> some grace for when it was written

I reread it last year and I needed to give it a lot of grace, mostly from it's treatment of women. To Asimov's credit, there's no overt sexism - he manages to bypass that by having almost no female characters at all. There's a single female character who has no agency, every other character is white and male. I understand it's a product of it's time, and avoid judgment. However, the lack of women feels weird and makes it hard to enjoy.

To be fair, the later books in the series which were written in the 70s are much better in this regard.

▲ dotancohen 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

  > there's no overt sexism - he manages to bypass that by having almost no female characters at all.

That is true for much of classical literature, going all the way back to the Greeks.

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watwut 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Female characters are not exactly exceptional in classical literature. And that statement includes fairly sexist works. Even Odyssey has multiple female characters - you do not get older then that. Shakespeare has them and that is as English language classic as it gets. Women are literally all around classics.

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dotancohen 2 days ago | parent [-]

Yes, that's why I stated much classical literature. Not all classical literature or most classical literature. Much classical literature.

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watwut 2 days ago | parent [-]

I dont buy it. You have to cherry pick among classics hard to come with the "much of it does not have female characters" conclusion.

Much of it do have women in it. As I go through them in my head, almost everything has some women in it, at least existing in larger world. Except "Old Man and the Sea" one character against the world kind of things. Hemingway has women in other books tho.

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dotancohen 2 days ago | parent [-]

You invented a quote that does not quote anything I said, so I won't defend it.

I suggest that you notice the word "almost" in the text I quoted in my original comment.

	▲	watwut 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Frankly, you are just wrong about content of classical literature.

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esperent 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> That is true for much of classical literature, going all the way back to the Greeks.

It is not, in fact.

▲ jacquesm 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Asimov has a reputation in that sense:

https://blog.chrislansdown.com/2022/02/07/isaac-asimov-creep...

▲ 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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