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''Feminist science fiction'' is a subgenre of science fiction (abbreviated "SF") focused on theories that include but are not limited to gender inequality, sexuality, race, economics, and reproduction. 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.〔Elyce Rae Helford, in Westfahl, Gary. ''The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy'': Greenwood Press, 2005: 289-290〕 ==Literature== The first examples of feminist science fiction are of necessity up for debate - arguably as early as the English Restoration, when Margaret Cavendish publishes ''The Blazing World'' (1666), describing a utopian kingdom ruled by an empress; feminist critic Dale Spender considers this a forerunner of science fiction. One of the first writers of science fiction was Mary Shelley, whose novel ''Frankenstein'' (1818) dealt with the asexual creation of new life, in some senses a re-telling of the Adam and Eve story.〔Brian Aldiss has argued that ''Frankenstein'' should be considered the first true science fiction story, because unlike in previous stories with fantastical elements resembling those of later science fiction, the central character "makes a deliberate decision" and "turns to modern experiments in the laboratory" to achieve fantastic results. ''See'' ''The Detached Retina: Aspects of SF and Fantasy'' by Brian Aldiss (1995), (page 78 ).〕 Women writers in the utopian literature movement of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, at the time of first wave feminism, often addressed sexism. Two American Populist publishers, A.O. Grigsby and Mary P. Lowe, tackled it in ''NEQUA or The Problem of the Ages'' (1900). This recently rediscovered novel describes a hollow earth society where women are equal; sexist mores are discussed by the heroine, who spends most of the book masquerading as a man. ''The Sultana's Dream'' (1905), by Bengali Muslim feminist Roquia Sakhawat Hussain, engages with the limited role of women in colonial Bangladesh through depicting a gender-reversed purdah in an alternate and technologically futuristic world. Charlotte Perkins Gilman critiques the expectations of women and men by creating a single-sex world in ''Herland'' (1915). During the 1920s writers such as Clare Winger Harris and Gertrude Barrows Bennett published science fiction stories written from female perspectives and occasionally dealt with gender and sexuality based topics. Meanwhile, much pulp science fiction published during the 1920s and 1930s carried an exaggerated view of masculinity along with sexist portrayals of women,〔Lisa Tuttle in Clute and Nicholls 1995, p. 1344.〕 a view subtly satirized by Stella Gibbons in ''Cold Comfort Farm'' (1932). By the 1960s science fiction was combining sensationalism with political and technological critiques of society. With the advent of second wave feminism, women’s roles were questioned in this "subversive, mind expanding genre."〔Lisa Tuttle in Clute and Nicholls 1995, p. 424.〕 Three notable texts of this period are Ursula K. Le Guin's ''The Left Hand of Darkness'' (1969), Marge Piercy's ''Woman on the Edge of Time'' (1976) and Joanna Russ' ''The Female Man'' (1970). Each highlights the socially constructed aspects of gender roles by creating worlds with genderless societies.〔Helford, p.290.〕 Two of these authors were pioneers in feminist criticism of science fiction during the 1960s and 70s through essays collected in ''The Language of the Night'' (Le Guin, 1979) and ''How To Suppress Women's Writing'' (Russ, 1983). Another famous author in SF, Octavia Butler poses complicated questions about the nature of race and gender in ''Kindred'' (1979).〔Sturgis, Susanna. Octavia E. Butler: June 22, 1947–February 24, 2006: ''The Women's Review of Books'', 23(3): 19 May 2006.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「feminist science fiction」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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