A world beyond the labels

As an SF writer, my task is to imagine the future.  So I get a little bemused when so many SF authors use their work as a political polemic for current-day gender politics.  I confess that much of this debate turns me off.  Call me naive, but when I raised the issue of multiple genders with a friend, her response was "but humans only come in two types, males and females."  I do feel rather like that myself.

I've watched the proliferation of gender labels with bemusement, and I confess that when I spot a new one I often have to look up its meaning.  And it seems that some SF writers go out of their way to invent more exotic variations on gender.  The trouble is, I'm a practically-minded person, and I wonder why we need this overlay of gender on our physical sex type.

I think some of it is an attempt to escape the shackles of our current sexualised culture, and that I support wholeheartedly.  We have to challenge the 'sexy girlie' stereotype, but I'm not convinced that inventing multiple genders is the best way to do that.  What's needed is a full frontal attack on sexism and mysogyny, what's required is to demand true equality for all people.

That's why I don't focus on gender in my books,  I write about worlds where people don't define themselves by such labels, a world where people are accepted for who they are.  I envisage worlds where anyone can train for and do their dream job or profession, and not be barred from that career because of sex-based prejudices.  Gender is absent in my books because it's not relevant to them.   I have female project leaders and Presidents working alongside male chairmen of powerful organisations.  I have teams of male and female people working happily together, bound by their respect for each others' professional expertise.  

I see my characters as individuals living in a world beyond ugly sexualised culture, where equality is an expectation of everyone.  That makes them free to be true individuals, without the need to identify with some label or group.  To me, that is true speculation, as it's so far from the world in which we live  today.  But SF has always been a torch-bearer for change, and if what I write can encourage people to see people free from sexual stereotyping and expectations, then it will have served its purpose.

Wendy Metcalfe is the author of Panthera : Death Spiral and Panthera : Death Song, and the short story collection Otherlives.  Find out more at www.wendymetcalfe.com