Amanda Oswald
ENG 379
Prof. Shaw
11 November 2014 Bloodchild Gender Experiences Bloodchild by Octavia E. Butler is an obvious example of gender binaries and its consequences. Gilbert and Gubar write in their critical essay “No Man’s Land: Volume 1: The War of the Words” about the anxieties that come from this exact sort of writing that comes from Butler. The idea of the man being the bearer of children and ultimately the bearer of great pain while the woman is in control would add to the anxieties of the male writers presented in the essay because it completely defies conventional gender identities. The entire story goes against the normal roles of women where the women are submissive in their roles while the men run the household and…show more content… Instead of the female bearing the children and the male penetrating the women, the female Tlic penetrates the male human. The Tlic runs the household, she is the protector of the family. Females throughout history did not have basic rights. They were confined to the home or by their husband’s side. It was an overbearing and unequal relationship. The Tlic’s relationship with their male counterparts is more reminiscent of a traditional male and female relationship. Gan must follow T’Gatoi around at all times; where she goes he goes. When she tells him to do something, he does it. He knows that if he isn’t submissive to her, bad things could happen to him. Gan acts as any good wife would do, he obeys his partner and does his duties as expected of him. Although he doesn’t always like what he must do, such as aid in the birthing of young Tlic, he does it out of respect for his…show more content… Gan was scared because he only heard about the sexual experience, but never actually experienced it himself. He was going to be penetrated for the first time by a dominant creature, and he was scared. The scene is almost like every other sex scene experienced in a book or movie. There is just something so strange about it because it is a female penetrating the male instead of the other way around. It seems as though Butler showing these experiences is trying to show how difficult the process of bearing a child can be for a woman. It is shocking what the men go through in the story when it is told in the context that it is, but besides the aliens, it is not that far off from real child birth. It is a dangerous sacrifice that women go through to keep the generations from dying