The value of women in the masculine imaginary of our lives
Speculative fiction is so often missing the speculation
I’ve been watching Rebel Moon in the background of working around the house, and it brought up a thought I’ve had many times before but have not shared here. Let’s correct that. The thought is this: It's so weird how sci-fi that includes women among the greatest warriors in the known universe — the Scargivers, the River Tams, the Chanis, the Eowyns — ALSO has huge armies of nothing but men -- and as far as anyone can tell, cis men at that.
It's sci-fi. These aren't even humans, really. They're in another galaxy/universe. They are portrayed as humans for the convenience of the audience’s empathy (and if film/TV the convenience of finding actors and limiting makeup/effect expenses), but they aren't really human. There’s no such hormone as testosterone in them, nor estrogen. It would be impossibly odd if the average heights or weights or bench press stats were the same for male and female aliens in this fantasy realms as they are in ours.
So why are so many armies just ... men? Nothing but men. Even in those movies where women heroes kill Nazgûl or slaughter their way through endless ranks of these cis men, entire companies, regiments, corps can find no women worth a rifle, a sword, a bunk, a meal.
I watch sci-fi, and I even find myself able to enjoy much of it, but if there's anything more gender regressive than yet another army swollen with anonymous ranks of cis men, you'd have to consciously work to come up with it.
I believe it was Bella Abzug who said,
"Our struggle today is not to have a female Einstein get appointed as an assistant professor. It is for a woman schlemiel to get as quickly promoted as a male schlemiel."
In entire imaginary universes, to have no woman valued the same as a nameless, faceless rifle bearer says much about how women are valued here on this planet, in our art and in our homes and in our minds.
Of course, there’s Ripley too. She fits the pattern in the first movie, with the only other woman in the crew being portrayed as fairly timid & helpless. They started to move in the right direction in the second,with the inclusion of a badass female space marine, (the implication being badass females were a regular part of the space marines) and even female (“leave her alone, you bitch!”). Villian. Sadly, it was all backpedaling from there on in, with Ripley alone against a bunch of male schlemiels and UberCisMensches.
I've been listening to J S Moran's Black Ocean space opera series. One interesting tidbit is that the Earth Navy is commanded almost entirely by women. The stories also don't bat an eye at trans or non-het characters. It's refreshing.