It’s Women’s History Month, with March 8th being International Women’s Day, and we want to celebrate by looking at some of the most influential women in science fiction. Sci-fi is often seen as a man’s world, but women have been creating and adding to the genre since its beginning. Here are seven women whose creations helped shape science fiction.
Check out more articles about amazing women for International Women’s Day, here!
Mary Shelley
It was the summer of 1816, and unending rain kept those who were vacationing with Lord Byron in Geneva, Switzerland inside. As a way to pass the time, Lord Byron challenged his guests to write their own ghost stories. Mary Shelley struggled for a few days to come up with an idea, but became intrigued by the principles of life and death.
Shelley imagined up the story of a corpse being re-animated and the doctor who must grapple with the powers of a god. While she originally wrote it as a short story, Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus would be published as a novel two years later. Mary Shelley’s story of the possibilities and consequences of medical science held unique themes for the time. Because of her novel, Mary Shelley would become known as the mother of science fiction.
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Lucille Ball
After their successful show, I Love Lucy, Lucille Ball and her husband, Desi Arnaz, purchased a production studio. Then, when they divorced, Ball took over the production studio herself. When Gene Roddenberry came to the studio with an idea for what would become Star Trek: The Original Series, many on the studio’s board rejected it. Lucille Ball, however, bought the series.
Lucille Ball didn’t quite understand Star Trek, but she knew a good idea when she heard it. She even supported the show to create two pilots with her personal funds. It would take a massive budget, but Ball put her faith and her finances in Roddenberry’s project. Without Lucille Ball, the most famous and influential science fiction television series would never have come to pass.
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Majel Barrett
If you have heard the voice of a Starfleet ship’s computer, you have heard Majel Barrett. Not only did she voice the computer, but she had roles in six different Star Trek series, including The Original Series, The Next Generation, and The Animated Series. As Gene Roddenberry’s wife, Barrett-Roddenberry fully immersed herself in the franchise and became the first lady of Star Trek.
After Gene Roddenberry’s death, Barrett-Roddenberry took on the role of producer to bring some of her late husband’s ideas to life. She was also instrumental in creating the comic book series Gene Roddenberry’s Lost Universe. Barrett-Roddenberry loved Star Trek and did all she could to keep the franchise going long after her husband passed away. And her voice work as the computer on Starfleet ships was the inspiration for Amazon’s Alexa. Her work in science fiction led to real-life technological advances.
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Marcia Lucas
Sadly, Marcia Lucas is not often recognized when it comes to her work with the Star Wars movies. While she was George Lucas’ wife, now ex-wife, Lucas was also an extremely talented editor. Before Star Wars, she worked with other critically acclaimed films, such as Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. She had already made a name for herself before ever working with George Lucas.
Star Wars: A New Hope had an incredibly complex script and the pacing of the movie made it confusing. Marcia Lucas was the one to come in and edit the film to be understandable to audiences. She was also the one to give the Star Wars original trilogy films the emotional component. Mark Hamill even declared her “the warmth and heart of those films.” Marcia Lucas would win an Oscar for Best Film Editing due to her work on A New Hope, and the Star Wars franchise shot to fame because of her talent.
Ursula K. Le Guin
If you were to search for one of the greatest science fiction authors, Ursula K. Le Guin would certainly be at the top of the list. With her world of Earthsea and the Hainish universe, Ursula subverted tropes and dealt with controversial topics. She was able to use her science fiction novels including The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness to make social commentary on politics, religion, race, gender, and sexuality.
Ursula would win numerous awards, including several Hugo and Nebula awards. Both the Hugo and Nebula awards are used to recognize extraordinary science fiction literature. A celebrated science fiction critic, John Clute, described Ursula as having “presided over American science fiction for nearly half a century.” Her work inspired many other science fiction authors and creators worldwide, and her novel A Wizard of Earthsea has never been out of print since it was first published in 1968.
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Lilly and Lana Wachowski
Creating a discussion about reality, perception, and identity, the Wachowski sisters are responsible for the worldwide phenomenon that is The Matrix. Both Lilly and Lana are trans women, representing successful women and LGBTQ filmmakers. While The Matrix was made before Lilly and Lana transitioned, its themes are even more poignant for the trans community.
Using science fiction as a medium, the Wachowski sisters were able to come to understand their own identities and create a franchise that allowed for others to understand themselves. The Matrix is now often viewed through a critical lens of transgender identity. The Wachowski sisters continued to make other prominent films outside of The Matrix franchise. Their filmography includes other science fiction stories like V for Vendetta, Cloud Atlas, Jupiter Ascending, and Sense8.
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Without these and many other women, the science fiction genre would not exist as it does today. Science fiction geeks are often imagined to be straight white men, but the truth is that sci-fi has been carried by us geek girls since the very beginning. Do you have any other examples of important women in science fiction? Let us know in the comments.
https://www.geekgirlauthority.com/best-female-science-fiction-fantasy-writers/
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