Date: Mon, 03 Feb 2003 16:43:02 -0600
Subject: Re: (urth) DOORS: men and goddess
From: Adam Stephanides 

on 1/31/03 2:31 AM, Roy C. Lackey at rclackey@stic.net wrote:

> You would think so, but if you look back at the total of Otherworld
> individuals noted by Green you'll find that the majority are males.
> (Red-faced man on street, clerk in doll hospital, mounted policeman, men in
> mental ward, Sheng, Pille, conspirators, W.F., boxers, cop and firemen after
> explosion, hotel clerk and bellboy, Mama's sons, Klamm's bodyguards, prop
> man at theater, both taxi drivers, etc. And most of the females Green noted
> were in traditional female jobs--nurses, waitresses, clerks, hairdresser. I
> don't know what this means for Otherworld society, but there it is.

It's odd, but there are some considerations which make it more plausible.
For one thing, for every dead father there's a woman who is a mother, and
probably a mother with one or more young children.  So a lot of women are
presumably at home with their children.  For another, Fanny tells Green:
"Nature ... gave you men more strenth than most women, and what's much more
important, more drive, more ambition." (151)  I imagine Wolfe would agree
with this sentiment.  And then the bits of Otherworld we see through Green's
eyes are hardly representative of Otherworld society as a whole: a
psychiatric ward, a boxing arena, a theater where subversive plays are
performed, and various marginal enterprises.  (As I remarked before, we
hardly see any children, though there must be loads of them.)

I suspect that Wolfe's own attitudes towards women also have something to do
with their relative absence.

--Adam


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