Anna Gilarek
Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin
Marginalization of “the Other”: Gender
Discrimination in Dystopian Visions by
Feminist Science Fiction Authors
a b s t r a c t
In patriarchy women are frequently perceived as “the other” and as such
they are subject to discrimination and marginalization. The androcentric
character of patriarchy inherently connes women to the fringes of so-
ciety. Undeniably, this was the case in Western culture throughout most
of the twentieth century, before the social transformation triggered by
the feminist movement enabled women to access spheres previously un-
available to them. Feminist science ction of the 1970s, like feminism,
attempted to challenge the patriarchal status quo in which gender-based
discrimination against women was the norm. Thus, authors expressed, in
actionalized form, the same issues that constituted the primary concerns
of feminism in its second wave.
As feminist science ction is an imaginative genre, the critique of the
abuses of the twentieth-century patriarchy is usually developed in defa-
miliarized, unreal settings. Consequently, current problems are recontex-
tualized, atechnique which is meant to give the reader anew perspective
on certain aspects of life they might otherwise take for granted, such as
the inadequacies of patriarchy and women’s marginality in society.
Yet there are authors who consider the real world dystopian enough
to be used as asetting for their novels. This is the case with Woman on the
Edge of Time by Marge Piercy and The Female Man by Joanna Russ. Both
texts split the narrative into ascience ctional and arealistic strand so as
to contrast the contemporary world with utopian and dystopian alterna-
tives. Both texts are largely politicized as they expose and challenge the
marginalized status of women in the American society of the 1970s. They
explore the process of constructing marginalized identities, as well as the
forms that marginalization takes in the society. Most importantly, they in-
dicate the necessity of decisive steps being taken to improve the situation.
a b s t r a c t
Text Matters, Volume 2 Number 2, 2012
DOI: 10.2478/v10231-012-0066-3
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S
Sex-based discrimination is the most widespread form of social oppres-
sion, since the criterion of gender is readily applied in delineating social
division lines. According to feminists, this has led to the establishment
of the patriarchal system, dened as apolitical institution “whereby the
half of the populace which is female is controlled by that half which is
male” (Millett 34). Such adichotomization is adirect result of the dualistic
thinking of the phallocentric society, in which the core of the system of
thought and of the society as awhole is embedded in oppositional bina-
rism. Arelationship which remains in abinary opposition inherently en-
tails astrong contrast and asuperiority relationship. Inevitably, thus, “the
other” is ascribed an inferior rank, along with features opposite to those
exhibited by the superior norm. The male and the female in the patriarchy-
shaped consciousness are representative of such arelationship, in which
the woman is “the other,” who frequently assumes marginalized status.
This marginality is closely associated with astrong sense of differ-
ence resulting from the decidedly androcentric perception of gender. Sig-
nicantly, femininity can even be dened in terms of amarginalized social
position. Following Julia Kristeva, Toril Moi describes femininity as “that
which is marginalized by the patriarchal symbolic order” (248). Thus, it
seems undeniable that gender is one of the main determinants of marginal-
ity (Lee 33), and that women are the most frequent victims of marginaliza-
tion. This fact manifests itself primarily in exclusion from social and eco-
nomic life, denial of freedoms and lack of equality. Invariably, patriarchy
is the instrument of social control, which ensures that this state of affairs
persists, as it “[keeps] women out or on the edges of its economy and in-
stitutions” (Heath qtd. in Barr 70).
The marginalized status of women has been one of the main preoc-
cupations of all the waves of feminism, the rst two in particular. While
feminist philosophy addresses the problem from a socio-political per-
spective, feminist science ction attempts to approach it from aliterary
angle. Amarginal genre in itself, feminist speculative ction discusses the
same issues that concern feminist theorists, yet it presents and dramatizes
them in the form of thought experiments. The negative aspects of patri-
archy, including the marginalization of women, are typically exposed by
means of dystopian visions. Masculinist dystopias feature worlds of male
dominance, where discrimination and sexism are carried to the extreme.
These are usually set in invented worlds, planets, moons and lands, the
exact spatial and temporal location of which remains unknown. Despite
this or, paradoxically, due to this intentional cognitive estrangement, the
problems dramatized in such novels are recognizable for acontemporary
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reader. Indeed, many critics perceive strong parallels with the contempo-
rary world, which can hardly be dismissed as unintended. Even though
certain issues are exaggerated, their relevance to current issues is indis-
putable.
Thus, defamiliarization and the introduction of fantastic elements do
not detract from the social signicance of feminist science ction and they
certainly do not lessen their impact on its target audience. Still, many au-
thors opt for more straightforward ways of social indictment than merely
criticism by implication. They rely on realist techniques to convey the
message about the deciencies of our world and its social organization,
in particular the continued inequality of women. Consequently, instead of
otherworldly locations and extraterrestrial races, the reader is presented
with amore or less traditionally realist, or even naturalist, depiction of
twentieth-century America—contemporary to the authors at the time of
writing. This allows the writers to illustrate truthfully, without the guise
of science ctional tropes, the actual gender inequality that they wish to
disclose as prevalent and harmful.
The two most signicant texts of this kind are both feminist utopian
classics—Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy and The Female Man
by Joanna Russ. The action of both novels is set in the same year, 1976.
Therefore, they can be seen as aliterary response to what second-wave
feminists indentied as the oppressive and limiting social environment of
the 1970s. Also, both texts combine utopian and dystopian elements as
they juxtapose autopian alternative with the awed contemporary society.
Interestingly, both envision the utopia to be located in our future, rather
than on adistant island or planet as the stock utopian convention would
have it. Thus, it is not spatial but temporal distance that separates us from
the utopia and the conclusion is that it can only be reached if the right
choices are made in the present. The depiction of future worlds as well as
the use of the time travel theme are fantastic elements, which categorize
the novels as science ction works. However, these speculative compo-
nents exist side by side with close social observation.
In fact, Woman on the Edge of Time is frequently described as awork
of social realism (Makinen 17). However, it is also dened as “a success-
ful blending of realistic and speculative modes” (Walker 17), which points
to its genre variety. The plot centres on afemale character, Connie, who
experiences all the negative aspects of contemporary America—she lives in
“a wild zone of dispossession and contempt” (Berkson 111). Even though
she is described as atypical utopian traveller, she departs from the pattern
as her journey to utopia is aconsequence of time travelling, or, as Dana
Fancourt sees it, of mental travelling (99). Connie accesses utopia through
what Fancourt denes as “altered states of consciousness” (100). Indeed, it
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is only her mind that is transferred to the future, with her body remaining
in her own time.
The society she visits is the future community of Mattapoisett, aplace
of absolute equality. The strong contrast between the two primary set-
tings stems from the fact that Connie’s own life is astory of failure and
abuse, all resulting from her being female in apatriarchal society. Marleen
Barr makes the chilling observation that Connie’s suffering is not purely
ctional but is actually shared by many women in America (74). Connie’s
discrimination takes place on three levels: that of gender, class and race,
all of which constitute the grounds for her social oppression (Makinen
17) but also “the determinants of power” in apatriarchal society (Bam-
mer 96). Katherine Payant considers Connie the apotheosis of avictim of
capitalist patriarchy, representing the abuse endured by social groups such
as “women, ethnic minorities, the poor, the uneducated, the old” (66), all
suffering from the effects of marginalization. Connie can therefore be per-
ceived as the ultimate “other”—she is everything that awhite Anglo-Saxon
upper-class male is taught to despise, his absolute opposite. Not only is
Connie afemale, but also aChicana from apoor immigrant family. Her
underprivileged status is aggravated by her aborted pregnancies, afailed
attempt to gain acollege education and her history of criminal activity and
child abuse. At the novel’s start, she is on welfare, she has lost custody of
her daughter and she is about to be hospitalized in amental institution. She
is thus an outcast in every sense of this word—she is racially, socially and
sexually estranged from the mainstream society. Even though her social
status renders Connie “an unlikely heroine” (Green), it is precisely what
enables the author to use this character to expose and denounce the abuses
of patriarchy.
All the calamities that fall upon Connie can be traced back to the
men who have come her way. In fact, her life is acatalogue of unfortu-
nate relationships with men, beginning with her father, and continuing
with her brother, her college professor, her husbands, partners and her
doctors. Connie’s plans to “be someone” (Piercy 46) fail as she becomes
pregnant by awhite student who disclaims any responsibility for the child.
The woman decides to have an illegal abortion, done “without anaes-
thetic” (Piercy 234). Her family disown her and Connie describes herself
as a“spoiled woman:” “Neither baby nor husband, neither diploma, nor
home. No name. Nobody” (Piercy 234). Connie is not only “spoiled,”
she is also anobody in social terms—her whole existence is negated and
for her family and the society she becomes anobody. Connie’s predica-
ment exposes the sharp contrast between America and Mattapoisett. In
Mattapoisett live birth has been eliminated and the responsibility for chil-
dren is shared. In the twentieth-century patriarchy it is women who take
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the brunt of unwanted pregnancies. Connie’s two aborted pregnancies are
shown to have been aburden to her. The rst one cost Connie her college
education, which, according to Michael, reveals that reproduction assists
Western culture in limiting women and in thwarting their potential (11).
What is more, since Connie’s disadvantaged status in the society results in
the immediate removal of her daughter from her custody and placing her
with awhite family who benet from Connie’s misfortunes, she can also
be described as a“reproductive machine” (Barr 75).
During her college education Connie is used not only by her boy-
friend, but also by one of the professors, who hires her as asecretary, or
rather “secretary-mistress” as Connie blatantly puts it. What Connie feels
recalling this liaison is what she calls “the anger of the weak” (50)—an
anger that can never nd an outlet as nobody sympathizes with the suffer-
ing of the weak and the poor, whose pain is never brought to light. Connie
recalls with bitter irony that Professor Silvester “liked to have aSpanish-
speaking secretary, that is, anew one every year—dismissed when he went
away for summer vacation. He called them all Chiquita, like bananas” (50).
The professor, representing the characteristic features of an educated and
respected WASP, objecties his secretaries, which is evident in denying
them the right to be called by their own names. They are all products easily
identiable by abrand name, disposed of as soon as the professor is ready
to dispense with their services—the sexual ones rather than the secretarial.
As for Connie’s two husbands, only the rst offers her true affection,
yet he is killed in race riots. The circumstances of his death are very telling.
Piercy shows that both gender polarization and racial intolerance lead to
oppression and violence. Connie’s second husband, Eddie, is awife bat-
terer, who eventually abandons Connie and her small child. Subsequently,
Connie partners with Claud—a black saxophone player and apickpocket.
Though described as acaring man, he is guilty of drawing Connie into the
world of crime. After he dies in prison Connie suffers from severe depres-
sion and becomes an alcoholic. Consequently, she neglects her daughter,
Angelina, and hits her in adrunken t. As aresult she is declared unstable
and unt for mothering and her daughter is placed with afoster family. Sig-
nicantly, the fostered family is white—the social worker comments that
nding afamily for her will be easy due to the child’s relatively light skin.
Thus, in capitalism, even the child is objectied and treated like aproduct.
She is of interest to awell-off American family because she fullls the re-
quirements that they have set for the prospective child. Moreover, ethnic
origin emerges here as acrucial factor determining one’s progress from
marginality to the mainstream.
After this violent incident Connie is institutionalized for the rst
time. The same happens again when she assaults her niece’s pimp, Geraldo.