Steerswoman

[sasha_feather]

I thought of a job title for the work I have been doing for the past year, for the kind of work a lot of us do that spend a lot of time on the internet and in fandom and in various communities.

In Rosemary's Kerstein's Steerswoman's Road, Rowan wanders the world, talks to people, explores. She is an educated woman, a mapmaker and illustrator and diarist, but she has few firmly defined job duties. Her main charter is to tell the truth to any who asks it, and in return they must tell her the truth if she asks it of them. There are some provisions for personal privacy, tact, and taboo. She seeks mysteries, problems, information; she seeks puzzles and puzzle pieces. She follows her interests and instincts. She has basic freedom of movement and respect among the people of her world. Her basic survival needs are generally assured. Her enemies are wizards: people who withhold information, protect and control it possessively. There is a very open-source ethic to this book.

The book unfolds very slowly, and the pace can be off-putting to some. As a reader we can see more puzzle pieces than Rowan herself can: we have a wider perspective. Rowan is slowly working out the puzzles of her world. She has no assurances that she will ever be able to figure out the answers. It may take more than one lifetime, so she keeps notes to pass onto the next generations of steerswomen. But if or when she assembles those pieces, it can turn the whole world around.

So, we who wander the internet and speak the truth to one another, we are Steerswomen and Steersmen and Steerers.

Comments

[littlebutfierce]

Oh, lovely! I read the first book in that series & was kind of intrigued (but, er, apparently not enough to read on)... I like your summation of Rowan's job & its application to internet people.

[sasha_feather]

They are slow-moving books, and the series isn't done yet, so there hasn't been a huge pay-off to all the puzzle pieces. But I really love them! They are very good feminist SF/F.

[erda]

That's a cool idea.

[sasha_feather]

:D

[teigh_corvus]

What an excellent job title.
*jots book down on the'to read' list*

[sasha_feather]

Yeah I definitely recommend these books, especially if you like feminist SF/F. :D

[teigh_corvus]

I do, though I have fallen out of the habit lately. I was eyeing the Tepper shelf recently however - it will be good to dig into something new.

[jesse_the_k]

A felicitous choice! (You multimedia demon, you :,))

[sasha_feather]

I'm starting to think that my mind works a lot like Rowan's; I'm a generalist, an assembler of information from many sources. Hm. That's a little hard to find a job category for in this structured world of ours. I remember really identifying with Rowan when I read the book.

[owlectomy]

It's too bad that the library job market is so dismal, because I think that being a research librarian is probably just about as close to a Steerswoman as a person can get. I know I was pretty delighted about that in the book.

(takumashii on LJ, by the way--I've got a DW account but I haven't really done anything with it.)

[sasha_feather]

Dreamwidth is where it's at. :D

Funnily enough, I had a dream recently in which I was applying to library school. It seems like there should be other jobs like this, though, and I will think on it.

[benegesseritwitch]

Why do I feel like I read this book? It's tickling at the back of my mind! Sigh.

Anyhow, I'm also reminded of the viajeras of Nicola Griffith's Ammonite, though the viajeras have less of an overarching quest.