Feminist Dystopias And Ecofeminist Representation

In this paper, I argue that the genre of feminist dystopian fiction, which has grown and evolved rapidly as a response to women's anger, and which often aims to critique patriarchal attempts to control female reproduction, often inadvertently reinforces a kind of biological essentialism that links women inherently to nature--a tendency that has been largely overlooked by literary critics. I take up this argument through an analysis of two feminist dystopian novels: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (1985), and Naomi Alderman's more recent work The Power (2016). I argue that The Handmaid's Tale has been praised as a critique of patriarchy, yet critics have overlooked its descriptions and imagery that insistently connect women to nature, an inadvertent reinforcement of biological essentialism that often stems from myths which view women and nature as involving a mutually beneficial relationship. I read Naomi Alderman's The Power--a novel Alderman dedicates to Atwood--as both an intertextual response to and critique of these ideals in The Handmaid's Tale, arguing that Alderman depicts a dystopian world in which women's relationship to nature can be profoundly destructive. I argue that by depicting a world that threatens the reproductive rights of men, Alderman suggests that biological essentialism is too often used as a means to maintain dominant power structures. At stake in this argument is an enriched understanding not only of Atwood and Alderman but also of the power and limitations of the genre of the feminist dystopian novel.