Re: Science fiction?
Bernhard Krieger writes:
> Very often women in this genre of literature do simply not
> appear in the stories at all. Or if they do, they get roles and
> positions so distinct of the male heroes. I am not at all an expert on
[ ... ]
> rational, logic, creative (i.e. cultural). For instance look at the Star
> Trek New Generation series.
A TV show or movie isn't very representative of printed literature.
I expect you'll find that if you survey TV shows or movies in
genres other than SF, you'll find the same stereotypes.
Books are less so. I expect there are several reasons for that:
books are a lot cheaper to produce, so you're going to see a wider
range of types and more publishers willing to take chances on
nonstandard views than movie and TV makers are; and there are just
so many more books that if you don't like the sexist ones, you can
always find something else, whereas there are only a handful of
SF movies or TV shows showing at any one time.
Whether sf *books* are more sexist than mainstream books is another
interesting question. It's possible they are, on average, but Star
Trek won't work as an example.
As to how this affects girls growing up, I couldn't say. I was a
"tomboy" (more interested in climbing trees than playing with dolls)
and if a story featured male characters doing all the fun stuff, I
just went ahead and identified with those characters. It never crossed
my mind that being female meant that I should only identify with only
female characters. I know a lot of girls aren't like that and good
female role models are important; but for me it wasn't an issue.
...Akkana
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