Gender in science fiction
Encyclopedia
Gender
has been an important theme explored in speculative fiction
. The genres that make up speculative fiction (SF), science fiction
, fantasy
, supernatural
horror
and related genres (utopian literature), have always offered the opportunity for writers to explore social conventions, including gender, gender roles, and beliefs about gender. Like all literary forms, the science fiction genre reflects the popular perceptions of the eras in which individual creators were writing; and those creators' responses to gender stereotypes and gender roles.
Many writers have chosen to write with little or no questioning of gender roles, instead effectively reflecting their own cultural gender roles onto their fictional world. However, many other writers have chosen to use science fiction and non-realistic formats in order to explore cultural conventions, particularly gender roles. This article discusses works that have explored or expanded the treatment of gender in science fiction.
In addition to the traditional human genders, science fiction has extended the idea of gender to hypothetical alien species and robots, and imagined trans-real genders, such as with aliens that are truly hermaphroditic or have a "third" gender, or robots that can change gender at will or are without gender.
Science fiction in particular has traditionally been a puritanical genre orientated toward a male readership, and has been described as being by men for men, or sometimes for boys. Most of the stereotypical tropes of science fiction, such as aliens
, robots or superpowers
can be employed in such a way as to be metaphors for gender.
Fantasy has been perceived as more accepting of women compared to science fiction or horror (and offering more roles than historical fiction or romance), yet seldom attempts to question or subvert the bias toward male superiority. Science fiction's tendency to look to the future and imagine different societies gives it the potential to examine gender roles and preconceptions, whereas the use of archetypes and quasi-historical settings in fantasy has often included patriarchy.
The portrayal of women, or more broadly, the portrayal of gender in the speculative genres, has varied widely throughout the genres' history. Some writers and artists have challenged their society's gender norms in producing their work; others have not. Among those who have challenged conventional understandings and portrayals of women, men, and sexuality, there have been of course significant variations. The common perception of the role of women in SF works has long been dominated by one of two stereotypes: a woman who is evil (villainess) or one who is helpless (damsel in distress
). These characters are usually physically attractive and provocatively dressed and require redemption and validation by a male hero
.
The first critical work focussing on women in SF was Symposium: Women in Science Fiction (1975), edited by Jeffrey D. Smith., and other influential works include Future Females:A Critical Anthology (1981) edited by Marleen S. Barr
Critics argue that much of science fiction fetishizes masculinity, and that incorporation of technology into science fiction provides a metaphor for imagined futuristic masculinity. Examples are the use of "hypermasculine cyborgs and console-cowboys". Such technologies are desirable as they reaffirm the readers' masculinity and protect against feminisation. This fetishisation of masculinity via technology in science fiction differs from typical fetishisation in other genres, in which the fetishised object is always feminine.
The book Spreading Misandry argues that science fiction is often used to make unfounded political claims about gender, and attempt to blame men for all of society's ills.
's Walk to the End of the World and Motherlines, and Marge Piercy
's Woman on the Edge of Time
. Utopias imagined by male authors have generally included equality between sexes, rather than separation. Such worlds have been portrayed most often by lesbian or feminist authors; their use of female-only worlds allows the exploration of female independence and freedom from patriarchy
The societies may not necessarily be lesbian, or sexual at all—a famous early sexless example being Herland
(1915) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
. Men-only societies are much less common: Joanna Russ suggests this is because men do not feel oppressed, and therefore imagining a world free of women does not imply an increase in freedom and is not as attractive.
Utopias have been used to explore the ramification of gender being either a societal construct, or a hard-wired imperative. In Mary Gentle
's Golden Witchbreed, gender is not chosen until maturity, and gender has no bearing on social roles. In contrast, Doris Lessing
's The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five
(1980) suggests that men's and women's values are inherent to the sexes and cannot be changed, making a compromise between them essential. In My Own Utopia (1961) by Elizabeth Mann-Borgese, gender exists but is dependent upon age rather than sex—genderless children mature into women, some of whom eventually become men. Charlene Ball writes in Women's studies encyclopedia that use of speculative fiction to explore gender roles in future societies has been more common in the United States compared to Europe and elsewhere.
designed to look like a human female, as compared to an android modeled after a male (or genderless) human. Gynoids are "irresistibly linked" to men's lust, and are mainly designed as sex-objects, having no use beyond "pleasing men's violent sexual desires". A long tradition exists in fiction of men attempting to create the stereotypical "perfect woman". Examples include the Greek myth of Pygmalion
, and the female robot Maria in Fritz Lang
's Metropolis
. Female cyborgs have been similarly used in fiction, in which natural bodies are modified to become objects of fantasy. Fiction about gynoids or female cyborgs reinforce "essentialist ideas of feminity".
wrote Herland
, an important early feminist utopia, and Virginia Woolf
wrote Orlando. Both Perkins and Woolf identified strongly with the first wave feminism of the period,and its call for equal rights and suffrage for women.
In the 1940s, post-WWII, female writers like Judith Merril and Leigh Brackett emerged, reclaiming female characters and carving out respect in their own right. C. L. Moore
is an example of a woman successfully writing pulp speculative fiction tales under a genderless pen-name. Her story "No Woman Born" (1944), in which a female character's mind is transferred into a powerful robot body with feminine attributes is an early example of a work that challenged gender stereotypes of its day by combining femininity with power. Brian Atterbery suggest that if the robot had appeared male, the gender would have been unremarkable or even invisible to readers, as masculine figures could be expected to be powerful.
During the pulp era, matriarchal dystopia
s were common, in which female-only or female-controlled societies were shown unfavorably. In John Wyndham
's Consider Her Ways
(1956), male rule is shown as being repressive of women, but freedom of patriarchy is only possible in a fascist female-only society modelled on ants
The 1930s saw the beginnings of fantasy as a distinct publishing genre. Reacting against the hard, scientific, dehumanizing trends of contemporary science fiction, this new branch of SF drew on mythological and historical traditions and Romantic literature, including Greek
and Roman
mythologies, Norse sagas, the Arabian Nights and Adventure stories such as Alexandre Dumas’ Three Musketeers. The conventions brought with them a tendency toward patriarchy and cast women in restrictive roles defined as early as in the plays of Euripides. These roles included that of the "helper-maiden" or of "reproductive demon".
The 1950s saw the advent of the sword and sorcery
sub-genre of pulp tales, which brought overt sexualisation to the representation of women in fantasy. Although physically more capable, female characters continued to act as helpers to the male leads, but now were extremely attractive and wore very little.
This creative period saw the appearance of many influential novels by female authors, including Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness
(1969), described as the book with which SF "lost its innocence on matters of sex and gender", and The Dispossessed
(1974); Joanna Russ
's most important works, particularly The Female Man
(1975), regarded by many as the central work of women's SF; and The Two of Them
(1978); Anne McCaffrey's prescient cyborg novel, The Ship Who Sang (1969); Vonda McIntyre's two most influential novels, The Exile Waiting (1975) and Dreamsnake (1978); Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time (1976), the most important contribution to feminist sf by an author known mainly for realistic work; and several novels by Octavia Butler, especially Kindred (1979) and Wild Seed (1980), which have been described as groundbreaking, and established an African-American female voice in SF.
Important short stories included many by James Tiptree Jr. (a male pseudonym used by Alice Sheldon), for instance "The Women Men Don’t See" (1973), "The Girl Who Was Plugged In" (1973), and "The Screwfly Solution" (1977).
These works coincided with the beginnings of application of feminist theory to SF,. creating a self-consciously feminist science fiction
. Feminist SF has been distinguished from earlier feminist utopian fiction by its greater attention to characterisation and inclusion of gender equality.
Male writers also began to approach depiction of gender in new ways, with Samuel R. Delany
establishing himself as the most radical voice among male SF figures for representations of alternative sexualities and gender-models in a series of major works, most importantly (with respect to gender), in Triton
(1976). Gary Westfahl points out that "Heinlein is a problematic case for feminists; on the one hand, his works often feature strong female characters and vigorous statements that women are equal to or even superior to men; but these characters and statements often reflect hopelessly stereotypical attitudes about typical female attributes. It is disconcerting, for example, that in Expanded Universe Heinlein calls for a society where all lawyers and politicians are women, essentially on the grounds that they possess a mysterious feminine practicality that men cannot duplicate."
Authors such as Nicola Griffith
and Sheri S. Tepper
frequently write on gender-related themes. Tepper's work has been described as "the definition of feminist science fiction", and her treatment of gender has varied from early optimistic science fantasies, in which women were equally as capable as men, to more pessimistic works, including The Gate to Women's Country
, in which men are the cause of war and pollution and true equality can only be achieved by transcending humanity altogether.
There was a time when more girls read comics than boys, but these comics were general realist
, with a focus on romance and crime stories. However, for most of their existence, comic books audiences have been assumed to be mostly male. The female characters and superheroes were targeted towards this male demographic, rather than towards women readers. Although many female superheroes were created, very few starred in their own series or achieved stand-alone success. It has been debated whether the lack of female readership was due to male writers being uncomfortable with writing about or for women, or whether the comic book industry is male dominated due to the lack of intinsic interest of women in comics.
The first known female superhero is writer-artist Fletcher Hanks
's minor character Fantomah
, an ageless, ancient Egypt
ian woman in the modern day who could transform into a skull-faced creature with superpowers to fight evil; she debuted in 1940 in Fiction House
s Jungle Comics.
In the early 1940s the DC line was dominated by superpowered male characters such as the Green Lantern
, Batman
, and its flagship character, Superman
. The first widely recognizable female superhero is Wonder Woman
, created by William Moulton Marston
for All-American Publications
, one of three companies that would merge to form DC Comics
. Marston intended the character to be a strong female role-model for girls, with "all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman."
Female characters in early science fiction films such as Barbarella
(1968) were often portrayed as simple sex kittens.
Professor Sherrie Inness has said that the portrayals of tough women in later science fiction embody women's fantasies of empowerment, such as the characters of Sharrow in the Iain M. Banks' novel Against a Dark Background
(1993) or Alex in the film Nemesis 2, who both physically overpower male attackers.
, remained limited by associations of power with male approval.
The 1960s and 70s also saw the beginnings of SF and fantasy elements being incorporated into television programming.
Popular early SF programming in the 1960s reconciled the use of SF tropes that empowered women with stereotypes of women's social domains and femininity. This was seen in popular series such as I Dream of Jeannie
and Bewitched
, both of which have female protagonists with magical abilities. Bewitcheds Samantha is a witch who chooses to use her abilities as a home-maker, and her husband prefers that she limits such displays of power as much as possible, particularly when they could challenge his ego. Most of her uses of magic were to save her husband appearing foolish in front of his peers or undoing interference from her more empowered and feminist mother, Endora. In contrast, the titular character of I Dream of Jeannie was inept in her house-wifely duties and was more likely to use her magic when she felt it appropriate. However, this was always in the service of her "Master", who demanded her nature as a genie
be kept secret. Jeannie's subservience and skimpy clothing also identified her primarily as a sex object. Both programs showed women gaining more power and prominence through the metaphor of magic, but that this power was limited by women's willingness to obey male authority.
The 1960s also saw the first speculative presentations of women outside the realm of domestic life. Star Trek
s Lieutenant Uhura is a famous early example of a woman space explorer, and her race made her a role-model for black women in particular. Her inclusion in the series is credited with bringing more women into science fiction fandom. The character was seen as a success of the feminist and civil rights movement
s of the era, representing the ideal of racial equality and women's ability to find meaningful employment outside of marriage and family. However, her role never rose beyond that of futuristic receptionist
, and her uniform and prominent but generally silent placement in the background of scenes made her the series primary eye candy.
SF series of the 1970s followed in a similar vein, with speculative elements used to physically empower women, while society required that they pretend to be typical and non-threatening. Examples include The Bionic Woman
and the television adaption of Wonder Woman
.
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
has been an important theme explored in speculative fiction
Speculative fiction
Speculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as...
. The genres that make up speculative fiction (SF), science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
, fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
, supernatural
Supernatural fiction
Supernatural fiction is a literary genre exploiting or requiring as plot devices or themes some contradictions of the commonplace natural world and materialist assumptions about it....
horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
and related genres (utopian literature), have always offered the opportunity for writers to explore social conventions, including gender, gender roles, and beliefs about gender. Like all literary forms, the science fiction genre reflects the popular perceptions of the eras in which individual creators were writing; and those creators' responses to gender stereotypes and gender roles.
Many writers have chosen to write with little or no questioning of gender roles, instead effectively reflecting their own cultural gender roles onto their fictional world. However, many other writers have chosen to use science fiction and non-realistic formats in order to explore cultural conventions, particularly gender roles. This article discusses works that have explored or expanded the treatment of gender in science fiction.
In addition to the traditional human genders, science fiction has extended the idea of gender to hypothetical alien species and robots, and imagined trans-real genders, such as with aliens that are truly hermaphroditic or have a "third" gender, or robots that can change gender at will or are without gender.
Critical analysis
Science fiction has been described as a useful tool for examining society attitudes to and conceptions of gender; this is particularly true of literature, more so than for other media. The conventions of speculative fiction genres encourage writers to explore the subject of biological sex and present alternative models for societies and characters with different beliefs about gender. Extrapolation of an initial speculative premise can as easily start from an idea about marriage customs or chromosomes as a technological change. In spite of this potential, SF has been said to present only ideas about sex and gender that are fashionable or controversial in the present day, which it then projects into a future or fantasy setting.Science fiction in particular has traditionally been a puritanical genre orientated toward a male readership, and has been described as being by men for men, or sometimes for boys. Most of the stereotypical tropes of science fiction, such as aliens
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
, robots or superpowers
Superpower (ability)
Superpower is a popular culture term for a fictional superhuman ability. When a character possesses multiple such abilities, the terms super powers or simply powers are used...
can be employed in such a way as to be metaphors for gender.
Fantasy has been perceived as more accepting of women compared to science fiction or horror (and offering more roles than historical fiction or romance), yet seldom attempts to question or subvert the bias toward male superiority. Science fiction's tendency to look to the future and imagine different societies gives it the potential to examine gender roles and preconceptions, whereas the use of archetypes and quasi-historical settings in fantasy has often included patriarchy.
Portrayal of women
Damsel in distress
The subject of the damsel in distress, or persecuted maiden, is a classic theme in world literature, art, and film. She is usually a beautiful young woman placed in a dire predicament by a villain or monster and who requires a hero to achieve her rescue. She has become a stock character of fiction,...
). These characters are usually physically attractive and provocatively dressed and require redemption and validation by a male hero
Hero
A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...
.
The first critical work focussing on women in SF was Symposium: Women in Science Fiction (1975), edited by Jeffrey D. Smith., and other influential works include Future Females:A Critical Anthology (1981) edited by Marleen S. Barr
Portrayal of men
Many male protagonists of science fiction are reflections of a single heroic archetype, often having scientific vocations or interests, and being "cool, rational, competent", "remarkably sexless", interchangeable, and bland. Annette Kuhn posits that these asexual characters are attempts to gain independence from women and mother figures, and that this and their unfailing mechanical prowess is what gives them fans. The "super-male" and boy genius are also common stereotypes frequently embodied by male characters.Critics argue that much of science fiction fetishizes masculinity, and that incorporation of technology into science fiction provides a metaphor for imagined futuristic masculinity. Examples are the use of "hypermasculine cyborgs and console-cowboys". Such technologies are desirable as they reaffirm the readers' masculinity and protect against feminisation. This fetishisation of masculinity via technology in science fiction differs from typical fetishisation in other genres, in which the fetishised object is always feminine.
The book Spreading Misandry argues that science fiction is often used to make unfounded political claims about gender, and attempt to blame men for all of society's ills.
Single-gender worlds: utopias and dystopias
Single-gender worlds or single-sex societies have long been one of the primary ways to explore implications of gender and gender differences. In speculative fiction, female-only worlds have been imagined to come about by the action of disease that wipes out men, along with the development of technological or mystical methods that allow female parthenogenic reproduction. The resulting society is often shown to be utopian by feminist writers. Many influential feminist utopias of this sort were written in the 1970s; the most often studied examples include Joanna Russ's The Female Man, Suzy McKee CharnasSuzy McKee Charnas
Suzy McKee Charnas is an American novelist and short story writer, writing primarily in the genres of science fiction and fantasy. She has won several awards for her fiction, including the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award and the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. A selection of her short fiction was collected...
's Walk to the End of the World and Motherlines, and Marge Piercy
Marge Piercy
Marge Piercy is an American poet, novelist, and social activist. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Gone to Soldiers, a sweeping historical novel set during World War II.-Biography:...
's Woman on the Edge of Time
Woman on the Edge of Time
Woman on the Edge of Time is a novel by Marge Piercy. It is considered a classic of utopian "speculative" science fiction as well as a feminist classic.-Plot summary:...
. Utopias imagined by male authors have generally included equality between sexes, rather than separation. Such worlds have been portrayed most often by lesbian or feminist authors; their use of female-only worlds allows the exploration of female independence and freedom from patriarchy
Patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...
The societies may not necessarily be lesbian, or sexual at all—a famous early sexless example being Herland
Herland (novel)
Herland is a utopian novel from 1915, written by feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The book describes an isolated society composed entirely of women who reproduce via parthenogenesis . The result is an ideal social order, free of war, conflict and domination...
(1915) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a prominent American sociologist, novelist, writer of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction, and a lecturer for social reform...
. Men-only societies are much less common: Joanna Russ suggests this is because men do not feel oppressed, and therefore imagining a world free of women does not imply an increase in freedom and is not as attractive.
Utopias have been used to explore the ramification of gender being either a societal construct, or a hard-wired imperative. In Mary Gentle
Mary Gentle
-Literary career:Mary Gentle's first published novel was Hawk in Silver , a young-adult fantasy. She came to prominence with the Orthe duology, which consists of Golden Witchbreed and Ancient Light ....
's Golden Witchbreed, gender is not chosen until maturity, and gender has no bearing on social roles. In contrast, Doris Lessing
Doris Lessing
Doris May Lessing CH is a British writer. Her novels include The Grass is Singing, The Golden Notebook, and five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argos....
's The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five
The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five
The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five is a 1980 science fiction novel by Nobel Prize in Literature-winner Doris Lessing. It is the second book in her five-book Canopus in Argos series....
(1980) suggests that men's and women's values are inherent to the sexes and cannot be changed, making a compromise between them essential. In My Own Utopia (1961) by Elizabeth Mann-Borgese, gender exists but is dependent upon age rather than sex—genderless children mature into women, some of whom eventually become men. Charlene Ball writes in Women's studies encyclopedia that use of speculative fiction to explore gender roles in future societies has been more common in the United States compared to Europe and elsewhere.
Robots and cyborgs
Gynoid is a term used to describe a robotRobot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
designed to look like a human female, as compared to an android modeled after a male (or genderless) human. Gynoids are "irresistibly linked" to men's lust, and are mainly designed as sex-objects, having no use beyond "pleasing men's violent sexual desires". A long tradition exists in fiction of men attempting to create the stereotypical "perfect woman". Examples include the Greek myth of Pygmalion
Pygmalion (mythology)
Pygmalion is a legendary figure of Cyprus. Though Pygmalion is the Greek version of the Phoenician royal name Pumayyaton, he is most familiar from Ovid's Metamorphoses, X, in which Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved.-In Ovid:In Ovid's narrative, Pygmalion was a...
, and the female robot Maria in Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang
Friedrich Christian Anton "Fritz" Lang was an Austrian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and occasional film producer and actor. One of the best known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute...
's Metropolis
Metropolis (film)
Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist film in the science-fiction genre directed by Fritz Lang. Produced in Germany during a stable period of the Weimar Republic, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and makes use of this context to explore the social crisis between workers and...
. Female cyborgs have been similarly used in fiction, in which natural bodies are modified to become objects of fantasy. Fiction about gynoids or female cyborgs reinforce "essentialist ideas of feminity".
Literature
Eric Leif Davin, for instance, documented almost 1,000 stories published in science fiction magazines by over 200 female-identified authors between 1926 and 1960.Proto SF
In the early twentieth century, some women writers rebelled against the novels in which valiant men rescued weak women or fought against humourless, authoritarian female regimes. Charlotte Perkins GilmanCharlotte Perkins Gilman
Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a prominent American sociologist, novelist, writer of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction, and a lecturer for social reform...
wrote Herland
Herland (novel)
Herland is a utopian novel from 1915, written by feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The book describes an isolated society composed entirely of women who reproduce via parthenogenesis . The result is an ideal social order, free of war, conflict and domination...
, an important early feminist utopia, and Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
wrote Orlando. Both Perkins and Woolf identified strongly with the first wave feminism of the period,and its call for equal rights and suffrage for women.
The Pulp Era and the Golden Age (1920–1950s)
SF portrayals of future societies remained broadly patriarchal, and female characters continued to be gender stereotyped and relegated to standardised roles that supported the male protagonists. Early feminist SF visions of all-women utopias were inverted to cautionary tales about the "sex war", in which brave men had to rescue society from joyless and dictatorial women, usually to the satisfaction of both sexes.In the 1940s, post-WWII, female writers like Judith Merril and Leigh Brackett emerged, reclaiming female characters and carving out respect in their own right. C. L. Moore
C. L. Moore
Catherine Lucille Moore was an American science fiction and fantasy writer, as C. L. Moore. She was one of the first women to write in the genre, and paved the way for many other female writers in speculative fiction....
is an example of a woman successfully writing pulp speculative fiction tales under a genderless pen-name. Her story "No Woman Born" (1944), in which a female character's mind is transferred into a powerful robot body with feminine attributes is an early example of a work that challenged gender stereotypes of its day by combining femininity with power. Brian Atterbery suggest that if the robot had appeared male, the gender would have been unremarkable or even invisible to readers, as masculine figures could be expected to be powerful.
During the pulp era, matriarchal dystopia
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
s were common, in which female-only or female-controlled societies were shown unfavorably. In John Wyndham
John Wyndham
John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris was an English science fiction writer who usually used the pen name John Wyndham, although he also used other combinations of his names, such as John Beynon and Lucas Parkes...
's Consider Her Ways
Consider Her Ways
Consider Her Ways is a 1956 science fiction novella by John Wyndham. It was published as part of a 1961 collection with some short stories called Consider Her Ways and Others .-Plot:...
(1956), male rule is shown as being repressive of women, but freedom of patriarchy is only possible in a fascist female-only society modelled on ants
The 1930s saw the beginnings of fantasy as a distinct publishing genre. Reacting against the hard, scientific, dehumanizing trends of contemporary science fiction, this new branch of SF drew on mythological and historical traditions and Romantic literature, including Greek
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
and Roman
Roman mythology
Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...
mythologies, Norse sagas, the Arabian Nights and Adventure stories such as Alexandre Dumas’ Three Musketeers. The conventions brought with them a tendency toward patriarchy and cast women in restrictive roles defined as early as in the plays of Euripides. These roles included that of the "helper-maiden" or of "reproductive demon".
The 1950s saw the advent of the sword and sorcery
Sword and sorcery
Sword and sorcery is a sub-genre of fantasy and historical fantasy, generally characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent conflicts. An element of romance is often present, as is an element of magic and the supernatural...
sub-genre of pulp tales, which brought overt sexualisation to the representation of women in fantasy. Although physically more capable, female characters continued to act as helpers to the male leads, but now were extremely attractive and wore very little.
New Wave (1960-1970s)
Whereas the 1940s and 50s have been called the Golden Age of science fiction in general, the 1960s and 1970s are regarded as the most important and influential periods in the study of gender in speculative fiction.This creative period saw the appearance of many influential novels by female authors, including Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness
The Left Hand of Darkness
The Left Hand of Darkness is a 1969 science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. It is part of the Hainish Cycle, a series of books by Le Guin all set in the fictional Hainish universe....
(1969), described as the book with which SF "lost its innocence on matters of sex and gender", and The Dispossessed
The Dispossessed
The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia is a 1974 utopian science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, set in the same fictional universe as that of The Left Hand of Darkness . The book won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1974, both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1975, and received a nomination for...
(1974); Joanna Russ
Joanna Russ
Joanna Russ was an American writer, academic and feminist. She is the author of a number of works of science fiction, fantasy and feminist literary criticism such as How to Suppress Women's Writing, as well as a contemporary novel, On Strike Against God, and one children's book, Kittatinny...
's most important works, particularly The Female Man
The Female Man
The Female Man is a feminist science fiction novel written by Joanna Russ. It was originally written in 1970 and first published in 1975. Russ was an avid feminist and challenged sexist views during the 1970s with her novels, short stories, and nonfiction works...
(1975), regarded by many as the central work of women's SF; and The Two of Them
The Two of Them
The Two of Them is a feminist science fiction novel by Joanna Russ. It was first published in 1978 in the United States by Berkley Books and in Great Britain by The Women's Press in 1986...
(1978); Anne McCaffrey's prescient cyborg novel, The Ship Who Sang (1969); Vonda McIntyre's two most influential novels, The Exile Waiting (1975) and Dreamsnake (1978); Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time (1976), the most important contribution to feminist sf by an author known mainly for realistic work; and several novels by Octavia Butler, especially Kindred (1979) and Wild Seed (1980), which have been described as groundbreaking, and established an African-American female voice in SF.
Important short stories included many by James Tiptree Jr. (a male pseudonym used by Alice Sheldon), for instance "The Women Men Don’t See" (1973), "The Girl Who Was Plugged In" (1973), and "The Screwfly Solution" (1977).
These works coincided with the beginnings of application of feminist theory to SF,. creating a self-consciously feminist science fiction
Feminist science fiction
Feminist science fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction which tends to deal with women's roles in society. Feminist science fiction poses questions about social issues such as how society constructs gender roles, the role reproduction plays in defining gender and the unequal political and...
. Feminist SF has been distinguished from earlier feminist utopian fiction by its greater attention to characterisation and inclusion of gender equality.
Male writers also began to approach depiction of gender in new ways, with Samuel R. Delany
Samuel R. Delany
Samuel Ray Delany, Jr., also known as "Chip" is an American author, professor and literary critic. His work includes a number of novels, many in the science fiction genre, as well as memoir, criticism, and essays on sexuality and society.His science fiction novels include Babel-17, The Einstein...
establishing himself as the most radical voice among male SF figures for representations of alternative sexualities and gender-models in a series of major works, most importantly (with respect to gender), in Triton
Triton (novel)
Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia is a science fiction novel by Samuel R. Delany. It was nominated for the 1976 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and was shortlisted for a retrospective James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 1995...
(1976). Gary Westfahl points out that "Heinlein is a problematic case for feminists; on the one hand, his works often feature strong female characters and vigorous statements that women are equal to or even superior to men; but these characters and statements often reflect hopelessly stereotypical attitudes about typical female attributes. It is disconcerting, for example, that in Expanded Universe Heinlein calls for a society where all lawyers and politicians are women, essentially on the grounds that they possess a mysterious feminine practicality that men cannot duplicate."
Modern SF (1980–2000s)
By the 1980s the intersection of feminism and SF was already a major factor in the production of the literature itself.Authors such as Nicola Griffith
Nicola Griffith
Nicola Griffith is a British science fiction author, editor and essayist. Griffith is a 1988 alumnus of the Michigan State University Clarion science fiction writing workshop and has won a Nebula Award, the James Tiptree, Jr Award, the World Fantasy Award and six Lambda Literary Awards. She also...
and Sheri S. Tepper
Sheri S. Tepper
Sheri Stewart Tepper is an American author of science fiction, horror and mystery novels; she is particularly known as a feminist science fiction writer, often with an ecofeminist slant....
frequently write on gender-related themes. Tepper's work has been described as "the definition of feminist science fiction", and her treatment of gender has varied from early optimistic science fantasies, in which women were equally as capable as men, to more pessimistic works, including The Gate to Women's Country
The Gate to Women's Country
The Gate to Women's Country is a post-apocalyptic novel by Sheri S. Tepper written in 1988. It describes a world set three hundred years into the future after a catastrophic war which has fractured the United States into several nations. The setting of the story is Women's Country, apparently in...
, in which men are the cause of war and pollution and true equality can only be achieved by transcending humanity altogether.
Comics
There was a time when more girls read comics than boys, but these comics were general realist
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
, with a focus on romance and crime stories. However, for most of their existence, comic books audiences have been assumed to be mostly male. The female characters and superheroes were targeted towards this male demographic, rather than towards women readers. Although many female superheroes were created, very few starred in their own series or achieved stand-alone success. It has been debated whether the lack of female readership was due to male writers being uncomfortable with writing about or for women, or whether the comic book industry is male dominated due to the lack of intinsic interest of women in comics.
The first known female superhero is writer-artist Fletcher Hanks
Fletcher Hanks
Fletcher Hanks, Sr. was a cartoonist from the Golden Age of Comic Books, who wrote and drew stories detailing the adventures of all-powerful, supernatural heroes and their elaborate punishments of transgressors...
's minor character Fantomah
Fantomah
Fantomah is a fictional character, best remembered as the first comic book superheroine. Created by Fletcher Hanks, the character first appeared in Jungle Comics #2 , published by Fiction House.-Publication history:...
, an ageless, ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
ian woman in the modern day who could transform into a skull-faced creature with superpowers to fight evil; she debuted in 1940 in Fiction House
Fiction House
Fiction House is an American publisher of pulp magazines and comic books that existed from the 1920s to the 1950s. Its comics division was best known for its pinup-style good girl art, as epitomized by the company's most popular character, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.-History:-Jumbo and Jack...
s Jungle Comics.
In the early 1940s the DC line was dominated by superpowered male characters such as the Green Lantern
Green Lantern
The Green Lantern is the shared primary alias of several fictional characters, superheroes appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. The first Green Lantern was created by writer Bill Finger and artist Martin Nodell in All-American Comics #16 .Each Green Lantern possesses a power ring and...
, Batman
Batman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
, and its flagship character, Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
. The first widely recognizable female superhero is Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman is a DC Comics superheroine created by William Moulton Marston. She first appeared in All Star Comics #8 . The Wonder Woman title has been published by DC Comics almost continuously except for a brief hiatus in 1986....
, created by William Moulton Marston
William Moulton Marston
Dr. William Moulton Marston , also known by the pen name Charles Moulton, was an American psychologist, feminist theorist, inventor and comic book writer who created the character Wonder Woman...
for All-American Publications
All-American Publications
All-American Publications is one of three American comic book companies that combined to form the modern-day DC Comics, one of the world's two largest comics publishers...
, one of three companies that would merge to form DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
. Marston intended the character to be a strong female role-model for girls, with "all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman."
Film
Barbarella (film)
Barbarella is a 1968 Franco-Italian science fiction film based on Jean-Claude Forrest's French Barbarella comics. The film was directed by Roger Vadim and stars Jane Fonda, who was Vadim's wife at the time.-Plot:...
(1968) were often portrayed as simple sex kittens.
Professor Sherrie Inness has said that the portrayals of tough women in later science fiction embody women's fantasies of empowerment, such as the characters of Sharrow in the Iain M. Banks' novel Against a Dark Background
Against a Dark Background
Against a Dark Background is a science fiction novel by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks, first published in 1993.It was his first science fiction novel not to be based or set in the Culture.-Plot summary:...
(1993) or Alex in the film Nemesis 2, who both physically overpower male attackers.
Television
Early television depicted women primarily as idealized "perfect housewives" or (often black) domestic workers. By the mid-1960s and 1970s, cultural mores had relaxed, and sexual objectification of women became more commonplace. This period also saw diversification in women's roles, with blurring between the roles of middle-class housewife and working mother and the representations of women of different age, race, class, sexual orientation. The appearance of strong female characters, such as in Charlie's AngelsCharlie's Angels
Charlie's Angels is a television series about three women who work for a private investigation agency, and is one of the first shows to showcase women in roles traditionally reserved for men...
, remained limited by associations of power with male approval.
The 1960s and 70s also saw the beginnings of SF and fantasy elements being incorporated into television programming.
Popular early SF programming in the 1960s reconciled the use of SF tropes that empowered women with stereotypes of women's social domains and femininity. This was seen in popular series such as I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie
I Dream of Jeannie is a 1960s American sitcom with a fantasy premise. The show starred Barbara Eden as a 2,000-year-old genie, and Larry Hagman as an astronaut who becomes her master, with whom she falls in love and eventually marries...
and Bewitched
Bewitched
Bewitched is an American situation comedy originally broadcast for eight seasons on ABC from 1964 to 1972, starring Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York and Dick Sargent , Agnes Moorehead, and David White. The show is about a witch who marries a mortal and tries to lead the life of a typical suburban...
, both of which have female protagonists with magical abilities. Bewitcheds Samantha is a witch who chooses to use her abilities as a home-maker, and her husband prefers that she limits such displays of power as much as possible, particularly when they could challenge his ego. Most of her uses of magic were to save her husband appearing foolish in front of his peers or undoing interference from her more empowered and feminist mother, Endora. In contrast, the titular character of I Dream of Jeannie was inept in her house-wifely duties and was more likely to use her magic when she felt it appropriate. However, this was always in the service of her "Master", who demanded her nature as a genie
Genie
Jinn or genies are supernatural creatures in Arab folklore and Islamic teachings that occupy a parallel world to that of mankind. Together, jinn, humans and angels make up the three sentient creations of Allah. Religious sources say barely anything about them; however, the Qur'an mentions that...
be kept secret. Jeannie's subservience and skimpy clothing also identified her primarily as a sex object. Both programs showed women gaining more power and prominence through the metaphor of magic, but that this power was limited by women's willingness to obey male authority.
The 1960s also saw the first speculative presentations of women outside the realm of domestic life. Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
s Lieutenant Uhura is a famous early example of a woman space explorer, and her race made her a role-model for black women in particular. Her inclusion in the series is credited with bringing more women into science fiction fandom. The character was seen as a success of the feminist and civil rights movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
s of the era, representing the ideal of racial equality and women's ability to find meaningful employment outside of marriage and family. However, her role never rose beyond that of futuristic receptionist
Receptionist
A receptionist is an employee taking an office/administrative support position. The work is usually performed in a waiting area such as a lobby or front office desk of an organization or business...
, and her uniform and prominent but generally silent placement in the background of scenes made her the series primary eye candy.
SF series of the 1970s followed in a similar vein, with speculative elements used to physically empower women, while society required that they pretend to be typical and non-threatening. Examples include The Bionic Woman
The Bionic Woman
The Bionic Woman is an American television series starring Lindsay Wagner that aired for three seasons between 1976 and 1978 as a spin off from The Six Million Dollar Man. Wagner stars as tennis pro Jaime Sommers who is nearly killed in a skydiving accident. Sommers' life is saved by Oscar Goldman ...
and the television adaption of Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman (TV series)
Wonder Woman is an American television series based on the DC Comics comic book superhero of the same name. Starring Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman/Diana Prince and Lyle Waggoner as Steve Trevor, the show originally aired from 1975 to 1979....
.
See also
- Feminist science fictionFeminist science fictionFeminist science fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction which tends to deal with women's roles in society. Feminist science fiction poses questions about social issues such as how society constructs gender roles, the role reproduction plays in defining gender and the unequal political and...
- Sex and sexuality in speculative fiction
- Homosexuality in speculative fiction
- Pregnancy in speculative fiction
- James Tiptree, Jr. AwardJames Tiptree, Jr. AwardThe James Tiptree, Jr. Award is an annual literary prize for works of science fiction or fantasy that expand or explore one's understanding of gender. It was initiated in February of 1991 by science fiction authors Pat Murphy and Karen Joy Fowler, subsequent to a discussion at WisCon.- Background...
- Women in speculative fictionWomen in speculative fictionWomen have always been represented among science fiction writers and fans. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley has been called the first science fiction novel, although women wrote utopian novels even before that, with Margaret Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle, publishing the first, The Blazing World,...
- Single-gender worldsSingle-gender worldsA relatively common motif in speculative fiction is the existence of single gender worlds or single-sex societies. These fictional societies have long been one of the primary ways to explore implications of gender and gender-differences in science fiction and fantasy...