as completely as men on account of their reproductive function (1873: 30–38). During the second half of the twentieth century, however, biology—at least to some extent—seemed to hold the answers to woman’s problems. As Cathleen and Colleen McGuire (1998: 197) have observed, in the 1970s, at a time when the birth control pill helped the women’s liberation movement take off the ground, many women looked to science for further solu-tions to their problems. If bio-technology were wrested from the oppressive hands of patri-archy, so the dogma held, then the fruits of science could liberate women and in turn society, such as in the androgynous society of Mattapoisett. It has been argued, however, that androgyny is not intrinsically and necessarily synony-mous with equality. Luce Irigaray (1993: 12), for example, one of the leading ‘difference feminists’, has argued in her book Je, Tous, Nous: Toward a Culture of Difference that “[w]omen’s exploitation is based upon sexual difference; its solution will come only through sexual difference . . . To wish to get rid of sexual difference is to call for a genocide more radical than any form of destruction there has ever been in History.” Similarly, I would argue that in Piercy’s novel the biological equality of the sexes has not led to egalitarian power relations, which emphasises the importance of Edward Said’s claim that “[i]deas, cultures, and histories cannot seriously be understood or studied without their force, or more precisely their configurations of power, also being studied” (1978: 5). In Piercy’s fictional society, the gain of women’s ecofeminist ideals, of independence and equal gender relationships, has been, I would argue, at the expense of other power relation-ships, particularly the relationship between the individual and society. Reminding the reader of Huxley’s Brave New World, the narrator gives a dystopian description of the ‘bottle-babies’:

DOI link for as completely as men on account of their reproductive function (1873: 30–38). During the second half of the twentieth century, however, biology—at least to some extent—seemed to hold the answers to woman’s problems. As Cathleen and Colleen McGuire (1998: 197) have observed, in the 1970s, at a time when the birth control pill helped the women’s liberation movement take off the ground, many women looked to science for further solu-tions to their problems. If bio-technology were wrested from the oppressive hands of patri-archy, so the dogma held, then the fruits of science could liberate women and in turn society, such as in the androgynous society of Mattapoisett. It has been argued, however, that androgyny is not intrinsically and necessarily synony-mous with equality. Luce Irigaray (1993: 12), for example, one of the leading ‘difference feminists’, has argued in her book Je, Tous, Nous: Toward a Culture of Difference that “[w]omen’s exploitation is based upon sexual difference; its solution will come only through sexual difference . . . To wish to get rid of sexual difference is to call for a genocide more radical than any form of destruction there has ever been in History.” Similarly, I would argue that in Piercy’s novel the biological equality of the sexes has not led to egalitarian power relations, which emphasises the importance of Edward Said’s claim that “[i]deas, cultures, and histories cannot seriously be understood or studied without their force, or more precisely their configurations of power, also being studied” (1978: 5). In Piercy’s fictional society, the gain of women’s ecofeminist ideals, of independence and equal gender relationships, has been, I would argue, at the expense of other power relation-ships, particularly the relationship between the individual and society. Reminding the reader of Huxley’s Brave New World, the narrator gives a dystopian description of the ‘bottle-babies’:

as completely as men on account of their reproductive function (1873: 30–38). During the second half of the twentieth century, however, biology—at least to some extent—seemed to hold the answers to woman’s problems. As Cathleen and Colleen McGuire (1998: 197) have observed, in the 1970s, at a time when the birth control pill helped the women’s liberation movement take off the ground, many women looked to science for further solu-tions to their problems. If bio-technology were wrested from the oppressive hands of patri-archy, so the dogma held, then the fruits of science could liberate women and in turn society, such as in the androgynous society of Mattapoisett. It has been argued, however, that androgyny is not intrinsically and necessarily synony-mous with equality. Luce Irigaray (1993: 12), for example, one of the leading ‘difference feminists’, has argued in her book Je, Tous, Nous: Toward a Culture of Difference that “[w]omen’s exploitation is based upon sexual difference; its solution will come only through sexual difference . . . To wish to get rid of sexual difference is to call for a genocide more radical than any form of destruction there has ever been in History.” Similarly, I would argue that in Piercy’s novel the biological equality of the sexes has not led to egalitarian power relations, which emphasises the importance of Edward Said’s claim that “[i]deas, cultures, and histories cannot seriously be understood or studied without their force, or more precisely their configurations of power, also being studied” (1978: 5). In Piercy’s fictional society, the gain of women’s ecofeminist ideals, of independence and equal gender relationships, has been, I would argue, at the expense of other power relation-ships, particularly the relationship between the individual and society. Reminding the reader of Huxley’s Brave New World, the narrator gives a dystopian description of the ‘bottle-babies’: