女性主義科幻小說中的母性: 論《她鄉》,《時間邊緣的女人》和《他,她,和它》

Abstract

Abstract Feminist science fiction is the genre in which feminist discourse and technological discourse intersect. This thesis focuses on an issue in this intersection: motherhood, intending to analyze how motherhood is represented in different ages and influenced by social values as well as technological practice. I choose three works for my analysis: Herland, Woman on the Edge of Time, and He, She, and It. I consider Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland as a precursor of feminist science fiction and in which a utopian society constituted of women alone is depicted. This society, while supportive of mothers, presents a unitary conception of motherhood with their strict employment of eugenics. Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time depicts the time travel of a Chicano mother. With the antithesis of time frames, Piercy is able to criticize patriarchal ideologies of the contemporary society as well as imagine a better future, enabled by the adoption of artificial reproduction technologies, for mothers. He, She, and It, another work by Piercy, questions the identity of being human as well as conception of “natural motherhood.” With the metaphor of cyborg, Piercy not only challenges the demarcation of gender identities but also points out that motherhood, as a practice, differs according to personal choices as well as social values. Her conception of motherhood in this text, although failing to incorporate biological males in the practice of motherhood, defies the stereotypical ideal of mothers as nurturers and child-rearers in patriarchy.