{"id":133691,"date":"2015-10-01T23:27:20","date_gmt":"2015-10-01T23:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/10\/01\/themarysue-becausedragonage-makingfists\/"},"modified":"2015-10-01T23:27:20","modified_gmt":"2015-10-01T23:27:20","slug":"themarysue-becausedragonage-makingfists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/10\/01\/themarysue-becausedragonage-makingfists\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

themarysue<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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becausedragonage<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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makingfists<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s like this\u2026<\/p>\n

You\u2019re fourteen and you\u2019re reading Larry Niven\u2019s \u201cThe Protector\u201d because it\u2019s your father\u2019s favorite book and you like your father and you think he has good taste and the creature on the cover of the book looks interesting and you want to know <\/i>what it\u2019s about. And in it the female character does something better than the male character – because she\u2019s been doing it her whole life and he\u2019s only just learned – and he gets mad that she\u2019s better at it than him. And you don\u2019t understand why he would be mad about that, because, logically, she\u2019d be better at it than him. She\u2019s done it more. And he\u2019s got a picture of a woman painted on the inside of his spacesuit, like a pinup girl, and it bothers you.<\/p>\n

But you\u2019re fourteen and you don\u2019t know how to put this into words.<\/p>\n

And then you\u2019re fifteen and you\u2019re reading \u201cOrphans of the Sky\u201d because it\u2019s by a famous sci-fi author and it\u2019s about a lost generation ship and how cool is that?!?<\/i> but the women on the ship aren\u2019t given a name<\/i> until they\u2019re married<\/i> and you spend more time wondering what people call those women up until their marriage than you do focusing on the rest of the story. Even though this tidbit of information has nothing to do with the plot line of the story and is only brought up once in passing.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s a random thing to get worked up about in an otherwise all right book.<\/p>\n

Then you\u2019re sixteen and you read \u201cDune\u201d because your brother gave it to you for Christmas and it\u2019s one of those books you have to read to earn your geek card. You spend an entire afternoon arguing over who is the main character – Paul or Jessica. And the more you contend Jessica, the more he says Paul, and you can\u2019t make him see how the real hero is her. And you love Chani cause she\u2019s tough and good with a knife, but at the end of the day, her killing Paul\u2019s challengers is just a way to degrade them because those weenies lost to a girl.<\/i><\/p>\n

Then you\u2019re seventeen and you don\u2019t want to read \u201cStranger in a Strange Land\u201d after the first seventy pages because something about it just leaves a bad taste in your mouth. All of this talk of water-brothers. You can\u2019t even pin it down.<\/p>\n

And then you\u2019re eighteen and you\u2019ve given up on classic sci-fi, but that doesn\u2019t stop your brother or your father from trying to get you to read more.<\/p>\n

Even when you bring them the books and bring them the passages and show them how the authors didn\u2019t treat women like people.<\/p>\n

Your brother says, \u201cWell, that was because of the time it was written in.\u201d<\/p>\n

You get all worked up because these men couldn\u2019t imagine<\/i> a world in which women were equal, in which women were empowered and intelligent and literate and capable.<\/p>\n

You tell him – this, this is science fiction. This is all about imagining the world that could be<\/i> and they couldn\u2019t stand back long enough and dare to imagine how, not only technology would grow in time, but society<\/i> would grow.<\/p>\n

But he blows you off because he can\u2019t understand how it feels<\/i> to be fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen and desperately wanting to like the books your father likes, because your father has good taste, and being unable to, because most of those books tell you that you\u2019re not a full person in ways that are too subtle to put into words. It\u2019s all cognitive dissonance: a little like a song played a bit out of tempo – enough that you recognize it\u2019s off, but not enough to pin down what exactly<\/i> is wrong.<\/p>\n

And then one day you\u2019re twenty-two and studying sociology and some kind teacher finally gives you the words to explain all those little feelings that built and penned around inside of you for years.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like the world clicking into place.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s something your brother never had to struggle with.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is an excellent post to keep in mind when you see another recent post criticizing the current trend of dystopian sci-fi and going on about how sci-fi used to be about hope and wonder.<\/p>\n

No. It used to be about men. And now it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Tell us again why equality in spec fic doesn\u2019t matter. We dare you.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

themarysue: becausedragonage: makingfists: It\u2019s like this\u2026 You\u2019re fourteen and you\u2019re reading Larry Niven\u2019s \u201cThe Protector\u201d because it\u2019s your father\u2019s favorite book and you like your father and you think he has good taste and the creature on the cover of the book looks interesting and you want to know what it\u2019s about. And in it … <\/p>\n

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