Mirrorshade Women: Feminism and Cyberpunk

Mirrorshade Women: Feminism and Cyberpunk at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century Carlen Lavigne McGill University, Montréal Department of Art History and Communication Studies February 2008 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Communication Studies © Carlen Lavigne 2008 2 Abstract This study analyzes works of cyberpunk literature written between 1981 and 2005, and positions women’s cyberpunk as part of a larger cultural discussion of feminist issues. It traces the origins of the genre, reviews critical reactions, and subsequently outlines the ways in which women’s cyberpunk altered genre conventions in order to advance specifically feminist points of view. Novels are examined within their historical contexts; their content is compared to broader trends and controversies within contemporary feminism, and their themes are revealed to be visible reflections of feminist discourse at the end of the twentieth century. The study will ultimately make a case for the treatment of feminist cyberpunk as a unique vehicle for the examination of contemporary women’s issues, and for the analysis of feminist science fiction as a complex source of political ideas. Cette étude fait l’analyse d’ouvrages de littérature cyberpunk écrits entre 1981 et 2005, et situe la littérature féminine cyberpunk dans le contexte d’une discussion culturelle plus vaste des questions féministes. Elle établit les origines du genre, analyse les réactions culturelles et, par la suite, donne un aperçu des différentes manières dont la littérature féminine cyberpunk a transformé les usages du genre afin de promouvoir en particulier le point de vue féministe. Les romans sont examinés dans leurs contextes historiques; leur contenu est comparé aux tendances et controverses de plus grande envergure du féminisme contemporain, et leurs thèmes affichés comme images manifestes du discours féministe à la fin du vingtième siècle. L’étude présentera en fin de compte des arguments appuyant l’approche de la littérature cyberpunk féministe comme véhicule exceptionnel pour l’examen des questions féminines contemporaines et pour l’analyse de la science- fiction féministe en tant que source complexe d’idées politiques. 3 Acknowledgments This work would not have been completed without the sage advice of Dr. Will Straw and Dr. Ned Schantz, the unflagging support of James and Elizabeth Lavigne, the continued encouragement of Dr. Priscilla Walton, and the patient proofreading of Erica Pereira and Gwen Larouche. 4 Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………5 1. History and Definitions……………………………………………………………...11 2. Women and Cyberpunk…………………………..…………………………………28 3. Globalization and Community……………………………………………………...68 4. Embodiment and Virtual Reality…………………………………………………...95 5. Cyborgs and Artificial Intelligence………………………………………………..130 6. Cyberpunk Ecologies……………………………………………………………….153 7. Mythology and Religion……………………………………………………………179 8. Reproduction and Motherhood……………………………………………………206 9. Marriage, Family and the Queer…………………………………………………..229 10. Impact and Importance…………………………………………………………...251 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..282 5 Introduction This project is a study of women’s cyberpunk and cyberfiction in the 1990s and early 2000s. Through an in-depth thematic analysis of texts written by both men and women authors, it will examine how a science fiction subgenre has been tangibly marked by feminist concerns, and modified to occupy a cultural space very different from previous works. In examining these works of literature in terms of their status as communications media, I am primarily concerned with questions of messaging – with the treatment of prevalent themes within the genre, the changing nature of those themes, and the position such discussions occupy both within cyberpunk literature as a whole, and within broader feminist approaches to current technologies and social issues. Cyberpunk is an excellent site for a study based in gender. Its first wave, written primarily in the 1980s, was almost exclusively the domain of male writers such as William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, and Rudy Rucker. The 1990s subsequently produced a broad range of works authored by women such as Marge Piercy, Lisa Mason, Melissa Scott and Lyda Morehouse. These two iterations of the genre are ripe for comparison. I have used such terms as “women’s cyberpunk” and “feminist cyberpunk” interchangeably to indicate a subgenre within a subgenre, a portion of science fiction identifiable both as early cyberpunk’s descendant, and as a series of works created within its own feminist paradigm. It is admittedly difficult to situate women’s cyberpunk as a single, monolithic discourse; my explorations also reveal that these works are richly diverse, and reflect equally complex tensions in contemporary feminism. Nor is it my position that all women authors are feminist authors; rather, I argue that feminist discourses within women’s cyberpunk may also spring naturally from woman’s place in 6 Western society. In his study of women’s science fiction, Brooks Landon focuses on “writers and works that, while not necessarily ‘feminist’ in any rigorous sense, have opposed or modified the genre’s heavily masculinist tendencies” (Science Fiction 125); my approach is much the same. Women authors are writing from marginalized social positions, and this inescapably marks their work. While early cyberpunk is predominantly acknowledged as white male, heterosexual, and middle-class in its scope, and lauded mainly for its postmodern treatment of contemporary technology and identity issues, women’s cyberpunk offers a more varied blend of issues, tinted with a distinctly feminist political lens. By reconfiguring the conventions of a genre often criticized as misogynist, women have re-created cyberpunk as a medium for feminist political voices; their works may be read as acts of participation in contemporary feminist discourse. By analyzing women’s cyberpunk and cyberfiction in relation to science fiction, technology, and women’s issues in the latter part of the 20th century, I intend to demonstrate how a subgenre of science fiction may be read as part of a broader social dialogue, and as a forum in which writers have approached feminist topics with a rich degree of imagination. In its original conception, this was meant to be a study of cyberpunk’s influence on the formation of internet technologies and cultures; during the course of my research, several things became obvious that redirected my focus. It has been well remarked that the original cyberpunk authors, with the exception of Pat Cadigan, were almost uniformly white, middle-class men; it did not take long for me to begin wondering about women’s voices, and whether they may have had any similar impact on new technologies, or whether cyberpunk could provide a forum for women, too, to present philosophies regarding globalization and postmodern identity. What became obvious in reading 7 cyberpunk works from the 1990s was that women writers had significantly altered the genre in order to accommodate feminist ideas – and that the same themes were cropping up again and again. Much as the original cyberpunk works were a loose cluster of novels lauded for their similar approaches to issues of alienation and postmodern identity, these next-generation works were a diverse array of texts that nevertheless managed to share similar approaches to issues such as environmentalism, reproduction, and family – in addition to putting new spins on old cyberpunk themes. It should be acknowledged that the question of “generations” in cyberpunk can be a difficult one; as Landon, again, has said, “discussion of waves or swings must remind us of the futility of attempting a static description of science fiction in the twentieth century” (Science Fiction 154). My own investigative scope, comparing masculinist novels from True Names (1981) to Snow Crash (1992) with feminist works from He, She and It (1991) to Messiah Node (2003), treats the feminist wave of cyberpunk and cyberfiction as a second generation to the cyberpunk movement – an analysis that is distinct from some other arguments. Thomas Foster is already talking about third generations (Souls 86), and Brooks Landon has defined Snow Crash as a novel that wears its “cyberpunk ancestry” proudly (Science Fiction 154) rather than being part of the first wave. In this sense, my approach dovetails more with those of Karen Cadora and E.L. McCallum – Cadora, who in 1995 first defined “feminist cyberpunk” as the Movement’s successor, and McCallum, who compares Cadigan’s work to Neuromancer, Islands in the Net, and Snow Crash in the same breath (369). This is not to position myself contrarily to other frameworks of analysis; it is only to observe that the boundaries of cyberpunk are blurry at best, and there are multiple ways of viewing these materials. The next several 8 chapters should clarify my argument, particularly Snow Crash’s placement as a novel that both exemplifies the major traits of the cyberpunk genre and hints at the feminist ideas that were already springing to life within other works. The works I have included as part of the feminist wave range from Melissa Scott’s Trouble and Her Friends to Kathleen Ann Goonan’s Queen City Jazz; they are admittedly diverse, but no more so than the eclectic mix of short stories found in the cyberpunk anthology Mirrorshades (a collection that includes both Greg Bear’s “Petra” and William Gibson’s

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