Orbit 13 edited by Damon Knight

https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/all-thats-left-to-linger-on
--
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"At least if they dropped a pen, they could pick it up without
their backs doing mysterious and terrible things."

And that would be true even if Donald Trump had never run for President!

....given that this comment was made in the context of sour stories by
people who didn't realize things were going to get worse (than in the 1970s)
without immediately leading to apocalyptic consequences (as depicted in
the sour stories) I can't but think that this is the thought behind that...

"A number of 1970s SF stories by women were quite pessimistic
about how men might react to a change in the status of women.
Recent events suggest their pessimism was well founded."

As this newsgroup's resident vat-girl expert, of course I need to comment
on this one!

I didn't watch it, but I was suggested by YouTube to look at a video in which
apparently a group of male right-wing commentators makes fun of a woman
who said she needed a husband so that she wouldn't ever be homeless
again.

Maybe there were some flaws in her presentation, or maybe she made
excessive pretensions to feminism or something. But basically, I considered
it unlikely that there was to be a well-founded argument presented in the
video.

Remember the song that went...

"Money for nothing, and sex for free"?

I kind of figured they were accusing her of wanting money for nothing, when
really they wanted sex for free.

What everybody knows - at least everybody old enough to know where babies
come from - is:

For a man, sex is just fun pure and simple - the satisfaction of a relentless
desire with which he was programmed by natural selection.

For a woman...

Sex carries the potential of pleasure, but it involves an intimate entry into
her person - and thus requires a great deal of trust in her partner.

Sex carries the possibility of pregnancy.

The woman does the work of carrying a child to term.

The woman does the work of breastfeeding.

And she is almost always stuck with changing the diapers
and all the other stuff too.

So pretending that sex is an act in which men and women are
equal participants, and so it's ridiculous that one participant should
expect something _extra_ out of it like a roof over her head...

I mean, it's not as if using feminism against women is surprising.

Back to the web page about Orbit 13.

Men reacting badly to an improvement in the status of women?

If it's one that releases women from abject economic dependence
on men, thus making it harder for some men to get laid, then, yes,
of course they will.

And my position on that is clear. While some men certainly don't
_deserve_ to have the world arranged for their convenience, it still
happens to be the truth that states maintain their existance through
armies and police forces overwhelmingly composed of males.

If civilization collapses, women will _not_ enjoy equal rights any
more; equality for women _depends_ on a society functioning at a
high level of civilization.

Thus, while I agree that women have an inherent right to equality,
some means has to be found to keep the men happy, or equality
won't continue. I've advanced vat-girls as the least bad solution;
it lets women choose how they're going to prioritize their lives, and
yet the supply of women interested primarily in being wives and
mothers remains adequate.

John Savard