> I absolutely adored Asimov as a writer of non-fiction rather than as a sci-fi author.
I am the same, though frustratingly he still somehow managed to weave his casual misogyny into even his non-fiction works.
> I absolutely adored Asimov as a writer of non-fiction rather than as a sci-fi author.
I am the same, though frustratingly he still somehow managed to weave his casual misogyny into even his non-fiction works.
This would be a much more appreciated comment if it included even one example.
I’m willing to believe it, but I didn’t notice any in the time I was reading his fiction.
One example off the top of my head...
In The Building Blocks Of The Universe's section on Calcium:
> Another way of getting round the problem of hard water is to manufacture compounds that behave like soap but don't form insoluble compounds with calcium. Many types of such detergents have been put on the market in the last ten years, and hard water is far less of a problem for the housewife than it used to be.
Reads like '90s era comedy, ala "women be cleaning, amirite?", without even the lazy backdoor of "its just a joke".
This is such an uncharitable reading. "Housewifes" were extremely common then and were marketed to quite extensively in those product categories. Acknowledging them in some form is not the same as saying "I have deeply thought about the state of our society and have come to the conclusion that all is as should be."
Says an account created just to post this horseshit.
Clearly you and I have different definitions of "horseshit".
Is this your immature way of asking for an example of what I am addressing in my comment?
I don't know if it says good or bad things about me, but I never noticed that.
But maybe it's just because I started reading his works long after their initial release. In particular, I was quite surprised to later learn that "Asimov's New Guide to Science" was originally published as "The Intelligent Man's Guide to Science".
The title was chosen by the publisher:
>...The book's title was Svirsky's, chosen as a deliberate homage to George Bernard Shaw's The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism (1928). Asimov feared the title would be seen as elitist and condescending, and he suggested Everyone's Guide to Science as an alternative, but Svirsky refused. Years later, when he was confronted by annoyed feminists who asked why the book was restricted to men, Asimov would claim that the "intelligent man" of the title referred to himself;[3] thus anticipating the title Asimov's Guide to Science adopted for the third edition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intelligent_Man%27s_Guide_...