Alternative Masculinities in Feminist Speculative Fiction

Alternative Masculinities in Feminist Speculative Fiction: A New Man traces efforts within American feminist utopias to imagine healthier conceptions of manhood. As this analysis illuminates, feminist works envisioning the improved society and its attending masculinities constitute an overlooked site for mining new masculinities. During the years in which such utopias gained popularity —the early 1970s to the mid-2010s—these novels grew more complex, challenging essentialist conceptions of masculinity and female experience. These texts vary in their focus but share an interest in replacing patriarchal masculinities with an alternative informed by second wave and intersectional feminism. This book analyzes the centrality of alternative masculinities to these ideal societies and the ways feminist writers present new conceptions of manhood pivotal to discussions surrounding the ongoing crisis of American masculinity.