Last month the news broke that the powers behind the new Dune film (coming to theaters, they say, in November 2020) were also planning a television series focusing on the Bene Gesserit. Title: Dune: The Sisterhood.
Which is fine and wonderful and grand… except:
As Tor.com’s ace media reporter Emmet Asher-Perrin observed,
This is a series about the most powerful women within the Dune universe… and the only woman involved in production so far appears to be author Frank Herbert’s granddaughter, Kim Herbert, who is representing Herbert’s estate alongside her father and cousin. Villeneuve is developing the show, and the sole writer attached is a man.
Asher-Perrin goes on to say,
Announcing projects like these with no female creatives attached never inspires a great deal of confidence. It’s 2019; we shouldn’t have to have the conversation anymore.
Indeed we should not. And yet here we are.
When I posted on Twitter about Asher-Perrin’s article and added my own observations, lots of people agreed. Inevitably, however, multiple men doggedly had to Explain To The Female On The Internet that Dune (the book) was written by a man.
So it was. And yet word on the fandom street is that Herbert’s second wife Beverly, who had given up her own writing career in order to support her husband (not by any means an uncommon situation), was not only his editor/proofreader and sounding board but also an uncredited collaborator. Furthermore, that the Bene Gesserit may have been her creation, and she in fact co-wrote Chapterhouse: Dune. There’s no way to be sure how much she contributed to the works published under her husband’s name, but that Beverly Herbert did contribute is highly likely.
It’s also totally irrelevant to the point that’s so objectionable, here: that in 2019, a television series titled “The Sisterhood” should have zero input from women writers. Why is that a problem? Why is it not a good thing for a show about women to be exclusively written and conceived by men?
Because, as I said on Twitter, a team that doesn’t think to include women writers is extremely likely not to realize what they don’t know about the lives, minds, and emotions of women. They don’t know what they don’t know. They won’t understand about the world women live in, how it’s defined by patriarchy, the compromises, the accommodations, the sacrifices. It’s not in their world view.
Look at how Hollywood portrays women in show after show, film after film. Doctors and lawyers in tight, revealing clothes while the men around them wear more loosely fitted outfits. Action heroines in low-cut necklines and tank tops when the men are in long-sleeved shirts and heavy coats. Police detectives presenting themselves for daily duty with long, loose hair, skimpy skirts, and spike heels, working beside men in plain and practical suits or jeans and running shoes.
The men are there to work. The women are there to titillate the male audience. It’s called the male gaze, and it pervades our culture.
In show after show, film after film, women exist in isolation. No female friends. One woman, gang of guys. If there is more than one woman, they’re often rivals for one of the guys. (See: Bechdel Test.) If they’re leads, they’re of prime breeding age, and course they’re highly attractive. Women over the age of forty are relegated to minor roles. Mom. Grandma. Murder victim.
Even when the show purports to offer Strong Female Role Models, they’re all too often defined by the men around them. That show that just ended, for example. It started off with multiple rapes and brutalizations of women. The ones who survived ended up in charge, for a time. But by the series finale, one had gone insane and turned into a mass murderer who had to be stabbed to death by her male lover, one had “transcended” gender and sailed off into the sunset, and the most interestingly evil character had turned into a blubbering, clinging wreck and had a rock dropped on her.
Of course one of these women did get to be Queen in the North, and one got to be Commander of the Kingsguard. But the Queen had no female friends, colleagues or advisors: they were all dead or departed. The woman knight became the sole female member of the Small Council, and in the only personal moment we see, she’s all about making sure her male lover gets his due in the annals of the Kingsguard. It’s a man’s world, and each of these characters is an isolated exception to the general lot of women in that world.
That’s what all-male writing teams tend to do when they write women. They make sure those women keep their place. Women are maidens to be either protected or brutalized, mothers to be either set on a pedestal or fridged or both, or whores to be used and abused. As characters, they are all, ultimately, defined by their relations to men.
The idea that women can exist apart from men, that they can have lives and thoughts and preoccupations that do not center on men, is not only difficult to conceive of from within a patriarchal culture—it’s threatening. It strikes right to the heart of male hegemony.
And that’s exactly why an all-male writing team is the last thing I want to see on a show about an order of powerful women whose primary mission is to control and ultimately overturn the patriarchy. A writing team that hasn’t even thought to include women behind the scenes in a show about women is all too likely to make the Bene Gesserit about men—focused on them, defined by them—when in fact, for the Bene Gesserit, men have little importance or relevance except insofar as the sisterhood manipulates them for the purposes of the order.
The Kwisatz Haderach is not about male supremacy. He’s about smashing it to smithereens.
And no, I don’t think an all-woman writing team would give us the Bene Gesserit in their full, terrible, patriarchy-shattering glory. That show would upset too many heavily entrenched applecarts and make far too many viewers uncomfortable. Hollywood at its beady little heart is all about ratings, and ratings mean catering to patriarchal assumptions.
Still. With women writers taking an active role on the team, we’re likely to get at least some sense of how women are when they’re with each other, apart from men, in an environment in which men are just not relevant. Maybe some comprehension of female friendship, women who genuinely like each other (who knew?), who get along, who work together for common goals. Who don’t drop everything to glom on to a man. Who can be strong in a way that has nothing to do with toxic masculinity, who can age without turning evil or invisible, who live lives of their own, have thoughts of their own, and aren’t constantly judging themselves by the standards of the default-male.
I don’t hold out hope for a less forced-binary future, or one that doesn’t privilege heterosexual romance—that’s not in the source material. But respect for who women are as women, rather than as male fantasies of Woman, would be a nice thing.
I might be totally wrong about this show. It could be hiring women writers even as I speak, and developing stories that respect and accurately portray the lives and experiences of women. It could happen. It’s happening with, of all things, the James Bond franchise—which has hired a woman writer, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, to clean up the script for its latest film, and has reportedly cast Lashana Lynch, a Black woman, as the new 007.
Could it happen to “The Sisterhood,” too? I suppose we can dream.
Judith Tarr’s first novel, The Isle of Glass, appeared in 1985. Her most recent novel, Dragons in the Earth, a contemporary fantasy set in Arizona, was published by Book View Café. In between, she’s written historicals and historical fantasies and epic fantasies and space operas, some of which have been published as ebooks from Book View Café. She has won the Crawford Award, and been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award and the Locus Award. She lives in Arizona with an assortment of cats, a blue-eyed dog, and a herd of Lipizzan horses.
As someone who has been and still.is reading the DUNE UNIVERSE , I could not agree more. The Sisterhood HAS TO HAVE a woman’s perspective. Women share so many unspoken secrets among ourselves….a male writer could not begin to understand. The subtleties, rivalries and comradeship are in a constant flux. It is at their own peril, these producers ignore this idea.
sounds like a great idea![.](//s04.flagcounter.com/mini/Jkzv/bg_FFFFFF/txt_DEDEDE/border_FFFFFF/flags_0/" width="1"/>)
Great article, but I feel like the bene gesserit are a much more problematic order for female liberation than you’re presenting them here, or maybe that Dune is so deeply entrenched in patriarchy that the bene gesserit take on a lot of that, and that a representation of them as described here would probably not be entirely faithful to the books.
An order of female sorceresses, who might as be pretty badass martial warriors if I remember that correctly, breeding a male saviour? The whole thing about female and male memories, and something about the male ones being too… powerful or something, for a female to unlock them safely? The most prominent bene gesserit character betraying her orders plan for revolution because she wants to give her husband a son?
I’m not a dune expert, and I’m thumbing this from work. I don’t want to be fractious for no reason, but I just think that the bene gesserit are being mischaracterized as a bit more liberal than my reading of them in the books.
The BG are the most anti feminist organization imaginable. Members are forced to sleep with disgusting men and bear children they don’t want in the name of an ideal that long ago gave way to simple lust for power. I hope the series won’t whitewash that.
Control the patriarchy, certainly. Destroy it? I’m not so sure. The BG seem very comfortable manipulating the current power structure.
As a huge Dune fan, and a male, I just have to say that everyone (but, especially men) need to admit when we truly are ignorant of a topic so we do not barricade off our ability to learn from our experiences. I believe the lesson of building all experiences from the ground up instead of the top down it is an integral part of what Beverly and Frank Herbert wanted to convey with the Dune series. Thusly, for there to be only one male writer (and no female writers) seems like a good way trap the Bene Gesserit TV series into the very tropes that Beverly and Frank were trying to stave off in the first place. I won’t enjoy the TV series if they don’t address this serious mistake, and I think they will alienate a huge portion of potential fans.
100% agree. It’s frustrating to see that this continues to be an issue, and sadly this suggests the new TV series will probably be a flop. Which is disappointing and disheartening.
Thanks for this, Judith. I completely agree.
Agreed. But dune was all about male oligarchy. The witches commanded power. Tilaxue spawning vats? Roman euro trash ruling with drugs and oppression, imo. Color coded Catholic bibles. Nuff said. Loved your article and agree. All sides needed for interpretation. That’s the definition of a great book.
Everyone citing the books: Interpretations can vary. Widely.
And that’s another reason why the show needs women (plural) on the writing team. As well as POC.
As both a life long Dune fan, and a man, I absolutely agree that women writers must be involved. It’s so obvious that it challenges logic to think otherwise. Furthermore, the BG were one of the things that opened my eyes to women-specific challenges and enlightened me to feminism. I hope other male fans experienced such a realization. Jesica’s monologue at the very end of the novel is a great example of a perspective I could never reach on my own. I can easily see that instance, and many others, highly likely to have come from Beverly Herbert. Thus, I as a fan would enjoy more insight into women perspectives channeled through the BG. After all, by Chapterhouse, it’s clear they are at the heart of the saga.
I have always had a problem with the premise that a man cannot write a female character, or that a white person cannot write a non-white character or that a straight person cannot write a gay character because if it is true then a woman cannot write a male character, etc. I feel the same about the argument that a gay actor has to play a gay character; does that mean that gay actors cannot play straight characters (don’t tell that to history’s many closeted gay actors!)?
I also agree with the other commenters that the Bene Gesserit are hardly feminist role models. They prostituted themselves for DNA, they sought out male rulers they could influence and the head of their order betrays Paul Atreides, leading to the God Emperor who in turn starts humanity down the Golden Path that in turn leads to the Honored Matres, who enslave men with sex. I’m just a man but I don’t see how anything in the Dune universe is feminist.
It can be convincingly argued that the BG are the ultimate collaborators–members of an oppressed group who go all the way in their support of the oppressors. It would be far from the first time that’s happened. But it’s also all the more reason women are needed on the creative team. In heavily oppressive societies, the oppressed develop their own sub-society, their own codes and ways of coping, even their own language–most or all of which will happen far beneath the notice of the oppressors.
There is so much that could be done here, that won’t be because Hollywood, but women writers can make small inroads that male writers might not even know are needed. Or possible.
When I saw that Villeneuve was attached to the new Dune I groaned. His Blade Runner sequel would have been better if it had been trimmed at least a half-hour, particularly cutting the unnecessary nudity and violence to women. From what I’ve read of his other films, I’ll pass, and stick with the Lynch version, which is it’s own thing with it’s own problems.
Sidenote; I think it’s been discussed here about Kwisatz Haderach coming from the kabbalistic idea of K’fitzat haDerech—Jumping the path. I don’t think it’s been mentioned, but it seems to me that Bene Gesserit is a form of B’nei Gishrit—Children of the Bridge (also gesher), likely relating to crossing over from one path to another, not a concept in kabbalah as far as I know. I don’t know if Herbert knew any Hebrew outside of a dictionary, but I can see how not knowing how to read it properly could lead to the words being slightly corrupted, though it could also be intentional to imply linguistic change over time.
I am sorry but blindly throwing women into the creative process isn’t the answer. Ghostbusters all women reboot and ocean’s whatever were utter flops. This is just affirmative action in a different cute outfit that needs to be put away soon.
I don’t see that the female experience is so mysterious and ineffable that male writers cannot understand and represent them. (Unskilled writers of any sex are another matter – and the show GoT is well known for displaying its writers’… shall we say, limitations?)
My favorite authors and creators manage somehow to write characters intelligently and convincingly, regardless of those characters’ sex, gender, and cultural background. I don’t see why female writers are necessary to get well-written female characters.
Oh, I’m pretty sure this project will be dire. But it won’t be because its writers have their sexual organs on the outside.
@13 That’s an interesting linguistic speculation. I’d always read Bene Gesserit as Latin, something along the lines of “She will have done/worked/waged/wielded well”–my medievalist academic background is showing there. Though it also has a ping of Arabic. Anybody know Herbert’s original inspiration for the name?
@15 Thank you for your excellent and eloquent illustration of my point.
Just don’t lose track of the the fact that the BG are oppressors and abusers of women as well as users of men.
@17
agree. @14 is a pretty nice demonstration of Lewis’ Law, too.
I’m not so sure an all-male team of writers would be able to delve into the sophistication of a female organization in THIS time and place, let alone extrapolate it into another society.
@15 And all male writing teams have convincingly shown this already, haven’t they?
I agree wholeheartedly with your main point, which is why I think it’s a shame that you bring in unrelated nonsense to attempt to bolster it.
No, that is not the “word on the fandom street”. That is the unfounded speculation of one person, based on no information whatsoever, and with all the evidence indicating otherwise. (And incidentally, Beverly was Herbert’s second wife.)
That is not even alleged anywhere. Brian Herbert has said that he thinks his father used aspects of her personality as inspiration for the Bene Gesserit, and Frank Herbert credited her with coming up with the title for Chapterhouse: Dune (which you mangle).
That’s a nice dedication by Brian Herbert. He describes his mother’s contribution to Frank Herbert’s writing in more detail in the biography Dreamer of Dune (when Dune was written he was around 15–16 and lived at home):
This sounds like she was indeed an important sounding board, and offered useful suggestions. It does not suggest she was an uncredited co-author.
@12: That IS one of the main themes of the original novel, after all. The willow submits to the wind, prospers, and becomes a windbreak. The oppression of the Fremen ultimately makes them superior. The apparent destruction of House Atreides is precisely what allows it to build a powerbase and overthrow its enemies. Hell, even the disregarded lesser operatives of the BG have powers that make them superhuman! The Reverend Mothers are utterly terrifying. But they have the self-restraint and wisdom enough not to use their powers openly. (As for what happens to anyone, male or female, that uses raw power to reach their ends, the rest of the novels make crystal clear, in case we didn’t notice from the first.)
The point that so many don’t grasp is that the BG became the dominant force behind the political world of the Dune universe precisely because they were willing to give up status and the appearance of power for the substance. People are mostly interested in playing status games and exercising power in petty ways can’t receive that message.
@21 Thank you for your factual corrections. Have fixed the text accordingly.
Your passion for the material is evident.
Perhaps some of the backlash against the eminently reasonable suggestion at the heart of these two articles could have been forestalled* by pointing out a subtle pragmatic aspect: even if one accepts that men can write good female characters and women crappy ones, there’s a very good chance that the experiences of any women in the writer’s room, both in their professional and personal lives, may allow them to spot and correct problematic tropes regarding female characters more quickly than the average contemporary male writer—which would be of huge benefit given the tight timelines that are the norm for writing TV scripts. That will hold equally true whether the show tries to portray the BG as True Heroes of the Imperium or examine them as anti-feminist ultra-collaborators.
* Haha! Of course I jest. :-)
@23.
Uh, I suppose it’s nice that you fixed the trivial mistakes, thanks, but the more substantial, factually incorrect claims are still there: “Furthermore, that the Bene Gesserit may have been her creation, and she in fact co-wrote Chapterhouse: Dune.”
As you say, I have a passion for the material, and to my knowledge not only is there no basis whatsoever for these speculations, I have never even seen them proposed. (They’re not discussed in the reddit thread you link.) The latter is provably falsBev Herbert was in the end-stage of terminal cancer when Chapterhouse: Dune was being written, and the testimony in Dreamer of Dune makes it clear she did not co-write the book and was in no condition to do so. (Their daughter-in-law, Jan, came to visit them in Hawaii to help Frank care for her and free him up to write so he could hit his deadlines.)
In any case, getting women in the writers’ room for a show like this should be a no-brainer in this day and age, and hopefully it’s just that it’s still so early in the process that they haven’t hired anybody yet.
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@26 There is a long, long, long history of unacknowledged female spousal collaboration in the literary canon. Even Herbert, A MAN (as was repeatedly Explained On Twitter To The Lady Person On The Internet), from the evidence of his own words and writings, had at least some degree of non-male-presenting input. Something notably lacking from the initial announcement of the television show.
I respect your input and would appreciate respect in return.
@24: I think the backlash might have been avoided if it had been suggested that having women writers is potentially useful and desirable, rather than necessary.
I still cannot say that I’m looking forward to these adaptations and spin-offs in any way. But there’s always the hope of being pleasantly surprised.
@29 Proving my point, there.
Hah! Not “hah! to the idea of women writers, but “hah!” to the idea that the BG are all that noble and egalitarian. They are eugenicists who manipulate men (men they put in and keep in power) through sex and assassination. They prostitute their initiates from a ridiculously young age to men of wealth into often incestuous relationships in the pursuit of a genetic Superman to be their savior!
My gods you could not find a more horrid exemplar for women’s liberation than these female slavers and pimps.
@@@@@ 29
disagree that a woman stating an opinion would have met a warmer reception if she had been sufficiently tentative and deferential.
I would like to be pleasantly surprised, too, but parts of this thread fulfil my lowest expectations.
@10 – a semi-orchestrated campaign against the most recent Ghostbusters film was the main contribution to its being a “flop”, not the writing. A couple of the jokes didn’t work for me at all, but in the main the movie was fine. It was certainly better than Ghostbusters II, which critics are strangely silent about.
Re Dune, I think the misogynist tone of the series as a whole makes it not really retrievable no matter the gender of the writers. The religious stuff didn’t sit well with me. It didn’t help that not one of the characters appealed to me either (particularly Paul, with his arrogance).
Of course, the show is likely to take the whole premise and change it significantly, a la GoT. I just wish in that instance they’d just start with a new plot and characters in that universe, because I think Herbert’s concept of hydraulic despotism is worth exploring.
As I said above, “hopefully it’s just that it’s still so early in the process that they haven’t hired anybody yet.” That turns out to have been correct:
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An earlier version of this comment appears to have been rejected, so let me try again:
@28:
I am disappointed to see that you have opted to leave several statements in the article even after it has been pointed out that they are incorrect or highly misleading:
1. “word on the fandom street is that Herbert’s second wife Beverly [was] an uncredited collaborator [on the Dune series]” — The reddit thread linked does not support or even allege that. One poster asks what Bev’s contributions were, and after being given an answer replies “It’s always safe to assume that women’s contributions to art will Always be downplayed”, and raises “outright production of the texts” as a possibility. Clearly this is just one person’s idle speculation, based on no specific information or evidence whatsoever. Presenting it as the view of the Dune fandom or hinting that it’s some insider knowledge is incorrect.
2. “the Bene Gesserit may have been her creation” — Again, this is not supported by any of the sources cited (or any other sources I am aware of). It appears to be a misreading of the linked dedication by Brian Herbert for The Road to Dune: “Frank Herbert modeled Lady Jessica Atreides after Beverly Herbert, as well as many aspects of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood.” In his family biography Dreamer of Dune he explains that Frank called Bev his “white witch” because he considered her slightly psychic, with an uncanny ability to locate lost things, win at cards and see things before they happened. Brian speculates that this served as an inspiration for the Bene Gesserit. Other inspirations mentioned include Frank’s many Catholic aunts.
3. “and she in fact co-wrote Chapterhouse: Dune” — This is a rather spectacular and also entirely novel claim, unsupported by any sources and previously unheard of as a rumor. Once again, it seems to be a misreading of something mentioned in one of the links – that Frank gave her credit for coming up with the title of the novel. Specifically, in the afterword he writes: “Here is another book dedicated to Bev, friend, wife, dependable helper and the person who gave this one its title.” Dreamer of Dune makes it clear that she did not coauthor, and indeed given her state of health could hardly have coauthored the book.
If you decide to believe that Bev Herbert made greater contributions to the Dune series than testimony and documentation suggests, you are of course free to do so. (Though by the same logic, couldn’t someone simply respond that we should assume Spaiht’s wife, Johanna Watts, is an uncredited coauthor of the series — after all, she does have one screenwriting credit on IMDB — rendering the discussion moot?) However, I do not think it is appropriate to present that belief as anything other than the author’s personal conviction.
I therefore feel the article should be edited to correct or remove these claims.
I came across a pulp SF story a bit ago where a drought played a part in the back story (the reason a tribe was migrating to new territory). It wasn’t a big part of the story, but I wasn’t surprised to find out the author was from England and had never experienced the kind of droughts the American west sometimes faces. It wasn’t that his story was wrong, as far as it went. It was just missing the way a drought can effect your entire world, not just one piece of it.
I’ve been on a forum discussing a story where none of the guys understood why two girls became mortal enemies but all of the women commenting thought it made perfect sense. That’s what we’re worried about. Like a drought, there are small things you get from experiences you’ve lived. People who haven’t been there might miss them entirely but people who have will know something’s wrong. It doesn’t mean people who haven’t lived it can’t get it right, but the possibility of an error margin goes up.
I don’t think it’s been mentioned, but it seems to me that Bene Gesserit is a form of B’nei Gishrit—Children of the Bridge (also gesher), likely relating to crossing over from one path to another, not a concept in kabbalah as far as I know.
Makes sense. Bene (also romanised Bani, Banu) is the Arabic plural of bin, a son, and it’s used as part of a lot of Arabic tribal/group names; the Banu Amir and various others, the Banu Israel (the Children of Israel, the Jews) or the Banu Adam (the sons of Adam, humanity).
And Herbert uses it also as a synonym for the Tleilaxu – they’re occasionally referred to as the Bene Tleilax. So I think looking at this as Arabic-or Hebrew based, rather than Latin-based makes sense. (Plus “Gesserit” is very far from the Latin for “serve” which is “servire”). Bridge in Arabic is jisr.
The only irritation is that it should be “Binti Gesserit” – “Daughters of the Bridge” – rather than “Bene” for an all-female group, but this may be Herbert just not knowing much Arabic.
Capriole @@@@@ 16
Late with a response.
Unfortunately I have no Latin, and my nowhere-near-fluent Hebrew (and Yiddish) is self taught, so I’ve no idea which is more likely to be right.
And obviously, Herbert was going for a Bedouin vibe with the Fremen, so there’s more of an Arabic flavor to the language he used. Thinking about it now, to my inexpert ear, KH and BG have an Aramaic sound to them; which may be intentional as it was the ‘language of Jesus’, and Paul was a Messianic figure, etc.
Also I remembered a mention of “The Battle of Corrin Bridge” iirc, as part of the Butlerian Jihad backstory, and wondering if that’s part of the BG’s origin? But I think that is from the prequels, most of which I haven’t bothered with.
Thinking about it now, to my inexpert ear, KH and BG have an Aramaic sound to them
You’ll be unsurprised to learn that “Kwisatz Haderach” is pretty much Hebrew: “Kefitzat Haderech”, “The Shortening of the Path”. It’s a term from kabbalah.
I have always had a problem with the premise that a man cannot write a female character, or that a white person cannot write a non-white character or that a straight person cannot write a gay character because if it is true then a woman cannot write a male character, etc.
There are still serious people arguing seriously today that Shakespeare must have been a woman because he wrote such good female characters. In this TED talk I will use similar evidence to show that Ursula Le Guin was really a man.
@44 Your comments are noted. Your framing of your statements as a demand and your expectation of deference is a nice illustration of the state of the playing field. I presented a rumor, qualified as such, and used it to make a point. Not moving my goalposts for you, no.
@46 and @47 Thank you. I’m always intrigued by the nuances of language.
@39 Awesome–that’s just what I had hoped for.
@32, Amen, Meliadus, amen!
@49 I have a twitter thread for that. It’s a coda to this one.
@53, @32 et al. I have thoughts about whether the source material is salvageable. Need food and caffeine (and to stop sticking to my keyboard–oh the humidity!) first, but will be back. Leaving this as a placeholder/reminder.
@46 Missed this in the pre-caffeine fog: As one tends to do when reading or responding to a text, I imposed my own biases on the word “gesserit.” My PhD is in the Western Middle Ages, specifically Medieval Latin and the Holy Roman Empire, and one of my two MA’s is in Latin and Greek. The root word I imposed was “gero.”
Of course you’re right, Herbert’s worldbuilding is based on Arabic, which I came to years after I read the first few Dune books. It’s good to have corroboration after all this time. You know how it is with languages. One wants to know. :)
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To come back to the “Is this universe salvageable?” question: One of the things Dune is about is the collapse of systems–political, ecological, sociocultural. You can read the Bene Gesserit as the worst kind of toxic collaborator, and to a large extent it is. But it’s also about subversion. Using and manipulating the system with the aim of controlling it.
With all the mechanisms the order has in place, there’s ample opportunity to use those mechanisms to break down the system. Apply the right levers, put the right people in the right places, and your virulently antifeminist cabal becomes the opposite. Look at what the Atreides family did to all the lovely grand plans. If one small handful of people can do it, why not another?
Is that likely to happen in a Hollywood-based show? Probably not. Hollywood, like any other mass medium, is about preserving cultural norms. But the worldbuilding itself? Justify it well enough, ground it solidly enough, and you can do very interesting things with a fundamentally problematical setup.
@46, @55 etc. regarding the etymology of “Bene Gesserit”:
There is a stock phrase from legal Latin, quamdiu se bene gesserit, usually rendered as “as long as he shall behave himself well” (but the Latin is gender-neutral), which basically means that an appointment is conditional on the person performing their duty. (In other words, they can be fired for cause.) In this particular context, bene gesserit then means “act/behave well”.
If “Bene Gesserit” does not derive from this or a similar Latin phrase, that would seem an amazing coincidence, particularly as the Sisterhood uses so many other Latin/Latinate terms and names (missionaria protectiva, panoplia propheticus, Gaius Helen Mohiam, proctor superior, canto and respondu, etc.). In fact, according to Dr. Willis E. McNelly, editor of the Dune Encyclopedia (in personal correspondence quoted on the alt.fan.dune newsgroup):
Personally I would link this meaning and the sense of duty it embodies with the Bene Gesserit saying that “We exist only to serve.” But that’s just my interpretation.
At the same time, I think Frank Herbert, like Count Fenring, “seldom held himself to a single meaning in a single phrase”. Many have argued — including Brian Herbert; I’ve never been able to find a definitive confirmation by Frank Herbert himself — that “Gesserit” is meant be reminiscent of “Jesuit”, one of the templates for the Sisterhood. (An elaboration of this argument further proposes that “Bene” is meant to suggest the Benedictine monastic order.)
In that context, I definitely find it plausible that Frank at some point thought about how the name could be reinterpreted in Arabic or Hebrew. He does this a couple of other times, too, with for example “Alia” having plausible roots both in Latin and Arabic. Certainly the “Bene Tleilax” introduced later on suggests that “Bene” is being used as a Semitic stem to mean something like “sons/daughters/people of”.
@50, @58:
If I seem to have “moved the goalposts” I apologize. I have been trying, to the best of my ability, to make the same point throughout this back-and-forth.
I am somewhat nonplussed about the characterization of this as a “demand” or “expecting deference”, since I thought I had been pretty careful to make clear that I was only giving my opinion about how the points I made could be addressed, and I was never under any delusion that I could impose this view against your will; only hope to persuade you by a convincing argument and appeals to hopefully shared ideals. My apologies; I shall endeavor to be even more careful about expressing any judgments from now on.
As to the substance of our disagreement:
It is my contention that no such rumor (particularly regarding Bev having come up with the Bene Gesserit or co-authored Chapterhouse: Dune) exists, or at least existed before this article, and that the statements are therefore factually incorrect, even when qualified as a rumor. I have presented my evidence and arguments. If I am mistaken and these claims have in fact circulated, I’d think it would be easy to demonstrate so, and I would appreciate the correction. (But, I hasten to add, if and how you choose to respond is entirely up to you.) If, on the other hand, my theory that they originate in this article as misreadings of the linked sources is correct, then you the author is presumably aware of the misunderstanding by now, and can choose how you wish to handle that.
Something I feel has gotten lost in the dispute is that one of the quotes I posted (from Dreamer of Dune) shows that Beverly did help Frank Herbert to create rich, deep and realistic female characters in at least some of his books:
And is that not the main point, whatever we conclude about the rest? That writing female characters benefits from insights from the lived experiences of women, that Dune was not written without a woman’s input, and neither should the TV series? (In a hands-on, paid and credited way.) I am happy to see that this will apparently be the case.
@63: Please note that the comment at #58 was not addressed to you; it was a general reminder, given the tone of various comments. Let’s move on.
61: huh. Thanks for that – I hadn’t come across that phrase but the derivation seems too obvious not to be true!
“Her comments primarily concerned plot when she thought he was getting too convoluted”
The mind boggles at the thought of what Dune must have been like before Bev Herbert had a look at it.
Dana Scalvo (creator of Good Girls Revolt) is apparently co-showrunner of Dune: The Sisterhood, and has posted a picture of some of the people working on the show. (Not sure whether they’re all part of the writers’ room or also include other contributors.)
Earlier on she also posted a picture of what seems to be some of reference books they’re using.
Keep to the novels and it’ll be fine.
In the novels the BG is a fascinatingly problematic organization that pretends to give women power but in fact uses them as seductress and brood mares. Will any TV show be willing to go there?
In breeding their saviour .
Leto controlled them for the next 3000years.
@13 The issue is NOT “men can’t/shouldn’t write female characters”. That’s a straw (wo)man fallacy.
The issue is that it’s a show literally called “The Sisterhood” about all-female organization. This is more than just “female characters”. Femaleness is a core aspect of the entire project.
Imagine that the creative team for Black Panther were all white (not just the producer & cinematographer). If you think such a movie would have turned out just as well as the real one, then we may be on the same planet, but we are not in the same world.
@69: But the organization actually HAS power. It controls the entire political scene of the Imperium. As Jessica notes, if she chose, Duke Leto would become her puppet – and might not even realize he wasn’t in control. The sole reason Leto calls any shots at all is that he and Jessica genuinely love each other. As it’s very strongly indicated that BG operatives aren’t supposed to fall in love with their targets, that means every other political marriage has the BGs entirely in control.
You seem to be suggesting that because individual women are subjugated to the organization of the Bene Gesserit, the BGs have no power. But that’s entirely what organizations are about – subordination to the goals of the collective. And that’s true whether we’re talking about twenty-thousand-year-old conspiracies or people talking over coffee and cake.
What would the Bene Gesserit need to be, in order for them not to be “problematic”?
@61
Well, there’s my pet theory shot down. I’d forgotten about the various other Latin terms used—it’s been nearly two decades since I reread the series. I still like my version, though.
Ajay @46: One last note, there’s a group of Indian Jews known as the Bene Israel. They translate it as ‘Sons of’, which is a literal translation of b’nei, but it’s often used for ‘children of’ if it’s a mixed gender group. ‘Daughters of’ would be b’not; my quick dictionary search almost failed me.
@77, some women at the top of the BG have power. The majority are used by same. No power for the broodmares, they just follow orders.
I don’t see how the BG can be anything but problematical given their human breeding program.
@79: The ‘broodmares’ have superhuman powers – particularly the Voice – and have a great deal of power over the people around them.
What you seem to be saying is that being in an organization is inherently ‘problematic’. So the only way the Bene Gesserit can be acceptable to your understanding of feminism is if they don’t exist?
Somehow I don’t think that position will be prominent among whoever gets the job of writing for the show.
They have super powers they must use according to the orders of their superiors. They have no power over who they sleep with or whose and how many children they bear. Belonging to an organization that gives you no choices in your life is inherently problematic.
@@@@@ 38, trixm:
I just wish in that instance they’d just start with a new plot and characters in that universe, because I think Herbert’s concept of hydraulic despotism is worth exploring.
It’s not Herbert’s concept. The idea of the hydraulic despotism was developed by Karl Wittfogel in a book called Oriental Despotism. It features cultures that depend of public irrigation works to permit the growth of lots of food to feed lots of people. Hydraulic despotisms make the most stable and long lasting empires. Egypt and China are starring examples.
Thank you. I agree wholeheartedly. And the long loose hair on female action characters drives me bananas. There is no way she wouldn’t want it off her neck and out of her face!
The different groups in Dune are not shown as being particularly moral or, when they are, as having the same kind or morality as our own society. The BG are loyal to the following:
1) The protection/betterment of humanity (for a relatively narrow definition of humanity) and preservation/betterment of worthy genetic lines.
2) The interests of the BG (protection of the group and the advancement of its goals).
3) Protection of individual BG and furthering of their interests.
4) Protection and sometimes education of non-BG individuals the BG see as worthy (people they judge “human” or those with genes the BG consider worth preserving).
It’s unclear who wins if humanity’s interests and the BG’s interests are in conflict. It is pretty clear that BG as a whole win out over individual BG and that individual BG win out over worthy but nonBG individuals (although an individual’s genes or potential political use might lead to decisions that blur this distinction, preserving the individuals in those case is seen as serving the BG’s long term interests).
Can this be cruel and brutal? Certainly. Is this a sellout of regular people the BG should be looking out for? Maybe–but the BG don’t see it that way. They don’t recognize any obligation to regular people and would disagree with ethical frameworks that say they do.
I’m not supporting that. I think Herbert meant for readers to question the moral views of all the groups in Dune. He clearly has the BG do a lot of things we’re supposed to think of as wrong, morally questionable, and even outright evil (though far from the worse evil in the story and not incapable of good).
By the way, @8, I don’t think they had color coded Bibles. Orange was the color associated with protestants in predominantly Catholic Ireland and is sometimes seen as representing anti-Catholic feelings. The appendices in Dune talk about efforts in that galaxy’s past to create a blending of major religions. The Orange Catholic Bible is likely a result of that.
@65. ajay: I tried to tell you about the derivation back in mid-June in the other thread.
Completely agree with this
Just seen the drama, Gentleman Jack. And the writing by … a woman. It was terrific. Sally Wainwright wrote it so well, and the story of Ann Lister and life and loves was so well acted and directed, ( by you’ve guessed it.. Sally Wainwright!). So yes, the Bene Gesserit is about powerful, exotic women, so get a powerful woman writer involved before they completely ruin a great story.
@81: “They have super powers they must use according to the orders of their superiors.”
Well, of course. That’s what being part of an organization is all about. How are they supposed to be members of an ancient, galaxy-spanning conspiracy if they’re all autonomous individuals who answer to no one? It’d be like a multinational corporation composed of nothing but CEOs.
For that matter, NO ONE in the Dune universe gets to do whatever they want. The Fremen are outside the rigid faufreluches class structure, but they have very strict customs and practices which make them “free men” only in comparison to the feudal system of the rest of human civilization. Nobody’s free in feudalism. Not men, not women. Not even the leaders, which is one of the points of Herbert’s novels – they’re often stuck riding the tiger to wherever it wants to go.
I only hope that whoever gets hired to write the stories for this project have a deep understanding of the universe it’s set in and are skilled at characterization and dialogue. If those things are incompatible with some flavor of ‘feminism’, so be it.
I agree with you entirely. The Dune-verse is a TERRIBLE place for everybody including, maybe especially, the rich and powerful. Hopefully the series will not ignore or paper over that fact.
@88. Oldman: Gentleman Jack was wonderful. My only small complaint was the overuse of the theme music when Anne went charging around. And she does charge, not walk. In a few episodes it was played LOUDLY. Same thing happened on some episodes of Succession (the overloud, too frequent playing of the credits theme music, I mean). Maybe it’s an HBO thing.
@89. melendwyr: “faufreluches” Forgot about that term. Feudalism in space.
From the early indication (and they are very early; both these articles complaining about representation on the staff seem premature now), they seem to be focusing on the mysticism of the BG. They’ve got comparative religions people like Reza Aslan involved. Future feminism may not be a direct focus, but again, early days.
@91 There is every reason in the world to point out the problems with all-male writers’ rooms. The fact that this one looks as if it’s going to be full of women and persons of color after all is amazing and encouraging and I’m really glad to see it. But there are still legions of projects that continue to perpetuate the male gaze. One or two exceptions are a nice thing–but experience teaches that, far more often than not, once those exceptions have been made, all the guys heave a sigh of relief and go right back to status quo.
Referring to Asher-Perrin’s and my comments as “complaining” is a good example of how women’s words are diminished and their thoughts dismissed. Commenters’ broad (and sadly predictable) misreading of the article as maintaining that “men can’t write women at all” is another. There’s a lot work to be done, on a lot of fronts.
@92. capriole: I agree with your general stance. Just thought it was jumping the gun a bit to go after this particular show.
I would want, maybe expect, that the new show would expand on the portrait presented in the books. One which evolved btw. They became the heroes of the series eventually and their dark reflection, the Matres, the main threat.
I used to joke that Herbert’s wife taught him about feminism with a frying pan upside his head. This is a man who referred to intercourse between Idaho and his BG partner as “collision.” Let’s call him a proto-feminist in training. He did as well as he was able at the time.
Hopefully the show presents such an evolution of the Sisterhood concept. What are their relationships outside of the mandated breeding program? Do they have personal relationships among themselves outside their designated roles?
And I hope they get to the complexity and hopeful aspects early and not dwell on the more objectionable ones (compared to say Handmaid’s Tale, which wallows in the misery).
Quite frankly, I’ve not heard anything optimistic at all about this show yet, and I’m really not looking forward to it.
As you say, Judith, it’s not impossible for this to be a well written show, and they may be hiring women for the creative teams right now, but for a show about women, the lead writer and producer should also be women. It just goes without saying, in my mind, that at least one of those roles must be filled by a woman if they want to get a nuanced and genuine depiction of the Bene Gesserit.
Optimistic? I am certainly not.
@94. Berthulf: “but for a show about women, the lead writer and producer should also be women”
The co-showrunner is Dana Scalvo, who included “smashing the patriarchy” in her Twitter bio. We seem to be on track with what people want. Let’s give it a chance and drop the dark and brooding pessimism.
I’ve recently become a Witcher fan. The upcoming show is created, produced, and written by Lauren Hissrich. The only thing that matters is the quality of what we get to see and experience.
“My father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. ‘Something cannot emerge from nothing,’ he said. This is profound thinking if you understand how unstable ‘the truth’ can be.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune
> What you seem to be saying is that being in an organization is inherently ‘problematic’
The nature of the organization matters. Is it bottom-up and democratic, or top-down and authoritarian? Do members have the freedom to leave if the organization’s demands become unpleasant or harmful?
The Dune wiki says
“The Reverend Mother Superior: maintained ultimate control of the entire order, and invoked almost unquestioned loyalty among the subordinate Reverend Mothers. A Reverend Mother chooses her successor prior to her death, and imparts her memories and personality to her.”
“Kwisatz Mother: possessed the strongest tie to the other voices, in charge of the program to breed the Kwisatz Haderach; She solely directed the breeding program.”
So, sounds less democratic than the Catholic Church, say…
@95:
“Dana Scalvo” was my mistake (based on her Twitter handle, @danascalvo). Her name is actually Dana Calvo.
@67: Thanks for adding that info. The team & book selection will definitely allay some fears.
@95: The Witcher isn’t a good comparison. There isn’t anything gender-specific about being a Witcher.
There’s a difference between a story where the main character happens to have gender/ethnicity/nationality/upbringing (aka most stories ever) and a story explicitly centered on a particular real-world subgroup. In the latter case, that group should ALWAYS have some members in the creative process.
In this case, it looks like they do. So, crisis averted.
@100: Foo: I’m only on my second Witcher volume and so far there’s not been any mention of female witchers. Sorceresses, warriors, yes. Thanks for the info.
About the most “feminist” thing I can imagine them doing is portraying a female Bene Gesserit acquiring access to the memories of her male ancestors. Thus putting an end to the male/female asymmetry here.
Which Alia Atreides did.
@104,
True enough! Somehow I didn’t think of that.
But let’s have a character who makes those ancestral memories work for her.
@104: Yeah, but she was also possessed by one of her past memory-selves and went crazy. Part of which involved sleeping around behind her husband’s back. It’s not hard to see why she can’t be considered a feminist icon, regardless of the flavor of ‘feminism’.
As Paul makes clear, there are important reasons why women couldn’t access their male memories, and men couldn’t use the Bene Gesserit method at all. It took a breeding program stretching over thousands of years to create a human with sufficiently precise balance to do both – and the subtext as to why the BGs wanted a balanced *male* was because they weren’t confident of their ability to control women.
@100. Foo: “There isn’t anything gender-specific about being a Witcher.”
Did some more reading and it appears Witchers are gender asymmetric:
Witcher trials
They undergo a series of exposures to toxic potions and hormones designed for males. It’s not impossible for a female to become a witcher, which apparently is part of Ciri’s story (haven’t reached that part yet), but the process of mutating into a witcher is almost always fatal for girls/women.
@106,
Leto remarked to Farad’n that actually he was possessed too. Not sure how that fits in …
@108: Canonically, Leto didn’t manage to avoid possession. He just managed to be possessed by an executive committee of powerful ruler personalities capable of keeping the rest of his ancestors in check. Ghanima, by contrast, accidentally discovered that the hypnotic self-control she needed to fulfill her part of their plan was capable of suppressing her ancestors. She retains personal identify, while Leto does not. As she remarks towards the end of Children of Dune, the tragedy of Alia is that no one even tried to save her – they assumed her case was hopeless, and the belief was self-fulfilling.
I am still wondering just how a character written by a woman might differ from a character written by a man. For example: Tamalane seemed to me to have a rather feminine personality; Bellonda had a more masculine personality but is definitely like some women I’ve met; Sheeana seemed feminine to the extent that she was trying to use her intelligence to find a way out rather than to take over (or is that just a stereotype?); Odrade seemed balanced masculine/feminine (and admirable); Murbella post Reverend Motherhood also seemed balanced masculine/ feminine ( and admirable). The Honored Matres seem more like rabid dogs, ultimately not really believable, but exist as vivid abstractions and formidable enemies, as well as to some extent the justification for at least some bad behavior on the part of the Bene Gesserit (their survival being at stake).
Do we expect women to be more compassionate? Would that have survival value? Would that influence Odrade not to ” write off Lampadas” ?
The Bene Gesserit were of course not always pleasant people. I have thought that a possible reason for that is that they began as good people with good intentions, but wanted to be in a position to have influence. Their way of doing that was marrying into power – which meant marrying men who had genes for ambition. Not realizing this, they also bred themselves for ambition.
I also find the BG problematic in general (and I don’t think we’re intended to see the Kwisatz Haderach as a good thing, per se) but I do agree with this main point.
Even if Herbert wrote the book…this show is not the book. And I don’t know how to articulate it, exactly, but it is always so frustrating to me when a group of writers/creators are all men, and nobody bats an eye at that or sees it as any kind of intentional choice – but as soon as there are even a few women, obviously it’s some kind of pandering/conspiracy/assertion that men can’t do the job, etc. Heaven forbid you see an all woman team.
Personally I have no objection at all to an all female writing team for this. It would actually be interesting to see what would happen. I just don’t see a priori any reason why it would be any better.
@112 I have a Twitter thread for that.
Lisamarie: I’m with you.