Sally wrote: >

There are in fact three main episodes where this god/dominant male bit rears its head - Deliverance, Power and Sand. The reason I find it far less grating in Deliverance is because Terry Nation at least had the sense to make *Avon* aware of how silly it is.

I think one has to differentiate between Gods and Dominant males. Cargo cults are a fairly well attested phenomenon. They are irrational on the basis of our knowledge, not necessarily from the POV of the cultist. Meegat can only be considered silly for believing that Avon was a supernatural figure, in the same way that Augustine can be considered silly for believing in numerology or Dante can be considered silly for believing that the sun goes round the earth. I don't have a problem with Meegat because she is a representative of a non-technological culture. Her submissive attitudes (as Betty has observed) are based on the religion of her culture and not seen as being an appropriate model of male/ female relations.

Power and Sand on the other hand are genuinely silly. It is a tad ironic, given that the whole dominant male thing is supposed to be biological, that these stories betray an ignorance of elementary biology. The Homminks expose their female infants, which is a reproductive blind alley. The Sand reproduces asexually, yet on encountering space travellers immediately works out a way of using sexual reproduction to breed it's own food supply, despite not having access to a food supply for years. Furthermore, by killing off all the males immediately except one it is running a very high risk strategy. What if the dominant male in terms of strength and stamina turns out to have a low sperm count ?

Moral: Sexism is unjust to all people and can really screw up your favourite science fiction programme.

Stephen.

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