Status Updates From The Mote in God's Eye (Moti...

For heaven’s sake.

"Carrying a child doesn't seem to slow a Motie down," Renner observed.

Renner's Motie said, "No, of course not. Why should it?"

Sally Fowler took up the task. She tried carefully to explain just how useless pregnant human females were. "It's one reason we tend to develop male-oriented societies. And—" She was still lecturing on childbirth problems when they reached the museum.

And a female alien and female human meet and no joke they are just talking about marriage and raising children. That’s basically the extent of their conversation.

The problem with classic sci fi written by men is that they will imagine a world over 1000 years into the future that is still run by men where women are still shackled to using the birth control pill and the only woman on a first contact mission will gently muse about how she has nobody to discuss recipes with. It can be hard to overlook. 🥲