Flee from Sex and Gender: Utopias in Second-Wave Feminist Science Fiction
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This article discusses how sex and gender are set as a non-problem in some feminist utopias of second-wave feminism. An examination of the utopias of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Joanna Russ’s The Female Man (1975), and Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis Trilogy (1987-1989) reveals that, in the process of envisioning a feminist utopia, the authors render genderlessness an a priori condition, which has the unintended effect of obviating the necessity of transforming the existent condition. This article demonstrates how these kinds of utopias that eliminate sexual and gender conflicts in advance—made available by exiting Earth and allying with aliens—are historically unattainable, and argues, via materialist thought, for the importance of imagining the utopia developed in and through changing material circumstances. The article suggests that part of the reason for the evasive aspect of the utopias coming out of this politically charged era is found in the contradicting historical forces of the time, with politics of redistribution and restructuration, postmodern ethos, and neoliberal current in tension.
Abstract
This article discusses how sex and gender are set as a non-problem in some feminist utopias of second-wave feminism. An examination of the utopias of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Joanna Russ’s The Female Man (1975), and Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis Trilogy (1987-1989) reveals that, in the process of envisioning a feminist utopia, the authors render genderlessness an a priori condition, which has the unintended effect of obviating the necessity of transforming the existent condition. This article demonstrates how these kinds of utopias that eliminate sexual and gender conflicts in advance—made available by exiting Earth and allying with aliens—are historically unattainable, and argues, via materialist thought, for the importance of imagining the utopia developed in and through changing material circumstances. The article suggests that part of the reason for the evasive aspect of the utopias coming out of this politically charged era is found in the contradicting historical forces of the time, with politics of redistribution and restructuration, postmodern ethos, and neoliberal current in tension.
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