In the Chinks of the World Machine: Feminism and Science Fiction

by Sarah Lefanu

in the chinks of the world machine

Genres: Science Fiction, Feminism, Criticism, Speculative Fiction, Fiction, Gender and Sexuality, Literature

240 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1988

About the author

Sarah was born on the east coast of Scotland, was brought up there and in East Africa, and now lives in the west country. In the 1980s and 1990s she was Senior Editor at The Women’s Press, where she was responsible for their innovative and highly-regarded science fiction list.

From 2004 to 2009 she was Artistic Director of the Bath Literature Festival. She continues to chair events for the LitFest on a regular basis, and also for the Bristol Festival of Ideas.

Sarah teaches on the BA degree in English Literature and Community Engagement at the University of Bristol. She has just completed a year's post there as RLF Writing Fellow.

She has been a judge for the James Tiptree Award (an annual award for works of SF and fantasy that expand and explore the understanding of gender), and for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

Her most recent books are S is for Samora: A Lexical Biography of Samora Machel and the Mozambican Dream (Hurst Publishers, November 2012), and Dreaming of Rose: A Biographer’s Journal (SilverWood Books, March 2013).

(from http://www.sarahlefanu.co.uk/)

Reviews

[Tijana]

Znalački ali i strastveno pisana istorija feminističkog SF-a koja je stara trideset godina pa tako staje s krajem osamdesetih. Vrlo je simpatično i uglavnom uverljivo rangiranje autorki u datom vremenskom okviru - Sara Lefanu samo što ne pobode mali barjak kad stigne do Džoane Ras i potpuno je razumem - i naravno, ima dosta gunđanja oko Ursule LeGvin, teško je priznati da je i dobra i značajna i da se njen koncept feminizma ne poklapa sa onim za koji se autorka zalaže. Ali kao što kaže moja dobra drugarica: feminizam nije Borg!

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Look, any book whose title is taken from a Tiptree story - and "The Women Men Don't See" no less - is likely to be very appealing to me. And ta dah! It was.

This delightful feminist, academic, personal, humorous, thoughtful, and passionate examination of women in science fiction and women writing science fiction came out in 1988. So yes, it's dated - of course it has. There have been lots more stories written in the last (oh heck) nearly thirty years that have a variety of female characters, and of course more female authors challenging and playing with science fiction ideas. But I think that the categories that Lefanu considers - Amazons, utopias and dystopias, women in love, and so on - these categories often still apply to the ways that women appear, or are thought that they should appear, as characters. So I certainly found these chapters resonant and not only from a historical perspective.

The second half of the book was the bit that I really loved, though. James Tiptree Jr, Ursula Le Guin, Suzy McKee Charnas and Joanna Russ: what a magnificent set of women, and a magnificent set of stories between them. Lefanu examines a set of the novels and short stories of each of the women (in Russ' case, almost all her science fiction) and dissects the ways in which they present women. She's not always flattering - she has some issues with Le Guin's early female characters, which I don't entirely agree with - but she is always interesting and insightful.

One of the things I really appreciated and enjoyed about this book is that while Lefanu is absolutely writing an academic piece and interrogating issues of feminism and how science fiction fails or encourages women, there are also personal moments that didn't feel at all out of place. I really, really like this idea that the writer actually exists and has an opinion - that the book isn't pretending to be a disembodied, clinical examination but acknowledges the very real body behind the ... well, typewriter probably.

If you're interested in feminist science fiction, in women in science fiction (in all senses), or have a somewhat historical literary bent, this is a really great book. It's very approachable and even if you haven't read the stories Lefanu examines (I've only read one of the Charnas books), she explains them enough that her analysis makes sense... and I still want to read the books.

[Neslihan Cangöz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Özellikle 70’li yıllarda yazılan feminist ütopyalar üzerine zihin açıcı tartışmaların yer aldığı bir kitap. İlgilenenler için cevher.

[Zach · Rating 3 out of 5]

An early (1989) examination of the usefulness of sf to feminist writers, this book provides an interesting overview/call to arms, but the whole thing feels slightly flat and shallow: it's split into two parts, one grouped into thematic chapters and the other divided by focus on specific authors (Tiptree, Le Guin, Charnas, Russ), but each section is only about 100 pages, and the chapters in the former tend toward scantiness: "The Reduction of Women: Dystopias," for example, clocks in at an impressively slight 5 pages.

That said, though, Lefanu does make a compelling argument for the use of science fiction, such a traditionally masculinist stronghold, for feminist works, due to the genre's basis in "skeptical rationalism." This is what makes a work "feminist sf" instead of "feminized sf" in Lefanu's reading: rather than simply featuring a strong woman protagonist, feminist works of sf apply this skepticism to the social construction of gender and patriarchal culture (Lefanu's point here also revolves around form-beyond-the-traditional-novel-narrative in addition to content, but she never really makes that argument convincingly, I don't think). This is a very constrictive definition, clearly, but one that I think makes clear what exactly could be accomplished by applying a feminist lens to science fiction.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

An early study on feminism and science fiction, featuring critical essays on Russ, Le Guin, Tiptree and Charnas. I found parts of this book to be thought-provoking and it is a well-written introduction to the topic. The early portion of the book were a bit too simplistic for me, but I recognize that as being a reaction I had to work I was reading (and writing) in the 1980s myself - different times, lots of water under the bridge. The critical essays come into their own when Lefanu is focused on Tiptree and Russ, less so when she is discussing Le Guin and Charnas. The weakness of the latter essays is also impacted by the fact that they wrote subsequent works that address her criticisms, while Tiptree was dead when this book came out and Russ no longer writing sf. The impulse is to say, "But what about..." forgetting that this was written before those books were available. So, in short, a good starting place that may make you want to read more, but shouldn't be the last word on the topic.