Alternative Masculinities in Feminist Speculative Fiction: A New Man

169 Pages·2021·1.768 MB·English

by  Michael Pitts

Alternative Masculinities
in Feminist
Speculative Fiction

Alternative Masculinities
in Feminist
Speculative Fiction
A New Man
Michael Pitts
LEXINGTON BOOKS
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
Published by Lexington Books
An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
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www .rowman .com
6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2021 The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
Excerpt(s) from THE KIN OF ATA ARE WAITING FOR YOU by Dorothy Bryant,
copyright © 1971 by Dorothy Bryant. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint
and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems,
without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available
ISBN 978-1-7936-3660-7 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-7936-3661-4 (electronic)
∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
To my grandmother for her greatly missed monthly
phone calls. To my parents, who allowed me to explore
and idly people-watch as a child. And to those women
and men I observed in ballparks, skating rinks, and
churches who impressed upon me the myriad ways
masculinity may be challenged, altered, and reinvented.

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 Recovering Men in Dorothy Bryant’s The Kin of Ata
Are Waiting for You 23
2 Precarious Masculinities in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed 47
3 Complicating Manhood in Marge Piercy’s Woman on
the Edge of Time 67
4 Masculinity Crossing Borders in Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood 89
5 “This Is the Way a New World Begins”: Revolutionary
Masculinities in N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy 107
Conclusion 137
References 145
Index 155
About the Author 157
vii

Acknowledgments
Special thanks are due to Dr. Robin Roberts, Dr. Steven Rosales, and
Dr. Susan Marren. My gratitude to Jeff Northrup, Dr. Geoffrey Wright,
and Dr. Bruce McComiskey for their guidance over the years. Finally, love
and thanks to Alicia and our sweet feline companion, Cat Stevens, for their
endless encouragement throughout this endeavor.
ix