Feminist Utopias

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Lena Wånggren (University of Edinburgh)

Ed. by Sean Seeger, University of Essex
The Literary Encyclopedia. WORLD HISTORY AND IDEAS: A CROSS-CULTURAL VOLUME.

Dates

Date of occurrence 1405-

Places

Canada (Involved)
Caribbean Islands (Involved)
England (Involved)
India (Involved)
Kenya (Involved)
Nigeria (Involved)
United States (Involved)
Zimbabwe (Involved)

Genres and Modes

Science Fiction
Utopian / Dystopian

1. Defining the Feminist Utopia

Feminist utopias have been envisaged in literature for centuries. Indeed, Annie K. Mellor has suggested that since a gender-free society has never existed historically, feminist thinking that posits a world of gender equality is inherently utopian. Usually specified as a sub-genre of speculative fiction or science fiction, feminist utopias in literature provide alternatives to patriarchal rule, or sometimes to the category of gender itself. Broadly, a feminist utopia can be defined as a “narrative about a society that is free from the patriarchal subordination of women” (Peel xv), or, even more broadly, as “feminist fabulation” (Donawerth and Kolmerten 1).…

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3941 words

Citation: Wånggren, Lena. "Feminist Utopias". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 November 2018 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19546, accessed 23 November 2024.]

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