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'Others have damned him... for inventing female characters fated only for appalling subservience and motherhood. Says the accused chauvinist: "Even that can't b

'Others have damned him... for inventing female characters fated only for appalling subservience and motherhood. Says the accused chauvinist: "Even that can't be substantiated statistically. I don't know what they want me to do with the females. Do they want 'em not to have babies? I don't think there's much future in a gal who's thoroughly opposed to having babies. And the men in my stories are also thoroughly in favor of it."' I understand Heinlein is a culturally important figure in Science Fiction, but he should not be one of our heroes.

loki49152 5y ago
Ok, then. Where do you think babies come from?
- crooked-v 5y ago
  How the is that question relevant?
  - loki49152 5y ago
    Did you read half the quote? What exactly was the point of the criticism, do you think?
    - crooked-v 5y ago
      Which criticism do you refer to?
pavlov 5y ago
Heinlein on slavery: “Nor do I feel responsible for the generally low state of the Negro — as one Negro friend pointed out to me; the lucky Negroes were the ones who were enslaved. Having traveled quite a bit in Africa, I know what she means. One thing is clear: Whether one speaks of technology or social institutions, ‘civilization’ was invented by us, not by the Negroes. As races, as cultures, we are five thousand years, about, ahead of them. Except for the culture, both institutions and technology, that they got from us, they would still be in the stone age, along with its slavery, cannibalism, tyranny, and utter lack of the concept we call ‘justice.’” More in the same vein here: https://worldsf.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/heinlein-and-racism/amp/ https://worldsf.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/heinlein-and-racism... Includes such evergreen classics as “neurological differences”, “white people are the ones actually discriminated against”, etc.
- beebmam 5y ago
  Wow. This is something a KKK member would say. And in fact, KKK members do say exactly this, 19:22 in this vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN6Sb4SrK4c&t=547s#t=19m22s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN6Sb4SrK4c&t=547s#t=19m22s (By the way, Soft White Underbelly is a compelling YouTube channel, describing itself as: "interviews and portraits of the human condition")
- whoaisme 5y ago
  It's quite uncomfortable to read but that doesn't mean it's not correct. It's like you're more concerned about looking like a mean racist than the fact that millions of people live in hell and blackness is too correlated with misery. Is there a single place in the world today run by black people for black people that isn't a dump on a good day? If they became more like the West wouldn't their lives improve in every single possibly conceivable way? If white people are racist monsters for stating the obvious ask African emigrants to the West what a jerk Heinlein is.
- TMWNN 5y ago
  >Heinlein on slavery: >Nor do I feel responsible for the generally low state of the Negro — as one Negro friend pointed out to me; the lucky Negroes were the ones who were enslaved If that Heinlein quote outrages you, this ought to make your head explode: >Somewhere, sometime, maybe 400 years ago, an ancestor of mine whose name I'll never know was shackled in leg irons, kept in a dark pit, possibly at Goree Island off the coast of Senegal, and then put with thousands of other Africans into the crowded, filthy cargo hold of a ship for the long and treacherous journey across the Atlantic. Many of them died along the way, of disease, of hunger. But my ancestor survived, maybe because he was strong, maybe stubborn enough to want to live, or maybe just lucky. He was ripped away from his country and his family, forced into slavery somewhere in the Caribbean. Then one of his descendants somehow made it up to South Carolina, and one of those descendants, my father, made it to Detroit during the Second World War, and there I was born, 36 years ago. And if that original ancestor hadn't been forced to make that horrific voyage, I would not have been standing there that day on the Rusumo Falls bridge, a journalist -- a mere spectator -- watching the bodies glide past me like river logs. No, I might have instead been one of them -- or have met some similarly anonymous fate in any one of the countless ongoing civil wars or tribal clashes on this brutal continent. And so I thank God my ancestor made that voyage. >Does that sound shocking? Does it sound almost like a justification for the terrible crime of slavery? Does it sound like this black man has forgotten his African roots? Of course it does, all that and more. And that is precisely why I have tried to keep the emotion buried so deep for so long. But as I sit before the computer screen, trying to sum up my time in Africa, I have decided I cannot lie to you, the reader. After three years traveling around this continent as a reporter for The Washington Post, I've become cynical, jaded. I have covered the famine and civil war in Somalia; I've seen a cholera epidemic in Zaire (hence the trucks dumping the bodies into pits); I've interviewed evil "warlords," I've encountered machete-wielding Hutu mass murderers; I've talked to a guy in a wig and a shower cap, smoking a joint and holding an AK-47, on a bridge just outside Monrovia. I've seen some cities in rubble because they had been bombed, and some cities in rubble because corrupt leaders had let them rot and decay. I've seen monumental greed and corruption, brutality, tyranny and evil. >But even with all the good I've found here, my perceptions have been hopelessly skewed by the bad. My tour in Africa coincided with two of the world's worst tragedies, Somalia and Rwanda. I've had friends and colleagues killed, beaten to death by mobs, shot and left to bleed to death on a Mogadishu street. >Now, after three years, I'm beaten down and tired. And I'm no longer even going to pretend to block that feeling from my mind. I empathize with Africa's pain. I recoil in horror at the mindless waste of human life, and human potential. I salute the gallantry and dignity and sheer perseverance of the Africans. But most of all, I feel secretly glad that my ancestor made it out -- because, now, I am not one of them. —Keith B. Richburg (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Richburg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Richburg>) of The Washington Post, 1995 (<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/richburg/richbrg1.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/richburg...>)
GeekyBear 5y ago
> I understand Heinlein is a culturally important figure in Science Fiction, but he should not be one of our heroes. The man was born in 1907. That is so long ago that he was discharged from the Navy because he caught Tuberculosis in the days before antibiotics were developed. Of course people raised that long ago were taught things that we find ridiculous today. Casting off those sorts of cultural prejudices and thinking for yourself became a theme in his later works.
- beebmam 5y ago
  This interview was given 4 years before he died. That's what I quoted: a statement he made in this interview. Apparently he didn't take his own themes to heart, then
  - GeekyBear 5y ago
    What part of that statement do you imagine that people should find offensive? That some people do want to be parents? Someone else mentioned The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag, a detective story Heinlein wrote in 1942. The detective's wife is called out in the story as being the brains of the outfit, a very progressive notion in 1942. Exceptionally competent women have been a staple in Heinlein stories forever.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > That some people do want to be parents? I think what people would most likely object to is the implication that every woman should want that.
      - loki49152 5y ago
        That's not in his work, though. That's in the insecurities of people who set out to be offended. The closest he gets is the characterization that's it's natural to women to have babies because their bodies are capable of it, and most women do or at least want to. That shouldn't even be controversial because it's borne out by all of human history.
nverno 5y ago
Thank God he never listened to any of his critics! This man was a hero in my mind, an incredible character
btilly 5y ago
You do realize that those female characters are largely modeled after his wife Virginia? And they are portrayed as extremely competent and capable because their rolemodel, Dr Virginia Heinlein, was a lieutenant during WW II, and a working biochemist while married to Robert. You may be offended at the stereotype. And he'd be dead wrong to say that this is what most women either are like or would want to be. But it is an archetype that describes what some women really are like, and really do want. That's reality, and there is no sense in being offended at it. For the record, I was argued into this position by my wife. At first I had rejected Heinlein because of how he treated his female characters. But she (engineering degree from CalTech, working software developer for 20 years) made that point that she should have the right to decide what she wants. And what she wants happens to match what Heinlein's women try to be an archetype of. Nobody should be pushed to fit that or any other stereotype. But they should be free to choose it. And anyone who wants to read a fictionalized version of it, should be free to do that as well.
twinkletwinkle_ 5y ago
For some reason this criticism reminded me of one of my favorite Heinlein quotes. I set out to google it so that I could reproduce it correctly. I searched for "Heinlein a man should be able to" and was pleasantly surprised to learn that the quote actually begins "a human being should be able to": > A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects
Animats 5y ago
appalling subservience and motherhood. Oh? Hazel Meade Stone / Gwen Novak Wyoming Knott Podkayne Fries Even Grace Cormet isn't subservient, although she fakes it on duty.
- zabzonk 5y ago
  Not forgetting Star in Glory Road, where the male lead is in many senses a toy-boy (until the end).
ryandrake 5y ago
When you measure a figure of history using today's moral yardstick, you're obviously going to find a lot of things that are now-taboo. What will your grandchildren's generation write about the things you say, using the (yet unknown) cultural rules of the year 2061?
- bawolff 5y ago
  Pretty sure he was even more taboo at the time (pre-matrial sex! The horrors). If anything, parts of his novels dont work well today because what was radical at the time isn't today. A long winded argument on why pre-marital sex should be acceptable, just isn't interesting anymore. Of course he wrote plenty of stuff still taboo (and rightfully so, imo) e.g. all the incest.
  - GeekyBear 5y ago
    He wrote about a society where genetic testing and gene surgery made it simple to prevent any potential genetic consequences for incest. The entire point of the incest taboo is to avoid those genetic consequences. Do we still need an incest taboo in that case? That's just the sort of deeply held cultural value that Heinlein wanted people to be willing to think about for themself. Heinlein didn't advocate for incest or for polygamy. He wanted to convince people to think for themselves, even when the thing you are thinking about is an "unquestionable" cultural belief.
    - bawolff 5y ago
      I'd argue that the problem is more that incest is commonly abusive to the point where i'm not sure its possible to separate the theoretical non-abusive case out. In any case, i'm a believer in free speech, i don't object to him writing on such a topic, im just unconvinced. As far as thinking for oneself, not on the incest subject, but i agree about the author generally. starship troopers is a novel where i heartily disagree with what is espoused. However reading it forced me to really think about why i disagree and what i really believe instead and why. It really helped me examine my own beliefs, which made it a very positive reading experience.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> for inventing female characters fated only for appalling subservience and motherhood. Motherhood sometimes, but “appalling subservience” is pretty far from my recollection of any of Heinlein’s major female characters.
ThrowawayR2 5y ago
> "Others have damned him..." Everyone's entitled to an opinion, I suppose. But something tells me that keeping company with Heinlein, Asimov, and the other greats now deemed problematic would be far better than with these "others".
dang 5y ago
Please don't take HN threads on tedious culture war tangents. This is covered by the site guidelines: "Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

loki49152 5y ago

Ok, then. Where do you think babies come from?

crooked-v 5y ago
How the is that question relevant?
- loki49152 5y ago
  Did you read half the quote? What exactly was the point of the criticism, do you think?
  - crooked-v 5y ago
    Which criticism do you refer to?

pavlov 5y ago

Heinlein on slavery: “Nor do I feel responsible for the generally low state of the Negro — as one Negro friend pointed out to me; the lucky Negroes were the ones who were enslaved. Having traveled quite a bit in Africa, I know what she means. One thing is clear: Whether one speaks of technology or social institutions, ‘civilization’ was invented by us, not by the Negroes. As races, as cultures, we are five thousand years, about, ahead of them. Except for the culture, both institutions and technology, that they got from us, they would still be in the stone age, along with its slavery, cannibalism, tyranny, and utter lack of the concept we call ‘justice.’” More in the same vein here: https://worldsf.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/heinlein-and-racism/amp/ https://worldsf.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/heinlein-and-racism... Includes such evergreen classics as “neurological differences”, “white people are the ones actually discriminated against”, etc.

beebmam 5y ago
Wow. This is something a KKK member would say. And in fact, KKK members do say exactly this, 19:22 in this vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN6Sb4SrK4c&t=547s#t=19m22s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN6Sb4SrK4c&t=547s#t=19m22s (By the way, Soft White Underbelly is a compelling YouTube channel, describing itself as: "interviews and portraits of the human condition")
whoaisme 5y ago
It's quite uncomfortable to read but that doesn't mean it's not correct. It's like you're more concerned about looking like a mean racist than the fact that millions of people live in hell and blackness is too correlated with misery. Is there a single place in the world today run by black people for black people that isn't a dump on a good day? If they became more like the West wouldn't their lives improve in every single possibly conceivable way? If white people are racist monsters for stating the obvious ask African emigrants to the West what a jerk Heinlein is.
TMWNN 5y ago
>Heinlein on slavery: >Nor do I feel responsible for the generally low state of the Negro — as one Negro friend pointed out to me; the lucky Negroes were the ones who were enslaved If that Heinlein quote outrages you, this ought to make your head explode: >Somewhere, sometime, maybe 400 years ago, an ancestor of mine whose name I'll never know was shackled in leg irons, kept in a dark pit, possibly at Goree Island off the coast of Senegal, and then put with thousands of other Africans into the crowded, filthy cargo hold of a ship for the long and treacherous journey across the Atlantic. Many of them died along the way, of disease, of hunger. But my ancestor survived, maybe because he was strong, maybe stubborn enough to want to live, or maybe just lucky. He was ripped away from his country and his family, forced into slavery somewhere in the Caribbean. Then one of his descendants somehow made it up to South Carolina, and one of those descendants, my father, made it to Detroit during the Second World War, and there I was born, 36 years ago. And if that original ancestor hadn't been forced to make that horrific voyage, I would not have been standing there that day on the Rusumo Falls bridge, a journalist -- a mere spectator -- watching the bodies glide past me like river logs. No, I might have instead been one of them -- or have met some similarly anonymous fate in any one of the countless ongoing civil wars or tribal clashes on this brutal continent. And so I thank God my ancestor made that voyage. >Does that sound shocking? Does it sound almost like a justification for the terrible crime of slavery? Does it sound like this black man has forgotten his African roots? Of course it does, all that and more. And that is precisely why I have tried to keep the emotion buried so deep for so long. But as I sit before the computer screen, trying to sum up my time in Africa, I have decided I cannot lie to you, the reader. After three years traveling around this continent as a reporter for The Washington Post, I've become cynical, jaded. I have covered the famine and civil war in Somalia; I've seen a cholera epidemic in Zaire (hence the trucks dumping the bodies into pits); I've interviewed evil "warlords," I've encountered machete-wielding Hutu mass murderers; I've talked to a guy in a wig and a shower cap, smoking a joint and holding an AK-47, on a bridge just outside Monrovia. I've seen some cities in rubble because they had been bombed, and some cities in rubble because corrupt leaders had let them rot and decay. I've seen monumental greed and corruption, brutality, tyranny and evil. >But even with all the good I've found here, my perceptions have been hopelessly skewed by the bad. My tour in Africa coincided with two of the world's worst tragedies, Somalia and Rwanda. I've had friends and colleagues killed, beaten to death by mobs, shot and left to bleed to death on a Mogadishu street. >Now, after three years, I'm beaten down and tired. And I'm no longer even going to pretend to block that feeling from my mind. I empathize with Africa's pain. I recoil in horror at the mindless waste of human life, and human potential. I salute the gallantry and dignity and sheer perseverance of the Africans. But most of all, I feel secretly glad that my ancestor made it out -- because, now, I am not one of them. —Keith B. Richburg (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Richburg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Richburg>) of The Washington Post, 1995 (<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/richburg/richbrg1.htm http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/richburg...>)

GeekyBear 5y ago

> I understand Heinlein is a culturally important figure in Science Fiction, but he should not be one of our heroes. The man was born in 1907. That is so long ago that he was discharged from the Navy because he caught Tuberculosis in the days before antibiotics were developed. Of course people raised that long ago were taught things that we find ridiculous today. Casting off those sorts of cultural prejudices and thinking for yourself became a theme in his later works.

beebmam 5y ago
This interview was given 4 years before he died. That's what I quoted: a statement he made in this interview. Apparently he didn't take his own themes to heart, then
- GeekyBear 5y ago
  What part of that statement do you imagine that people should find offensive? That some people do want to be parents? Someone else mentioned The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag, a detective story Heinlein wrote in 1942. The detective's wife is called out in the story as being the brains of the outfit, a very progressive notion in 1942. Exceptionally competent women have been a staple in Heinlein stories forever.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > That some people do want to be parents? I think what people would most likely object to is the implication that every woman should want that.
    - loki49152 5y ago
      That's not in his work, though. That's in the insecurities of people who set out to be offended. The closest he gets is the characterization that's it's natural to women to have babies because their bodies are capable of it, and most women do or at least want to. That shouldn't even be controversial because it's borne out by all of human history.

nverno 5y ago

Thank God he never listened to any of his critics! This man was a hero in my mind, an incredible character

btilly 5y ago

You do realize that those female characters are largely modeled after his wife Virginia? And they are portrayed as extremely competent and capable because their rolemodel, Dr Virginia Heinlein, was a lieutenant during WW II, and a working biochemist while married to Robert. You may be offended at the stereotype. And he'd be dead wrong to say that this is what most women either are like or would want to be. But it is an archetype that describes what some women really are like, and really do want. That's reality, and there is no sense in being offended at it. For the record, I was argued into this position by my wife. At first I had rejected Heinlein because of how he treated his female characters. But she (engineering degree from CalTech, working software developer for 20 years) made that point that she should have the right to decide what she wants. And what she wants happens to match what Heinlein's women try to be an archetype of. Nobody should be pushed to fit that or any other stereotype. But they should be free to choose it. And anyone who wants to read a fictionalized version of it, should be free to do that as well.

twinkletwinkle_ 5y ago

For some reason this criticism reminded me of one of my favorite Heinlein quotes. I set out to google it so that I could reproduce it correctly. I searched for "Heinlein a man should be able to" and was pleasantly surprised to learn that the quote actually begins "a human being should be able to": > A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects

Animats 5y ago

appalling subservience and motherhood. Oh? Hazel Meade Stone / Gwen Novak Wyoming Knott Podkayne Fries Even Grace Cormet isn't subservient, although she fakes it on duty.

zabzonk 5y ago
Not forgetting Star in Glory Road, where the male lead is in many senses a toy-boy (until the end).

ryandrake 5y ago

When you measure a figure of history using today's moral yardstick, you're obviously going to find a lot of things that are now-taboo. What will your grandchildren's generation write about the things you say, using the (yet unknown) cultural rules of the year 2061?

bawolff 5y ago
Pretty sure he was even more taboo at the time (pre-matrial sex! The horrors). If anything, parts of his novels dont work well today because what was radical at the time isn't today. A long winded argument on why pre-marital sex should be acceptable, just isn't interesting anymore. Of course he wrote plenty of stuff still taboo (and rightfully so, imo) e.g. all the incest.
- GeekyBear 5y ago
  He wrote about a society where genetic testing and gene surgery made it simple to prevent any potential genetic consequences for incest. The entire point of the incest taboo is to avoid those genetic consequences. Do we still need an incest taboo in that case? That's just the sort of deeply held cultural value that Heinlein wanted people to be willing to think about for themself. Heinlein didn't advocate for incest or for polygamy. He wanted to convince people to think for themselves, even when the thing you are thinking about is an "unquestionable" cultural belief.
  - bawolff 5y ago
    I'd argue that the problem is more that incest is commonly abusive to the point where i'm not sure its possible to separate the theoretical non-abusive case out. In any case, i'm a believer in free speech, i don't object to him writing on such a topic, im just unconvinced. As far as thinking for oneself, not on the incest subject, but i agree about the author generally. starship troopers is a novel where i heartily disagree with what is espoused. However reading it forced me to really think about why i disagree and what i really believe instead and why. It really helped me examine my own beliefs, which made it a very positive reading experience.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> for inventing female characters fated only for appalling subservience and motherhood. Motherhood sometimes, but “appalling subservience” is pretty far from my recollection of any of Heinlein’s major female characters.

ThrowawayR2 5y ago

> "Others have damned him..." Everyone's entitled to an opinion, I suppose. But something tells me that keeping company with Heinlein, Asimov, and the other greats now deemed problematic would be far better than with these "others".

dang 5y ago

Please don't take HN threads on tedious culture war tangents. This is covered by the site guidelines: "Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html