No reason

[james_davis_nicoll]

If you were going to nominate one bit of SF from the 1970s as the most egregious example of unself-conscious sexism [1], which story would you pick?

My nominee: Hawksbill Station, a 1978 novel by Robert Silverberg (although it is based on an earlier shorter work). Our hero states at one point that the reason he dates women is because his cleaning won't do itself.

(Of course this being Silverberg, this may be characterization, like the bit in Across a Billion Years where the protagonist goes on at one point about how some of his best friends are androids but they can't really be expected to match the best humans can offer and having state sanctions to encourage equal or at least less unequal than in the past employment of androids is silly. The protagonist is by the most amazing coincidence human).



1: Which is to say, something that was not written in outraged reaction to Women's Lib.

Comments

[carbonel]

"For the Sake of Grace" by Suzette Haden Elgin?

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

Stand On Zanzibar, which I love but is really horribly sexist. The young women who I think are said to be 'on the circuit' who move in with men in return for sex with both the original man and their room mate. And the otherwise mostly sympathetic white researcher feels able to complain to his black room mate about said room mate's preference for white women.

It's the only Brunner I've reread since I was a teenager and it put me off reading any more. A classic case of women not being actual people.

[(Anonymous)]

As to the first part, yes, and very much so. As to the second, both complain about their roommate's choice of women:

"Prophet's beard, Donald, if I'd known you had a thing about dark meat I could have had my pick of --"

Only after this comment does Donald mention that all of Norman's women are Scandinavian, and advises him to try an Italian for a change "Frankly I think you're in a rut".

Norman later muses on his obsession with Scandinavians, and concludes:

"Allah be just to me, I'm a worse prisoner of historical circumstance than the oldest Red Guard in Peking!"

As far as I know we don't find out the cause of Donald's preference. In fact as the novel starts he isn't in a relationship (assuming that word can be used to describe this sort of thing) as he's rather pining for the last one, who is portrayed as the only truly independent woman ever to live in the apartment


William Hyde

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of this sort of thing was going around in post-Sexual Revolution social SF. They were doing the usual thing of extrapolating some then-current trend in a linear or exponential way, and the particular trend under examination (for reasons that are not hard to guess) was promiscuity rather than feminism. So everyone in the future is a swinger, but women are still chattels, they're just chattels that men tend to share or swap instead of hoarding them.

[wdstarr.livejournal.com]

> Which is to say, something that was not written in outraged reaction to Women's Lib.

If you're going to set the bar that low, I'm pretty sure that Gor qualifies.

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

Nah, Gor was very much a "Women think they are independent human people but they are REALLY cattle" thing, whereas what Nicoll is talking about is more "women are cattle" without the "they may think they are human" bit at all. Unselfconscious sexism does not justify itself or acknowledge feminism as existing becasue doing so is considered women's work.

Ayn Rand is also disallowed, and probably Piers Anthony along with pretty much anything Pournelle did too.

Which is why it's so difficult!

[(Anonymous)]

"Ayn Rand is also disallowed, and probably Piers Anthony along with pretty much anything Pournelle did too."

Sorry: I'm confused by this. Do you mean this lot are 'disallowed' because their sexism is unselfconcious, in the sense James is asking about, thereby disallowing them from being put in the same cattlegory as Gor books; or do you mean that they are, rather, selfconcious, thereby 'disallowing' them from being scrutinized here under James' current rubric?

(Not that I actually have anything to add in reply to either view, I'm just too addled to understand what you wrote ...)

Thanks.

TSM_in_Toronto

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

The latter.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks very much.

TSM_in_Toronto

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Now, he doesn't say it has to be written by men. I think "Houston, Houston, Do You Read" would fit his criteria.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I'd have to say that the saddest example was Gordon R. Dickson's novel Time Storm (1977), where after decades of novels with no (or at most a very few) female characters, he gives the protagonist a female companion and has the main villain in the first half of the book be female. It was clear that Dickson was trying to write more and better female characters. Unfortunately, all he could manage was plucky girl reporter (for the companion) and shrill bitch (for the villain). So, the absolute best he could do was cheap and offensive stereotypes. I noticed that at the time, and it definitely made me sad.

[jeffreyab.livejournal.com]

What about asking people to name the most UNsexist novel next?

[abidemi.livejournal.com]

Compliments aren't as fun as complaints.

At least on LiveJournal.

[avitzur.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Can I go slightly offtrack here and compliment Robert Silverberg's classic assessment of Tiptree's writing?

UnitedNationssexist

[lpetrazickis.livejournal.com]

If it's done right, you don't notice it at all. I think. Or maybe one would, since it would be different from usual. Not sure.

Egan's Diaspora or Gentle's Grunts! suggest themselves, but they are definitely from the self-conscious half of unsexist.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

"Friday" was 1982, so I guess it misses your target . . .

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

Yes, but I Will Fear No Evil hits the mark...1970. It was appalling dreck.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it was unselfconscious sexist appalling dreck, though.

I'd have to reread it to be sure. Is knowledge worth the price?

[debgeisler.livejournal.com]

I'd have to reread it to be sure. Is knowledge worth the price?

I'm sure not going to re-read it, nor will I deliberately put you through the pain. Let's just call it dreck...and not worry about intent. :-)

[ambitious-wench.livejournal.com]

Heinlein was notoriously backlash-antifeminist. Decidedly NOT unselfconscious.

[ambitious-wench.livejournal.com]

What sticks with me about that book was his overt anti-gay attitude. Besides the whole "only a real woman can give birth" bullshit. It stank of "Rights for me but not for thee".

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

And yet only a few years later in Time Enough for Love there's a scene where two people in biological isolation suits arrange to hook up and then check what sex the other person is. I wonder why the change?

[ambitious-wench.livejournal.com]

You're right, of course. RAH was influenced, I think, by his communications with Otter Zell, (or however he's identifying himself these days). I'm trying to remember which book it was that had a bunch of Satanists who were remarkably similar to the folks who run the Church of All Worlds.

Perhaps that change might have come due to the accepting nature of the Neo-Pagans?

In Stranger in a Strange Land, towards the end, one character relates a homosexual encounter to another but tries hard to differentiate it from "pansy" encounters.

Ya know, RAH remains dear to me. His work was my introduction to SF back in the early 80's, and in spite of his sexism, his homophobic rants, his self-referential characters, he is a writer I can still respect. Odd, that.

I still think "Rub her feet" is the best advice that Lazarus Long gave to the world.

That and his quote about specialization is for insects.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Different things stick for different people. For me, it's the assumption that Friday would be satisfied with the ending.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

After further thought -- I think I may have gotten a different message from that "real woman" phrase than you did. I remember concentrating on the "real" part, with Friday having this deep-seated sense that she is artificial, a construct and not actually human.