ABSTRACT
This chapter probes the rich and productive interface between science fiction and ecofeminism. Although ecofeminism is a response to historical oppressions, and science fiction is a forum for imaginative expression, the chapter shows how they overlap and how literature benefits from their cross-fertilization. Arguably, the first ecofeminist science fiction text was written well before the term “ecofeminism” was invented: it was Margaret Cavendish’s book, The Description of a New World, Called the Blazing-World, published in 1668. From this remarkable beginning, ecofeminist science fiction has grown and developed through many different phases. The second wave of feminism, coinciding roughly with the 1960s–1980s, was an especially productive time for ecofeminist science fiction and saw classics such as Ursula K. Le Guin’s Always Coming Home, Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time, and Sally Miller Gearhart’s The Wanderground: Stories of the Hill Women, making their appearance. The chapter proceeds in chronological order, listing some of the main texts of each period, ending with the lamentable lack of ecofeminist science fiction in the Anthropocene. Nevertheless, it argues that ecofeminism can find fruitful expression in science fiction.
