ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces readers to the Routledge Companion to Gender and Science Fiction (RCGSF) with a cultural history of gender and gender as it has informed the history of the science fiction (SF) anthology itself. After briefly discussing the role of the SF anthology in creating the first, decidedly heteronormative, masculinist, and Eurowestern histories of science fiction in the 1940s, the author reviews how women, LGBTQ+, and other feminist-friendly authors of all races have used both fiction and scholarly anthologies to intervene into commonsense histories and assumptions about SF, demonstrating its potential to be a literature of the future for all. While early anthologies of this type tended to focus on issues of gender representation in SF and the recovery of women and nonbinary people’s SF in all its diverse forms—one of the first and still most important issues in gender studies today—more recent ones have also introduced readers to newer issues in feminist and LGBTQ+ activism, including intersectionality and the relations of feminism and LGBTQ+ activism to global systems of science, technology, and capitalism. The chapter concludes with a brief overview of the RCGSF and its various sections.
