Stories "That Only a Mother" Could Write: Midcentury Peace Activism, Maternalist Politics, and Judith Merril's Early Fiction

This essay explores Judith Merril's early fiction in relation to the maternalist politics characteristic of midcentury women's peace activism. Dominant Cold War discourses encouraged American women to become "domestic patriots" by using their natural caretaking instincts to prepare their homes against the eventuality of nuclear war. Conversely, midcentury peace organizations posited that it was women's civic duty to protect their families by protesting against the militaristic social and moral orders attending the dawn of the atomic era. As science fiction became increasingly central to the American imagination in the 1950s, women writers turned to the genre as an ideal vehicle through which to express their dissent from the Cold War status quo. Premier among them was Judith Merril, whose passionate antiwar sensibilities led her to write science fiction that invoked the maternalist logic of midcentury peace activism by demonstrating how militaristic practices threaten to destroy the very families they are designed to protect. Additionally, Merril's stories extend the logic of her activist counterparts by imagining how women might connect with other caring workers—especially doctors and scientists—and create new communities that will protect future generations from the devastating legacy of the nuclear age.