A Brief Note On Race And Gender Oppression - 1880 Words

It is a common fantasy of science fiction writers to imagine a world rid of the social ills of our own–where disease, famine, poverty, and even the hierarchies of race, gender, ability, and class so well known to us are distant memories from a bygone era. These writers, many of whom are white men, in their own eyes might envision these progressive futures, freer societies than ours, as being written specifically for the oppressed–a distraction, meant to give hope for humanity’s future, from the injustices of their present. In the majority of cases, however, they do so with little success, instead mirroring the systems of oppression they sought to subvert in their works. Despite the omission of race and gender oppression their authors sought to implement in their creation, the worlds of both The Stars My Destination and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep are occupied in part by the racialized bodies of men and women, with the women in particular struggling in the ir settings for the recognition and affirmation of humanity afforded their narratives’ white-coded, male protagonists. Moreover, these attempts by the science fiction genre’s predominately white, male authors to leave racism and sexism out of their work, while perhaps rooted in a sense of progressivism, are in fact more a representation of their real-world desire to â€Å"move on† from these systems of oppression without sacrificing their privilege inherent to these systems’ continued existence. 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