Canons

This idea of a feminist SF canon would be to take a subset of the most outstanding and representative works to suggest to those unfamiliar with it. The Tiptree Awards give a top choice and a short list for each year. However, a canon for reading in general would include works from before the award began. It might also make different choices to be more representative. By agreeing on a central set of works to suggest to those new to the category, then readers will eventually have a set of stories that they know in common which they can use as material for comparison and to discuss new works.

There are at least several ways to organize such as canon...

A Historical Canon

This was a list assembled by Liz Henry, which is organized chronologically by when the story was written. She notes that more young adult titles should perhaps be added to the list. (cf. "Possible canons")

• Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
• The Mystery of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe
• (Perhaps some gothic short stories by Elizabeth Gaskell or Louisa May Alcott)
• The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• The Country of the Pointed Firs, by Sarah Orne Jewett
• The Feather Pillow, Horacio Quiroga
• (perhaps something by Juana Gorriti instead of the above)
• Orlando, by Virginia Woolf
• "The Monkey" or "The Roads Round Pisa", by Isak Dinesen
• Memoirs of a Spacewoman, by Naomi Mitchison
• Carmen Dog, by Carol Emshwiller
• The Wanderground, by Sally Gearhart
• The Gate to Women's Country, by Sherri Tepper
• Walk to the End of the World, by Suzy McKee Charnas
• The Female Man, by Joanna Russ
• "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" by James Tiptree Jr
• The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
• Women of Wonder, edited by Pamela Sargent
• Xenogenesis, by Octavia Butler
• White Queen, Gwyneth Jones
• Cetaganda, by Lois McMaster Bujold
• Troll, by Johanna Sinisalo

A Canon By Format and Title

This was a list assembled by Cynthia Ward for The Internet Review of Science Fiction. (cf. "Feminist SF: Futures for Humankind"). It is organized by format (novel, short form, anthology) and title. Authors marked with an asterick are essential feminist SF authors, and most or all their SF is relevant.

Essential Novels

• Ammonite by Nicola Griffith*

An offworld anthropologist must discover how the women of planet GP continue to reproduce after a virus kills all the men.

• Benefits by Zoe Fairbairns

Men use near-future reproductive technology to control women.

• Black Wine by Candas Jane Dorsey

A challenging saga of mothers and daughters.

• The Book of Ash by Mary Gentle*

The complex story of an alternate-history Joan of Arc. Published in the U.S. as four books, A Secret History et seq.

• The Disappearance by Philip Wylie

The opposite sex vanishes.

• Divine Endurance by Gwyneth Jones*

A female android wanders a matriarchal post-apocalyptic land.

• Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre*

Nuclear holocaust alters male-female relations.

• Egalia's Daughters: A Satire of the Sexes by Gerd Brantenberg

(a.k.a. Daughters of Egalia) Biological differences between men and women prove female superiority.

• The Female Man by Joanna Russ*

The battle of the sexes becomes literal war.

• The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper

Men and women must live apart to ensure human survival.

• The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

A near-future theocracy systematically dehumanizes women.

• Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Three male explorers discover an isolated all-female society.

• The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin*

On the planet Gethen, gender does not exist...most of the time.

• Mizora by Mary E. Bradley Lane

A race of technologically advanced superwomen inhabits the hollow Earth.

• Native Tongue et seq. by Suzette Haden Elgin*

Oppressed women invent their own language.

• Parable of the Sower et seq. by Octavia E. Butler*

As America descends into barbarism, a woman founds a new religion.

• Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler

A mysterious woman polarizes reactions in nineteenth-century America.

• The Shattered Chain et seq. by Marion Zimmer Bradley

The first novel focusing on the Renunciates, or Free Amazons of Darkover (collected with its sequels in The Saga of the Renunciates).

• Triton by Samuel R. Delany

(a.k.a Trouble on Triton) In a future of dazzling diversity, one man becomes a woman.

• Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon

The only way to end the war between the sexes is to replace both men and women with a new sex.

• Walk to the End of the World et seq. by Suzy McKee Charnas*

Enslavement of women leads to war—and more shocking acts.

• A Woman of the Iron People by Eleanor Arnason*

Humans encounter an alien race trapped by its own sexuality.

• Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy

A contemporary woman visits a future of true sexual equality.

Essential Short Fiction

• "All My Darling Daughters" by Connie Willis

New reproductive imperatives engender profound sexual alienation.

• "Baby You Were Great" by Kate Wilhelm

In this proto-cyberpunk classic, a woman is used and abused to broadcast emotion to the masses [available online].

• "A Birthday" by Esther M. Friesner

Scary dystopia extracts a grim price for abortion.

• "Consider Her Ways" by John Wyndham

Men are extinct and society is perfect.

• "Even the Queen...." by Connie Willis

When menstruation is eliminated, women take over the world.

• "The Forbidden Words of Margaret A." by L. Timmel Duchamp*

One woman's words are so powerful, a Constitutional Amendment is passed to silence her.

• "The Heat Death of the Universe" by Pamela Zoline

A housewife experiences entropy.

• "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" by James Tiptree, Jr.*

Timewarped astronauts find themselves in a future in which they, being men, are obsolete.

• "My Lady Tongue" by Lucy Sussex

A near-future women-only community engenders prejudices of its own.

• "The Logistics of Carthage" by Mary Gentle

Those who write history stunt identity. Set in the world of The Book of Ash.

• "Motherhood, Etc." by L. Timmel Duchamp

Men respond to a woman with a crucial difference.

• "The Screwfly Solution" by James Tiptree, Jr.

Aliens interfere with the human reproductive drive, to deadly effect for both sexes. (First published under the byline Raccoona Sheldon.)

• "The View from Venus" by Karen Joy Fowler

Aliens observe male-female mating rituals.

• "When It Changed" by Joanna Russ

A lost extrasolar colony is rediscovered by Earthmen centuries after plague killed all the male colonists.

• "The Women Men Don't See" by James Tiptree, Jr.

Life with unknown aliens is better than life with men.

Essential Anthologies and Collections

• Flying Cups and Saucers: Gender Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy edited by Debbie Notkin

Reprints many Tiptree Award winners and finalists.

• Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree, Jr.

This indispensable collection contains several classic feminist-SF stories.

• Love's Body, Dancing in Time by L. Timmel Duchamp

Women find within themselves the freedom and power denied by society.

• The Start of the End of It All by Carol Emshwiller*

Eighteen incisive stories about women, men, animals, and aliens.

• The Wanderground: Stories of the Hill Women by Sally Miller Gearhart

In an estranged future, men and women live apart.

• Weird Women, Wired Women by Kit Reed*

Collects twenty stories from thirty years of insightful science-fictional examination of women's roles and issues.

• Women of Wonder: The Classic Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1940s to the 1970s and Women of Wonder: The Contemporary Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1970s to the 1990s edited by Pamela Sargent

This definitive two-volume historical overview collects short SF written by women.