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
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.
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.
Lmao he has an incredible mind
Read the edit, I realized after posting I oversold it with that summary.
He was old 30 years ago!
The first one came out in 1977
did Dr. Chuck Tingle help with those titles?
I would not be surprised at all if Dr. Tingle has read Xanth, but the Xanth series is very pun-heavy.
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