Science Fiction versus Space Opera, Part 4/5: Gender

[jade_sabre_301]

And because this wouldn’t be something written by me if I didn’t mention gender
Let’s be honest, people: sci-fi/space opera is a genre traditionally dominated by men.

Comments

[fabricalchemist]

BUT there are a lot a lot of kickass female heroines in sci-fi! Way more than in fantasy. Ripley from Alien, Honor Harrington, River Song, Halo Jones, Aeyrn Sun from Farscape, all of Firefly, Uhura, Beverly Crusher...I mean, it's just way easier to come up with badass not-just-T&A chicks in this genre than any other.

[jade_sabre_301]

QUERY: ARE ANY OF THOSE WOMEN FROM BOOKS.

I mean yes you make an excellent point but I don't know how well it extends past the TV/movie realm (aside from spinoff series and even then it's sometimes fascinating to see what happens to strong female characters, like when R.A. Salvatore had Mara Jade sobbing about her "womb," which is not a word Mara would ever ever use). (And sometimes in spinoff series women become even stronger. It all depends on the author--I suppose I would argue there's a preponderance towards weaker women in written sci-fi?)

(Okay you can point to the Dune women, or at least Paul's mother and sister because his love interest is a wimpy pants. Who are the other strong women of literary sci-fi? I ASK BECAUSE I AM NOT SURE OF THE ANSWER.)

[fabricalchemist]

omg what woman in GENERAL would refer to it as a "womb", much less the ever-badass MJ; I call blasphemy

LESSEE, Honor Harrington is a book series (closely influenced by Horatio Hornblower? but in space?)...right on all of Dune's scarybadass women...Halo Jones is a graphic novel series, so that half-counts...

I'm going to disagree with you here and make a case that TV/Movie realm counts just as much, for the visual impact. While there are always green-skinned skimpy alien chicks for sexyness, a lot of sci-fi heroines are just more covered up than their fantasy counterparts. I mean, you don't see Conan-style metal bikinis happening in space (well, unless you're watching Heavy Metal, but that's almost another genre entirely). You can have clingier outfits, certainly (see here Seven of Nine, Lexx, fremen stilsuits) but for the most part it seems like those outfits are relevant to their actual occupations and lifestyles, and seem more practical in their figure-hugging than gratuitous. I mean, Inara is a space hooker and she dresses more

[jade_sabre_301]

Oh no! I am not disagreeing that TV/movie realm does not count (did I make it sound that way I apologize), and I think your point about being visually covered is awesome and important. It's just that the focus of my posts was mostly about books, since that's where Quark and Beth were struggling. So, like, I'd take Mara Jade as an example of a badass space opera book woman, since she only exists in the books, but Princess Leia comes from the movies originally. So now I am just wondering who the badass women of sci-fi or science fiction (I suspect there are not so many of them but then again characterization is not its strong point anyway) books are.