The O! So Hard! Job of Research Reading...

[rgraham666]

How odd. I always thought Heinlein was considerably less sexist than many of his contemporaries. I'm thinking of the woman in The Menace From Earth who was a starship designer. Or the women in Starship Troopers who were commanders of warships.

But that's just my perspective.

If you want an SF writer of that era who was definitely non-sexist try James H. Schmitz. All his main characters were tough, capable women.

So much so, I suspect the name is a pseudonym for a woman who knew how hard it would be for people to accept a female SF writer at that time. Like Andre Norton.

 

[Guest]

[threadjack]



I've stopped reading the anita blake series. I think I've seen her latest in the bookstores called Micah, but really, a less interesting character I've ever read. He doesn't think, does exactly what she wants, when she wants, and has a big dick. and 2 triuverates or whatever. Please. She needs to de- complicate it, and get back to what it was all about - the undead. But I don't think she has it in her to do it. So yeah, me and Laurell are on a break too.

[/threadjack]

(I's ok, it's about the books )

Her Merry Gentry series started out with the sex and the flat characters frosting over a pretty interesting political thriller, although I still haven't read the latest book. It's a shame, really, when I find myself SKIPPING THE SEX SCENES to get to the STORY. The sex scenes 1) aren't all that 2) are full of her own self made cliches -- if Merry "looks like she swallowed the moon" one more time, I say shoot a rocket at her. 3) are performed with such a collection of color coded men that I need a score card.

I mean, fantasy is well and good, and if that's your style of erotica/porn, I'm happy for you, but it don't do it for me.

 

[wishfulthinking]

(I's ok, it's about the books )

The sex scenes 1) aren't all that 2) are full of her own self made cliches -- if Merry "looks like she swallowed the moon" one more time, I say shoot a rocket at her. 3) are performed with such a collection of color coded men that I need a score card.

lol

yeah, I didn't mind the latest one. I thought it was the better of them, but probably because I knew to skip to the colour coded sex scenes She must figure that unless there are 5 men in the bed with the lead [seems it is always a bed, but I suppose they are supposed to be comfort creatures], it doesn't rate on the scorecard. tish tish. quality not quantity

 

[rgraham666]

How many of you have gotten more picky about your reading as you've read more? I think that is a reason I'm so picky about my own work and the work of others I read. I have a hard time being generous to anything presented as "finished work" if it isn't...well...FINISHED. Fire tested, polished to a gleaming edge, buffed and smoothed and solidly built. I think I've read some very good writing over the years, and every good book I read (and I have read some less than good books, heaven help me, out of sheet bloodymindedness) raises my standard that little bit more. Sometimes books I once loved fall from favor because my tastes have evolved or even (I'll say it) my standards got higher.

Anyone else think that?

Yes, my tastes have changed.

I read a lot less SF than I used too. Originality is often sadly lacking in it. I'll read something and go, "That was just like a story I read thirty years ago." And I've come to realise a lot of SF writers are bad writers. They can't really create interesting characters or scenarios.

In non-fiction, the same. Most 'historical' works I read now are actually political works, and usually quite laughable. The End Of History And The Last Man fell into that category. I giggled extensively while reading it, and it was the first book I selected to go to Goodwill last time I cleared out my books.

 

[Guest]

How odd. I always thought Heinlein was considerably less sexist than many of his contemporaries. I'm thinking of the woman in The Menace From Earth who was a starship designer. Or the women in Starship Troopers who were commanders of warships.

But that's just my perspective.

If you want an SF writer of that era who was definitely non-sexist try James H. Schmitz. All his main characters were tough, capable women.

So much so, I suspect the name is a pseudonym for a woman who knew how hard it would be for people to accept a female SF writer at that time. Like Andre Norton.

Heinlein frustrated me because his stories were so good, yet the women were either demanding, angry bitches, sweet sexy little girls, or clever, able to think women who behaved like sluts and used all manner of strategem, trickery, tears, pouting and flattery to bed the men in the stories and get their way -- reasonable argument or just doing whatever needed doing without "approval" didn't happen (sometimes they got approval after the fact, but they still needed it from the men). Any man who acted like that (in the stories) was not well treated, either.

In the stuff written in the 1960s, I didn't mind it so much. I still reread them from time to time, because the characters ARE so engaging and the dialog so clever. He reflects a fairly liberal viewpoint for that era, and I don't pull things out of their social/historical context if I can manage it. It was Job that made me kick a Heinlein book to the curb. I wasn't even through the first chapter when I knew who was going to be having sex with who and how they would manage it. And as soon as I was proved right, I tossed it. There wasn't enough other stuff going on to intrigue me.

I guess the fact that out of all his characters, I never once wanted to be or be like a female character and I always wanted to be or be like the male character is what got me. Why was every thing -- EVERYTHING -- I admired in people in general always found in the men, but not in the women? Even at 13, reading these books, I'd get a little disgusted with the women and prefer the male characters -- and at 13, trust me, I had no more ideas about feminism than I had about cell phones (there weren't any).

 

[impressive]

Imp, how do you get past Heinlein's sexism? I have a very hard time reading his stuff because of that.

Y'know, I just consider the time in which it was written. In that context, it seems more avant garde than sexist.

 

[Recidiva]

Heinlein frustrated me because his stories were so good, yet the women were either demanding, angry bitches, sweet sexy little girls, or clever, able to think women who behaved like sluts and used all manner of strategem, trickery, tears, pouting and flattery to bed the men in the stories and get their way -- reasonable argument or just doing whatever needed doing without "approval" didn't happen (sometimes they got approval after the fact, but they still needed it from the men). Any man who acted like that (in the stories) was not well treated, either.

In the stuff written in the 1960s, I didn't mind it so much. I still reread them from time to time, because the characters ARE so engaging and the dialog so clever. He reflects a fairly liberal viewpoint for that era, and I don't pull things out of their social/historical context if I can manage it. It was Job that made me kick a Heinlein book to the curb. I wasn't even through the first chapter when I knew who was going to be having sex with who and how they would manage it. And as soon as I was proved right, I tossed it. There wasn't enough other stuff going on to intrigue me.

I guess the fact that out of all his characters, I never once wanted to be or be like a female character and I always wanted to be or be like the male character is what got me. Why was every thing -- EVERYTHING -- I admired in people in general always found in the men, but not in the women? Even at 13, reading these books, I'd get a little disgusted with the women and prefer the male characters -- and at 13, trust me, I had no more ideas about feminism than I had about cell phones (there weren't any).

Wow, behaved like sluts? Now I'm curious, which one of my sexually liberated Heinlein heroines were sluts? That'd be a fun discussion

 

[Guest]

Wow, behaved like sluts? Now I'm curious, which one of my sexually liberated Heinlein heroines were sluts? That'd be a fun discussion

Sexually liberated is a term I can see applied, but they didn't have a whole lot of liberation otherwise.

I think I Will Fear No Evil, one of my favorites, really, was also the one that got me the most. In Jonathan Smith's "transformation" into being a woman, there was a scene where "she" was hot and bothered with the lawyer and it wasn't going to happen, so he spanks her. Fine and good. Then he says its the "only thing he knows to do with a women" or something along those lines, and SHE pops up with she thinks she had an orgasm.

Again, fine and sexy scene, no problem. But that she 1) couldn't take no for an answer 2) couldn't satisfy herself without him 3) that was the ONLY thing he would/could do for her 4) and it took his manly, aggressive, dominating behavior to bring her her first orgasm -- this just doesn't say mature, thinking person to me. It says a lot of other things, but not that. And it sticks in my mind now, not as a sexy scene (which it was when I was 13 and first reading it -- homigod!) but as an embarrassing depiction of a woman.

And that sort of is what I remember of them all. I felt embarrassed for them, one time or another, for something they said or did. Yes, again, I know the time period. I read the books in the 70's, as a young girl. I loved them, but I also was not satisfied by the women. I wanted to be like the men, and it gave me a certain disgust with my own gender that took some time and effort to overcome.

It may be a personal interpretation of sexism, and this is my personal reaction to the books, which is all I can have. Everyone's miledge may differ, and in no way am I saying that your feelings and interpretations of the books and characters are wrong. They just don't match mine. I won't waste time trying to convince you that you are "Wrong", because you aren't. Then again, I don't think I am either. It's not an absolute sort of thing.

And now I have to go take a shower and get ready to leave, or I'd been here talking about it all day!

 

[rgraham666]

Actually, when Heinlein entered his later phase, after Stranger In A Strange Land, I stopped liking him. And after Fear No Evil stopped reading him.

His books just took such a different tone. It seemed to me that they were just about sex, and not very interesting sex at that.

I did like The Tale of The Man Who Was Too Lazy To Fail though. And The Notebooks of Lazarus Long.

 

[Recidiva]

Sexually liberated is a term I can see applied, but they didn't have a whole lot of liberation otherwise.

I think I Will Fear No Evil, one of my favorites, really, was also the one that got me the most. In Jonathan Smith's "transformation" into being a woman, there was a scene where "she" was hot and bothered with the lawyer and it wasn't going to happen, so he spanks her. Fine and good. Then he says its the "only thing he knows to do with a women" or something along those lines, and SHE pops up with she thinks she had an orgasm.

Again, fine and sexy scene, no problem. But that she 1) couldn't take no for an answer 2) couldn't satisfy herself without him 3) that was the ONLY thing he would/could do for her 4) and it took his manly, aggressive, dominating behavior to bring her her first orgasm -- this just doesn't say mature, thinking person to me. It says a lot of other things, but not that. And it sticks in my mind now, not as a sexy scene (which it was when I was 13 and first reading it -- homigod!) but as an embarrassing depiction of a woman.

And that sort of is what I remember of them all. I felt embarrassed for them, one time or another, for something they said or did. Yes, again, I know the time period. I read the books in the 70's, as a young girl. I loved them, but I also was not satisfied by the women. I wanted to be like the men, and it gave me a certain disgust with my own gender that took some time and effort to overcome.

It may be a personal interpretation of sexism, and this is my personal reaction to the books, which is all I can have. Everyone's miledge may differ, and in no way am I saying that your feelings and interpretations of the books and characters are wrong. They just don't match mine. I won't waste time trying to convince you that you are "Wrong", because you aren't. Then again, I don't think I am either. It's not an absolute sort of thing.

And now I have to go take a shower and get ready to leave, or I'd been here talking about it all day!

I'm not worried about being "Wrong" (especially if it's important enough to have quotation marks and a capital letter)

I've always been a huge Heinlein fan because he can take charged subjects and make them human and okay. I wasn't disgusted or upset by the spanking, because it also wasn't said in an imperious tone. From my recollection, he was genuinely trying to satisfy her without much time to accomplish it. It was more of a "take this at face value, huh." Sort of thing than a judgment about all women or all men. This was just a bit of Heinlein's experience and from my experience here, lots of people do enjoy spanking. If it's not you, fine, and if it's not me, that's fine too. He just tends to take bits of his reality or other people's realities and put them into his stories. That works for me.

 

[ChilledVodkaIV]

Wow, behaved like sluts? Now I'm curious, which one of my sexually liberated Heinlein heroines were sluts? That'd be a fun discussion

Friday?

(not to mention the whole and entire disgusting idea he introduced using 'belly button pouches'. Make 'em give figurative birth every month or week, that'll keep 'em in line.)

 

[Recidiva]

Friday?

(not to mention the whole and entire disgusting idea he introduced using 'belly button pouches'. Make 'em give figurative birth every month or week, that'll keep 'em in line.)

I loved Friday. Who doesn't love sawed-off nipples?

"Every night, dear, it's very soothing."

 

[BlackShanglan]

That's quite a discussion to have resurrected CV IV.

If you happen to enjoy Heinlein, my advice is never to read Farnham's Freehold. There's only so much misogynistic/racist/thinly-to-not-at-all-veiled Oedipal/castration fantasy a person can take. Good lord, did the man not have a single friend to tell him not to publish that catastrophe?

I liked Stranger in a Strange Land in many ways, but I can see MalachiteInk's complaints about the female characters. Heinlein's version of "liberated" seems to come down to "sexually available, but still serves coffee to the male characters." His women, at least in most of the relatively narrow sample of his reading I've been through, don't actually appear to be sexually liberated to me; they appear servile, just in a different way. He often reads like a teenager's fantasy about the Planet of the Adoring Nymphomaniacs. Their willingness to act on their sexual impulses doesn't seem tied to any different perception of their role in society.

Shanglan

 

[Recidiva]

That's quite a discussion to have resurrected CV IV.

If you happen to enjoy Heinlein, my advice is never to read Farnham's Freehold. There's only so much misogynistic/racist/thinly-to-not-at-all-veiled Oedipal/castration fantasy a person can take. Good lord, did the man not have a single friend to tell him not to publish that catastrophe?

I liked Stranger in a Strange Land in many ways, but I can see MalachiteInk's complaints about the female characters. Heinlein's version of "liberated" seems to come down to "sexually available, but still serves coffee to the male characters." His women, at least in most of the relatively narrow sample of his reading I've been through, don't actually appear to be sexually liberated to me; they appear servile, just in a different way. He often reads like a teenager's fantasy about the Planet of the Adoring Nymphomaniacs. Their willingness to act on their sexual impulses doesn't seem tied to any different perception of their role in society.

Shanglan

I loved Farnham's Freehold, and didn't consider it to be mysogynistic at all. To me it was a story about how people become trapped by their sense of loyalty, and when loyalty is held above all things, and the thing you're loyal to is absolutely horrible...what it does to your life.

 

[CopyCarver]

Some writers tell me they refuse to read much, because 1) they might lift an idea 2) they want to keep their "original voice" 3) they don't want to be influenced 4) they want their work to be "fresh".


5) they get exhausted by moving their lips when they read?

 

[Recidiva]

That's quite a discussion to have resurrected CV IV.

If you happen to enjoy Heinlein, my advice is never to read Farnham's Freehold. There's only so much misogynistic/racist/thinly-to-not-at-all-veiled Oedipal/castration fantasy a person can take. Good lord, did the man not have a single friend to tell him not to publish that catastrophe?

I liked Stranger in a Strange Land in many ways, but I can see MalachiteInk's complaints about the female characters. Heinlein's version of "liberated" seems to come down to "sexually available, but still serves coffee to the male characters." His women, at least in most of the relatively narrow sample of his reading I've been through, don't actually appear to be sexually liberated to me; they appear servile, just in a different way. He often reads like a teenager's fantasy about the Planet of the Adoring Nymphomaniacs. Their willingness to act on their sexual impulses doesn't seem tied to any different perception of their role in society.

Shanglan

Yikes...this is my problem. I don't consider "sexually available" to be a bad thing, particularly to people they're attracted to. And in Stranger in a Strange Land's case...most of the people serving coffee were paid unbelievable amounts of money to do so, he had three secretaries.

Particularly here he's always made it clear that women are the ones who make the invitation, not males. And that his female characters tend to break the noses and/or legs or verbally make their way out of any situation they wouldn't care to be in.

Besides, what exactly is wrong with serving coffee?

The guys definitely cooked, and in "Friday", Perrault was a chef who stayed with Friday and didn't "take care of her" but "cared for her" He makes very clear distinctions between need and desire.

 

[BlackShanglan]

5) they get exhausted by moving their lips when they read?

*snicker*

 

[impressive]

Heinlein's version of "liberated" seems to come down to "sexually available, but still serves coffee to the male characters." His women, at least in most of the relatively narrow sample of his reading I've been through, don't actually appear to be sexually liberated to me; they appear servile, just in a different way.

His female characters always came across to me as tolerating the misogynistic social mores of the time period simply to avoid censure. A conscious choice. *shrugs*

 

[BlackShanglan]

His female characters always came across to me as tolerating the misogynistic social mores of the time period simply to avoid censure. A conscious choice. *shrugs*

I can see that. It does make sense. I suppose it just leaves me feeling a bit like ... well, like Stephen Blackpool in Hard Times. I know that Dickens wants him to be a sort of perfect angelic hero of a working man, but he's so damned modest and unassuming and patient and devoted that he cloys after a while. I wish he'd do something to initiate some change instead of just quietly suffering and being patient and not causing anyone any trouble until finally he falls down a mineshaft. Honestly, by that point I'm ready for him to. I want some action out of the man.

Shanglan

 

[impressive]

I can see that. It does make sense. I suppose it just leaves me feeling a bit like ... well, like Stephen Blackpool in Hard Times. I know that Dickens wants him to be a sort of perfect angelic hero of a working man, but he's so damned modest and unassuming and patient and devoted that he cloys after a while. I wish he'd do something to initiate some change instead of just quietly suffering and being patient and not causing anyone any trouble until finally he falls down a mineshaft. Honestly, by that point I'm ready for him to. I want some action out of the man.

Shanglan

I agree.

If Heinlein's women annoyed me on any level it is that they were all virtually carbon copies of one another.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I agree.

If Heinlein's women annoyed me on any level it is that they were all virtually carbon copies of one another.

Mmm. That's something that seems to plague a lot of writers when dealing with the opposite sex. I enjoy much of Gloria Naylor's work, but I think she struggles with her males. I suppose it's difficult writing across that divide. It often seems to me that that is where really good writers show their mettle; when they write about someone quite different to themselves, whether another gender or another race or a different nationality.

 

[Guest]

Her latest got some NASTY reviews.

"Micah" was actually one hell of a story... but it was way off her normal Anita fighting against being in love scenarios. It was more about being in love, and embracing/accepting that fact. I gobbled it down in two hours and I keep coming back for more, and more, and more. I can't wait for her next Anita Blake novel, and I'm furious that she hasn't done a new Merry Gentry one. (At least not that I can find.)

I have classics I read. And I'm a big fan of both Louis L'amour and Dick Francis - the latter because I'm a horse addict, the former because sometimes I just need to read about good old-fashioned hardline justice and character.

I like J.K. Rowling and R.A. Salvatore. Anne McCaffery lost me after the first Pern novel. I liked Anne Rice up until the fourth Vampire Chronicle novel, and then she lost me, although Cry To Heaven was amazing, and I reread it at least once a year. Anything Stephen King has done in the last... hrmm... seven or so years I find horrid. Everything before that I adored. I like Diane Mott Davidson for the light-hearted fun and mystery, and the recipes are fabulous. I've read all the Mary Higgins Clark I can find at the library.

I will read anything, once. For smut, I prefer Rosemary Rogers (heaving bosoms and quivering manhoods everywhere.) For Westerns: Louis L'amour. Mystery: Dick Francis and MAry Higgins Clark. Horror: Poppy Z Brite (and the m/m pairings are amazing, lush, graphicly poetic, and heartbreaking.) Romance: Whatever I pick up. Fun: Diane Mott Davidson. I also read Adelle Davis (a nutirtionist from like the forties) obsessively, and I thank her memory every day that my family stays so healthy following her practical advice. I read herbology and botany books like some people dive into Ben and Jerry's. I'll read most types of magical practioner handbooks, if only to giggle (because I just have no respect for some rites and rituals or the way they are "supposed" to be done.). I read the books my teacher and her teacher before her (and so one back for a good three hundred years) wrote, and thank the powers that be that I found my place with them.

But, still. Music is what drives my writing. If it's silent in my house, without one breath of lyrical sound: well, either we're all asleep (as I'm the only one who can sleep with music playing) or someone died.

 

[3113]

I'm a Heinlein fan and I'm female. I don't find him to be sexist in the sense that he rides one gender for its failings. He pretty much rides everybody for their failings.

Um...but in one book he has a woman blithely telling a guy that "If a girl gets raped, it's her fault."

I kinda think he's sexist. *shrug* He was a product of his pulp fiction times and as much ahead as he could be given that. His books feature women as engineers and doctors...but they're always drop-dead, big breasted doctors and engineers. And when it comes time to cook dinner and take care of the kids, that's women's work and they always do it.

See, that's the problem with serving coffee. When all the men sit at a table with that one women. And everyone is equal instatus and eduction and ability. And the leader turns to the woman and says, "Make the coffee"...then you've got sexism.

And that's what happens in Heinlein. He always looks to the women to cook, clean, take care of the kids...and provide sex. Men don't do any of that. That makes it UNBALANCED--and very obviously so. And that's SEXISM.

If he'd done the same with black folks, I think you'd see it more. If every time you saw someone black and they were expected to want to have sex, or take care of the kids or cook...no matter if they could also fight and be a doctor--but not one of the white folks, no matter what they are, were expected to do any of that...you might begin to wonder, wouldn't you?

I'm not saying his thinking wasn't advanced or his stories fun, but let's not let him off the hook. There' s no reason to. He was a product of his times; and he went as far as 50's sexism, and his own fantasies/fetishes allowed him to go when envisioning an "egalitarian" future.

 

[impressive]

Um...but in one book he has a woman blithely telling a guy that "If a girl gets raped, it's her fault."

I didn't interpret that in the "she invited it" way at all, though. I took it to mean that each woman has the resources to prevent rape PHYSICALLY and INTELLECTUALLY if she keeps her wits about her long enough to apply them.

 

[Recidiva]

Um...but in one book he has a woman blithely telling a guy that "If a girl gets raped, it's her fault."

I kinda think he's sexist. *shrug* He was a product of his pulp fiction times and as much ahead as he could be given that. His books feature women as engineers and doctors...but when it comes time to cook dinner and take care of the kids, that's women's work and they always do it. Men never get involved on the domestic side. That's as far as 50's sexism allowed most guys to imagine the future.

He also had a section where a guy was shoved out the closest airlock for not paying a prostitute for sex by a "jury" that figured that was the best he deserved. He had extreme views and tended to express them all here and there, mostly because they were interesting and relevant. It doesn't mean he felt that way, more like he'd heard someone say it and found it to be interesting and incorporated it into his writing.

Eventually the robots took care of the domestic side, but there were many different relationships, one I just mentioned, about Friday being "cared for" by a man who chose to go with her because he wanted to, back to Eunice's husband's ego being fragile and doing everything she could to not wound his ego by asking for money or taking a loan, and having recipes for frying bread in bacon fat to stretch a budget... That looks anti-male, but it's mostly just individual people and his take on it.

I don't think he can be blamed for writing the world as he saw it and people were willing to express it to him, but from my side of things, he did a hell of a job revealing different people and what's important to them, from a viewpoint so non-judgmental that it's just presented as a factual custom.

He'd represent "balancing" political systems where if you ran someone over, you'd experience the same thing (break someone's legs in an accident, you get the same thing, unanesthetized). Did that make him a violent anarchist? Well, maybe...but there are just way too many representations of women and men, good and bad, indifferent and extraordinary, for me to pigeonhole him into being anything but a recorder of what he saw and willing to express it on paper, whether he believed it or not. I think he was just as critical of men and their behavior as women. He just didn't cut women a break and wasn't deferential to their behavior, but I like that a lot.