Feminist SF timeline

2006-11-02T04:00:18Z

141.155.129.130: /* The Golden Age of Feminist SF (1968-1979) */ fixed date

A Brief History of Feminist SF and Women in SF

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==BF (Before Frankenstein)==

SF per se did not exist, but many of the stories that were told, and eventually published, relied on fantastical premises of one sort or another, often including magical, religious, and mythical imagery, beings or events. The imagined civilization, whether it be utopian, the Kingdom of Heaven, or otherwise, cropped up here and there.

* [[1405]] [[Christine de Pizan]], [[The Book of the City of Ladies]]
* [[1666]] [[Margaret Cavendish]], [[The Blazing World]]
* [[1762]] [[Sarah Scott]], [[A Description of Millennium Hall]]
* [[1794]] [[Ann Radcliffe]], [[The Mysteries of Udolpho]] (quintessential gothic novel; supernatural events ultimately shown to be non-supernatural)
* [[1798]]; rev. [[1803]] [[Jane Austen]], [[Northanger Abbey]] (a satirical gothic novel)

==Nineteenth Century CE: After Frankenstein (1818-1919)==

The early 19th century formats were still shaping and being developed. [[Gothic]] novels remained popular, with supernatural or possibly supernatural elements. Mary Shelley's [[Frankenstein]] emerged in part from this tradition.

In the mid-later part of the 19th century, a wide variety of [[utopian]] stories emerged from social and utopian movements. A conscious feminism picked up on many of the themes of the suffragettes, and produced specifically gender-based attacks on the patriarchy, positing that a female society might be wiser, more peaceful, more humane.

The late-19th century fascination with the supernatural led to many supernatural and [[ghost stories]]; relatedly, the themes in [[gothic]] novels continued to often include supernatural aspects.

The late 19th and early 20th century saw a suffragette [[backlash]] in literature: novels in which [[humorless]] women take over the world, for good or for ill; valiant men with a sense of humor often took it right back to the satisfaction of both sexes.

* [[1818]] [[Mary Shelley]], [[Frankenstein]]
* [[1827]] [[Jane Webb Loudon]], [[The Mummy!: A Tale of the Twentieth Century]]

* [[1872]] [[J. Sheridan Le Fanu]], [["Carmilla"]] (an early, possibly the first, lesbian vampire story published)
* [[1880-81]] [[Mary E. Bradley]] publishes [[Mizora: A Prophecy]]
* [[1892]] [[Charlotte Perkins Gilman]] publishes "[[The Yellow Wallpaper]]" turning the ghost story on its head in an early feminist critique of what [[Betty Friedan]] later named "the feminine mystique".

* [[1915]] [[Charlotte Perkins Gilman]] publishes [[Herland]]
* [[1918]] [[Frances Stevens]] publishes [[Citadel of Fear]]
* [[1918]] [[Gertrude Franklin Atherton]] publishes [[The White Morning]]

==The 20th Century: After the Great War (1920-1945)==
The pulp era began, and brought with it women writers, often writing [[pseudonymously]] or under [[gender-ambiguous names]], such as [[C.L. Moore]].

Strong socialist and fascist currents in reaction to economic crises in Europe and North America generated a number of radical critiques of fascism and totalitarianism, including several important works from female writers.

* [[1926]] [[Thea von Harbou]] publishes [[Metropolis]]
* [[1926]] [[Sylvia Townsend Warner]] publishes [[Lolly Willowes]]
* [[1928]] [[Virginia Woolf]] publishes [[Orlando]]
* [[1935]] [[Katharine Burdekin]] publishes [[The End of This Day's Business]]
* [[1940]] [[Karin Boye]] publishes [[Kallocain]]
* [[1941]] First appearance of [[Wonder Woman]], one of the first female [[superheroes]]

==The 20th Century: After WW2 (1945-1967)==
SF popularity continues to grow, and male and female writers enter the field in increasing numbers. Women still frequently write with pseudonyms or gender-ambiguous names, or pseudonymously with male writers using a male pseudonym.

In US SF, anxieties over nuclear war, Communism, and the changing roles of women during and after WW2 sometimes played out in gender-related SF. A number of "[[war of the sexes]]" stories appeared, often depicting the society run by women as a hive-like metaphor for socialism. As in the suffragette backlash, the societies run by women were authoritarian, humorless, dull, and lacked creative fire and ingenuity, and they were often static or even dying societies.

Prominent new writers in the '40s include [[Judith Merril]], [[Leigh Brackett]] and [[Miriam Allen deFord]].

* 1948 [[Judith Merril]] publishes [["That Only a Mother"]]
* 1948 [[Shirley Jackson]] publishes [["The Lottery"]]
* 1948 [[Lisa Ben]] publishes [["New Year's Day"]], the first modern "gay identity" SF story
* 1948 [[Wilmar Shiras]] publishes [["In Hiding"]], which was later developed into a novel, ''[[Children of the Atom]]'' (1953)

Prominent new women writers in the '50s include [[Katharine MacLean]], [[Margaret St. Clair]], [[Zenna Henderson]], and [[Andre Norton]].

* 1950 [[Judith Merril]] publishes ''[[Shadow on the Hearth]]''
* 1952 [[Zenna Henderson]] begins publishing [[The People]] series
* 1953 [[Judith Merril]] published [[Daughters of Earth]]
* 1954 "[[Femizine]]" An "all female" SF fan zine created in England, later revealed to be a hoax.

Prominent new women writers in the '60s are almost too many to name here but a selection include: [[Marion Zimmer Bradley]], [[Rosel George Brown]], [[Sonya Dorman]], [[Carol Emshwiller]], [[Sylvia Louise Engdahl]], [[Phyllis Gotlieb]], [[Madeleine L'Engle]], [[Ursula K. Le Guin]], [[Anne McCaffrey]], [[Naomi Mitchison]], [[Joanna Russ]], [[James Tiptree, Jr.]], [[Kate Wilhelm]], and many others. Plus, [[Samuel R. Delany]].

* [[1960]] [[Theodore Sturgeon]] publishes ''[[Venus Plus X]]''
* [[1961]] [[Marion Zimmer Bradley]] publishes ''[[The Door Through Space]]''
* [[1962]] [[Naomi Mitchison]] publishes ''[[Memoirs of a Spacewoman]]''
* [[1962]] [[Madeleine L'Engle]] publishes ''[[A Wrinkle in Time]]''
* [[1962]] [[Marion Zimmer Bradley]] publishes ''[[Planet Savers]]'', first novel in the [[Darkover]] series
* [[1966]] [[Ursula K. Le Guin]] publishes her first two novels, ''[[Rocannon's World]]'' and ''[[Planet of Exile]]''
* [[1966]] [[Rosel George Brown]] publishes ''[[Sibyl Sue Blue]]''
* [[1967]] [[Pamela Zoline]]'s publishes her story [["The Heat Death of the Universe"]] in Michael Moorcock's ''New Worlds''
* [[1967]] [[Anna Kavan]] publishes ''[[Ice]]''
* [[1967]] Harlan Ellison's publishes ''[[Dangerous Visions]]'', a ground-breaking anthology including work by Delany, Emshwiller, and Sturgeon

==The Golden Age of Feminist SF (1968-1979) ==

[[Lesbian separatism]] and [[Gay Liberation]] made strong impacts on feminist SF, and the developing world of [[fanfic]]. Many more women entered the field. A feminist backlash became prominent, focusing less on hive-like socialist societies and more on lesbianism and male fears of sexual redundancy.

* [[1968]] [[Joanna Russ]] publishes [[Picnic on Paradise]]
* [[1968]] [[Uhura|Lt. Uhura]] and Captain Kirk debut the first interracial kiss on American TV in "Plato's Stepchildren", "[[Star Trek]]" Season 3
* [[1968]] [[Samuel R. Delany]] publishes [[Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand]], a major novel with a gay protagonist
* [[1968]] [[Anne McCaffrey]] becomes the first woman to win a [[Hugo Award]] for fiction, for the novella "[[Weyr Search]]", which was later incorporated into the novel ''[[Dragonflight]]''
* [[1969]] [[Ursula K. Le Guin]] publishes [[The Left Hand of Darkness]]
* [[1971]] [[Monique Wittig]] publishes [[Les Guérillères]]
* [[1971]] [[Dorothy Bryant]] publishes [[The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You]], which stylistically echoes late 19th century threads of metaphoric fiction and paves the way for [[New Age fiction]]
* [[1972]] [[Joanna Russ]] publishes "[[When It Changed]]"
* [[1973] [[James Tiptree, Jr.]] publishes "[[The Girl Who Was Plugged In]]"
* [[1974]] [[Suzy McKee Charnas]] publishes [[Walk to the End of the World]], first in the [[Holdfast Series]]
* [[1974]] [[Pamela Sargent]] publishes [[Women of Wonder: Science Fiction Stories by Women about Women]], the first anthology dedicated to women in SF
* [[1974]] [[Diane Marchant]] publishes the first known Star Trek slash, "A Fragment Out of Time," an oblique Kirk/Spock story
* [[1975]] [[Marion Zimmer Bradley]] publishes [[The Heritage of Hastur]]
* [[1975]] [[Tanith Lee]] publishes [[The Birthgrave]]
* [[1975]] [[Naomi Mitchison]] publishes [[Solution Three]]
* [[1975]] [[Joanna Russ]] publishes [[The Female Man]]
* [[1975]] The "[[Women in Science Fiction Symposium|Women in Science Fiction]]" symposium, edited by [[Jeffrey D. Smith]], is published in [[Khatru]] 3&4
* [[1975]] Robert Silverberg describes [[James Tiptree, Jr.]]'s writing as "ineluctibly masculine" in the introduction to [[Warm Worlds and Otherwise]], apparently attempting to dispel rumors that Tiptree is female
* [[1976]] [[Susan Wood]] sets up a feminist panel at [[MidAmericon]], apparently the first panel on "women and science fiction", which leads ultimately to the founding of [[A Women's Apa]].
* [[1976]] [[Samuel R. Delany]] publishes [[Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia]]
* [[1976]] [[Marge Piercy]] publishes [[Woman on the Edge of Time]]
* [[1976]] [[Carol Seajay]] begins [[Feminist Bookstore News]], a selection tool geared toward women's bookstores; an SF column begins -- ? when. [[Susanna Sturgis]] is the long-time SF columnist.
* [[1977]] The first [[WisCon]] is held in Madison, Wisconsin.
* [[1977]] an all-women's issue of [[Analog]] published
* [[1977]] A "room of our own" opened at Westercon in Vancouver by [[Susan Wood]], as a women's space (1977; not 1978?)
* [[1978]] E.M. Broner publishes [[A Weave of Women]]
* [[1978]] Vonda McIntyre publishes [[Dreamsnake]]
* [[1979]] The gay/lesbian (eventually glbt) bookstore "[[A Different Light]]" opens, naming itself after [[Elizabeth A. Lynn]]'s novel of the same name.
* [[1979]] Octavia Butler publishes [[Kindred]]
* [[1979]] Sally Miller Gearheart publishes [[The Wanderground]]
* [[1979]] [[Ridley Scott]]'s [[Alien]] features [[Ellen Ripley]], the first significant female action hero in a major American film series

==The Eighties: Cyberpunk & "Post-Feminism" (1980-1990)==

"I'll be a post-feminist in the post-patriarchy."

The [[feminist sex wars]] reach their peak in the 80s, not coincidentally at the same time that [[women's erotica]] is enjoying a boom. SF in general shows a much greater level of sexual explicitness, and [[fanfic]] gets naughty and needs a spanking.

[[Marion Zimmer Bradley]]'s [[The Mists of Avalon]] kicks off a new thread of novels portraying [[women's spirituality]] and goddess-based religions, ultimately feeding into the New Age fiction trend. [[The Mists of Avalon]] also initiated a popular trend of reenvisioning histories, myths, and iconic stories from feminist or subaltern perspectives.

Numerous women's presses and bookstores are founded in the 1970s with the collective energy of the feminist movement and lesbian separatists; lesbian & gay-themed lines, presses, and bookstores followed shortly thereafter.

The English-speaking world discovers magical realism, and numerous important new works are published or translated into English.

The bisexual, goth, androgynous, vampire thing picks up steam in the 80s.

* [[1980]] Octavia Butler publishes Wild Seed
* [[1980]] Elizabeth Lynn publishes Northern Girl
* 1980 Kate Wilhelm publishes Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang

* 1981 Julian May publishes The Many Colored Lands (first in Pleiocene Cycle)
* 1981 New Victoria publishes WomanSpace: Future and Fantasy, Stories and Art by Women
* 1981 Elisabeth Vonarburg publishes La Silence de la Cite; translated into English in 1988 as The Silent City

* 1982 Tanith Lee publishes The Silver Metal Lover
* 1982 Smith College hosted a 3-week symposium on feminist speculative fiction

* [[1983]] [[Marion Zimmer Bradley]] publishes [[The Mists of Avalon]]
* Mary Gentle publishes Witchbreed
* [[1983]] [[Joanna Russ]] publishes [[How to Supress Women's Writing]]

* [[1984]] Suzette Haden Elgin publishes [[Native Tongue]]
* [[1984]] Marion Zimmer Bradley publishes [[Sword and Sorceress]], the first in a series of Bradley-edited anthologies in which many new writers got started, and a consistent source for stories about women (specifically, swordswomen and sorceresses).
* 1984 [[Kindred Spirits: An Anthology of Gay and Lesbian Science Fiction Stories]] Jeffrey M. Elliot publishes, with [[Alyson Press]], the first explicitly gay-lesbian themed SF anthology, reprinting GL stories from previous publications.

* [[1985]] [[Margaret Atwood]] publishes [[The Handmaid's Tale]], later made into a film and an opera

* [[1986]] Sigourney Weaver kicks ass in [[Aliens]] (dir., [[James Cameron]])
* [[1986]] Joan Slonczewski publishes [[A Door Into Ocean]]
* [[1986]] [[Gaylaxian Science Fiction Society]] formed

* [[1987]] [[Toni Morrison]] publishes [[Beloved]]
* 1987 Pamela Sargent publishes The Shore of Women
* 1987 Gwyneth Jones publishes Divine Endurance
* Octavia Butler publishes Dawn, first book of the [[Xenogenesis]] trilogy
* [[James Tiptree, Jr.]] (Alice Sheldon) dies, 1915-1987

* 1988 Carol Emshwiller publishes Carmen Dog
* 1988 C.J. Cherryh publishes Cyteen
* 1988 Sheri Tepper publishes The Gate to Women's Country
* [[Gaylaxicon]], the first GLB SF convention
* [[Lambda Literary Awards]] inaugurated, with a joint category for "mystery/sf"; first award given to a mystery.

==The Gay Nineties: Queer Identity & Default Feminism (1991 onward)==

Explicitly feminist themes in SF continued to be explored in feministSF, but the true triumph of the [[Secret Feminist Cabal]] is the acceptance of the goals and analyses of feminism in much other literature. Strong women characters have become a norm for male and female writers alike. Kick-ass woman heroes made a major splash on TV and film.

In the post-[[Feminist Sex Wars]] years, lesbian, feminist, and woman-centered erotica boomed, spawning many anthologies on every conceivable subject. And feministSF moved online, in all its forms: [[fanfic]], geeky websites, mailing lists, and the like.

* 1989 [[Susanna Sturgis]] publishes [[Memories and Visions: Women's Fantasy and Science Fiction]] anthology
* 1990 [[Susanna Sturgis]] publishes [[The Women Who Walk Through Fire: Women's Fantasy and Science Fiction, Vol.2]] anthology
* [[1991]] The creation of the [[James Tiptree, Jr. Award]] for SF or fantasy that explores and expands gender roles; [[Pat Murphy]] announced the creation at [[WisCon]].
* 1991 Lambda Literary Awards now split the lesbian mystery/sf category, and created a category for "Lesbian Science Fiction/Fantasy"; first Lambda for a lesbian fantasy/SF book, [[Jessica Amanda Salmonson]]'s anthology of glb supernatural fiction, [[What Did Miss Darrington See?]])

* 1991 Jewelle Gomez publishes The Gilda Stories; Marge Piercy publishes He, She and It; Rebecca Ore publishes The Illegal Rebirth of Billy the Kid

* [[1992]] [[Angela Carter]] dies
* [[1992]] [[Nicola Griffith]] publishes [[Ammonite]]
* [[1992]] [[Sally Potter]] directs [[Orlando (film)|"Orlando"]]

* [[1993]] [[The X-Files]] reinvents the buddy film, debuting the skeptical scientific Scully playing straight man to Mulder's flirty believer; the two remain (mostly) platonic peers and equals for some half-dozen years into the series. The X-Files also accounts for a tremendous surge in FanFic which moved online in vast numbers.
* [[1993]] [[Pam Keesey]] publishes Daughters of Darkness: Lesbian Vampire Stories, one of the first explicitly lesbian anthologies of fantasy/horror, tapping into the lesbian vampire zeitgeist (they're lesbian! they're vampires!)

* [[1994]] First website on feminist SF (ultimately becoming http://feministSF.org ).
* 1994 Nancy Kress publishes Beggars in Spain; Kathleen Ann Goonan publishes Queen City Jazz; Maureen McHugh publishes Half the Day Is Night

* [[1995]] "[[Xena: Warrior Princess]]" series premiere airs in the US (1995 Sept. 9; UK airdate, 1996 Sept. 8)
* 1995 Nancy Springer publishes Larque on the Wing

* [[1996]] (??) [[Circlet Press]] first publication of erotic, feminist SF, a chapbook called [[Telepaths Don't Need Safewords]]

* [[1997]] [[Judith Merril]] dies
* [[1997]] [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]] series premiere in the US

* [[1998]] The [[Gaylactic Network]] establishes the [[Spectrum Awards]] "to honor works in science fiction, fantasy and horror which include positive explorations of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered characters, themes, or issues."
* [[1998]] - The [[Secret Feminist Cabal]] goes public by publishing the Tiptree Anthology, [[Flying Cups and Saucers]], illustrated by [[Freddie Baer]]
* [[1998]] [[Nalo Hopkinson]] publishes Brown Girl in the Ring

* [[1999]] [[FemSpec]] founded
* [[1999]] [[Marion Zimmer Bradley]] dies
* [[1999]] [[Naomi Mitchison]] dies

* [[2000]] [[Broad Universe]] founded to promote women writers of SF/F/H
* [[2000]] [[Feminist Bookstore News]] shuts down after a 25-year run, during which it saw the peak and then eventual demise of many feminist presses and bookstores.

* [[2002]] [[Whileaway LiveJournal community]] began, 2002 June 26

* [[2003]] [[Monique Wittig]] died

* [[2006]] [[Octavia Butler]] died
* [[2006]] feministSF wiki began
* [[2006]] [[WisCon]] 30 year anniversary!

* [[2006]] [[Breastfeeding on LiveJournal|LiveJournal BreastFeeding Icon Controversy]]
* [[2006]] [[Harlan Ellison Breast Grab Incident|"BoobGate"]]: [[Harlan Ellison]] made a boob of himself by acting like a baby on stage, making a grab at [[Connie Willis]]' tit.

== Sources & External Links ==

* [[User:Lquilter|Laura Quilter]], 2001-2006, A Brief History of Feminist SF/F and Women in SF/F, available at http://feministsf.org/community/history.html

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[[Category:FeministSF History]]
[[Category:History of Feminist SF]]

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Feminist SF timeline