Women and Sexual Power

Hey guys, sorry I'm posting so late - I lent my copy of TMIAHM to a friend in the class and didn't get it back until ten minutes ago, and I hate posting without having the book to flip through.

I really enjoyed this novel. I loved Heinlein's exploration of the sentience and growth of a computer, following the path of revolution from fomentation to completion, and how he throws in references to real world IR. I even got out tabs to mark all the passages I liked.

The most interesting element of TMIAHM, however, was how power was distributed between the genders. I agree with Russ, that the society of Luna (evolved from a penal society) and the anarchist society of Anarres show a number of similar characteristics. But even on Anarres, women were considered naturally propertarian and therefore not quite as good as men.

On Luna, however, women have more power - absolute power in the sexual realm (look at what happens when the tourist LaJoie tries to kiss Tish! Mannie's explanation is on pages 164-5. Also relevant is the opting of Wyoh into Mannie's family, starts page 215, where the men are allowed a veto - which is odd, for Loonies); but also an element more power economically. In Mannie's family, Mum runs the show - not just the relationship element, but she manages all business on the farm, too.

However, the economic power comes from sexual power. Women are clearly viewed as sexual objects - the standard greeting of a man meeting a woman is for him to check her out and express his opinion of her attractiveness by whistling or hooting (see Mannie greeting Wyoh pages 26 and 39). So my question is this - is this power of women a good thing? Or a bad one?

I personally can't decide. I disagree with power based on gender (whether it be men or women that gain based on it), as well as power based on attractiveness (though, despite the standard cat-call greeting, Mannie/Heinlein never mentions if more attractive women have more power than less attractive women). However, the result seems to be a more or less egalitarian distribution of power - women are the heads of households, but skills are valued regardless of gender. In a way, it's the reverse of today's society, where men and women are officially equal but really there's a structure of male privilege.

As a footnote to this topic, it's interesting that though Heinlein writes a society that supposedly values women more than men, he lets a more old fashioned gender prejudice slip through. On page 118, he (or rather, Mannie as narrator) states: "Average Loonie was interested in beer, betting, women, and work, in that order" - discluding women from the "average Loonie". Though statistically this would be correct (since there are more men than women on the moon), in a culture where women loom as large as they do, it's doubtful that any Loonie would leave them out of a summation of the population. A similar line is on page 366 - "Lenore was allowed to go in and out, fetching coffee and food, or sitting and saying nothing. Lenore is a sensible fem and knows when to keep quiet." This image of an obedient, subservient, placid woman, valued for those characteristics, is certainly different from the outgoing, proactive women Heinlein promotes as the Loonian ideal throughout the rest of the novel!