Women in Speculative Fiction - Gender

Gender

science fiction and fantasy pulp magazines were directed mainly at boys. Female characters were only occasionally included in science fiction pulp stories; the male protagonists' lengthly explanations to the women with limited knowledge revealed the plots Garber, Eric and Paleo, Lyn "Preface" in Uranian worlds.

The portrayal of women, or more broadly, the portrayal of gender in science fiction, has varied widely throughout the genre's history. Some writers and artists have challenged their society's gender norms in producing their work; others have not. Among those who have challenged conventional understandings and portrayals of women, men, and sexuality, there have been of course significant variations.

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Famous quotes containing the word gender:

    But there, where I have garnered up my heart,
    Where either I must live or bear no life;
    The fountain from the which my current runs
    Or else dries up: to be discarded thence,
    Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads
    To knot and gender in!
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    Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.
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    ... lynching was ... a woman’s issue: it had as much to do with ideas of gender as it had with race.
    Paula Giddings (b. 1948)