One small step for man, one giant bugger-all for womankind

So, over the past few days I've been reading Foundation by Isaac Asimov. A classic in science-fiction, apparently. I can't say it thrilled me overly; perhaps because it is almost entirely humourless and emotionless. (I hadn't quite realised this was why I found it faintly dissatisfying until my dad, an ex-maths teacher, said he'd always liked Asimov because his novels were so logical.)

But anyway, this is not the point of this post. The point of this post is that although Asimov is able to imagine space-travel and atomic force-fields, video-phones and three-dimensional visual recorders, and so on and so forth, he seems entirely incapable of comprehending the notion that women could ever have any significant role in society. I counted precisely three references to women in the entire 200-page book. One was only mentioned in passing as the daughter of a male character, alongside six sons, and was never heard of again, and so she doesn't really count. One was some kind of servant who was called in by the male ruler so the male trader could demonstrate some pretty jewellry on her. The other was the wife of said male ruler, who appeared twice in the novel, bitched at her husband for a while and was then shut up by being presented with said pretty jewellry. And this in a book which spans several generations and therefore has many, many characters living in various societies on various worlds at various times. The women in all these societies, at all these times, are virtually invisible. The only thing a woman actually does in the entire bloody book is wear jewellry.

Now, I'm not trying to be militant here. I fully understand that Asimov was writing in the 1950s and was a product of his time. I just find it a bit sad that a science-fiction writer, whose job it is to be able to see beyond his time, to imagine other possible worlds, still can't seem to grasp the concept of a society that's anything less than wholly patriarchal.

And now, to sit back and wait for the wails of grief from Kate and Lis at all the terrible memories I have brought back of feminist literary criticism at A-level... you know you loved it!