Very cool that the man can imagine the most mind-bending sci fi concepts and then when trying to imagine the motivations or inner life of a woman is just like, "??? She's crazy I guess?"
Guess the pink laser from space that was beamed directly into his brain did not cover Wömen
This isn't a Philip K Dick thing specifically. It's most men. Patriarchy specifically teaches boys not to identify with women. Proscribing femininity in boys and men is designed to reinforce a heirarchy of gender by limiting the sympathy that men might otherwise naturally have for women. When a boy is told that he's a pussy for playing with dolls, for example, he eventually internalizes the idea that sharing interests and experiences with women diminishes him. By the time he becomes an adult, he becomes so adept at crushing behaviors perceived as feminine that it's reflexive and often unconscious. This is how we as a society other women (and it's why even many women become dismissive of other women).
We've gotten much better about this in the last 30 years or so, with more media that makes women sympathetic by centering women and femininity in positive ways, but older authors have definititely missed that train. Also, the last 5 years or so have threatened a backslide in this regard with the anti-"woke" movement
Definitely not limited to Dick. But I think it's especially ironic because he's a great and incredibly imaginative writer in many ways and then is baffled when he tries to imagine a woman. And because his successes are widely lauded but people don't often mention his failures in this regard. I was actually thinking about this because I was talking with someone about Piers Anthony whose female characters are also insanely misogynistic, but his writing is also terrible and widely acknowledged to be problematic slop.
But yes I completely agree with your analysis of how men are systematically discouraged from having empathy or understanding for women generally
I loved Piers Anthony as a child and I think that fucked me up for a long time
Same lol. I just found out he's still writing Xanth books! There are 47 of them now. Tbh I thought he was dead, but no
Tbh I thought he was dead, but no
He's still alive? I read some of his even weirder and more obscure books (they were all awful, both in content and also, like, just narrative structure and prose) 15 years ago and I thought he was dead even back then. I thought he was one of those old authors who didn't make it through the 90s or early 2000s.
I read some of his even weirder and more obscure books
Was one the Apprentice Adept series? I was big into that one
No, it was some weird Cold War allegory in space that I can't remember the title of, focused on a refugee from the Space Dominican Republic who became the popular dictator of Space America before being killed by a Yeti while hunting Space Nixon in the Space Soviet Union.
Fuck, that sounds way more interesting than it actually is. It was all just dreary low sci-fi drama with a lot of extremely creepy relationships and problematic soapboxing about sexual mores, and the actual story beats are more just dumb and cringe than wacky and interesting.
I would not be surprised at all if Dr. Tingle has read Xanth, but the Xanth series is very pun-heavy.
It does seem that PKD is acutely aware of this himself. Most of his protags are misogynist scumbags and other characters treat them as such. The protag from Ubik gets dressed down for being a misogynist and that literally almost kills him. Decker from Do Androids Dream Electric Sheep (Blade Runner) is by far the worst.
Its not like the characters or PKD learn though. He's just one knotch above most male SciFi authors for being aware that feminism exists and afraid of its wrath.
The general idea of a Philip K. Dick story vs writing an actual sentence
when Heinlein was the very rare example of an old guard male SF writer writing actually somewhat complex female characters sometimesHeinlein writing about a tattooed MILF in "Stranger in a Strange Land" somehow bodyslamming other classic Sci Fi writers in the contest of who can write a woman character
Actually hilarious bit
I admit I haven't read much Heinlein. I think I read "Friday" decades ago and didn't much care for it. I can't recall ever reading other works of his.
Read the plot synopsis for I Will Fear No Evil and tell me it was written by a cis man.
There's also the author-insert character in Time Enough for Love having this "hmm, yes, I thought about going through a magic future sci-fi tech sex change, but ah, alas, it doesn't work at the genetic level!" reflection scene and his reaction to learning that even that "flaw" could be fixed is interest followed by dismissing it when the suggestion is genetically engineered and artificially grown clones, a mind copy, and killing the original body. Although the clone thing still happens and the female clones of the author-insert join his weird incestuous harem because this is a later Heinlein novel and they're all really fucking weird and horny like that. But overall that whole sequence is such a "no cis man sits contemplating becoming a woman and agonizing over every little flaw before rejecting it for the dumbest and most trivial of reasons" moment.
Yeah, and there's also autistic trans woman Elizabeth Long in Number of the Beast, plus Mycroft/Mike/Michelle the computer in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress whose gender presentation matches that of whoever they're talking to at the moment.
