tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5837660608809488753.post7926302743433957346..comments2024-03-28T20:53:49.167-04:00Comments on The Adventures of Roberta X: Square Peg, Round Ideology: The Left Keeps Hammering HeinleinRoberta Xhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09956807794520627885noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5837660608809488753.post-91432302293130426582014-06-11T07:57:11.016-04:002014-06-11T07:57:11.016-04:00Yesm the Robinson essay is a classic. I really li...Yesm the Robinson essay is a classic. I really liked his early work.Roberta Xhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09956807794520627885noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5837660608809488753.post-2088505422649035692014-06-11T07:30:57.234-04:002014-06-11T07:30:57.234-04:00Have you ever read Spider Robinson's "Rah...Have you ever read Spider Robinson's "Rah, rah, R.A.H."? Here's a link:<br /><br />http://www.heinleinsociety.org/rah/works/articles/rahrahrah.html<br /><br />A quick excerpt on the topic of his "personal failings" with regard to female characters:<br /><br />"(2) “Heinlein is a male chauvinist.” This is the second most common charge these days. That's right, Heinlein populates his books with dumb, weak, incompetent women. Like Sister Maggie in “If This Goes On—”; Dr. Mary Lou Martin in “Let There Be Light”; Mary Sperling in Methuselah's Children; Grace Cormet in “—We Also Walk Dogs”; Longcourt Phyllis in Beyond This Horizon; Cynthia Craig in “The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag”; Karen in “Gulf”; Gloria McNye in “Delilah and the Space-Rigger”; Allucquere in The Puppet Masters; Hazel and Edith Stone in The Rolling Stones; Betty in The Star Beast; all the women in Tunnel in the Sky; Penny in Double Star; Pee Wee and the Mother Thing in Have Space Suit—Will Travel; Jill Boardman, Becky Vesant, Patty Paiwonski, Anne, Miriam and Dorcas in Stranger in a Strange Land; Star, the Empress of Twenty Universes, in Glory Road; Wyoh, Mimi, Sidris and Gospazha Michelle Holmes in The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress; Eunice and Joan Eunice in I Will Fear No Evil; Ishtar, Tamara, Minerva, Hamadryad, Dora, Helen Mayberry, Llita, Laz, Lor and Maureen Smith in Time Enough For Love; and Dejah Thoris, Hilda Corners, Gay Deceiver and Elizabeth Long in “The Number of the Beast—. “[1]<br /><br />Brainless cupcakes all, eh? (Virtually every one of them is a world-class expert in at least one demanding and competitive field; the exceptions plainly will be as soon as they grow up. Madame Curie would have enjoyed chatting with any one of them.) Helpless housewives! (Any one of them could take Wonder Woman three falls out of three, and polish off Jirel of Joiry for dessert.)<br /><br />I think one could perhaps make an excellent case for Heinlein as a female chauvinist. He has repeatedly insisted that women average smarter, more practical and more courageous than men. He consistently underscores their biological and emotional superiority. He married a woman he proudly described to me as “smarter, better educated and more sensible than I am.” In his latest book, Expanded Universe—the immediate occasion for this article—he suggests without the slightest visible trace of irony that the franchise be taken away from men and given exclusively to women. He consistently created strong, intelligent, capable, independent, sexually aggressive women characters for a quarter of a century before it was made a requirement, right down to his supporting casts.<br /><br />Clearly we are still in the area of delusions which can be cured simply by reading Heinlein while awake."<br /><br />Sorry for the length of the quote, but I just thought I'd round out your list. Robinson probably couldn't be farther away from Heinlein, politically speaking, but obviously considers him to be one of (if not the) best SF writers that ever lived.<br /><br />Of course, it helps for me that the first full-length book I ever read at age 5 was "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel".Blackwing1noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5837660608809488753.post-32903167264551513222014-06-10T19:23:26.287-04:002014-06-10T19:23:26.287-04:00http://reason.com/blog/2014/06/10/reconciling-robe...http://reason.com/blog/2014/06/10/reconciling-robert-heinleins-ideologicalBobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11402651457453813639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5837660608809488753.post-81180130125820690982014-06-10T13:10:21.667-04:002014-06-10T13:10:21.667-04:00Last sentence should be corrected to read "be...Last sentence should be corrected to read "before the book was ever written".<br />Ideologues tend to forget that writers, like most sorts of people, are complicated and therefore produce complicated books and complicated lives.<br />KishneviAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5837660608809488753.post-89422198288432385372014-06-10T12:53:12.832-04:002014-06-10T12:53:12.832-04:00I just saw that. That's the Progressive way t...I just saw that. That's the Progressive way to have a civilized argument -- ban the people who have cogent arguments proving that you are a complete idiot!<br /><br />I'm not a member of that group (thank goodness), I only saw it because Facebook thought I should know that you posted in that group. Thanks, Facebook! :) So it will slide down the timeline and disappear from my view eventually...<br /><br />Fuzzy Curmudgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03802539927743643041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5837660608809488753.post-69869969055378512572014-06-10T12:10:15.649-04:002014-06-10T12:10:15.649-04:00Well, I got banned for Wrongthink over it, so keep...Well, I got banned for Wrongthink over it, so keep me posted.Roberta Xhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09956807794520627885noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5837660608809488753.post-22532188481590879732014-06-10T10:54:30.349-04:002014-06-10T10:54:30.349-04:00(Can you imagine what that clown would have done, ...(Can you imagine what that clown would have done, confronted with a stack of H. Beam Piper?)Fuzzy Curmudgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03802539927743643041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5837660608809488753.post-19831122840082961182014-06-10T10:49:28.385-04:002014-06-10T10:49:28.385-04:00I enjoyed your Facebook responses. I've alway...I enjoyed your Facebook responses. I've always thought that anyone who couldn't finish a Heinlein book had something fundamentally wrong with them, and you just helped him prove it.Fuzzy Curmudgeonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03802539927743643041noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5837660608809488753.post-21752258914248967412014-06-10T09:34:07.607-04:002014-06-10T09:34:07.607-04:00Far to many people idolize RAH as someone far more...Far to many people idolize RAH as someone far more then he actually was. W/O any doubt the best thing that happened to him was meeting and later marrying Virginia. She was one of the few people surrounding him who wasn't bat shit crazy. Heck he was bat shit crazy too but who cared the man could write. Sport Pilothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04862280966739841769noreply@blogger.com