So, two years after writing what has been far and away one of the most popular things I’ve written on this blog, my review of “The Women Men Don’t See” by James Tiptree, Jr., I’ve finally collated what bothered me so much about race in the story. It starts off by getting the reader to overcome the mighty whitey cluelessness of the unreliable narrator on both race and gender angles. Tiptree brilliantly intervenes in misogyny from every angle you can take it, but the intervention in racism really falls flat by the end. It’s probably worth your while to go back and read that review before you continue on, but you should definitely do yourself a favour and read the story. It’s my favourite short story in all the world.
Initially, Fenton imagines the human bodies of his companions as play figures acting out his understanding of the relationship between white women and non-white men. Understanding the pilot, Estéban, as a noble savage, Fenton scoffs at the ‘handsome combination’ of features that constitute Estéban’s ‘classic Maya profile’. This marks an anxious attempt on Fenton’s part to classify Estéban as a sexualised and animalised other who will claim the white women.
What’s telling is that Fenton describes the white women he thinks Estéban will appeal to as ‘neutral-coloured’. When the story begins, before we’ve even met Estéban, in fact, Fenton describes the women as a ‘blur,’ ‘nothing,’ ‘zero’. The temptation is to read this as a comment on the invisibility of women. After all, that’s what the story is about. But I also read it as being about the invisibility of whiteness: whiteness is constructed as neutral, not something to be noticed, a non-quality.
Crucially, Fenton constructs whiteness as something threatened by Estéban’s racial otherness. Estéban’s background does not cause Fenton to imagine ‘Estéban’s mahogany arms clasping Miss Althea Parsons’s pearly body,’ as much as Fenton would like to think he’s a collected and accurate thinker. Fenton fails to realise that the threat is not inherent in Estéban’s background, but in Fenton’s own internalised schema of non-white animality. That racially-coded terms like “pearly” and “mahogany” are set up in opposition really speaks to this, I think.
All right. So far, so good, Tiptree. Fenton and Althea have a cosy little chat about how Mayans are a ‘very fine type’ of people. It becomes evident that Fenton was actually correct in one suspicion:
Just as I am about to suggest that Mrs. Parsons might care to share my rain shelter, she remarks serenely, “The Mayas seem to be a very fine type of people. I believe you said so to Althea.”
The implications fall on me with the rain. Type. As in breeding, bloodline, sire. Am I supposed to have certified Estéban not only as a stud but as a genetic donor?
“Ruth, are you telling me you’re prepared to accept a half-Indian grandchild?”
“Why, Don, that’s up to Althea, you know.”
Looking at the mother, I guess it is. Oh, for mahogany gonads.
It seems Fenton’s not the only one with the creepy, creepy racism.
The thing is, the set up’s great. We were in a real position there to swoop in and have Don’s racist assumptions turned around, just as are brilliantly turned around the ones that the women are shy, or nothing, or need saving. The point of the story is that Don doesn’t see any of these things about the women until it’s too late, and that the world doesn’t see women for what they really are. The point is that they’re as alien to Fenton as the aliens who they leave with at the story’s end. Except, these women are aligned with Fenton in a vital way: their whiteness, their privilege, their racism. They can all bond over the idea of the supposed sexual and racial qualities of their pilot. And it’s the white women who get a chance to speak and escape for the stars. Estéban’s still silently stuck in a swamp with a guy who sees him as animalistic.
In the end, the sexualisation and animalisation of the non-white character is what allows the white women to take what they want from Earth men – a child – and leave oppression behind. Their freedom is obtained by perpetuating the oppression of another. I love this story, I really do. It’s the one that made me a feminist. But I really can’t stand that ‘woman’ and ‘non-white’ are utterly separated categories, and that the latter has to suffer for the former’s benefit.
Oooooh, I think you hit it! Perfect. I just now read all three, so I’m coming to this with entirely fresh eyes, and I think that’s precisely it.
Wait, a child? I don’t think I saw any sign that a procreation has happened.. or is it because my language limitation?
There’s a strong implication that Althea tried to get pregnant, and Don thinks she succeeded.
I’m white, so I may be clueless.
I find Fenton’s sexualised racism towards Estéban dominates the writing so much it’s really hard for me to have any idea what the Parsons think of him (E). In fact, I consider it possible most of the pregnancy scenario is happening in Fenton’s fevered imagination – Ruth does not actually address what is happening right now, but rather makes a generic statement that she will be supportive of Althea regardless of who fathers her child.
This may be because it’s Fenton who strikes me (and therefore, I assume, Ruth and Althea) as the potential rapist – Fenton assumes Estéban is at least as interested in sex and/or “taking advantage” of the women as he is himself, which is a very racist attitude to a man from a non-Western culture.
I see clues the women have made a different judgement – Althea: “People seem different in Yucatán,” she says thoughtfully. “Not like the Indians around Mexico City. More, I don’t know, independent.” “Independent” must mean “independent of Western/American culture” and perhaps (I’m optimistic) “independent of patriarchy”. Also Ruth: “The Mayas seem to be a very fine type of people. I believe you said so to Althea.” Note she doesn’t say she based her opinion on what Fenton said, but she lets him imagine that, and he does.
I think it’s just that so much of the rest of the story has consisted of Fenton being wrong (and mansplaining) that by that point I don’t trust him to get the right end of the stick about this either and there are very few facts to go on about Althea perhaps being interested in sex with Estéban (and really nothing about Estéban’s interest in Althea – and I trust her not to push herself on someone unwilling).
I am pretty certain the Parsons have decided on a Mayan father for Althea’s child, which, yeah, that seems racist to me. On the other hand, the Parsons (gosh, what an ironic surname!) seem to be part of a whole parallel Amazonian culture which we really don’t learn much about – what countries and cultures do they embed themselves in?
That’s a perfectly sense-making interpretation. Also, please tell me more about this surname irony!
Surname irony: firstly, parsons were until recently all male, and they’re certainly associated with a rather patriarchial religion, which seems ironic as the surname of a matriarchial lineage.
Secondly, because of my Scandinavian heritage (I may be white, but I do try to retain some non-”generic” ethnicity) I notice “-son” surnames (although Parsons isn’t one, the way “Peterson” or “Williamson” are) – it’s not that long ago my female ancestors would have been “Petersdaughter” or “Williamsdaughter”, and indeed, this system has been kept in Iceland. As I said, “Parsons” isn’t of this kind, but once I’d typed it out enough times the “-sons” started screaming at me.
Thinking further, I imagine what Tiptree really had in mind is that “Parsons” is a variant of “persons”. I.e. Ruth and Althea are persons in their own right – although no-one really notices, with the assumption that Ruth is “Mrs Parsons”.
Another thing I just noticed in TWMDS: right at the end, Ruth and Don are giving conflicting instructions (orders?) to Estéban, and he does everything Ruth asks him to, not Don. Don says about this He gives me one slit-eyed glance over his shoulder, and I recognize his total uninvolvement. But there’s nothing uninvolved about Estéban’s actions, he’s committed himself to the white women vs the white man. And later, “Friends, or something,” I tell him lamely. “She seemed to want to go with them.”
He is pointedly silent, hauling me back to the plane. sounds to me like Estéban rolling his eyes at the white-mansplaining, that Don is the person who knows the least about what’s going on here.
Thanks for all that detail!
I go back and forth on thinking of the silence as more strong silent savage racial stereotyping and Estéban having internal personal experiences that the white characters (and maybe the white author!) “don’t see”.
Also, I wonder about Ruth’s friend, and what her role precisely has been in the Parsons’ lives. And if there might be non-white participants in the possible parallel Amazonian culture…!
I’ve always assumed the strong silent savage stereotype is the result of thousands of PoC rolling their eyes at whitesplaining and deciding that it would be politic not to say anything.
Pingback: Two kinds of whiteness: reimagining white people in fantasy and science fiction « Zero at the Bone