What would happen to our culture if men ceased to exist? Mary E. Bradley Lane explores this question in "Mizora", the first known feminist utopian novel written by a woman. Vera Zarovitch is a Russian noblewoman - heroic, outspoken, and determined. A political exile in Siberia, she escapes and flees north, eventually finding herself, adrift and exhausted, on a strange sea at the North Pole. Crossing a barrier of mist and brilliant light, Zarovitch is swept into the enchanted, inner world of Mizora. A haven of music, peace, universal education, and beneficial, advanced technology, "Mizora" is a world of women."Mizora" appeared anonymously in the Cincinnati Commercial in 1880 and 1881. Mary E. Bradley Lane concealed from her husband her role in writing the controversial story. Of great historical significance and a remarkable story, "Mizora" is now widely available in a modern, paperback edition. Introducing this "Bison Frontiers of Imagination" edition is Joan Saberhagen, coeditor of "Pawn to Infinity" and a member of the Very Small Array workshop, a group of science fiction writers in New Mexico.
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In 1880, when the Cincinnati Commercial newspaper serialised this feminist utopian novel, ideas such as universal free education - a world where class had no meaning and where women are freed from domestic labour - were revolutionary. Much of the description of Mizora still sounds radical, though one might well blanch at blonde, blue-eyed maidens rulings the world and eating chemically created food." The Guardian Weekly, 16 March 2000 "Part of an intriguing imprint form the University of Nebraska Press, which is dedicated to unearthing lost SF from the turn of the last century. Mizora is one of the first-known feminist utopian novels and was originally published anonymously in 1880, when Bradley posited the question: what would happen to our culture if men ceased to exist? Rich in fantastical imagery and allegoric to a time of great upheaval from Russia and Eastern Europe into the USA."--Bizarre, May 2000
About the Author
Introducing this Bison Frontiers of Imagination edition is Joan Saberhagen, coeditor of "Pawn to Infinity" and a member of the Very Small Array workshop, a group of science fiction writers in New Mexico.
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Feminist Utopia
4 Aug 2007
By wiredweird
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
As with so many Utopian stories, this combines high ideals with wonderful if improbable consequences of following those ideals. And, in some ways, this story contains remarkable prescience.
It foretells a world without men and wholly better for that omission, a fantasy that I'm sure many women have held at least briefly. But, where at least one other manless Utopia (Herland) sustained itself with miraculous parthenogenesis, Lane's women reproduce by means of Science. OK, she's a bit vague on the details, but today's bioscience gives the idea a believable sound. Lane also counts on Science to sustain youthful good health far into what we consider old age, and to keep the women's cities clean and healthful. Electric vehicles replace draft animals in this world, eliminating the unsightly and unsanitary waste that inevitably follow them. Our own pollution problems are just as bad even if different in kind, and we're only now catching up to her foresight. And, in using mechanism to replace human drudgery, Lane even proposes the robot floor-cleaner - easily recognized as today's Roomba and floor-washing Scooba. Because Lane looked to technology to solve social problems, her society equips itself well with technologists. This dreamworld features universal education; the society's highest esteem and reward go to its most skilled educators.
Credibility falters at about this point, as Lane describes how this society reshapes the people within it. They are, of course, innately moral. The only prison remains as a monument to the bad old days, unused for at least a century. (It's last inhabitant was held for the crime of striking her child!) Outward beauty necessarily follows inner, so these citizens uniformly embody beauty, the blonde and blue-eyed kind, grace, musical sense, and athleticism unconstrained by the crippling corsetry of Lane's day. As these people vanquished their darker urges, darkness of skin and hair vanished in consequence - a merger of morality and racism that today's reader finds bizarre and repugnant.
Lane's lyrical praise for Mizora's beautiful populace gets to be a bit much at times, but the story fascinates even so. And, despite its sentimentality, it leaves the reader wondering - could these ideas truly change our world for the better?
-- wiredweird
It foretells a world without men and wholly better for that omission, a fantasy that I'm sure many women have held at least briefly. But, where at least one other manless Utopia (Herland) sustained itself with miraculous parthenogenesis, Lane's women reproduce by means of Science. OK, she's a bit vague on the details, but today's bioscience gives the idea a believable sound. Lane also counts on Science to sustain youthful good health far into what we consider old age, and to keep the women's cities clean and healthful. Electric vehicles replace draft animals in this world, eliminating the unsightly and unsanitary waste that inevitably follow them. Our own pollution problems are just as bad even if different in kind, and we're only now catching up to her foresight. And, in using mechanism to replace human drudgery, Lane even proposes the robot floor-cleaner - easily recognized as today's Roomba and floor-washing Scooba. Because Lane looked to technology to solve social problems, her society equips itself well with technologists. This dreamworld features universal education; the society's highest esteem and reward go to its most skilled educators.
Credibility falters at about this point, as Lane describes how this society reshapes the people within it. They are, of course, innately moral. The only prison remains as a monument to the bad old days, unused for at least a century. (It's last inhabitant was held for the crime of striking her child!) Outward beauty necessarily follows inner, so these citizens uniformly embody beauty, the blonde and blue-eyed kind, grace, musical sense, and athleticism unconstrained by the crippling corsetry of Lane's day. As these people vanquished their darker urges, darkness of skin and hair vanished in consequence - a merger of morality and racism that today's reader finds bizarre and repugnant.
Lane's lyrical praise for Mizora's beautiful populace gets to be a bit much at times, but the story fascinates even so. And, despite its sentimentality, it leaves the reader wondering - could these ideas truly change our world for the better?
-- wiredweird
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