Don’t get me started. I’ve gone through hell and back in the corporate world. I am a radical feminist now and have listened to my ability to have empathy for the male population.
Your post reminds me how in the supposedly futuristic Deus Ex computer/video games, everything is built like it’s in a futuristic world but there are still gendered bathrooms and you, a male, will still face punishment if you walk into the ladies’ room. I would think they would anticipate gender-neutral bathrooms, but then again, considering the astroturfed backlash to trans rights, it may not seem *that* far off…
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.
The new “Fallout” tv series features a character who uses they/then pronouns and is played by a trans man, Xelia Mendes-Jones. The Brotherhood of Steel is a gender-neutral army, albeit still a “brotherhood”.
The Fremen of the Dune-iverse feature female fighters just as ruthless and skilled as the men. Later, the Honored Matrés are a formidable fighting force.
Until female/non-binary/trans creators of sci-fi/fantasy are taken as seriously as cis male creators, the gender divide will continue.
Dune is one of the oddest examples of the phenomenon. The Saudakar and Harkonnen are pretty much always portrayed as solely masculine. We know that fictional universe has women fighters -- skilled and talented, but not WonderWoman. They fit into a larger fighting force among the Fremen. They aren't just singular heroes too impossibly great to emulate. So why not women among the Harkonnen? I can't come up with an explanation (other than sexism), but every representation of Dune I've seen has portrayed them that way.
They are played as solely masculine to allow Herbert to emphasize their disgusting traits. It would have been jarring at the time to have a female character who was a disgusting fat slob of a subhuman. He would have likely been vilified in the press of the day for being a misogynist. Social context of the day is important to understand and guides an author's hand, even in imaginary sci-fi.
That accounts for the named characters, but not the rank and file soldiers, which was my point. He's not gendering each individual of the rank and file in the book, so there's no reason a mono-gendered army is a necessary conclusion for those adapting his works today. (Or in the 80s, or in the 00s.)
Agreed that the adaptations could easily have taken a different direction. And its been far too long since I read the books to remember if there were any nods to a WHY seeded there. Perhaps its as simple as Fremen features highly skilled women warriors because "more advanced society" and the bad guys don't, so "regressive and patriarchal" loses the war?
Speculation, since the author is unavailable for comment.
I cannot remember a single female Harkonnen character outside of Lady Jessica and her line. That is strange. Someone must have birthed Feyd and Beast. Maybe females were consigned to be incubators and milkers like in Mad Max.
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.
Don’t get me started. I’ve gone through hell and back in the corporate world. I am a radical feminist now and have listened to my ability to have empathy for the male population.
Your post reminds me how in the supposedly futuristic Deus Ex computer/video games, everything is built like it’s in a futuristic world but there are still gendered bathrooms and you, a male, will still face punishment if you walk into the ladies’ room. I would think they would anticipate gender-neutral bathrooms, but then again, considering the astroturfed backlash to trans rights, it may not seem *that* far off…
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.
The new “Fallout” tv series features a character who uses they/then pronouns and is played by a trans man, Xelia Mendes-Jones. The Brotherhood of Steel is a gender-neutral army, albeit still a “brotherhood”.
The Fremen of the Dune-iverse feature female fighters just as ruthless and skilled as the men. Later, the Honored Matrés are a formidable fighting force.
Until female/non-binary/trans creators of sci-fi/fantasy are taken as seriously as cis male creators, the gender divide will continue.
Dune is one of the oddest examples of the phenomenon. The Saudakar and Harkonnen are pretty much always portrayed as solely masculine. We know that fictional universe has women fighters -- skilled and talented, but not WonderWoman. They fit into a larger fighting force among the Fremen. They aren't just singular heroes too impossibly great to emulate. So why not women among the Harkonnen? I can't come up with an explanation (other than sexism), but every representation of Dune I've seen has portrayed them that way.
They are played as solely masculine to allow Herbert to emphasize their disgusting traits. It would have been jarring at the time to have a female character who was a disgusting fat slob of a subhuman. He would have likely been vilified in the press of the day for being a misogynist. Social context of the day is important to understand and guides an author's hand, even in imaginary sci-fi.
That accounts for the named characters, but not the rank and file soldiers, which was my point. He's not gendering each individual of the rank and file in the book, so there's no reason a mono-gendered army is a necessary conclusion for those adapting his works today. (Or in the 80s, or in the 00s.)
Agreed that the adaptations could easily have taken a different direction. And its been far too long since I read the books to remember if there were any nods to a WHY seeded there. Perhaps its as simple as Fremen features highly skilled women warriors because "more advanced society" and the bad guys don't, so "regressive and patriarchal" loses the war?
Speculation, since the author is unavailable for comment.
I cannot remember a single female Harkonnen character outside of Lady Jessica and her line. That is strange. Someone must have birthed Feyd and Beast. Maybe females were consigned to be incubators and milkers like in Mad Max.
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.