I think he was writing a story about war and loss and power and mortality, and that he was living too thoroughly in a male-dominated world to even notice that his treatment of gender might affect anything.
See, that's brilliant. Mind if I quote?
I think about this a lot, although I hadn't been able to put it so clearly into words, because I think it's true of many works of literature which are condemned for being sexist, racist, heterocentrist, etc. Of course, while this works as an explanation for individual works, it doesn't change the fact that, for example, science fiction began as a distinctly sexist genre. One runs up against the question of whether being sexist/racist by default (because it is deeply ingrained in one's culture) still counts as being sexist/racist. I think it's worth making a distinction between active dislike of a race/gender/orientation and the more common, but no less hurtful, "insult by omission/ignorance" sort of -isms.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2008-04-19 01:59 pm (UTC)See, that's brilliant. Mind if I quote?
I think about this a lot, although I hadn't been able to put it so clearly into words, because I think it's true of many works of literature which are condemned for being sexist, racist, heterocentrist, etc. Of course, while this works as an explanation for individual works, it doesn't change the fact that, for example, science fiction began as a distinctly sexist genre. One runs up against the question of whether being sexist/racist by default (because it is deeply ingrained in one's culture) still counts as being sexist/racist. I think it's worth making a distinction between active dislike of a race/gender/orientation and the more common, but no less hurtful, "insult by omission/ignorance" sort of -isms.