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

[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.