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.

[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.

[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?

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

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