Sign in with FacebookUngelic_is_us's Reviews > Podkayne of Mars
Podkayne of Mars
by Robert A. Heinlein
by Robert A. Heinlein
Here's what I learned from Podkayne of Mars, courtesy of Professor Heinlein (blech):
A woman should always hide how smart she is, so she doesn't scare off the men.
If a woman wants to get a man's attention and get the information she needs to further her career, she should just act like a moron coquette.
It doesn't matter if a girl is a complete innocent from a Puritan society: she'll naturally know how to be a cocktease.
Introduce an infant into a situation, even if it is of a different species, and a woman--no matter how intelligent, savvy or career-oriented--will always disregard logic and personal safety to care for and protect it.
No matter how smart a woman thinks she is, she'll always be dumber that a 12-year-old boy.
Don't expect a woman to be able to solve a problem under pressure, unless it involves babies.
Look for the psychopathic but hyper-intelligent boy in the story; he's the real main character, no matter what the narrator thinks (especially if she's female.)
All Heinlein novels will contain a patriarchal, patronizing older male figure and a smug, patronizing younger male figure whose function is to tell the other characters how stupid they are and how they don't understand the way the real world works.
Women should be grateful that men try to get them drunk so they can rape them, instead of clubbing them over the head to rape them (usually).
Even in a future where humans have colonized Mars and Venus, and interplanetary travel is the equivalent of a cruise to Alaska, women will still be unable to get jobs in traditional male occupations and expected (even if they have managed to break through the glass ceiling) to give up their aspirations in favor of making babies, or taking care of babies.
RAGE.
Of all the ridiculous sexist tripe! I nearly threw this book against the wall so many times, it's a wonder I actually got through it.
A woman should always hide how smart she is, so she doesn't scare off the men.
If a woman wants to get a man's attention and get the information she needs to further her career, she should just act like a moron coquette.
It doesn't matter if a girl is a complete innocent from a Puritan society: she'll naturally know how to be a cocktease.
Introduce an infant into a situation, even if it is of a different species, and a woman--no matter how intelligent, savvy or career-oriented--will always disregard logic and personal safety to care for and protect it.
No matter how smart a woman thinks she is, she'll always be dumber that a 12-year-old boy.
Don't expect a woman to be able to solve a problem under pressure, unless it involves babies.
Look for the psychopathic but hyper-intelligent boy in the story; he's the real main character, no matter what the narrator thinks (especially if she's female.)
All Heinlein novels will contain a patriarchal, patronizing older male figure and a smug, patronizing younger male figure whose function is to tell the other characters how stupid they are and how they don't understand the way the real world works.
Women should be grateful that men try to get them drunk so they can rape them, instead of clubbing them over the head to rape them (usually).
Even in a future where humans have colonized Mars and Venus, and interplanetary travel is the equivalent of a cruise to Alaska, women will still be unable to get jobs in traditional male occupations and expected (even if they have managed to break through the glass ceiling) to give up their aspirations in favor of making babies, or taking care of babies.
RAGE.
Of all the ridiculous sexist tripe! I nearly threw this book against the wall so many times, it's a wonder I actually got through it.
Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read Podkayne of Mars.
sign in »
Comments (showing 1-22 of 22) (22 new)
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
David
(new)
Apr 14, 2011 09:31am
The main thing GWTW and POM have in common is they were written ages ago, most of heinlein's work is very much pro-equality. Also saying that they have to act stupid to as not to scare off men could very easily be a truth, that he isn't fond of, maybe drawing attention to the sexist thought patterns of the early 60s.
reply
|
flag
*
Also heinlein was very ill when writing this and became obsessed with the fact that the meaning of life is to take care of children, and therefore was looking at the maternal instinct as a saint-like behaviour.
hmmm... @ Ungelic_is_u, with regards to your review - you seem to have missed the point of the book. I am sorry to see that you have, but perhaps other reviews might help to enlighten =]
Fza--generally I ignore the trolls, but I thought I might as well answer you. Having read many of the reviews, I see that quite a few people agree with me, most of them women; but whether they did or not, my opinion of the book stands. I realize that the book is pretty dated, but just because the context of the book explains why its content is sexist (even for a writer who was progressive in his time period), that doesn't justify the sexism.Also? Vaguely superior assertions that I missed the point of the book with no explanation as to what super-awesome insight I missed aren't a sufficient argument for me to change my mind.
Vaguely superior assertions that I missed the point of the book with no explanation as to what super-awesome insight I missed aren't a sufficient argumentUngelic, my review explains what the point is, and a very good point it is too! I was impressed.
The Fza I do not believe I catch the reference to trolls, but I stand by my statement that you may have missed something. That being said, I do believe that this it is easily missed by many readers.I apologize for any assertion of superiority that you inferred from my statement. And for not expounding on what I feel that point of the story was.
If you are interested in the what I thought of Pod do feel free to read my review. I believe it hits most of what I was talking about. Though by no means do I believe it to be a perfect review, so do feel free to leave your perceptions.
Hey guys, to be perfectly honest with you, this book makes me tired and I don't feel like discussing it. I've read both of your reviews and I disagree with you. Can we just leave it there, agree to disagree and go our merry ways?
Ungelic, the funny thing is that really I agree with both you and Fza in different ways - you both capture important aspects of the book. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to tease. Heinlein always brings out the worst in me.
The Fza wrote: "@ Manny = no worries. but may i ask, why do you feel Heinlein brings out the worst in you?"Manny, Fza, if you guys want to keep having this discussion, please move it to one of your reviews. Like I said, I don't really want to talk more about this book, so please continue your conversation somewhere else.
Hmm, I absolutely understand what you are saying. I guess I (a lady!) can put aside the sexism simply because in the time period that the book was written, a lot of people viewed things this way. When I read the Hobbit, I put down the book and thought, were there any actual women in that book? It was a different time. The ending made me cringe, I know. Several other parts made me cringe as well, but it was an enjoyable story otherwise, in my opinion. My problem is that I can't find many women in good science fiction novels at all!
I could enjoy the book partially but only because it was written in 1963 and judging from what I saw in Mad Men, you can't really blame even a scifi author that his vision of an interplanetary society is stuck in the 1960. Still, I can totally relate to your review and yes, reading this book today is constant pain.
Nikki wrote: "Hmm, I absolutely understand what you are saying. I guess I (a lady!) can put aside the sexism simply because in the time period that the book was written, a lot of people viewed things this way. W..."Nikki--John Varley seems to be pretty good at including women in his sci-fi. Steel Beach is my favorite of his novels that I've read so far. You could also check out Octavia Butler for some good, woman-centric sci-fi.
Christian wrote: "I could enjoy the book partially but only because it was written in 1963 and judging from what I saw in Mad Men, you can't really blame even a scifi author that his vision of an interplanetary soci..."Christian--actually, I feel like I *can* blame him. A failure to realize a convincing future is a serious flaw in science fiction. And I judge Heinlein for his sexism just as much as I criticize Lovecraft and Kipling's racism. It's entirely possible to recognize an author's context as part of a previous (or current) culture with all of its prejudices while refusing to excuse their lack of vision or empathy.
Ungelic_is_us, well, at least the book got me thinking about science fiction in general and what might be more difficult to predict – the changes in society or the changes in technology. Obviously Heinlein fails in both disciplines here but still. Scifi mostly sees societal change as a function of technological advancements but Podkayne of Mars was rendered mostly obsolete even before film was no longer used to take photos or people stopped using tapes to record audio.One has to wonder how good predictions of future societies can be when radical new technologies come yet on top of normal societal change. Perhaps we should let sociologists write the scifi literature and just get them a decent science advisor ;)
Christian, true enough. Though I do feel that other author's of the era were more effective at predicting the future (Miller's Canticle for Leibowitz, for example, although that was a different kind of sci-fi), Heinlein is thought-provoking and challenging in a variety of ways (not just in his failures). That could make the book worth reading, if only because of the conversation it can provoke.
That said, I think Podkayne works very well in the technological sense, in that Heinlein has a very interesting scientific setting; the fact that some of the tech he references (tapes, for example) is obsolete doesn't bother me much, since he was working from the principles of science that he had access to. But on the other hand, he's not very good at writing people, or envisioning how technology might change the way people live or think. It's pretty preposterous and rather inconsistent that Podkayne's mother, for example, would be such an incredibly driven engineer, and then throw all of that over because BABIES. The rigid gender essentialism--the fact that Podkayne can't be a pilot because she's a woman and obviously technology can bring us to the stars, but can't compensate for variations in human biology--I think demonstrates a lack of imagination and internal consistency, as well as the ugly prejudices of an earlier period. I feel very uncomfortable when I hear people say, "Well, that was just the culture [author] lived in," as if that excuses the sexism (or other *ism), or means we can't criticize/discuss it. Obviously some things bother people more than others, because we're all sensitive to different issues, so Podkayne may bother others less than it bothers me. But I do think it's worth talking about why it bothers some people and not others, if only, as I said above, because it can be thought-provoking about what has or hasn't changed since Heinlein wrote it.
Well, I chose tapes and analog photos because they were the easy examples. I forgive Asimov for believing microfilms where the medium of choice for storing books ten thousand years from now. It's harder to forgive Heinlein the failure to foresee the digital revolution more than 10 years later, when digital computers had already flown people to the moon and the first ICs had already been built. In any case, walking around on the surface of Venus with almost 100 atmospheres of pressure is another example of bad science.I have to say I just can't imagine on the other hand what it was like to be immersed in a society that basically believed that women are naturally programmed to find nothing more exhilarating than dirty diapers. I'm not saying I didn't suffer when reading Podkayne and how her plans to become the first female pilot against all odds go out the window at the first sight of babies. After all, isn't changing diapers on a spaceship just as great as flying one? Why Heinlein created a society in the first place that colonized all inner planets but still basically thinks of female pilots as inconceivable ... well, there I, too, really can't find any other explanation than a lack of imagination.
I was serious though when I said that I really don't know whether it would have been more difficult to predict digital cameras or the equal rights movement.
Ungelic_is_us wrote: "Nikki--John Varley seems to be pretty good at including women in his sci-fi. Steel Beach is my favorite of his novels that I've read so far. You could also check out Octavia Butler for some good, woman-centric sci-fi.Thanks! I'll look into them!
I agree with the reviewer here. I could get past the first couple of sexist problems with the novel because of when it was written but I finally just had enough after the speech where the most important job a woman can do is have and raise babies. That was going to far. Blech is right. Plus I didn't really care for the story all that much.
