John Varley’s nine worlds stories, particularly those that occur later on in the continuity, have a setting that’s pretty close to being utopian. If one uses the definition of feminist as being a society in which men and women are exactly equal, then this one certainly qualifies. Medical science has progressed to the point at which doctors are merely skilled technicians, people are nearly immortal. The most common causes of death are suicide, accident, and murder, in that order, and murder is extraordinarily rare. Literally everything about ones physicality can be chosen, including sex, and body modifications are relatively inexpensive.
This leads to a society in which most adults live lives switching from one sex to the other as it suits them. People have a natural sexuality that may be equally male and female, may be slightly balanced more toward one or the other, resulting in a person who stays female 70% of the time and male the other 30%, with a minority who are so dominantly one or the other that they lead their entire lives as a single sex.
The result is a society in which the genders are still different, women are feminine and men masculine, but are entirely equal. Indeed, it’s implied that getting to choose one’s gender actually tends to enhance feminine and masculine aspects of those genders. The message is clear; women and men being equal doesn’t mean that they have to be the same.
The stories themselves usually have female protaganists. Some of them focus on the idea of changing sexes, male to female being more common (“Picnic on Nearside”, Steel Beach). Only one story I know of shows a female to male transition, and that is set early in the continuity when it is still uncommon enough that married couples still exist. A woman wants her husband to share in breastfeeding their child by having lactating breasts installed. When he balks at this, she goes on to become gradually more and more masculine, which eventually destroys their marriage (later in the continuity, long term male-female marriage has ceased to exist altogether). Again, the message seems to be that the differences between the sexes are good for us.
One story (“The Barbie Murders”) details a sub-culture commune in which everyone is surgically altered to have exactly the same, androgynous look. It’s revealed that most of the residents don’t really buy the idea or quickly become disillusioned. Again, the message is that the differences between the sexes are a good thing, and when sex roles are both rigidly defined and unescapable, for a woman to be equal to a man she must become more like a man.
By the late stages of the continuity, fathers have ceased to exist as anything other than sperm donors. When a person is ready to be a parent, that person becomes female and gets pregnant by a trusted friend (who may have to become male to do this). Being chosen to father anothers child is a great privilege, and chosing the right father is important, but once conception occurs, the father no longer has any status, and seldom has any contact with the child. “Parent” and “mother” become synonymous. But because sex changes are so common, a child’s mother may at times be female and other times male. The message here seems to be that infants need a mother, but as children grow older, they need one good parent, and whether that parent is male or female is of little importance.
Lest anyone doubt that Varley is a committed feminist, one only need read the short story “Mannequin” to remove all doubt.
