retro gender politics... I kind of hope
Jan. 24th, 2012 05:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI've been reading my way through The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 24
I just finished reading The Sultan of the Clouds, by Geoffrey A Landis. It took me all afternoon. I kept getting distracted by, well, any and every thought that wandered through my head. Not a great sign.
It felt weirdly retro though, like it expected me to need telling a lot about Venus that I thought wasn't very new.
Mostly the problem was the point of view character. I realised early on he's actually a creepy sort of person, and not long after that that the story doesn't know it.
He's in love with a woman, you see, so he follows her around, between planets, being her pilot and tech and general helper. But without mentioning that he's doing that because he loves her. At all. She may or may not have noticed from all the staring. She's never said anything about loving him. He's all mopey that she might not particularly notice he's there even. So he just... follows her some more.
There's a word for that.
And she speaks so seldom there's no time for her to develop an opinion at all. She's just... there. So he describes her in loving detail and follows her around until someone stops him.
By the end of the story the main problem was I couldn't figure why in the world this guy was the point of view or protagonist, when the story had to bend itself into such knots to even have him there at all.
There was a science problem, and a politics problem, and a thing where the woman was being courted by a 12 year old that was actually quite creepy but was at least meant to be.
The woman was at the center of all those problems, had access to the players, was being used in the game, and had the relevant scientific expertise. She was invited there because of the relevant scientific expertise.
Yet it's still the bloke who figures it all out.
Why?
The only answer I could come up with is it bent itself in knots to maintain mostly standard heterosexual dynamics and make sure women had no agency whatsoever.
There's the ruler of the world, and they need to get married so they can inherit. Okay, so, if you want your outsider point of view guy to be a guy, make the ruler of worlds a woman. Or, keep the ruler of worlds a boy, and write from the point of view of the woman he's courting. It's not like anyone else in the story does anything a good wiki couldn't do, you've basically got two characters here. But nooooo, it does neither of those things. The ruler of the world is a bloke, the point of view guy is a bloke, and there's this cipher of a woman they're both in love with cluttering up the story doing a lot of nothing. Decoratively. Without having an opinion about it. Or apparently noticing much of what goes on around her.
... we get told she's a really smart science type. There's a show vs tell chasm in there.
So I think this gender stuff is part of why it felt like an old story to me. I mean, surely in new stories women get to have a personality and decide things and maybe possibly have adventures?
But, in this case, no.
I just finished reading The Sultan of the Clouds, by Geoffrey A Landis. It took me all afternoon. I kept getting distracted by, well, any and every thought that wandered through my head. Not a great sign.
It felt weirdly retro though, like it expected me to need telling a lot about Venus that I thought wasn't very new.
Mostly the problem was the point of view character. I realised early on he's actually a creepy sort of person, and not long after that that the story doesn't know it.
He's in love with a woman, you see, so he follows her around, between planets, being her pilot and tech and general helper. But without mentioning that he's doing that because he loves her. At all. She may or may not have noticed from all the staring. She's never said anything about loving him. He's all mopey that she might not particularly notice he's there even. So he just... follows her some more.
There's a word for that.
And she speaks so seldom there's no time for her to develop an opinion at all. She's just... there. So he describes her in loving detail and follows her around until someone stops him.
By the end of the story the main problem was I couldn't figure why in the world this guy was the point of view or protagonist, when the story had to bend itself into such knots to even have him there at all.
There was a science problem, and a politics problem, and a thing where the woman was being courted by a 12 year old that was actually quite creepy but was at least meant to be.
The woman was at the center of all those problems, had access to the players, was being used in the game, and had the relevant scientific expertise. She was invited there because of the relevant scientific expertise.
Yet it's still the bloke who figures it all out.
Why?
The only answer I could come up with is it bent itself in knots to maintain mostly standard heterosexual dynamics and make sure women had no agency whatsoever.
There's the ruler of the world, and they need to get married so they can inherit. Okay, so, if you want your outsider point of view guy to be a guy, make the ruler of worlds a woman. Or, keep the ruler of worlds a boy, and write from the point of view of the woman he's courting. It's not like anyone else in the story does anything a good wiki couldn't do, you've basically got two characters here. But nooooo, it does neither of those things. The ruler of the world is a bloke, the point of view guy is a bloke, and there's this cipher of a woman they're both in love with cluttering up the story doing a lot of nothing. Decoratively. Without having an opinion about it. Or apparently noticing much of what goes on around her.
... we get told she's a really smart science type. There's a show vs tell chasm in there.
So I think this gender stuff is part of why it felt like an old story to me. I mean, surely in new stories women get to have a personality and decide things and maybe possibly have adventures?
But, in this case, no.