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Women’s Agency in
the Dune Universe
Tracing Women’s Liberation
through Science Fiction
Kara Kennedy
Women’s Agency in the Dune Universe
 Kara Kennedy

Women’s Agency in
the Dune Universe
Tracing Women’s Liberation through Science
Fiction
Kara Kennedy
Auckland, New Zealand

ISBN 978-3-030-89204-3    ISBN 978-3-030-89205-0 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89205-0

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2021
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To my teachers Ms. H and the two Dr. B’s for introducing me to
women’s studies
 Preface

They’d been there the whole time, neglected, misjudged, disregarded.

The extraordinary women of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood in Frank
Herbert’s Dune series deserved more. This book is a step toward giving
them the scholarly focus their characters ought to have.
The premise of this book originated when I chose to study Dune for my
undergraduate honor’s project. It was more than a little risky choosing to
analyze my favorite book, lest I ruin my enjoyment of it, but I wanted to
look at something different from the traditional literary texts of my degree
program. I also wanted to find a topic that could combine my fields of
study—English literature and women’s studies. Thus, I decided to focus
on the character of Lady Jessica. During the course of the project, I stum-
bled across a significant gap in the scholarship: little had been written
about the women of Dune. And the criticism that did exist was quite dis-
missive, resulting in an incomplete picture of the female characters in this
best-selling work of science fiction. Jessica alone was an admirable, three-­
dimensional character worthy of study, not to mention the all-female
organization she belonged to, the Bene Gesserit. Truly, how many male
heroes have their mother with them every step of the way? For the project,
I chose to examine the representation of Jessica as a strong woman who
went beyond stereotypes despite being in a male-dominated culture. I
used the concept of agency (the means through which someone exerts
power or achieves their goals) because it was flexible enough to fit the
roles and types of influence Jessica had. My argument covered three
aspects of her agency in Dune—maternal, military, and religious—as well
as the term ‘witch,’ used in the book a few times to label her. At the final

vii
viii PREFACE

presentation of the project, I played a film clip from Monty Python and the
Holy Grail that makes a mockery of the idea of a woman being a witch.
Although this term did appear in Dune, I concluded, this did not mean
that the characterization of women was stereotypical.
When I moved on to my master’s thesis, I expanded my analysis of
women’s agency in Dune to include the agency of the Bene Gesserit as an
organization, as well as characters such as Reverend Mother Gaius Helen
Mohiam, Lady Margot Fenring, Princess Irulan, and Chani. This allowed
a more expansive view of women’s activities, revealing additional evidence
that the characterization of women was more complex than critics implied.
Yet there was only enough space to examine the first book. I still wanted
my research to encompass the original six-book series, especially since the
final two books are dominated by female characters and include another
all-female faction to rival the Bene Gesserit. Thus, I embarked on a PhD
that would enable me to take my analysis of women’s agency across the
whole series, from Lady Jessica to Mother Superior Darwi Odrade. Since
a doctoral dissertation required more theorical backing, I chose a blend of
feminist and historical approaches that allowed the series to be situated in
its cultural moment while being analyzed within an agency framework. I
focused on embodied agency, specifically, because it aligned with both
second-wave feminist demands for bodily autonomy and the characteriza-
tion of the Bene Gesserit. In addition, I included criticism of the trajectory
of science fiction scholarship that has overlooked this series as a notewor-
thy part of both New Wave and feminist science fiction.
This book therefore builds on my doctoral research, in which I was sup-
ported by a scholarship from the New Zealand Federation of Graduate
Women. My thanks go to my advisors and supervisors along the way who
have provided valuable feedback and insight. Thanks also go to friends and
family and my long-suffering partner who have conversed with me about
elements in the Dune series and provided a springboard for working out
lines of argument. Fortunately, throughout such focused study, I have
only grown to appreciate the Dune series more, so my original choice was
a risk well worth taking.

Auckland, New Zealand Kara Kennedy

 Contents

1 Introduction: The Sidelining of the Women of Dune  1

Introduction   1
Why the Women of Dune?   4
Contemporaneous Concepts of Second-Wave Feminism   7
The Incomplete Narrative of New Wave and Feminist Science
Fiction  16
Embodied Agency  21

2 Mind-Body Synergy 27
Theories of the Mind and Body  28
Alternatives in Eastern Philosophies  34
The Foundation of Bene Gesserit Skills  43
Anticipation of Feminist Science Fiction  58
The Matter of Prescience  60
Contrast with Mentats  62
Conclusion  67

3 Reproduction and Motherhood 69

Feminist Theories on Reproduction  70
The Bene Gesserit Breeding Program  75
Reproduction as Oppressive or Transformative  83
Alternative Means of Reproduction in Feminist Science Fiction  90
Contrast with the Bene Tleilaxu  92
Conclusion 101

ix
x Contents

4 Voices103
Feminist Resistance to Limitations on Women’s Voices 104
The Voice and Women 109
Silencing of the Bene Gesserit 119
Women’s Truthsaying Ability 121
Women’s Roles as Advisors 125
The Use of Epigraphs 129
Female Voices in Feminist Science Fiction 132
Conclusion 134

5 Education and Memory137

Shifting Conceptions of Education and History 138
Bene Gesserit Education 144
Parallels with the Jesuit Order 147
Limitations on Women’s Autonomy 152
Women’s Access to Other Memory 156
Female Communities in Feminist Science Fiction 168
Solidarity and Forging Bonds of Sisterhood 169
Conclusion 175

6 Sexuality177
Changing Conceptions of Sexuality 178
The Bene Gesserit as Case Study for Treatment of Sexuality 186
Ways That the Bene Gesserit Secure Agency 187
Contrast Between Honored Matre ‘Whores’ and Bene Gesserit
‘Witches’ 198
The Depiction of Homosexuality as Abnormal 208
Visions of Sexuality in Feminist Science Fiction 210
Reflection of Changes in the Treatment of Sexuality in the New
Wave 212
Conclusion 213

7 Conclusion215

Index 221
 Abbreviations

CHA Chapterhouse: Dune

CHI Children of Dune
DM Dune Messiah
GE God Emperor of Dune
HD Heretics of Dune

xi
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: The Sidelining of the Women

of Dune

Introduction
Frank Herbert’s Dune is one of the foundational texts in science fiction,
having enjoyed decades of popularity after an initial struggle to find a pub-
lisher willing to take on such a long and multi-layered work. First serial-
ized as “Dune World” and “The Prophet of Dune” in the science fiction
magazine Analog in 1963–1965, Dune was published as a novel in 1965
and was followed by five sequels: Dune Messiah (1969), Children of Dune
(1976), God Emperor of Dune (1981), Heretics of Dune (1984), and
Chapterhouse: Dune (1985), with events spanning around 5000 years
within the Dune universe. The first novel holds the status of being the
best-selling science fiction book of all time and is frequently taught in sci-
ence fiction courses.
Yet in spite of Dune’s popularity and the series’ publication during the
height of second-wave feminism in the U.S., critical attention to female
characters in the series has severely lagged behind that devoted to female
characters in other science fiction, particularly in the category of feminist
science fiction, in which Herbert’s series has never been placed. This
appears strange considering that the series contains such a prominent all-­
female organization, the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, whose members have
an array of impressive skills and abilities. In fact, in his study of the author,
Frank Herbert (1988), William F. Touponce calls attention to this neglect,
noting that “whether or not the Dune series is ultimately feminist in the

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2021
K. Kennedy, Women’s Agency in the Dune Universe,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89205-0_1
2 K. KENNEDY

images and voices of women it projects is an open question” (109).

Therefore, this book seeks to redress this situation by answering the ques-
tion ‘Is the series feminist?’ as well as additional follow-up questions: If so,
what kinds of bodily agency and control do the female characters display,
how do these link with feminist thought, and how do the characters com-
pare to those in other twentieth-century science fiction?
I focus on the women of the Bene Gesserit because they are the most
prominent female characters throughout the series, making them ideal
objects of analysis whose characterization can also be compared across the
six novels. The characterization of individual women of the Sisterhood
and the larger organization creates some of the rich complexities and key
tensions in the narrative, including the tension between individual and
collective agency and the tension between human agency and biological
determinism, which also offers a perspective on the role of sexual differ-
ences between female and male bodies. In light of the series’ focus on the
capabilities of humans rather than computer technologies and second-­
wave feminist demands for women to have control over their own bodies,
I use the overarching framework of embodied agency in particular to
explore these tensions and analyze Herbert’s representation of the Bene
Gesserit, as well as map the intersections between the series, second-wave
feminism, and feminist science fiction texts. I am primarily concerned with
the six novels, contextual and critical material published in the U.S. in the
same time period, and the American science fiction tradition in which the
series sits. The fact that the series materialized during a period of transfor-
mative social and cultural movements in the U.S. makes it a particularly
unique case study in American science fiction in which to examine the
representation of women.
In essence, my study looks further back than the 1970s—considered to
be the pinnacle of second-wave feminism as well feminist science fiction—
to find what redeeming feminist features Herbert has in his writing, how
these features link with second-wave feminist thought, and how they com-
pare to aspects in the works of key feminist science fiction writers like
Joanna Russ and Ursula K. Le Guin. My main contention is that the Dune
series is feminist but not wholly liberatory in its representation of the
women of the Bene Gesserit due to the development of a high degree of
female embodied agency but also complexities regarding this agency. I
argue that the series offers a representation of women that is
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE SIDELINING OF THE WOMEN OF DUNE 3

three-­dimensional and much more complex than the stereotypical females

in other science fiction, and that the series at times even goes so far as to
position women’s embodied agency as superior to masculine-associated
technology. It also underscores the complexity of notions of essentialism
(the idea that women and men are naturally a certain way) as well as dem-
onstrating how women can strategically leverage essentialist notions at
times to accomplish larger political goals. In order to examine agency
within this framework, I have chosen to rely on essentialist assumptions in
order to analyze the female characters in the texts within their historical
context as well as the context of second-wave feminism, which was itself
grappling with how to theorize women in terms of women’s liberation.
Ultimately, my analysis shows that although the series’ depiction of an all-­
female order may not be as overtly liberatory in terms of women’s roles or
sexual equality as the depictions of women in other feminist science fic-
tion, the series nonetheless presents a rich and complex speculation on the
ways in which women may exert agency that anticipates and parallels simi-
lar issues in second-wave feminism.
Although a biographical approach is outside of the scope of this study,
it is worth noting that Herbert’s relationships with the women in his life
were likely a large factor in his decision to create and characterize the Bene
Gesserit as he did. Herbert’s mother and her ten sisters shared in his
upbringing, and his aunts’ insistence that he be taught by Jesuits points to
them being the model for the Sisterhood (O’Reilly 89; B. Herbert 21).
Another influential woman in Herbert’s life was his second spouse, Beverly.
She helped support his writing in a financial sense and by assisting with
plot and characterization, “particularly the motivational aspects of female
characters” (O’Reilly 17, B. Herbert 170). Herbert’s son, Brian Herbert,
has specifically linked his father’s intentions with the historical context:
“Aware of a simmering women’s liberation movement in the early 1960s
and the desires of women in religious service for more recognition, Dad
decided to postulate a ‘sisterhood’ in control of an entire religious system.
He thought readers would accept the premise of women with occult pow-
ers of memory, since females have traditionally been said to have ‘women’s
intuition’” (B. Herbert 187). The above insights indicate that the connec-
tions between the women in his life and the characterization of the Bene
Gesserit are also worth further exploration.
4 K. KENNEDY

Why the Women of Dune?

It will be useful to provide a brief summary of key points in the six novels
and the Bene Gesserit’s role in them, with the caveat that they are rich,
complex, and lengthy books despite the sometimes seemingly simple nar-
rative arcs. The Dune series is set in a universe with a medieval-like feudal
structure that has developed in response to the Butlerian Jihad, a human
revolt in the distant past against thinking machines that saw them banned,
thereby forcing humans to develop their own capabilities. Dune features
the story of the family of House Atreides—Duke Leto, Lady Jessica (a
member of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood), and their son, Paul—as they
move to the planet Dune, the only location of sandworms and the prized
spice known as melange, where their enemies, House Harkonnen, have
laid a trap for them. The sandworm life cycle is integral to the creation of
the spice, which is an addictive substance highly valued for its geriatric
properties and ability to expand the psyche. Leto is killed and Jessica and
Paul escape into the desert, where she uses her Bene Gesserit skills to find
safe passage among the locals known as the Fremen, whose tribal culture
has been prepared by previous Bene Gesserit women of the Missionaria
Protectiva to accept a Bene Gesserit woman and her child as fulfillments of
a prophecy. While pregnant with her daughter, Alia, Jessica undergoes the
Water of Life ceremony to become a Reverend Mother, altering both her
and Alia’s psyches. Because he is part of the Bene Gesserit’s breeding pro-
gram and his mother trained him in the Bene Gesserit Way, Paul is also
able to ingest the Water of Life and alter his psyche, although he gains
access to prescient visions as well. He eventually overthrows the Baron and
the highest authority in the Imperium, the Emperor, agreeing to an
unconsummated marriage with the royal daughter Princess Irulan to
solidify his ascension to the imperial throne.
Dune Messiah details the downfall of Paul after the wars in his name
resulted in the deaths of billions across the universe and his enemies plot
to deny him an heir and end his reign. One of the enemies is a new group,
the Bene Tleilaxu, who create gholas, which are resurrections of deceased
individuals developed from skin scrapings that the Tleilaxu can train to
behave in certain ways at a subconscious level. Two Bene Gesserit women,
Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam and Irulan, are also part of the
plot. However, after Chani dies in childbirth and Paul goes blind and
resists the Tleilaxu’s temptation of resurrecting a ghola of Chani, Irulan
gives up her plotting to help raise Paul’s twin children, Ghanima and Leto
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE SIDELINING OF THE WOMEN OF DUNE 5

II, for whom Alia is regent. Children of Dune follows the maturation of
the twins, who must avoid plots against them by outsiders as well as their
Aunt Alia, who has become possessed by the memory of her grandfather,
Baron Harkonnen. Jessica returns to ensure that the twins are not similarly
possessed, Leto starts down the Golden Path that will see him turn into a
sandworm, and Ghanima agrees to a relationship with another royal heir
in order to continue the Atreides line into the future.
God Emperor of Dune takes place around 3500 years after the events of
Dune and is largely concentrated on Leto’s philosophical musings, after he
has become the God Emperor. The Bene Gesserit have survived, but Leto
has taken over management of the breeding program in order to develop
humans who will be free from the trappings of prescience. Eventually he
allows a young woman of the Atreides line named Siona along with one of
the Idaho gholas to rebel against him and cause his death, and this explains
how the Bene Gesserit are able to resume their influential place in the
universe in the last two books. Set around 1500 years after Leto’s death,
Heretics of Dune details how people who had gone out into what is known
as the Scattering have fled back to the known universe and begun causing
trouble for groups like the Bene Gesserit and Tleilaxu. Many of those who
return call themselves Honored Matres, who are women using advanced
sexual techniques to enslave men and gain control over whole planets.
They see the Bene Gesserit as rivals to be eliminated, as do the Tleilaxu,
but the Bene Gesserit have gained more abilities over the centuries: they
can share memories with other members on demand and can sexually
imprint men in order to gain their loyalty, in a way similar to that of the
Honored Matres. The two female groups battle and have their final con-
frontation in Chapterhouse: Dune. The Bene Gesserit leader, Reverend
Mother Darwi Odrade, concludes that the two groups must merge in
order to curb the wildness of the Honored Matres and preserve the
Sisterhood, and when she dies, the former Honored Matre Murbella
becomes the new leader, having undergone Bene Gesserit training.
The question is: why have the women of such a popular, best-selling
series remained so critically neglected? In general, critics have largely
focused on aspects of the obvious themes—the messiah figure, religion,
ecology and the environment, politics, and psychology—to the neglect of
issues of gender, postcolonialism and the Other, and posthumanism.
Furthermore, critics often focus solely on the first novel as the most popu-
lar and self-contained one. However, its sequels take place in the same
universe and continue Herbert’s exploration of significant themes. They
6 K. KENNEDY

also provide the opportunity to see how changing social mores and politi-
cal concerns may have influenced Herbert as a writer, since he wrote the
novels over a span of several decades. The narrow and limited body of
criticism has meant that there is much material left unexamined, and the
later novels especially have very little criticism on them at all.
There are three book-length studies of Herbert and his works that vary
significantly in their coverage and focus, but none of them contains a sus-
tained analysis of female characters or gender issues in the Dune series.
The few who have explicitly addressed women and gender in Dune have
done so in a cursory way. For example, Jack Hand’s “The Traditionalism
of Women’s Roles in Frank Herbert’s Dune” (1985) is a short article that
presents a scathing yet shallow critique of female characters in the first
novel. Miriam Youngerman Miller’s “Women of Dune: Frank Herbert as
Social Reactionary” (1985) is more willing to consider the positive aspects
of Herbert’s portrayal of female characters yet draws a similar conclusion
about traditional female roles subordinating women. M. Miller is one of
the few critics to explicitly acknowledge the cultural context in which
Herbert was writing, namely second-wave feminism, and consider how it
might have impacted his characterization of women. But her apparent
belief that equality between the sexes is required for the series to have
redemptive feminist qualities results in her discounting the first four novels
as having too traditional a view of women. The limitations of her analysis
likely stem from the fact that her chapter is part of a book of conference
proceedings. But both Hand’s and M. Miller’s articles are cited by other
critics, showing that they have likely biased later critics against a more
thorough and nuanced analysis of women’s roles.
In an effort to understand why female characters in the Dune series
have received relatively little criticism, C. N. Manlove’s argument regard-
ing concealment offers one convincing explanation. He finds that “the
motif of concealment is central to Dune and its manner”—it “is of the
essence, and is bound up with waiting over long periods of time” (Manlove
81). This motif can explain why female characters have been so underrated
and underestimated: because Herbert deliberately conceals their motives
and political maneuverings just as he does with many other aspects of the
story in order to construct multi-layered novels that offer the reader more
than just an entertaining story. Indeed, Herbert spent six years of research
on world religions, desert environments, and sciences like psychology and
ecology before putting together the story in the first novel (HD v,
B. Herbert 141, 164); yet much of this information is layered into the
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE SIDELINING OF THE WOMEN OF DUNE 7

Dune universe such that the reader may not realize how much effort went
into the world-building. As Manlove elaborates, “the readers have to work
very hard as in all Herbert’s fiction to make the links, which are often hid-
den in the narrative or understandable only with considerable effort”
(Manlove 89). In this way, the series requires an active reader to under-
stand the depth of the complexities just as Russ’s The Female Man requires
an active reader to grasp such a “disjunctive” novel (Bartkowski 50). In
only looking at the surface level of the series—where women often operate
in roles as concubines, wives, mothers, and advisors—critics miss expres-
sions of agency that are more concealed.

Contemporaneous Concepts
of Second-Wave Feminism

In order to redress the oversight in the lack of feminist criticism, and in

light of the rich historical context, I deemed it most suitable to undertake
an approach that takes into consideration contemporaneous issues and the
social climate in which Herbert was writing and publishing. Therefore, I
engage with select concepts in second-wave feminist thought and works in
the U.S. and look at trends in the American science fiction genre, namely
the New Wave movement of the 1960s and 1970s and the rise of female-­
authored texts that infused New Wave concerns with those of the feminist
movement, in order to see how the Dune series may address feminist con-
cerns and bring them to life through a group of fictional women, without
necessarily proving that there was a direct relationship. This method was
successfully implemented in Jeanne Cortiel’s study of Joanna Russ,
Demand My Writing: Joanna Russ, Feminism, Science Fiction (1999), and
enables a rich exploration of intersections and connections between fiction
and the real world (Cortiel Demand 11). In this way, I can both answer
Touponce’s question about whether the Dune series is feminist and chal-
lenge the existing critical discourse of mid-twentieth-century science fic-
tion that has relegated one of its most successful authors to the sidelines.
As Cortiel acknowledges, there is a “fundamental indeterminacy that
governs more recent feminist thinking” that must be partially suspended
to examine such texts within the context of second-wave feminism (Cortiel
Demand 16). This study acknowledges there have been some significant
shifts in feminist theories since the 1960s–1980s. It also recognizes that
use of the wave metaphor can tend to emphasize differences and conflicts
8 K. KENNEDY

between generations of feminists, obscuring the many overlapping con-

cerns between movements, as Nancy A. Hewitt highlights in the introduc-
tion to No Permanent Waves: Recasting Histories of U.S. Feminism (2010).
In general, third- and fourth-wave feminism have paid more attention to
overlapping and intersecting types of oppression and multicultural per-
spectives (Tong “Feminist Thought” 33). They are more open to con-
cepts about choice, empowerment, and sexual differences, and less
concerned with seeming contradictions in their feminist viewpoints. There
have been challenges to prior feminist frameworks and a further destabili-
zation of sex, gender, and sexuality. Technologies such as the internet have
become an important tool through which women “claim feminist agency
for themselves and each other” (Garrison 380). Yet the fragmentation of
the feminist movement and the concurrent rise of individualism can make
it challenging to articulate what a feminist position might look like and
how many might subscribe to it. But the concept of women’s right to self-­
determination and control of their bodies arguably remains relevant in the
feminist struggle for change. Thus, as explained in more detail below, I
believe that embodied agency offers a useful tool in feminist theory for
analyzing the representation of women in literature.
Second-wave feminism in the U.S. was a heterogeneous movement
with various branches and ideologies, but there are several key ideas popu-
larized by radical feminism in particular that are pertinent to my explora-
tion of women’s agency. Building on a long tradition of women who
advocated for women’s rights, including early feminist and British author
Mary Wollstonecraft in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) and
American suffragists like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony,
second-wave feminists offered their own interpretations and reformula-
tions regarding how to address women’s oppression. According to
Rosemary Tong’s overview of feminism, feminist theoretical approaches
can be classified into the broad categories of liberal, Marxist, radical, psy-
choanalytic, socialist, existentialist, or postmodern (Tong, Feminist
Thought 1). To illustrate: whereas liberal feminists generally advocated for
equality of the sexes and believed that new laws would help eliminate
inequality, and Marxist feminists believed that a socialist revolution would
benefit both workers and women, radical feminists theorized that wom-
en’s oppression was based on their sex—that their bodies were sexually
different and considered inferior to men—and that they needed to funda-
mentally change society in order to achieve liberation. They were more
concerned with women’s rights over their bodies than equal pay in a
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE SIDELINING OF THE WOMEN OF DUNE 9

capitalist system that they saw to be based around men’s needs and desires.
Although a range of feminist ideas had an impact on the shaping of femi-
nism in the second wave, it was radical feminism that was arguably respon-
sible for the popularity of the women’s liberation movement. This was
largely due to media coverage of radical feminist demonstrations, as
detailed by Alice Echols in her comprehensive study of radical feminism,
Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America 1967–1975 (1989).
Indeed, it was the New York Radical Women’s 1968 protest of the Miss
America pageant that “put the women’s liberation movement on the map”
due to “extensive press coverage” (Echols 96, 93). In radical feminist
Ellen Willis’s reflections on the era, she argues, “It was radical feminism
that put women’s liberation on the map, that got sexual politics recog-
nized as a public issue, that created the vocabulary (‘consciousness-­raising,’
‘the personal is political,’ ‘sisterhood is powerful,’ etc.) with which the
second wave of feminism entered popular culture,” and confirmation of
her statements can be found threaded throughout Echols’s study (Willis
92). Through their rhetoric, radical feminists introduced concepts regard-
ing women’s agency and bodies that would become standard feminist fare.
According to Echols, radical feminism was central to the transformation of
women’s situation in the world in terms of improving women’s self-­
determination (Echols 285–286). In light of the significance of radical
feminism and the parallels between its theories and the characterization of
the Bene Gesserit as possessing myriad bodily abilities, this book is con-
cerned primarily with radical feminist theories. As Tong observes, “more
than liberal and Marxist feminists, radical feminists have directed attention
to the ways in which men attempt to control women’s bodies” and “have
explicitly articulated the ways in which men have constructed female sexu-
ality to serve not women’s but men’s needs, wants, and interests” (Tong,
Feminist Thought 72). The fact that radical feminist theories were circulat-
ing during the time of Herbert’s writing offers a unique and fruitful
opportunity for the Dune series to be read alongside contemporaneous
feminist debates and have connections traced between them.
Yet despite being influential, radical feminism had a relatively short
period of popularity before being superseded by cultural feminism in the
1970s, and it is important to note that this splintering was due in part to
internal struggles within the feminist movement that illustrate the poten-
tial consequences when there are significant tensions between individuals
and groups. As Echols explains, the two movements differed in key
respects: whereas radical feminists sought to change society to make
10 K. KENNEDY

gender irrelevant, cultural feminists sought to celebrate femaleness in

order to reverse the devaluation of stereotypically feminine characteristics
in society. In radical feminists’ efforts to eliminate inequality within their
movement, and through their reluctance to explore women’s differences,
they created tensions between individual women and the larger collective.
Cultural feminists’ notion of sisterhood based around women’s female
nature may have represented a more attractive way to unite women despite
their differences. Nonetheless, in Echols’s analysis, ultimately the “strug-
gle for liberation became a question of individual will and determination,
rather than collective struggle” and thus lost the notion of women’s
agency as a way of effecting change in society (Echols 279). What the
ascendancy of cultural feminism illustrates is not only the difficulty in the-
orizing sexual difference, but that there must be a balance between the
consideration given to individual members of a group and the consider-
ation given to the larger group and the goals it is trying to achieve that
require members’ commitment.
For information about the concerns and theories of the second wave,
this book relies on several key texts that were precursors to the movement,
primary sources that were published during the heart of the movement,
and secondary sources that analyze feminist ideas and trends with some
distance from the events themselves. The precursor texts are Simone de
Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (trans. 1953) and Betty Friedan’s The Feminine
Mystique (1963). Primary sources include essays in editor Robin Morgan’s
anthology of radical feminist texts, Sisterhood Is Powerful (1970), and edi-
tors Anne Koedt, Ellen Levine, and Anita Rapone’s collection, Radical
Feminism (1973), and stand-alone texts like Shulamith Firestone’s The
Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution (1970) and Adrienne
Rich’s Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (1976).
Secondary sources include Sara Evans’s books on the women’s liberation
movement—Personal Politics: The Roots of Women’s Liberation in the Civil
Rights Movements and the New Left (1979) and Born for Liberty: A History
of Women in America (1989); the aforementioned book by Echols; and
Jane Gerhard’s book on feminism and sexuality, Desiring Revolution:
Second-Wave Feminism and the Rewriting of American Sexual Thought,
1920 to 1982 (2001). Together these texts present a multi-faceted picture
of the currents of second-wave feminism that nonetheless shows that
women were united about one thing: they wanted change.
Arguably the most crucial overarching idea of second-wave feminism—
and one that is key to an analysis of the Dune series—is that women should
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 TO STEW A SHOULDER OF VENISON.

Bone the joint, by the directions given for a shoulder of veal or

mutton (see Chapter XI.); flatten it on a table, season it well with
cayenne, salt, and pounded mace, mixed with a very small
proportion of allspice; lay over it thin slices of the fat of a loin of well-
fed mutton, roll and bind it tightly, lay it into a vessel nearly of its size,
and pour to it as much good stock made with equal parts of beef and
mutton as will nearly cover it; stew it as slowly as possible from three
hours to three and a half or longer, should it be very large, and turn it
when it is half done. Dish and serve it with a good Espagnole, made
with part of the gravy in which it has been stewed; or thicken this
slightly with rice-flour, mixed with a glass or more of claret or of port
wine, and as much salt and cayenne as will season the gravy
properly. Some cooks soak the slices of mutton-fat in wine before
they are laid upon the joint; but no process of the sort will ever give
to any kind of meat the true flavour of the venison, which to most
eaters is far finer than that of the wine, and should always be
allowed to prevail over all the condiments with which it is dressed.
Those, however, who care for it less than for a dish of high artificial
savour can have eschalots, ham, and carrot, lightly browned in good
butter added to the stew when it first begins to boil.
3-1/2 to 4 hours.
 TO HASH VENISON.[92]

92. Minced collops of venison may be prepared exactly like those of beef; and
venison-cutlets like those of mutton: the neck may be taken for both of these.

For a superior hash of venison, add to three quarters of a pint of

strong thickened brown gravy, Christopher North’s sauce, in the
proportion directed for it in the receipt of page 295.[93] Cut the
venison in small thin slices of equal size, arrange them in a clean
saucepan, pour the gravy on them, let them stand for ten minutes or
more, then place them near the fire, and bring the whole very slowly
to the point of boiling only: serve the hash immediately in a hot-water
dish.
93. Having been inadvertently omitted from its proper place, this receipt is
transferred to the end of the present Chapter.

For a plain dinner, when no gravy is at hand, break down the

bones of the venison small, after the flesh has been cleared from
them, and boil them with those of three or four undressed mutton-
cutlets, a slice or two of carrot, or a few savoury herbs, and about a
pint and a half of water or broth, until the liquid is reduced quite one
third. Strain it off, let it cool, skim off all the fat, heat the gravy,
thicken it when it boils with a dessertspoonful or rather more of
arrow-root, or with the brown roux of page 107, mix the same sauce
with it, and finish it exactly as the richer hash above. It may be
served on sippets of fried bread or not, at choice.
 TO ROAST A HARE.

[In season from September to the 1st of March.]

After the hare has been
skinned, or cased, as it is called,
wash it very thoroughly in cold
water, and afterwards in warm. If
in any degree overkept, or
musty in the inside, which it will
sometimes be when emptied
before it is hung up and
neglected afterwards, use
Hare trussed.
vinegar, or the pyroligneous
acid, well diluted, to render it
sweet; then again throw it into abundance of water, that it may retain
no taste of the acid. Pierce with the point of a knife any parts in
which the blood appears to have settled, and soak them in tepid
water, that it may be well drawn out. Wipe the hare dry, fill it with the
forcemeat No. 1, Chapter VIII., sew it up, truss and spit it firmly,
baste it for ten minutes with lukewarm water mixed with a very little
salt; throw this away, and put into the pan a quart or more of new
milk; keep it constantly laded over the hare until it is nearly dried up,
then add a large lump of butter, flour the hare, and continue the
basting steadily until it is well browned; for unless this be done, and
the roast be kept at a proper distance from the fire, the outside will
become so dry and hard as to be quite uneatable. Serve the hare
when done, with good brown gravy (of which a little should be
poured round it in the dish), and with fine red currant jelly. This is an
approved English method of dressing it, but we would recommend in
preference, that it should be basted plentifully with butter from the
beginning (the strict economist may substitute clarified beef-dripping,
or marrow, and finish with a small quantity of butter only); and that
the salt and water should be altogether omitted. First-rate cooks
merely wipe the hare inside and out, and rub it with its own blood
before it is laid to the fire; but there is generally a rankness about it,
especially after it has been many days killed, which, we should say,
renders the washing indispensable, unless a coarse game-flavour be
liked.
1-1/4 to 1-3/4 hour.
 ROAST HARE.

(Superior Receipt.)
A hare may be rendered far more plump in appearance, and
infinitely easier to carve, by taking out the bones of the back and
thighs, or of the former only: in removing this a very sharp knife
should be used, and much care will be required to avoid cutting
through the skin just over the spine, as it adheres closely to the
bone. Nearly double the usual quantity of forcemeat must be
prepared: with this restore the legs to their original shape, and fill the
body, which should previously be lined with delicate slices of the
nicest bacon, of which the rind and edges have been trimmed away.
Sew up the hare, truss it as usual; lard it or not, as is most
convenient, keep it basted plentifully with butter while roasting, and
serve it with the customary sauce. We have found two
tablespoonsful of the finest currant jelly, melted in half a pint of rich
brown gravy, an acceptable accompaniment to hare, when the taste
has been in favour of a sweet sauce.
To remove the back-bone, clear from it first the flesh in the inside;
lay this back to the right and left from the centre of the bone to the
tips; then work the knife on the upper side quite to the spine, and
when the whole is detached except the skin which adheres to this,
separate the bone at the first joint from the neck-bone or ribs (we
know not how more correctly to describe it), and pass the knife with
caution under the skin down the middle of the back. The directions
for boning the thighs of a fowl will answer equally for those of a hare,
and we therefore refer the reader to them.
 STEWED HARE.

Wash and soak the hare thoroughly, wipe it very dry, cut it down
into joints dividing the largest, flour and brown it slightly in butter with
some bits of lean ham, pour to them by degrees a pint and a half of
gravy, and stew the hare very gently from an hour and a half to two
hours: when it is about one third done add the very thin rind of half a
large lemon, and ten minutes before it is served stir to it a large
dessertspoonful of rice-flour, smoothly mixed with two tablespoonsful
of good mushroom catsup, a quarter of a teaspoonful or more of
mace, and something less of cayenne. This is an excellent plain
receipt for stewing a hare; but the dish may be enriched with
forcemeat (No. 1, Chapter VIII.) rolled into small balls, and simmered
for ten minutes in the stew, or fried and added to it after it is dished;
a higher seasoning of spice, a couple of glasses of port wine, with a
little additional thickening and a tablespoonful of lemon-juice, will all
serve to give it a heightened relish.
Hare, 1; lean of ham or bacon, 4 to 6 oz.; butter, 2 oz.; gravy, 1-1/2
pint; lemon-rind: 1 hour and 20 to 50 minutes. Rice-flour, 1 large
dessertspoonful; mushroom catsup, 2 tablespoonsful; mace, 1/3 of
teaspoonful; little cayenne (salt, if needed): 10 minutes.
 TO ROAST A RABBIT.

This, like a hare, is much improved by

having the back-bone taken out, and the
directions we have given will enable the
cook, with very little practice, to remove it
without difficulty. Line the inside, when this Rabbit for roasting.
is done, with thin slices of bacon, fill it with
forcemeat (No. 1, Chapter VIII), sew it up,
truss, and roast it at a clear, brisk fire, and baste it constantly with
butter. Flour it well soon after it is laid down. Serve it with good
brown gravy, and with currant jelly, when this last is liked. For
change, the back of the rabbit may be larded, and the bone left in, or
not, at pleasure; or it can be plain roasted when more convenient.
3/4 to 1 hour; less, if small.
 TO BOIL RABBITS.

Rabbits that are three parts grown, or, at

all events, which are still quite young,
should be chosen for this mode of cooking.
Wash them well, truss them firmly, with the
heads turned and skewered to the sides,
Rabbit for boiling. drop them into sufficient boiling water to
keep them quite covered until they are
cooked, and simmer them gently from thirty
to forty-five minutes: when very young they will require even less
time than this. Cover them with rich white sauce, mixed with the
livers parboiled, finely pounded, and well seasoned with cayenne
and lemon-juice; or with white onion sauce, or with parsley and
butter, made with milk or cream instead of water (the livers, minced,
are often added to the last of these), or with good mushroom sauce.
30 to 45 minutes.
 FRIED RABBIT.

After the rabbit has been emptied, thoroughly washed and soaked,
should it require it to remove any mustiness of smell, blanch it, that is
to say, put it into boiling water and let it boil from five to seven
minutes; drain it, and when cold or nearly so, cut it into joints, dip
them into beaten egg, and then into fine bread-crumbs, seasoned
with salt and pepper, and when all are ready, fry them in butter over
a moderate fire, from twelve to fifteen minutes. Simmer two or three
strips of lemon-rind in a little gravy, until it is well flavoured with it;
boil the liver of the rabbit for five minutes, let it cool, and then mince
it; thicken the gravy with an ounce of butter and a small teaspoonful
of flour, add the liver, give the sauce a minute’s boil, stir in two
tablespoonsful of cream if at hand, and last of all, a small quantity of
lemon-juice. Dish the rabbit, pour the sauce under it, and serve it
quickly. If preferred, a gravy can be made in the pan as for veal
cutlets, and the rabbit may be simply fried.
 TO ROAST A PHEASANT.

[In season from the beginning of October to the end of January.

The licensed term of pheasant shooting commences on the 1st of
October, and terminates on the 2nd of February, but as the birds will
remain perfectly good in cold weather for two or three weeks, if from
that time hung in a well-ventilated larder, they continue, correctly
speaking, in season so long as they can be preserved fit for table
after the regular market for them is closed: the same rule applies
equally to other varieties of game.]
Unless kept to the proper point, a
pheasant is one of the most tough, dry, and
flavourless birds that is sent to table; but
when it has hung as many days as it can
without becoming really tainted, and is well
roasted and served, it is most excellent
eating. Pluck off the feathers carefully, cut a
slit in the back of the neck to remove the
crop, then draw the bird in the usual way,
and either wipe the inside very clean with a
damp cloth, or pour water through it; wipe
the outside also, but with a dry cloth; cut off
the toes, turn the head of the bird under the
wing, with the bill laid straight along the Pheasant trussed
breast, skewer the legs, which must not be without the head.
crossed, flour the pheasant well, lay it to a
brisk fire, and baste it constantly and
plentifully with well flavoured butter. Send bread-sauce and good
brown gravy to table with it. The entire breast of the bird may be
larded by the directions of Chapter IX When a brace is served, one is
sometimes larded, and the other not; but a much handsomer
appearance is given to the dish by larding both. About three quarters
of an hour will roast them.
3/4 hour; a few minutes less, if liked very much underdone; five or
ten more for thorough roasting, with a good fire in both cases.
 BOUDIN OF PHEASANT À LA RICHELIEU. (ENTRÉE.)

Take, quite clear from the bones, and from all skin and sinew, the
flesh of a half-roasted pheasant; mince, and then pound it to the
smoothest paste; add an equal bulk of the floury part of some fine
roasted potatoes, or of such as have been boiled by Captain Kater’s
receipt (see Chapter XVII.), and beat them together until they are
well blended; next throw into the mortar something less (in volume)
of fresh butter than there was of the pheasant-flesh, with a high
seasoning of mace, nutmeg, and cayenne, and a half-teaspoonful or
more of salt; pound the mixture afresh for ten minutes or a quarter of
an hour, keeping it turned from the sides of the mortar into the
middle; then add one by one, after merely taking out the germs with
the point of a fork, two whole eggs and a yolk or two without the
whites, if these last will not render the mixture too moist. Mould it into
the form of a roll, lay it into a stewpan rubbed with butter, pour boiling
water on it and poach it gently from ten to fifteen minutes. Lift it out
with care, drain it on a sieve, and when it is quite cold cover it
equally with beaten egg, and then with the finest bread-crumbs, and
broil it over a clear fire, or fry it in butter of a clear golden brown. A
good gravy should be made of the remains of the bird and sent to
table with it; the flavour may be heightened with ham and eschalots,
as directed in Chapter IV., page 96, and small mushrooms, sliced
sideways, and stewed quite tender in butter, may be mixed with the
boudin after it is taken from the mortar; or their flavour may be given
more delicately by adding to it only the butter in which they have
been simmered, well pressed, from them through a strainer. The
mixture, which should be set into a very cool place before it is
moulded, may be made into several small rolls, which will require
four or five minutes’ poaching only. The flesh of partridges will
answer quite as well as that of pheasants for this dish.
SALMI OF PHEASANT.
(See page 292.)

PHEASANT CUTLETS.
(See page 275.)
 TO ROAST PARTRIDGES.

[In season from the first of September to the second of February,

and as long as they can be preserved fit for table from that time.]
Let the birds hang as long as they can
possibly be kept without becoming
offensive; pick them carefully, draw, and
singe them; wipe the insides thoroughly
with a clean cloth; truss them with the head
turned under the wing and the legs drawn
close together, not crossed. Flour them
when first laid to the fire, and baste them
plentifully with butter. Serve them with
bread sauce, and good brown gravy, a little
of this last should be poured over them. In
some counties they are dished upon fried
bread-crumbs, but these are better handed Partridge trussed.
round the table by themselves. Where
game is plentiful we recommend that the
remains of a cold roasted partridge should be well bruised and boiled
down with just so much water, or unflavoured broth, as will make
gravy for a brace of other birds: this, seasoned with salt, and
cayenne only, or flavoured with a few mushrooms, will be found a
very superior accompaniment for roast partridges, to the best meat-
gravy that can be made. A little eschalot, and a few herbs, can be
added to it at pleasure. It should be served also with boiled or with
broiled partridges in preference to any other.
30 to 40 minutes.
Obs.—Rather less time must be allowed when the birds are liked
underdressed. In preparing them for the spit, the crop must be
removed through a slit cut in the back of the neck, the claws clipped
close, and the legs held in boiling water for a minute, that they may
be skinned the more easily.
 BOILED PARTRIDGES.

This is a delicate mode of dressing young and tender birds. Strip

off the feathers, clean, and wash them well; cut off the heads, truss
the legs like those of boiled fowls, and when ready, drop them into a
large pan of boiling water; throw a little salt on them, and in fifteen, or
at the utmost in eighteen minutes they will be ready to serve. Lift
them out, dish them quickly, and send them to table with white
mushroom sauce, with bread sauce and game gravy (see preceding
receipt), or with celery sauce. Our own mode of having them served
is usually with a slice of fresh butter, about a tablespoonful of lemon-
juice, and a good sprinkling of cayenne placed in a very hot dish,
under them.
15 to 18 minutes.
 PARTRIDGES WITH MUSHROOMS.

For a brace of young well-kept birds, prepare from half to three

quarters of a pint of mushroom-buttons, or very small flaps, as for
pickling. Dissolve over a gentle fire an ounce and a half of butter,
throw in the mushrooms with a slight sprinkling of salt and cayenne,
simmer them from eight to ten minutes, and turn them with the butter
on to a plate; when they are quite cold, put the whole into the bodies
of the partridges, sew them up, truss them securely, and roast them
on a vertical jack with the heads downwards; or should an ordinary
spit be used, tie them firmly to it, instead of passing it through them.
Roast them the usual time, and serve them with brown mushroom
sauce, or with gravy and bread sauce only. The birds may be trussed
like boiled fowls, floured, and lightly browned in butter, half covered
with rich brown gravy and stewed slowly for thirty minutes; then
turned, and simmered for another half hour with the addition of some
mushrooms to the gravy; or they may be covered with small
mushrooms stewed apart, when they are sent to table. They can
also be served with their sauce only, simply thickened with a small
quantity of fresh butter, smoothly mixed with less than a teaspoonful
of arrow-root and flavoured with cayenne and a little catsup, wine, or
store sauce.
Partridges, 2; mushrooms, 1/2 to 3/4 pint; butter, 1-1/2 oz.; little
mace and cayenne: roasted 30 to 40 minutes, or stewed 1 hour.
Obs.—Nothing can be finer than the game flavour imbibed by the
mushrooms with which the birds are filled, in this receipt.
 BROILED PARTRIDGE.

(Breakfast Dish.)
“Split a young and well-kept partridge, and wipe it with a soft clean
cloth inside and out, but do not wash it; broil it delicately over a very
clear fire, sprinkling it with a little salt and cayenne; rub a bit of fresh
butter over it the moment it is taken from the fire, and send it quickly
to table with a sauce made of a good slice of butter browned with
flour, a little water, cayenne, salt, and mushroom-catsup, poured
over it.” We give this receipt exactly as we received it from a house
where we know it to have been greatly approved by various guests
who have partaken of it there.
 BROILED PARTRIDGE.

(French Receipt.)
After having prepared the bird with great nicety, divided, and
flattened it, season it with salt, and pepper, or cayenne, dip it into
clarified butter, and then into very fine bread-crumbs, and take care
that every part shall be equally covered: if wanted of particularly
good appearance dip it a second time into the butter and crumbs.
Place it over a very clear fire, and broil it gently from twenty to thirty
minutes. Send it to table with brown mushroom sauce, or some
Espagnole.
 THE FRENCH, OR RED-LEGGED PARTRIDGE.

This is dressed precisely like our common partridge, and is

excellent eating if it be well kept; otherwise it is tough and devoid of
flavour. It does not, we believe, abound commonly in England, its
hostility to the gray partridge, which it drives always from its
neighbourhood, rendering it an undesirable occupant of a preserve.
It was at one time, however, plentiful in Suffolk,[94] and in one or two
of the adjoining counties, but great efforts, we have understood,
have been made to exterminate it.
94. Brought there by the late Marquis of Hertford, to his Sudbourne estate.
 TO ROAST THE LANDRAIL OR CORN-CRAKE.

This delicate and excellent bird is in its full season at the end of
August and early in September, when it abounds often in the
poulterers’ shops. Its plumage resembles that of the partridge, but it
is of smaller size and of much more slender shape. Strip off the
feathers, draw and prepare the bird as usual for the spit, truss it like
a snipe, and roast it quickly at a brisk but not a fierce fire from fifteen
to eighteen minutes. Dish it on fried bread-crumbs, or omit these and
serve it with gravy round it, and more in a tureen, and with well made
bread sauce. Three or even four of the birds will be required for a
dish. One makes a nice dinner for an invalid.
 TO ROAST BLACK COCK AND GRAY HEN.

In season during the same time as the common grouse, and found like them on
the moors, but less abundantly.
These birds, so delicious when well kept and well roasted, are
tough and comparatively flavourless when too soon dressed. They
should hang therefore till they give unequivocal indication of being
ready for the spit. Pick and draw them with exceeding care, as the
skin is easily broken; truss them like pheasants, lay them at a
moderate distance from a clear brisk fire, baste them plentifully and
constantly with butter, and serve them on a thick toast which has
been laid under them in the dripping-pan for the last ten minutes of
their roasting, and which will have imbibed a high degree of savour:
some cooks squeeze a little lemon-juice over it before it is put into
the pan. Send rich brown gravy and bread sauce to table with the
birds. From three quarters of an hour to a full hour will roast them.
Though kept to the point which we have recommended, they will not
offend even the most fastidious eater after they are dressed, as,
unless they have been too long allowed to hang, the action of the fire
will remove all perceptible traces of their previous state. In the earlier
part of the season, when warm and close packing have rendered
either black game or grouse, in their transit from the North,
apparently altogether unfit for table, the chloride of soda, well-
diluted, may be used with advantage to restore them to a fitting state
for it; though the copious washings which must then be resorted to,
may diminish something of their fine flavour.
3/4 to 1 hour.