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book notes
Aug. 26th, 2006 10:49 pmI got read the first two Lois McMaster Bujold books today (Shards of Honor and Barryar): nice girl from modern progressive space-world falls in love with a fascist regressive patriarchal militarist man from a highly stratified traditional semi-space world. She gives up her own life to marry him and then lots of Politics ensues. Just the right thing to read for the last week of vacation.
But why are people (okay, women, mainly) in these books so ready to give up rational life as soon as they're confronted with someone spouting rhetoric about Honor and Duty and Loyalty. I understand the appeal of this sort of thing to a point, but I can't imagine becoming a second-class citizen because of my gender for it. And it always (in my limited experience of reading this kind of sci-fi) seems to be women falling for military/feudal men. I haven't come across the story of a geeky, pacifist 'ansible technician' who ends up in a traditional society and decides to go in for the cult of honor and glory for the love of a beautiful woman who can embroider his shirts with nice folk-embroidery. Is it because women are supposed to be more emotional creatures more susceptible to alpha males than beta- or gamma-males are to females? (Does that make any sense at all? Maybe it's getting too late for me.) Is it just the "knight in shining armour" phenomonon? Or is the thought of civilized men regressing in bloodthirsty irrational Beowulf-types perhaps much more unpleasant than woman picking up embroidery hoops?
But why are people (okay, women, mainly) in these books so ready to give up rational life as soon as they're confronted with someone spouting rhetoric about Honor and Duty and Loyalty. I understand the appeal of this sort of thing to a point, but I can't imagine becoming a second-class citizen because of my gender for it. And it always (in my limited experience of reading this kind of sci-fi) seems to be women falling for military/feudal men. I haven't come across the story of a geeky, pacifist 'ansible technician' who ends up in a traditional society and decides to go in for the cult of honor and glory for the love of a beautiful woman who can embroider his shirts with nice folk-embroidery. Is it because women are supposed to be more emotional creatures more susceptible to alpha males than beta- or gamma-males are to females? (Does that make any sense at all? Maybe it's getting too late for me.) Is it just the "knight in shining armour" phenomonon? Or is the thought of civilized men regressing in bloodthirsty irrational Beowulf-types perhaps much more unpleasant than woman picking up embroidery hoops?
