It may be far in the future, but there's some kind of logical way to get from where we are to where the science fiction is.

Having a mother who had been an aeronautical engineer convinced me that more things should be open to women.

Now my mother, interestingly enough, was not a feminist in her own mind.

Hard to be a physics major at Rice University if you have flunked calculus.

So when I got out of the military, I went back to school in biology, and earned a biology degree at the University of Texas, and then did some graduate work in it.

Empress of the Universe would be way too much work. I'd have to wear fancy clothes, probably including lady shoes with pointed toes, and could no longer slouch into the study in PJs and slippers. Someone would (avert!) straighten my desk. Someone would reorganize my yarn stash...in fact, they'd assign someone else to knit my socks, thus depriving me of an excuse to rest my brain while pretending to accomplish something useful.

There is simple ignorance, not knowing, and willful ignorance that refuses to know, that covers the light of knowledge with the dark blanket of bias.