Youāre fourteen and youāre reading Larry Nivenās āThe Protectorā because itās your fatherās 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 toĀ knowĀ what itās about. And in it the female character does something better than the male character - because sheās been doing it her whole life and heās only just learned - and he gets mad that sheās better at it than him. And you donāt understand why he would be mad about that, because, logically, sheād be better at it than him. Sheās done it more. And heās got a picture of a woman painted on the inside of his spacesuit, like a pinup girl, and it bothers you.
But youāre fourteen and you donāt know how to put this into words.
And then youāre fifteen and youāre reading āOrphans of the Skyā because itās by a famous sci-fi author and itās about a lost generation ship andĀ how cool is that?!? but the women on the ship arenāt given aĀ name until theyāreĀ 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 itās a random thing to get worked up about in an otherwise all right book.
Then youāre sixteen and you read āDuneā because your brother gave it to you for Christmas and itās 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 canāt make him see how the real hero is her. And you love Chani cause sheās tough and good with a knife, but at the end of the day, her killing Paulās challengers is just a way to degrade them because those weenies lost to aĀ girl.
Then youāre seventeen and you donāt want to read āStranger in a Strange Landā 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 canāt even pin it down.
And then youāre eighteen and youāve given up on classic sci-fi, but that doesnāt 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 didnāt treat women like people.
Your brother says, āWell, that was because of the time it was written in.ā
You get all worked up because these men couldnāt imagine a world in which women were equal, in which women were empowered and intelligent and literate and capable.Ā
You tell him - this, this is science fiction. This is all about imagining the world thatĀ could be and they couldnāt stand back long enough and dare to imagine how, not only technology would grow in time, butĀ society would grow.Ā
But he blows you off because he canāt understand how itĀ 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 youāre not a full person in ways that are too subtle to put into words. Itās all cognitive dissonance: a little like a song played a bit out of tempo - enough that you recognize itās off, but not enough to pin down what exactly is wrong.
And then one day youāre 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.
Itās like the world clicking into place.Ā
And thatās something your brother never had to struggle with.
