The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction

The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction. By Justine Larbalestier. Wesleyan Univ. Press. 295 pp. $50 hardcover, $19.95 paper   My fondest hope for Larbalestier, identified on the jacket of this, her first book, as a research fellow in the Department of English at the University of Sydney, is that she get out of academia. A smart, assiduous writer with a good eye for telling detail, she uses her talents well in laying out the science-fiction landscape from the 1920s to the 1990s and in tracking the contributions (sometimes disguised) of women writers, ranging from the relatively obscure to such superstars as Marge Piercy and Octavia Butler.

Larbalestier focuses on battle-of-the-sexes stories, which ran chiefly in SF magazines beginning in the 1930s and feature pretty much all the variations you would expect—worlds where men are subservient, or women procreate parthenogenetically, or indeterminate creatures morph seasonally into one or the other sex. Her brief summaries of the stories and her commentaries on their publication (and the public’s reaction) are amusing, in a dry sort of way, and provide a nice antidote to the genre’s tendency to take itself too seriously. But just when she’s hitting her stride, you can almost feel the academic gear kick in. Instead of rattling on about the stories themselves or the pulp magazines (such as Amazing Stories, Astounding Science-Fiction, and Wonder Stories) that ran them, she falls back into murky jargon that seems designed to wow some tenure committee.

Which is a pity, because under the forbiddingly abstruse prose there remains a good story about the participation of women—as writers, editors, even readers—in what was initially called “scientifiction.” (Hugo Gernsback first employed the term in 1926 for his magazine Amazing Stories. Later, after he lost control of that magazine and had to start another, he came up with “science fiction” in order to stake a fresh claim to the territory.)

Larbalestier organizes her book around chapter headings drawn from the work of one pioneering woman writer of SF, James Tiptree, Jr. (1915–87). You read that right. Although she was born Alice Bradley and lived much of her life under her married name, Alice Sheldon, she chose a nom de plume at the corner market—“I simply saw the name on some jam pots”—and used it for many years to conceal herself and her previous career as an experimental psychologist. During that time she wrote acclaimed and groundbreaking stories, among them “The Women Men Don’t See,” “Her Smoke Rose Up Forever,” and “Faithful to Thee, Terra, in Our Fashion,” which often carried off prestigious SF prizes such as the Nebula and the Hugo (named after Gernsback).

Since 1991, the James Tiptree, Jr., Memorial Award has recognized “fictional work that explores and expands the roles of women and men.” (Larbalestier herself has served as a judge.) Though you don’t have to be female to win, it helps; the prize has gone almost exclusively to women. If Larbalestier would ever like to play hooky from the stultifying academy and indulge her quite evident penchant for gender-bending SF, she might have a good shot at winning one. Nobody knows the intergalactic landscape better.