Jul 17, 2016 07:49 AM
http://www.themonitor.com/entertainment/...e4264.html
EXCERPT: The past couple of years have seen a surge in antipathy toward women in science fiction and fantasy, a sort of infantile but brutal reactionary tantrum from male fans of genre work. Bristling at greater representation of women in the art form and its fandom, these sad fools have begun to feed into the general movement of men’s rights activists (MRAs) who, like people slapping #alllivesmatter hashtags left and right, have completely missed the point.
It’s a delightful irony, then, that this summer marks the 200th anniversary of the invention of science fiction … by an 18-year-old woman. As MRAs rage about the violation of the saint of their nerdy childhood — “Ghostbusters” — I celebrated the genesis of the genre by reading a fantastic book about the three fateful days leading up to that creative epiphany: The invention of Dr. Victor Frankenstein and his terrifying yet heart-breaking monster by Mary Shelley.
When her mother — feminist philosopher and writer Mary Wollstonecraft — died a month after her birth, Mary was raised by her politically radical father. Inspired by the looming shadow of her mother’s notoriety and her father’s ideals, she became a brilliant free-thinker herself. At the age of 17 she married poet and philosopher Percy Shelley, recently divorced, despite a very public outcry in early 19th-century England....
EXCERPT: The past couple of years have seen a surge in antipathy toward women in science fiction and fantasy, a sort of infantile but brutal reactionary tantrum from male fans of genre work. Bristling at greater representation of women in the art form and its fandom, these sad fools have begun to feed into the general movement of men’s rights activists (MRAs) who, like people slapping #alllivesmatter hashtags left and right, have completely missed the point.
It’s a delightful irony, then, that this summer marks the 200th anniversary of the invention of science fiction … by an 18-year-old woman. As MRAs rage about the violation of the saint of their nerdy childhood — “Ghostbusters” — I celebrated the genesis of the genre by reading a fantastic book about the three fateful days leading up to that creative epiphany: The invention of Dr. Victor Frankenstein and his terrifying yet heart-breaking monster by Mary Shelley.
When her mother — feminist philosopher and writer Mary Wollstonecraft — died a month after her birth, Mary was raised by her politically radical father. Inspired by the looming shadow of her mother’s notoriety and her father’s ideals, she became a brilliant free-thinker herself. At the age of 17 she married poet and philosopher Percy Shelley, recently divorced, despite a very public outcry in early 19th-century England....