Women in science fiction

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Women have always been represented among science fiction writers and fans. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley has been called the first science fiction novel. In fantasy, the rich heritage of myth and religion and folktales emerged from oral cultures transmitted by both men and women, and early published fantasy was written by and for both genders mdash; for example gothic romances, ghost stories, and similar stories. Other examples of speculative fiction include utopias and surreal fiction, both of which, again, were written and enjoyed by women as well as men.

While women were present from the beginning as creators and consumers, the genre had a reputation as a men's genre. However, Eric Leif Davin, in his book, Partners in Wonder: Women and the Birth of Science Fiction, 1926-1965, argues that this reputation is unjustified. He documents almost 1,000 stories published by 202 female-identified authors just between 1926-1960. Further, he documents that, without exception, every magazine editor during this period welcomed and published women authors as women authors.

However, in the 1960s, the advent of Second Wave Feminism, combined with the growing view of science fiction as the literature of ideas, led to an influx of female SF writers. In the 1960s and 1970s, authors such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Joanna Russ began to consciously explore feminist themes in works such as The Left Hand of Darkness and The Female Man, creating a self-consciously feminist science fiction. WisCon, the world's leading feminist science fiction convention and conference, is a four-day event held every Memorial Day weekend in Madison, Wisconsin.

Further, as soon as most of the awards were established, such as the Nebulas, Locus, and Hugos, women authors began winning them.

However, the perception of science fiction as a men's genre continues. Adherents to this view sometimes distinguish between science fiction as a men's genre, and fantasy as a women's genre; or between "hard science fiction" (e.g., based on physics or astronomy) as a men's genre, and "soft science fiction" (e.g., based on biology or sociology) as a women's genre. Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff's short stories and novels are among those which bridge these attempts at division.