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A Brief History of Feminist SF and Women in SF



Spoiler warning: This page and any other dealing with the content of works may have plot and/or ending details revealed.





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.

Nineteenth Century CE: Frankenstein and Beyond (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.

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.

The 20th Century: After World War II (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 WWII 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. Theodore Sturgeon, a male writer who wrote strong women characters, also began publishing in the '40s.

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

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., and many others. Samuel R. Delany, an out gay man who writes strong women characters, also begins publishing in the 1960s.

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.

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 burst of novels portraying women's spirituality and goddess-based religions, ultimately feeding into the New Age fiction trend. The Mists of Avalon also initiates a popular trend of re-envisioning 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.

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

Explicitly feminist themes in SF continued to be explored in feminist SF, 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.

Rockin' in the 21st

New ventures exploding, and for good reason.

Sources & External Links

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