ABSTRACT
The main characters in young adult dystopian fiction could conceivably push back against the expectations for women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and expand young adult readers' understanding of what it means to be a scientist or engineer. Since young adult dystopian literature takes place in a world where norms have been significantly altered by a variety of societal collapses, the texts conceivably have the ability to either challenge or reinforce existing stereotypes regarding gender, race, class, and other marginalized identity categories. The subgenre of dystopian literature for young adults is also an excellent locus for examining how STEM fields and practitioners are portrayed. Dystopian literature is nearly always tied to anxieties about technology. While Fever Crumb the novel and Girl Genius the web comic are different looking from each other on the surface they both fall into a subset of young adult dystopian fiction as they share a distinct post-apocalyptic Steampunk aesthetic.
