One thing I seem to recall about speculative fiction is that it used to (perhaps still does) assume very little social change. Remember the Jetsons? They still had Jane doing the vaccuuming, while George got in a car-equivalent and went to a job-equivalent. I remember watching it when I was a kid and thinking it was just like the Flintstones; only the props, sets, and costumes were different. Books were a little better--but only a little, generally. A lot of Heinlein's work, for example, assumed that, while women might have jobs and degrees, the organization of domestic chores would remain pretty much the same--and he was one of the better ones, IIRC, because at least his work did assume that women would be engineers and scientists and so on.
I wonder if stories of that sort were paving the way for the sparks of the technological changes, and whether the difficulty we seemed (looking back on it) to be having re-imagining women's place in relationships and society has something to do with the difficulty we have having getting to full equality now.
Now there are great writers re-imagining society--Sherri S. Tepper pops to mind--and they've been doing it a while, so maybe I'm talking through my hat. But I wonder.
And I have to say, I'm really happy for all the progress we've been making in gay rights and I don't grudge a bit of it. But it would be nice to see it echoed in women's rights.
no subject
It sure isn't as fast as I'd like, though.
One thing I seem to recall about speculative fiction is that it used to (perhaps still does) assume very little social change. Remember the Jetsons? They still had Jane doing the vaccuuming, while George got in a car-equivalent and went to a job-equivalent. I remember watching it when I was a kid and thinking it was just like the Flintstones; only the props, sets, and costumes were different. Books were a little better--but only a little, generally. A lot of Heinlein's work, for example, assumed that, while women might have jobs and degrees, the organization of domestic chores would remain pretty much the same--and he was one of the better ones, IIRC, because at least his work did assume that women would be engineers and scientists and so on.
I wonder if stories of that sort were paving the way for the sparks of the technological changes, and whether the difficulty we seemed (looking back on it) to be having re-imagining women's place in relationships and society has something to do with the difficulty we have having getting to full equality now.
Now there are great writers re-imagining society--Sherri S. Tepper pops to mind--and they've been doing it a while, so maybe I'm talking through my hat. But I wonder.
And I have to say, I'm really happy for all the progress we've been making in gay rights and I don't grudge a bit of it. But it would be nice to see it echoed in women's rights.