Bigger on the inside

Like many millennials, I arrived on the ‘women in sf’ scene late enough that most of the work already seemed to have been done and most of the stories already told. My sister and I acted out original sf plotlines with our Barbie dolls across the strange and undiscovered landscapes of various US military bases. I found plenty of characters to identify with, of all genders, and at the time that seemed like everything I could ask for. When women in sf disappointed me, I dismissed them. Shelley in particular always seemed distant and frigid to my younger self – too steeped in the stereotypes of Victorian womanhood to make a compelling heroine. How could that exterior hide anything interesting? How could I put myself in her shoes when they were so alien?

Now, as an adult academic studying popular feminism, I have a different perspective on my fannish joys and disappointments. I understand that it is not always the creator’s job to appeal to me; there is value in alienation. I know that equal representation is not the best indicator of equal rights. Who is behind the camera is just as important as who is in front of it – and those in front of it are still overwhelmingly slim, white, straight and conventionally feminine. My positive experiences in fandom do not negate those of other women who have been marginalised, mocked or abused. Even as I am excited to see powerful women on-screen, I am angry that progress is so slow and equality so incomplete.

And yet.

For all my work and criticism, I never expected to feel such uncritical happiness when, in The Force Awakens (Abrams US 2015), the lightsaber went not to Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) but to Rey (Daisy Ridley). Or when Diana (Gal Gadot) stepped up over the edge of the trenches in Wonder Woman (Jenkins Hong Kong/China/US 2017). Or when Doctor Who showrunners (reboot UK 2005–) announced that the Doctor’s next face would be female. I’ve been a woman in sf for long enough that I sometimes forget the joy of being a woman in sf. These moments redefine me.

Such moments of unexpected, illogical happiness in my fandom make me think of the TARDIS (I’m a literary critic – when I need to explain something I resort to metaphor). In the 2009 Doctor Who radio play ‘Mary’s Story’, Mary Shelley becomes one of the Doctor’s time-travelling companions. Like many companions before her, she is first staggered and then excited to discover that the Doctor’s time machine (TARDIS=Time And Relative Dimension In Space) defies everything she thought she knew. It looks like a tiny police box on the outside, but like a giant spaceship on the inside. In that moment she realises that if she embraces this strangeness, her world will change in ways she could never have imagined before – like the TARDIS, she too will become ‘bigger on the inside’.

When new companions meet the TARDIS, it reminds us that there are other worlds beyond our narrow horizons, and that we can’t always judge things by how they appear. This is what I love about sf in general. In sf discovery is always wondrous, even when it is maddening (or maddeningly slow). This is why, against my better judgement and expectations, I am excited for the future of this genre, and excited for the future of women in this genre. Not because so much has been done, but because sf keeps giving me wondrous glimpses of all that is left to do. Not because we have come so far, but because there is so far to go and so much territory to explore. There are uncharted expanses to be charted. We will go where no woman (or man) has gone before. We too will discover that our world is bigger on the inside – bigger than we ever could have imagined.