- What do these three stories have in common in terms of theme and structure?
- If you had read these stories when they were published under the pseudonymn James Tiptree, would you have thought they were written by a man? Why or why not?
- Are these stories feminist in any traditional sense?
- How do these stories fit into, play upon, and twist conventions and cliches of traditional SF?
- “Mama Come Home” was published first, in 1968; “Houston” and “Screwfly” published in 1976 and 1977. Can you see any evolution in her ideas and concerns?
"Mama Come Home"
- What is the main point of this story?
- How does she play with gender and genre expectations?
- •Mama” was published the same year as Left hand of Darkness, just as the feminist movement was beginning. Do you see any similarities between these stories?
- How does the reversal of gender roles in this story demonstrate the working of power in our own society?
- How does the story show social construction of gender?
"The Screwfly Solution"
- What is the main point –
- What are the ecological implications of this story?
"Houston, Houston, Do You Read?"
- How does this story mirror and revise Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman?
- Can you make any comparisons between Lorimer, Bud, and Captain Dave in Tiptree's story and Jeff the romantic, Terry the macho man, and Van the sociologist in Gilman's?
- Does Tiptree share some of Gilman's essentialist ideas about the differences between men and women? What do both authors see as common female and male traits?
- How is Tiptree's story different from Gilman's. What issues have changed on the gender horizon?
- How do the dichotomies that Tiptree sets up relate to Left Hand? Especially to the differences between Karhide and Orgoreyn?


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