It is, simply, a society that works tolerably well but that has no place for men--more, in fact: it is a society to which men are inimical. The astronauts are not perceived to throw a spanner in the works; they do throw a spanner in the works, just by existing. The women of 'Houston, Houston' do not need men to love, or for anything else. They don't hate men, either, and they certainly don't fear them. In fact, they're not missing much of anything....the presence of men would inevitably destroy the society that has been created in their absence....The strength and the tragedy of the story, for me, then, is in just how comprehensively irrelevant men are....It's not a question of refusing to recognise difference; it's that coexistence is not possible without one or other party being shackled. Is that a bleak view of the relationship between the sexes? Hell yes. In 'Houston, Houston', men and women are literally aliens to each other
Great analysis, and yeah, I think that's the point of the story. I don't think Tiptree is saying "This is a utopia" or "This is a dystopia" or anything else; the story's sort of the obverse of "The Women Men Don't See," where two women slip away unnoticed out between the gear teeth of the patriarchy; here men try to force themselves into a matriarchy. I think it's a mistake to compare it to "When it Changed," which is a great story but deals with an isolated world, a temporary colony that has no way to defend itself against the men who are going to inevitably come (the classic moment in that story is when one of the astronauts asks "But what happened to all the people?" -- i.e., the men). That narrator is telling her life from a future perspective -- it's a eulogy. The eulogy in "Houston," on the other hand, is for the utterly vanished way of life we recognize as our own. When you pair it with the "Screwfly Solution," Tiptree's view of the relationship between the sexes is indeed fairly dire.
Still diagree with you about "Ain," tho -- that's one of the best-structured stories I've ever read, and the ending is like a punch to the gut. That story is all about everything it doesn't say. (I had nasty flashbacks to it when I was staffing a big medical conference here in Seattle and acted as usher to several large presentations about AIDS, SARS, &c.)
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Great analysis, and yeah, I think that's the point of the story. I don't think Tiptree is saying "This is a utopia" or "This is a dystopia" or anything else; the story's sort of the obverse of "The Women Men Don't See," where two women slip away unnoticed out between the gear teeth of the patriarchy; here men try to force themselves into a matriarchy. I think it's a mistake to compare it to "When it Changed," which is a great story but deals with an isolated world, a temporary colony that has no way to defend itself against the men who are going to inevitably come (the classic moment in that story is when one of the astronauts asks "But what happened to all the people?" -- i.e., the men). That narrator is telling her life from a future perspective -- it's a eulogy. The eulogy in "Houston," on the other hand, is for the utterly vanished way of life we recognize as our own. When you pair it with the "Screwfly Solution," Tiptree's view of the relationship between the sexes is indeed fairly dire.
Still diagree with you about "Ain," tho -- that's one of the best-structured stories I've ever read, and the ending is like a punch to the gut. That story is all about everything it doesn't say. (I had nasty flashbacks to it when I was staffing a big medical conference here in Seattle and acted as usher to several large presentations about AIDS, SARS, &c.)