Women and war in SF

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Women and war can encompass a number of themes relating to gendered aspects of war:

War male; Peace female

Many works have riffed on the notion of war as masculine, macho, patriarchal activity; contra, women as peacemakers, pacifists, environmentalists, matriarchal. See, e.g., The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk; Sally Miller Gearhart, The Wanderground; Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy. In these stories, pacifism might be "the way" (The Fifth Sacred Thing), or a more peaceful society might need to take up arms to resist violent incursions by a patriarchal society (Woman on the Edge of Time).

This fiction may be particularly influenced by the general peace movement, which has frequently been associated with and strongly influenced by women pacifists. In particular, the women's peace and anti-nuclear movement of the 1970s and 80s seems to have influenced a significant thread of feminist works: post-apocalyptic works, such as Cry Wolf by Aileen La Tourette.

The arrival of patriarchy -- the overrun of a more peaceful society by a more violent one -- is a related theme. See Marie Jakober's Even the Stones and The Black Chalice.

These stories may have an essentialist vision -- testosterone poisoning, as it is sometimes lightly referred to, is responsible for violence and aggression. Sheri S. Tepper explored these notions at length in The Gate to Women's Country.

Other writers clearly present contrasting societies in which men and women both live peacefully (or at least with reasonable conflict resolution skills), as opposed to societies in which aggression, conflict, and so on are the norm. See Laurie Marks' Elemental Logic series for an example of a series in which the clash of two different cultural styles around conflict is examined. Woman on the Edge of Time, The Fifth Sacred Thing, Wanderground, Even the Stones show such contrasting societies and explore whether peaceful societies are inevitably overrun by more violent societies, or how to peaceful societies can successfully resist violence. These latter stories can shade into sex war stories in which the genders are literally at war with one another, as in The Female Man by Joanna Russ and Les Guérillères by Monique Wittig.

Women's experience of war

Many works have examined women's experience of war, whether as victim or disempowered member of society, or someone who rises to the top, or member of the military, etc. These stories may focus on "war" and its experience by the subaltern, generally -- minority populations, peasants, women, children, slaves, etc. Alternatively, some such stories might focus particularly on experiences more common to women, such as rape.

These stories tend to reflect women's experiences of war as they have been through many of societies on Earth. The driving ideas of gender are not necessarily that men are innately violent and women are innately pacifist, but that men disproportionately have the power; there may be essentialist ideas at work, but they are not essential.

See, e.g., A Heroine of the World by Tanith Lee; Mission Child by Maureen McHugh for examples of female characters whose lives are tossed about by war.

See Mary Gentle's ASH for an example of a female character, tossed about by war, who nonetheless rises to the top of a gendered hierarchy.

See Joan of Arc, Boadicea, Hua Mulan, and List of historical female warriors; see The Encyclopedia of Amazons (ed. Salmonson) for a reference.

Military/Warrior Women

Women warriors - Fantastic women warriors may show up in frequently in amazon SF, either as bands of women (allusions to or depictions of the historical/mythical amazons) or as the singular "woman warrior" who is exceptional, e.g., Jirel of Joiry (C. L. Moore), Xena, Warrior Princess.

Women warriors may face some or all of the situations of women in the military below.

Women in the military - Women warriors as military leaders or soldiers show up frequently in military SF. Today's typical gender divisions and sexism may be addressed in a variety of ways.

  • Separate but equal. Separate divisions for men and women, or the sexes used for different kinds of activities. In particular, women may frequently appear as spies.
  • Open but women are uncommon or less common than men. See, e.g., the fantasy Paksenarrion series by Elizabeth Moon, focusing on a medieval-level infantry experience.
  • Open to women but considerable prejudice, sexism, hostility, and harassment, and perhaps some level of official discrimination; akin to the late 20th century US military experience. Aliens, the second Alien film, seemed to indicate a similar experience: Setting aside Ripley, the small company of marines appeared to be entirely male except for one woman, Vasquez; there was some verbal harassment but an apparent ability to work together as comrades-at-arms.
  • Significant prejudice against women but exceptional leaders can make it. ASH might be a good example here.

Women as warriors or amazons are significantly subject to "exoticization" and fetishization. See, e.g., black warrior woman stereotype; Asian dragon lady stereotype; masochistic amazon fantasy.

Anthologies include:

See also

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