‘A hot and savage strength’: The female masculinity of C. L. Moore’s Jirel of Joiry

Abstract

C. L. Moore is considered a trailblazer of feminist SF because of the short stories she published in the 1930s and 1940s. Her tales ‘Shambleau’ (1933) and ‘No Woman Born’ (1944) have attracted some scholarly attention, but the stories that follow the medieval female warrior, Jirel of Joiry (1934–1939), have yet to be addressed in any depth. In this article I therefore focus attention on Jirel who is, arguably, the first female warrior to appear in SF. Using Judith Halberstam's work (1998. Female Masculinity. Durham: Duke University Press), as well as recent studies on the female action hero as my theoretical framework, I argue that Jirel presents the reader with a performance of female masculinity. I demonstrate that her performance of masculinity is channelled by the warrior role she plays into traits such as physical strength, authority, sexual agency and an enjoyment of violence. Her performance of masculinity is significant because of the era in which the Jirel tales were published, and may well constitute the first appearance of a female masculinity in SF. If this is the case, the Jirel stories make a central contribution feminist SF and their value should be acknowledged as equal to that of Moore's other stories.