chocolatepot | (Reply)

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Right, I was dating it by the level of scandalousness. I think in the 1880s it would be seen more like crossdressing. Here it's like "trousers are so much more comfortable!"

I think what Mills was trying to say was that the father was just not going to name his airship after *gasp* a girl, not quite that he doesn't love her at all, but it's closeish. More like he doesn't have any regard/respect for her? But - I can't articulate this - it doesn't make sense to me to assume he named it after his son instead of his daughter because of misogyny unless he's supposed to be a really hardcore misogynist. And that's just a few paragraphs before she decides that a sister who lives with her brother and looks after the house is a glorified housekeeper, when it's really more like she's a stand-in for his wife. (Which, I mean, if she wanted to make the point that wives were often treated like glorified housekeepers, that'd be one thing, but she's not.) She'd be controlling the money, all the household expenses!

It is kind of dull. The female characters, the main ones, are great (esp. Reg, who was turned into a bird centuries ago) and they pass the Bechdel test, which is great, but when they keep meeting men who are individually shitty to women or sometimes women who buy into it and become hardasses to other women so they can at least have a little power.

The witches in Discworld really are such a great example of how to do it - yes, wizards are really obnoxious to/about them, and occasionally they run into problems re: lack of respect, but for the most part they are respected and have their own network. There are supposed to be witches here, I want to see them, and I want them to be roughly equivalent to midwives!