Feminist science fiction
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Feminist science fiction is a subgenre of
Science fiction and fantasy serve as important vehicles for feminist thought, particularly as bridges between theory and practice. No other genres so actively invite representations of the ultimate goals of feminism: worlds free of sexism, worlds in which women's contributions (to science) are recognized and valued, worlds that explore the diversity of women's desire and sexuality, and worlds that move beyond gender.
— Elyce Rae Helford[4]
History
Feminist science fiction (SF) distinguishes between female SF authors and feminist SF authors.[5] Both female and feminist SF authors are historically significant to the feminist SF subgenre, as female writers have increased women's visibility and perspectives in SF literary traditions, while the feminist writers have foregrounded political themes and tropes in their works.[5] Because distinctions between female and feminist can be blurry, whether a work is considered feminist can be debatable, but there are generally agreed-upon canonical texts, which help define the subgenre.
Early modern England
As early as
First-wave feminism (suffrage)
Women writers involved in the utopian literature movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries could be considered the first feminist SF authors. Their texts, emerging during the first-wave feminist movement, often addressed issues of sexism through imagining different worlds that challenged gender expectations. In 1881, Mizora: A Prophecy described a women-only world with technological innovations such as parthenogenesis, videophones, and artificial meat.[8][5]
It was closely followed by other feminist utopian works, such as
Among the francophones, Renée Gouraud d'Ablancourt published in 1909 Vega la magicienne, depicting L'Oiselle, a winged superheroine and the first of the francophone superhero series.[12]
Between the wars
During the 1920s and 1930s, many popular pulp science fiction magazines exaggerated views of masculinity and featured portrayals of women that were perceived as sexist.[13] These views would be subtly satirized by Stella Gibbons in Cold Comfort Farm (1932)[14] and much later by Margaret Atwood in The Blind Assassin (2000). As early as 1920, however, women writers of this time, such as Clare Winger Harris ("The Runaway World," 1926) and Gertrude Barrows Bennett (Claimed, 1920), published science fiction stories written from female perspectives and occasionally dealt with gender and sexuality based topics.
John Wyndham, writing under his early pen-name of John Beynon Harris, was a rare pulp writer to include female leads in stories such as The Venus Adventure (Wonder Stories, 1932), in which a mixed crew travel to Venus. The story opens in a future in which women are no longer enslaved by pregnancy and childbirth thanks to artificial incubators, which are opposed by a religious minority. Women have used this freedom to enter professions including chemistry. Wyndham's outlook was so rare that in a serialisation of his novel Stowaway to Mars, one magazine editor "corrected" the name of the central character Joan to John. Wyndham then had to write them a new final instalment to replace the conclusion in which Joan fell in love and became pregnant. [15]
Post World War II
The
At the beginning of the Cold War, economic restructuring, technological advancements, new domestic technologies (washing machines, electric appliances),[16] increased economic mobility of an emerging middle class,[17] and an emphasis on consumptive practices,[18] carved out a new technological domestic sphere where women were circumscribed to a new job description – the professional housewife.[19][20] Published feminist SF stories were told from the perspectives of women (characters and authors) who often identified within traditional roles of housewives or homemakers, a subversive act in many ways given the traditionally male-centered nature of the SF genre and society during that time.[5]
In Galactic Suburbia, author Lisa Yaszek recovers many women SF authors of the post-WWII era such as Judith Merril, author of "That Only a Mother" (1948), "Daughters of Earth" (1952), "Project Nursemaid" (1955), "The Lady Was a Tramp" (1957); Alice Eleanor Jones "Life, Incorporated" (1955), "The Happy Clown" (1955), "Recruiting Officer" (1955); and Shirley Jackson "One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts" (1955) and "The Omen" (1958).[5] These authors often blurred the boundaries of feminist SF fiction and feminist speculative fiction, but their work laid substantive foundations for second-wave feminist SF authors to directly engage with the feminist project. "Simply put, women turned to SF in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s because it provided them with growing audiences for fiction that was both socially engaged and aesthetically innovative."[5]: 22
Second-wave feminism
By the 1960s, science fiction was combining sensationalism with political and technological critiques of society. With the advent of
The Demon Breed is a 1968 science fiction novel by James H. Schmitz in which the female main character, Nyles Etland, armed only with intelligence and intimate knowledge of her home environment, allies and science, intimidated an alien species who had intended to invade. Schmitz, who still commands a cult audience half a century after his death, dealt almost exclusively in competent and intelligent female main characters in dozens of novels and short stories.
1980s onwards
Feminist science fiction continues on into the 1980s with
More recent science fiction authors illuminate what they contend are injustices that are still prevalent. At the time of the LA Riots, Japanese-American writer Cynthia Kadohata's work In the Heart of the Valley of Love (1992) was published. Her story, set in the year 2052, examines tensions between two groups as defined as the "haves" and the "have-nots" and is written as seen through the eyes of a nineteen-year-old girl who is of Asian and African descent.[29] Nalo Hopkinson's Falling in Love With Hominids (2015) is a collection of her short stories whose subjects range from an historical fantasy involving colonialism in the Caribbean, to age manipulation, to ethnic diversity in the land of Faerie, among others.[30]
In the early 1990s, a new award opportunity for feminist SF authors was created. The
Other winners of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award include "The Sparrow" by Mary Doria Russell (1996), "Black Wine" by Candas Jane Dorsey (1997), Redwood and Wildfire by Andrea Hairston (2011),[32] "The Carhullan Army" by Sarah Hall (2007), Ammonite by Nicola Griffith (1993), and "The Conqueror's Child" by Suzy McKee Charnas (1999). All of these authors have had an important impact on the SF world by adding a feminist perspective to the traditionally male genre.
Recurrent themes
Works of feminist science fiction are often similar in the goals they work towards as well as the subjects and plotlines they focus on in order to achieve those goals. Feminist science fiction is science fiction that carries across feminist ideals and the promotion of societal values such as
Utopian and dystopian societies
Representations of utopian and dystopian societies in feminist science fiction place an increased emphasis on gender roles while countering the anti-utopian philosophies of the 20th century.[34][35] Male philosophers such as John Rawls, Isaiah Berlin, and Michael Oakeshott often criticize the idea of utopia, theorizing that it would be impossible to establish a utopia without violence and hegemony. Many male authored works of science fiction as well as threads of philosophical utopian thought dismiss utopias as something unattainable, whereas in feminist science fiction, utopian society is often presented as something both achievable and desirable.[36]
Anti-utopian philosophies and feminist science fiction come to odds in the possibility of achieving utopia. In "Rehabilitating Utopia: Feminist Science Fiction and Finding the Ideal", an article published in Contemporary Justice Review, philosophers against the dream of utopia argue that "First is the expectation that utopia justifies violence, second is the expectation that utopia collapses individual desires into one communal norm, and third is the expectation that utopia mandates a robotic focus on problem-solving." In feminist science fiction, utopias are often realized through a communal want for an ideal society. One such novel is summarized in the aforementioned article, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's novel Herland, in which "Gilman perfectly captures the utopian impulse that all problems are solvable. She establishes a society where every consideration about a question aims for the rational answer."[36] Gilman's utopia is presented as something attainable and achievable without conflict, neither enabling violence nor extinguishing individualism.
In the Parable series by feminist science fiction novelist
One common trend in feminist science fiction utopias is the existence of utopian worlds as single-gendered – most commonly female, an early example being Emília Freitas’s 1899 novel A Rainha do Ignoto.[37] In literary works female utopias are portrayed as free of conflict, and intentionally free of men. The single gendered utopias of female science fiction are free of the conflicts that feminism aims to eliminate, such as patriarchal oppression and the gender inequality inherent in patriarchal society. In a statement about these single gendered utopias, Joanna Russ, author of The Female Man , theorized that male-only societies were not written because in patriarchal society, male oppression is not as pressing an issue as is female oppression.[38]
Utopia as an ideal to strive for is not a concept wholly limited to feminist science fiction, however many non-feminist science fiction works often dismiss utopia as an unachievable goal, and as such, believe that pursuits for utopia should be considered dangerous and barren. Anti-utopian theory focuses on the 'how' in the transition from present society to a utopian future. In feminist science fiction, the achievement of a utopian future depends on the ability to recognize the need for improvement and the perseverance to overcome the obstacles present in creating a utopian society.[36]
Representation of women
Perhaps the most obvious attraction of science fiction to women writers – feminist or not – is the possibilities it offers for the creation of a female hero. The demands of realism in the contemporary or historical novel set limits which do not bind the universes available to science fiction. Although the history of science fiction reveals few heroic, realistic, or even original images of women, the genre had a potential recognized by the women writers drawn to it in the 1960s and 1970s. Before this time, the appeal for women writers was not that great. The impact of feminism on the science fiction field can be observed not only in science fiction texts themselves, but also on the development of feminist approaches to science fiction criticism and history, as well as conversations and debates in the science fiction community. One of the main debates is about the representation of women in science fiction.
In her article "Redefining Women's Power through Feminist Science Fiction", Maria DeRose suggests that, "One of the great early socialists said that the status of women in a society is a pretty reliable index of the degree of civilization of that society. If this is true, then the very low status of women in science fiction should make us ponder about whether science fiction is civilized at all".[39] The women's movement has made most of us conscious of the fact that Science Fiction has totally ignored women. This "lack of appreciation" is the main reason that women are rebelling and actively fighting to be noticed in the field anyway.[40]
Virginia Wolf relates to this aspect of feminist science fiction in the article "Feminist Criticism and Science Fiction for Children". As she discusses the scarcity of women in the field, she states, "During the first period, that of the nineteenth century, apparently only two women wrote Science Fiction, Mary Shelley and Rhoda Broughton," and continues, "In the early twentieth century, a few women were successful Science Fiction writers". But, "The times changed. Repression gave way to questioning and outright rebellion, and in the Science Fiction of the 1960s stylistic innovations and new concerns emerged 'Many of their stories, instead of dealing with the traditional hardware of science fiction, concentrated on the effects that different societies or perceptions would have on individual characters'".[41] Andre Norton, a semi-well known analyst of Science fiction argues along these lines as well. As Norton explored one or more novels she came across, she realized that the creation of characters and how they are shown is a clear connection to the real world situation. From here, she goes in depth of characters in these feminist novels and relates them to the real world. She concludes here article along these lines. She wanted to get the idea out that feminists have a way to get their voice out there. Now, all their works are famous/ popular enough for their ideas to be let out. Virginia Wolf can attest to this fact. She introduced the idea that women were not represented well in the field till the early 1900s and added to the fact by stating, "Women are not represented well in Science Fiction".[41]: 16
Individual characters, as we come to know, have their own perception and observation of their surroundings. Characters in novels such as
Gender identity
Feminist science fiction offers authors the opportunity to imagine worlds and futures in which women are not bound by the standards, rules, and roles that exist in reality. Rather, the genre creates a space in which the gender binary might be troubled and different sexualities may be explored.[2]
As Anna Gilarek explains, issues of gender have been a part of feminist discourse throughout the feminist movement, and the work of authors such as Joanna Russ and Marge Piercy explore and expose gender based oppression. Gilarek outlines two approaches to social critique via Feminist SF: the use of fantastical elements such as "invented worlds, planets, moons, and lands", used to call attention to the ills of society by exaggerating them, or a more straightforward approach, "relying on realist techniques to convey the message about the deficiencies of our world and its social organization, in particular the continued inequality of women".[4] There are many examples of redefined gender roles and gender identity found in Feminist SF, ranging from the inversion of gendered oppression to the amplification of gender stereotypes and tropes. In the short story "The Matter of Seggri", by Ursula Le Guin, traditional gender roles are completely swapped. Men are relegated to roles of athletes and prostitutes while women control the means of production and have exclusive access to education. In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, gendered oppression is exaggerated in a dystopian society in which women's rights are stripped away and fertile women are relegated to the roles of handmaids who will bear children to further the human race. New books continue the dystopian theme of women living in a society which conforms to the wishes of men, at the expense of women's rights and well-being, such as in Louise O'Neill's young adult novel Only Ever Yours. In this work, females are no longer born naturally but are genetically designed before birth to conform to the physical desires of men, then placed in a school in which they are taught not to think (they are never taught to read), and to focus on appearance until they are rated by beauty on a scale at age sixteen, with the top ten becoming the brides of elite men, the middle ten forced into concubinage, and the bottom ten forced to continue their lives as instructors at the school in very humiliating circumstances. At age forty, the women are euthanized. In the post-apocalyptic novel, Gather the Daughters, by Jennie Melamed, females living in an island society are sexually exploited from the time they are girls, are forced to marry at adolescence, and after they become grandmothers must commit suicide.
Over the decades, SF and feminist SF authors have taken different approaches to criticizing gender and gendered society. Helen Merrick outlines the transition from what Joanna Russ describes as the "Battle of the Sexes" tradition to a more egalitarian or androgynous approach. Also known as the "Dominant Woman" stories, the "Battle of the Sexes" stories often present matriarchal societies in which women have overcome their patriarchal oppressors and have achieved dominance. These stories are representative of an anxiety that perceives women's power as a threat to masculinity and the heterosexual norm. As Merrick explains, "And whilst they may at least hint at the vision of a more equal gendered social order, this possibility is undermined by figuring female desire for greater equality in terms of a (stereotypical) masculine drive for power and domination." Examples of these types of stories, written in the 1920s and 30s through the 50s, include Francis Steven's "Friend Island" and Margaret Rupert's "Via the Hewitt Ray"; in 1978, Marion Zimmer Bradley released The Ruins of Isis, a novel about a futuristic matriarchy on a human colony planet where the men are extremely oppressed.
In the 1960s and 1970s, feminist SF authors shifted from the "Battle of the Sexes" writing more egalitarian stories and stories that sought to make the feminine more visible. Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness portrayed an androgynous society in which a world without gender could be imagined. In
Comic books and graphic novels
Feminist science fiction is evidenced in the globally popular mediums of
Feminism in science fiction shōjo manga has been a theme in the works of Moto Hagio among others, for whom the writings of Ursula K. Le Guin have been a major influence.[44]
Film and television
Feminism has driven the creation of a considerable body of action-oriented science fiction with female
However, feminists have also created science fiction that directly engages with feminism beyond the creation of female action heroes. Television and film have offered opportunities for expressing new ideas about social structures and the ways feminists influence science.[49] Feminist science fiction provides a means to challenge the norms of society and suggest new standards for how societies view gender.[2] The genre also deals with male/female categories, showing how female roles can differ from feminine roles. Hence feminism influences the film industry by creating new ways of exploring and looking at masculinity/femininity and male/female roles.[50] A contemporary example of feminist science fiction television can be found in Orphan Black, which deals with issues of reproductive justice, science, gender, and sexuality.
Fandom
By the 1970s, the
Feminist science fiction is sometimes taught at the university level to explore the role of social constructs in understanding gender.[54]
Publications
In the 1970s, the first feminist science fiction publications were created.[55] The most well-known are fanzines The Witch and the Chameleon (1974–1976) and Janus (1975–1980), which later became Aurora SF (Aurora Speculative Feminism) (1981–1987).[56] Windhaven, A Journal of Feminist Science Fiction was published from 1977 to 1979 by Jessica Amanda Salmonson[57][58] in Seattle.[59] Special issues of magazines linked to science fiction meetings were also published at that moment, like the Khatru symposium's fanzine Women in Science Fiction in 1975.[60]
Critical works
OCLC no. | 55471482 |
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Femspec
Femspec is a feminist academic journal specializing in works that challenge gender through speculative genres, including
See also
- Feminist literature
- List of feminist comic books
- Single-gender worlds
- Women in speculative fiction
Notes
- ISBN 9780367716417.
- ^ ISBN 9780313329531. Preview.
- ISBN 9780367716233.
- ^ a b Helford, p.291.
- ^ ISBN 9780814291535.
- ^ ISBN 9780863580819.
- ^ a b Brian Aldiss has argued that Frankenstein should be considered the first true science fiction story, because unlike in previous stories with fantastical elements resembling those of later science fiction, the central character "makes a deliberate decision" and "turns to modern experiments in the laboratory" to achieve fantastic results. See The Detached Retina: Aspects of SF and Fantasy by Brian Aldiss (1995), page 78.
- ^ Jean Pfaelzer, The Utopian Novel in America 1886–1896: The Politics of Form, Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1984; pp. 146-50.
- ^ JSTOR 40033753.
- ^ Suzanne Romaine, Communicating Gender, London, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates/Taylor & Francis, 1998; pp. 331-2.
- ^ "Clyde, Irene". SFE. Retrieved 25 April 2018.
- ^ "Oubliée pendant un siècle, L'Oiselle, première superhéroïne française, reprend son envol". Le Monde.fr (in French). 2022-04-01. Retrieved 2022-04-11.
- ^ Lisa Tuttle in Clute and Nicholls 1995, p. 1344.
- ISBN 9781317725121.
- ISBN 9780992756710.
- ^ "History of Household Technology-Science Tracer Bullet". www.loc.gov. Retrieved December 7, 2015.
- ^ Suddath, Claire (February 2, 2009). "The Middle Class". Time. Retrieved December 7, 2015.
- doi:10.1086/383439. Pdf.
- ^ "WGBH American Experience: Tupperware! PBS". American Experience. Retrieved December 7, 2015.
- ^ "Partners in Winning the War: American Women in World War II". www.nwhm.org. Archived from the original on July 31, 2016. Retrieved December 7, 2015.
- ^ Lisa Tuttle in Clute and Nicholls 1995, p. 424.
- ^ Helford, p.290.
- ^ Styrsky, Stefen (2005). "The desperate and the human". Lambda Book Report.
- ^ "Locus Online News » World Fantasy Awards Winners 2015". www.locusmag.com. 2015-11-08. Retrieved November 14, 2015.
- ^ "World Fantasy Convention 2015 -- Life Achievement Awards". www.wfc2015.org. Retrieved November 14, 2015.
- ^ "isfdb science fiction » Sheri S. Tepper - Summary Bibliography". isfdb.org.
- ^ a b "Emshwiller, Carol". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Retrieved 23 November 2015.
- ^ Wexler, Robert Freeman (January 19, 2010). "Emshwiller Interview (Robert Freeman Wexler interviews Carol Emshwiller)". robertfreemanwexler.com. Laconic Writer (blog). Retrieved June 6, 2010.
- ^ "Cynthia Kadohata Biography". Encyclopedia of World Biography.
- ^ Heller, Jason (August 11, 2015). "'Hominids' Is A Deeply Human Collection of Speculative Fiction". NPR Books. NPR.
- ^ World Fantasy Convention. "Award Winners and Nominees". Archived from the original on December 1, 2010. Retrieved February 4, 2011.
- ^ "2011 Tiptree Award Winner announced". James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award Council. Archived from the original on 9 May 2012. Retrieved 10 March 2012.
- ISBN 9781933500201.
- ISBN 978-1-137-43032-8.
- ISBN 9780367716233.
- ^ S2CID 143552697.
- S2CID 148556770.
- ^ Romaine, Suzanne (1999). Communicating Gender. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. p. 329.
- ^ .
- S2CID 143650199.
- ^ S2CID 145211439.
- ISBN 9780801865145. Preview.
- ^ Wright, p.221.
- ^ Ebihara, Akiko (2002). "Japan's Feminist Fabulation: Reading Marginal with Unisex Reproduction as a Keyconcept". Genders. 36. Archived from the original on 2014-11-07.
- ^ The original creator of Wonder Woman, William Moulton Marston, a psychologist explicitly stated that he wanted a female hero worthy of being a role model for young women. "Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman." Marston, in The American Scholar speech (1943).
- ISBN 9780860919933.
- ^ Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy, has frequently self-identified as a feminist, and established that his motives for creating the character of Buffy were feminist.
- ^ Jowett, Lorna (Fall 2005). "To the Max: Embodying Intersections in Dark Angel". Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture. 5 (4). Archived from the original on 2014-11-13. Retrieved 2016-09-22.
- ^ Miniscule, Caroline. "Stand by for Mars! Review of Women Scientists in Fifties Science Fiction Movies". The ThunderChild.com : Science Fiction and Fantasy Web Magazine and Source-books. Retrieved December 13, 2009.
- ISBN 9780521016575.
- ISBN 9780313335914.
- ^ Quilter, Laura. "A Brief History of Feminist SF/F and Women in SF/F". feministsf.org. Feminist Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Utopia. Archived from the original on 2018-10-04. Retrieved 2014-01-11.
- ^ McClenahan, Catherine (1996), "Wiscon, Then and Now", in Various (ed.), Wiscon 20 Souvenir Book, Madison, SF3: Wiscon 20, pp. 46–48.
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: location (link) - S2CID 145519594.
- ^ Cyberpunk Women, Feminism and Science Fiction: A Critical Study, Carlen Lavigne, McFarland & Company, 2013, p.25
- ^ "Feminist SFF & Utopia: Journals, Newsletters, & 'Zines". feministsf.org. Archived from the original on 2017-08-03. Retrieved 2017-12-25.
- ^ Gateways to Forever: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines from 1970 to 1980, Mike Ashley, Liverpool University Press, 2007, p.252.
- ^ Amazons!, Additional Reading list, DAW Books, 1979
- ^ Politics and Scholarship: Feminist Academic Journals and the Production of Knowledge, Patrice McDermott, University of Illinois Press, 1994, p.105
- ^ Reading Science Fiction, James Gunn, Marleen Barr, Matthew Candelaria (eds), Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, p.170
- ^ "Femspec". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. 20 September 2016. Retrieved 20 August 2019.
- ^ Staff writer. "About us: A brief history of our organization". femspec.org. Femspec, Cleveland State University. Archived from the original on September 7, 2016. Retrieved September 23, 2016.
References
- ISBN 9780312134860.
- Helford, Elyce Rae (2005), "Feminism", in Westfahl, Gary (ed.), The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: themes, works and wonders, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, pp. 289–291, ISBN 9780313329531. Preview.
- Wright, Bradford W. (2003). Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America. Baltimore: ISBN 9780801865145. Preview.