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SF-LIT  January 1997

SF-LIT January 1997

Subject:

calvin

From:

Richard Collier <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Science Fiction and Fantasy Listserv <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Tue, 7 Jan 1997 15:56:58 -0700

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (64 lines)

Recently Anny Middon wrote the following...

I like both these explanations and would buy into them except for one thing:
 There's an underlying assumption it seems to me in the Susan Calvin stories
that she never had the option of building a "significant human relationship"
because she was too unattractive.  Her basic unattractiveness was stressed in
just about every story in which she appeared.

Personally, I think she would have been a more interesting character if she
had been a normally attractive woman who clearly chose to identify with and
be closer to her robot creations that to other humans.

-------------------

>          Again, we are criticising stories written during a certain time
>  period by the parameters of another time period. Put in other words,
>  Anny, it's another case of putting square pegs on round holes: they don't
>  fit.
>
Susan Calvin appeared in "feminine Intuition" which was copyrighted in 1969.
 In this story she was retired, and not a single manager in USR&MM was a
female.

In 1969 it took no great stretch of imagination to realize that soon women
would have positions of power in corporations.  The National Organization for
Women was founded in 1966, after all.  In 1969, forty-three percent of U.S.
women over age 16 and 41 percent of all married women were in the labor
force.  I knew women managers would be common by the time robots were; why
didn't Dr. Asimov?

Anny
[log in to unmask]

Certainly the latter comment is accurate, and I suspect a case can be
made for seeing the reverend dr. A as something of a n unregenerate
chauvanist:  he liked the old ways and wasn't about to change just
because history did.

However, I will take issue with Anny's comments about S.C. and the
story "Liar".  Although Susan is portrayed as being serious , stern,
even severe, no where is she shown to be physically unattractive...
well, at least not ugly.  But she has clearly trespassed on traditional
male territory, and this seems to make her  unacceptable (if not
unattractive):  she has power usually reserved for men and in a world
where women were supposed to at least act subordinate, she is
rather an anomaly.
When Herbie lies about hypothetical male interest, she reacts in a
(for then) traditional and certainly by today's standards sadly
painful fashion:  she tries to make herself look feminine, sexy,
perhaps loveable by putting on makeup and wearing less masculine
clothing.  But she doesn't know how to do it very well and in fact
her efforts make her unwittingly the object of discussion,
speculation, and even laughter by the men around her, one of whom
is the very person she is trying to impress.  As a result, she
becomes ridiculous...an object of scorn...and when she discovers
what has happened her humiliation is matched only by the strength
of the revenge she inflicts on the poor perpetrating robot.

But there is nothing in the story to suggest that given a more
level playing field of historical assessment of attractiveness
she wouldn't have been found worthy.

rick c.

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