Feminism and science fiction

Description

This is a book about feminism and science fiction and the conjuncture of the two. I want to explore the question of whether science fiction, despite its preponderantly male bias, offers a freedom to women writers, in terms of style as well as content, that is not available in mainstream fiction . Further, does it offer a means of fusing political concerns with the playful creativity of the imagination? What I hope to show overall is that the plasticity of science fiction and its openness to other literary genres allow an apparent contradiction, but one that is potentially of enormous importance to contemporary women writers: it makes possible , and encourages (despite its colonization by male writers), the inscription of women as subjects free from the constraints of mundane fiction; and it also offers the possibility of interrogating that very inscription, questioning the basis of gendered subjectivity. I shall back up these ambitious claims for the potential of the genre by detailed reference to the writing of the many talented women who recognize and exploit its possibilities. Contents Introduction Representation and the Natural Woman I Science Fiction Narratives Travelling Heroinism Amazons: Feminist Heroines or Men in Disguise? When Women Write of Women's Rule The Dream of Elsewhere: Feminist Utopias The Reduction of Women: Dystopias The Vicissitudes of Love Authority and Sentiment: Is There a Women's Science Fiction? Feminism and Science Fiction Who is Tiptree, What is She?: James Tiptree Jr Inner Space and the Outer Lands: Ursula K. Le Guin The Absent Heroine: Suzy McKee Charnas The Reader as Subject: Joanna Russ Notes Bibliography Index