Gender Dystopias

A little over a year ago, I made a display called reproductive dystopias featuring a wide range of speculative fiction in which there was a gender and/or reproductive imbalance.  It was Handmaid’s Tale read-a-like essentially.  Since then, there have been even more books published along these lines! This trend is unsurprising as gender inequality is a pressing topic of our time. Here are some of the books I’ve heard come down the pipeline if you can’t get enough. I personally haven’t read many of them because frankly, it is all too real.

Vox by Christina Dalcher

The premise of this book is that women are restricted to a certain number of words per day, which was apparently a popular theme last year as there was another YA book, All Rights Reserved by Greg Scott Katsoulis, that had a similar plot though without a focus on gender.  In a way, the direct comparison to losing the right to speak and having a voice and agency is a little heavy handed, but considering real life events, it is almost eerie to considering the loss of such fundamental rights.

Before She Sleeps by Bina Shah

This book escaped my radar when it was first published, which is too bad because I am happy to see a #weneeddiversebooks perspective on this issue.  Set in South West Asia, Before She Sleeps explores the adverse effects of gender disparity and forced breeding.  This book explores the way in which procreation and reproductive rights are an essential part of the conversation concerning gender rights.  Many feminist dystopias focus on this topic, so it will be interesting to see Shah’s perspective.

The Water Cure by Sophie MacKintosh

This book is one of the few I have read.  It is interesting as the narrative structure and unreliable narrators make it difficult to determine how much the gender disparity is real and how much is imagined.  Ultimately the latter is more frightening.  This book is bleak and lyrical with a tight thriller undercurrent.  I listened to the audiobook and the narrators gave life to the three sister who try to survive in a hostile environment.

I was interested in this book when it was announced, but didn’t realize it would include a feminist component.  From the near future, an oppressive government uses time travel as a punishment for those who do not comply.  This story follows one young woman as she is sent back in time to where gender policies can be used to punish her rebellion.  Also pitched as a love story, I need to put this book back on hold to see where this book leads.

Hazards of Time Travel by Joyce Carol Oates

Motherland by Lauren Beukes (April 1, 2019?)

I could have sworn I saw that this book would be available this year.  It seems that the e-book will be published on April 1, 2019, but it looks like the physical book will not hit Stateside until May 1, 2020.  Lauren Beukes has written some excellent novels that straddle the line between sci-fi and horror, so be assured that this novel is probably going to get a bit grisly.  Set in the future where men are precious few after a deadly virus, one woman goes on the run with her male child.  Based on her previous novels, I am not hopeful for the survival of either, but we shall see.  I am getting a Children of Men vibe from the description.

Women’s War by Jenna Glass

This book comes out next week!  With a fantastical setting, the book focuses on the shifting power dynamics after oppressed women gain magical powers.  In some ways it reminds me of one of the big feminist books of last year, The Power by Naomi Alderman.  It will be interesting to see how this book compares especially as most feminist dystopias focus on more contemporary or near future settings. I just hope it is better than the Worldbreaker Saga which tries to explore a tyrannical matriarchy (unsuccessfully in my opinion).

Please let me know if you hear of others!

Added April 7, 2019:

The Tiger Flu by Larissa Lai

Just recently heard of this book which features parthenogenic women and tensions that arise from these different communities and possible epidemics.  It sounds thrilling.