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The Girl Who Was Plugged In Essay

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The “damsel in distress” trope is prominent in the Pulp Sci-Fi and Golden Age eras of science fiction. The stories and films emerging from this era depict females as being naïve and timid. Furthermore, in several pulp sci-fi magazines and movie posters, the heroine is almost always scantily clad and captured by some sort of monster. These women are portrayed as the secondary character that have only two crucial roles: being the damsel that needs saving and being the object to be won by the hero. William Gibson’s “razor girl”, Molly Millions from Neuromancer, breaks away from that stereotype. Gibson writes Molly as being physically and emotionally tough, cold and lethal instead of warm and nurturing. This paper will draw upon comparisons from James Tiptree’s characters P. Burke and Delphi from “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” as well as other characters from Neuromancer to …show more content…

Molly is almost always wearing black, leather clothing. She stems away from the typical, sexualized attire of females in science fiction. Additionally, there is this perceived notion that women must be committed to a man. Molly is perceived as a “whore” (Leblanc 1998) because she chooses to keep things physical, distancing herself from a relationship. Calling her a “whore” degrades her choice of exhibiting sexual behaviors. There is a double standard stating that men can be overtly sexual and women cannot. Since Molly is a woman and she is sexual, we assume she is being sexualized and therefore, she is a step back for female representation in literature. However, if male was in this role that would not be the case. Molly is not forced into sexual acts nor does she sell her body anymore. Nevertheless, Molly has a choice to keep physical acts separate from an imitate relationship. This allows for her to take control of her situations and keep her independence: two attributes that a damsel in distress does not

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