why dune is really for the girls
I posted this to my TikTok, but I fear this 14-minute video will not be fully appreciated on there, and given that Substack is usually kinder to long-form content, I thought I would post this here, since it is very much like a reflection post I would write out.
One note: I mention in this video that there are no SFF female-written novels that explicitly have an all-female governing body. There is a high chance it exists, but I do not know of any among the major franchises, which, I think, is telling in itself.
However, after making this video, I recalled Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, which centers around a planet with androgynous beings who only physically express one of two genders (either male or female, and this seems to be up to chance) in certain contexts. I don’t think this counts as an explicit female-governing body, though. Instead, I view it as an interesting exploration of gender, sexuality, and social politics. For instance, the protagonist ends up falling in love with one of these androgynous natives when he visits their planet, but as a male human, he struggles to accept that the person he loves contains both the male and female within them.
In Dune, on the other hand, the governing bodies by book 6 are explicitly female, and must be biologically female to become pregnant, which is a major part of their governing strategy, namely controlling their “breeding program.” Many readers criticize the fact that queer sexualities are entirely absent from the Dune series. I agree that it would have been interesting to include this, since Herbert does seem to analyze every other aspect of human nature and society, and it could introduce thought-provoking complications.
But putting that aside, I do appreciate what he does explore, and taking seriously the possibility of an all-female governing body whose strategies of power, control, and governing are different from the previous all-male governing bodies. If we compare other SFF series, like Game of Thrones, for instance, or even Star Wars, where women are never entirely in power—inevitably situated in patriarchal, male-dominated worlds—or if they are in power, are just as psychotic, violent, conniving, and sometimes downright evil as their male counterparts and/or eventually killed off to leave room for the male hero, the conclusion of the Dune series is refreshing.
Nevertheless, I hope you all enjoy this video. I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
Vale!
Zoë
