SOURCE: “Gendering the Robot: Stanislaw Lem's ‘The Mask,’” in Science-Fiction Studies, Vol. 19, Pt. 2, July, 1992, pp. 178–90.

In the following essay, Parker examines the construction of gender identity and femininity in “The Mask,” drawing attention to Lem's use of a robot to illustrate the process of social programming by which sexual difference, language, and power hierarchies are established.

They therefore as to right belong'd, So were created, nor can justly accuse Thir maker, or thir making, or thir Fate; As if Predestination over-rul'd Thir will, dispos'd by absolute Decree Of high foreknowledge; they themselves decreed Thir own revolt, not I: … 

—Paradise Lost §3:111–17

I was now about to form another being of whose dispositions I was alike ignorant; she might become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate and delight, for its own sake, in murder and wretchedness. He had sworn to quit the neighbourhood of man and hide himself...