Archive for Gender
Here are some thoughts about three old sf stories. (These thoughts include spoilers.) The stories aren’t particularly connected to each other except by appearing in the same anthology. Story 1: “Environment,” by Chester S. Geier (1944) The two male human protagonists, who are the only characters in the story, constantly say each other’s names when […]
The other day I saw a list of recommended Apple TV+ shows, and on the list was a show called Ted Lasso. It looked like something I would never have the slightest interest in, so I moved on. Short version of this post: I was wrong; it turns out to be a remarkable and lovely […]
Update on David Levithan gendered-pronoun issue: As I may have mentioned here a while back, I was startled and a little dismayed when I read the author note at the beginning of Levithan’s Six Earlier Days (prequel to Every Day), which used the word “his” in referring to the nongendered protagonist, whose name is A. […]
I now have author-gender stats for over 80 anthologies that I’ve looked at in the past couple years, from my father’s and my bookshelves, with publication dates ranging from 1951 through about 1990, plus a few outliers outside of that date range. (This post is essentially an update of my post from a couple years […]
I’ve been reading William Tenn stories, from NESFA Press’s 2001 volume Immodest Proposals: The Compete Science Fiction of William Tenn, Volume 1. I used to like Tenn’s work a lot, but these days I’m not a good audience for satire, even when I agree with it politically. I’m skimming the stories and mostly rolling my […]
Just happened across a Joanna Russ essay from 1972, “The New Misandry,” which focuses on praising misandry but is also about feminism and change and differentials of privilege (though she doesn’t use that word) and incrementalism vs radical change. Content warning (both in the article and in my quotes below) for descriptions of behavior patterns […]
I was a big fan of Andre Norton’s work when I was a kid. (Yes, I do feel a little guilty that I’m writing this post when I still haven’t finished the Le Guin post that I meant to write last week. I hope to do that soon. But this post is easier to write.) […]
I think it’s fascinating to observe toxic masculinity in action in Westerns. (Some quasi-spoilers here for Shane (1953).) In this...
I'm watching Underground season 2, episode 1, “Contraband,” and I just got to a scene in which one of the...
Another lesson for me on the difficulty of seeing outside your own cultural context: In Delany's City of a Thousand...
This is a long impassioned post in which I try to come to the defense of Marvel comics. The TL;DR...
Interim report on my father's sf anthologies: 25 sf anthologies recorded in my spreadsheet so far, published from 1953 through...