Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys

A thrill-seeker tests his resolve with an alien artifact
certain to kill him... over and over.

https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/make-it-feel-like-home
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On Sunday, April 2, 2023 at 7:22:55 AM UTC-6, James Nicoll wrote:
> Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys
>
> A thrill-seeker tests his resolve with an alien artifact
> certain to kill him... over and over.
>
> https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/make-it-feel-like-home

Indeed, it was well you quoted at length, because from the nature of
the passage - and the nature of the sentiments of our time - "attempts
to paraphrase" would indeed, as you said, "sound like spiteful parody".

A sexist, though, could easily have pointed out that women have
clitorises for the same reason that men have nipples... *therefore*
even if women didn't "need" intelligence for any purpose, evolution
would have, in the absence of intense selection pressure against it,
given it to women if it is assumed that *men* needed it.

So the monologue in question is framed on a teleological, if not
Creationist, view of how humans came to exist.

Of course, it is _also_ premised on a breath-taking level of sexism.

On the one hand, even if it was considered to be right and proper
that women should evermore be confined to traditional domesticity...

having human-level intelligence is required, so that they can avoid
breaking things like washing machines, stoves, and refrigerators
when they try to use them... *and* so that their children can learn
from them how to speak.

But since there is absolutely no necessity that women *be* confined
to domesticity, and the occupations that make the most use of
intelligence do not require levels of upper-body strength nearly
exclusive to males...

the reason why half the human race is *not* incapable of supplying
rocket scientists, nuclear physicists, and so on...

boils down to more efficient use of agricultural production, so that
all the humans who require food are fully capable, instead of half of
them being morons good for only one thing.

So for this to be a mystery, for which he never found an answer in
his whole life...

It's a very bizarre way to show that a character is progressive enough,
at least, to acknowledge that women do *have* intelligence. Am I to
conclude from this that the unconscious sexism of 1960 was so
extreme as to be utterly incomprehensible to the people of today?

Funny. I was _alive_ in 1960. And, as far as I recall, back then nearly
everyone acknowledged that women were human beings, not some
sort of beast. They may have thought it was always going to be their
destiny - even in the days of the Starship Enterprise - to look pretty,
and play second fiddle to men... but even if they didn't quite measure
up to the sex that supplied all the geniuses and decision-makers,
they were still *people*.

And if they _hadn't_ been real people, it wouldn't have been possible
to *really* love them, so this even tied into the one thing that they
were most importantly good for, even if it was also great that they
could also cook and clean too.

So, yeah, sexism was pretty bad back then. But it wasn't _that_ bad.

John Savard

On Sunday, April 2, 2023 at 6:38:43 PM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:

> So for this to be a mystery, for which he never found an answer in
> his whole life...

I'm overthinking this. Since this was before people found sexism
offensive, even levels of sexism higher than their own, the passage
in question was no doubt just intended as a way to establish the
character was an original thinker, who looked at things from a
different perspective than everyone else, and who questioned what
others took for granted.

Since readers of science fiction were assumed to be overwhelmingly
male, it was no doubt felt that the topic used for this was a safe one.

John Savard