Feminist science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction focused on such feminist themes as: gender inequality, sexuality, race, economics, reproduction, and environment. Feminist SF is political because of its tendency to critique the dominant culture. Some of the most notable feminist science fiction works have illustrated these themes using utopias to explore a society in which gender differences or gender power imbalances do not exist, or dystopias to explore worlds in which gender inequalities are intensified, thus asserting a need for feminist work to continue.
Science fiction and fantasy serve as important vehicles for feminist thought, particularly as bridges between theory and practice. No other genres so actively invite representations of the ultimate goals of feminism: worlds free of sexism, worlds in which women's contributions are recognized and valued, worlds that explore the diversity of women's desire and sexuality, and worlds that move beyond gender.
Alice Bradley Sheldon was an American science fiction and fantasy author better known as James Tiptree Jr., a pen name she used from 1967 until her death. It was not publicly known until 1977 that James Tiptree Jr. was a woman. From 1974 to 1985 she also occasionally used the pen name Raccoona Sheldon. Tiptree was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2012.
The Otherwise Award, originally known as the James Tiptree Jr. Award, is an American annual literary prize for works of science fiction or fantasy that expand or explore one's understanding of gender. It was initiated in February 1991 by science fiction authors Pat Murphy and Karen Joy Fowler, subsequent to a discussion at WisCon.
Marion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley was an American author of fantasy, historical fantasy, science fiction, and science fantasy novels, and is best known for the Arthurian fiction novel The Mists of Avalon and the Darkover series. Noted for the feminist perspective in her writing, her reputation has been posthumously marred by her daughter Moira Greyland's accusations of child sexual abuse, and for allegedly assisting her second husband, convicted child abuser Walter Breen, in sexually abusing multiple unrelated children.
George Zebrowski is an American science fiction writer and editor who has written and edited a number of books, and is a former editor of The Bulletin of the Science Fiction Writers of America. He lives with author Pamela Sargent, with whom he has co-written a number of novels, including Star Trek novels.
Zenna Chlarson Henderson was an American elementary school teacher and science fiction and fantasy author. Her first story was published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1951. Her work is cited as pre-feminist, often featuring middle-aged women, children, and their relationships, but with stereotyped gender roles. Many of her stories center around humanoid aliens called "The People", who have special powers. Henderson was nominated for a Hugo Award in 1959 for her novelette Captivity. Science fiction authors Lois McMaster Bujold, Orson Scott Card, Connie Willis, Dale Bailey, and Kathy Tyers have cited her as an influence on their work.
Sonya Dorman, born Sonya Gloria Hess, was the working name of Sonya Dorman Hess. She was born in New York City in 1924 and died in Taos, New Mexico on February 14, 2005, at the age of 80.
Pamela Sargent is an American feminist, science fiction author, and editor. She has an MA in classical philosophy and has won a Nebula Award.
"Sex and/or Mr. Morrison" is a short story by Carol Emshwiller from Harlan Ellison's science fiction anthology Dangerous Visions. It has been republished in Emshwiller's 1974 collection Joy In Our Cause, in Pamela Sargent's 1975 anthology Women of Wonder, in Emshwiller's 1990 collection The Start of the End of It All, in Lisa Tuttle's 1998 anthology Crossing the Border, in Michael Bishop's 2009 anthology Passing for Human, and in the 2011 Collected Stories of Carol Emshwiller, Vol. 1; it has also been translated into French and Dutch.
The role of women in speculative fiction has changed a great deal since the early to mid-20th century. There are several aspects to women's roles, including their participation as authors of speculative fiction and their role in science fiction fandom. Regarding authorship, in 1948, 10–15% of science fiction writers were female. Women's role in speculative fiction has grown since then, and in 1999, women comprised 36% of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's professional members. Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley has been called the first science fiction novel, although women wrote utopian novels even before that, with Margaret Cavendish publishing the first in the seventeenth century. Early published fantasy was written by and for any gender. However, speculative fiction, with science fiction in particular, has traditionally been viewed as a male-oriented genre.
The 1973 Annual World's Best SF is an anthology of science fiction short stories edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Arthur W. Saha, the second volume in a series of nineteen. It was first published in paperback by DAW Books in May 1973, followed by a hardcover edition issued in August of the same year by the same publisher as a selection of the Science Fiction Book Club. For the hardcover edition the original cover art of Jack Gaughan was replaced by a new cover painting by William S. Shields. The paperback edition was reissued by DAW in December 1978 under the variant title Wollheim's World's Best SF: Series Two, this time with cover art by Larry Oritz.
Jeanne Gomoll is an American artist, writer, editor, and science fiction fan, who was recognized as one of the guests of honor at the 72nd World Science Fiction Convention, having been a guest of honor at numerous previous science fiction conventions. She has been nominated multiple times for awards in artist and fanzine categories, and for service to the genre of science fiction, particularly feminist science fiction.
The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women is a reprint anthology of stories edited by A. Susan Williams and Richard Glyn Jones. It was published by Viking Press in May 1995. The anthology contains a wide number of stories by female authors throughout the 20th century, beginning with "The Demon Lover" (1941), and the stories are arranged chronologically. The anthology itself won the 1996 World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology.
Women of Wonder: Science-fiction Stories by Women about Women is an anthology of twelve short stories and a poem edited by Pamela Sargent, published in 1975. The collection reprints work by female science fiction authors originally published from 1948 to 1973, arranged in chronological order.
Ingathering: The Complete People Stories, also known as Ingathering: The Complete People Stories of Zenna Henderson, is a 1995 collection of science fiction stories by American science fiction and fantasy author Zenna Henderson. It was edited by Mark L. Olson and Priscilla Olson and published in Massachusetts by the New England Science Fiction Association's NESFA Press as part of their "Choice series". The book contains all seventeen stories Henderson wrote about the People, a group of benevolent humanoid aliens stranded on Earth and struggling to fit in.
Aurora: Beyond Equality is an anthology of feminist science fiction edited by Vonda N. McIntyre and Susan Janice Anderson and published in 1976.
More Women of Wonder: Science Fiction Novelettes by Women About Women is an anthology of five novelettes and two short stories edited by Pamela Sargent. It was published in 1976. The collection reprints work by female science fiction authors originally published from 1935 to 1974, arranged in chronological order.
The New Women of Wonder: Recent Science Fiction Stories by Women About Women is an anthology of short stories, novelettes, novellas, and a poem edited by Pamela Sargent. The collection reprinted work by contemporary female science fiction authors, originally published from 1967 to 1977. It was published in 1978.
Women of Wonder, the Contemporary Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1970s to the 1990s is an anthology of short stories, novelettes, and novellas edited by Pamela Sargent. It was published in 1995, along a companion volume, Women of Wonder,The Classic Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1940s to the 1970s.
