&quot;After all, she was raised on the hard sci-fi of male physicists and engineers.&quot;<p>Not completely so! As usual in articles like these there&#x27;s no mention of James Tiptree Jr. (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;James_Tiptree,_Jr." rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;James_Tiptree,_Jr.</a>) who contributed immensely to the genre of using sf as a lens to investigate feminism, gender, and related issues. Unfortunately she&#x27;s largely forgotten now. It&#x27;s interesting that Le Guin doesn&#x27;t mention her more often, since it&#x27;s fairly obvious from their letters that they influenced each other very much.<p>I always wonder what would have happened if Sheldon had not succumbed to depression and lived as long as Le Guin has, perhaps she would be as&#x2F;more famous.<p>If you have not done so, please read the stories <i>The Screwfly Solution</i>, <i>Houston, Houston Do You Read</i> and (my personal favorite) <i>Love is the Plan the Plan is Death</i> (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.lightspeedmagazine.com&#x2F;fiction&#x2F;love-is-the-plan-the-plan-is-death&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.lightspeedmagazine.com&#x2F;fiction&#x2F;love-is-the-plan-t...</a>). They will stay with you for a long time.<p>(from <i>The Double Life of Alice Sheldon</i>, <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tangentonline.com&#x2F;articles-columnsmenu-284&#x2F;1094-james-tiptree-jr-the-double-life-of-alice-b-sheldon-by-julie-phillips" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tangentonline.com&#x2F;articles-columnsmenu-284&#x2F;1094-j...</a>)<p>Excerpts of the letters show two women, whose work has had a major influence in science fiction, facing great challenges. Le Guin moved forward, with purpose and determination, and demonstrated that being a woman, wife, and mother didn’t mean she couldn’t make major contributions to culture and to literature. And Sheldon rocketed towards the brink, churning out autobiographical work such as “Painwise,” “Love Is the Plan the Plan is Death,” and “The Women Men Don’t See.”<p>After her secret was revealed in 1976, ending a run of nearly nine years, Tiptree wrote to Le Guin:<p>“Ursula, Ursula, I am petrified. All the friends, the sf world—will they take it as deception? […]Will the women who mean so much to me see it all as an evil put on? […] Well dear Starbear an old age is dead and time to begin a new one. But I think I’m finished. Tip says goodbye to a very dear friend and all this is hers.”
Le Guin responded:<p>“oh strange, most strange, most wonderful, beautiful, improbable—Wie geht’s, Schwesterlein? sorella mia, sistersoul! […]I suppose there are some who resent being put on, but it would take an extraordinarily small soul to resent so immense, so funny, so effective and fantastic, and ETHICAL, a put on.”