch your re
envisioning it now. I felt I felt a lot better
about Interstellar once I imagined it to be a group
of five short films. UM. That helped me like it
a little bit more. But anyway, well to possibly and
(24:15):
our discussion more of a hopeful note not in the
dust and Jessica Chastain's tears, there was one quote that
I wanted to get your feedback on because to me,
it's really bold and hopeful and says a lot about
this whole the importance of visionary fiction. And it's the
(24:37):
mission statement of will lead to Emeritia and Adrian, Marie
Brown and Octavia's Brewed and they write, we believe it
is our right and responsibility to right ourselves into the future.
And that to me sounds quite promising and hopeful, and
I just wanted to get your take on that. Yeah,
(25:01):
I think that's a really beautiful statement that that sums
up a couple of things. And one is just a
general lack of of diversity of representation in fiction, including
science fiction. UM, where a lot of people these days,
especially people of color, are saying or represented in these stories.
We need to make our own stories to tell to
(25:23):
make sure that sort of race isn't isn't an absent
artifact in the future. Or oftentimes there's science fiction movies
and film and books where almost everybody in the movie
book is white, and you're like, wait, how is this
the future? That's that's what happened here, that's weird, um.
And then the other aspect of that that's more philosophical,
(25:45):
is that to write ourselves into the future, as they say,
is we should try and imagine the kinds of societies
and the kinds of um cultures that we want to
exist in in the future. And I think science fiction
is a great tool for that, and the visionary fiction
is a great tool for that because we can imagine
sort of what is the future world that we want
(26:05):
to have, and can we write fiction about that now?
That gets people thinking and gets and freeze up people's
imaginations to sort of look at the world and all
the horrible things that are going on in it now
and think, how can we change this? What kind of
better future look like? Well, in your answer, too, touched
on something that we didn't directly ask you about, but
that we talk about all of the time on the podcast,
(26:28):
which is what happens and how things change when you
bring more diversity to the table and more perspectives. And
that came to mind when you were talking about earths,
like Hey Laguin writing about you know, this futuristic theme
of gender and what that means, what would it mean
to not have gender and the fact that we have
(26:49):
a woman of color, Octavia Butler, who is touching on
all of these themes. So, how does science fiction change
when you bring more diversity to the table. It sounds
like it, only it gets better and better. And that's
actually a central theme of Octavia Butler's books, sort of
a central idea around a lot of her books is
that diversity helps society. That instead of squashing diversity or
(27:13):
saying we need we need a one track vision for
how this should go, which is often how a lot
of science fiction is oriented, where there's like, you know,
one one surviving hero who saves the world, um by
by doing some sort of courageous violent act like blowing
up the Death Star. Instead of saying it's on it's
on this one guy to save the world, or it's
(27:34):
on this one surviving government to change society. A lot
of what Octavia Butler's writing is about this how diversity
actually makes us stronger. She actually has a great vampire
science fiction novel UM called Fledgling, which is about a
group of vampires and they Their whole idea is that
(27:55):
the mixing of sort of different abilities such as vampire
abilities uh with with humans with normal human abilities makes
the makes the society stronger. But people are afraid of it,
and they don't like change, and they don't like new ideas,
and they don't like the idea of sort of uh
decentralized course of action that doesn't have a specific clear
(28:17):
plan that ends in blowing something up, and so people
often fear that, and so actv are a lot of
the writing. A lot of her work centers around oh,
a diversity of ideas and a diversity of biology can
help make ours a whole culture stronger. I don't want
to make you repeat yourself, but I would love to
hear some recommendations for books or TV or movies or
(28:41):
comic books or anything um that you feel would really
make an impression on science fiction newbies or visionary fiction
newbies who are looking to sort of get a start
reading this genre. Okay, this is a tough task because
there's so much good stuff out there. So I'm just
gonna talk about what I like. And you two already
(29:01):
mentioned that it's in the movie Alien. I like Alien
a lot. I think that's a good place to start.
With the tales of Ellen ripley Um, I think I
also I like to read a lot of books, and
so I would recommend the three authors that we've talked
about today, Ursula La Gwin her book The Left Hand
of Darkness or the one I talked about on the
show today that Dispossessed are both great Um and then
(29:23):
Uhtvia Butler. Um My kind of book of hers is
called The Parable of the Sower, and I think that's
a really good place to start. It's a it's a
really interesting story that grabs you about dystopian future l
A and how a young girl sort of manages to
survive and in a hellish culture there. Um. And then
Margaret Atwood who wrote the book Handmaid's Tale, and I
(29:46):
also love her work, Oryx and Craik I would I
would recommend all three of those authors, um for people
who are new to science fiction and want to check
something out. YEP, great. I know that I am adding
after talking to you and reading it for this episode,
I am adding so many books and movies to my list. Yeah.
(30:07):
We do a summer book episode every year on the podcast,
and we might just have to make it sci fi
theme this year, Caroline, if only to make sure that
we read all this stuff and also get input from
our listeners, because I know that we have some sci
fi fans listening right now. Yeah. As much as I
(30:28):
reread Enders Game, there is more out there. Well, Sarah,
thank you so much for coming on the podcast and
sharing all of your knowledge with us. Was there anything
about sci fi, visionary fiction, social justice that we didn't
specifically ask you about but that you would like to add?
(30:49):
I think you covered it pretty well. Oh well, thank you.
Thank you covered it pretty well, Sarah. Well, Sarah. If
people want to learn more about you about Bitch and Papaganda,
where can they go to find out more? Oh? I
think the best place to go is our website bitch
media dot org um. And you can listen to the
podcast if you go to iTunes and you just look
(31:09):
up bitch Radio, which is fun to type in, uh,
you can see the podcast. It comes out every week
we have a new show and it's all about feminism
pop culture, so movies, books, TV music from a feminist perspective. Um,
people like your show. Our show deals a lot of the
the same issues, and I think people will like it
because I like your show. I love it, so yeah,
(31:31):
and we like papaganda, so they will love it. Listeners,
you have no choice now other than to go and
listen to Propaganda and check out bitch Media, which again
we cite all of the time, all the time on
the podcast. So thanks again, Sarah, Hey, thank you so much,
you too. So now, listeners, I know there are some
science fiction fans out there and we want to hear
(31:53):
from you. Who is your favorite science fiction author or
your favorite sci fi title or see and do you
think that science fiction or visionary fiction can possibly change
the world. Let us know all of your thoughts. Mom
Stuff at how stuff works dot com is our email address.
You can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or
(32:14):
messages on Facebook. And we've got a couple of messages
to share with you when we come right back from
a quick break and now back to the show. So
I've got a couple of letters to share about our
stalking one oh one episode, because we keep getting so
(32:35):
many of them and really want to keep everybody informed
about the kind of feedback that we've been getting. So
here is one from Amy who writes like basically every listener,
I'm always looking for a reason to contact you, amazing ladies.
And finally here's one, a super depressing one, but still
I work as a criminal prosecutor and listened with great
(32:56):
interest here discussion about protective orders for victims of stalking.
I strongly encourage victims to brave the bureaucracy and get
a protective order. Here's why. The burden of proof for
a protective order is much lower than it is for
a criminal charge. Proving something beyond a reasonable doubt is
much more difficult than proving something to a preponderance of
(33:16):
the evidence. That means it's going to be easier for
a victim to get an sp O than it is
for me to prove a stalking charge. In addition, many
state stalking laws include elements that are incredibly difficult to
prove and won't apply in many stalking cases. For example,
some states require that we show a victim was in
fear of death or physical injury based on the stalker's conduct,
(33:39):
which may not be present in every case. As your
podcast explained. However, most states also have a statute against
violating a stalking protective order, and those are generally much
much easier to prove, especially where a victim is diligent
and collecting information about her stalkers continued contacts with her.
Then all we need is the order and the of
(34:00):
the contact, and we're good to go. Thus, if a
victim gets an SPO and it's violated, we can prove
that more easily than a stalking charge and give the
victim some measure of protection through a criminal conviction like
jail time, probation or continued no contact orders. Getting protective
orders can be really intimidating, but many communities have domestic
violence shelters that employ legal advocates who can help victims
(34:23):
way through the paperwork and understand the court process. I
always encourage victims to seek that assistance if available, and
to persevere. Thank you so much for your work, and
thank you for your work and for your insight, Amy,
You really appreciate it well. I have an email here
from Katrin. She says, I'm a first time listener and
stalking one on one prompted me to email you and
(34:44):
let you know about my own experience with stalking and
how my roommate and I got the big kiss off.
As my father, a former police officer, calls it. My
roommate had made friends with a gentleman who was from Japan.
I should also note that at the time she had
a boyfriend and I didn't. She and I had met
studying abroad there and enjoyed making friends from that location
to practice our language skills. After having been friends with
(35:04):
him for a few months, he ended up in a
roommateless situation and needed a place to crash. He asked
if he could crash on our couch for two weeks
while he looked for a new apartment. Our third roommate
and I had no problem with it because we often
had various friends from random countries or states crashing while
they visited the city we lived in. In terms of
a temporary roommate, he was pretty terrible, but in normal
ways MESSI played music too loud, too late at night,
(35:27):
but he never actually seemed strange. It wasn't until the
two weeks was up and he had left that we
got suspicious. At the time, we've been talking about where
she and I were going to live once our lease
was up. He would often be around when we were
talking about it, and somehow misunderstood and thought we would
all live together. Her boyfriend ended up kicking him out
for us. Soon after that, she started to receive texts
(35:48):
thinks she should be with him instead of with her boyfriend.
He also texted me things like hey, what's up, which
I would ignore. It progressively got weirder. First he accused
me of not being his friend, and he kept declaring
his love for her. Then he started to say he
wanted to be with me and I should date him.
We both received threats of rape and violence, although hers
were far worse than mine. Finally, we went to the
(36:08):
police station and told the officer what was going on
and that we wanted to file a restraining order. He
asked if either of us were romantically involved with him,
and we said no, and I could tell he didn't
believe us. He then informed us the guy would have
had to actually come on our property and physically assault
us to file a police report, but we could actually
go to the courthouse and file a restraining order. But
(36:29):
without a police report it costs three dollars to file one,
so we never did, and we did eventually move. And
new phones make it really easy to block people, so
it's worked out. Every time he changes his number, though
I do get a call or text from him, but
I just block it. My father, the retired cops, said
that if we had asked for the officers badge number
to talk to his superior officer and showed him the
(36:51):
text and tell him it was a threat of bodily harm,
which is illegal, we could have gotten it filed. So
I thought that might be good information for your listeners,
and it is catrent and said thank you so much
for writing in. We appreciate it, and thanks to everybody
who's written into us. Mom Stuff at how stuff works
dot com is our email address and re links to
all of our social media as well as all of
our blogs, videos, and podcast with this one, head on
(37:14):
over to stuff Mom Never Told You dot com and
be sure to check out Sarah Merk and Papaganda over
at bitch media dot org as well for more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dot com
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You from how stup
works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today we're going to talk
about two topics that might not sound like they go together,
but in fact work so perfectly in tandem, and that
(00:25):
is social justice and science fiction. And thankfully, since to
be perfectly honest, I'm not a science fiction expert, Caroline,
or are you a science fiction I can't say that
I'm a science fiction expert. As much as I have
watched some science fiction movies, I cannot claim to be
an expert. And even though Caroline, I have dressed up
(00:45):
as Ripley for Halloween, sadly that doesn't you know that
that even still doesn't make me an expert. But thankfully
we have someone so much more knowledgeable in the realms
of both social justice and science fiction to talk to
us today about all this fun stuff, and that is
online editor of the feminism and pop culture nonprofit that
(01:07):
we site all the time on the podcast Bitch Media,
and also host of the feminist podcast Popaganda, Sarah Murk. Welcome, Sarah, Hi, Kristen,
Hi Caroline. It's to be here. Oh well, it's so
great to have you. Well, so Sarah, to get things
kicked off, let's start first by talking about your specific
(01:28):
interest in science fiction. What do you love about it
as a form of entertainment, and how has it informed
your personal perspectives or philosophies are even activism? Well, first
of all, science fiction is just fun. I love reading
science fiction and I like watching science fiction movies because
it's a really good time. Um, you can sort of
(01:49):
get deep and philosophical about it, but honestly, I just
like a story that's well told, that has an interesting
world behind it. You know, I'm somebody I grew up
reading a lot of fantasy and a lot of science fiction,
so you know, super mainstream stuff like Lord of the
Rings as fantasy, and then for science fiction like Dune
and Enders Game and the way that they sort of
prompted me to think about how other worlds could be.
(02:14):
It's just great for your imagination. You know, kids love
science fiction. I think in fantasy because, um, it ties
into our imagination so much and helps us sort of
see what other worlds could be and helps us imagine
a world beyond our own. And as I've gotten older,
science fiction is a great venue for it discussing our
(02:34):
own culture and our own society. So as we were
reading about alien worlds in really good science fiction, it's
a reflection of what's happening in our own society. And
so often in the science fiction books that I love,
you sort of introduced to a culture, and there's some
kind of observer, like an alien who has dropped onto
a planet, who's observing the culture and reflecting on it.
(02:55):
And what they're commenting on is stuff that you'll see
a lot in our society, or that pushes us to
rethink the things that that we take for granted as
normal and instead see them as, oh, this could function
totally different. Or if an alien landed here on Earth,
what would they be appalled by or what would they
think was really interesting? Well, I think from maybe more
(03:16):
of an outsider perspective for people maybe sitting more where
Caroline and I are who aren't really familiar, like in
depth with the genre. Who you know, we've seen star Wars,
we've seen alien things like that, But it seems like
for a long time, particularly in those more mainstream presentations
of science fiction, it hasn't exactly been a haven for
(03:40):
diverse representation. So just kind of wondering how the genre
and also reader's awareness is kind of perspective perspective. Excuse
me that you're bringing to this how that has evolved
beyond a white, cis gender, male centric canon. Actually it's
not a new thing. I was, you know. I sort
(04:00):
of came to this reading um books like doing a
enders game when I was a teenager, and then later
discovered writers like Ursula La Gwin and Octavia Butler, who
when I just picked up their books, I thought they
were writing today, and it turns out they were writing
in the nineteen seventies and the nineteen eighties. So a
sort of trend of linking social justice and science fiction
(04:22):
hasn't really happening for almost forty years, as in the
book world. Um. One of one of my favorite science
fiction books is by Ursula Kyla Gwin, and it's called
The Dispossessed, and this was published in nineteen seventy four,
So think about what's going on in nineteen seventy four,
which just had Rope Wade. We have a huge civil
(04:42):
rights movement activism and women's movement activism, and this book
comes along and it's about a planet that's a totally
egalitarian planet, an entire world that's sort of run on
UM the principles of anarchy, of mutual aid and no government,
so no no police, UM, no prisons, no no centralized government,
(05:04):
just everyone helping each other in the ways that they
want to. And you know, a person from this planet
goes to another world, and that world is very sexist,
and he sort of runs into all these sorts of
cultural problems around poverty and inequality in the world. UM.
And this book that Dispossessed it is mainstream science fiction.
(05:25):
It won in the year it came out, and won
the Hugo and won the Nebula Awards. Those are the
biggest awards in science fiction. UM. It won the World
Fantasy Award Award, and it won the National Book Award.
So that's as mainstream as it gets. And this is
a book that's really clearly discussing inequality, that's discussing um
other options for governments, that's clearly putting sexism front and center.
(05:47):
But what's funny about this book I have I have
an addition of it that was published by Harper just
recently in the last few years, and none of that
stuff that just talked about shows up on the cover
text of the book. So if you look at this
book in the store, what it says on the cover,
it's Ursula Cala Gwin's that dispossessed. And then the description
of the book on the cover is an astonishing tale
(06:07):
of one man's search for utopia. And I'm like, this
book is not about one man search for utopia. This
book is about like, uh, sexism and classism and physics,
as well as a lot of bureaucracy and politics. But
what it's not is like one brilliant man alone against
the world, searching for utopia. And so I think that
(06:30):
there's I think that there's definitely still a disconnect between
the way that science fiction books are often seen and
sold by publishers and like the sort of revolutionary content
that's actually within them. And that's something you see in
Octavia Butler's books too. Octavia Butler is and she she's
a black woman science fiction writer, and lots of her
(06:54):
story center on black characters and people of color. But
she had a lot of trouble in her life of
publishers whitewashing the covers of her books, of putting um
you know, white people on the covers of books that
are about characters who are not white, and so there's
there's has been that problem with how science fiction is
(07:14):
sort of seeing as as a genre for white sis,
gender dudes, when a lot of the stuff is written
about is actually very revolutionary. Well, and we've also speaking
to gender. I've noticed in recent years conversations about the
representation of gender in science fiction, but particularly to what
(07:35):
you're talking about in the marketing of science fiction. So
there have been those, uh, those kind of viral blog
posts of the gender flipped sci fi covers where you know,
men are doing the typical female poses, which kind of
leads to this question of the intersection of feminism and
(07:56):
sci fied Where, where and how do those worlds collide?
It Well, I think science fiction sort of gives us
a way to talk about our own culture and reflect
on what we think of as normal, and it also
gives us really good tools for sort of rethinking what
we think we know. And so so the way that
feminism and science fiction intersect is that when you hear
(08:18):
these stories about future societies or future cultures um or
people visiting our own world and being confused by it,
it makes you question what rules in society you take
for granted, and what's actually not like a biological imperative,
but it's just the culture that we've built. And so,
(08:39):
for example, in ur soloa Quin's books, since I was
just talking about her UM, there's often there's there's planets
where there is no gender difference. Or in Octavia Butler's books,
she has a book where there's um a whole race
of species where there's a third gender, and so that
pushes readers, even young readers or old readers to rethink,
wait a second, wait, there can be a planet where
(09:01):
there's no gender. What does this say about? What does
this say about what gender is? Well, speaking of these
social issues, in a recent Bitch article and on papaganda,
will lead your and Marisha talked about how, quote all
organizing is science fiction. That sounds a little bit out there,
but actually the theory is not that out there. Could
you talk a little bit about what this means? Yeah, sure,
(09:24):
Willia and Marisha is a really great scholar, activist, professor, poet.
She has a lot of jobs and she is most
recently the co editor with UM an organizer named Adrian
Marie Brown of an anthology called Octavia's Brood. Science fiction
stories from social justice movements which comes out this spring
(09:44):
from a K Press, And the whole idea of this
anthology is to collect stories of visionary fiction and visionary
fiction UM is a is a term to sort of
differentiate it from science fiction that doesn't deal with rethinking
the world and feminist shoes and social justice issues and
focuses on basically, how can fiction help us rethink the
(10:07):
world that we live in? UM? And they call science
fiction and exploring ground a laboratory to try new tactics,
strategies and vision without real world costs, so you can
kind of explore in your imagination what could society look like?
What could the world we live in be like? UM.
Since we've been talking a lot about Ursula Lagwin in
(10:30):
her article in In Bitch, which is called Rewriting the Future,
Willie that Marisia quotes Ursula Lagwin's speech that she gave
last year at the National Book Awards ceremony. And you
might have heard of this speech because it went viral.
It was a really big deal. And in the in
the speech she talks about UM basically that we need
writers who can force us to to re examine ourselves
(10:54):
and to rethink the world that we think about and
who can as she says, remember freedom and la gweno
on to say, we live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable,
but then started the divine right of kings. Any human
power can be resisted and changed by human beings, and
Leader writes in her article that that is precisely why
we need science fiction. But it allows us to imagine
(11:15):
possibilities outside of what exists today, and that's powerful, and
so as an organizing tool, you can use science fiction
to say, Okay, we don't like the world we live
in right now, there's all these problems with it. Where
could we look to as an answer. Well, in one
of the exercises that you all talked about on UM,
both on the panel that you hosted and on the
(11:37):
propaganda episode that she was on, was examining existence science
fiction or even just pop culture like the Simpsons and
sort of using existing science fiction to reimagine that. In
one of the examples you talked about was with Star Wars,
remembering the Droids, what about the droid or Another example
(12:01):
on the Octavia's Brewed blog was of the Orcs in
Lord of the Rings collectively rising up because if they
rise up and organized, then of course more to or
would be no more. So I was just curious to
get your thoughts on um not only creating new science fiction,
but maybe using existing science fiction as and reimagining that
(12:23):
as another kind of accessible tool, especially for again, for
for newbies like Caroline and me who might not be
so familiar. I love the idea of supporting the striking orcs.
You know, that's really exciting and with a little folding
ticket signs kind of cute or or freedom. Now, um,
(12:46):
well there isn't you know, a science fiction there's Uh,
there's a very healthy tradition of fan fiction of people
writing their own stories about the shows. Um. And that's
especially apparent when sort of the storylines don't pan out
the way you want too, or and you sort of
see characters and you want to know more from them. Um.
I mean a lot of our current sort of culture
(13:07):
of fan fiction, which is so robust and so many
people are publishing their own stories. A lot of it
begins with Star Trek, with people writing their own sort
of reimaginings of of Star Trek episodes because they wanted
to see different storylines develop. And I think that that's
great that, you know, if you want to see more
from these characters or um or different people who were
(13:29):
left out of the stories, or you want to see
what would happen if they want if they were suddenly
confronted with their own problems, fan fiction is a great
way to explore those things. Well, in terms of exploring
different themes, I'm interested in what you think in terms
of how science fiction in general and visionary fiction in
particular affect our views on things like gender, race, age,
(13:51):
and even society at large, and how that might work
differently from reading just you know, quote unquote regular contempory,
a fiction about recognizable systems and lifestyles. Well, I think
that's science fiction personally, like drove me in in a
way that contemporary fiction doesn't always do. You know, I'm
(14:11):
so drawn into these juicy stories of of other worlds
and other cultures that it kind of like slips it
slips me into the tow rethinking my own society instead
of hitting me over have a head with it in
a super heavy handed way. And I think a really
good book to bring up in this example is Octavia
Butler's book Kindred. This is probably her best known book.
(14:32):
You might have read it in school. A lot of
people read in school. Its Polish nine and it's about
a black woman in United States who falls back in time.
So she's an accidental time traveler. And I could see,
you know, kids get getting excited about this, like, oh,
it's a time travel story. I get excited about this.
I want to know about her time travel story. So
she falls back in time the nineteenth century in Maryland,
(14:53):
where she meets her ancestors who are enslaved people. And
the narrative really makes you think about sort of how uh,
how these stories can make us imagine a different future
that like a black female time traveler shows up in
a slaveholding state and says that in the future, the
slaves are free. Like that sound sound as wild to
(15:13):
them as it would if a time traveler showed up
now and said that in the future, we have no prisons,
you know, So I think that that kind of narrative
instead of handing kids a book and telling them, you
know that this is gonna be about American history, which
you know, not all that might be into you say,
this is book about a time traveler exploring alternate pasts
and re imagine the future and you're like, Wow, cool,
(15:36):
how exciting. So I just think personally, I think that
a lot of those sort of elements of science fiction
really draw in readers in a way that that fiction
certainly can. Um. But then I think is is powerful
to science fiction as a genre, and that sort of
all the limits are off. You know, if you're going
to explore another world, you can make that culture look
(15:58):
like whatever you want. You don't have to fit it
into our existing idea of what of what the world
looks like, So you can remake ideas of gender and
sexuality and class, because hey, it's another world. You can
make it look however you want. Yeah, it seems like
the genre can be so powerful by removing all of
the familiar signposts that might otherwise be distracting. Say, if
(16:21):
you're reading a book about a person in New York,
you're like, well, no, that's that's not how New York is,
Whereas in science fiction you can't say, no, this moon
World is not how Moon World should be because that
rule book doesn't exist, which is really really neat um.
As I was reading about this visionary fiction in these
(16:43):
possible uh future worlds utopias things like that, I also
got me thinking about how this may or may not
at all relate to the current popularity of dystopian y
A fiction. It seems like kids these days and adults
these days are really into it wouldn't necessarily constitute science fiction,
(17:08):
but it's still reimagining worlds and bringing up similar kinds
of issues from time to time. So I was just
wondering what your insights were on that. I think it.
I think it counts to science fiction that there's a
lot of sort of dystopian y a out there right
now that deals with a lot of these these issues,
and I think they're popular because, um, they feel a
(17:29):
little bit familiar. Often, you know, it's teenage. The characters
are often teenagers who are sort of going through teenage
troubles of trying to fit in and trying to deal
with their parents, but they've got the added issues of
their in dystopian society is falling apart and everyone's about
to kill each other, and so you know, there's there's
a couple of good examples of this. There's a there's
(17:50):
an author I really like named Nelo Hopkinson um and
their work focuses on sort of teens and a and
in a slightly changed society where suddenly everything starts getting weird.
You know, there's um like sort of weird and powerful
forces that show up and everyone gets weird different powers,
(18:11):
um and that. But it's actually a story about sort
of being a teenager and grappling with the world and
trying to figure out where you fit in and trying
to deal with the stuff that that you're handed at
at birth, like um, like your grace and your parents
and your family, and trying to fit that into this
weird changing world. Another example I really like is um
a BBC show called Misfits, which is about a group
(18:34):
of rather surly teenagers who are doing community service. They're
like on probation and they've been sentenced community service and
then there's a freak lightning storm and they all inherit
um really bad superpowers, and so they like have to
deal with having these kind of cursed superpowers and how
they've changed their bodies while they're still trying to like
(18:55):
get along with each other and get along with the world.
And I think that that's a story that like young
people really relate to, where you're we're trying to deal with,
you know, your body changing and in your social situation
changing and trying to figure out how you fit into
the world, which also makes you afflict on why the
world is the way it is and how a lot
of it is really screwed up. Well, So we've talked
(19:25):
a lot about imagining and how books like this help
us imagine alternatives, and I'm interested in hearing about some
of the things that you are imagining because you know, um,
we've seen a lot of elements of past science fiction
come true in our world. We have touch screens, we
do have big Brother in the n s a UM,
(19:46):
And I was wondering what elements of social justice science fiction,
or really any science fiction you've seen come true or
that you might predict or hope come true in the future.
Oh geez, this is a tough question because the stuff
I read about is really dark, but you don't want
it to come true. It's often more like like a
(20:08):
path that I don't I hope we kind of don't take.
A lot of the science fiction I read is sort
of deals with a Earth or an earthlike planet where
there's been massive climate change and so much of the
race has died off, and how do these scrappy survivors
come together in in this horrible time, and so I
(20:30):
hope that that doesn't happen, you know that that sort
of when I think about the future, I can't help
but get a little or very cynical, you know. It
doesn't like touch screens aside. I feel like, you know,
as as a as a human race, we're not going
to a to a good place in the next hundred
years because of the way that we've been treating the
(20:52):
planet and building our societies on inequality. And so in
these the works that I read are often more of
a cautionary tale of things you don't want to have happened. So,
for example, a classic example of this would be Margaret
Atwood's Handmaid's Tale, which a lot of people read in
school UM, which is about a very controlled and police
(21:13):
society where women's reproduction is tightly controlled and there are
certain women who are assigned to be breeders basically um.
And this speaks a lot to our current politics around
reproductive rights, policing of women's bodies, and the lack of
of women to have the ability to choose their reproductive healthcare.
And so when you read, when you read a story
(21:34):
that like a Handmaid's Tale, that envisions what this is
going to look like a hundred years from now, or
if things get to the extreme. It makes you. It
makes me at least reflect on current politics and be like,
oh jeez, this is where it's going and we need
to stop right now. And so I think a lot
of these stories can be sort of inspirational horrible tales
from the future, sort of cautionary tales what not to do,
(21:59):
better pay it to engine or else or else we're
doomed or else be no big deal, We're just doomed.
So I do love that outfits on Star Trek. If
we could get one thing in the future, I would
love like a Hora's dress, and yeah, that'd be good. Um,
(22:19):
but that's maybe space travel maybe. But I kind of
think we should fix our own planet first. That's if
I can go off on a little bit of a
rant about the movie Interstellar. So I did not like that.
Oh my gosh, that movie. I was like, it felt
like time stopped in the movie. I was like, we're
in the fifth dimension, we are here, and we're stuck
(22:42):
with Matthew McConaughey. So I mean that movie, I think
it was really the whole basic premise of that film
was upsetting to me. If you haven't seen it. The
film is basically like, there's massive climate change on Earth.
Everything is dust, horrible dust. The fields have turned to dust.
And so a band of of can do scientists sort
of make a rocket ship to send humans to another
(23:05):
planet to try and colonize another planet? And there are
somehow with like four or five hours of mishaps in
the middle there, and but the the but the whole
framing idea of it is we could we should use
science to find another planet to colonize. And I'm like, guys,
why don't you use your science to try and fix
our own planet? That's I thought that that was gonna be.
Like the thrilling conclusion of the film is that actually
(23:28):
we figured out a way to to improve our own
atmosphere and our own like way of approaching um agriculture
that's more sustainable. We've we've don't need to go to
space after all. Uh, that was not the point of
the film. But then, but then Jessica Chastain wouldn't get
a chance to ugly cry on camera? Can't you ugly
cry over like the carbon in the atmosphere? Apparently not?
(23:54):
I want you to re edit Interstellar, because I haven't
seen it and I only want to watch your re
envisioning it now. I felt I felt a lot better
about Interstellar once I imagined it to be a group
of five short films. UM. That helped me like it
a little bit more. But anyway, well to possibly and
(24:15):
our discussion more of a hopeful note not in the
dust and Jessica Chastain's tears, there was one quote that
I wanted to get your feedback on because to me,
it's really bold and hopeful and says a lot about
this whole the importance of visionary fiction. And it's the
(24:37):
mission statement of will lead to Emeritia and Adrian, Marie
Brown and Octavia's Brewed and they write, we believe it
is our right and responsibility to right ourselves into the future.
And that to me sounds quite promising and hopeful, and
I just wanted to get your take on that. Yeah,
(25:01):
I think that's a really beautiful statement that that sums
up a couple of things. And one is just a
general lack of of diversity of representation in fiction, including
science fiction. UM, where a lot of people these days,
especially people of color, are saying or represented in these stories.
We need to make our own stories to tell to
(25:23):
make sure that sort of race isn't isn't an absent
artifact in the future. Or oftentimes there's science fiction movies
and film and books where almost everybody in the movie
book is white, and you're like, wait, how is this
the future? That's that's what happened here, that's weird, um.
And then the other aspect of that that's more philosophical,
(25:45):
is that to write ourselves into the future, as they say,
is we should try and imagine the kinds of societies
and the kinds of um cultures that we want to
exist in in the future. And I think science fiction
is a great tool for that, and the visionary fiction
is a great tool for that because we can imagine
sort of what is the future world that we want
(26:05):
to have, and can we write fiction about that now?
That gets people thinking and gets and freeze up people's
imaginations to sort of look at the world and all
the horrible things that are going on in it now
and think, how can we change this? What kind of
better future look like? Well, in your answer, too, touched
on something that we didn't directly ask you about, but
that we talk about all of the time on the podcast,
(26:28):
which is what happens and how things change when you
bring more diversity to the table and more perspectives. And
that came to mind when you were talking about earths,
like Hey Laguin writing about you know, this futuristic theme
of gender and what that means, what would it mean
to not have gender and the fact that we have
(26:49):
a woman of color, Octavia Butler, who is touching on
all of these themes. So, how does science fiction change
when you bring more diversity to the table. It sounds
like it, only it gets better and better. And that's
actually a central theme of Octavia Butler's books, sort of
a central idea around a lot of her books is
that diversity helps society. That instead of squashing diversity or
(27:13):
saying we need we need a one track vision for
how this should go, which is often how a lot
of science fiction is oriented, where there's like, you know,
one one surviving hero who saves the world, um by
by doing some sort of courageous violent act like blowing
up the Death Star. Instead of saying it's on it's
on this one guy to save the world, or it's
(27:34):
on this one surviving government to change society. A lot
of what Octavia Butler's writing is about this how diversity
actually makes us stronger. She actually has a great vampire
science fiction novel UM called Fledgling, which is about a
group of vampires and they Their whole idea is that
(27:55):
the mixing of sort of different abilities such as vampire
abilities uh with with humans with normal human abilities makes
the makes the society stronger. But people are afraid of it,
and they don't like change, and they don't like new ideas,
and they don't like the idea of sort of uh
decentralized course of action that doesn't have a specific clear
(28:17):
plan that ends in blowing something up, and so people
often fear that, and so actv are a lot of
the writing. A lot of her work centers around oh,
a diversity of ideas and a diversity of biology can
help make ours a whole culture stronger. I don't want
to make you repeat yourself, but I would love to
hear some recommendations for books or TV or movies or
(28:41):
comic books or anything um that you feel would really
make an impression on science fiction newbies or visionary fiction
newbies who are looking to sort of get a start
reading this genre. Okay, this is a tough task because
there's so much good stuff out there. So I'm just
gonna talk about what I like. And you two already
(29:01):
mentioned that it's in the movie Alien. I like Alien
a lot. I think that's a good place to start.
With the tales of Ellen ripley Um, I think I
also I like to read a lot of books, and
so I would recommend the three authors that we've talked
about today, Ursula La Gwin her book The Left Hand
of Darkness or the one I talked about on the
show today that Dispossessed are both great Um and then
(29:23):
Uhtvia Butler. Um My kind of book of hers is
called The Parable of the Sower, and I think that's
a really good place to start. It's a it's a
really interesting story that grabs you about dystopian future l
A and how a young girl sort of manages to
survive and in a hellish culture there. Um. And then
Margaret Atwood who wrote the book Handmaid's Tale, and I
(29:46):
also love her work, Oryx and Craik I would I
would recommend all three of those authors, um for people
who are new to science fiction and want to check
something out. YEP, great. I know that I am adding
after talking to you and reading it for this episode,
I am adding so many books and movies to my list. Yeah.
(30:07):
We do a summer book episode every year on the podcast,
and we might just have to make it sci fi
theme this year, Caroline, if only to make sure that
we read all this stuff and also get input from
our listeners, because I know that we have some sci
fi fans listening right now. Yeah. As much as I
(30:28):
reread Enders Game, there is more out there. Well, Sarah,
thank you so much for coming on the podcast and
sharing all of your knowledge with us. Was there anything
about sci fi, visionary fiction, social justice that we didn't
specifically ask you about but that you would like to add?
(30:49):
I think you covered it pretty well. Oh well, thank you.
Thank you covered it pretty well, Sarah. Well, Sarah. If
people want to learn more about you about Bitch and Papaganda,
where can they go to find out more? Oh? I
think the best place to go is our website bitch
media dot org um. And you can listen to the
podcast if you go to iTunes and you just look
(31:09):
up bitch Radio, which is fun to type in, uh,
you can see the podcast. It comes out every week
we have a new show and it's all about feminism
pop culture, so movies, books, TV music from a feminist perspective. Um,
people like your show. Our show deals a lot of the
the same issues, and I think people will like it
because I like your show. I love it, so yeah,
(31:31):
and we like papaganda, so they will love it. Listeners,
you have no choice now other than to go and
listen to Propaganda and check out bitch Media, which again
we cite all of the time, all the time on
the podcast. So thanks again, Sarah, Hey, thank you so much,
you too. So now, listeners, I know there are some
science fiction fans out there and we want to hear
(31:53):
from you. Who is your favorite science fiction author or
your favorite sci fi title or see and do you
think that science fiction or visionary fiction can possibly change
the world. Let us know all of your thoughts. Mom
Stuff at how stuff works dot com is our email address.
You can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or
(32:14):
messages on Facebook. And we've got a couple of messages
to share with you when we come right back from
a quick break and now back to the show. So
I've got a couple of letters to share about our
stalking one oh one episode, because we keep getting so
(32:35):
many of them and really want to keep everybody informed
about the kind of feedback that we've been getting. So
here is one from Amy who writes like basically every listener,
I'm always looking for a reason to contact you, amazing ladies.
And finally here's one, a super depressing one, but still
I work as a criminal prosecutor and listened with great
(32:56):
interest here discussion about protective orders for victims of stalking.
I strongly encourage victims to brave the bureaucracy and get
a protective order. Here's why. The burden of proof for
a protective order is much lower than it is for
a criminal charge. Proving something beyond a reasonable doubt is
much more difficult than proving something to a preponderance of
(33:16):
the evidence. That means it's going to be easier for
a victim to get an sp O than it is
for me to prove a stalking charge. In addition, many
state stalking laws include elements that are incredibly difficult to
prove and won't apply in many stalking cases. For example,
some states require that we show a victim was in
fear of death or physical injury based on the stalker's conduct,
(33:39):
which may not be present in every case. As your
podcast explained. However, most states also have a statute against
violating a stalking protective order, and those are generally much
much easier to prove, especially where a victim is diligent
and collecting information about her stalkers continued contacts with her.
Then all we need is the order and the of
(34:00):
the contact, and we're good to go. Thus, if a
victim gets an SPO and it's violated, we can prove
that more easily than a stalking charge and give the
victim some measure of protection through a criminal conviction like
jail time, probation or continued no contact orders. Getting protective
orders can be really intimidating, but many communities have domestic
violence shelters that employ legal advocates who can help victims
(34:23):
way through the paperwork and understand the court process. I
always encourage victims to seek that assistance if available, and
to persevere. Thank you so much for your work, and
thank you for your work and for your insight, Amy,
You really appreciate it well. I have an email here
from Katrin. She says, I'm a first time listener and
stalking one on one prompted me to email you and
(34:44):
let you know about my own experience with stalking and
how my roommate and I got the big kiss off.
As my father, a former police officer, calls it. My
roommate had made friends with a gentleman who was from Japan.
I should also note that at the time she had
a boyfriend and I didn't. She and I had met
studying abroad there and enjoyed making friends from that location
to practice our language skills. After having been friends with
(35:04):
him for a few months, he ended up in a
roommateless situation and needed a place to crash. He asked
if he could crash on our couch for two weeks
while he looked for a new apartment. Our third roommate
and I had no problem with it because we often
had various friends from random countries or states crashing while
they visited the city we lived in. In terms of
a temporary roommate, he was pretty terrible, but in normal
ways MESSI played music too loud, too late at night,
(35:27):
but he never actually seemed strange. It wasn't until the
two weeks was up and he had left that we
got suspicious. At the time, we've been talking about where
she and I were going to live once our lease
was up. He would often be around when we were
talking about it, and somehow misunderstood and thought we would
all live together. Her boyfriend ended up kicking him out
for us. Soon after that, she started to receive texts
(35:48):
thinks she should be with him instead of with her boyfriend.
He also texted me things like hey, what's up, which
I would ignore. It progressively got weirder. First he accused
me of not being his friend, and he kept declaring
his love for her. Then he started to say he
wanted to be with me and I should date him.
We both received threats of rape and violence, although hers
were far worse than mine. Finally, we went to the
(36:08):
police station and told the officer what was going on
and that we wanted to file a restraining order. He
asked if either of us were romantically involved with him,
and we said no, and I could tell he didn't
believe us. He then informed us the guy would have
had to actually come on our property and physically assault
us to file a police report, but we could actually
go to the courthouse and file a restraining order. But
(36:29):
without a police report it costs three dollars to file one,
so we never did, and we did eventually move. And
new phones make it really easy to block people, so
it's worked out. Every time he changes his number, though
I do get a call or text from him, but
I just block it. My father, the retired cops, said
that if we had asked for the officers badge number
to talk to his superior officer and showed him the
(36:51):
text and tell him it was a threat of bodily harm,
which is illegal, we could have gotten it filed. So
I thought that might be good information for your listeners,
and it is catrent and said thank you so much
for writing in. We appreciate it, and thanks to everybody
who's written into us. Mom Stuff at how stuff works
dot com is our email address and re links to
all of our social media as well as all of
our blogs, videos, and podcast with this one, head on
(37:14):
over to stuff Mom Never Told You dot com and
be sure to check out Sarah Merk and Papaganda over
at bitch media dot org as well for more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dot com
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