I also think this was excellent. I remember reading it at Moher's place, but it seemed even more interesting having it read to me. That said, I welcome debate and discussion about it.
(That said, "Google it" was said in reference to one particular link that, as DKT pointed out, would be hard to link to in audio; that said, I also generally agree with the idea that all research, especially internet research, needs to be careful about avoiding biasing your info. Which, I take it, is part of the lesson of this essay.)
The positive stereotype is still a stereotypeNow that I've heard it again, this essay connects in all sorts of ways to other discussions about representation. Like, I remember going to a lecture once on "The Enemy," where the professor pointed out how enemies in narrative have to have some positive qualities to make defeating them worthwhile and difficult. (This is especially true in conspiracy narratives, where those Enemies are keeping us down.) So, in 19th century anti-Toms--the pro-slavery novels that were written to combat the message of Uncle Tom's Cabin--you get lots of cultural positives attached to black people: they are so innocent and trusting. Or, for another example, look at a lot of the post-Civil War literature that portrays black people as dangerous and wild (all negatives) but also strong and athletic (all positives). The point of the lecture on the Enemy or this article isn't whether a depiction is positive or negative, but how limiting that depiction can be.
(Neil deGrasse Tyson had an excellent observation on that point in regard to, iirc, Larry Byrd and Michael Jordan and how they were talked about while Tyson was growing up: Byrd was described as a careful student of the game, a guy who had to put his smarts to work; Jordan got described as a "natural athlete," a guy who was just great at the game without thinking or working. Sure, both "student of the game" and "natural athlete" sound positive, but they're both limiting descriptions: they limit how we see these particular people; and they're part of a larger system that limits how we see whole groups of people.)
Feminism helps menI also want to stress the idea that an essay like this--and the discussion around it--isn't just for the happiness of women. As many people have noted, narrowing the options of other people also narrows your own. I could go into the toxic stew of gender and race divisions in the 19th-century American South (an area I spent a lot of time on in grad school); but I'm also reminded of a blogpost written by a male ex-pickup artist. This was a guy who bought into the cultural narrative that men should act a certain way and be attracted to certain women. And so he spent his time working towards that goal (sex with lots of women) and achieving it and being miserable.
I'm paraphrasing, but I remember he said something about making a pass at some woman who was attractive according to pickup artist standards, but who he didn't connect to in any other way. He narrowed his life choices according to this over-arching narrative of what masculinity was and what femininity was. Sure, he eventually realized that this wasn't the way to live; but imagine a whole society constructed around that narrative. (Or: walk outside. Ta-da!) Imagine a whole society where the narrative is so ingrained that you think it's the right way to be--where you don't even realize that you've bought into an ideology because it was purchased for you a long time before you were born.
("Honey, did we put 'patriarchy' on the baby shower registry? Because everyone got it for us.")
History is weird and big enough for all of usI was just reading a 1960s comic book called
Dial H for Hero and I got thrown out of the story when a bank closed for the day at 3pm. A bank that closes at 3pm? Ridiculous! Meanwhile, a super-genius boy who solves crimes by turning into super-heroes while keeping his identity secret from everyone--well, that's just the way things are.
It's always interesting, to me, to find what presuppositions I hold about people and the way things are that feel natural, but are really just historical constructs of a certain time. I mean, I grew up--and pretty much still am--
a stereotype from a Woody Allen movie: New York, Jewish, Yiddish-compliant, middle class, left-liberal, good school, bagel-oriented, etc. Everyone around me pretty much fit into that category; and for most people, if you say "Jew," that's the image that pops: the Eastern European, mother-wishes-he-was-a-doctor Jew.
Which is why I loved learning about how radically Jewish demographics in America shifted over the years: up until the late 19th, if you went into a Jewish neighborhood, it wouldn't be Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazic Jews, but Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal speaking Ladino. Things in the past were different than they are today. And even today, things aren't the same all over: for fun, get an Ashkenaz and a Sephard into a room--along with an Ethiopian Jew and a Kaifeng Jew and a Cochin Jew--and ask them what "traditional Jewish food" is. Maybe--maybe!--they'll all agree on matzot, but otherwise, feh. (Idea for an article: "Jews have always fought over food.")
Which is a super-long way of saying that historical discovery/recovery seems like one of the best ways to challenge our current narratives, along with looking at how other people do things now. I would say that, as speculative fiction people, we could just invent something to challenge our presuppositions (c.f. Le Guin's
Left Hand of Darkness and a society without gender), but history
usually beats us to these things. Or rather: the stories we tell ourselves tend to limit our imaginations about what is possible. History, as stuff that seems impossible but really happened, is a good way to challenge our limits.
