reading the older sci-fi is painful when it comes to gender portrayals I don't think this is specific to science fiction. Most fiction and nonfiction from more

reading the older sci-fi is painful when it comes to gender portrayals I don't think this is specific to science fiction. Most fiction and nonfiction from more than a few decades ago is pretty bad according to modern racial and gender portrayals. Anything before 1940 will just completely assume some races are inferior. Anything before 1900 will just completely assume women are inferior. Go back further and you get things that don't even make you cringe nowadays because they seem too ridiculous, like people thinking that slavery is fine. Go back to the Old Testament and it has lots of different stories that encourage killing people for reasons that we would consider unacceptable nowadays. Anyway, it does make it less of a "light, enjoyable read" when you are dealing with attitudes like that, but I think it is still worthwhile to read old things with attitudes that we now consider inappropriate, in order to understand the past. Many times there are good ideas mixed in with the bad ones.