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blatherskiteOne of the panelists (I believe it was Geoff Ryman) started this panel by asking one of his favorite questions: How many of the men in the audience would want to give birth to a child? A surprisingly high proportion held up a hand, and kept it up even after his followup suggestion: "Put down your hand if you just said that in the hope of getting laid".
Well... it amused the heck out of me (I have a sad weakness for gender humor), and I wasn't the only one who laughed.
I wasn't one of those who raised his hand—bearing a child simply isn't wired into how my brain works. I don't think my answer would change even if it were a question of birthing a child from the sweat of my brow—and particularly not if that metaphor were literalized, as in the case of Athena springing forth from Zeus' forehead. Ryman noted that there are many interesting mythological inversions of what we consider the standard pattern (male sky gods and female goddesses of the Earth). For example, it's not widely known that the ancient Egyptians had a Father Earth figure (Geb) and a Mother Sky figure (Nut). That's a dramatic opposite to most fantasy genre conventions. I don't think I've ever seen that pattern used in a fantasy story, so there's an opportunity to do something really different here if you're so motivated.
Athena, of course, represents the mythological and fantastic side of childbirth. Most (all?) current writing about reproductive variants falls under the rubric of science fiction. The notion of babies birthed from artificial wombs is old, dating back to long before the first so-called test-tube baby. Notable recent examples of this motif in fiction include C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen series. As always, some focus on the technology as a convenient plot device (I'll mention in passing George Lucas and his "clone wars") whereas others, such as Cherryh, are interested in the more challenging problem of the technology's social implications.
Once such technologies are perfected, or at least made as reliable as modern computers (he said, shuddering at the implications), we'll see problems ranging from the merely interesting to the horrific. Something that combines both is the ability to identify a baby's sex in utero. Innocent stuff if all you're interested in is whether to paint the nursery blue or pink, but considerably nastier when this becomes a way to facilitate the abortion of female babies, which remains common in China under the current one-child policy. One of the significant social problems the Chinese are already facing is the increasingly serious imbalance between the numbers of men and women; many men already cannot find a wife, and the problem will only grow more severe. (Of course, other options are ruled out by official fiat, since homosexuality officially does not exist in China.)
Other extreme possibilities include outright re-engineering of babies to improve them in some way (smarter, more attractive, healthier etc.). Needless to say, given the complexity of genetics and our seemingly inevitable temptation to commercialize dangerous technology before science or society are ready to do so, we can expect genetic engineering disasters. We don't yet have a lot of experience mucking about with really complex genomes, and many scientists want to jump ahead now rather than waiting for the science to catch up to their dreams. Fortunately, they're still in the minority.
Reproduction and related choices have been a highly contentious social issue for just about as long as there have been humans, since in the end, reproduction boils down to who controls a woman's right to have or not have a child. This is why easy access to contraception, whether in the form of condoms or more technologically advanced options such as the birth control pill and implants, was such a socially disruptive thing (mostly in a good way). So let's ask a difficult question: Will reproductive high technology put an end to reproductive slavery by making women unnecessary for the production of babies, or will it merely create different problems? Although the technology might be intensely liberating for those (e.g., business women who do not want to impede their career by bearing a child), the flip side is the horror of seeing this approach implemented by the Taliban or by other repressive regimes.
Geoff Ryman introduced the deliberately disturbingly named concept of "genocide by breeding", in which members of a minority are forced, whether by coersion or by practical considerations such as a lack of alternatives, to marry members of the majority ethnic group, thereby disappearing as a distinct group after several generations. The genetics of such a situation are by no means simple, but it's an interesting problem to ponder: one of the wonderful things about modern civilization is just how ethnically diverse it is compared with historical periods. Though it's utopian to imagine a society in which all races are equals, and marry and produce children freely, a certain amount of homogenization would result, and that would be a sad loss. (Not sufficiently sad to forbid anyone to make babies with someone from a different ethnic group, of course.)
We wouldn't all become a uniform shade of tan—that's not how genetics works—but the overall phenotype would eventually trend towards homogeneity, just as long-term intermarriage has tended to make Europeans resemble each other more than they resemble Chinese, who resemble each other more than they resemble sub-Saharan Africans. With a sufficiently diverse gene pool, however, you would expect occasional reinforcement, leading to "pure" White, Black, Chinese, or other phenotypes. Would such children encounter severe prejudice because of their departure from the norm? Would parents hire genetic counsellors and resort to in vitro fertilization using carefully selected gametes to ensure their children didn't turn out "different"? Would reproduction become more egalitarian between men and women, or less? Would all economic classes have equal access, under a system such as Canadian health care, or would the rich have preferential access, as under the American health care system?
I suspect there'd be a mixed response to all of these questions, and that raises some interesting possibilities for fiction. For example, I can imagine a situation in which those who refuse to adopt genetic engineering for their children, whether from prudent caution or ethical (including religious) objections, would serve as a reservoir of healthy genes and gametes. I can imagine this being imposed on the powerless members of society by the powerful, as a kind of security policy. Would those who are left behind be willing to share that resource with those who leap ahead without fully considering the implications and ran into problems? Would they have any choice?
Needless to say, as soon as you start discussing the issue of reproduction, sex rears its (ugly? comely?) head. Candas Jane Dorsey has written and talked extensively about transexual and intersex characters to explore issues that are even more challenging than the issues of hetero-, homo-, and bisexuality. In an example of how complex this can become, she described a couple she knows in which the man became a male-to-female transexual and the woman became a female-to-male transexual. (For the sake of simplicity, I used the terms "man" and "woman" in their conventional "this is what the person looked like originally" sense.) They want to have children together, and even more interestingly, both consider themselves to be heterosexual. This serves as a reminder that overt sexual differences (i.e., chromosomal patterns) are only the starting point for the development of sexual and gender identity, and are not "destiny".
Dorsey noted that gender issues must be discussed for the same reason we must discuss race in our fiction: so that people aren't blind to the "other" possibilities that exist for the human condition. As is often the case when we invoke technology, we find that technology is the easy part of the equation; the human part is always more difficult and challenging. Science fiction writers too often forget this.
Well... it amused the heck out of me (I have a sad weakness for gender humor), and I wasn't the only one who laughed.
I wasn't one of those who raised his hand—bearing a child simply isn't wired into how my brain works. I don't think my answer would change even if it were a question of birthing a child from the sweat of my brow—and particularly not if that metaphor were literalized, as in the case of Athena springing forth from Zeus' forehead. Ryman noted that there are many interesting mythological inversions of what we consider the standard pattern (male sky gods and female goddesses of the Earth). For example, it's not widely known that the ancient Egyptians had a Father Earth figure (Geb) and a Mother Sky figure (Nut). That's a dramatic opposite to most fantasy genre conventions. I don't think I've ever seen that pattern used in a fantasy story, so there's an opportunity to do something really different here if you're so motivated.
Athena, of course, represents the mythological and fantastic side of childbirth. Most (all?) current writing about reproductive variants falls under the rubric of science fiction. The notion of babies birthed from artificial wombs is old, dating back to long before the first so-called test-tube baby. Notable recent examples of this motif in fiction include C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen series. As always, some focus on the technology as a convenient plot device (I'll mention in passing George Lucas and his "clone wars") whereas others, such as Cherryh, are interested in the more challenging problem of the technology's social implications.
Once such technologies are perfected, or at least made as reliable as modern computers (he said, shuddering at the implications), we'll see problems ranging from the merely interesting to the horrific. Something that combines both is the ability to identify a baby's sex in utero. Innocent stuff if all you're interested in is whether to paint the nursery blue or pink, but considerably nastier when this becomes a way to facilitate the abortion of female babies, which remains common in China under the current one-child policy. One of the significant social problems the Chinese are already facing is the increasingly serious imbalance between the numbers of men and women; many men already cannot find a wife, and the problem will only grow more severe. (Of course, other options are ruled out by official fiat, since homosexuality officially does not exist in China.)
Other extreme possibilities include outright re-engineering of babies to improve them in some way (smarter, more attractive, healthier etc.). Needless to say, given the complexity of genetics and our seemingly inevitable temptation to commercialize dangerous technology before science or society are ready to do so, we can expect genetic engineering disasters. We don't yet have a lot of experience mucking about with really complex genomes, and many scientists want to jump ahead now rather than waiting for the science to catch up to their dreams. Fortunately, they're still in the minority.
Reproduction and related choices have been a highly contentious social issue for just about as long as there have been humans, since in the end, reproduction boils down to who controls a woman's right to have or not have a child. This is why easy access to contraception, whether in the form of condoms or more technologically advanced options such as the birth control pill and implants, was such a socially disruptive thing (mostly in a good way). So let's ask a difficult question: Will reproductive high technology put an end to reproductive slavery by making women unnecessary for the production of babies, or will it merely create different problems? Although the technology might be intensely liberating for those (e.g., business women who do not want to impede their career by bearing a child), the flip side is the horror of seeing this approach implemented by the Taliban or by other repressive regimes.
Geoff Ryman introduced the deliberately disturbingly named concept of "genocide by breeding", in which members of a minority are forced, whether by coersion or by practical considerations such as a lack of alternatives, to marry members of the majority ethnic group, thereby disappearing as a distinct group after several generations. The genetics of such a situation are by no means simple, but it's an interesting problem to ponder: one of the wonderful things about modern civilization is just how ethnically diverse it is compared with historical periods. Though it's utopian to imagine a society in which all races are equals, and marry and produce children freely, a certain amount of homogenization would result, and that would be a sad loss. (Not sufficiently sad to forbid anyone to make babies with someone from a different ethnic group, of course.)
We wouldn't all become a uniform shade of tan—that's not how genetics works—but the overall phenotype would eventually trend towards homogeneity, just as long-term intermarriage has tended to make Europeans resemble each other more than they resemble Chinese, who resemble each other more than they resemble sub-Saharan Africans. With a sufficiently diverse gene pool, however, you would expect occasional reinforcement, leading to "pure" White, Black, Chinese, or other phenotypes. Would such children encounter severe prejudice because of their departure from the norm? Would parents hire genetic counsellors and resort to in vitro fertilization using carefully selected gametes to ensure their children didn't turn out "different"? Would reproduction become more egalitarian between men and women, or less? Would all economic classes have equal access, under a system such as Canadian health care, or would the rich have preferential access, as under the American health care system?
I suspect there'd be a mixed response to all of these questions, and that raises some interesting possibilities for fiction. For example, I can imagine a situation in which those who refuse to adopt genetic engineering for their children, whether from prudent caution or ethical (including religious) objections, would serve as a reservoir of healthy genes and gametes. I can imagine this being imposed on the powerless members of society by the powerful, as a kind of security policy. Would those who are left behind be willing to share that resource with those who leap ahead without fully considering the implications and ran into problems? Would they have any choice?
Needless to say, as soon as you start discussing the issue of reproduction, sex rears its (ugly? comely?) head. Candas Jane Dorsey has written and talked extensively about transexual and intersex characters to explore issues that are even more challenging than the issues of hetero-, homo-, and bisexuality. In an example of how complex this can become, she described a couple she knows in which the man became a male-to-female transexual and the woman became a female-to-male transexual. (For the sake of simplicity, I used the terms "man" and "woman" in their conventional "this is what the person looked like originally" sense.) They want to have children together, and even more interestingly, both consider themselves to be heterosexual. This serves as a reminder that overt sexual differences (i.e., chromosomal patterns) are only the starting point for the development of sexual and gender identity, and are not "destiny".
Dorsey noted that gender issues must be discussed for the same reason we must discuss race in our fiction: so that people aren't blind to the "other" possibilities that exist for the human condition. As is often the case when we invoke technology, we find that technology is the easy part of the equation; the human part is always more difficult and challenging. Science fiction writers too often forget this.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-18 12:39 am (UTC)Genocide?
Date: 2010-05-18 12:43 pm (UTC)* note that I'm remembering this at a distance; it may not have been him if my note-taking was suffering from 5 days of convention brain syndrome.
I believe he deliberately chose the word "genocide" not to cheapen the notion of genocide as a result of physical murder, but to rather to add weight to the notion of making a people extinct by other means. It has deep resonance to me, because that's precisely what the British tried here in Quebec with the French, post-conquest: they specifically set out to eradicate the French as a "race" and culture by "diluting" them in endless waves of British immigrants*. They failed, but not from want of nasty intent.
* Can't recall who taught me this, but it was a Quebec historian from a local university, about 15 years ago. I may still have my original notes on his presentation buried somewhere in a dusty box of old paperwork.
Seen from that perspective, it's a chilling concept, and Ryman achieved his goal in choosing that word. To me, he in no way diminished the word "genocide"; on the contrary, he made me think with horror of something I'd never before considered.
Re: Genocide?
Date: 2010-05-18 02:26 pm (UTC)Re: Genocide?
Date: 2010-05-18 02:34 pm (UTC)