(no subject)

[prog]

Reading Gregory Benford's Timescape, in part because I've an interest in refilling my head with fresh time-travel concepts, for the sake of future projects. Enjoying it so far; I really like the emphasis on the spatial relationships between two points in time. (Paraphrased conversation of two scientists: "So, you're saying that 1963 is... up in the sky somewhere?" "Essentially, yes.")

Can't help but notice the sexual divisions in the story, though; all the scientist characters so far are have been men, and the impression is given that all the non-character researchers in the background are also men. So far the action is split between the Men In The Lab and their Stalwart Wives At Home, and it reminds me of nothing so much as Wolfe's The Right Stuff. It was fine there, but it seems out of place in the setting of a 1998 university research lab. Personal experience informs me that this makes for a rather inaccurate portrait, actually. The novel was written in 1980, which wasn't that long ago. (I mean, I remember it being 1980, once.) Was the author behind the times, or has the proportion of women attracted to (and accepted into) scientific research really increased so dramatically in the last 20 years?