Jorrie Simpson
ENG 217
(Professor's Name Concealed)
26 April 2023
The Empty Womb of Death
In recent decades there has been a popularized idea that the general public will do anything to protect the fictional child. This child was created out of this need to embody the victim of political campaigns that are categorized as “against children”. Many times it's been used in rhetoric against people who do not fit the heteronormative outline that leads to the production of more children. It’s apparent that in the majority of the world, you are considered heteronormative until you say otherwise. Compulsory Herteronormaty is what is considered normal by the vast majority of the world, though this has excluded the idea of homosexuality. You do not need to “come out” if you’re straight, it’s assumed that everyone is straight until otherwise noted. When you do make that note known, many reactions could be a result. You automatically become an outsider of the preset norm of the society of the world, though queer people have been around since the beginning of time.
In Joanna Russ’s book We Who Are About To, we get the chance to see the effects of the preservation of humanity against the will and the automatic assumption of queerness that comes from the Death Drive. The unnamed protagonist is a victim of the response to the Death Drive in conjunction with Queer theory. Joanna Russ herself identifies as a lesbian, though her personal life was quite private, and this unnamed character represents the societal pressure of Reproductive Futurism that was placed not only on Queer people but also women in general during this time. There is this sort of automatic push to reinstate the patriarchy, force women into babymakers, and force the human race's survival over anything else. This is the same rhetoric that incites violence/negative consultations against those who do not fit the biological mold of procreation. Regardless if you’re a woman or queer there is this sort of connection of this overall pressure that is provided by the Death Drive.
First, I want to address the overall pressure that has been put on women to produce children. There was this preconceived notion that if a woman did not get married or had children she was not fulfilling her calling as a woman. There is a religious expectation that women have children, take the Catholic church for example. “If you are entirely opposed to having children, then it is very likely that you do not have a vocation to marriage” (Catholic Answers Staff), even if you are incapable of having children for medical purposes the church expects that you will adopt to fill the notion of childbearing. This expectation is placed on both mother and father, yet I would argue that due to the woman having to carry the child, the brunt of the responsibility is placed on her.
Another notion of this forced childbearing is the general societal pressure that women in the 20th century and before faced when they chose to be childless. Historically there has been an expectation that women become mothers and assimilate themselves into the patriarchal society they live in. Women who chose not to have children were assumed to have something wrong with them, it’s as if once marriage happens there is a societal need to fill the womb. Even women now face similar pressure, though they have much more freedom, the consensus is women should be baby makers, whether they’re free or not.
Not only does society ignore these reasons, but conversations about the subject also immediately shift to the all-too-common “you’ll grow into it eventually” phrase, blatantly ignoring the woman’s wishes and disregarding the idea that the woman might know herself and what she wants. Yet, men who say no when they are faced with the same question rarely face any resistance (Trupiano).
There is not only an expectation of being ladylike, but also reproducing, being a good mother, and doing nothing wrong. This society places value on the mother, but if there is one thing out of place from the understood expectation then there is blame and ridicule placed on the mother. Not to mention there is this sort of blame that is placed on any motherly figure who doesn’t fulfill these roles perfectly. It’s all too common that mommy issues are used as an excuse to further oppress and hurt women in society.
There is also the idea of Compulsory Heterosexuality, this is an important concept that arose in the 70s/80s to reorient the idea that there is systematic oppression against queer people. Due to the assumption of straightness in the world, “The center of analysis shifted from the individual homosexual and individual acts of discrimination to the institutional enforcement of normative heterosexuality and its consequences for nonheterosexuals” (Seidman) it leaves no room for the growth of queer people. It also simultaneously leaves room for discrimination against queer people due to them being outside of the norm. Movements for the LGBTQ+ are quite recent in comparison to the age of history in general, and every day there are new theories and movements to help improve the lives of queer people across the world, not just in the US.
There is one last thing I want to address, my usage of the word queer. While there are many definitions of the world I will be using the following two. One, queer in its original deifinition of “Strange;Odd” (Oxford Dictionary) and, two, queer to describe anyone in the LGBTQ+, “denoting or relating to a sexual or gender identity that does not correspond to established ideas of sexuality and gender, especially heterosexual norms” (Oxford Dictionary). I identify as Queer as a general statement of my sexuality and am in no way assuming others by using it as a blanket term.
Though this novel is being read through a Queer Theory lens, women who do not have children are considered queer (by the actual definition of the word). Yet, actual queer individuals are at risk of homophobic violence due to the preconceived notion that their love is biologically wrong. “preserving in the process the absolute privilege of heteronormativity by rendering unthinkable, by casting outside the political domain, the possibility of a queer resistance to this organizing principle of communal relations” (Edelman 2), Preserving the patriarchy and the process of heteronormativity there is a preservation of those in power in regards of reproductive futurism. Truly heteronormativity is a privilege because there is a lessened risk of violence done to you by those who deem LGBTQ+ as wrong or “against nature”. This is not an excuse for actions of a hate crime, but it may help to understand the vibrant hatred we’ve faced. It is in this process we see the true agenda behind the characters who try to force the unnamed protagonist to carry their children. Though, we are unaware if this character is queer she still embodies the queer individual in a patriarchial society.
The ideas that fall in line with Queer Theory also fall in line with a lot of different aspects of Feminism. Not because they are the same thing, but rather it’s because both women and queer people are seen as less than the man. It’s quite interesting that in this specific novel, the two go hand in hand, due to the situation in which the protagonist is existing. Russ was able to not only encapsulate the female experience but also the queer experience in a world that was built against us. Truly her work was ahead of its time predating Edleman’s work by 27 years and both their works predating political movements for the LGBTQ+ like Obergefell in 2015. Queer theory and feminism truly do go hand in hand.
When the group of individuals crashes land on a random hostile planet post-destruction of Earth, they are left to figure out how to survive. The first move all but the unnamed character wants to take is having children, “‘We have to talk about something very important’ said Ude. ‘I mean having children’” (Russ 36). It is with great importance to seemingly reinstate the patriarchy and promise that humanity will be multiplied at any cost. Ude wants to be in charge, and the unnamed protagonist going against him does not bod well, even the other woman is all too willing to give up control to the men. Men are in charge of the group, while women are expected to serve their wants/needs. Women are being reduced to mere objects, reduced down to their wombs only.
This type of objectification is not new in science fiction/dystopian works, rather it’s quite common, especially in feministic dystopian novels. The women who are young and viable enough in this book are first to be “inseminated” and forced to have children. “Nathalie’s life and yours and Lori’s and Cassie’s are too valuable to put in danger. You are child-bearers” (Russ 17). The unnamed protagonist is considered a “child-bearer” a title that is reminiscent of say the handmaids from Margaret Atwood's famous novel, The Handmaids Tale, women with the singular purpose of reproduction. It is clear that there is this assumption made about the protagonist that she will carry the children of the next generation for this group whether she wants to or not.“The Child, that is, marks the fetishistic fixation of heteronormativity: an erotically charged investment in the rigid sameness of identity that is central to the compulsory narrative of reproductive futurism” (Edelman 21), the characters other than the main one, have this sort of drive for life, or really the opposite of the Death Drive, they fear the idea of the entropy of their existence. It is not only deeply ingrained in them that they must reproduce, but also that anything outside of that goal is wrong.
Finding food for example was one of the priorities of the main character, to withstand the lives they already have, yet the hyper fixation on the child being the answer clouds reality. The protagonist has this to say, “‘Im only trying to suggest that before we start any babies, we’d better start finding out what we can eat around here’” (Russ 875) which seems perfectly reasonable by the reader's discretion, yet the other characters find this strange and become enraged at her suggestion. Later in the novel they go as far as binding her to a tree and planning on raping her before she escapes. This is where the violence comes from, by not holding ‘The Child’ as the most important thing, she is, to them, volunteering them for death.
It is no coincidence that this stories inciting action/climax is a rape or attempted rape. When rape occurs it is the pinnacle of objectification. The human becomes no more than their genitalia, no matter their gender. It is within this action that the ideals of the patriarchal society culminate resulting in forced conception. Having an empty womb means to the world that you are not in use, though society has changed, it’s still prevalent. The anti-abortion rhetoric that is in full bloom now, holds this fictional child above individuals' lives with things like the Heartbeat Bill. This is where the Death Drive shines the brightest, the political domain is chockfull of this protection of a fictional child, that in turn means nothing to those who are living and breathing people.
It’s important to note that the protagonist would rather die than be a victim of rape, to become an object for them. She wishes the die with dignity, though, the people around her see it as she is throwing away a viable womb for them to use. She is throwing away the future existence of humanity, and her rejection of life, to them, is a direct threat to their livelihoods. “If, however, there is no baby and, in consequence, no future, then the blame must fall on the fatal lure of sterile, narcissistic enjoyments understood as inherently destructive of meaning and therefore as responsible for the undoing of social organization, collective reality, and, inevitably, life itself” (Edelman 13), this character is not explicitly queer, but she was written by queer women who most likely felt this force herself. To be a woman with no children and no plan to have children, rather than have a wife, is an agenda that directly goes against the powerhouse that runs the world, men.
As I have said before, Russ was ahead of her time with the portrayal of this character. Being a Lesbian woman, this sense of reflection is deeply rooted in this unnamed protagonist. Though we are unaware of the character's sexuality, it is safe to assume that she is the embodiment of the internal struggle to have autonomy in the patriarchal society as well as the threat against those who do not fall into heteronomy. It is deemed normal to expect that straightness out of everyone, yet in reality uniformity is virtually impossible. Even a woman who is straight, but doesn’t have children falls out of the heteronormative system. Though they fit a part of the heteronormative role, their choices or inability to carry a child turn society against them. This unnamed protagonist falls into this category of a woman, whose choice not to have a child, turns those who assumed leadership roles against her.
The mob mentality that comes out within this novel related to reproductive futurism is terrifying. There is a disregard for the object, that being women, that is what fuels the fear of walking down the street alone at night. As the band Marina and the Diamonds say in their song “Savages”, “I'm not the only one who finds it hard to understand, I'm not afraid of God, I am afraid of man” (Marina and The Diamonds) is the terror of what they can get away with in the society that encourages outrage against the queer. In some places in the world, to not conform to heteronormativity is to sacrifice yourself to the death penalty. The Death Drive causes this psychological idea that hurting those who are against preserving life is correct, yet Russ truly shows the horror behind these actions.
Work Cited
Edelman, Lee. No Future: *Queer Theory and the Death Drive. Duke University Press, 2004.
The Oxford Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 1992.
Russ, Joanna. We Who Are About To... Open Road Integrated Media, Inc., 2018.
Seidman, Steven. “Critique of Compulsory Heterosexuality - Sexuality Research and Social Policy.” SpringerLink, Springer-Verlag, 2009, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1525/srsp.2009.6.1.18.
Staff, Catholic Answers. “May I Marry and Not Have Children?” Catholic Answers, Catholic Answers, 1 Nov. 2022, https://www.catholic.com/qa/may-i-marry-and-not-have-children.Trupiano, Anna. “Society Should See Having Children as a Choice, Not an Expectation.” The Michigan Daily, 9 Feb. 2023, https://www.michigandaily.com/opinion/in-our-society-motherhood-is-an-expectation-rather-than-a-choice-children/.
