Putting the speculation into FEM-SF

There was a lot wrong with the so-called 'golden age' SF, the biggest issue being the invisibility of real women, but there were some good things about it too.  One of the best was its ability to dream, to look outwards to the stars and speculate about future tech and societies.  And it's this speculative element that is sadly missing from so much of today's so-called SF.

It's good that the whole issue of women's representation in the genre has come centre-stage, but for me that's raised new issues.  One of the biggest is that so many female authors are transferring the  navel-gazing of contemporary women's fiction into SF.  

I don't read so-called women's fiction because I'm not interested in romance, sex, or owning designer shoes.  I don't want to endorse traditional family structures, I want to champion archetypes of successful independent women.  Filling SF books with angst about current gender concerns is a criminal waste of the opportunities the genre provides.  

I want to see characters who choose their gender, get over it, and get on with their lives.  And I don't want their lives to revolve around the patriarcally-conceived family control system.  I want to see societies where women are valued for choosing life-long celibacy, societies which entrust them with leadership positions because they can't be corrupted by sex.

I want to see societies where no women breeds, where kids are all produced by IVF in artificial wombs,  only enough to maintain the society.  We'd solve the overbreeding problem that way. But how would the millions of women who today take their whole identity from breeding construct meaning in their lives then?   Let's speculate on women who take full responsibility for their lives.  Perhaps the dominant social grouping would be clan-based, moving away from the stifling nuclear family's constraints. How would those clans be organised?  Males together?  Females together?  Or on the basis of profession, or religion?  How would being a member of a clan change women's lives if they had equality there?

But, of course, that would require publishers being willing to take a risk on offending some people with that speculation.  And I see little evidence of that so far.  I sigh long and loud when I read another so-called SF short story about a brother and sister growing up together in a traditional family.  I could read so-called women's fiction if I wanted that.  I don't.   I want change, female equality, female power and respect for professional women.  Let's see FEM-SF embracing that.