Re: [UUPoly-L] Evoking Heinlein

[Valerie White <valerie@valeriewhite.org>]

There is no author whose books I have re-re-reread a much as 
Heinlein.  As a child and younger person I loved the books 
unconditionally.  As I grew more politically aware, I came to detest 
Heinlein's sexism, but I put up with it!  I've sometimes wondered 
about heterosexism.

Jasmine, the "flight" you mention is the flight of the journalist in 
SISL from the proffer of a threesome with Mike and Jill.  He seems 
mostly to fear the possibility of any erotic connection with 
Mike.  However, Heinlein deals with same-sex sex in a much more 
accepting way in "Time Enough for Love".  Two technicians who are 
working around Lazarus and therefor must wear full-body protective 
gear arrange a date which is explicitly sexual even though they don't 
know each other's gender!  I've always thought that was a delightful 
explication of the principle that skin is skin!  All the same, he 
makes Galahad a limp-wristed switch-hitter.

However to get back to sexism . . . Podkayne of Mars is RIDDLED with 
it.  Poddie's brother is portrayed as logical in the extreme.  Poddie 
is grossed out by the endowments of the male creatures who help to 
keep her captive.  She's also sentimental and incompetent.  And then 
there's Girdie Fitzsnuggly!  In "Time for the Stars", girls are 
mysterious creatures who are warmer and softer than boys.  In my 
favorite, "Time Enough for Love", the twins manipulate Lazarus by 
deliberately letting their eyes well with tears.  In Stranger, the 
treatment of the "girls" by Jubal is SO condescending . . . and when 
he crosses THEIR line they "straighten him out" like rebellious 
children.  And then there is H's fixation on LOOKS.  All of his women 
must come from Lake Wobegon.  They are all beautiful.  The wife (not 
long lived) who goes pioneering with Lazarus in "Time Enough" 
especially.  Their male children, BTW, are taught to cherish and 
protect their sisters like knights.  In "Number of the Beast", our 
hero can tell which are the aliens because they fail to respond 
sexually to the heroine's nudity.  And nearly all of Heinlein's women 
are responsible for the cooking!  I think it's in "Number" where a 
man has a pot of soup on the back of the stove that he inherited from 
his grandmother--but after all, HE's French!

I could go on . . .

But enough already.

Valerie