With the advent of cloning and human genetic manipulation on the horizon, the focus of the future doesn't seem to be jet packs, automated apartments, and sarcastic robot maids as in so many "The Jetsons" cartoons. The focus instead revolves around how this growing ability to alter the nature of humanity can impact the development of our culture for good or ill. Culture, or "our way of life," is always the underlying concern of every human achievement, even if only sub-consciously. Culture is the subtext to our lives, telling us what to do when, what to think now, and who we are or are not in society.
             In class many of our discussions have been about the social roles of men and women in our culture. In this paper I will disscuss those roles as presented in the literary genre of Science Fiction (more appropriately referred to as Speculative Fiction) using a survey of three novels (Brave New World, The Gate to Women's Country, and He, She and It) and one short story ("Day Million") as my primary sources. These works offer narrative speculations on changes in human sexuality and gender roles in future societies. They offer valuable commentary on the importance of gender definition in our culture today and insight into their relevance or permutations in the possible cultures of tomorrow.
             Shira is a midlevel artificial-intelligence expert working for Yakamura-Siemens, a corporation-state. When she loses custody of her beloved son, she returns to their birthplace, a little enclave centered on the practice of Judaism, and accepts a job working for Avram, the father of her childhood lover. Avram has created an incredibly sophisticated robot that can pass for human. To counteract the violent tendencies that had marred his previous efforts, Avram enlisted Shira's grandmother Malkah to construct the robot Yod's human personality (i.e., to make ``him'' needy, emphatic, sexual). Intermixed with Shira's nar...