I remember the sense of serious DISTURBANCE around age 14 or so when I was reading a TON of Asimov, Clark, and the rest of the hard sci fi boys, and feeling like there was something wrong with me for dreaming at night that I was a male character. I didn't want to identify as male -- I am very happily FEMALE, thank you very much -- and eventually realized that that was my only choice because those were the only characters who DID anything in the stories and I wanted to be interesting and adventurous and smart like them. The discovery of Le Guin, as someone above mentioned, was revolutionary, though even she focused on male characters in her earlier work (her ambi-gendered characters in The Left Hand of Darkness still came with male pronouns and a more or less male default, but she was TRYING, and in her later work has gotten a lot more female centered). I also adored Delaney's "Babel 17", with the polyamorous poet starship captain genius, Rydra Wong. Who solved a major galactic problem with her understanding of LANGUAGE.
I can't say I can recall too many sci fi or fantasy Jewish characters who actually read as Jewish to me (sorry, Willow Rosenberg doesn't count). And don't get me started on money-grubbing Jew-coded Ferengi...
Ah, a lot more to think about with this. Fandom, oh yes, and not in a literal way, either. Where women writing about men fucking is actually for me. Because it acknowledges something even more profound about me that is missing in most of the fiction you cited -- that as a woman, I have sexual fantasies and desires that are part of my own agency and fulfillment, not about filling a man's concept of what I should want or be.
in summary, Ivanova is God
I remember the sense of serious DISTURBANCE around age 14 or so when I was reading a TON of Asimov, Clark, and the rest of the hard sci fi boys, and feeling like there was something wrong with me for dreaming at night that I was a male character. I didn't want to identify as male -- I am very happily FEMALE, thank you very much -- and eventually realized that that was my only choice because those were the only characters who DID anything in the stories and I wanted to be interesting and adventurous and smart like them. The discovery of Le Guin, as someone above mentioned, was revolutionary, though even she focused on male characters in her earlier work (her ambi-gendered characters in The Left Hand of Darkness still came with male pronouns and a more or less male default, but she was TRYING, and in her later work has gotten a lot more female centered). I also adored Delaney's "Babel 17", with the polyamorous poet starship captain genius, Rydra Wong. Who solved a major galactic problem with her understanding of LANGUAGE.
I can't say I can recall too many sci fi or fantasy Jewish characters who actually read as Jewish to me (sorry, Willow Rosenberg doesn't count). And don't get me started on money-grubbing Jew-coded Ferengi...
Ah, a lot more to think about with this. Fandom, oh yes, and not in a literal way, either. Where women writing about men fucking is actually for me. Because it acknowledges something even more profound about me that is missing in most of the fiction you cited -- that as a woman, I have sexual fantasies and desires that are part of my own agency and fulfillment, not about filling a man's concept of what I should want or be.