Pamela Sargent's "Women of Wonder"

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that Sargent, using chronological assemblage, attempts to show how the genre of science fiction has evolved over the years. The author points out that women were assumed not to be interested in science fiction, but the revolution of feminism has questioned this and indicated that women have the desire to gaze into the infinity of the scientific future. The paper concludes that a more radical understanding of how gender is understood in science fiction might ultimately be more liberating, not simply as a way of reading these pieces as literary and historical texts, but also for feminist science fiction writers writing today.

From the Paper:

"Sargent chooses to begin with C.L. Moore's rather lurid novella about cyborgs. The inclusion of this vision of wonder first shows the reader the lack of intrinsic reality to any conception of humanity, most particularly, a female reality. Of course, women have been constructed through paint, clothing and the male imagination for centuries thus computers seem the logical extension of such physical fantasies, for all of the fear the image of the cyborg inspires in the heart of the reader, the ideology of the story could be read as implying."

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