Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2002 The future in feminism : reading strategies for feminist theory and science fiction Alcena Madeline Davis Rogan Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Rogan, Alcena Madeline Davis, "The future in feminism : reading strategies for feminist theory and science fiction" (2002). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 2450. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/2450 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. THE FUTURE IN FEMINISM: READING STRATEGIES FOR FEMINIST THEORY AND SCIENCE FICTION A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Alcena Madeline Davis Rogan B.A., Sarah Lawrence College, 1995 M.A., Louisiana State University, 1997 May 2002 DEDICATION For my dear late mother Ama “Sugah” Ford Darr Norfleet Rogan ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to gratefully acknowledge the following individuals for their valuable contributions to this project: Michelle Massé, my dissertation committee chair, mentor, and friend; dissertation committee members Elsie Michie, Patrick McGee, and Devoney Looser; supportive LSU faculty members Carl Freedman, Sharon Weltman, John Fischer, Anna Nardo, Malcolm Richardson, James Olney, Renee Major, Nona Haynes, Sarah Liggett, Jim Borck, and John Lowe; my wonderful husband Robert Eldreth McDonald; my supportive peers Andrea Adolph, Robin Becker, Anne-Marie Thomas, Josh Kizner, Janet Barnwell, Daniel Gonzalez, Paul Graham, Sharon Andrews, Brad Bankston, Beth Younger, Maxine Beach, and Margaret Clark; dear and helpful friends Lucia Blacksher, Reece Walker, Laurel Keyes, Kettye Voltz, Alexis Avery, Kim Guise, Astrid Persans, Io McNaughton, Marleen Barr, Darko Suvin, and Elizabeth Underwood; my sister Ama Ford Darr Rogan; my brothers Davis Moody Emerson Rogan and John Michael Sims Rogan; my half-sisters Jessica and Amanda White; my late grandmothers Ama “Punkin” Neal and Muriel Rogan; my faithful four-legged companion Jane Rogan; and finally, my aunts Margaret Darr and Cara Sims. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION………………………………………………………….. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………... iii ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………….. v INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………….. 1 CHAPTER ONE The Politics of ‘Sex’: The Difference That Difference Makes………... 16 CHAPTER TWO The Politics of Biotechnology and the Discursivity of ‘Sex’: The Female Body as a Science-Fictional/Factual Text……………………… 65 CHAPTER THREE Alien Sex Acts in Feminist SF: Heuristic Models for Thinking a Feminist Future of Desire………………………………………..113 CHAPTER FOUR Feminist SF on Race: The Legacies of the Past……………………….. 147 CHAPTER FIVE Alienation and Estrangement in Marx and SF: A Feminist Analysis…………………………………………….. 188 VITA……………………………………………………………………… 224 iv ABSTRACT Contemporary feminist theory, especially in its more dialectical manifestations, is read in this study as describing a relationship between present and future. In this reading, the work of feminist theory contains a “present;” that is, an articulation of the specific problem or question that it addresses. The work of feminist theory also contains a “future,” either implicit or explicit, and often both. An explicit “future” in feminist theory states a praxis-model or specific call-to-arms that claims political effectuality; claims that its implementation might help to ameliorate, in some way, the status quo of sexual politics. An implicit “future” in feminist theory is a more direct articulation of a praxis-model through its implementation within the work itself. In this case, the theory works as a heuristic device by enacting the critique that it suggests. For example, a work of feminist literary criticism might posit a mode of textual critique that it then implements by reading a given text in the suggested mode. The “future” in such a theoretical work is the implication that the enacted mode of critique is a praxis-model for further implementation. This study examines feminist theoretical work from the 1950s to the present, with an analytical emphasis on the ways in which the present/future dialectic operates in its structures and claims. I team this analysis with readings of feminist SF. Feminist SF speculates on the potential outcomes of women’s struggles with the oppressions of various ideological regimes, such as sexism, classism, and racism. The dialectical tension between present and future is a thematic concern and a structural feature of most feminist SF. I examine feminist SF that engages some of contemporary feminist theory’s presuppositions and positions. This study includes analyses of the theoretical work of Simone de Beauvoir, Juliet Mitchell, Kate Millett, Shulamith v Firestone, Katherine Hayles, Nancy Chodorow, Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, Teresa de Lauretis, and many others. This study also includes analyses of the feminist science fictional work of Ursula LeGuin, Samuel Delany, Octavia Butler, Monique Wittig, Angela Carter, James Tiptree (Alice Sheldon), Tananarive Due, Nalo Hopkinson, Rebecca Ore, and Nicola Griffith, among others. vi Introduction “I shall speak about women’s writing: about what it will do [. .]. Anticipation is imperative” (875). Hélène Cixous, “The Laugh of the Medusa” “The political value of literary texts from the standpoint of feminism can be determined only by an investigation of their social functions and effects in relation to the interests of women in a particular historical context, and not by attempting to deduce an abstract literary theory of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine,’ ‘subversive’ and ‘reactionary’ forms in isolation from the social conditions of their production and reception” (2). Rita Felski, Beyond Feminist Aesthetics Feminist theory, especially in its more dialectical manifestations, can be read as describing a relationship between present and future. In this reading, the work of feminist theory contains a “present;” that is, an articulation of the specific problem or question that it addresses. The work of feminist theory also contains a “future,” either implicit or explicit, and often both. An explicit “future” in feminist theory states a praxis- model or a specific call-to-arms that claims political effectuality; claims that its implementation might help to ameliorate, in some way, the status quo of sexual politics. An implicit “future” in feminist theory is a more direct articulation of a praxis-model through its implementation within the work itself. In this case, the theory works as a heuristic device by enacting the critique that it suggests. For example, a work of feminist literary criticism might posit a mode of textual critique that it then implements by reading a given text or texts in the suggested mode. The “future” in such a theoretical work is the implication that the enacted mode of critique is a praxis-model for further implementation. But why read feminist theory as a present/future dialectic? If it is true that some feminist theory can be read in this manner, it is also true that other forms of theory can be 1 read in this manner as well. So, beyond the fulfillment of my own interest in feminist theory in particular, what is it about “the future in feminism” that deserves scrutiny and analysis? In academic feminist criticism there has always been a high degree of focus on the relationship between feminist scholarship and its relevance to the experiential. This focus has played a large part in shaping some of feminist scholarship’s major debates: essentialism and constructivism, practice and theory, radicalism and institutionalization, dialectical critique and deconstructive critique. All of these debates address the relationship between a putatively concrete term and an abstract one, between practice and theory, ontology and epistemology. All of these debates can also be seen as problematizations of the “present/future” relationship that I describe above: they all address the question of what, in echo of the passage by Cixous quoted above, feminist theory will do. Thus feminist theory seems, like other theoretical modes that, as SF critic Veronica Hollinger puts it, “insist on re-inserting the object of study back into the world,” (“Contemporary Trends” 253), to have a preoccupation with the future—with the viability of its applications to the world of lived relations. This study examines feminist theoretical work from the second wave to the present, with an analytical emphasis on the ways in which the present/future dialectic operates in its structure and claims. I team this analysis with readings of feminist science fiction. Feminist SF speculates on the potential outcomes of women’s struggles with the oppressions of various ideological regimes, such as sexism, classism, and racism. The dialectical tension between present and future is a thematic concern and a structural feature of most feminist SF. I examine feminist SF that either implicitly or explicitly engages feminist theory’s presuppositions