by Vida J. Maralani

This book is written in blood.
Is it written entirely in blood?
No, some of it is written in tears.
Are the blood and tears all mine?
Yes, they have been in the past.
But the future is a different matter.

Joanna Russ, The Female Man

Men succeed. Women get married.
Men fail. Women get married.
Men enter monasteries. Women get married.
Men start wars. Women get married.
Men stop them. Women get married.
Dull, dull.

Joanna Russ, The Female Man

What women do is survive.
We live by ones and twos in the chinks
of your world-machine.

James Tiptree Jr., "The Women Men Don't See"

Science fiction, as a literary genre, is commonly accepted as a male realm. Oftentimes, the authors are men; the heroes are men; and women, when they appear, are sexual and/or decorative creatures that further glorify men. However, in the late sixties and early seventies a generation of women writers entered the genre and changed the essence of what "science fiction" represented. Their voices infused science fiction with feminist ideas, theories and critical social commentaries about issues of gender, race, class, and the survival of our species. Despite its preponderantly male bias, science fiction offered women a freedom in areas of style and content that was not available in other types of fiction. Further, it offered a means of fusing political concerns with the playful creativity of imagination.[1] Women's historical experience and the advent of modern feminism gave this generation of women science fiction writers a different insight, which led to different priorities, concerns and goals. Alt hough their work has been denigrated by the male establishment, these women have raised feminist consciousness and, to some degree, revolutionized the genre of science fiction.

Neither the writers nor the critics of the genre can agree on any one definition of "science fiction." Writer Peter Nicholls notes, "It would be relatively simple to recount the history of science fiction if we could say with conviction exactly what sci ence fiction was, but we cannot...."[2] One definition of science fiction, often referred to as "hard" science fiction, stresses the impact of actual or imagined science and technology on a society or individuals. In this way, science is the orienting f actor and an important agent in the events of the tale. Other definitions are more inclusive. Some writers deny that science fiction need be so technical, stressing the organic and ahistorical possibilities the genre offers. Unlike mainstream fiction, science fiction allows for settings which are not limited to the historical or narrowly "realistic." This broader definition allows for new settings, new social structures, perhaps new life forms, without necessitating a "scientific" explanation of how t hese all came about. This latter definition is also called "speculative fiction" or "fantastic" literature. For the discussion at hand, the broader definition will be used and the varieties of the genre will all be grouped into a general category of "sc ience fiction." The roots of science fiction can be found in early European Gothic literature. Ironically, the first science fiction writer was a woman. Mary Shelly's Frankenstein is unequivocally considered the first true science fiction novel and Shelly, daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, is referred to as the founding mother of science fiction. Isaac Asimov, the most prolific, well known and respected writer of the genre, argues that Shelly's work was the first to make use of a new finding of science which she advan ced further to a logical extreme.[3] Gothic literature usually had a frightening or depressing view of the human condition. In Frankenstein, a man uses science to make an artificial being which ultimately destroys him.

Science Fiction, as a genre, was established in the late 1890s and 1900s with the writings of Englishmen H. G. Wells. Continuing with the dark Gothic undertones, Wells' most famous novel, Time Machine, depicts a barbarous world of the future inhabited b y primitive slaves.[4] This book was a response to the effects of the industrial revolution and combined fear with the omen of inevitable human demise. Later, in the twenties and thirties, the genre continued to flourish in Europe, notably with the writ ings of Karel Apek in Czechoslovakia who coined the term "robot" in his play R.U.R. The themes remained mostly unchanged. Apek's robots overthrow humans and come to rule them. In England, contemporaries William Olaf Stapleton and Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World, also created societies in which technology spirals out of control. All three writers were influenced by the continuing industrial growth and World War I. In the 1940s, George Orwell's 1984 showed the obvious influence of World War I I in yet another dystopian novel about the demise of humankind.

America had little of this literary tradition in the early periods. No major American science fiction novels surfaced with the advent of the Great War. Scholar Eric Rabkin suggests that the spread of public education had given a body of readers rudimen tary skills but no interest in the more esoteric reaches of literature.[5] Instead, there was an increase in "pulp fiction" (named for the cheap paper on which these books were printed). This pulp fiction, influenced by the science and technology of the 1920s and heroes such as Edison Ford and the Wright Brothers, gave rise to the genre of "pulp science fiction."

In the 1930s, this new American genre grew with the creation of three large science fiction magazines: Amazing Stories, Wonder Stories and Astounding Stories of Super-Science. Also in the thirties, a few writers began producing science fiction stories that were concerned with how technology affected people, adding new dimensions and depth to the fiction. The field of science fiction continued to grow in the forties and fifties, an era often referred to as "The Golden Age" of science fiction. More and more writers were entering the field. These writers were men with backgrounds in science or technology and many had advanced university degrees: Isaac Asimov had a Ph.D.. in biochemistry; Robert Heinlein was trained as an engineer and Arthur C. Clarke (an Englishman popular in the United States) had degrees with top honors in physics and mathematics.[6] These men wrote highly technical action-packed novels and short stories with male heroes ultimately concerned with the future of man-kind. The storie s were based around central themes of space exploration or developing technology--masculine concerns, since women were effectively denied access to these areas in the real world.[7] Women, when they appeared at all, were presented only in stereotypical i mages. Writer Joanna Russ has argued that there were no "real" women characters in these stories, only "images" of women. Ursula Le Guin calls this type of female character the `Oh?' and `Ooooh!' type, never the clever brave hero, only the admirer.[8]

In the 1960s there was a marked improvement in the literary quality of science fiction works because of the steady attention the genre had been receiving. Writers began exploring alternate universes, mechanical and artificial life and alternate societie s without the stark, grim tones of the past. The stories evolved beyond mere action to more subtle discussions of human society and its tensions. Also, rising to prominence in the sixties, was the first American female writer to become a formidable figu re in science fiction: Ursula K. Le Guin.

With the advent of modern feminism in the late sixties came "The New Wave," the latest (and current) stage of science fiction history. Following the lead of Le Guin, these writers, many of whom were women, brought to the genre a concern for politics and life styles. This New Wave represented an attempt to find a language and social perspective which was adventurous and progressive in its technological vision.[9] Le Guin and Joanna Russ are often identified as the two leading figures of this era; howev er, many other women began writing critical and poignant science fiction as well. They brought to the genre radicalism, feminism, socialism and heightened social consciousness in hopes of confronting the problematic and disturbing in human life.

These new writers met formidable opposition. Male writers such as the highly technical ones discussed above, argued that this new type of writing was not "science fiction" because it lacked science in its form. Terms such as "speculative fiction" and " fantastic fiction" were seen as demeaning to "true" science fiction and many men were quick to make this point.

In his book, Asimov on Science Fiction, Asimov clearly expressed his views. If the work was not "hard" science fiction, it was not science fiction at all:

You see, to write good science fiction presupposes a certain knowledge of science on the part of the writer. Without that knowledge, what comes out is bad science fiction. Don't get me wrong. It might be...good fiction in general--but it is bad science fiction.

Asimov did offer a solution. Don't call the work science fiction, call it fantasy, horror, or occult. He went on to discredit and belittle writers of the New Wave. Commenting on a work by Ursula K. Le Guin, Asimov proclaims:

Ah, but what if you want to set the story in the future, use futuristic costumes and futuristic situations? That is the very stuff of science fiction, so what can you do if you don't want to get yourself involved with the bore of having to u nderstand science?

In that case, make up a brand-new name. How about "speculative fiction?" After all, if you are just speculating, you can speculate anything, can't you? Although the term was, I believe, first used by Robert Heinlein, who thoroughly understands science , it has been seized on by a number of people who know very little science and feel more comfortable speculating freely and without having to raise a sweat by learning the rules of the game...[10]

Even in 1980, Asimov was unwilling to make room for new voices. Of course, "speculative fiction" had attracted a wide audience and strong critical support and, to Asimov's dismay, was not to be ignored.

Science fiction lured a number of new writers from the feminist movement partly because it allowed unlimited freedom in settings and situations. Mainstream novels restrict their writers to historical or contemporary settings where sex roles are already established, or, are extraordinary for the isolated character the author creates.[11] Science fiction instead functions as a laboratory, where writers can experiment with various gender and sex roles or social arrangements to create entirely new cultures or realities that redefine "normal." Science fiction's freedom from constraints of realism have also been exploited by mainstream writers such as Margaret Atwood and Marge Piercy.

Science fiction offers important advantages in form. No set length dominates works of science fiction. In fact, there is in science fiction a privileged place for short stories. Many of the novels that become successful works begin as short stories in trade magazines. Writers can write and rewrite, receive feedback from readers and fans, attend regular conventions and symposiums, and borrow themes, ideas and characters to rework in different forms. this breaks down the traditional hierarchies betwee n writers and readers, the authority of any single writer, and the male dominated world of professional publishing.[12]

Science fiction creates for women a language with which they can explore the many ways women are constructed. Joanna Russ points to the example of telepathy, a commonly used device by women science fiction writers. She argues that in a society in which women do a lot of interpersonal work, no public vocabulary exists to describe this sort of activity. The only vocabulary is that of a public male reality which makes all other activities and concerns seem crazy, trivial or nonexistent.[13] In a society in which language is male-defined and male-centered, which lacks words that adequately describe the subtleties of women's experiences such as child rearing, house work and continuous biological changes, access to a new language, a new set of meanings, of fers women powerful possibilities for communication.

Alice Sheldon, the bulk of whose work was written under the pen name James Tiptree, Jr., talks of feeling "squeezed by life" and searching for a way to respond to a world dominated by men, the "sky-darkening presence of patriarchy...all about me and over me, cutting off my options."[14] She says that she felt wounded, wounded by what man does to the planet and other humans and appalled by wars, compulsive competition, aggression and dominance. She writes, "Most personal to me is the plight of women. T hey are at the bottom of every class heap, struggling in a world that has no place for humane values, condemned to do the hard, unpaid chores of the world.... For all these reasons then I write...."[15] It is not surprising then that Sheldon was attract ed to science fiction for its creative and unrestrictive possibilities.

Science fiction is useful for feminists as a tool to attack and dismantle oppressive biases. Joanna Russ argues that science fiction allows a writer to peer into the future to tailor and highlight social, political, linguistic, cultural or gender issues and criticize current attitudes. Furthermore, Russ asserts that what is needed in feminist science fiction is for female authors to create narrative strategies and patterns that show heroic action as an appropriate in female experience, thus rejecting r epressive male models. She asserts that science fiction is quite different from straight fiction:

The language in SF [science fiction] functions differently, the conventions are different, the sorts of expectations you bring to these texts are different, the kinds of inferences readers have to make are different. SF provides a wonderful, open-ended possibility to authors in the way they can use language...[16]

Russ regards science fiction as a potent medium for feminist issues and agendas because it allows for freedom that other genres would not allow. Russ also views science fiction as an effective teaching medium. She argues that it was "born didactic." Th erefore, its potential to effect changes in people's attitudes is infinitely greater than that of the mainstream novel.[17]

While not an adherent of a political feminist agenda, Ursula K. Le Guin sees similar possibilities in science fiction. She argues that science fiction allows for questions, not answers--process, not stasis: "One of the essential functions of science fic tion, I think, is precisely this kind of question-asking: reversals of an habitual way of thinking, metaphors for what our language has no words for as yet, experiments of imagination."[18]

The question of why these writers chose science fiction leads directly to the question of what they wrote about. While most male writers focused on plot and action, using themes of dominance and conquest, feminist writers self-consciously focused on peo ple, relationships and social consciousness. Octavia Butler, an African-American writer of the New Wave, sees the roots of her fiction in her experiences as a black woman growing up in a society dominated by whites, particularly white men. Thus, her fic tion is concerned not only with feminist issues, but with anthropological, racial, political and economic themes as well. Joanna Russ echoes similar themes: sexism, class repression, racism. Women writers focused on experiences of individuals in contemp orary society who had long been denied a voice and legitimacy. Unlike many of the male writers, these women wrote not about the glorification of man or celebration of his power and ingenuity, but looked to find a place for those who had been invisible. Feminism is the most common thread in their diverse works. Not all the writers were ardent radicals with political agendas. However, their very act of writing in a male-biased field, and the issues they raised, had inherent political qualities inspired by the rise of modern feminism.

Feminism challenged the status quo and women science fiction writers tapped into this subversive quality in approaching their subjects. Feminist theory approached gender and prescribed sexuality as social constructs, thus throwing into question concepts of "natural" or "innate" behavior. This expanded into questions of race and class as well. The conventions of science fiction, time travel, entropy, alternate worlds, telepathy, served as powerful ways to explore these constructs and work at breaking t hem apart.[19]

The marriage of science fiction and feminism was far from unproblematic. Feminist science fiction became part of the larger genre, but it also struggled against it. As feminist writers began to carve out a significant niche, anti-feminist sentiments ga ined strength. And, as many writers discovered, feminism alone did not provide all the solutions. Joanna Russ argues that although it was finally possible in the seventies to voice what had been impossible to verbalize before the second wave of feminism , external and self-imposed restrictions still abounded:

I shocked myself in writing parts of The Female Man. It scared the dickens out of me. I doubt that women are ever going to feel comfortable being direct, at least not until our society's undergone some changes of its own. When women try to speak directly, we lack the social forms or cultural images or the permission to do so. These things just aren't in our vocabulary yet, so we still have to get at things in a roundabout manner.[20]

Even the women who were doing ground-breaking work found they had far to go. External resistance existed as well. Russ found that few publishers were sympathetic to her approach and found it difficult to get her books taken seriously. When trying to pu blish The Female Man, Russ received responses such as "We've already published our feminist novel this year so we don't want another," or, "I'm sick and tired of these kinds of women's novels that are just one long whiny complaint."[21]

Nonetheless, feminism was a powerful catalyst. The women's movement made many women writers conscious of the fact that science fiction had either totally ignored women or, to quote Le Guin, "presented them as squeaking dolls subject to instant rape by m onsters--or old maid scientists de-sexed by hypertrophy of the intellectual organs--or, at best, loyal little wives or mistresses of accomplished heroes. Male elitism had run rampant in science fiction."[22] Feminism exposed the alienation and oppressio n of women in the greater culture. With the influence of feminism, women recognized that, unlike men, society offered them limited choices and few tangible rewards for their accomplishments. Women science fiction writers set out to address these issues.

Anger was another integral part of the movement and some women writers found that radical feminism allowed for the productive channeling of anger through writing. Joanna Russ explains this notion most eloquently. She argues that simply being female mar ginalizes women to such an extent that when they turn radical they leap a long way. When one is so far from being central or important, what has she to lose? Russ sees anger as a necessary part of all radicalism: "When Marxism isn't second generation, academic, and establishment-theoretical, its motive is sheer fury. What else? When a group gets past a certain point of oppression, it's a revelation to be angry."[23] For Russ, radical feminism helped channel her anger and shaped her writing of scienc e fiction.

Women science fiction writers often directly incorporated feminist themes and theories into their works. Themes of sex and gender roles appeared most often. Some feminist writers explored these through utopian societies, others through dystopian ones. These themes exposed many problematic and controversial questions about women and society. Using these themes, science fiction writers can deconstruct and expose present realities, unmask hierarchies and offer alternative models which reconstruct human relationships in more egalitarian, positive and cooperative ways.

In Woman on the Edge of Time, Marge Piercy reflects on the traditional implications of conception, child birth and motherhood. Piercy creates a futuristic society without social, political or sexual hierarchies, wage labor or drudgeries. Also, women ar e no longer responsible for bearing children. Piercy approaches this world through a cross-time friendship between a displaced Chicana woman from the late twentieth century named Connie, and Luciente, an inhabitant of the futuristic earth community, Matt apoisett in the year 2137. Connie and Luciente travel to one another's worlds and are each horrified by what they discover.

In the future Piercy creates, children are conceived and nurtured in "brooders," technological units in which every stage of reproduction is scientifically achieved. Connie likens this to a "test-tube-baby-farm." Luciente explains that each child has t hree mothers; men and women can both be mothers only if they choose the role: "If person didn't want to mother and you were a baby, you might not be loved enough to grow up loving and strong. Person must not do what person cannot do."[24] Connie is hor rified at this idea and further disgusted at the sight of the brooder. Trying to help Connie to understand, Luciente explains:

It was part of women's long revolution. When we were breaking all the old hierarchies. Finally there was that one thing we had to give up too, the only power we ever had, in return for no more power for anyone. The original production: th e power to give birth. Cause as long as we were biologically enchained, we'd never be equal. And males never would be humanized to be loving and tender. So we all became mothers. Every child has three. To break nuclear bonding.[25]

Connie feels anger and hate: "How could anyone know what being a mother means who has never carried a child nine months heavy under the heart, who has never borne a baby in blood and pain, who has never suckled a child."[26] How dare any man share that " pleasure," she wonders. Connie sees this outcome not at all as a victory but as an abandonment to men of women's last refuge: "What was special about being a woman here? They had given it all up, they had let men steal from them the last remnants of anc ient power, those sealed in blood and milk."[27] He addresses the many intense and ambivalent thoughts of her contemporary readers through Connie's reactions. In this way, she legitimates the radicalism of what she is proposing and also women's negative reaction to it. Piercy jolts her reader.

The reader need not agree with the solution but is forced to consider the problem, to acknowledge the dilemma. The reader is suddenly faced with her/his own automatic reactions--no, child birth is empowering, a privilege--and then with unshakable doubt. Piercy questions if women can ever attain freedom in a society in which they are responsible for child birth. Connie is a Chicana woman whose daughter is taken away at a young age and given to affluent white foster parents by social workers. After und erstanding the future culture she is in, its accomplishments and advantages, Connie slowly changes her mind.

Ursula K. Le Guin takes a different approach to motherhood in The Left Hand of Darkness, a work often heralded as the first feminist science fiction novel. In Le Guin's world individuals are hermaphroditic. Once a month, they enter the phase of "kemmer ", in which they become sexually activated and aroused and arbitrarily develop male or female sex organs. When another individual who is also in the kemmer cycle encounters and is aroused by the first, the person automatically develops the opposite sexua l organs. Individuals do not habitually tend toward the same sex; some may be the mother of several children and the father of others. Therefore, no stigma is attached to the sexual, reproductive or gender roles because it is impossible to categorize in dividuals in this way. Le Guin writes:

The fact that everyone between seventeen and thirty-five or so is liable to be...`tied down to childbearing,' implies that no one is quite so thoroughly `tied down' here as women, elsewhere, are likely to be--psychologically or physically. B urden and privilege are shared out pretty equally; everybody has the same risk to run or choice to make. Therefore nobody here is quite so free as a free male anywhere else.

Consider: A child has no psycho-sexual relationship to his mother and father. There is no myth of Oedipus in Winter.... Consider: There is no division of humanity into strong and weak halves, protective and protected, dominant/submissive, owner/chatt el, active/passive.[28]

Le Guin's example retains biological childbirth, yet, like Piercy's example, all share the experience equally. Le Guin also highlights the unpossessive nature of parenthood on the planet of Winter. She writes that "unpossessiveness" differs most from th e traditional human "maternal" instinct. Parents on Winter are concerned about their children but not possessive of them. This lack of possessiveness is positive for both the children and the mothers, since neither are restricted by it. Both Piercy and Le Guin take basic feminist issues, motherhood and gender/sex roles, and explore their possibilities and implications. Both depict societies which release women from these duties. Not surprisingly, both also depict societies without sexual or gender hi erarchies.

Pamela Zoline offers a darker picture of the restrictions of motherhood in "The Heat Death of the Universe," but offers no solutions. Zoline focuses on contemporary experiences of women and the overpowering anxieties they face. This witty, yet very sad , short story is presented as a series of numbered entries:

30. Sarah Boyle is a vivacious and witty young wife and mother, educated at a fine Eastern college, proud of her growing family which keeps her happy and busy around the house, involved in many hobbies and community activities, and on ly occasionally given to obsessions concerning Time/Entropy/Chaos and Death.
31. Sarah Boyle is never quite sure how many children she has.
32. Sarah thinks from time to time...that there are things to be hoped for, accomplishments to be desired beyond the mere reproductions, the mirror reproduction of one's kind.[29]

Unlike the other two authors, Zoline does not offer utopian solutions. Rather, she focuses on the problem itself. Feminist echoes are impossible to ignore. Zoline's character struggles in her mind with conflicting sentiments and desires and prescriptiv e values of modern society. Ultimately, she goes mad.

Joanna Russ' The Female Man has been one of the most successful and controversial works of feminist science fiction. Russ focuses on the many layers that make up modern woman. Her book juxtaposes the lives of four women living in four different worlds. Joanna's world is the present and she has spent the majority of her energy looking for "The Man." Jeannine also lives in the present except that in her universe Hitler never took power, World War II never happened and The Great Depression never ended. Janet lives in a utopian world some time in our future in which a plague killed the entire male population hundreds of years back and women now live peaceful, pleasant lives. Jael lives in the future as well. In her universe, men and women inhabit sepa rate nations and are entrenched in a fierce war against one another. Russ jumps among these worlds and world views. Slowly the reader begins to understand that these four women are all one, or perhaps different layers of all women.

Russ addresses social gender constructs of what women "are" and "should be" by highlighting women's relationships with men, other women and themselves. Russ' voice freely interjects frank social commentary in the novel. In a scene in which Janet and Jo anna are leaving a party, the male host accosts the women at the door. Joanna pushes him away. Russ describes the situation:

What'sa matter, you some kind of prude?' he said and enfolding us in his powerful arms et cetera--well not so powerful as all that, but I want to give you the feeling of the scene. If you scream, people say you're melodramatic; if you submit , you're masochistic; if you call names, you're a bitch. Hit him and he'll kill you. The best thing is to suffer mutely and yearn for a rescuer, but suppose, the rescuer doesn't come?[30]

Russ' point is far from subtle. It is difficult as a reader to ignore the accuracy with which Russ has recreated. In another scene, Russ describes the dominance game men play with women which Russ calls "I Must Impress The Woman." Russ presents the dia logue:

SHE: Isn't it just a game?
HE: Yes, of course.
SHE: And if you play the game, it means you like me, doesn't it?
HE: Of course.
SHE: Then if it's just a game and you like me, you can stop playing. Please stop.
HE: No.
SHE: Then I won't play.
HE: Bitch! You want to destroy me. I'll show you. (He plays harder)
SHE: All right. I'm impressed.
HE: You really are sweet and responsive after all. You've kept your femininity. You're not one of those hysterical feminist bitches who wants to be a man and have a penis. You're a woman.
SHE: Yes. (She kills herself)[31]

Failure only makes the man play harder. While the man plays, the woman yearns to communicate, to genuinely interact with the man. There is only the possibility for zero sum gain. In order for one to prevail, the other must lose.

Examples likes these, which powerfully embody feminist theories and themes, abound in the book. The message is often the same. The woman's role is to make the man feel better about himself. The man's role is to make the woman exist. Russ also reflect s on the ambivalence with which women view feminism. To embrace it is to denounce one's society, one's home. Yet women have long been aliens in these very societies. Russ does add positive sentiments as well. Joanna says, "For years I have been saying Let me in, Love me, Approve me, Define me, Regulate me, Validate me, Support me. Now I say Move over."[32]

The advent of feminist writers has entirely redefined the field of science fiction. Even writers such as Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke have had to alter their styles. In his later works, Asimov often used gender neutral language. Arthur C. Clarke create d one of the strongest women heroes science fiction has ever seen in his book Rama II. Male writers are also producing works which are more racially and environmentally sensitive and critically examine issues of class. These changes would be impossible without the advent of the feminist movement and the success which feminist science fiction writers attained. Certainly many aspects of the genre still remain blatantly sexist and male biased. But writers who identify their work as science fiction "liter ature," who strive to define themselves as competent, talented writers seeking acceptance and praise from the literary community and their readers can no longer write with their heads buried in the sand. Feminism shattered the notion that the social and sexual hierarchies that exist in our world need prevail in our future.

Endnotes

1 Sarah Lefanu, Feminism and Science Fiction, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), p. 2.

2 Nicholls quoted in Betty King, Women of the Future, (Metuchen: The Scare Crow Press, Inc., 1984), p. 11.

3 Isaac Asimov, Asimov on Science Fiction, (New York: Doubleday, 1981), p. 183.

4 Eric Rabkin and Robert Scholes, Science Fiction, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 17-20.

5 Ibid., p. 35.

6 Ibid., pp. 65-66.

7 Lefanu, p. 3.

8 Ursula K. Le Guin, The Language of the Night, (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1979), p. 98.

9 Rabkin and Scholes, p. 88.

10 Asimov, pp. 300-304. One wonders if Asimov ever considered that women have historically been denied access to higher education be it "scientific" or otherwise, or that qualifications such as the ones he demands reflect only arbitrary male-de fined standards that have been historically used as a method of suppressing women's writing. For an in-depth discussion of these issues see Joanna Russ, How To Suppress Women's Writing, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983).

11 Tom Staicar, ed., The Feminine Eye: Science Fiction and the Women Who Write It, (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1982).

12 Lefanu, pp. 5-6.

13 Larry McCaffery, ed., Across the Wounded Galaxies, (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1990), p. 207.

14 Denise Du Pont, ed., Women of Vision, (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988), pp. 43-46.

15 Ibid., pp. 45-46.

16 McCaffery 176-177.

17 Ibid., p. 189.

18 Le Guin, The Language of the Night, p. 163.

19 Lefanu, pp. 4-5.

20 McCaffery, pp. 202-203.

21 Ibid., pp. 194-195.

22 Ursula K. Le Guin quoted in Ibid., p. 97.

23 Ibid., p. 209.

24 Marge Piercy, Woman on the Edge of Time, (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1976), p. 94.

25 Ibid., p. 98.

26 Ibid., p. 99.

27 Ibid., p. 126.

28 Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness, (New York: Ace Science Fiction Books, 1969), pp. 93-94.

29 Pamela Sargent, ed., Women of Wonder, (New York: Vintage Books, 1974), p. 110.

30 Joanna Russ, The Female Man, (New York: Bantam Books, 1975), p. 45.

31 Ibid., p. 94.

32 Ibid., p. 140.

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Staicar, Tom, ed. The Feminine Eye: Science Fiction and the Women Who Write It. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1982.

Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979.