XPost: soc.men, alt.freespeech   
   From: smirker@danwin1210.de   
      
   William Gibson is the science-fiction author credited with starting the   
   cyberpunk subgenre. In his 1982 short story "Burning Chrome", he coined the   
   word cyberspace, and in his first novel, 1984's Neuromancer, he popularized   
   the term matrix in reference    
   to a virtual or computer-simulated reality.   
      
   Having recently finished Neuromancer, there's no doubt in my mind that Gibson   
   is a mangina.   
      
   The evidence:   
      
   * In Neuromancer, the protagonist's main love interest, Molly, a tough,   
   black-leather clad contract killer who initiates a sexual relationship and   
   then at the end ditches him for the sake of her career, represents the   
   ultimate mangina fantasy of being    
   dominated by a strong, independent woman.   
      
   * After being unceremoniously dumped by Molly, the protagonist winds up with a   
   girlfriend with the masculine name Michael.   
      
   * In my edition (an Ace paperback with a green cover), there's a promotional   
   excerpt in the back from a 2019 novel called Agency. In Agency, every   
   character is a woman: the protagonist, the detective, even the president of   
   the United States!   
      
   * Most damning of all is a line from the author's 2004 preface to Neuromancer:   
   "Imagine a novel from the sixties whose author had somehow fully envisioned   
   cellular telephony circa 2004, and had worked it, exactly as we know it today,   
   into the fabric of    
   her imaginary future." Generically using the pronoun "her" instead of the   
   traditional "him" is a childish, petty way of flipping the bird to "the   
   patriarchy" and signaling allegiance to feminism, especially in the context of   
   science fiction, a genre that    
   is dominated by and primarily appeals to men. When a man does this, you can be   
   sure his balls are the size of apple seeds.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)