Foundation and Patriarchy

This post is about Isaac Asimov and the Foundation series. Before I go further I'll point out that I like Asimov, and greatly value what he has done for science fiction, as well as his contributions to science, science popularisation, skepticism and humanism. If I appear to become quite critical, bear that in mind. Also, Spoiler Alert, for anyone who has not read the Foundation trilogy. So, on with the rant...

I recently finished reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy, his epic galaxy-spanning tale of conquest, survival and rebellion after the decline and fall of the first galactic empire (I'm focusing on the three books of the original trilogy, not the sequels and prequels he wrote much later). In general, I found the series to be excellent, with many interesting concepts, both in terms of science and how people deal with it. It was fascinating the way that technology, in the first book, is turned into a kind of religion, in order to spread it to people without them being able to understand the science behind it, and then of using it to control those who revere its mystic qualities. There were interesting ideas in the third book concerning mind control, namely if someone was influencing your desires and altering your loyalties, would you be able to tell; and if your mind was compromised in such a way, would you still be the same you? One of the bigger themes, pervading the three books, was the way people might behave if they thought the future was pre-ordained, and the faith and complacency they feel when they believe they are destined to win no matter what.

However, it became obvious mid-way through the first book ('Foundation') that every single one of the characters was male. Not only all of the lead characters, such as the rulers of the Foundation or their adversaries, and the rogueish merchant traders, but pretty much anyone they deal with. In a whole galaxy, that seems a bit lop-sided. There are two exceptions, whose appearance was conspicuous given the obvious omission so far. One of these is the wife of a planetary ruler, acquired for diplomatic purposes, being the daughter of a neighbouring warlord; whose entire dialogue (her existence spans only a few pages) seems to consist solely of nagging at, moaning about, or generally belittling her husband, in some kind of clichéd 50s stereotype. The other female character's presence is even more fleeting, her entire purpose being to go "ooh shiny!" when some heroic space-trader presents her with a high-tech necklace. In all, not a particularly flattering or considered portrayal of half the population of the galaxy; and the perception of space as a massive boys' playground was wearing rather thin by the end of the book. Not that any of the men had particularly deep or developed characters though, each being rather single-minded and flat: but that's partly down to the way the book is written, consisting of a series of short segments of the Foundation's history, spaced decades apart.

Things seem to get somewhat better in the second instalment though ('Foundation and Empire'), with the introduction of Bayta Darell (see - I can actually remember her name). She is one of the main characters of the book, albeit primarily because she happens to be the wife of a figure involved in the democratic rebellion. She's a reasonably strong character, though much of her purpose revolves around being the understanding, compassionate, fragile, weak-but-caring trope. Her actions are pivotal to the end of the novel (really, spoiler alert), where her quick thinking (after a few chapters of muddling along) in shooting the old psycho-historian, just on the brink of the big reveal, is pivotal in the development of the whole story arc. So while her actions consist mostly of following her husband from planet to planet and being all wifey, she is at least a female character that exists, with some importance to plot - or so it at least seems, but we'll get to that...

The third book ('Second Foundation'), for the most part, continues in a similar vein, with good old space men zipping around the galaxy being all daring and wise, or plotting their cunning treachery as the plot gets ever more complex, never quite knowing who the good guys are (actually, for most of the book I was convinced there were none). Here is perhaps the best potential for a strong female character, where Arcadia (14 year old daughter of a prominent scientist and grand-daughter of the above-mentioned Bayta) shows some actual courage and determination, eager to be part of the action and basically have an adventure. She goes as far as managing to acquire high-tech listening equipment (in the time-honoured method of flirting with the nerdy kid) to find out what her father and his mysterious associates are up to, then stows away on a ship to see for herself, and to be part of the action. It seems that the female hero has finally arrived, albeit with rather a lot of being scared, followed by pretty much running away to a quiet corner of the galaxy until everything is alright (admittedly she has fairly sound reasons for doing so, but still). She still manages to be quite pro-active in achieving what she needs - namely, getting a message across the galaxy to her father, without knowing who she can trust or who might be under the influence of the mysterious Second Foundation (achieved by profiteering in a massive war, incidentally, but that's fairly standard by now), and so basically saved the day, or so it would appear.

But all this cunning and bravery can't be natural, right? The girls and women can't really be that clever and daring, can they? Indeed, no: and this is the point at which I got properly annoyed about the whole lack-of-actual-women-in-the-whole-of-space thing. It turns out that Arcadia, and Bayta before her, were acting as they did because they too had been under the subtle influence of the Second Foundation. Yes: they only actually showed any initiative, bravery, aggression, or sense to run away because they were being mind-controlled by a conspiracy of psychologists on another planet in order to maintain the thousand-year plan for the next empire. OK, that's all valid plot-wise, and the long time-scale over which the grand plans unfold is a major (and fascinating) theme of the books - but this also gives the impression that Asimov considers women to be pretty much incapable of anything noteworthy, unless they happen to be made artificially heroic by not-entirely-explained psychological manipulation. This third book actually lessens the regard which I had for characters in the second book, when things started to be looking up.

I should mention for completeness that there are a few other women in the third book - the one that is not a fairy bland housewife / maid is the clingy, needy, pathetic mistress of the ruler of a strategically important planet. Her purpose seemed to be to annoy her man with inappropriate pet names and be chastised for it, and desperately latch onto any form of contact with another female. Or so it seemed, for it turned out she was an agent of the Second Foundation, merely playing the part of a pathetic weak-willed hanger-on - her identity is revealed when her disguise slips momentarily, since she considers Arcadia too stupid to notice. So at least women are capable of being lying and manipulative members of this secret and highly advanced gang of psycho-historians.

So in all, the trilogy doesn't paint a very good picture of the author's consideration of women (I'm not saying he hated women, or was fundamentally misogynistic - just that he didn't deem it necessary to actually write any decent ones into these books). Now, obviously, this trilogy was written in the 1950s, so we perhaps shouldn't have too high expectations; it is pretty much contemporaneous with The Lord of the Rings, that other epic trilogy in which women, for the most part, are content with being wives, queens and signposts. But still, this is science fiction, set thousands of years into mankind's (oh, I mean humanity, how did I forget...) future - so the thing which I find most odd is that Asimov, while capable of thinking up the most fantastic vision of the future of the human race, as it spreads out amongst the stars with an array of fabulous technology, assumes that societal organisation will remain totally unchanged. Without exception, all of the societies in the Foundation trilogy, on innumerable planets through five hundred years of history, are modelled in the same patriarchal way as a 50s nuclear family, or worse as dynastic monarchies typical of medieval history and fantasy epics.  Again, this has to be seen in its historical context, but even so there had been vast progress in women's liberation and rights in the decades preceding these books, with women's suffrage, the right to actually be considered human, and the rise of second-wave feminism being reasonably recent occurrences, with progress showing no signs of slowing down by the mid 50s - so I am confused as to why Asimov did not extrapolate this further, or even play with the ideas in the various future cultures he invokes. In fact, Asimov considered himself a feminist, and regarded the education of women as a key need for society, in part in order to reduce the rapidly growing population - so it's not as if he would have been alien to such ideas.

Of course, the above is based entirely upon the three books of the Foundation trilogy. I've not read much else of his work, so it might not be a particularly fair sampling. Indeed, the other three books in the series - added many years later - may redress the imbalance; and I can't vouch for the content of his hour hundred or so other novels. However, it's worth noting that the Foundation trilogy is his best known work, and the books he wrote during that period generally remain his most popular.

One of the only other books by Asimov I've read is The Stars Like Dust, which has quite a similarly disappointing portrayal of women. One of the main characters (I forget her name) is a princess-like daughter of one of the main planetary rulers. As important as her actions may be to the plot, her main purpose seems to be as a love interest to the protagonist, and to tag along on his adventure. From what I recall she isn't portrayed in a particularly enlightening way, with plenty of "oh you know what women are like" moments. The main things I remember about her is that at one point it's necessary to attach a separate living pod onto their tiny spaceship to house her (while being on the run, or on a secretive mission, or generally in a bit of a rush), lest she have to be indecently close to the males present, and because she needs a lot of space because... well, woman stuff, or something. I read Stars Like Dust a few years before Foundation (twice actually, without realising), and remember back then being struck by his less than egalitarian portrayal of the major characters; and so this further bolsters my impression of Asimov's writing having a disappointingly misogynist slant.

Again, this was written about sixty years ago, and so are very much a product of their time - so I don't hold it against Asimov particularly. Then again, as I alluded to above, while his writing, being science fiction, is predominantly about futuristic technology and its consequences (and perhaps can't be expected to do the whole social justice thing as well), science fiction has always really been about people and society; so when quite a large aspect of society is assumed to be completely static, it is quite an obvious omission.

It's interesting to compare Asimov to other science fiction writers of the time. I recently read The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard, and the level of misogyny there was appalling, with the sole female character being generally described as listless, unreasonable, hysterical and generally incapable (often referred to simply as "the girl"). This would have been even more striking if it weren't for the bizarre neuroscience woo pervading the book, and the horrendous levels of blatant, unjustified racism - and so things could definitely be worse. My limited experience of reading Brian Aldiss and Ursula K. Le Guin hinted at some better things, with a sprinkling of key female characters, with no particularly memorable instances of sexism to complain about. Arthur C. Clarke's books (the Odyssey series in particular) fared rather better, with there being plenty of characters involved in the plot, who just happened to be female. This is especially pronounced in the later books (though these were written decades later), set in the near and distant future, where women are spaceship captains, engineers, scientists and so on, without that being a particularly remarkable thing - just as one would hope society would develop, given its trajectory so far.

Even though Asimov's Foundation books were written quite some time ago, and we can perhaps forgive him for merely reflecting the prevailing views of the times, I still think it's something worth mentioning. This is classic science fiction, and has had a big impact on a lot that followed, both in books and film, so it's important to realise what it got wrong as well as what it got right. Given the sexism, racism, and classist attitudes prevalent in many books of the time, and earlier (both in science fiction and in literature in general - I'm looking at you Conrad and Doyle) things could have been worse, but when trying to imagine the far distant future, things could have been better. It's always worth bearing such issues in mind when considering the genre often called 'hard' sci-fi: while it may well appear as scientifically rigorous as possible, it isn't always so thorough in other matters.

Unconcscious Progress

This idea is something I've been thinking about for a while, and tried to express to a friend recently, but didn't make my point particularly coherently.  We were discussing the internet at the time (which I'll come back to later) but the idea is more general than that.

So it's pretty clear that, as a whole, society has progressed pretty far in the last few hundred years.  I'm not talking here about technological progress, but progress in terms of social justice, morality, and how we treat people within and outside our own social groups.

However, it is also clear that many examples of progress have been opposed, sometimes actively hampered, by those who disagree, for whatever reasons.  A recent example is the debate in the UK about the right of gay couples to marry: to many (myself included) this is a natural and essential step towards a more tolerant and inclusive society; but the nay-saying from some groups, in particular the Catholic Church, seems to seriously threaten the progress of this piece of legislation, and shows why it has taken so long to get this far.

Numerous other examples illustrate the reluctance of a vocal few standing in the way of what should be conisidered as enlightenment: the ongoing debate about women's reproductive rights, freedom of religious expression, and to go back further, full suffrage and the abolition of slavery.

And so it's easy to conclude that the fight for equality and justice for all is a constant uphill struggle against those who wish things to remain as they are, to enjoy their privileges while denying them to others (whatever their motivations may be, which I won't go into here); and that if we let our guard down we risk a slide back to an unenlightened dark age, with the persecution and exploitation of minorities ignored, or even endorsed, by society and government.

However, I think this ignores a fairly important force for progress, that is, the tendancy of people to take their rights for granted. Now usually, to be 'taking something for granted' is seen in a negative way, and implies it is not being sufficiently appreciated, or that we are not appropriately grateful to those who's struggle bought it for us. What I'm getting at here though, is that once a group has a certain freedom or right, they tend to think of it as normal, and find it hard to concieve of a time when they did not - it simply becomes the way things are expected to be. We will even complain about it, wishing for better days, and use it as a starting point for further gains. It becomes inconcievable that this status could be lost or threatened, it will feel as if it has always been so, and as a consequence, we expect the same or better for our children. Moreover, as the groups of people with which we associate grow - with ever increasing opportunities for communication and travel - we naturally come to expect the same rights to apply to others as to us, not so much as an active spreading of our views but as common decency. We insist that the liberty we hold should apply to all people we coexist with, forgetting it is something only recently gained for ourselves.

I'm not saying, of course, that everything is currently fine for all, or even most people; but even those who in our society don't enjoy as many freedoms as the priviliged few (poor immigrants, say) have certain expectations that they do not expect to be violated (being forces into slavery).


A few examples are in order to clarify this point. Until recently, in some places, interracial marriage was not permitted; now it seems obscene to think such a thing could have been denied; this we see the concept of marriage being expanded to a wider group again.  In the not too distant past, it was unusual for a woman to have a career other than child-rearing, and access to education was limited; now consider how alien the thought of treating undergraduate students differently based on sex would be, for example; the priority has progressed to working out why certain fields (such as engineering and maths) are still male dominated. And it is now almost universally accepted that anyone of sufficient ability should be eligible for employment in their chosen profession (in practice, still a bit of a work in progress, but rarely is such discrimination openly admitted or actively defended).

An example which stands out from having read a number of classic novels, as is exemplary of this whole concept, is how the divisions of class in British society have so much less relevant and prescriptive. While social classes still broadly exist, the divide between the rich upper classes and the working masses remaining painfully obvious, class is no longer a fixed and irrefutable obstacle (I would argue that in most cases, inequalities derive from more tangible things such as discrepancies in wealth, opportunity and access to good education).  Contrast this to the case a hundred or so years ago, where 'breeding' was deemed all-important, and those born of less affluent families were seen as inherently less respectable, able, and worthy as human beings. On reading of such things now, it is almost beyond belief that people constrained themselves like this.

More recent political examples also illustrate this trend.  We now take it for granted that, if we are ill and in need of healthcare, it will be available, for free and at a high stanard (recent changes to the NHS notwithstanding). When the treatment we receive does not meet our high expectations, we are rightly outraged. But clearly it was not always this way, and before the advent of the NHS a visit to the doctor was a coslty experience, and for many only sought in cases of dire need.  Our naturalisation to this state of comparative utopia is such that we complain about the system we have, and demand that improvements be made, bewailing any failure and cry that lessons must be leared. Similarly, the concept of a minimum wage is now pretty well ingrained into our work culture, and I think to many of my generation it would be considered almost a basic human right; and yet this is something introduced less than twenty years ago (to much protest from certain quarters). Our expectation is not that we should fight to retain this hard-won privilege - but that it should be raised.

Of course, I should make it clear that none of this is an excuse for complacency.  While much progress has been made without us overtly appreciating it, that doesn't make it inevitable, and horrendous backwards slides are always possible. We can't sit back and assume the relentless march of progress will sweep us all forward into a new utopia without lifting our collective finger: but I'm saying that, in general, things tend to get better as we expect more, and as we become accustomed to it, this acts as a ratchet on society, allowing us to drive frwards without slipping backwards at the same time.

Back to what I mentioned at the start of this piece: the current state of the internet.  The internet, with its relatively short history, is a useful way of contemplating the development of humanity in general, but on a short and well documented timescale(something I might think about more and write about in future). We can clearly see the rapid progress being made (in terms of data quantity, transfer speeds, and access), and consider our rapid acclimatisation and sense of entitlement to it.  We have gotten so used to the idea that we can find out anything whenever we want to know it, that the recent blackout of Wikipedia (or indeed any temporary loss of connectivity) makes us wonder how we managed without it; and of course we want more.

But the point I want to make is about recent proposals to heavily constrain the internet - namely PIPA and SOPA. These indeed are rather horrifying in their extent, potantially stifling a lot of the creativity and cooperation that makes the internet what it is.  But now that we have such access to information and such freedom to use it, we can hardly remember a time when we did not, and will not condone anything that limits it. While such laws, if enacted in the early days of the web (crippling such endvours as youtube or Wikipedia before they begun) might have seemed natural and sensible toward regulating this new frontier, that's only because we would never have known what we were missing. Now, we assume this is the way the information age works, and imagine a future where our potential to use and share data only gets better. I certainly don't mean to trivialise the possible threats or claim we can ignore them; but the tide of expected progress would be hard to hold back.

So to summarise: things generally get better, often without us consciously being aware of it; as we become accustomed to our improved way of life, we refuse to accept or even admit the possibility of going back to a relative dark age, and expect things to at least get no worse. From our newly familiar vantage point, we naturally expect progress to extend to our peers and descendants, driving further advancement. We shouldn't depend or rely upon this, and assume a perfect society will emerge effort-free, but I think it is an important part of how change comes about, and that this is an integral, and most optimistic, part of a free and stable society.