Feminist SF timeline
A Brief History of Feminist SF and Women in SF
BF (Before Frankenstein)
Nineteenth Century CE: After Frankenstein (1818-1919)
The early 19th century formats were still shaping and being developed. Gothic novels were common, with supernatural or possibly supernatural elements.
In the mid-later part of the 19th century, a wide variety of utopian stories coming out of social and utopian movements; also many supernatural and ghost stories.
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
- 1915 Charlotte Perkins Gilman publishes Herland
- 1918 Frances Stevens publishes Citadel of Fear
- 1918 Gertrude Franklin Atherton publishes The White Morning
The 20th Century AF: After the Great War (1920-1945)
The pulp era begins, and brings with it women writers, often writing pseudonymously or under gender-ambiguous names, such as C.L. Moore.
- 1926 Thea von Harbou publishes Metropolis
- 1928 Virginia Woolf publishes Orlando
- 1935 Katharine Burdekin publishes The End of This Day's Business
The 20th Century AF: 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 "sex war" stories appeared, often depicting a socialist, hive-like societies run by women; as in the suffragette backlash, the societies run by women were authoritarian, humorless, dull, and lack 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.
- 1954 "Femizine" An "all female" SF fan zine created in England, later revealed to be a hoax.
- 1960 Theodore Sturgeon publishes Venus Plus X
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, Sylvia Louise Engdahl, Phyllis Gotlieb, [Madeleine L'Engle]], Ursula K. Le Guin, Naomi Mitchison, James Tiptree, Jr., Kate Wilhelm, and many others.
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.
- 1976 Susan Wood set up a feminist panel at MidAmericon; this was apparently the first panel on "women and science fiction", and led ultimately to the founding of A Woman's Apa.
- 1976 Marge Piercy published Woman on the Edge of Time
- 1979 The gay/lesbian (eventually glbt) bookstore "A Different Light" opened, naming itself after Elizabeth Lynn's novel of the same name.
Cyberpunk, "Post-Feminism", Queer Identity, and the beginning of an end to Anglo SF self-absorption (1980-present)
The feminist sex wars are reaching their peak, 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, and also a new 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 bisexual, goth, androgynous, vampire thing picks up steam.
Numerous important Latina writers are translated into English
Sources & External Links
- Laura Quilter, 2001-2006, A Brief History of Feminist SF/F and Women in SF/F, available at http://feministsf.org/community/history.html