Sector General, 1962: Misogyny is an allowable neurosis.

[truepenny]

This post is going to have almost as much disclaimer as actual content, but I need to articulate it.

So. Caveats and disclaimers: I know, as my subject line indicates, that "Trouble with Emily" and the other stories in Hospital Station were published in book form in 1962 and should not be excoriated for being a reflection of their times. I know, furthermore, that James White later did that most difficult and beautifully human thing: he changed his mind. Later Sector General stories have female characters, Murchison even gets upgraded from nurse to pathologist, and my favorite Sector General protagonist, Cha Thrat from Code Blue--Emergency, is female. Of course, Cha Thrat is also nonhuman, and we'll get to that down the screen a bit.

But.

The stories in Hospital Station (they've been spackled together into a quasi-novel, but they're connected novellas, really) are about the rejection of bigotry and prejudice. Conway, White's most frequent Sector General protagonist, gets read the riot act not once, but twice, for his disdain for Monitors, and it is perfectly clear that his attitude--the attitude of an uninformed pacifist toward the Federation's fighting force, and an attitude, as Williamson's explanation makes clear, that the Monitor Corps has in fact gone to a good deal of trouble to instill in people of Conway's class background--would be more than enough to get him booted from Sector General if it weren't for the fact that in the course of "Sector General" he learns the error of his ways and straightens up and flies right. Williamson is equally scathing toward the patients being brought into the hospital from fighting an interspecies war. Sector General stories preach tolerance and liberal thinking, and honestly that's one of the reasons they're good comfort reading. They're Utopian problem-solving stories, and I love them.

But.

At the end of "Trouble with Emily," O'Mara (Sector General's Chief Psychologist--and there's a whole 'nother critical essay about how he gets there in "Medic") and Conway are discussing Conway's progress from raw, self-righteous newbie to a valued part of the Sector General staff:

      "... It has been apparent since you first arrived here," the Major had told him, "that you mix more readily with e-ts than with members of your own species. Saddling you with Dr. Arretapec was a test, which you passed with honours, and the assistant I'll be giving you in a few days might be another."
      O'Mara had paused then, shook his head wonderingly and went on, "Not only do you get on exceptionally well with e-ts, but I don't hear a single whisper on the grapevine of you chasing the females of our species ..."
      "I don't have the time," said Conway seriously. "I doubt if I ever will."
      "Oh, well, misogyny is an allowable neurosis," O'Mara had replied, then had gone on to discuss the new assistant.
HS 112

Now, this is the same O'Mara who is described in the previous story as a "latter-day Torquemada" due to his zeal in "guarding against wrong, unhealthy or intolerant thinking" (HS 82). The Spanish Inquisition probably didn't mind a little good woman-hating either. An aversion, even a slight one, to another species is a problem, but hating half your own? Enh, no big. You'd only waste your time "chasing" them anyway.

I sound bitter, don't I? It's because of the sucker-punch. Even in these early Sector General stories, there's very little blatant misogyny (and, as I said, later books adapt and correct their worldview); White's careful building of a world almost embarrassingly rich in species diversity means that most nonhuman characters are referred to as "it"; all Earth-human characters are referred to by last name only (and rank, if they have one). It's easy to miss the fact that there aren't any female doctors, especially if, as I did, you grew up reading science fiction and fantasy that didn't have female characters, and learned to read as if the male pronoun were genuinely the generic gender-neutral object that eighteenth-century grammarians and their followers have tried to make it. You make compromises to get the story. That's how it works.

Misogyny is an allowable neurosis. I read past it the first time I read "Trouble with Emily," and I nearly read past it this time. But something shook me out of the story so that I parsed the sentence, not as a piece of dialogue between O'Mara and Conway, but as something that James White in 1962 thought it was perfectly all right to have a sympathetic, intelligent parental figure say. And then I sat there, staring at the page, feeling winded and a little sick. Because I like James White and I like the world of Sector General and it hurt to discover that Sector General's all-embracing tolerance didn't extend to me.

I exonerate James White of deliberate malice. And it's not like I'm going to go out and burn all my Sector General books, or sell them to the used bookstore, or even stop searching for the ones I don't have. But still, the unthinking bigotry--in a series of stories carefully and obsessively concerned with the refutation of bigotry--says something about science fiction and something about 1962 and shows us why we're glad that people can change.

Comments

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

What you said, especially in your last sentence.

I hate rereading childhood/adolescent favorites and realizing that the figure the author disapproves of is *me*. It's astonishing to read old fiction with a 2000 sensibility; I've been feminist since '73, but it took awhile for the old prejudices to stop seeming natural and inherent. In particular, the female heroines who seemed brave and forceful then often seem surprisingly passive now.

[libskrat]

I was awfully fond of Alfred Bester... and then I read some of his nonfiction essays, nearly had my heart stop at the sexism, and haven't been able to read him since.

[ckd]

Yeah, it is tough to look at that bit (and the other early bits "explaining" why females can't be Diagnosticians).

Like you, I don't think White was malicious; from all I've heard, the man hadn't a malicious cell in his body. I give him a lot of credit for having done as well as he did to re-examine his body of work and the assumptions therein.

That doesn't change the fact that I like the later Sector General stories better, and not only because his writing improved.

I'd be interested in hearing your take on the non-SG The Silent Stars Go By.

[redbird]

1. Yes, it's good that people can change.

2. This may be a reflection of 1962's sexism more than of White's, and of how it's reflected in language--"misogyny" was and sometimes still is used to mean "male lack of interest in romance/heterosexual relationships" rather than, or in addition to, "dislike, distrust, or contempt toward women as a group." A man whose closest friend was his sister and who treated women with respect, but had no interest in romance, might have been called a "misogynist." [I've read little James White, and not that story, so I'm guessing here.]

3. I wonder, also, how many science fiction writers in 1962 were even enlightened enough to recognize misogyny as a neurosis--that is, as a defect in thinking, rather than as the normal way of the species, or an accurate reflection of reality.

[fitzcamel.livejournal.com]

I recently went back and reread _Voyage of the Dawn Treader_, and had this same problem: all these little asides and digs and throwaway pieces of dialogue that were aimed at people like *me* and my family. It was painful, and sad, too.

[davidlevine]

The bad news is that, in 1962, White had a sympathetic character say that misogyny is acceptable.

The good news is that, in 1962, White had a sympathetic character say that misogyny is a neurosis.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. I'm much more like Eustace's parents than like the virtuous Pevenseys.

[kate_nepveu]

2. That's very interesting, and I didn't know that, thanks. Unfortunately there is other sexist stuff in the early-ish Sector General books, which is Just How Things Are, so I don't know, but it is a possibility.

[According to an early book, human females have modes of thinking and possibly actual brain structure, I forget, that are so innately different from that of human males, and of every other sentient species in the Galaxy, that they can't use "Educator tapes," which layer another person's personality (including their medical knowledge) over the recipient's, because their fastidious little minds won't accept it. I don't think I'm paraphrasing much there, though obviously I don't have the book to hand.

[James later has a female non-human take an Educator tape. Even though Murchison, who is female, becomes a pathologist, I had the impression that pathologists didn't do tapes, thought that could be wrong.]

[fitzcamel.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Though I remain baffled about the "special kind of underclothes" described on page 1.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

It's in Star Surgeon, published in 1963:

"As for the girls," he [O'Mara] went on, a sardonic edge in his voice, "you have noticed by this time that the female Earth-human DBDG has a rather peculiar mind. One of its peculiarities is a deep sex-based mental fastidiousness. No matter what they say they will not, repeat not, allow alien beings to apparently take over their pretty little brains. If such should happen, severe mental damage would result." (SS 132)

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Jaeger wool underwear, perhaps? Although you'd think they'd be out of date even for the crunchy granola set by the time Lewis was writing.

[kate_nepveu]

Yes, I knew it had "fastidious" in there somewhere.

even stop searching for the ones I don't have

Oh, Tor's printed or reprinted all of the books, so if you're missing some of the early ones, they're in Orb omnibuses.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

The strange thing about that exchange is that Conway's original comment can be taken in any number of nonsexist ways ("too busy for real romance and won't do casual flings", or "I'm gay and so busy chasing men I don't have time for women" for two) and then the Psychologist forces it into that interpretation. Odd.

The book that was mindblowing for me was Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley", published around the same time - but in that the episodes that upset me upset Stenbeck too, even though they seemed normal to the people he met, so the impact is a little diluted. Characters are casually described as "women-haters" in a lot of fiction of that period (including Heinlein, IIRC); even if you posit that the term just meant "not interested in dating" it's a little upsetting that it was so normal for the time.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry. I control my book-buying by (a.) only buying used except on very special occasions and (b.) not shopping for books online. So my book list is kind of like a treasure hunt.

(It was lovely to get to meet you, even if only for five seconds, at Boskone.)

[ckd]

Since Thornnastor is "Diagnostician-in-Charge of Pathology" it's apparent that at least some of the path staff do use the tapes.

[kate_nepveu]

At least the prices for _Code Blue -- Emergency_ have come down since the Orb omnibus--before that, it was running $25-$75.

And you too!

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

2. This may be a reflection of 1962's sexism more than of White's, and of how it's reflected in language--"misogyny" was and sometimes still is used to mean "male lack of interest in romance/heterosexual relationships" rather than, or in addition to, "dislike, distrust, or contempt toward women as a group." A man whose closest friend was his sister and who treated women with respect, but had no interest in romance, might have been called a "misogynist."

That's the most common meaning I knew of, going back several centuries: 'a confirmed bachelor.' Of course it could go along with disliking/avoiding/shying away from 'female frippery.'

Taking the prefix 'mis' seriously as 'hatred', seems a new development; do people now see a similar serious 'hatred' in 'misanthrope'?

[space-parasite.livejournal.com]

That seems to be how it's commonly used. Someone who just doesn't want to be around other humans is a hermit; someone who actively dislikes them is a misanthrope.

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

It was quite commonly assumed that mysogynist could mean anything from somebody with an allergy to cute frilly gingham curtains to a gay guy to a person (male or female) with a serious hatred of women woring outside the home.

[vass]

"Oh, well, misogyny is an allowable neurosis,"

*breathes in sharply*

Yeah, like you said, it's the sucker-punch.

On a more cheerful note, I read one of the Sector General books years ago, and then forgot the author and title, and now you've reminded me, so I can go hunt them down. Thank you.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Another thing which shows up in older sf: Characters smoke a lot. And except in a very few stories (I can think of two: Isaac Asimov's "The Dead Past" and Hal Clement's Iceworld,), it seems to be there because the writer has decided a bit of unremarkable action is needed to break up dialog.

Next question: What's in today's sf and fantasy which will be as strange (and possibly offensive) when read in the future?

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

Could I interest you in cross-posting this to whileaway?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Certainly.

[eagle]

Next question: What's in today's sf and fantasy which will be as strange (and possibly offensive) when read in the future?

The near-complete lack of non-white characters in other than spear-carrier roles, I think. (It's gotten a bit better, but it's still pretty bad.)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Tho' since I am not a member of whileaway, it might make more sense for you to post a link--or to post the thing in its entirety if you prefer. So long as it's properly attributed, I don't mind.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

cheshyre pointed me at this post.

Allow me to muddy the waters still further, if you don't mind.

The way you're reading the phrase is quite possibly more or less the way James White meant it. But, not necessarily. . .

The term "misogyny", in 1962, could mean a couple different things. It could simply be a term for asexuality -- and I frankly read it that way. "Misogyny" just means, in this sense, "a low sex drive and no desire to form romantic relationships with women."

Now, that's a bit cold, and it's dismissive of women, in that using the term that way implies that the ONLY role women might have is as romantic or sexual partners -- but, I think that, if you went ahead and crossed out the word "Misogyny" and replaced it with "Asexuality", you might get a sentince which expresses something a little closer to what, I hope and suspect, James White might have meant.

The other thing which popped into my mind was an even more interesting possibility, but doesn't hold up when I think about the character of Conway. . .

Still, just to mention it -- occasionally, in 1962, "misogyny" was a code word for "homosexuality."

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

Linked.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Coming back to this from your recent link to this post...

For some reason, this period of the late fifties / early sisties seems especially rife with this sort of thing. I remember noticing a lot of it in Poul Anderson's Time Guardians stories too, and a few other places. I don't see it that much in earlier stuff - women are either there or not there, but they don't seem to be hated. I don't know if that's because the idea of women as a separate species was less ingrained or more. And then from the late 60s onward, it's no longer the sort of thing a character can say without having to think about it.