This panel will feature two academic paper presentations followed by a live Q&A.
Liberation Through Queer Romance in Fembot Narratives Panelist: Faye Lynch (she/her) Abstract: Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods (2007) and Ros Anderson’s The Hierarchies (2021) both depict fembots which are subject to forms of suppression or entrapment, and both texts use the romantic and sexual relationships that the fembots have with human women as a metaphorical shorthand for, and doorway to, freedom. This freedom does take the form of a physical escape, but also has mental and philosophical aspects, with the fembots and their paramours both having their perception of the world expanded through their relationship with the other. This paper examines this depiction of queer-coded love in fembot freedom narratives and asks whether it is compelling enough to avoid the tropes of the oft problematic romances depicted between men and the machines built to serve them.
No, We’re Not Too Strong: Asserting Women’s Power in a Time of Backlash Panelist: Nancy Jane Moore (she/they) Abstract: Building on my earlier papers on the relationship of our bodies to feminism, I will focus on the recent misogynistic definitions of appropriate body type and behavior for women, particularly those of international sports organizations and the current United States administration, including bans on participation by transwomen, requirements that some women take hormones because of their genetic makeup, and claims that some athletes are too strong to “really” be women. The paper will also discuss the value to women in discovering their own physical power and address the importance of SF/F as a tool to undermine these attacks.
