Youâre fourteen and youâre reading Larry Nivenâs âThe Protectorâ because itâs your fatherâs 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 itâs about. And in it the female character does something better than the male character - because sheâs been doing it her whole life and heâs only just learned - and he gets mad that sheâs better at it than him. And you donât understand why he would be mad about that, because, logically, sheâd be better at it than him. Sheâs done it more. And heâs got a picture of a woman painted on the inside of his spacesuit, like a pinup girl, and it bothers you.
But youâre fourteen and you donât know how to put this into words.
And then youâre fifteen and youâre reading âOrphans of the Skyâ because itâs by a famous sci-fi author and itâs about a lost generation ship and how cool is that?!? but the women on the ship arenât given a name until theyâre married 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.
But itâs a random thing to get worked up about in an otherwise all right book.
Then youâre sixteen and you read âDuneâ because your brother gave it to you for Christmas and itâs 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 canât make him see how the real hero is her. And you love Chani cause sheâs tough and good with a knife, but at the end of the day, her killing Paulâs challengers is just a way to degrade them because those weenies lost to a girl.
Then youâre seventeen and you donât want to read âStranger in a Strange Landâ 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 canât even pin it down.
And then youâre eighteen and youâve given up on classic sci-fi, but that doesnât stop your brother or your father from trying to get you to read more.
Even when you bring them the books and bring them the passages and show them how the authors didnât treat women like people.
Your brother says, âWell, that was because of the time it was written in.â
You get all worked up because these men couldnât imagine a world in which women were equal, in which women were empowered and intelligent and literate and capable.Â
You tell him - this, this is science fiction. This is all about imagining the world that could be and they couldnât stand back long enough and dare to imagine how, not only technology would grow in time, but society would grow.Â
But he blows you off because he canât understand how it feels 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 youâre not a full person in ways that are too subtle to put into words. Itâs all cognitive dissonance: a little like a song played a bit out of tempo - enough that you recognize itâs off, but not enough to pin down what exactly is wrong.
And then one day youâre 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.
Itâs like the world clicking into place.Â
And thatâs something your brother never had to struggle with.
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