Occupations

Back when I first learned to read, I noticed that men in the stories had a large variety of jobs, while women had a very limited choice - mother, nurse, teacher, airline stewardess, secretary. Even in science fiction it took awhile before I encountered stories with women who were pilots, doctors, professors, captains, owners of companies, soliders, admirals, or leaders of colonies. Once I did find an author who wrote about women working the same jobs as men (not in a spotlighted manner, but just as if it was perfectly normal in that society), I hunted for more of her or his work.

Representation is important.

I've blogged before about gender roles, mainly in fantasy. But this is a topic that bears repeating.

In the real world, the glass ceiling hasn't been completely broken yet, but the cracks are still spreading. Gendered terms for occupations have slowly dropped out of usage - authoress, stewardess, hostess, actress (still in use but slowly fading). I don't automatically assume a doctor is male. I have worked with nursing students at a university long enough to know that not all nurses are female, either.

So where could someone come up with a list of occupations to use in a science fiction world? I start with what jobs exist in the present and spin off from there. The Occupational Outlook Handbook details numerous jobs in the U.S. Seventh Sanctum has a page of generators. The one under Classes/Professions allows you to choose a category (cyberpunk, fantasy, science fiction, or steampunk) and create a list of occupations for that universe.

Role models don't always have to be the main character. What about secondary or background characters? When I need a walkon character - someone to do something to help the main character (or villain) and not be seen again - someone identified by a occupation, I'll choose the occupation first, and then decide, does this character need to be a man or a woman? Does it matter? And if it doesn't matter to the story, why not a woman?

When you read, do you occasionally check to see how many male characters are mentioned versus how many female? Do you notice their occupations?

A Weird Epiphany About Bram Stoker's Dracula

Once a year or so I grab an old classic and read it. This is quite a lot of fun as not only does it force me outside of my usual reading circles, but it can teach me about how novelists wrote during other eras and even give cool insights on the time periods and the people themselves. 

Several years ago, I decided to read Bram Stoker's Dracula. It was a lot of fun comparing the book to all the Dracula movies I'd seen over the years, looking at what the films kept from the book and what they didn't.

But what amazed me most of all when I read it was how strong Mina was. She wasn't anywhere near the helpless female needing rescue that is normally her role in the movies. Even while slowly being subverted by Dracula, she was the one giving the men ideas and information and trying to figure out how to bring him down.

Earlier this week I had an epiphany about that. One that actually flows somewhat contrary to the articles I found online about the novel's themes and what Stoker tried to convey through the work.

Figured I'd go ahead and try to throw it out here for anyone else who's read Bram Stoker's Dracula novel. (This is somewhat visible in most of the movies too, but since they normally use Mina as window dressing, it won't be as noticeable. Definitely obvious (at least to me!) in the novel.) Hopefully you can chime in and share your thoughts or just tell me if I'm nuts or not. :P (It has been a while.)

Some stuff I saw stated that Bram Stoker was using the novel as a warning to people not to lose the old ways to the technological revolution going on at the time the novel was written, and they cited Dr. Van Helsing and many of the things he says as proof of it. The argument went so far as to say the novel was showing that modern women were a bad thing and that the promiscuous fantasies of the male readers was where it was at.

But when you look at Mina and her HUGE role in the novel, both in making the men aware of what was going on and several times pushing them to action or figuring out solutions for them, I can't quite buy that.

Instead, I would suggest that Mr. Stoker actually looked down on many of the old social expectations for women, especially all the antiquated ones. That the old and possibly even current Victorian values thrust on women were sucking the life out of them, turning them into soulless automatons who lived purely to satisfy their masters or their raging appetites. That education and intelligence should be fostered in women, as they too had much of value to impart.

Mina, an educated and strong minded woman, was actually able to fight against Dracula's manipulations, struggling against the role he would assign to her as a subservient plaything. Using her intelligence and strength of will to save those around her from the male chauvinist vampire pig! (Was that too much? lol)

What do you all think? Was Dracula a warning of the encroaching modern world and the powers it was giving to women, or actually a celebration of the freedom and benefits of letting them be more than the weaker gender?