The author of the novel Neuromancer, William Gibson, forms a fictional world in which he creates men and women as equal according to Rebecca. I agreed with her assertion made after reading the beginning of the novel, but began to disagree as the plot developed. One of Rebecca’s main points was that the equality between men and women created by Gibson, was portrayed through the character of Molly. Although, I agree that Molly was a dominant character in the novel and that her role in the story was as important as that of the protagonist Case, Molly had a countless number of implants that gave her, her supernatural abilities. Gibson made Case the main character without any surgeries while Molly had to have numerous alterations done to her to get on the same importance level as Case. Case’s importance only came from his ability to enter the matrix and nothing else.
In addition, Rebecca states that” the women are at the same toughness level as the male characters” however, as the story unfolds, it is discovered that Molly does have a fragile feminine side. We are made aware that Molly was once truly affectionate towards a boy named Johnny. It appears that Johnny had broken through the ice, like Case did in the matrix, and made it through to the sensitive Molly. The weaknesses of Molly become apparent as the novel reached its conclusion which made my idea of her change. Molly was also not the only female character in the novel and the other weak females like Linda Lee contributed to the fact that women were not equal to the men in the novel .
Though I agree with your stance on Molly’s flawed dominant role that we have come to “accept”, I do not agree with all your evidence. A point that I do coincide is the fact that Molly is a synthetic hero, since her abnormal strength lays in the fact that she has all this powerful machinery implanted to her body. In other words, she seems to be the almighty hero one had once thought. Although I agree that this is a critical point, for the love argument however, I cannot see how this degrades Molly. In a sense, your argument makes it seem that love connotes a female quality and not a universal trait. The fact that Molly loved someone shows that she is as human, since males are capable of love as well. Retrospectively, though I agree with your argument more than the opposing statements made, I see your love point flawed, but the other points are compelling.