• 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?

---

Return to Top of Tiptree

Back to SF Home Page