A Sad Puppy Speaks!
This is a nice, concise, well written column over on Sarah Hoyt’s blog, written by Charlie Martin. His point: do not let MiniTru rewrite history, and make out Science Fiction to have somehow been anti-female, despite the large number of top notch female writers and despite the extremely large number of admirable female characters.
http://accordingtohoyt.com/2015/01/28/be-the-bojum-charlie-martin/
The money quote:
… the majority of award-winning writers for the last 20 or 30 years had actually been women. People of vaginitude. Oppressed womyn under the heel of the patriarchal publishing establishment.
Thinking about people I’d known personally: Connie Willis. Marion Zimmer Bradley. Karen Joy Fowler. Joanna Russ. Other big names, like Ursula K LeGuin, C. L. Moore, Leigh for Gods’ sakes Brackett, who not only wrote SF but wrote what I think may be the best screenplay of all time, Rio Bravo.
Ah, but they didn’t address sexual roles — well, no, Joanna Russ’s The Female Man. LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness — except that wasn’t, somehow, really “groundbreaking” enough. (Hey kids: I was there. If you don’t think LHoD was groundbreaking, it’s because you’ve been plowing and replowing that same patch of ground that LeGuin took the arrows for breaking.)
While I agree with everything said, my Vulcan heart went into Amok Time at the mention of two of my favorite science fiction novels (and, yes, ATLAS SHRUGGED is science fiction, in the same genre as BRAVE NEW WORLD):
So now we hear that old SF was “sexist”. The women do make a lot of sandwiches in The Skylark of Space, and Dorothy Vaneman Seaton is the damsel in distress at the start of the book.
Now go read the copyright page, kids. Or Wikipedia. Skylark was written between 1915 and 1921, basically a hundred years ago — and still Dorothy Vaneman pulls a gun on a murderer and is not just a musician, but has a Doctorate.
Go look up some other novels written during the First World War. Find me another one that was more “feminist”.
Along the same lines, it was a point of some controversy that apparently at some point shortly after LeGuin’s marriage to Charles LeGuin, Robert Heinlein said to Professor LeGuin that since they were married and he had a job, if she didn’t want to continue writing, she didn’t have to.
In all honesty, given Heinlein’s own troubles with stopping writing — it produced an effect he compared to “another attack of pulmonary tuberculosis” — I suspect this was not a serious suggestion. But grant, for the sake of argument, that it is. Then we have a man who was born in 1907, advising a young married couple sometime in the late 1950’s, that if the woman doesn’t want to work she doesn’t have to.
For Gods’ sakes, kids, have you never watched even one episode of I Love Lucy? As silly as it sometimes was, Ricky goes to his job, while Lucy stays home and cooks, wasn’t just a sitcom setup. It was the goal to which most adults of either sex aspired. If mom “had to work” is was a shame and a sad thing.
(And another little aside. This is about the time Atlas Shrugged was written. We read it now and think nothing of it, but Dagny Taggart being an engineer and a railroad executive was immensely unusual. Transgressive, even. It was probably more shocking than her having multiple lovers and being a little kinky.)
The point is, to judge the attitudes and morés of 100 years ago by what you think now is childish and silly and ignorant.
Hear, hear.
First tiny correction: The best screenplay of all time is a little gem called The Big Sleep. The best science fiction screenplay of all time was a big gem called The Empire Strikes Back, one of the very few sequels in the history of film better than the original.
Second tiny correction: Dorothy Vaneman is indeed a kidnap victim at the beginning of SKYLARK OF SPACE, but she is hardly a damsel in distress. If you recall the scene:
Dorothy turned toward a bench in the shade of an old elm to watch a game of tennis on the court next door. Scarcely had she seated herself when a great copper-plated ball alighted upon the lawn in front of her. A heavy steel door snapped open and a powerful figure clad in aviator’s leather, the face completely covered by the hood, leaped out. She jumped to her feet with a cry of joyful surprise, thinking it was Seaton—a cry which died suddenly as she realized that Seaton had just left her and that this vessel was far too small to be the Skylark. She turned in flight, but the stranger caught her in three strides. She found herself helpless in a pair of arms equal in strength to Seaton’s own. Picking her up lightly as a baby, DuQuesne carried her over to the space-car. Shriek after shriek rang out as she found that her utmost struggles were of no avail against the giant strength of her captor, that her fiercely-driven nails glanced harmlessly off the heavy glass and leather of his hood, and that her teeth were equally ineffective against his suit.
With the girl in his arms DuQuesne stepped into the vessel, and as the door clanged shut behind them Dorothy caught a glimpse of another woman, tied hand and foot in one of the side seats of the car.
“Tie her feet, Perkins,” DuQuesne ordered brusquely, holding her around the body so that her feet extended straight out in front of him. “She’s a wildcat.”
As Perkins threw one end of a small rope around her ankles Dorothy doubled up her knees, drawing her feet as far away from him as possible. As he incautiously approached, she kicked out viciously, with all the force of her muscular young body behind her heavy riding-boots.
The sharp heel of one small boot struck Perkins squarely in the pit of the stomach—a true “solar-plexus” blow—and completely knocked out, he staggered back against the instrument-board. His out-flung arm pushed the speed lever clear out to its last notch, throwing the entire current of the batteries through the bar, which was pointed straight up, as it had been when they made their landing, and closing the switch which threw on the power of the repelling outer coating. There was a creak of the mighty steel fabric, stressed almost to its limit as the vessel darted upward with its stupendous velocity, and only the carefully-planned spring-and-cushion floor saved their lives as they were thrown flat and held there by the awful force of their acceleration as the space-car tore through the thin layer of the earth’s atmosphere. So terrific was their speed, that the friction of the air did not have time to set them afire—they were through it and into the perfect vacuum of interstellar space before the thick steel hull was even warmed through. Dorothy lay flat upon her back, just as she had fallen, unable even to move her arms, gaining each breath only by a terrible effort. Perkins was a huddled heap under the instrument-board. The other captive, Brookings’ ex-secretary, was in somewhat better case, as her bonds had snapped like string and she was lying at full length in one of the side-seats—forced into that position and held there, as the design of the seats was adapted for the most comfortable position possible under such conditions. She, like Dorothy, was gasping for breath, her straining muscles barely able to force air into her lungs because of the paralyzing weight of her chest.
DuQuesne alone was able to move, and it required all of his Herculean strength to creep and crawl, snake-like, toward the instrument-board. Finally attaining his goal, he summoned all his strength to grasp, not the controlling lever, which he knew was beyond his reach, but a cut-out switch only a couple of feet above his head. With a series of convulsive movements he fought his way up, first until he was crouching on his elbows and knees, and then into a squatting position. Placing his left hand under his right, he made a last supreme effort. Perspiration streamed from him, his mighty muscles stood out in ridges visible even under the heavy leather of his coat, his lips parted in a snarl over his locked teeth as he threw every ounce of his wonderful body into an effort to force his right hand up to the switch. His hand approached it slowly—closed over it and pulled it out.
The result was startling. With the mighty power instantly cut off, and with not even the ordinary force of gravitation to counteract the force DuQuesne was exerting, his own muscular effort hurled him up toward the center of the car and against the instrument-board. The switch, still in his grasp, was again closed. His shoulder crashed against the levers which controlled the direction of the bar, swinging it through a wide arc. As the ship darted off in the new direction with all its old acceleration, he was hurled against the instrument board, tearing one end loose from its supports and falling unconscious to the floor on the other side. After a time, which seemed like an eternity, Dorothy and the other girl felt their senses slowly leave them.
With four unconscious passengers, the space-car hurtled through empty space, its already inconceivable velocity being augmented every second by a quantity bringing its velocity near to that of light, driven onward by the incredible power of the disintegrating copper bar.
In the exact center of the huge shell was a spherical network of enormous steel beams. Inside this structure could be seen a similar network which, mounted upon universal bearings, was free to revolve in any direction.
Just to be clear, Vaneman is the girl who feints the enemy into position by drawing in her legs, and knocks the guy out with a well placed kick.
When they awake, they discover that they have not only left Earth orbit, but the solar system altogether. Dorothy finds two automatic pistols in the discarded jacket of the unconscious thug Perkins, the use of which she was familiar because of target practice with Seaton. She gives one firearm to the other captive, Margaret, which leads not long after to this scene:
An evil light appeared in Perkins’ eyes and he took out a wicked-looking knife and began to strop it carefully upon the leather of the seat, glaring at his victim the while.
“Well, I have something to say….” blazed Dorothy, but she was silenced by a gesture from Margaret, who calmly took the pistol from her pocket, jerked the slide back, throwing a cartridge into the chamber, and held the weapon up on one finger, admiring it from all sides.
“Don’t worry about his knife. He has been sharpening it for my benefit for the last month. He doesn’t mean anything by it.”At this unexpected show of resistance, Perkins stared at her for an instant, then glanced at his coat.
“Yes, this was yours, once. You needn’t bother about picking up your coat, they’re both gone. You might be tempted to throw that knife, so drop it on the floor and kick it over to me before I count three.
“One.” The heavy pistol steadied into line with his chest and her finger tightened on the trigger.
“Two.”
Does that sound like a damsel in distress to you? No, I didn’t think so.
The Pharisees who cannot talk with their own parents and grandparents long enough to discover what women in the 50s and 30s really thought and talked and acted like, and who therefore condemn these generations without evidence and without trial, without thought, without reflection, are the selfsame Pharisees pushing the suicidal snake-oil of multiculturalism, telling us it is impossible and morally wrong, uncouth, and benighted to condemn any practice of any other culture, even practices like polygamy, honor killing, child-marriage, footbinding, or widow-burning.
Why the sons of fallen Adam who, in Asia, burn widows on the pyre of their husbands are worse sinners than sons of fallen Adam who, in America, after World War Two, built houses in suburbs where their grateful wives could flee from the ratrace of farmwork and officework to raise families in comfort, in houses with lawns, is a mystery understood only to the cultists of Leftism, and the elliptical logic of Alice in Wonderland.
Why does moving the physical location of the body of a sinful son of fallen Adam from the temperate zone in the Western Hemisphere to the tropics of the Eastern Hemisphere suddenly alleviate him from all sin? Likewise, why does moving the physical location of the body of a sinful son of fallen Adam from the tropics of the Eastern Hemisphere to the temperate zone in the Western Hemisphere?
This is akin to the logic that says if a baby is halfway out the womb headfirst, he is human, protected of all his sacred human rights, whereas if he is protruding feetfirst, he is livestock, who may rightly be tortured, decapitated and dismembered.
This is an example of lobotomizing the moral centers of one’s own brain with an icepick: no matter how clear and intelligent they may be on other topics, there are certain people who make themselves unable to apply the simplest logical consistency to any moral question, even questions of right and wrong a seven year old could answer.
Who among us science fiction fans, knowing full well how well women have always been treated in this field, would be fooled by any accusation leveled by a Morlock even for a second? More importantly, who among us who are not science fiction fans, that is, those ignorant enough to be fooled, would be foolish enough to trust a Morlock, and believe their accusations? Or why would a non-science fiction fan, a muggle, care about how women are treated in science fiction stories? Do you care about how women are treated in some genre you do not read, such as romances or westerns or railroad stories?
It is all pretense. Those who believe it believe it the way I believe in Santa Claus every December, but at no other time of the year, or the way a Yankees fan believes in his team.
Their belief is certainly sincere, if by sincere, we mean entirely insincere. A sincere belief is one you believe because the facts dictate it, despite what you want to believe. An insincere belief is one you believe because you want to believe it, despite the facts.
It is a belief that is as artificial, and vehement, as self-inflicted as a paganess bowing and fawning over a brass statue of some goggle-eyed Aztec demon-god into whose furnace they throw her own shrieking child. She does not say the statue is a god because she believes metal or wood or senseless stones formed into an ugly shape is a divinity possessed of life and motion, and therefore she slays her child cruelly to placate it. No. The cause and effect runs the other way. She because she has slain her child cruelly, she wishes for a god to placate. Her eyes tell her the god is a thing made of stone or metal. She takes it as a sign of the greatness of belief that she ignores her eyes.
Now, you may ask, why do Leftists and Morlocks and self-appointed Social Justice Whiners pretend that women were somehow offended by the science fiction field? Anyone with eyes can see the thing they say is a god is an ugly stone, stained with blood.
Here the claim is made so that the Morlocks can claim that the science fiction field now owes them recompense, a Danegeld, so that any chump or mark fool enough to be fooled by these crocodile tears will pay it.
One might think this scam is let female writers lacking the talent and grit of C. L. Moore, or Leigh for Gods’ sakes Brackett get away with getting awards they do not earn for books at best of mediocre skill larded with praise merely because of the sex of the authoress. But, no, this is naive. This struggle is not about anything as meager as a selfish love of money and fame. That motivation would be human.
The motive here is not human: A Morlock is a subterranean beast-man who has lost nine tenths of his humanity because he wishes to feast on the flesh of the living. You may have wondered why Morlocks in Wells’ little fable do not prey on deer or catch fish? It is because to gnaw on a fellow human species degrades the image and likeness of God, their human nature, into the level of a herd animal, livestock, of less dignity than a horse or hound, not even a pet.
Those who make these accusations do not care about money and fame. Their reward is psychic, psychological, spiritual. They win the approval and praise of the little tiny version of Uncle Screwtape who sits on their shoulder. They prefer to make accusations that are untrue because a true accusation can be argued about, can be proved false: but if the accusation is the mere opposite of truth, made in reckless and insolent disregard for the truth, the facts never even come up, and the accusation can be made as outrageous and overinflated as possible.
What is the joy of making a false accusation? It is the dark, morbid, hypocritical joy of the Pharisee, the joy of stepping on a puppy, the joy of spitting in the face of a nun, the joy of destroying what one cannot have and could not appreciate or use if one did have it: the joy of eunuchs interrupting the honeymoon; the joy of harpies evacuating their bowels all over the viands and delicacies of a marriage feast.
So by all means read Mr Martin’s post, and then go buy a membership so that you can cast a vote for the Sad Puppy slate.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
