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CONJURE_WIFE

                                                   October 12, 2018
Fritz Leiber wrote an excellent
horror/fantasy novel originally        It's gone by other names, such
named "Conjure Wife" (1943).           as "Burn, Witch, Burn", which
                                       was also the title of a somewhat
The premise of "Conjure Wife"          pedestrian movie in 1962 which
was that faculty wives were            skipped nearly anything that
performing a secret function           was interesting about it.
in the academic world by
sparring with each other by              [link] 
magic and spells, while their
intellectual husbands told
themselves their careers rose
and fell purely by rational
debate and conventional politics.

There's a suggestion-- I don't remember
how well this is spelled out-- that this
is the case everywhere, in all fields:
it's not just that *some* women are
witches, *all* of them are: there's a
magical conspiracy among women that
underpins the entire mundane world that
the men think they are running.                     THE_VENUS_SMITH

Read from a male point-of-view, this book
then is an excellent paranoid fantasy.

From a female point-of-view it might
look horribly sexist or fascinatingly     A duel of perspectives
proto-feminist, depending on how you      that comes up often--
feel about the notion that "women are
magical".                                 In the Japanese television
                                          show "Doctor X", a female
  In retrospect, it's good jab at         surgeon goes stalking around
  the common conceit of academic          the hospital in miniskirts
  intellectuals: we are an elite of       and spike heels.
  highly rational thinking machines    
  who have risen above the barbaric       Sexist: female characters have
  common run of humanity.                 to dress like fashion models.
                         
                                          Feminist: intelligent
                                          professional women need not
                                          be desexualized to deserve
                                          respect.




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