Feminist dystopian novels

[LovelyCocksReg]

I’m in angry feminist mode and I want to read things that fit my mood. I’ve read Handmaid’s Tale, Vox, Red Clocks, The Power, and I’ve just started Parable of the Sower. What else?

[IamEarthymama]

I can't believe that I have missed this thread as this genre of writing helped to shape my politics, world-view and, most certainly, my feminism. In fact without being overly dramatic it is reading that has shaped my life.

I grew up in relative poverty, in a loving home but without access to books in the house. I could read at 3 years old, reading the Daily Mirror and the Bible) and fell in love with the mobile library at 5. I read voraciously but it was when working as a librarian in the 1970s, 1980s early 1990s that I came across the writers previously mentioned, including Marge Piercy, Sheri Tepper, Octavia Butler, Joanna Russ etc.
Also outside this genre , Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison,
Their fiction helped me sense of the feminist and political theory I was also reading.

Can I recommend Starhawk? She is a wise pagan witch who has lived an amazing life of environmental and political activism. I love her writing, both non-fiction, centred on spirituality and living with-Earth rather than just on-Earth, and her dystopian/utopian visions set in the very near future and which seem ever more likely as the days pass.
Fifth Sacred Thing
Walking to Mercury this is a prequel to Fifth Sacred Thing and is a semi-fictionalised story of Starhawk's journey to becoming activist and witch. I often wish I had been as brave as she was rather than clinging to convention.
City of Refuge

Her other books including Spiral Dance the Empowerment Manual are very useful for those who wish to explore spirituality and politics or see them as fundamentally linked. My favourite is Earth Path, my copy is tattered and torn but much loved. Her writing on power and how it is exercised in capitalist, patriarchal society is excellent

I was delighted to see a new edition of Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy on the shelves at Waterstones. I would love to think this has been driven by the number of second-wave feminists who have recommended it to their younger sisters. Piercy and Tepper's works are amongst my favourite novels.

Thank you to the OP for starting this thread. It would be great if people came back to post how they feel about these books.

[Springfern]

The Farm by Joanne Ramos. Women Talking by Miriam Towers. Not sci fi or dystopian but The Women's Room by Marylin French and The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing are v angry

[MsAmerica]

This isn't exactly what you're asking, but it looks like no one has mentioned Raccoona Sheldon (AKA James Tiptree). I was particularly thinking of the short story "The Screwfly Solution."

[PeriComoToes]

Sorry, just realised it was feminist dystopian novels. Doh!

[DancelikeEmmaGoldman]

Short story rather than novel, but Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper. Not sci-fi, scared the pants off me.

If you want to go back in history, Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies (1405).

Further forward Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World, (1666). I suppose these two might more more Utopian, since they’re imagining a world without men.

Joanna Russ and Ursula Le Guin on the sci-fi side of things. Also Octavia Butler’s Kindred.

The Atlantic has a nice article featuring some new and interesting writers.

www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/10/feminist-speculative-fiction-2018/571822/

[PeriComoToes]

St. John!

[PeriComoToes]

Station Eleven by Emily At. John Mandel

[CarpeVitam]

Bump

[LovelyCocksReg]

Any others on the less sci-fi end of things?

[hidingmystatus]

And in particular, for a horribly plausible near-term dystopia, Sheri S Tepper's "Gibbon's Decline and Fall". Re-read it recently and was astounded how close it could be to arriving.

[hidingmystatus]

Been recommended, but absolutely Sheri S Tepper. Brilliant - The Gate To Women's Country; Grass, although I didn't like Beauty at all I loved all the rest from then on.

[AwkwardSquad]

Oh yes, I‘ve read that one, Katsu. It was good, although quite grim (well, yes, it’s dystopian...). Can’t remember the ending though.

[2rebecca]

I'm about to start reading Jeanette Winterson's Frankissstein which is out today

[KatsutheClockworkOctopus]

The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall.

[LovelyCocksReg]

Thanks for all these!

[PomBearWithAnOFRS]

Oo, and The Silence Of The Girls

[PomBearWithAnOFRS]

A Gift Upon The Shore.
Lots of Octavia E. Butler's stuff.
Always Coming Home.

[CarolinePooter]

Reg you could read Native Tongue by Suzette Haden Elgin (1984), the first of a trilogy. Women create a secret language unknown to their overlords. Still a handy concept!

[SoundofSilence]

The Gate to Women's Country, by Sheri Tepper.

[grumpyyetgorgeous]

Loving this I've just got a whole new bookshelf now.
Have you read "Perfect" and "Gather the daughters" the latter is not for everybody though..... turns the stomach a bit.

[AwkwardSquad]

‘Woman on the edge of time’ compares utopia/dystopia, which is interesting.

[AwkwardSquad]

LovelyCocksReg yes! Found it eventually on the bookshelves. Better name than the US one, I think.

[Iwasboadicea]

More current and available as e-books - The book of the unnamed midwife & sequels by Meg Elison. I need to buy and read the 3rd one myself as I hadn't realised it was available.

[Iwasboadicea]

Walk to the End of the World & sequels by Suzy McKee Charnas. Written in the 80s. Truly dystopian world. Sadly not available as e-books as far as I can see.

[LovelyCocksReg]

AwkwardSquad Wikipedia tells me it was Body of Glass in the UK.