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A brief herstory of feminism and speculative fiction

Written by Lucy Portsmouth
Tuesday, 20 January 2009 00:00

The common perception of the female role in speculative fiction - works in the science fiction and fantasy genres - has long been that of evil villainess or helpless victim, usually attractive, often scantily clad, in need of redemption and validation by a heroic man. How far is that perception correct, and how much has feminism had an impact on gender representation in genre fiction? In an environment where the feminist agenda is starting to resurface, redefined, is there still work to be done to improve gender representation in speculative fiction?

Speculative fiction is rooted in a rich cultural history of change, in both literary and sociological terms. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the imaginative possibilities inherent in the rapid advancement of the science of the Industrial Revolution combined with a new literary form - the Gothic novel - to deliver utopian or dystopian visions of the future. It seems natural, in retrospect, that such alternate visions provided a genre congenial to female writers, an opportunity to imagine and explore societies and cultures that they themselves would never experience. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, published in 1818, and Jane Webb Loudon’s The Mummy! (1827) were early progenitors of the genre as a whole. They gave rise to a steady progression of female writers over the course of the nineteenth century who both wholeheartedly embraced new political ideas arising from industrial and social changes to attack patriarchal societies and envision wiser and more peaceful matriarchal societies, and fascinated the popular imagination with gothic supernatural stories.

In the early twentieth century, writers like Charlotte Gilman Perkins and Virginia Woolf rebelled against the anti-suffragette tone of a trend towards novels in which valiant men rescued worlds dominated by humourless, authoritarian female regimes. They both identified strongly with the “first wave” feminism of the period, with its concentration on property rights, equal rights in marriage and calls for enfranchisement/suffrage for women. During the same period, new political movements and ideas such as communism, socialism, worker’s parties and fascism combined with rapid progress in terms of military and industrial production capacity and efficiency to spawn a number of new writers – H. G. Wells and George Orwell among them – who brought new and dark perspectives to the genre. These developments offered female writers the opportunity to critique the perceived atrocities of the existing male-dominated social and political systems of the day and simultaneously expressed the painful oppression of women within that structure by depicting exaggerated versions of society, alternatives to that society in parallel or different worlds, or by offering the commentary from the perspective of the monster, outsider or alien (as in Frankenstein). Gilman Perkins’ 1892 novel, The Yellow Wallpaper, turned a ghost story into a disturbing examination of the oppressed female psyche, and her later novel Herland (published in 1915) described a society composed entirely of women who reproduced by parthenogenesis and existed in a society free from war, conflict and domination. Virginia Woolf’s Orlando (1928), one of the earliest novels that explored issues of gender, also blended the conventions of speculative fiction with that of biography to create a novel that crosses a number of boundaries simultaneously. Both women can rightly be called pioneers in the genre and stand equally with the best of the male writers, then and subsequently.

The economic hardships of the 1930s and reactionary socialist and fascist trends across Europe and America, with their associated preoccupations with industrial efficiency, automation and a dehumanizing homogenization triggered what is called by some “the golden age” of speculative fiction, which now began to diverge into two main genre areas - science fiction and fantasy.

Science fiction, championed by outstanding writers such as Asimov, Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, emerged as a distinct form, characterized by a celebration of scientific achievement and progress and a focus on that science and its utilisation by individuals. The visions of future society were broadly patriarchal once again, characterized by the relegation of gender-stereotyped female characters to supporting, standardised roles. A backlash against early feminist speculative fiction saw a re-emergence of cautionary tales about the “sex war”, where courageous men were required to reclaim the world, rescuing society from the machinations of austere and dictatorial women and the hive-like socialist structures they have imposed - supposedly for everyone’s benefit but, in reality, for no one’s - usually to the satisfaction of both sexes. Not until the late 40s, in the post-WWII society, did female writers like Judith Merril and Leigh Brackett emerge to start countering this threat, reclaiming female characters and territory and carving out respect in their own right.

The publication of Tolkein’s The Hobbit in 1937 and C. S. Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet (1938) saw a reaction against the hard, scientific, dehumanizing trends of contemporary science fiction and the dawning of fantasy as a related genre. This new branch of speculative fiction drew unashamedly on the mythological traditions of patriarchal cultures: Greco-Roman mythologies, the stories of the Arabian Nights and Norse sagas, combined with the conventions of Romantic literature (as personified by Walter Scott) and the swashbuckling bravado of novels like Alexandre Dumas’ Three Musketeers. It cast women in restrictive roles defined as early as in the plays of Euripides and his contemporaries - that of the helper-maiden, in various guise, or of reproductive demon, an affront or corruption of every (male-generated) ideal of womanhood. This, by and large, did not change, and the 50s saw the advent of the “sword and sorcery” fantasy sub-genre and the sexualisation of women within fantasy novels. Still helper-maidens, now they carried swords or wands, fought as well as men, but wore extremely little and were almost without exception highly physically attractive.

Not until the 1960s did these gender stereotypes in fantasy and science fiction start to change, and then only under the pressure of massive social change and the dawning of the “second wave” of feminism. The Women’s Liberation Movement saw a refocus away from first-wave demands for equality in terms of purely political and statutory rights to address matters of equality and discrimination. Gender politics linked cultural and political inequalities and encouraged women to interpret all aspects of their lives as deeply political and reflective of the sexist power structures extant in the society of that time. Again, this was speculative fiction that, with its large readership and openness to the blurring and blending of genres, writing style, and high and low culture offered a convenient way to articulate feminist ideology. Writers could combine the radical sensationalism of new science with political or ideological critiques of society to disrupt and discredit traditional patriarchal models, symbols and myths, by displacing them into utopian/dystopian alternatives set in near, far future or alternative realities.

Arguably, Joanna Russ opened the door for other female writers. Her Alyx stories of the late 50s started to destroy the genre cliché by delivering a smart, tough thief and assassin for a protagonist: a sensual, intelligent, female, but not beautiful. A number of outstanding female writers soon followed: Marion Zimmer Bradley (The Door Through Space, 1961), Margaret St Clair (Sign of the Labrys, 1963), through to the emergence of Ursula Le Guin (Left Hand of Darkness, 1969) Anne McCaffrey (The Ship Who Sang, also 1969), Andre Norton, James Tiptree (Alice Sheldon), Tanith Lee, Octavia Butler, Anne Rice, Doris Lessing. And the list of highly respected female writers in the field as a whole, not just in the narrower confines of feminist science fiction, could continue. Joanna Russ’ seminal novel The Female Man (1975) represents a defining moment in feminist science fiction, a clear articulation of a sense that women could not obtain freedom in the current society unless they denied their femininity, that a state of war existed between the two sexes, and that only a radical and possibly violent social revolution could overthrow men’s dominance.

Although such themes were periodically explored after that novel and female writers continued to explore issues of gender and sexuality, a brief era of post-feminist complacency set in towards the end of the 70s, and the prevailing argument was that feminism had achieved everything that it needed to and that there was no further work for feminists to do - effectively, the war had been won. This perception became gradually eroded in a rising tide of social conservatism under the governments of Thatcher and Reagan. Again, feminist speculative fiction articulated concern about the erosion of the hard-won ground in Margaret Attwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), a powerful and disturbing vision of an oppressive, restrictive future society in which women were once again reduced to chattel status.

The publication of this novel coincided with the beginning of the third wave feminist movement, which emerged fully-fledged in the early 1990s as a reaction to the perceived failures of the second wave to address issues that continue to limit or oppress women, such as restrictive gender and sexuality expectations, sexual harassment, reproductive rights, equal opportunities for women in education and employment and a consideration of the link between race-related issues and gender equality. This third wave also addresses attention to the media’s unhealthy standards for women; for example, the glamorisation of eating disorders in the promotion of impossible and unhealthy body shapes, the portrayal of women as sexual objects wholly subservient to men’s desires in an increasing tide of “lad’s mags” and a wave of anti-intellectualism, as typified by a line in a recent Kaiser Chiefs’ song (Never Miss a Beat): “it’s cool to know nothing”, characterized by an explosion in the inane use of social media.

This third wave coincided with a shift away from “hard” science to more character and story-driven narratives in the science fiction genre (for example Iain M. Banks’ Culture series) and a growing interest in alternative realities and cultures - environmental concerns, biotechnology, nanotechnology, alien life, post-scarcity societies, AI and technological singularities. Gender has become of less concern, with male and female protagonists taking equal prominence on centre stage, and certainly an equality in terms of recognition and respect of female authors in the genre. In fantasy, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon (1983) offered a major reinterpretation of the genre by opening up women’s spirituality and goddess-based religions as an alterative source of myth and legend. This, in turn, initiated a trend to re-examine and re-tell histories, myths and legends from female perspectives.

To an extent, stereotyping still exists. It is rare that a reader will encounter an unattractive female protagonist. While there is an argument that this is reflective of an instinctive, evolution-driven common interest and therefore natural, normal and of no concern - “sex sells”, to quote the media and marketing maxim - third wave feminists would argue that it’s a perpetuation of the patriarchal model with women forced into a subservient role to the male. They would argue that these portrayals reinforce the idea that a woman cannot be complete without a man, and that the intervention and involvement of a man is necessary for a woman to realise her full potential. It is an interesting question: the comparative influences of nature and nurture on gender expectations, experience and outlook, and how far anyone (not just women) is capable of realising their potential without reference to gender, and one that perhaps could be explored more regularly in genre fiction. However, it is worth pointing out that the level of competition and talent in the writing marketplace means that there is consistent pressure on writers to deliver fully-rounded, credible characters rather than tick-box stereotypes.

Speculative fiction continues to offer good opportunities to women both as writers and as protagonists to explore the question “what if” with or without male involvement or dominance, and the emergence of GLBT themes in genre fiction goes alongside this questioning and re-evaluation of gender stereotypes. As always, nothing is off-limits, and although plotlines may remain largely the same in fantasy, a reader is as likely to find a woman as protagonist as a man these days, at almost every level in their respective societies. With nothing off-limits for these female characters, this level of gender equality indicates that feminism is a strong and healthy presence in speculative fiction. One wonders if mainstream literature and culture could learn a thing or two from it.