Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: When did feminist science fiction become popular?
Forrest J Ackerman is credited with first using the term "Sci-Fi" (analogous to the then-trendy "hi-fi") in 1954. As science fiction entered popular culture, writers and fans active in the field came to associate the term with low-budget, low-tech "B-movies" and with low-quality pulp science fiction. By the 1970s, critics within the field such as Knight and Terry Carr were using "sci-fi" to distinguish hack-work from serious science fiction. Peter Nicholls writes that "SF" (or "sf") is "the preferred abbreviation within the community of sf writers and readers". Robert Heinlein found even "science fiction" insufficient and suggested the term speculative fiction to be used instead, which has continued to be applied to "serious" or "thoughtful" science fiction.
In the United States, pulp magazines such as Harry Donenfeld's "Spicy Detective" featured comics on heroines who lose their clothing, such as Adolphe Barreaux's "Sally the Sleuth" which debuted in 1934. Many of the early comic publishers got their start in the pulps with Donenfeld for instance going on to found DC Comics. Fiction House similarly started as a pulp magazine publisher, but in 1938, released "Jumbo Comics" featuring Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, the first of many scantily clad jungle girls. Fiction House comics routinely featured attractive women on the covers, a trend which later became referred to as 'good girl art.' In 1941, Quality Comics put out "Police Comics" featuring Phantom Lady, a scantily clad crime fighter. Fox Feature Syndicate eventually began publishing Phantom Lady where she was drawn by Matt Baker, one of the most famous 'good girl' artists. Milton Caniff started producing the comic strip "Male Call" in 1943, and Bill Ward came out with "Torchy" in 1944 featuring sexy heroines.
The first known female superhero is writer-artist Fletcher Hanks's minor character Fantomah, an ageless, ancient Egyptian woman in the modern day who could transform into a skull-faced creature with superpowers to fight evil; she debuted in 1940 in Fiction Houses "Jungle Comics".
The UN Decade for Women of 1976-1985, and the following four UN conferences on women between 1975 and 1995 were essential in creating transnational feminist networks and putting feminism on a global agenda. 
However starting in the 1980s there was a separation between Western feminists and Third World feminists. This occurred largely because Western feminists largely subscribed to liberal feminist perspectives, which focused on the common patriarchal oppressor of women, defined by its confining women to the household and traditional work. Liberal feminists propose that women break this oppression by leaving their traditional roles in the household, becoming educated, and entering the labor force. Women in the global South often felt that Western feminism did not represent them and align with their struggles. They felt that Western feminism was ethnocentric and assumed all women had similar situations. Scholars like Chandra Talpade Mohanty plays an integral role in articulating concerns about Western feminism's failure to account for non-Western subjects. She critiques feminism during this time period to be more inclusive of intersectional struggles, identifying that feminism and inequalities are not linear, and the idea of female being a basis of shared oppression invisibilized the individual within their specific context and time. Upon realizing that the common phenomena of capitalist globalization was causing women all over the world to be disproportionately affected (CITE), transnational feminist movements allied together and helped to consolidate the field of transnational feminism.
As superheroes began to fade out of fashion in the post-World War II era, comic-book publishers scrambled to explore new types of stories, characters, and audiences. In an attempt to appeal to young female readers, comics companies began introducing some of the first significant female superheroes since Wonder Woman in 1941. These new female leads would include Timely's Blonde Phantom, Golden Girl, Namora, Sun Girl, and Venus, and its teen-humor star Millie the Model; Fox Comics' revival of Quality Comics' Phantom Lady; and DC's Black Canary.
The first known female superhero is writer-artist Fletcher Hanks's minor character Fantomah, an ageless, ancient Egyptian woman in the modern day who could transform into a skull-faced creature with superpowers to fight evil; she debuted in Fiction House's "Jungle Comics" #2 (Feb. 1940), credited to the pseudonymous "Barclay Flagg". The first widely recognizable female superhero is "Wonder Woman", from All-American Publications, one of three companies that would merge to form DC Comics. In an October 25, 1940, interview conducted by former student Olive Byrne (under the pseudonym 'Olive Richard') and published in "Family Circle", titled "Don't Laugh at the Comics", William Moulton Marston described what he saw as the great educational potential of comic books (a follow up article was published two years later in 1942.) This article caught the attention of comics publisher Max Gaines, who hired Marston as an educational consultant for National Periodicals and All-American Publications, two of the companies that would merge to form the future DC Comics. At that time, Marston decided to develop a new superhero. In the early 1940s the DC line was dominated by superpowered male characters such as the Green Lantern, Batman, and its flagship character, Superman. According to the Fall 2001 issue of the Boston University alumni magazine, it was his wife Elizabeth Hollowy's idea to create a female superhero. Marston introduced the idea to Max Gaines, cofounder (along with Jack Liebowitz) of All-American Publications. Given the go-ahead, Marston developed "Wonder Woman" with Elizabeth (whom Marston believed to be a model of that era's unconventional, liberated woman). In creating Wonder Woman, Marston was also inspired by Olive Byrne, who lived with the couple in a polygamous/polyamorous relationship. In a 1943 issue of "The American Scholar", Marston wrote:
Both major publishers began introducing new superheroines with a more distinct feminist theme as part of their origin stories or character development. Examples include Big Barda, Power Girl, and the Huntress by DC comics; and from Marvel, the second Black Widow, Shanna the She-Devil, and The Cat. Female supporting characters who were successful professionals or hold positions of authority in their own right also debuted in the pages of several popular superhero titles from the late 1950s onward: Hal Jordan's love interest Carol Ferris was introduced as the Vice-President of Ferris Aircraft and later took over the company from her father; Medusa, who was first introduced in the "Fantastic Four" series, is a member of the Inhuman Royal Family and a prominent statesperson within her people's quasi-feudal society; and Carol Danvers, a decorated officer in the United States Air Force who would become a costumed superhero herself years later.
Shortly after release, "Cosmos" became the best-selling science book ever published in the English language, and was the first science book to sell more than half a million copies. Though spurred in part by the popularity of the television series, "Cosmos" became a best-seller by its own regard, reaching hundreds of thousands of readers. It was only surpassed in the late 1980s by Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" (1988). "Cosmos" spent 50 weeks on the "Publishers Weekly" best-seller's list, and 70 weeks on the "New York Times" Best Seller list. "Cosmos" sold over 900,000 copies while on these lists, and continued popularity has allowed "Cosmos" to sell about five million copies internationally. Shortly after "Cosmos" was published, Sagan received a $2 million advance for the novel "Contact". This was the largest release given for an unwritten fiction book at the time. The success of "Cosmos" made Sagan "wealthy as well as famous." It also ushered in a dramatic increase in visibility for science books, opening up new options and readership for the previously fledgling genre. Science historian Bruce Lewenstein of Cornell University noted that among science books ""Cosmos" marked the moment that something different was clearly going on."
During the Golden Age of Comic Books (a time during which the medium evolved from comic strips) women who were not superheroes were primarily portrayed in secondary roles, with some examples being classified as career girls, romance-story heroines, or lively teenagers. Career-oriented girls included such characters as Nellie the Nurse, Tessie the Typist, and Millie the Model, each of whom appeared in comic books working jobs that non-wartime women of the era typically worked. Romance heroines were popular in the romance genre, pioneered by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Typically, the heroine was either a "good girl" or "bad girl", with both roles having small effect on a male character's decision. In the Archie Comics, the titular character can never definitively chose between his two love interests Betty and Veronica, who typify this dichotomy between the good Girl-Next-Door and the dangerous allure of her foil respectively. The duo got their own title in 1950, Betty and Veronica (comic book), which quickly became a popular comic, featuring the two lead characters continuing to obsess over boys and fight over who would get to date Archie.
Female costumed crimefighters were among the early comics characters. One of the comics' earliest female superheroes appeared in newspaper strips, the Invisible Scarlet O'Neil by Russell Stamm. The tough-fighting Miss Fury, debuted in the eponymous comic strip by female cartoonist Tarpé Mills in 1941. One publisher in particular, Fiction House, featured several progressive heroines such as the jungle queen Sheena, whose sex appeal is what helped launched her comic series. As Trina Robbins, in "The Great Women Superheroes" wrote:
The World Science Fiction Society (WSFS) gives out the Hugo Awards each year for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, who founded the pioneering science fiction magazine "Amazing Stories" and who is considered one of the "fathers" of the science fiction genre. Works are eligible for an award if they were published in the prior calendar year, or translated into English in the prior calendar year. There are no written rules as to which works qualify as science fiction or fantasy, and the decision of eligibility in that regard is left up to the voters, rather than to the organizing committee. Hugo Award nominees and winners are chosen by supporting or attending members of the annual World Science Fiction Convention, or Worldcon, and the presentation evening constitutes its central event. The selection process is defined in the WSFS constitution as instant-runoff voting with five nominees per category, except in the case of a tie. The awards are split over more than a dozen categories, and include both written and dramatic works.
In 1950 Silberkleit revived "Future Fiction", and the following year he brought back "Science Fiction Quarterly", with the first issue of the new series dated May 1951. A new magazine, "Dynamic Science Fiction", followed in 1952. All three were edited by Lowndes and all were in pulp format. Sales were satisfactory, but Silberkleit decided to experiment with the digest format, which was starting to become more popular. By the end of 1955 he had cancelled "Dynamic Science Fiction", switched "Future" "Fiction "to digest format, and relaunched "Science Fiction" as a digest under a new title, "Science Fiction Stories". Only "Science Fiction Quarterly" was left in pulp format—Silberkleit felt that a quarterly digest would not be as successful as a quarterly pulp. The pulps were dying off, and when "Other Worlds" switched to digest format in 1956, "Science Fiction Quarterly" became the only remaining sf magazine still being published as a pulp. In 1957 American News Company, one of the biggest magazine distributors, was liquidated, and the resulting changes in the national magazine distribution network, along with poor sales, finally killed "Science Fiction Quarterly". The last issue was dated February 1958.
Octavia Estelle Butler (June 22, 1947February 24, 2006) was an African-American science-fiction writer. A multiple recipient of both the Hugo and Nebula awards, she became in 1995 the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.
The Hugo Awards are a set of literary awards given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The awards are named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine "Amazing Stories", and were officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards until 1992. Organized and overseen by the World Science Fiction Society, the awards are given each year at the annual World Science Fiction Convention as the central focus of the event. They were first given in 1953, at the 11th World Science Fiction Convention, and have been awarded every year since 1955. Over the years that the award has been given, the categories presented have changed; currently Hugo Awards are given in more than a dozen categories, and include both written and dramatic works of various types.
The "Who Needs Feminism?" campaign was conceived by sixteen Duke students as the final project for a class called "Women in the Public Sphere: History, Theory and Practice" taught by Dr. Rachel Seidman. The students wanted to address what they saw as misconceptions on Duke's campus about the feminist movement and its relevance in today's society. They also hoped to promote a dialogue on the topic within the Duke community, "hoping to address relevance of feminism to all different types of people," according to an interview done with GOOD worldwide. According to their website, the members wanted to "explain what feminism is by allowing everyone to create their own definition." They started by creating posters which they placed around campus, showing young men and women from a variety of backgrounds holding up whiteboards with the words "I need feminism because...", to show that there is no "typical feminist," with the title of the campaign imposed on the poster. Subjects were chosen to demonstrate the importance of feminism to individuals from different genders, races, sexual orientations and backgrounds, reflecting the students' beliefs that "'typical feminists' don't exist" and that feminism is important for everyone, not just women. In addition to designing and hanging the posters, the students also wrote an Op-Ed piece for "The Chronicle", Duke's student-run newspaper, explaining the project and their motivations. The students also relied on social media as "the most popular way to get the word out right now." The students created interactive Tumblr, Facebook, and Twitter accounts for the project. Although they expected the Facebook account to serve as the main social media outlet for promoting the project, the Tumblr account "really took off." One student suggested that the site encouraged discussion without the moderation that the Facebook page required. The "Who Needs Feminism?" team reported that the Facebook page received over 4,200 likes within 36 hours of the project's launch, while the Tumblr account was viewed by almost 13,000 people in over 2,000 different cities.
Samus was one of the first major female protagonists in a video game. Although Toby Masuyo ("Kissy") from Namco's "Alien Sector" ("Baraduke") predates her by one year as a female protagonist, 2013's "Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition" declared Samus as "the first playable human female character in a mainstream videogame", and as being "enduringly" popular, noting that sales of the "Metroid" series has exceeded 17.44 million copies as of September 2012. As a woman in a male-dominated role, Samus has been widely considered a breakthrough for female characters in video games.
The term "cognitive science" was coined by Christopher Longuet-Higgins in his 1973 commentary on the Lighthill report, which concerned the then-current state of Artificial Intelligence research. In the same decade, the journal "Cognitive Science" and the Cognitive Science Society were founded. The founding meeting of the Cognitive Science Society was held at the University of California, San Diego in 1979, which resulted in cognitive science becoming an internationally visible enterprise. In 1972, Hampshire College started the first undergraduate education program in Cognitive Science, led by Neil Stillings. In 1982, with assistance from Professor Stillings, Vassar College became the first institution in the world to grant an undergraduate degree in Cognitive Science. In 1986, the first Cognitive Science Department in the world was founded at the University of California, San Diego.
Sex-positive feminists believe that no form of sexual expression should be vilified, except that which is not consensual. One of the main advocates of this feminist perspective is Carol Queen. She argues that radical feminists probably generalize too widely as far as women are concerned, and do not take into consideration more complicated circumstances such as sadomasochism and prostitution. Elisa Glick also states that configurations of power within relationships do not prevent women from exercising it and that they can be used to enable women to exercise it.
The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine "Amazing Stories", and was once officially known as the Science Fiction Achievement Award. It has been described as "a fine showcase for speculative fiction" and "the best known literary award for science fiction writing". The Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story is given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories told in graphic form and published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story has been awarded annually since 2009. It was started then with the requirement that it would only continue as an official award if approved again by the World Science Fiction Society after that year. It was, and was again awarded in 2010; it was ratified as a permanent category after the 2012 awards.
The Hugo Awards are presented every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine "Amazing Stories", and was once officially known as the Science Fiction Achievement Award. The award has been described as "a fine showcase for speculative fiction" and "the best known literary award for science fiction writing". The Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist is given each year for artists of works related to science fiction or fantasy which appeared in low- or non-paying publications such as semiprozines or fanzines. A Hugo Award for professional artists is also given. The fan award was first presented in 1967 and has been awarded annually. Beginning in 1996, Retrospective Hugo Awards, or "Retro Hugos", have been available to be awarded for years 50, 75, or 100 years prior in which no awards were given. To date, Retro Hugo awards have been awarded for 1939, 1941, 1943, 1946, 1951, and 1954, although only the 1946 and 1951 Retro Hugos received sufficient nominations for the Fan Artist Hugo to make the ballot.
The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine "Amazing Stories", and was once officially known as the Science Fiction Achievement Award. The award has been described as "a fine showcase for speculative fiction" and "the best known literary award for science fiction writing". The Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist is given each year for artists of works related to science fiction or fantasy released in the previous calendar year.
The percentage of PhDs in STEM fields in the U.S. earned by women is about 42%, whereas the percentage of PhDs in all fields earned by women is about 52%. Stereotypes and educational differences can lead to the decline of women in STEM fields. These differences start as early as the third grade according to Thomas Dee, with boys advancing in math and science and girls advancing in reading.
Wells and Verne had quite a few rivals in early science fiction. Short stories and novelettes with themes of fantastic imagining appeared in journals throughout the late 19th century and many of these employed scientific ideas as the springboard to the imagination. "Erewhon" is a novel by Samuel Butler published in 1872 and dealing with the concept that machines could one day become sentient and supplant the human race. Although better known for Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle also wrote early science fiction, particularly using the character of Professor Challenger. Rudyard Kipling's contributions to the genre in the early 1900s made Campbell describe him as "the first modern science fiction writer". Other writers in the field were Bengali science fiction authors such as Sukumar Ray and Begum Roquia Sakhawat Hussain, who wrote the earliest known feminist science fiction work, "Sultana's Dream". Another early feminist science fiction work at the time was Charlotte Perkins Gilman' "Herland".
Wells and Verne both had an international readership and influenced writers in America, especially. Soon a home-grown American science fiction was thriving. European writers found more readers by selling to the American market and writing in an Americanised style.
During the 1920s and 1930s, many popular pulp science fiction magazines exaggerated views of masculinity and featured portrayals of women that were perceived as sexist. These views would be subtly satirized by Stella Gibbons in "Cold Comfort Farm" (1932) and much later by Margaret Atwood in "The Blind Assassin" (2000). As early as 1920, however, women writers of this time, such as Clare Winger Harris ("The Runaway World," 1926) and Gertrude Barrows Bennett ("Claimed", 1920), published science fiction stories written from female perspectives and occasionally dealt with gender and sexuality based topics.
Virginia Wolf relates to this aspect of feminist science fiction in the article "Feminist Criticism and Science Fiction for Children". As she discusses the scarcity of women in the field, she states, "During the first period, that of the nineteenth century, apparently only two women wrote Science Fiction, Mary Shelley and Rhoda Broughton," and continues, "In the early twentieth century, a few women were successful Science Fiction writers". But, "The times changed. Repression gave way to questioning and outright rebellion, and in the Science Fiction of the 1960s stylistic innovations and new concerns emerged 'Many of their stories, instead of dealing with the traditional hardware of science fiction, concentrated on the effects that different societies or perceptions would have on individual characters'". Andre Norton, a semi-well known analyst of Science fiction argues along these lines as well. As Norton explored one or more novels she came across, she realized that the creation of characters and how they are shown is a clear connection to the real world situation. From here, she goes in depth of characters in these feminist novels and relates them to the real world. She concludes here article along these lines. She wanted to get the idea out that feminists have a way to get their voice out there. Now, all their works are famous/ popular enough for their ideas to be let out. Virginia Wolf can attest to this fact. She introduced the idea that women were not represented well in the field till the early 1900s and added to the fact by stating, "Women are not represented well in Science Fiction".
At the beginning of the 20th century, feminist science fiction emerged as a subgenre of science fiction that deals with women's roles in society. Female writers of the utopian literature movement at the time of first-wave feminism often addressed sexism. Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "Herland" (1915) did so. "Sultana's Dream" (1905) by Bengali Muslim feminist Roquia Sakhawat Hussain depicts a gender-reversed purdah in a futuristic world.