Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time, published in 1976, is a classic feminist novel as well as a bold, speculative look at the future.
Woman on the Edge of Time is often described as a feminist utopia, although it questions society’s ability to achieve utopia. The reader comes to realize that it is the responsibility of present day individuals to change society’s future.
Insane or Traveling Through Time?
The main character of Woman on the Edge of Time is Consuelo, or Connie, a Latina woman in her thirties. Connie is deemed insane by the society in which she has struggled, and she ends up in a mental institution.
Connie also makes contact with the future. She is able to travel through time to visit a post-gender version of society. Is Connie insane, or does she really manage to time travel? The novel is ambiguous about these questions.
Feminist Utopia
The futuristic society envisioned in Woman on the Edge of Time is often described as a “feminist utopia.” Gender roles have been eliminated, as have other social problems that ignited passions in the 1970s United States, such as racism, homophobia and pollution.
In this future world, traditional childbearing has been replaced by laboratories, and men can breastfeed. Children are raised by three parents; the male/female dichotomy is entirely lost. Even the words “he” and “she” have disappeared. However, Connie questions whether this society has lost some of the good things about being human.
The Future is Threatened
Connie also learns of the threat of a very different future. In the alternate future, wealthy capitalists who live on space stations use for their own benefit the humans who are left on a ravaged Earth. This dangerous alternative recalls Connie in the 1970s mental hospital, where patients are held captive and subjected to experiments, while wealthy, white male doctors have all the power.
Connie must prevent this dangerous alternative future by taking action in her own time. Woman on the Edge of Time has definite elements of science fiction, but it is also a reflective, anti-establishment political novel. Marge Piercy confronts the reader with questions of what social or political action is necessary, whether revolution is achieved without armed resistance, and how we go about creating our future.