Bachelor's Thesis

BACHELOR'S THESIS

Gender, Class and Transhumanism in Charles Stross' Novel Singularity Sky An Intersectional Analysis of Post-Singularity Societies

Markus Öhman

Bachelor of Arts in Education Bachelor of Arts in Education, 270/300/330 credits

Luleå University of Technology Department of Arts, Communication and Education ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to take this moment to thank those that made this essay possible.

To my supervisor Marie Wallin, I express my deepest gratitude for her insistent moderation, questioning and provocation. Without her, this essay would be a monument to convoluted obfuscation, long-winded magniloquence and tedious monotony.

To Johanna, my love, I extend my heartfelt appreciation for your tenacity and support. It was you who made me question the roles society has molded for us, and it was you who made me believe I had the competence to put my thoughts into writing. This essay is yours just as much as it is mine. Thank you.

Finally, I wish to thank my friends in LoST, who has fuelled my passion for science fiction these past seven years. Together, we have in our minds’ eyes seen what outer space and the far future holds.

Markus Öhman 1/26/12 ABSTRACT

The aim of this essay was to analyze and discuss how gender and class are portrayed in the societies of Charles Stross’ Singularity Sky through the use of an intersectional perspective focusing heavily on gender and supported by a class perspective. The effects of the Singularity and the use of transhuman augmentations to transgress societal boundaries have been of special interest. Women who use transhuman augmentations to achieve intellectual power is portrayed as unnatural, whilst those enhance their physical prowess, and in essence conform to male role characteristics, do not receive the same treatment. Protagonist Rachel Mansour’s implants enable her to appropriate characteristics normally associated with males without forsaking female such, thereby transgressing gender boundaries. The Festival acts as an imperialist power, exploiting the weak Rochard’s World in order to satiate its hunger for information. On pre-Singularity Rochard’s World and in Critic society both, discrimination on the basis of gender and class are commonplace. The disadvantaged suffer a systematic inequality, as gender partiality results in a lower class status, which itself is seen as inferior.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION AND MATERIAL ...... 1

AIM AND SCOPE ...... 3

BACKGROUND AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ...... 4

SCIENCE FICTION AND THE SINGULARITY ...... 4

FEMINIST THEORY AND TECHNOCULTURAL CYBORGS ...... 6 Intersectionality: The interrelationship of social categories ...... 8

TRANSHUMANISM...... 9

ANALYSIS ...... 12

ROCHARD’S WORLD AND THE SOCIOECONOMIC SINGULARITY ...... 12

THE FESTIVAL AND THE CRITICS ...... 18

RACHEL MANSOUR, TRANSHUMANIST CYBER-COMMANDO ...... 23

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS ...... 26

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 28

INTRODUCTION AND MATERIAL

Western culture is permeated by capitalist patriarchal values in which the white, middle- aged, middle-class man is the standard to adhere to and whose tastes and preferences are the norm. These capitalist and patriarchal values form and are formed by society and its products. With these values come also the notion of power and who should have it. Only by deconstructing and analyzing products of society, such as literature, can the forces that are responsible for the allocation of power and values be exposed. Exposing social hierarchical structures serves to better understand and assail the inequalities and injustices inherent in Western culture.

However, analyzing class and gender separately, while productive in its own right, runs the risk of missing key elements only found the dynamic relation between the two factors. Instead, you can look at the relationships between numerous social construct categories, such as gender and class, and how they result in systemic inequality. Patriarchal oppression of women and capitalist oppression and exploitation of the poor should not and can not be perceived as if in a vacuum, but are instead supported and fashioned by each other.

The notions of gender constructs and class constructs are so thoroughly ingrained and ubiquitous in Western culture that creating a fiction in which they are different results in speculative fiction. One such speculative fiction novel is Charles Stross’ Singularity Sky. Singularity Sky is a science fiction novel set in the far future, in which the societies are purely fictional and far removed from our contemporary world. The cultural and temporal distance means that they have no reason to identify themselves with the norms or limitations inherent in Western civilization.

The science fiction genre has a long history of utilizing constructions of alien cultures, alternative realities and far futures as allegories for contemporaneous social problems. One of the more seminal works of science fiction, Star Trek, is well known for its usage of all three types of allegories to criticize everything from apartheid to genetic engineering. The politics of transhumanism – the utilization of technology to improve upon the bodies of humans – is oft discussed in the halls of sci-fi authors. Countless novels, films and videogames return to transhumanism as either the salvation, most noticeable in American comic book super-heroes, or the damnation, as seen in the Star Trek villain Khan Noonien 1 Singh1, of humanity. Science fiction, and transhumanism through it, is often used to discuss notions of gender and class constructs.

Singularity Sky is a science fiction novel set in the far future, where scarcity is predominantly nonexistent and class is viewed as an archaic concept by all save for a few feudal society planets. The story of Singularity Sky takes place in the meeting between a neo-feudal regressive conservative society with a strong patriarchal tradition and a transhumanist, information-driven upload society in which most intelligent minds live in something similar to cyberspace.

Written by Charles Stross in 2003, Singularity Sky tells the story of what happens when a vastly technologically superior and socially advanced alien civilization comes into contact with a feudal and despotic backwater planet. When the Festival arrives at the New Republican colony of Rochard’s World, the changes its technological capabilities bring plunges the planet into chaos as a revolutionary cadre seizes the opportunity to import superior weaponry. The New Republic, misinterpreting the chaos as an invasion from the Festival, arranges for its interstellar navy to travel back in time in order to arrive at the colony mere days after the arrival of the Festival. UN diplomat Rachel Mansour is sent as an impartial observer to make sure that the navy does not travel farther back in time than interstellar law allows. During her voyage, Rachel and her love interest engineer Martin Springfield are harassed by the secret police, as they are under suspicion of espionage. Meanwhile on Rochard’s World, several small governments spring up, but the majority of people have found that the technology offered by the Festival enables them to live outside the reach of sovereign rule. However, the Festival’s stay is not to last forever. After only a few months in orbit, they leave the planet, enabling the New Republic to return Rochard’s World to its previous feudal state.

1Introduced in the 1967 Star Trek episode Space Seed and revisited in the 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

2 AIM AND SCOPE

The aim of this essay is to analyze and discuss how gender and class are portrayed in the societies of Charles Stross’ Singularity Sky. Specifically, the analysis will focus heavily on gender portrayal and issues. Class, while also an important subject of analysis, will not be as vigourously considered.

The main focus of the analysis is on three cultures or cultural representatives: the planet of Rochard’s World, and in extension the New Republic; the alien nomadic societies of The Festival and the Critics; as well Earth-born UN diplomat Rachel Mansour. Special consideration has been made in order to maintain a balanced view of the source material; this essay is neither fully supportive nor subversive of Stross, and tries to maintain an unbiased disposition towards that which the analysis begets. This essay will therefor contain parts both critical and acknowledging of Stross and the societies and people he has created.

The epilogue of Singularity Sky concerns itself with the reaffirmation of control by the New Republic over Rochard’s World in the wake of the Festival’s departure. It contains several interesting aspects concerning the return to status quo and the Rochardian’s longing for New Republican authority. The inclusion of the epilogue in this essay, however, would only serve to dilute the analysis, as it pertains more to a psychological human need for authority rather than gender and class. The epilogue and part of the ending is as such beyond the scope of this essay

3 BACKGROUND AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Singularity Sky is a science fiction novel with two instances of singularities2. In the novel’s setting, the first Singularity happened in the 21st century – this Singularity created the conditions required for human societies to grow the way they have done in the novel. In the story, a socioeconomic Singularity is ushered in with the arrival of the Festival at Rochard’s World. The first Singularity enables Stross to create societies unbound by Western hegemony, whilst the second allows for exploration of what happens to status markers such as gender or class when transhumanism becomes commonplace. This chapter delineates the concepts of science fiction and singularity, and presents feminist theories related to technology and science fiction. Lastly, the chapter explains the concept of transhumanism.

SCIENCE FICTION AND THE SINGULARITY

Science fiction is a literary genre of speculative fiction in which science, rather than the supernatural, is the basis of the fantastical. This is in contrast to the fantasy genre, which uses the supernatural for those elements not occurring in the natural world. As with most literary genres, science fiction has no clear boundaries and is therefore difficult to define. Such delineation would exclude works which some regard as science fiction, whilst including some works which, according to some, are not. Nevertheless, science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein stated in a lecture at the University of Chicago in 1957 that:

[A] handy short definition of almost all science fiction might read: realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method. (Heinlein 22)

Whilst this definition might be true for a vast number of works of science fiction, it is an insufficient definition when it comes to works which take place in a far future so

2 A technological Singularity is the point of emergence of an expanding super-intelligent AI whose rate of self- improvement borders infinity. A socioeconomic Singularity would involve the sudden emergence of technology causing economic uncertainty and thereby social instability.

4 technologically advanced that it is impossible to realistically base speculation on our current understanding of the universe or society. SF author Arthur C. Clarke established what is known as the Three Laws of science fiction – three rules or facts inherent to the genre. His Third Law, published in his article “Science Fiction: Its Nature, Faults and Virtues”, takes hyper-technological works of the far future in mind. His Third Law states that “[a]ny sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” (Clarke 36). When technology is so advanced that humans with current technological development cannot begin to understand its workings, it is not only connoted to, but in all practicality the same thing as, magic. Similarly, any sufficiently advanced artificial intelligence is indistinguishable from a god, as it will be practically omniscient and –due to having such an understanding of the laws and workings of the universe that it has the capabilities to bend the universe to its will – omnipotent.

The technological Singularity, a term coined by Professor of Mathematics and science fiction author Vernor Vinge in his article “The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era”, is the inevitable precipice when, with the creation of a self-improving artificial intelligence, technology will advance in an ever more rapid pace until it defies human comprehension. According to Vinge, the Singularity will bring an end to the era in which mankind can see itself as the foremost intelligent and self-aware consciousness – the rules and systems governing society would disappear as new paradigms would require new, or no, laws (Vinge http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc/singularity.html). One can compare the technological Singularity to an astrophysical one – a black hole. A black hole has infinite gravity, and therefore all math trying to work out the physics of what happens inside a black hole will automatically fail – multiplying anything with infinity will result in infinity. Beyond the event horizon of a black hole lies not only uncertainty, but also the impossible. Extending this uncertainty to the context of technological and socioeconomic growth, the Singularity represents the event horizon after which no prediction of how technology, or even society, will look like tomorrow can be more then a guess.

5 FEMINIST THEORY AND TECHNOCULTURAL CYBORGS

Feminist scholar Patricia Melzer states in Alien Constructions: science fiction and feminist thought that science fiction is of value to feminists due to its typical narrative mode. Science fiction has the ability to create hypothetical prototypes or blueprints of social theories, and can therefore “enable us to understand oppression and to envision resistance beyond the limits set by much of feminist discourse” (Melzer 2). Science fiction and contemporary feminist theories both contemplate themes of diversity, globalization and the effect of technology on women’s lives, as well as the definition of bodies, sociocultural territories and the delineation of power structures (Melzer 4).

One of the more well-known SF authors, Ursula K. Le Guin, takes advantage of the possibilities of freeing a culture from the Western superstructure, enabled by by using an alien medium in her collection of novels called the Hainish Cycle. The Left Hand of Darkness chronicles the eternally cold planet of Winter whose inhabitants, while once from the same genetic seed as humans, lack the gender duality present in much of the complex life on planet Earth. They are androgynous, but have something similar to an estrous cycle, in which individuals can conceive with the help of another. That is, when in heat, they randomly assume the sexual characteristics of either a male or a female.” Le Guin uses science fiction to illustrate feminist ideas that would otherwise be too theoretical for many to lend credence to. According to author Donna Gerstenberger, The Left Hand of Darkness concerns itself with “capturing the truth of a complex, alien universe, conscious of the difficult task of conceiving the nearly inconceivable” (Gerstenberger 141). That is, the society presented in The Left Hand of Darkness is so strange compared to contemporary Western society that the narrator has difficulties describing “an existence which exceeds the conceptualizations of his culture” (Gerstenberger 141). Specifically, it is the concept of an androgynous society that brings the narrator of the story trouble. Le Guin describes the people of Winter as not “quite so free as a free male anywhere else” (LeGuin 93). This is because the lack of gender diversity also means that there is a lack of women, and therefore the burdens of life are distributed equally. While blunt, the message rings true: women in Western society are burdened with hardships to the benefit of men.

6 According to feminist critic Stephanie Shields, the purpose of feminist theorists is to “reveal and challenge the taken for granted assumptions about gender that underlie conventional theoretical and methodological approaches to empirical research as, for example, psychology’s homogenization of the category of gender” (Shields 1). Through diligent deconstruction and analysis, feminist theorists can expose forces hidden within traditional academia. By exposing such forces, feminist theorists show that what is often regarded as empirical objective truths are in fact subjective, and are only regarded as truth because they correlate with the assumptions of the ruling hegemony – that of the white males.

Feminist theory is a broad field with a large number of sub-disciplines. Literary critics Robert Con Davis and Ronald Schleifer write that “the current scene, encompassing feminism and gender studies, is so broad that an actual survey of directions and interests would be quickly outdated and impractical” (Davis & Schleifer 507). The feminist directions are so numerous, in fact, that it is difficult to discern where one ends and another begins. Nevertheless, a few disciplines are identifiable – some through the relationship they share with other theoretical frameworks, and some by the fact that they were the first to lay claim to a specific idea, method or political strategy – as well as hybrids between two or more of the disciplines. Marxist feminism, psychoanalytic feminism, radical feminism and socialist feminism are but four of these identifiable discourse practices.

Feminist criticism, and the cultural reorientation processes which are its main aim, can no longer be said to focus on the duality or opposition of male and female, but has expanded to encompass viewpoints such as gay/lesbian culture. Such viewpoints first gained track as subjectivities in the 80’s technoculture (Davis & Schleifer, 508). Cyborg feminist Donna Haraway says in her work “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century” (1991) that, in a post-gender world, gender, as well as many theories relating to the creation of the self and to power – from psychoanalysis to Marxism – has no place in cybernetic technoculture. According to Haraway, it is only in the cybernetic culture – in the computer interface and in the virtual – that a true notion of diversity of genders and even gender possibilities can be realized (Haraway 166-169).

In “A Cyborg Manifesto”, Haraway presents the metaphorical Cyborg, a half-organic, half- technological progeny of the organic and the machine. The Cyborg should be regarded as a

7 construct belonging to the post-gender world, and as such is not bound by either the patriarchal or materialistic chains of Western society. Its non-Oedipal creation, Haraway argues, makes it a viable candidate for feminist subjectivity. Because the cyborg is non- Oedipal, in other words not born into an Oedipus complex, its sexuality is not determined by Oedipal or psychoanalytical models, and is therefore appropriate for feminist theorists to use as a subject. Because it is not dictated by materialistic greed, it is also free from the hierarchy of the capitalist class system.

Haraway also argues that there are two sides to a cyborg society. On one side, “a cyborg world is about the final imposition of a grid of control on the planet, about the final abstraction embodied in a Star Wars3 apocalypse waged in the name of defence, about the final appropriation of women’s bodies in a masculinist orgy of war” (Haraway 154). It is a world view encompassing both dystopic and apocalyptic imagery. On the other side of the coin, a cyborg world can be harmonized and balanced, and be about “lived social and bodily realities in which people are not afraid of their joint kinship with animals and machines, not afraid of permanently partial identities and contradictory standpoints” (Haraway 154). In a cyborg world where equilibrium reigns people come to terms with the “transgressed boundaries” and “dangerous possibilities” (Haraway 154) of the human-machine offspring. It is of importance, Haraway says, that both of these perspectives are given room in the political discourse in order to achieve a more balanced view (Haraway 154). If both sides of the story are heard, it is easier to determine possibilities and dangers.

INTERSECTIONALITY: THE INTERRELATIONSHIP OF SOCIAL CATEGORIES

Within contemporary feminist theory, the understanding of gender as a construct has changed throughout the years. One of the more important contributions to the alteration of how gender is discussed is the concept of intersectionality (Shields 1). In her book Gender: An Intersectionality Perspective (2008), psychologist Stephanie Shields says that the definition of intersectionality is fluid and dependent on the specific discipline of study. There

3 The Strategic Defense Initiative missile defense program spearheaded by U.S. President Ronald Reagan in the 1980’s, not the space opera film series by George Lucas.

8 is, however, a shared notion that “social identities which serve as organizing features of social relations, mutually constitute, reinforce, and naturalize one another.” (Shields 2) The social identities, the social categories to which individuals claim membership and bestow meaning, are used when socializing with others. Each social category, such as gender or class, is defined and, maintained by each other category, and gains its meaning through its relationship to them. Every category creates the norm which other categories are based upon. In other words, intersectionality is the convergence of many different social categories, as well as how these categories interact to either oppress or give power to individuals.

In her article Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color (1991), law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw discussed the need for an intersectional perspective by illustrating how Black women suffering from domestic or sexual violence fell between the gaps of the social safety net and interest groups: “With respect to […] [b]lack women, race and gender converge so that the concerns of minority women fall into the void between concerns about women's issues and concerns about racism” (Crenshaw 1282). If feminists fail to acknowledge the part that race plays in domestic violence by white men against black women, they strengthen the racial power relation to the disadvantage of black people. If anti-racists, on the other hand, only see the acts as acts of racial domination, they trivialize the obvious issues of gender inequality inherent in domestic violence (Crenshaw 182). Intersectional thinking should therefore be applied when looking at categorical inequality, to better identify, combat and deconstruct the forces resulting in systemic inequality.

TRANSHUMANISM

Transhumanism, an intellectual and cultural movement, aims for the betterment of mankind by “profoundly transform[ing] the human condition” (Bostrom 12). The term was first coined by biologist Julian Huxley in 1927:

The human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself – not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way – but in its entirety, as humanity. We need a name for this new belief. Perhaps 9 transhumanism will serve: man remaining man, but transcending himself, by realizing new possibilities of and for his human nature. (Huxley 17)

The transcendence Huxley spoke of could be achieved by manipulating the human condition through the use of technology. According to transhumanism, technology contains the potential means by which humanity can evolve to overcome the biological limitations contained in the human condition.

A few years later, in 1931, Julian Huxley’s brother, Aldous Huxley, wrote Brave New World. Brave new World is a dystopian transhumanist science fiction novel in which the use of selective breeding,biochemical manipulation of embryos and other environmental stimuli to match whatever future occupation was already set out for them. Biological engineering counters the effects of old age and gender roles are dissolved, while a rigid caste system is maintained by the World State. The result is a transhuman world without sexism, racism and ageism where people truly, biologically, belong to the class they were born into. This has resulted in Brave New World becoming “an emblem for the dehumanizing potential of the use of technology to promote social conformism and shallow contentment” (Bostrom 6). It must be noted, however, that the enhancement of humans in Brave New World differs ideologically, though not necessarily technologically, from the modern transhumanist movement as laid down by the movement’s Transhumanist Declaration. Huxley’s Brave New World is a stellar example of when technology has been used by an amoral authority – it stands as a warning sign marking the dark side that may result from the transhumanist movement.

The Transhumanist Declaration, adopted by the World Transhumanist Association in 2009, contains eight paragraphs defining the main tenants of the transhumanist movement. The World Transhumanist Association is a non-profit organization, the goals of which are to increase public awareness of emerging technologies and defend the rights for individuals to use such technologies to extend their capacities. The authors conclude that humanity, through the responsible use of technology, can substantially enhance and broaden the human potential, though such usage should be “guided by responsible and inclusive moral vision”, as well as consider our moral responsibility towards posterity (Humanity+ Board). The Transhumanist Declaration serves both as an exposition of the movement’s philosophy

10 and goal, but also as an acknowledgement that the technological advancements fueling and enabling transhumanism can be misused.

The materialistically unbound and polygendered cyborg envisioned by Haraway can serve as a postgenderistic symbol for the modern transhuman movement and, through its embodiment of high-tech culture, challenges what she perceives as the oppressive dualism persistent in Western culture –those of the “self/other, mind/body, culture/nature”, “right/wrong”, “male/female” and “maker/made”, et alia (Haraway 177).

11 ANALYSIS

This chapter is divided into three sections, each focusing on a different culture or cultural representative in Singularity Sky. The first section of the analysis discusses the New Republic and its colonial planet Rochard’s World and how it is affected by the coming of the Festival. The second section focuses on the Festival and a part of its entourage, the Critics. The last section discusses one of the protagonists, earthling Rachel Mansour, and examines the status and power she wields throughout the novel.

ROCHARD’S WORLD AND THE SOCIOECONOMIC SINGULARITY

The day war was declared, a rain of telephones fell clattering to the cobblestones from the skies of Novy Petrograd. Some of them had half-melted in the heat of re-entry; others pinged and ticked, cooling rapidly in the postdawn chill. An inquisitive pigeon hopped close, head cocked to one side; it pecked at the shiny case of one such device, then fluttered away in alarm when it beeped. A tinny voice spoke: ‘Hello? Will you entertain us?’ The Festival had come to Rochard’s World. (Stross 1)

So begins the prologue of Charles Stross’ Singularity Sky. The rain of telephones asking for entertainment marks the first meeting between the interplanetary despotic empire of The New Republic and the enigmatic nomadic information-gathering upload fleet known only as The Festival.

The Festival barters in information. In exchange for information or entertainment, it offers the entertainer anything he, she or it wishes for. The wishes are made true by the use of cornucopia4 machines, molecular assemblers capable of producing any physical goods. The first user of one of these phones, a street urchin by the name of Rudi, asks for the Festival to feed his family in exchange for a story, after which manna rains from the sky. The entertainment wanted by the Festival is defined by them as “Anything we don’t already

4 The Horn of Plenty – a mythological symbol used to show abundance, often used at Thanksgiving.

12 know: art, mathematics, comedy, literature, biography, religion, genes, design” (Stross 5). In the end, this list is just an abstract – any form of information is satisfactory for the transaction to take place, as whoever the entertainer is changes the nature of the information.

The New Republic is a fundamentalist, autocratic, and technophobic empire. The first sign is given when Rudi lays eyes on the telephones raining from the sky: “… he nearly dropped it out of fear: a machine! Machines were upper-class and forbidden, guarded by the grim faces and gray uniforms of authority” (Stross 1-2).The gray uniforms of authority, the secret police, is a constant threat to free-spirited individuals throughout the novel. In chapter one, the protagonist earthling Martin Springfield is introduced by speaking the first line of the chapter: “May I ask what I’m charged with?”(Stross 12). He is being questioned for performing subversive acts by the Citizen, an investigator for the secret police on the capital planet of New Muscovy. The dialogue that follows makes it clear that the Citizen, and by extension the New Republic, is stuck in a mode of thought which is, relative to Martin’s, archaic. The Citizen cannot accept that individuals can be sovereign beings with no allegiance to a governmental body, as is the case of Earth: “I do not care what silly ideas the stay-behinds of Earth maintain about their sovereignty… But while you are on this planet you will live by our definitions of what is right and proper!” (Stross 15) Rigid class structures are maintained by law – the banning of most industry forcing the populous into serfdom farming. When the New Republic turned feudal hundreds of years before when the novel is set, they destroyed the cornucopiae given to them by the AI Eschaton. This destruction was to ensure the existence of a working class that the aristocracy could control. (Stross 361- 362). Class hierarchy is very important to the New Republic: Martin tells a clerk that he is to ride a train by first class, as he reminds himself that “the New Republic had some very strange ideas about class” (Stross 25).

Within the New Republic, gender roles are clear cut. The status of women in the New Republic, as seen through the eyes of Martin, is that of “just well-bred ornaments for the family tree” (Stross 29). Rachel Mansour, another protagonist, is angered by the New Republic’s treatment of her as a “third-class citizen” (Stross 40).There is a distinct lack of women agents in Singularity Sky – with the exception of Rachel Mansour and a brief conflict between a rabbit and a female revolutionary, most human women lack both power and

13 dialogue. The invisibility of females in the text corresponds to their lack of status in New Republic society. The only two female characters with substantial dialogue are alien to Rochard’s World – UN-diplomat Earthling Rachel Mansour and a Festival-accompanying Critic, Sister Seventh of Stratagems. The actions of Rochardian women are described only as background events to which the story takes place. Women on Rochard’s World are culturally indoctrinated to be passive and dislike female empowerment (Stross 384) – a combination forcing them into submission and subservience to the patriarchy. Through the lenses of intersectionality, one can see that Rochardian women low on the class-hierarchy ladder are doubly victimized – women shopkeepers are frowned upon by the controlling classes for being part of the labouring class, and by society at large, including other women, for being working women (Stross 384). This results in a systemic oppression where the cultural climate stigmatizes women trying to gain status, independence or success through self-employment.

Within such a society, the prospects of women’s rights are not only dire, but virtually nonexistent. Women in the New Republic lack the economic, social and academic tools to combat inequality due to strong cultural and legislative coercion. When a women as a protest action chains herself to the railings of the Imperial residence, demanding the right to vote and own property for women, she is determined clinically insane by the propagandist media and her actions declared “unfeminine” by leaders of the Mothers’ Union. (Stross 59) By establishing that the organization that carries the responsibility to safeguard women is named the Mother’s Union, the New Republic uses language as a power tool of control and oppression. In addition, the declaration that the actions carried out by women in effort to create a better social situation are unfeminine, the acting woman’s womanhood is called into question. With this, she loses her status as a woman, and therefore she also loses her ability to speak for other women on women’s rights issues. In other words, the characterization of a women’s rights activist as unfeminine undermines her authority when speaking of topics related to women – including women’s rights.

Whilst the Singularity due to its nature brings an end to such constraints (Vinge http://www- rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc/singularity.html), Stross fails to explicitly discuss the topic of gender equality any greater detail. Through extrapolation and inference, however, it is made clear that the social upheaval results in changes in the paradigm, ensuing greater freedom for women. Through mental augmentation, some wise women become so wise that

14 their wisdom “leaked out into the neighborhood, animating the objects around them” (Stross 229). This explicitly marks the increase in power that is made available to women by the Singularity. These wise women appropriate personal power through the means of technology and use it to alter reality itself. It is through the Singularity that the women of Rochard’s World gain the means of influencing the world around them, a feat impossible when they were oppressed by the male patriarchy.

It is of interest to note, however, that the situation is not as clear cut as it is first perceived to be. Clark’s Third Law states that “[a]ny sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” (Clarke 36). The wise women’s manifestation of power, given to them through technology defying comprehension, can by an observer be seen as equivalent to magic. In addition, the women made themselves even wiser, and unnatural wisdom is a trait closely correspondent to witchcraft. Magic, and especially witchcraft, has historically been used as a mean to demonize and dehumanize women wielding power. When Stross describes Rochardian women as gaining, for all intents and purposes, magical power through a compact with the Festival, an alien and corrupting force, he perpetuates the idea that women of power, and intellectual power specifically, are of the occult and unnatural.

The wishes of the people of Rochard’s World, limited in the first days of the Festival by the imagination of the citizens to food, housing, luxury items and guns, spark a civil insurrection led by democratic agitator Burya Rubenstein. In exchange for a cornucopia machine along with schemata for self-replication as well as schemata for atomic weaponry and other instruments of war, he offers the Festival a:

post-Marxist theory of post-technological political economy, and a proof that the dictatorship… can only be maintained by the systematic oppression and exploitation of workers… and cannot survive once the people acquire the self- replicating means of production (Stross 6)

Rubenstein, in exchange for the means of unequivocally winning his revolution, promises that the revolution will be successful. Rubenstein’s later dialogue with co-traveler of the Festival, Sister Seventh, in the ducal palace, now headquarter of “the Cyborg’s Soviet”, tells of his inability to fully understand the consequences of a Singularity.

15 ‘Because it’s traditional, dammit!’ Rubenstein exploded.

‘We’ve been waiting for this particular revolution for more than two hundred years. Before that, two hundred years back to the first revolutions, this is how we’ve gone about it. And it works! So why shouldn’t we do it this way?’ (Stross 167)

To which Sister Seventh replies: “Talk you of tradition in middle of Singularity […] Not understand Singularity is discontinuity with all tradition?”(Stross 167). The posthuman revolution that the resisting cadre have hoped for is too much for them to handle. A Singularity is by its nature uncontrollable and norm-breaking, and the people of Rochard’s World is ill-equipped for dealing with rapid change.

The revolution itself is fueled by the male ideals of victory through bloodshed and conquering. Rubenstein does not ask for means with which he can perform a bloodless revolution, but rather weapons of war and mass destruction. Women seem to take no part in the planning or ideological manifest of the revolutionary movement, implying that even for the revolutionaries, gender inequality is a second hand issue.

Sister Seventh, a Critic whose purpose it is to criticize civilizations after the arrival of the Festival, takes Burya Rubenstein on a journey to see what the Singularity has brought humanity – and to criticize their actions and choices. Rubenstein’s post-Marxist revolution did not succeed in creating a classless utopia –to reach such a stage takes time, order and organization. It is the Singularity, instead, that did away with not just the old hierarchies but also new ones which Rubenstein’s revolution sought to establish. The cornucopia machines did away with scarcity and the self-replicating means of production. Serfs, no longer bound by the bond of production for survival, conform to the anarchy and self-rule sweeping the planet. With mass defection, the rich no longer have any military means of ensuring the exploitation of the proletariat, and the cornucopiae free the people from the chains of feudalism. Branch-revolutions spring up, but many of the inhabitants simply seek out new environments to live outside of the circle of influence of the new governmental bodies. Some literally grow wings and fly away, others join the Festival, while yet some create stratosphere-high spiraling towers, living far above the conflict-ridden surface of the planet. Due to the infinite wealth and technological advancement provided to citizens by the

16 telephones from the sky, they “rapidly learned that they didn’t need a government” (Stross 336). The near-total societal breakdown brings with it the eroding of class status and structures; for the duration of the Festival’s orbital presence, Rochard’s World is a classless anarchistic non-society with small zones of stability filled with modified humans.

Such modifications are presented when the very old duke of Rochard’s World picks up a phone and asks for youth, friends and a lifetime of adventure. The now nine-year old boy is given three wonderful anthropomorphic animal friends, who previously were his retainers: Raven, Mr. Rabbit and Mrs. Hedgehog, as well as zombie-like Mimes hunting him day and night. Other changes to the human condition in the wake of the Festival includes children acquiring wings so they can fly to their now sky-floating village and robotic augmentations in the form of weaponized limbs or enhanced nervous system. Such augmentations come with an implication of cost, however. Comrade Oleg’s new tentacles, combat paraphernalia and computerized and communally uplinked nervous system make it difficult for him to maintain the proper and civil syntax his language use included in pre-Singularity communication. His capacity to communicate in spoken language is lowered as his high brain functions divert more and more processing power to new abilities. This seems to be true for many of the revolutionaries of the city of Plosk.

Using cybernetics to join consciousness with the communist collective data community and erasing the identity can be compared to Haraway’s theory of the postgender Cyborg, but taken to another extreme. Whilst Haraway’s Cyborg represents the autonomous individuality formed apart from and in contrast to the values and norms Haraway seeks to escape, the Cyborgs of the Plosk soviet soyuz5 community shuns individuality and instead desires to conform to the societal norm of the small grouping, which in this case is communist extremism. The transhuman communist ideology is so extreme that the cult of personality shown by Mr. Rabbit for being emotionally attached to its own consciousness is seen as counterrevolutionary dissidence. The accusatory cyborg revolutionary soldier in question is revealed to be, or rather used to be, a woman – who previous to the Singularity would hold no hope in either being a revolutionary or a soldier.

5 Russian: Union. When left untranslated, it is to imply connotations with soviet-era ideas.

17 What the two different cyborg concepts share is the postgenderist effect of removing gender and class – along with all other Western pluralisms – from the discourse. Everyone in Plosk is a comrade, regardless of any existing gender, and through non-scarcity, everyone belong to the same class – which is equivalent to being classless.

On the other hand, the lack of class-determinant in Plosk can arguably be attributed to the nature of the communist movement rather than to transhumanist augmentations. Given that Plosk seems to be the only place where attempts of governmental organization takes place, however, it can also be argued that Plosk is the most class-influenced area on Rochard’s World. Whilst outside Plosk, the lack of scarcity has led to an anarchic nonsociety without the need of class, the Plosk soviet soyuz still requires committees and tribunals to adhere to its communist roots. Committees and tribunals require humans to make decisions and pass judgments – acts which by their very nature give power, and therefore institutionalized status, to individuals. Such organized power becomes de facto class, though not class defined by monetary wealth but rather political capital.

THE FESTIVAL AND THE CRITICS

The Festival is not a politically motivated body. It is not democratic, despotic, autocratic or individualistic. Its sole motivation is the exchange of information and the creation of an interstellar communication network. It is a collection of millions of sentient minds connected in a computer network, most with specific uses. Accompanying the Festival proper are numerous digital hitchhikers, paying for their trip in different ways. In Singularity Sky, the person representing the Festival and its entourage is the Critic named Sister Seventh of Stratagems.

The Festival has been an upload society for thousands of years. Rachel Mansour reflects that individuals ‘born’ into such a society, not merely migrated to it, have a poor grasp of reality outside of the virtual world (Stross 210). Due to how utterly different a fully digital society is, the norms in such a society are vastly divergent from any norm present in human society. When information cannot be deleted every action is undoable, replicated or edited by the whims of the digital inhabitants. Within a digitally constructed society, all individuals are

18 virtually omnipotent and capable of changing the very lines of code that define who or what they are.

The Festival has, as such, stepped beyond Haraway’s Cyborg and embraced a system in which they not only have “no truck with bisexuality, pre-oedipal symbiosis, unalienated labor, or other seductions” (Haraway 150), but they have no real connection to any of those concepts. As such, they represent a utopian society in which every single individual can be whatever they choose to be, and not be bound by any of the power structures that are normally associated with human culture. But if the inhabitants of the data streams of the Festival are more than human, however, it gives rise to the question whether they are human at all. Sentience is not a concept necessarily exclusive to humans, nor is it a prerequisite. One should not dismiss the digital individuals of the festival or their accomplishments on the basis that they are digital entities, and therefor non-human. They are, similarly to Le Guin’s inhabitants of the planet Winter, descendants of biological Homo sapiens and any and all social achievements of equality ought to be possible to recreate in human society. Whilst it is the digital nature of their society that enables them to be free of the very power structures that make up Western society, the act of extirpating those power structures does not hinge on the society being digital or not. Social change through technological means can follow an almost limitless number of diverse paths - extropian ideals are not limited to only digital worlds.

Whilst class and gender in the Festival proper is nonexistent, the groups of hitchhikers following it through space are not as corporeally unbound. When arriving at Rochard’s World, certain individuals whose consciousness has been digitally stored during the subluminal interstellar trip are downloaded into newly created, though not necessarily humanoid, bodies. One such group, the Critics, seems to have gendered language and names, though to what extent their constructed walrus-like bodies have biological sexes is not divulged. The Critics refer to each other as brothers and sisters, and their passenger-fee to the festival is an academic one – they review and criticize the civilization in contact with the Festival. The Critics’ names follow a pattern, in which first and foremost the type of activity, or occupation, the Critic performs is detailed; this is then followed by a number. The culture of the Critics is a matriarchy, governed by a queen, entitled Mother.

19 A tunnel-warrior by occupation, Guard Man the Fifth’s short analysis of the situation on Rochard’s World is ignored by She Who Observes the First (Stross 97-98). Her lack of faith in his analytic abilities is evident in her brief dismissal: “Eat tubers, brother, while your sisters discuss matters beyond your ken.”(Stross 97) Male Critics, it seems, are institutionally warriors and unscholarly – allegedly unfit to criticize the Festivals victims. Their supposed inability to criticize marks a double oppression.

First, male Critic’s ineptitude, whether naturally occurring or socially institutionalized, makes them unable to contribute to the payment of passenger fees to the Festival – which robs them of any power or status they might achieve. In a culture in which the sole means of survival depends on your ability to intellectually satisfy the Festival, male Critics are dependent on females in order to survive. Being non-contributors, the males seem to have no say in any matter. What roles or functions they fill in Critic society is unclear – tunnel warriors are not needed in the context of travelling with the Festival. On the other hand, due to the manner of how the civilization of the Critics thrives, there is no need for superfluous individuals to have roles or functions as long as the society at large supply enough criticism to satiate the Festivals hunger for information.

Secondly, male Critics are oppressed by the institutionalized eroding of their identity. Their race is called Critics due to their main function in the symbiotic relationship with the Festival. They are defined by what they do – criticizing. Not being allowed to criticize, male Critics are robbed of their opportunity to identify with their own name for themselves, in addition to being regarded as second-class individuals by female Critics. This is similar to the strategy of the Mother’s Union when they undermined a women’s rights protestor by calling her “unfeminine”. By disallowing male Critics to criticize, they become non-Critics, and thereby less important than female Critics. Male Critics are therefore doubly discriminated against – they are discriminated against for their gender, and this discrimination results in their inability to contribute to society, which also is a source for discrimination. This double discrimination results in systemic inequality.

The systemic oppression of the male Critics and that of the Rochardian women are almost identical. Their inability to gain power through self-employment and the prejudice directed

20 against them due to their gender converge to not only subjugate them, but also to rob them from the means of which they can end their social enslavement.

The Festival barters in information. Its main concern is the exchange of information flow – it receives information – entertainment – and offers in return anything and everything. The people of Rochard’s World ask for food, replicators and other artifacts – but never information. Sister Seventh, the novel’s most frequently voiced Critic, therefore labels Rochard’s World a “zombie civilization” (Stross 98), a civilization the inhabitants of which act as if self-aware and sentient but are really just pretending. Whilst crude, Sister Seventh analogy is a relevant description of Rochard’s World. The items asked for by Rochardians are all very low on the hierarchy of needs6. Food, machinery and such are all tangible things ensuring the safety of the self and the family. By not asking for knowledge, information or art – items very high on the hierarchy of needs – Rochardians show themselves to be less concerned with spiritual and intellectual well-being than with physiological such. It is hardly surprising, however, as they have spent all their lives working in the hopes of food on their table.

The Rochardian’s safety needs stand in stark contrast with the more information-seeking Festival. In the relationship between Rochard’s World and its alien wish-granters, the Festival, having no need for food, health or physical goods, represent a class of higher status. The Festival’s ability to create any physical goods makes them rich in the eyes of the Rochardians, and as such is imbued by them with a large amount of status. The relationship, however, is not in actuality a benevolent one. The Festival’s visit to Rochard’s World is limited. The modus operandi of the Festival when it comes into contact with a civilization is to absorb all information it can, and then proceed to the next. This is eerily similar to the exploitation of the lower classes by the bourgeoisie – after one low-status society is depleted of its resources, the Festival moves on to the next.

Sister Seventh is of the belief that it is only the spiritual and intellectual personal growth that marks the worth of an individual (Stross 98). Sister Seventh, it seems, does not enjoy the same unprejudiced mode of thought as that of the Festival proper – she discriminates

6 As proposed by psychology professor Abraham Maslow in 1943 in his paper A Theory of Human Motivation.

21 against humans for being less academic or thirsty for knowledge than her – going so far as to call the people of Rochard’s World zombies: mindless and non-sentient. Sister Seventh is not necessarily a speciesist; not all human civilizations are in her eye zombie civilizations. It is the New Republican censorship of information that sparks her bigotry.

Sister Seventh, being primarily in constant contact with the upload society of the Festival, is of the opinion that information not only should, but by its nature must, be freely available. Seeing as the Festival’s main currency is information, one can observe similarities between Sister Seventh’s opinion and imperialism that follows a capitalist mode of appropriation and domination. For Sister Seventh and other Critics, it seems, information is somewhat equal to money. This mode of thought can be extended to the Festival proper, given that they barter in information, which means that even though the Festival is, in theory, free from the chains of Western civilization, the inhabitants still adhere to an imperialist system – only instead of having class hierarchies within their own society, they enforce their status upon other societies.

In the Critics’ eyes, being smart and having knowledge is equal to being rich, and the strongest status symbol there is. Sister Seventh even talks in cryptic and obfuscated phrases in order to gain “support when she ma[kes] her bid for queendom (Stross 98)” and uses advanced and academic language in order to affirm her position of superiority when speaking with humans. Her lines are riddled with literary quotes (Stross 294) and references in an effort to boost her cultural capital. Still, she takes on the responsibility to heal what she sees as human fallacy and misguided actions when she meets with Rubenstein. She questions Rubenstein in order to make him understand what needs to be done to stop the chaos the Singularity has brought. But, due to her condescension and cryptic language, she fails to convey much of her concerns in a constructive way.

While the similarities between the wise women and witches were mostly implicit, the correlation between witchcraft and power represented by Sister Seventh is clear. Sister Seventh is by the cyborg revolutionary soldiers seen as Baba Yaga7 (Stross 293) returned. She has many traits in common with the mythological witch, and fills roughly the same function.

7 A witch in Slavish folklore often described as eating children.

22 Like Baba Yaga, she, albeit rarely, offers wisdom and guidance to people in times of crisis. By labeling Sister Seventh a witch, Stross once again compares female knowledge and authority to witchcraft and wickedness. Stross uses the symbol of Baba Yaga to imbue Sister Seventh with authority and power, but at the same time he paints her as a symbol of evil and fear.

RACHEL MANSOUR, TRANSHUMANIST CYBER-COMMANDO

Rachel Mansour and Martin Springfield are the sole representatives of humans raised outside the cultural bonds of the New Republic. As such, their attitudes and values offer a view of a society vastly different from that of the New Republic. Neither xenophobic nor totalitarian, Earth is described as a planet with controlled self-governance: every person is a sovereign citizen in his or her own right, answerable to no government or state. Whilst present both on the New Republic home world and on Rochard’s World, the majority of Rachel’s and Martin’s actions take place on an Imperial interstellar warship headed for the perceived invasion fleet of the Festival.

Rachel Mansour is officially a UN diplomat and weapons inspector, but unofficially works to supply revolutionary forces with the means to overthrow the New Republican regime. Living for several months in the misogynist society of the New Republic, she is noticeably the only human female given a voice in Singularity Sky. By giving only Rachel a voice, Stross contributes directly to the perceived power she wields, but also offers a greater contrast with the other characters or human backdrops of Singularity Sky. As she is the only woman who regularly maintains dialogues or streams of consciousness, every other woman living in the New Republic is implied by Stross to be of less, if not no, importance or power. Being the only woman with a voice also lends Rachel a great amount of perceived power. That is, even though the power is not clearly established in the story, it is still projected unto her by the reader as she is compared to the voiceless women. Rachel’s power, therefore, is twofold. Firstly, the reader imbues her with power due to her uniqueness in the story. Secondly, she has the power given to her by her political status and the empowerment enabled by her upbringing.

Rachel’s freedom and political power stand in direct contrast to that of the women of the New Republic. By having no voice, these other women are virtually non-existent, and have 23 seemingly no effect on the world around them. They are, in a sense, only props on the metaphorical stage. In addition, while Rachel is depicted as a person with both personal strengths and gendered weaknesses enforced by society, the voiceless women have no such strength. It can, however, be extrapolated that they have all of her socially gendered weaknesses. This leaves Rachel as the only woman with power – both political and self- empowered.

Rachel’s political power is not independent from external factors, however. Whatever little authority she has in the New Republican Navy is given to her by Archduke Michael of the New Republic through the UN ambassador. The archduke was, due to the ambassador’s deceit, at the moment unaware of Rachel’s gender, and referred to her as a ‘he’. Rachel lacks any real authority over the Navy officers, though her diplomatic immunity gives her some ability to disregard the power of others. As Rachel was given her diplomatic status through deceit, one can reasonably conclude that the power wielded by Rachel is not power at all. Rather, it is not only an extension of another person’s, a patriarch’s, powers – it is an extension obtained illegitimately. Rather than imbuing Rachel with independence, Stross has chosen to give her power that relies on the ruling patriarch.

But even her political clout is circumvented by the secret police by using her love interest, Martin Springfield, against her. Forced through trickery into becoming his legal counselor in a sham trial, Rachel relinquishes her diplomatic immunity before the jury in order to protect Martin. It is not a rare occurrence in fiction that strong, independent women sacrifice that which makes them empowered in order to save the one they love8. This marks a return to a female gender role, a taming so to speak. By making Rachel relinquish her diplomatic immunity, her power, Stross returns her into the female gender role. By forcing her into a female gender role, Stross strips her of any political class status she had, and enables the patriarchal hegemony to dominate her. Unwilling to subjugate herself completely, however, she abandons any pretense of civility and turns to physical violence, fighting bare-fisted her way out of the courtroom.

8 Uma Thurman’s character The Bride in the Kill Bill duology by Quentin Tarantino comes to mind.

24 As her political power must be seen as subverted, as it relies both on others and is easily countered, it is only her social empowerment, and physical prowess, that constitute her actual power. Rachel’s personal empowerment stems from her life on Earth, her life experiences, and her employment with the UN. Her profession includes nuclear bomb- disarmament, counter-terrorism and war-crime tribunals, as well as undercover missions to various back-water worlds. She is, so to speak, a secret agent, as well as a diplomat and technically skilled soldier. Through the use of bioengineering and implants, she has been given a very long life of 150 years and counting, as well as several combat and utility augmentations. Her occupations denote a certain degree of authority, though she avoids giving such details of her life to the Navy, effectively closing a venue of respect which would otherwise be available to her. This aversion is understandable as it is doubtful anyone in the New Republic would believe her. However, Rachel performs physical achievements typically associated with male action heroes, such as crippling an entire room of armed guards in a matter of seconds and disarming nuclear bombs, saving millions of lives. In order to be empowered, she enters the role of a quintessential male hero.

Whilst in this role, she retains her status as an empowered individual, but she is still bound by literary gender roles. As she takes on the role of a hero in order to save the symbolic princess, represented by Martin Springfield, she is still associated with the typical male characteristics of such heroes. Examples of these characteristics include unnatural fighting prowess, excessive swearing, courage and selflessness. Therefore it can be argued that Rachel conquers these characteristics and takes them as her own. In addition, her physical combat abilities are given to her through technological implants – when in a fight, she herself is hardly aware what her body is doing. Enhancing her capabilities through transhuman implants is what enables her to conquer and appropriate the male action characteristics without subjugating herself to them. As it is the implants that enables this appropriation, Rachel as an individual is still able to retain her female characteristics. Similarly to Haraway’s cyborg, Rachel transcends Western literary pluralisms with the help of technology.

25 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

This essay aimed to analyze and discuss gender and class portrayal in the societies of Charles Stross’ Singularity Sky. Previous to the Singularity, women on Rochard’s World were systemically oppressed both due to their low class and because of their gender. During the Singularity, however, the women on Rochard’s World gain the means to cast off their bonds of oppression. The lack of scarcity that is the result of the Cornucopia machines frees them from the bonds inherent in the lower classes, while transhuman augmentations enable them to gain power and status as women (if they chose to keep their original gender). However, the portrayal of the augmented women on Rochard’s World shares many similarities with portrayal of witchcraft. At the same time, women whose augmentations relate to war or conformity are left untouched. Different kinds of power are thereby treated differently. Women who gain independence and wisdom are evil, whilst women who join with a communist consciousness are acceptable. Stross, it seems, perpetuates the idea that women of independent power are unnatural and evil. Stross repeats this notion with Sister Seventh, arguably the most intellectual and well-informed individual in the novel. Stross uses the symbol of Baba Yaga to imbue Sister Seventh with authority and power, but at the same time paints her as a symbol of evil and fear.

Other transhuman augmentations on Rochard’s World result in cyborg soldiers similar to Donna Haraway’s idea of postgender cyborgs. But while Haraway’s cyborgs stand as symbols of autonomous individuality, Stross’ cyborgs conform to the societal norm they collectively agree upon. Both, however, share the postgenderist effect of removing Western pluralisms such as culture/nature, rich/poor and female/male from the equation. But even in the allegedly classless communist cyborg community on Rochard’s World, people sit in committees or tribunals which give them institutionalized power, and thereby class status. Class, albeit in a different shape, is therefore present even on post-Singularity Rochard’s World.

Class is also present in the transhuman migratory civilization of the Festival and its entourage. Whilst on the surface unbound by traditional western power structures, the Festival and the Critics follow a facsimile of imperialism, with information as the main purpose of exploitation. In Singularity Sky, the Festival represents the colonial power and

26 Rochard’s World the exploited colonies. The Festival exploits Rochard’s World, depleting the planet of its information-resources and changes its cultural heritage permanently, before moving on to greener pastures.

Within Critic culture, academic knowledge acts as a status marker. Male Critics, traditionally unscholarly warriors by trade, are discriminated against due to their alleged inability to criticize. As Critic society, economy and culture are built around their ability to give criticism, the male Critics become dependent on the females in order to survive. In addition, male Critics are robbed of the ability to identify with their species’ own name. As the female Critics disallows the males Critics to criticize, the males become non-Critics and are therefore of lower status than females. Male Critics suffer from a systemic oppression similar to that of the Rochardian women before the Singularity. Their inability to gain power through self- employment and the prejudice directed against them due to their gender converge to not only subjugate them, but also to rob them of the means of which they can end their social enslavement. Rochard’s World and Critic society mirror each other – one is academic and the other fundamentalist, but both are oppressive and prejudiced. It is evident that inequality exists not just on the backwater planet of Rochard’s World, but also in the posthuman migratory civilizations of the Festival and its entourage.

The oppressed females on Rochard’s World are essentially voiceless. The only human female in the novel with more than a few lines is Earthling Rachel Mansour. By limiting female voices to only Rachel, Stross contributes directly to the by the reader perceived power she wields, as all other women are implied to be of no power. Throughout the novel, Rachel manifests power both political power and self-empowerment. However, her political power is illegitimately taken from a ruling patriarch, and later subverted. It can therefore be argued that she has no real political power at all. Rachel’s empowerment, however, stems from herself and the transhuman modifications she has undergone. In order to be empowered, Rachel enters the role of a male action hero but, whilst in this role, retains her status as an empowered female. It can therefore be argued that Rachel conquers the characteristics normally associated with male literary roles and takes them as her own. This appropriation of power is enabled by her technological modifications, allowing her to be an action hero without having to subjugate herself to them. Through transhumanism, she transcends the tropes associated with male and female literary roles.

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