Man, I haven't flung a book across the room in forever!

[solarbird]

A. E. van Vogt's The Changeling is almost like a parody of sexism, except for the part where it's not!

Everybody who feels like criticising Heinlein for that should probably breeze through the first 20 pages or so of this thing to see what some contemporaries were writing. Or just, I dunno, punch yourself in the face a few times. Either would work.

I mean, damn.

(Caviat: I could only read 20 pages. Then I managed to skim about 20 more before t3h fl1ng. Maybe it was sekrit parody. But I'm pretty sure not.)

gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

Comments

[banner.livejournal.com]

Just out of curiosity, how old are you? Because back when I was a kid, that was what it was 90 percent of the time.

My mom was accepted to college, I forget which one, but it was a good one. Full scholarship, wouldn't have cost her or my grandparents a dime. (This was in the 40's).

My grandmother wouldn't allow her to go, Quote:"Education is wasted on a woman". My Grandmother said that, not my Grandfather. (She even said it to me when I asked her once why she didn't let my Mom go if it had been free).

My older sister was the FIRST person in my family to ever go to college. You wouldn't believe the fuss that raised! (We're talking 1969/1970) And not just in the family, but outside of it too!

It was a much different world that those writers grew up in, and were writing in when they were writing. For the most part women were NOT found in the workplace, well not the higher educated or skilled workplace, other than as secretaries. A lot of those attitudes reflect the realities of the times.

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

A lot of those attitudes reflect the realities of the times.

...and isn't that just the LAMEST excuse in the world, given that we're talking about the genres of fantasy and science fiction? i mean, c'mon, if samuel r delany could write brilliantly about gender in the 1960's, what's everybody else's excuse?

sexism has been around a long time, up to and including now. but, well, it's been kinda lame and stupid all along, and some folks have been clever enough to be aware of that at any given time. (and not to say that solely in sf/f, either. i mean, i like jane austen as well as the next person, but after i read her i go and rinse my brain out with virginia woolf.)

[banner.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's a lame excuse. Does a fish notice the water? No. They were carrying the baggage that they grew up with and I doubt they even noticed it. Nor did their editors, nor did their audience. Yeah now you look back at it and you find it odd, but then? Then there was 'nothing odd about it'.

Look at '1001 Arabian Nights' heck, look at anything written by Barbara Cartland, who was the biggest romance writer in the 70's.

Also remember the prime audience of Sci-Fi (And even fantasy) back in the 60's and 70's: Men. It was a male oriented genre, women leaned more towards Horror and Romance. Heck, look at the Gor books! Talk about insulting to women, yet they sold like hotcakes. And look at the attitudes towards men in romance books, even modern romance books. Want to talk about insulting? :-)

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

*i* think it's lame. you may feel free to be less discriminating. like i said, if virginia woolf and samuel r delany somehow managed to notice, i don't think anybody deserves to be off the hook.

barbara cartland managed to be a total fool during one of the biggest feminist-consciousness eras in history. and yes, she's a fool about men and women alike. being popular is not to be confused with not being an idiot.

wrt the primary audience being men, umm, isn't that kind of one of the problems here?

[wrog]

hell, even E.E."Doc" Smith has female characters that are worth a damn (*).

Van Vogt was just extra-special crunchy; also a big fan of General Semantics, let's not forget.

(*) ...admittedly, it would be nice to be able to base this on more than just Children of The Lens which was decidedly wonky in other ways [so we're at the final stage of human genetic evolution and all the bad shit has been bred out, so what's next? Incest? This being the 1950s, he had to be very subtle about it, but it's there...])