Mutable Feminists: Are We Ready for Them?

Mutable Feminists: Are We Ready for Them?

Throughout history, as women struggled to gain equality with men, these suffragettes were often ostracized and not accepted by society. In today’s world we find the basic rights which these women were fighting for fair, and the thought that someone would have opposed a woman’s right to vote seems ridiculous. Our society likes to feel that we are less rigid and very open-minded, but is there a type of equality, which we are still not prepared to accept? The two science fiction novels, He, She, and It by Marge Piercy, and The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey both make strong predictions about the technology, government, and social aspects of the future. Piercy and McCaffrey also express similar feminist views through the characters of Nili and Helva. Although they come from completely different hypothetical universes, these women are able to accomplish amazing feats without falling into a label, and are completely comfortable and proud of who they are. Helva and Nili exemplify feminists who use their strength and confidence with themselves, their constantly mutating attitudes and personalities, and their unique relationships with others to make incredible changes in their worlds.

Although the characters of Helva, from The Ship Who Sang, and Nili from He, She, and It, are very different, they actually possess very similar personalities and characteristics. Helva is a human who was crippled at birth and transformed into a shell person. She lives her life inside the safety of a titanium shell, and without the shell’s protection she would be dead. Helva’s limitations may seem severe; however, the shell, which Helva lives in, allows her to have extreme capabilities far more advanced than any regular human’s. Therefore Helva is physically disabled, yet at the same time physically superior. Nili is very different in that she appears to have the body of an average human, and she has the abilities that humans have without needing a shell to protect her. However, they are both very similar because both Helva and Nili need their technological advances in order to survive. If Nili had not undergone alterations as a child, she would have been unable to survive the incredibly harsh conditions of ‘the black zone’ where she was raised.